Observations from the Kitchen 11.25

The turkey is in the oven as, for the third year in a row, I attempt not to burn the Thanksgiving bird. Sean is shuffling around nursing a hangover after reconnecting with the local bar last night and, in a new holiday tradition, I'm sitting at the kitchen table staring at a soon to be opened bottle of wine. I had to buy my own this year as my dad learned his lesson and didn't buy his Christmas case early this year. Either that or he found a much better hiding spot than the last one.

I promise to act relatively adult like this year or as adult like as I possibly can. I'll try and stay sober until after dinner and no goth makeup to freak the relatives. I always enjoyed that though so maybe just a little around the eyes but the lipstick always makes the turkey taste like dried out crayons. I don't want to freak out the relatives? If that isn't a sign I'm finally maturing nothing is.

So this is where I'm supposed to write some kind of 'what I'm thankful for' post. I could go with the traditional family, friends, and staying out of rehab but I'm not going to. But I want to mention one thing I am thankful for. I may get irritated at him at times because there is so much that needs to be done. But I am thankful Barrack Obama is my President because the alternative is just to damn depressing to think about.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. 'Thirty Days of Truths' returns tomorrow at its regularly scheduled time.

And now the wine ....

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 10

Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know ....

OMG why would anybody in their right mind answer something like this? Besides anybody that knows anything about me knows I don't have to answer this one because if I need to let you go I already did. Chances are I let you go before I needed to and didn't look back. Just another burnt bridge in my collection.

So I'll take the space to explain my mulligan comment in the last post. I remembered later that a mulligan is a 'do-over' in a friendly round of golf. Now I only need my two hands to count the number of times I have played real golf so I forgot it meant that. I was thinking of a soda drinking game we played in college when using a mulligan meant you could skip your turn.

And while I'm at it a bit of Katie trivia for you. I use the term 'burning bridges' all the time so where did it come from in the first place? Actually it was my dad that used it first in the context I always use it in. My dad is a big Clint Eastwood fan and the theme song of his fav movie "Kelly's Heroes" is called "Burning Bridges." I was talking to my mom about my social skills, or lack of, when my dad blurted out 'like so many burning bridges behind you' and I have used the term ever since. It just seems to fit.

".... All the burning bridges that have fallen after me
All the lonely feelings and the burning memories
Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door
Burning bridges lost forevermore ...."

The Mike Curb Congregation - Burning Bridges

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 9

Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted ....

I really struggled with this one and I was hoping there was some mention of mulligans in the rules but I don’t see any. I ran this through my brain a couple different ways last night but never got anywhere with it. I know what it means by letting someone drift away. Friends or acquaintances that you share your life with that just slip away for no apparent reason and no matter how hard you try and stop it.

One would tend to think of high school friends first but I didn't have any close friends in high school other than on the hockey team. That was more sports related than anything else so what we shared ended with the final season. I probably could have been voted most likely to be dead or in jail before the first reunion so the only people that wanted to be my friend I didn’t want to be friends with.

College was different in many ways. I had friends and some close ones but I can’t think of any that drifted away. I tended to be hard on friends back than so I always saw the burnout coming and pretty much walked away. But my two closest friends in college are still two of my closest friends today. I lived with one when I worked at Penn State and I live with the other here in the Village.

The closest I can come to this is a girl I met a couple years ago while I was still at Penn State. It sounds funny but it really was one of those another time another place things and we both realized that. She flew off to the other coast just before I moved to the Village so we didn’t so much drift apart as fly. I talk to her a couple times a week so I suppose we are still as close as two girls on opposite coasts can be.

Now I wrote all that and I never did totally answer the question. I'm probably starting to over think these 'truths' but that may be why I originally stated this project. To see if it made me think, really to see what it made me think.

Observations from the Road 11.22

I stumbled onto this video while cruising through tumblr sites. I honestly had to watch it a few times before I finally decided it was real and not some kind of SNL like spoof. I also watched some of the other videos from the channel, vids with titles like 'I'm Happy When Queers Die', 'Homosexuals are a Disease Carrying Nasty Threat', and 'Gay Suicides Happen Because They're Gay.'

I could go on an unbelievable rant here but I’m not going to bother because these people don't make me mad so much as sick to my stomach. It’s just hard for me to believe that there are people in this world that actually think like this. Hell I’m lying because I always knew there were but to see that video on a supposed Christian channel just makes me glad I don’t attach that word to my name. Now the Republicans and there like piss me off but they are in it for a time honored political fact, money. These people just hate. But than that is just another time honored tradition, hate in the name of whatever god you believe in.

It’s people like this that make me proud I don’t have a religious bone in my body.

Besides that the video editing just sucks.

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 8

Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit ....

Well bloody hell there is no way I can get around this one. I have to be honest, one of the stories of my life seems to be that if somebody makes my life hell they don’t get to do it for long. For better or worse I have a long trail of burnt bridges in my past.

But than there is one person who I can never seem to completely erase from my mind. Maybe that bridge burned so hot it left scare tissue. When I think of her, and believe me I try not to, my emotions can run from one end of the spectrum to the other. If you have been reading you might be guessing this is the girl I should forgive and probably never will.

After dropping so many hints I suppose I should fill in some of the blanks. I met her my senior year at PSU, during the darkest period in my life. We were from the same area so after graduation we began a kind relationship that lasted off and on for years. When we met she had told me she was bi than, after three years, she met a guy and decided that she was no longer bi but straight and proceeded to tell her friends that she had no clue why she had wasted her time with me.

It finally all ended in the big mall scene where she said something that I honestly can't remember but I know included the word dyke. I totally freaked and ended up being banned from said mall for a year. Maybe not one of my prouder moments but one I just have to laugh about when I think about it. As somebody once said it was one of my better badass moments.

She emailed me not long after I moved to New York and seemed to want to talk but I wanted none of it. Not only had I burnt that bridge but I was bitter and was for a long time, I probably still am. Breaking up I could understand but I could never get passed the fact that she totally turned on me.

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 7

Someone who has made my life worth living ....

And how the hell do I pick here? To start I'll take my family out of the running. Not that they don't belong but because it is the obvious choice and I would find myself writing about them again, probably starting to piss them off in the process. I don't want to be the topic of conversation at Thanksgiving dinner once again this year.

So where does that leave me? I’m not even sure how to take this one in that could it be someone I have never met but admire? Could be someone long gone such as van Gogh whose work I love and sometimes obsess over? There have been professors who have had a major impact on me and the head of the Art History School at Penn State who always seemed to see something in me that I never did. A couple of old friends who have been through so much with me and have pulled me along, sometimes kicking and screaming, and a newer friend who has become my inspiration and possibly my biggest fan. I just can't pick among them.

So it comes back to the obvious answer. The one person that made my life worth living was my mom and she always will be. Rather than write the same thing all over again I'll quote what I wrote on Mothers Day (l) ....

" .... I owe my mom so much. She was the first one to see something special behind my dark eyes. She would drag me around Philadelphia museums when I was barely old enough to walk. She was the first one to stick my fingers in paint, which was something that ended in quite a mess if I remember it correctly. And the first one to take me to wander the streets of New York and to visit MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) which was one of her favorite places in the world. She always praised my art but was also never afraid to criticize it ...."

A day doesn't go by without me thinking about her and sometimes it seems as if I miss her more now than I ever have.

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 6

Something you hope you never have to do ....

You have to be kidding me. I actually thought hard about this one and in the end I had two answers. When I thought a little more I decided that one answer was more about death than about life and the question seems to be more about life so I scratched that one. Yes I'm going to just let that hang there but it's something I think I'll come back to in a separate post.

The thing I hope never to have to do is something I have done before. I never in my life want to spend another night in rehab. Again it's one of those things that you can't totally understand unless you have been there. Yes I needed it and yes it did its job but the withdrawal, loneliness, and the overwhelming feeling of being trapped combined to create a month of hell.

I suppose my personality didn't help. At the center I was in the idea was for you to socialize for support. My problem was I was at my darkest, deepest, anti-social best at that time so I ended up spending a lot of time alone in my room with my iPod for support. No computer and the only TVs were in the big common rooms which I tended to stay away from. I may be better off because I was there but I'll do almost anything to never be there again.

Now I'm already beginning to see a thread run through this project. As I said earlier it is something that I’ll just never put completely behind me. I have visions of one day being in an old age home thinking omg I'm back, that is if I make it to old age.

Life goes on.

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 5

Something I hope to do in my life ....

Damn, this is the first one that is making me think. I don't plan that far ahead and at the moment I am torn about what direction I want to take. Hell I could make a list but I really should pick one thing. Moving to Paris is the easy answer to this one but it's too easy, possible at some point, and I have written about it before. Something I hope should be something in the back of my head, something I have thought seriously about but yet something I never have really planned.

I might have mentioned this to some friends but not many. I have worked in a museum and in galleries and have enjoyed every minute of it. I don't want to own my own gallery; I guess I don’t want to deal with the business aspects of it. But I would love to be the head curator of an art museum, a major museum. Be in charge of the collection, plan shows, and travel the globe looking for works to add to the collection.

I did look into it at one time and found one problem. To be the curator of any large museum usually requires a graduate degree in museum studies. At the time I didn't even know museum studies existed as a degree program, only a handful of schools offer it, and Penn State isn't one of them. Harvard and NYU seem to have the best programs. Can you say lottery?

So maybe this just falls into the dream category and not the hope. Well I never said this was going to be easy. Hopefully there is no test at the end of day thirty.

Observations from the Window 11.19

Just a little post here to congratulate my sis one last time. Proud doesn’t begin to explain what I feel when I look back at the last month and her teams amazing run through the playoffs. But for lack of a better word I have to say I am so damn proud. Tenth seed in just their district they finished just two wins away from the state championship.

They lost 2-0, the first time they were shutout since September and only their second loss in 18 games. It would have been the schools first trip to the championship game in 28 years. When the tears are gone and the memory of the finality of the defeat wears off they can look back at what they did and realize one thing. They all are champions in so many ways and always will be.

And so it all came to an end Wednesday and I'm so sorry I couldn't be there but it just wasn’t meant to be. I saw as many games as I could and always drove away from them with a smile on my face. So maybe I wasn't meant to be there. I’ll just remember the games I did see and the conversation I had with her that night.

As for myself, I do know one thing too. I was never the captain and I was never a champion. Remind me to buy my sis a drink when she turns 21.

Now if I could get her to try on that Penn State jersey ....

Ryan Adams - So Alive

(I just realized this was my 200th post, who knew?)

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 4

Something you have to forgive someone for ....

The first really hard one to talk about. Actually it's easy to answer but it is very hard to talk about. Since I started this blog I have written about almost everything in my past but this one thing and I'm not going to get into it now. A friend of mine says it is the one demon I can't let go of and she is totally right.

It involves a long term relationship I was involved in a few years ago. More precisely it involves how it ended. Suffice to say it wasn't pretty, to be honest it was probably as ugly as a breakup can be. Lies, name calling, and other sordid nastiness coming from her. On the other hand I was well behaved. Well other than the shopping mall incident where I might have loudly shouted the f word and might have been escorted out by security.

If I had to forgive somebody for something she would probably be the one. But I have never been able bring myself to do it.

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 3

Something I have to forgive myself for ....

What I did to myself now over seven years ago. More than that what I did to my family and friends in the process. I'm an addict, I'll always be and addict, and I have to live with that fact for the rest of my life. It's hard to explain to somebody that hasn't been through it but it's impossible to completely put behind you. It's a demon always lurking in the background, always waiting for a new chance. People will say I have put it behind me, that I have moved on, and I politely agree knowing full well I never totally will.

A semester's worth of tuition money, a month in rehab, and a summer of my life lost forever. Worse than that is the way I feel people look at me. No matter what they say I know it has to shade their opinion of me. It's pretty damn much to forgive and I'm not sure I ever will.

Yes I am an addict.

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 2

Something you love about yourself ....

Well slightly more difficult than day 1 but I can handle this one too. The easy and quick answer is I really like being tall. I have been taller than average since high school and it brings a certain amount of self confidence with it. But that's too easy and honestly it isn't something I love as much as enjoy.

What I truly love is how I think, how my mind works and sees the world around me. I don't believe I see the world the same as most people do, I know I don't. It's almost as if I see it emotionally because sometimes I see color where there isn't any. When I paint I see every color and shade of the painting in my mind as if it was already finished. It might take days, a case of beer, and a carton of cigarettes to get it right but I'm not happy till it's just as I saw it.

Now the flip side of this is the wrong person might think it’s just the result of way too many dead brain cells coloring my brain. But no it's a gift. or a flaw, I seem to have been born with.

Than again it could be I'm just weird.

Thirty Days of Truths, Day 1

Something you hate about yourself ….

At first glance this one is so easy it almost makes me laugh and I can answer it in a few short sentences. I can become suddenly emo to an extreme. I might have a reason in my head but I don’t honestly need one. Sometimes darkness just swirls around in my head and it just happens.

See that was totally easy and made all the easier by the fact that I seem to be in one of the moods at the moment. The thing is now that I wrote it I have to sit back and think about what I wrote. And that is going to be the biggest problem doing this whole thing. I'm going to need another doctor until day 30.

Yes I can be emo, I can get into a mood so dark I make Ophelia seem like Cinderella. But I’m also an enigma, even to myself. I don’t want to say I enjoy the mood but sometimes I seem to thrive on it. I did one of my favorite paintings when I was in just such a mood. I hate the way I make people feel when I get this way but I have no control over it at all, the demons just take over. I can be moody, dark, anti-social, and totally withdraw inside myself and at the same moment want attention, need the attention. This means be nice but don't always expect much in return.

So I can be an anti-social attention whore. Just an enigma.

Why the hell did I start this?

Thirty Days of Truths

I saw a tweet this morning that just grabbed me. I followed the link to a blog post titled “30 Days of Truths” and the idea just fascinates me. Every day you answer a question that tells a ‘truth’ about yourself. Personally I hate this time of year and it just seems like a perfect way to drag myself kicking and screaming into the holidays.

So here are the questions.

Day 01, Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02, Something you love about yourself.
Day 03, Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04, Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05, Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06, Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07, Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08, Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09, Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10, Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11, Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12, Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13, A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14, A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15, Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16, Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17, A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18, Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19, What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20, Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21, (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22, Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23, Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24, Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25, The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26, Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27, What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28, What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29, Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30, A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Some of them, like day 20, are going to be hard I’m sure but others, day 28 comes to mind, are going to be silly and fun. And for those of you going ‘oh %*&$’ I promise to keep you all out of it.

I know it says thirty days but you know me. With everything else I have my fingers in (no pun intended) I know I wont have time for some but I do promise to do them in order and have it finished by Christmas. I plan on starting later today so just fasten your seat belts a hold on tight, it could get interesting.

May the gods help me ....