A Girl and Her Sled

Last year, I spent my first Valentine's Day here in New York City. I battled the freak snowstorm, got Ethiopian food with my roommate Sarah and somehow made it to Rejection Show Heartbreak Haven (I once was one of you, sitting over there in the corner) where I lost a friendship or two, made out with a guy I really regret, and got very, very, very, very drunk.

Two years ago, I was in a very short relationship with this guy that I met off myspace, who was a dead ringer for Paul Rudd. He worked at the local news station, was a bit of a workaholic and frequently yelled at his sixteen pound cat, Boots, a red tabby.

This guy was what I like to call "an announcer." For those who don't know what that means, it means during copulating, he would announce when the end was near. Personally, I'd rather someone knock me out in the middle of it than know when they were about to ejaculate. (Makes swinging motion).

Because neither of us spent a Valentine's Day with anyone, we really wanted to make it special. I bought a bottle of wine for him and cleaned up my apartment for his arrival. He came over, commented soon after, "just be glad I remembered it was Valentine's Day," handed me a scented candle and a card that read,

(I'm going to read this in my sexy voice)
Kaetlin,
I'm having a difficult time thinking of how to start this, so I guess I'll just get right to the point: You make me happy, and I'm glad that we're together. You're smart, funny, caring and considerate, and I appreciate everything that you've done for me, and I sincerely want to make you happy too.

I hope that, over the coming weeks and months, our relationship can continue to grow on the path hat we've set. The more time that I spend with you, the more that I see how unique and wonderful you really are Thanks for making me so happy and giving me something to smile about.

-A-"

I was taken aback by the extrely emotional nature of the card because it was very early in the relationship, but I took it as a sign of good things to come. I thought it would be a good Valentine's Day to remember.

A month later, I was having issues with my landlord who hadn't finished renovating my apartment and I ended up looking for another place to live. The guy had said he'd help me out when I needed it. Soon enough, I got this amazing studio apartment one mile away and asked him to help me move on a Saturday. He was working a double at the station the night before and told me, "I'll be tired." It was an hour job to move my belongings and he had a pickup truck! So, I gave him the ultimatum, "you can help me or not, that is your choice." (That's girl speak for, "if you don't help me with this, you will be sleeping alone for quite awhile.")

Before you think that I was just being bitchy and demanding, you should know that I didn't have a working refridgerator, that I had nails sticking up from the floor where my landlord removed the carpet, and he spent more time working on the empty apartment above me than considering to work on the one that I lived in. Plus, it's in the rule book of relationships that all boyfriends help you move. Just as it was in the book that you bring gatorade and chicken soup to your wussy Paul Rudd lookalike boyfriend who calls in sick to work after a rigorous game of hockey.

So, he opted to sleep and I opted to move. I got up early, packed my things and considered stealing a shopping cart from the local grocery store, but I didn't think I could get it out of the parking lot. Feeling hopeless, I went home and found these two sleds in he basement that the previous tenant had left. It was St. Patrick's Day weekend, every townie was out drinking in the city and block where I lived. So here I am, a girl and her sled, at times two. Sledding a bookcase, clothes, my tv and computer, food, my cat, the Valentine's Day card he gave me, you name it, it was there, while the drunk ones yelled, "hey sled girl, where you going?"

No one bothered helping me in the two day I did this until my last trip. I made eight. Did I tell you that there was no snow on the ground? Did I also tell you that Rochester's sidewalks are eroded and crappy and ended up putting several holes in the sled by the time I was finished?

When all was said and done, I moved 85% of my apartment by sled and I felt very proud of myself, like I didn't need anyone, I still feel like that way to this day. My Valentine and I broke up, he never did help me move, nor did we talk except for me to get my favorite movie "Wet Hot American Summer" from him. He never did give that back to me either. This Valentine's Day, I can't drink because I gave it up for lent, I will probably not make out with a boy I like because they are all sitting in the back (and have girlfriends) and I hopefully will make some new friends.

Cold Weather and Records

Bathrooms floors are never the best places to sleep. My hypersensitivity to sounds sent me in there last night. The bathroom floor was hard and cold as I bundled up with my two blankets and pillows next to the white basin. I heard a knock at the door, it was Sarah, she needed to use the bathroom, I floated back into my bed, a few seconds later. A few hours later I woke up in my warm but deflated air mattress. I did not get the best of both worlds, last night.

I woke up, made some coffee and decided to stay in for the day. It's cold out. 19 Degrees. Twelve hours before, I was battling the cold. After one block away from the bar, I broke down and grabbed a cab. "I broke down and got a cab! It's so cold!" I said to the cabbie. He said, "I know! My throat is starting to hurt, I think I might go home after this." Twenty minutes later, we were outside my apartment. I gave him ten dollars in tip. Others have shown me that kindness when I wasn't doing well, namely at my job that I hate.

I watched half an episode of the BBC program "Torchwood." Sarah came home from class and I made her breakfast. Without a computer of my own, I turned to Sarah Vowell's "Take The Cannoli." Here's my problem with books/writing I like/love: I constantly want to make what I'm reading into a film or want to capture that moment myself, rendering myself completely unoriginal. Within that I've become an adapter. Who wants to be an adapter, not me? I want to be devoid of other people's thoughts. Hence why I was so against reading (and watching films of similar nature) in the first place. Music has become the permanent inspiration for all my writing, I have decided.

So today, has officially become the cold weather and records day, as I try to write while the freezing temperatures try to penetrate my apartment. I'll let you know how that goes and if I go stir crazy or not.

(Time to flip the record, hold on).

The wow of silence

The wow of silence

Do you ever get to a point in your life where just hate everyone you work with? It’s that point where your only options are calling into work or throwing yourself in front of a train. Both options, for me, really weren’t at all possible. I like my job and I like my life, I just couldn’t bear going to work for another week.

In the last few weeks before I spontaneously hatched this plan, I just felt powerless and alone. I felt like everyone was targeting me even when I did nothing that deserved being targeted for. My bestfriend would tell me that they would ask her why she hung out with me because I’m obviously a lunatic. One coworker went as far as saying that everyone thinks that when I go home, I torture my cat. Torment, yes. Torture, never. But in all honesty, she torments me equally, hiding behind that shower curtain only to jump out at me.

So, dreading going to work and seeing the people that I just hated, I just stopped talking to one coworker, continuing to customers and then I found a small notebook in my bag where I began only writing notes, inspired by the Dwayne character from Little Miss Sunshine. Other moments in my life were turning out as if they were scenes from films, how could this not work?

I made certain rules. I would only speak if it was someone from the office on the phone, or make and take phone calls that were part of my job (dairy orders, supply orders, etc). I wouldn’t ignore the duties of my job and would try to communicate effectively without speech. This included an array of eyebrow movements, hand movements (waving), mouthing words and using the notebook if body language had failed me. For explanation, I put up a sign that said, “Morning Customers: Katie has come down with a bad case of the writer’s block. Please excuse her lack of words; it’s part of the ‘creative process.’” Which is partially true, I was suffering from writer’s block. (The stress from work did not help).

For the most part, this worked. People, who read the sign, laughed and understood what I needed to do. People, who did not read the sign, treated me as if I were deaf. It felt equally lonely and sad having to watch them point at the sign and use large mouth movements that didn’t equal any words. And what if I were deaf, I thought. Do these people treat every deaf person like they have a below average IQ? I grew up in a large deaf community, I’m pretty sure I never talked to a deaf person like they were stupid. The latter became frustrating with the onset of a daylong headache and exhaustion trying to communicate without words.

When the afternoon shift came around, the only people I had physically spoken to were the people in the office and the woman who calls for the dairy order. At least 400 transactions were made and I spoke to no one, as much as I wanted to. My friend Riki was less than thrilled about this. I showed her a note I wrote, “I’m tired of being treated like I’m doing something wrong.” She responded to the effect that I could talk to her. Soon after, I left to go home.

I told my roommate, Sarah, what I did. She said she understood but that it won’t work to solve my problems at work. I felt like this plan would work, like everyone would finally understand that it wasn’t okay to treat people this way. Just periodically stop talking to others because they were upset. My problem was that I felt like I talked it to death. “I’m tired of being treated like I’m doing something wrong” has been said at least twenty times.

I’m not going to say that I didn’t do or say things that weren’t appropriate. I did. I have flaws and some bad habits. I’m figuring out what is causing all this. At first I thought it was transition from moving from a small city to a big city. When that feeling passed, I started working on myself, testing and trying to control my limits. Ultimately it came down to social anxiety. I was told that I become a different person at work, this showboating performer that becomes unleashed to my customer fans. It’s like the Hulk. At home and with select people I’m comfortable around, I’m a little mellower, a bit silly but reasonably in control of my emotions. But throw me out into the discomfort zone and I’m a completely different person who really has no control over her emotions.

The headaches got worse the second day of speechlessness; I popped two aspirins. The first hour, my manager, who had no clue what was going on, didn’t question it. He was half asleep. I’d write him notes, he’d respond. The second hour, he wasn’t as pleased.

Normally, Mikey and I can communicate without words. He’s always half a step ahead of me at work; we don’t even need to look at each other to know what the other person needs. When he realized I wouldn’t even speak to customers, purposely, during the largest rush of the day he got agitated.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, as I was trying to ask him if he needed help putting a box up in the loft. I finally spoke, “I was asking if you needed help.” Later, when no one was around, I stammered, “Do you really think I like not talking?” He shrugged his shoulders. It seemed like he didn’t really care, like everyone else. I explained to him why I wasn’t speaking and he reluctantly understood.

I resumed speechlessness and customers who didn’t know me continued to treat me as if I were deaf, completely ignoring the sign I put up explaining that I had writer’s block because I was metaphorically without a voice, that I did not have a voice to speak with. It was a cute excuse. I could get away with this with the regulars, but felt easily frustrated with those who didn’t know who I was.

An hour or so later, I went out across the street to get lunch. I broke down and spoke to the lady behind the counter, much like my customers do with me when they are upset. When I returned, there was a line backed up to the door. “Can I help whose next?” I yelled out of habit. A regular blurted, “oh you seemed so quiet lately!” Damn it! I lasted a day and a half.

I was so angry with myself. I felt powerless and out of control, once again. When I did begin talking to others again, it felt strange. The headaches began going away. The thing is, I liked the silence and the ease of not being forced to talk. I liked being left alone; that’s all I really wanted. I also wanted to make point that it really isn’t okay for people to just stop talking to others without warning or reason. Every minute of silence hurt, it’s unnatural especially for one who yearns to communicate to others constantly.

Good things bloom out of bad feelings

I feel like I've been neglecting my writing lately. I'll edit here and there, read over things I wrote within the few months but that's about it. I've been focused on other things, mainly my photography.

If the need for December's haitus taught me anything, it is that I cannot do twenty things at once.

Things Kaet has done since moving to the big city:
-Edited copy of Year of the Kaet: I'm not a comedian, damn it!
-Wrote several short hand chapters of The Book of Kaet
-Thrown together three panels of polaroid project Twelve Months of Kaet
-Reviewed a staged reading Erica Seeing Red.
-Told to be a comedian, wrote one joke, told to Jenny Slate; she laughed.
-Shot and did not distribute episode 8 of The Depressive Diaries.

Things people have done to Kaet:
-Interviewed her for Verbicide Magazine this month.
-Let her show Twelve Months of Kaet at two, count them, two group showings this month; Big Art Show at Supreme Trading (Brooklyn), and Antagonist Art Movement at Niagara (East Village).

Things are looking up this month, lots of ups and downs, lots of downing of 40's of Coronas. Lots of not going out.

I need to go do laundry now.

Sketchartists.com creator and aquaintance-friend (we've yet to actually hang out and get pedicures...I've offered as there is nothing like tiny asian hands scrubbing your soles...which reminds me) Anya Garrett has made not only the Apiary but now has made Gothamist

Congrats!

A year and a half ago, I set out to be her (in a way, not so much what she does but how she does it) I have miles and miles to catch up to her and she's only two years older than I am.

A year and a half later, I more want to be Miranda July, and that's going pretty well now, except that I refuse to live in LA. But what can you expect from an artist from Portland? I guess New York will be my LA.

Note to self: when you get computer from Rochester, begin editing Open Mic Tour and really start working in on this book.

Note to Anya, if you're reading this, which no one really does: When do you want that pedicure?

Note about the photo, I'm the weird looking girl in the pink jacket, she's the other girl in the green plaid. And there's that guy...who hates me.

Gawker is hiring

I applied for a job at gawker.

I don't know.

It's worth a shot.

Don't you think?

animation animation animation

As some of you may know I did a piece for Scott Bateman a little under a year ago.

I responded to an ad on craigslist in regards to a guy wanting to do animations for comedians, poets and podcasters, as an a comedic prose performer...not so much...I responded saying that I did Scott's stuff. He checked up my bit and sort of responded to what I did, which I take it as a positive as he said he'd like to read/hear some of my stuff.

I now may be do some pieces for Mike Force if all works out.

More exposure...I like that.