Ocean Beach (in San Diego)

This is the street at the end of the Ocean Beach Pier. It was about 10pm. We stayed at a little B&B on Narragansett Street. Very cute place.
Unfortunately, Ocean Beach is under the takeoff path for the planes at San Diego International. At 6am.


















I wanted to try to use my camera in manual mode. It's a Minolta Dimage*, and I've had really good luck with it. Except that the battery cover's about to break, it's a great little camera.

This is my brother and my niece as we walk toward the ocean.

















Here I rested the camera on the handrail and pointed it toward Sea World. I love the sky in this one.


















Walking back down the pier. I like that all the photos have a different color.



















I had the camera strap around my wrist because the ocean was a loong way down, but it was resting on the railing. I accidentally pulled the strap as I pushed the button.










* I bought it in 2003 and I've taken it on all of my trips. It can take some really good shots, and almost all of the photos that I post are from this camera.

Even More Costumes from ComicCon

Aldrea, my niece took these at the convention.



These Predators look great. I don't remember seeing them at all. It's weird what you notice and what you don't.





















I know Xena's a bit blurry, but look at that awesome costume.






















I have no idea.
Cool, though.




















Link and ? I'm not a giant Zelda fan like Aldrea, so I have no clue as to the identity of the bandaged person.



















Love this Zelda costume.

Little Mary (IKYDA)

My sister had a baby on the day we flew to San Diego. She tried to schedule the birth on Friday, but these things never work out that way.

Here she is. Named after my mom, with I'llKickYourDamnAss as a middle name. Not really, but it would be cool.

For My Siblings

Hope this makes you laugh:
The Ack Attack

Writing Prompt #01 (v. 2)

From Writer's Digest:
You're a stand-up comedian having a good night on stage except for one loudmouth in the back of the crowd who keeps heckling you. As your set ends, you storm off stage to confront this person, only to discover it's (fill in the blank). Write this scene.

That sucks. Mine does too, but I'm not a professional.

Describe your car. Use all five senses and some metaphors. Also, give your car a name in the description and make it fit the car.

I'll post mine in the next few days.

Memory Lane

I was just reading some of the backups I made of this blog afterI decided in a fit of pique to delete it and blog under another name. I was MEAN!

Here's an excerpt:
I go to an afternoon teacher's meeting and don't get back to my desk until after 4pm, and see the message light on my phone. Hoping that it's the doctor's office, I call and listen to the message, but it's the nurse, and this is what she said, "Kate, this is Kristen from Dr. Patel's office. First, I need you to understand that I'm just a temp, I'm another Kristen and I just got here today. I'm trying to help you. I need to talk to you to find out what you need called in. Please do not get upset with me, this is a different Kristen. I need you to return my call at 555-5555. I'll try to help you the best I can."

I tried calling back at a little after 4, and got the following response, "You have reached Dr. Patel's after-hours voicemail. Please leave a message."

So, here's a message to Kristen: Kristen, get the fuck off your ass and do what you're supposed to do. Look at my chart and then the fax that the pharmacy already sent your dumb ass and fax it back with the authorization. Then, take that fax and shove it in your ear to clean out the shit that passes for your brain, and NEVER, EVER, temp in a doctor's office again. Then, have the doctor call me so I can tell them that they have hired a monkey passing for a human, and that not only will I never be going to their office again, but I'm also going to place a full page ad in the Dallas paper telling everyone what my experience was so that no one else pays $180 to be subjected to impersonal treatment and the idiocy and incompetence of the Kristens* of the world.

*If you are a Kristen, work at a doctor's office and are not a moron, please, please tell the rest of them to quit being so stupid.

Also, I've been blogging since July of 2004. I had no idea that I'd been doing this for four years. And mostly in the same place. As I recall (with some help from archived files), I started keeping this blog to do writing exercises and try sticking to my goals and to record my experiences with online dating. Those haven't been a priority for quite some time now, but I think that maybe I'll get back to some of that stuff. I've been spending way too much time with Google Reader and not enough time entertaining myself.

Maybe it's like a little kid with a cardboard box.* I had this a cardboard box, refrigerator-sized as all kids know any decent cardboard box should be, and I put imagination and pieces of myself into it and played. It was whatever I wanted. But now it's not just a cardboard box, it's some fancy toy and I've lost the fun of just having the container. I'd like to get back to that.

Now, as with most things, I am a procrastinator and honestly a bit lazy. If it involves anything more strenuous than using a remote on-button, not for me. We'll all see.

*Not the best metaphor, but it conveys what I feel.

More Costumes from ComicCon

Old school Cylons. They wouldn't let me take a photo of my niece with them, and went into the exhibit hall right after I asked. I'm sure that it was just a coincidence and they had important business.










Bat-villains. Lots of those, actually, including an awesome Ceasar Romero style Joker with an fabulous purple brocade suit. Who I didn't manage to get with my camera.











Four huddling Indianas, with one Willi and one Marion.

















Power Girl posing with my niece, who shall remain anonymous, but was dressed as film X-Man, Rogue.

Costumes from ComicCon

Many people dressed in costumes. An astonishing range of subjects too. The most numerous, The Joker. Next most, Indiana Jones. Also lots of manga/anime characters.

Here's a few:


I'm guessing some dude from 300, though I've still not seen the movie.




















I have no idea, but I'm loving the detail on this costume.





















Ash, how we love you.


















Is the skirt the correct Wonder Woman bottom? I remember Linda Carter's outfit wasn't a skirt, but almost all of the Wonder Women at the Con wore a skirt.

Love the Phoenix costume, too. I guess the middle one is Alice from Resident Evil? Not sure, but if you know please tell.

San Diego Convention Center

San Diego Convention Center is 'uge! I took a panorama of it, and here's one of those photos. This is from the first full day, Thursday.













This second image is from the last day of the Con, Sunday, as we waited for the trolley.

One of the days, Saturday, the trolley was so full that we had to ride on the steps at the door, which technically you're not supposed to do.

Sea World Part Two

On the second day for Sea World, we left the house quite a bit earlier, but we still (sniff) missed the flamingo parade. The first show we saw was Shamu "Believe," which, while slightly cheesy with its inspirational message, still had some good tricks. In the best trick, the trainer rides the Orca's nose while it jumps many feet out of the water, at which point the trainer leaps off and into the water right before the whale does.










They also did a few beaching tricks, and one time they had a small boy feed the whale some fish and scratch it. We sat in the "soak zone" but too far up to get wet, even through the "shamu, shamu" chanting.

After the "Believe" show, we went to see the dolphin show. I kept my camera in my purse, unfortunately, because only my feet got wet and the the dolphins did some really good tricks.


During one of the tricks, a helper from the audience "fell" into the tank and got the dolphins to carry her around. She's a trainer, but it was still pretty funny and I wish I'd gotten photos.

Apologies

We had a wonderful trip to San Diego, but not much free time, especially after the Con started. I'm sorry for not posting some of the wonderful (and occasionally scary) costumes. Also, I met Joss Whedon.

Sea World Part One

Did you know that going to Sea World at 1 in the afternoon probably isn't the best plan? And that not only do you pay from $51-80 for a ticket, depending on the options that you choose, but that parking costs an additional $12?

We saw the sea lion show first, and it was okay. A little tamer than I would have liked, but cute. This shot is of Clyde and his trainer goofing off while they're supposed to be marching. I didn't get a photo of the most awesome part of the show. The trainer says she's thirsty, and a trained river otter comes out from backstage walking on it's hind feet and gives her a soft drink.











We decided to get a two-day pass (even though we only planned to go one day) because it included a behind the scenes tour. Only seven people showed up for that tour, so our guide didn't even use her microphone. Her name was Keleigh.* Keleigh took us to see the newest dolphin of the park and her mom. I didn't get a good photo of them, unfortunately. According to our guide, the little dolphin hasn't learned how to stop swimming yet, but she has advance to the turning while swimming phase.

The moray eels here are in a tank covered with an acrylic plate so you can take a photo that looks like you're touching them.









Also, Sea World rescues all kinds of animals. They frequently rehabilitate seals, sea lions, elephant seals, birds like macaws and parrots, dolphins and whales, and also turtles.

This is, I think, a seal. Any of the animals that can be released back into the wild are released. One exception to this is manatees, because they are, according to Keleigh, dumber than a box of rocks. They will get themselves tangled in a net seven days in a row without remembering that they maybe shouldn't go near the stringy thing with holes.











Every day when the park opens, the staff allow some of the flamingos to walk around the park. They call it the Flamingo Parade. Unfortunately we were too late and missed the parade this morning, but we got to see those flamingos in their pen yesterday.

While we were there two or five of the birds started squabbling, hitting each other with their beaks and making really loud noises. Sort of like brothers and sisters.








*Like SanDeE*, no one will ever spell her name right.

More Zoo Photos

This giraffe family has a relatively new member there in the back. I think our tour guide said he's only a few months old.
They stayed together while we looked at them as another larger giraffe chewed on the metal of their enclosure.

















We saw both Timon here and Pumbaa while at the zoo. The warthogs and other pigs were the animals not hiding in caves. Only Timon of his group stayed above ground.

















We had already been at the zoo for a while and so didn't go see the apes, but this guy got the closest to the glass of any of the monkeys that we saw. I tried to take a video on my camera but apparently I don't know how to do that. Oh well.

At the Zoo

We spent five hours at the San Diego Zoo on Monday. It's bloody 'uge! We didn't get there until around noon, so a lot of the animals had already gone through their active period.

Brad and Aldrea and I sat on the top of the double decker bus for a tour of the zoo, and Brad got sunburned. Through his shirt.

Aldrea and I got a tiny bit pink, even more so yesterday at Sea World.

This lynx had some friends in his cage, two of whom did some mutual grooming.










This is the last image that I took at the zoo. The stripes on these zebras were so clean looking, like the painter had just removed his tape.

We're off to Sea World to catch some of the stuff we missed yesterday, so more later.

Animals!

Going to the zoo! Photos later. That is all.

The Bay

My niece, who has chosen the name Aldrea for this blog, and I just went down to the water. Here is a photo of the house where we're staying:













Here is a view of the boats in the bay from the living room patio:




When she put her feet in the water to see how cold it is, she startled a ray and it swam a little bit away from her. It took me a long time to see it, and I would have taken a photo but it blended right into the sand. And, then it buried itself so neither of us could see it.





We're having a wonderful leisurely time so far. Though we did go out for a burger and hit two restaurants where we couldn't eat. The first, Sandbar, doesn't admit under 21, and the second, Pacific Beach Bar and Grill, doesn't serve burgers at 12:15, only brunch buffet until 1.




.







So, instead we went to Fatburger.

We're Here!

We're here in San Diego! It's beautiful, and the weather has been nothing but awesome. We arrived at our rental house and the bay is so peaceful. I think that choosing Mission Bay instead of Mission Beach was the right choice, it's calm and not nearly as loud and raucous as the beach, and it's only a short walk across the street to get to the beach.

I'll try to upload some photos later of both the bay, the beach and the house. I think we're going to go down the street and check out the amusement park called Belmont park. But first, lunch.

Bad Poetry

Want to read some really bad poetry? Come on, all the cool kids are doing it.
I've only gotten one submission, so I posted one of my poems from creative writing in high school.

Go and laugh, you know you'd love to laugh at a bad poem about fairies. I mean, faeries.
I was so proud of my ability to rhyme, too.

Leaving for San Diego Soon

We leave for San Diego on Saturday. So far, I don't really know what we'll be doing when not at ComicCon, but probably the zoo, and maybe Seaworld and maybe LegoLand.

I bought some touristy books and one of those awesome pop-out maps. I've bought those for almost every place that I've been. All the overseas ones anyway, except for Nice.

They've posted the entire schedule for the con finally, so if you're interested you can see it here.

I was pretty excited about the autograph area, too, because the first four people listed were:
Katey Sagal
Lindsey Wagner
Richard Hatch
Erik Estrada

Now, last year they had Kelli Moroney, who I would love to meet.

Here's a photo of the view from where we'll be staying:














I'll be trying to blog while we're there, so stay tuned. My brother Brad will be bringing his laptop, so if he's not using it I guess that I will be.

Saturday with Cletus and Chloe

I hope you had a Happy Fourth! Poor me, no fireworks this year.

Went to Useless* on Saturday to hang out by my sister Chloe's pool. It was DAMN HOT, so I spent a good deal of time on the couch inside, mostly because I didn't feel like swimming.

I forgot to bring a camera, so have no photos from this particular holiday. That kinda sucks, but I'll remember next time.

My sister's about 11 months pregnant with a girl. She's naming the baby after my mom, but with a rather unusual middle name. The baby's name will be Mary "I'll kick your Damn Ass" Smith, (or whatever I decide their last name is this month.)

Next week we'll have a baby shower. I'm in charge of the cake. Have I said that I hate baby showers lately? Wedding/bridal showers too. Not my thing, especially the pastel colors, stupid games and all about the childbirth experiences of each and every woman there. Which, don't get me wrong, I totally respect these women and their lives and their stories, but I'm not sure that I really need to know which of the women I know have had an episiotomy (since I've already heard about it four times.)


*AKA Euless, a suburb of Dallas that's usually grouped with its sister cities Hurst and Bedford in conversation.
As in, "Hey, I was in HEB this weekend visiting relatives."

Thursday's Cat

Pretty and with a sense of humor. How often does that happen?
Sadly, his brother has no sense of humor. This is why he gets all worked up running around the living room and bites me when I try to pet him.

Sketchblog

I was looking at blogger's Blogs of Note and from there went to Sketchblog, by Rob Sheridan. He's done a great and irreverent digital painting of cereal mascots, and also a really detailed how-to.

One of the reasons to love this series of tubes.

Same Bunny?

This might be the same bunny, but now he's in the front yard. The cats were fascinated with him all day, and wouldn't leave the window. The first photo that I tried with my mom's camera (a Nikon D50) had the flash bouncing off the window. That was a great photo. (sarcasm)









The next few I tried different settings but the camera wanted to focus on the leaves of the bush instead of the rabbit. Finally got a few, but only two good enough to post.

Anniversary

Today's the anniversary of my mom's death. She died in the hospital one year ago today. I remember it was pouring rain most of the days in June last year, and every day that we visited her in the hospital we brought our umbrellas.*

The day of the surgery they told us it went well. Maybe it did, but she didn't get better, only worse. One of the techs at the hospital who took her out of the room for some tests told us she'd tried to slap someone the day after the surgery, so we all thought she was improving. I feel like if I only knew what had gone wrong, that I'd feel better. Intellectually I do know that's not true.

I wish that I could talk about her without crying. Not because I'm ashamed of or mind the crying, but because it's so much harder to get out all the things that I feel I need to say about her and how much I loved her if I keep interrupting myself.

I used to ask her to tell me stories about her life before she had her four kids. Most of the time she'd say something about how it wasn't all that interesting, but she'd tell me a story anyway.

My dad found me reading one of her diaries a while back, and asked me why I felt the need to read them. It took me a little while to formulate the answer to that one, but now I know. I can't get her to tell me any more stories, and reading her words is a little like that. Being able to listen to her stories again.

Anyway, if I believed in the afterlife I might take comfort in that thing people like to say to you after someone you love has died. You know, "She's in a better place, she's looking down at you now." But I don't.

My mother's legacy exists in the people that she touched, and the children that she raised. And we're all good, because of her. We're good, and I'm glad that she knew that we loved her.


*If you know anything about North Texas in the summertime, you know the odds of rain for the entire month of June. It even rained on the 4th of July last year.

My New Bunny

I originally bought a house because I had some annoying neighbors. Yippy dogs on one side and an idiot with a very loud car stereo and a penchant for Poison (in 2004!) on the other side. So I looked in the same neighborhood as my relatives for a house that I could afford. Turns out that I really couldn't afford it, but that's another story.

I found a cute little three bedroom house, about 1300 square feet and got a loan (though, let's face it, everyone got a loan in 2004) and moved. It was great, until the dog started barking on one side and the neighbor on the other side with the really loud car stereo worked on his car at all hours with his music blasting.

I know, getting to the point. So the neighbor with a dog moved out about a month ago. Yay, not as much barking! Unfortunately the dog dug a big trench under a part of my fence. So yesterday I went out to look at my horribly maintained backyard and had a need to trim the dead branches of the crepe myrtle RIGHT THEN. And something moved in the brush at my feet.

I looked a little closer and saw the tiniest bunny ever right next to my elm tree. I told my sister months ago that I don't have bunnies, and I didn't. She called me a liar, but I know that they not only did not have a way into the backyard, but I had a horrible large loud dog right next door to scare them away.

I took about six photos but in most of them the auto-focus chose the leaves instead of the fur. This one turned out the best. And he's only about four inches long.

Cicada Killers

There's a very large wasp here (probably other places too) called a cicada killer. The female wasp paralyzes a cicada with her sting and lays an egg on it in a burrow. The egg hatches and the larva feeds on the cicada.

With all the noise around here lately, I'm wishing for a few more cicada killers. Unfortunately for me, each wasp only kills between 10 and 20 cicadas, which won't help me stave off insanity.

I was over at my Dad's today and caught one digging her burrow. Maybe I can get some closer photos tomorrow.

Famous Photos

I found this via Wil Wheaton. Coolness.

Take a look:























It doesn't hurt that I got a set of Lego's for my 22nd birthday.

More Bad Camera

Here are a few nice abstract shots from my car.

Bad Camera

In January I bought a small pink camera for a class that I was taking. I was supposed to use a cellphone camera, but since I don't have a camera in my cellphone and I barely use the cellphone, I decided not to buy one. Rather, I picked up this little Disney model for $20. I should have bought this one because it says "forever a princess" on it.

Anyway, it takes really crappy but fun photos like the one from before of my cat. Here's a slightly more cat-like version of said cat.

Plans for ComicCon

My brother Brad and I are going to Comic-Con in San Diego in July. We're renting a house on the beach, which I'm almost more excited about than the actual Con.

Mostly I'm a giant comic book fan, and I can't wait to meet Paul Chadwick, Bill Willingham and Bill Sienkiewicz. Paul Chadwick wrote and drew Concrete, Bill Willingham wrote and drew Elementals and now writes Fables, and Bill Sienkiewicz did a stint on the New Mutants way back in the '80s and has some really great surrealistic art. I wish that I could meet David Mack or Jill Thompson or Charles Vess or Neil Gaiman. Not on the lists though. *sigh* If you're at all interested in the line-up of artists, you can look at the list for Artist's Alley.

Brad said he's going to bring his laptop, so I'll try to take lots of photos and post from there. There should be some great people watching, and my niece if even making a costume.

I guess I won't have any way to deny geek tags ever again.

My Dad

If any of you have read the main page here, you know that my mom died last year. I'm still dealing with that. I know that I've not DEALT with it because I still talk about her in the present tense. How long does it take? Not a real question btw.

They probably have a Grieving for Dummies book, right? Of course they do.

To continue, in March my father fell down. Wait, maybe he tripped in the garage. Or, maybe, he had a stroke but lied about it and continued to lie about it for two weeks, during which he didn't tell any of us that he could no longer use his right hand or walk with any coordination or drive.

I spent Spring Break taking my dad to various doctor's appointments. We went to the GP, the hospital for an MRI, the cardiologist and the cardiologist again for two sonograms.

Turns out my dad's mostly fine. Did you know that if you don't get to the hospital within an hour of having a stroke that it will do all its damage, but if you get there sooner that medication can lessen the severity? Apparently the left side of the brain controls speech, so he got lucky there.

My dad's regaining fine motor control, if slowly. He can drive now, and started cooking again, which he loves but can't do as well without control of his right hand. He still can't write, so sometimes I help write checks and things. He's changed his diet and has lost more than 30 pounds.

The anniversary of my mother's death is coming up. My sisters are divided about how to spend the day, and my dad said to me today that all things considered, he'd just as soon his house smelled of my mother's cigarettes.

I totally understand the impulse to be alone, but maybe that's not a good idea. Maybe we should be together to support each other and not feel both sad and alone at the same time. I'm pretty sure that my mother would tell us to quit being stupid and spend time together, and to make sure and use her camera and take lots of photos of her grandchildren. And then she'd say to leave her alone and let her finish her book and her cigarette in peace.

The book she started but never finished? "Love Kills" by Edna Buchanan.

Update

Hi. It's been a while. A lot has happened since I was posting regularly on this blog. I've missed it, but been unable to get myself to write or do much of anything in the past year other than things which seemed unavoidable. Like paying bills and going to work. Or, since school's been out for a bit, sleeping a lot.

But, I want to do more, become engaged in the world, at least the online world, again. So, diva, chris, Carmi, and any one else who may still be paying attention, I'm back. Talk to you soon.

Dating sites

Some questions brought up by my pathetic self trolling dating websites mere days from my 39th(!) birthday.

What the hell happened to all those guys who say, "Any honest women?" and "no games" or my favorite, "no drama." They might as well say "no relationships" if they think that they're not going to have lies, drama and games. No one is that honest or laid back.

How many inches should I take off of a guy's listed height on his profile? Is that guy who claims to be 5' 7" really 5' 6" or 5' 5"? Or are guys honest about that?


And what does all this mean?
I'm a good guy. I open doors when necessary but won't go out of my way. I will pay for the first date but am counting on you to be a big girl and take care of yourself. When I say I will call I will but won't call you five times a day. I can listen to you gripe about others just don't gripe at me. I respect your space...please respect mine. I'm witty but not going to show someone up.

Here's my interpretation:
If I feel like it, I'll be nice.
My ex spent every dime I made, and there's nothing left.
Don't call me.
You aren't allowed to complain about anything that I do.
You aren't ever going to stay the night.
I'm not that smart and I don't like it when people get the better of me in conversation.

I'm feeling a little mean. That's probably not the right mood in which to find a date.

My Girl

My first cat's turning 17. That's older than most of my students. Here's a blurry but cool photo of her that I took the other day.

Comic-Con, International

Total dork that I am, I have already purchased passes to Comic-Con in San Diego. There will be a lot of special guests, and in buying the passes early I get to go to the preview night.

I'm hoping to meet some of the creators of my favorite comic books. I know that last year it was a showcase for lots of movie and tv show crap, but mostly I want to meet writers and artists.

My brother, my niece and I are going to rent a house on the beach and stay for a couple of weeks. It should be pretty cool, except that Chloe and Cletus can't bring the little Cletus, because by then Chloe will be almost nine months pregnant with future little Chloe.

At least I know that since the Texas state legislature has interfered in school start dates I won't have to start work until the end of August instead of the beginning.

I have to go run some errands now, because tonight I have an appointment with an XBOX 360 guitar controller and Rock Band. I'm the fill-in bassist for the band, and I'm practicing so I can take over when the regular guy gets carpal tunnel.

Sexist Attitudes

So the niece was over the other day, and she picked out some movies to watch. These included Blade Runner and Chasing Amy. We watched Chasing Amy over at Brad and Jenny's house.

Near the end of the movie, the protagonist, Holden finds out that his girlfriend Alyssa has had more sexual experiences than he, and with multiple partners. Male partners. He previously had thought that she was a lesbian with no experience with men, but he didn't flinch at that.

He confronts her at a hockey game, and they have a screaming fight about it. He tells her that he doesn't understand how she could have those kind of sexual experiences as a teenager, and how could she do it, those guys were using her. She screams back at him that, no, she was using them. He admits later on a feeling of inadequacy, that he somehow must have an equal number of sexual exploits and also they must be somehow equivalent in kink as well.

And after that scene I had to do engage in some self reflection. I realized that I've bought into that attitude of misogyny that teenage girls are unable to consent to sexual encounters, that only the boys possess the agency to consent. That only boys really want to engage in sex when they're teenagers. Though I know intellectually that's not true.

I don't think that I blamed boys for any sex acts that I engaged in, I haven't been resenting any of my former partners for "making me" do things with them. I had the ability to consent in my life. But at the moment that Holden tells Alyssa that those boys were using her, I agreed with him. I couldn't see the other side of the dynamic there, that Alyssa wanted or needed to explore her sexuality, and that she hadn't somehow been degraded and used by the experience of having sex with two boys at once.

I've been struggling with myself, trying to figure out not only what I think about myself and sex, but also why I think it. And what influence have movies and popular culture had on these attitudes? Do I think, as many in America seem to think, that women are submissive victims and that men are predatory?

I was watching Law & Order SVU last night. It was the one from this week about a teenage boy who sodomized another boy and raped three little girls. The defense attorney blamed an ever-present media that obsesses over sex and argued an insanity defense. The boy saw sex everywhere and merely wanted to emulate what he saw. Which might have worked as a defense for me, except that seeing sex everywhere doesn't correlate, in my opinion, with wanting to do violence. Sex and rape are two very different things, and to say that exposure to images of sex makes a child want to brutalize and rape other children ignores the difference between the two.

On the show, Detective Stabler speaks to the ADA about the prevalence of sex on TV and the internet, how it's available all the time to anyone who wants to see it. But he doesn't talk about porn movie theaters or the availability of DVD's or HBO and other cable stations. He mentions women. He says that his boy grew up right because he, the detective had protected him. He had protected his son from "girls who wear Hustler t-shirts" to school, Jenna Jameson and the evil Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

So, I'm confused. Which is it? Are girls unable to consent to sex or are they responsible for the corruption of boys? Are Britney and Paris undermining the morals of the nation? What about all the male celebrities who carouse and drive drunk? Are they only not noteworthy because they don't flash pussy? Surely there are some paparazzi out there who've captured some of the men whipping it out.

I'm not sure that this post is cohesive. Maybe it should be split into two different topics, but it was all on my mind. What do you think?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

It's been almost six months since my last post here. Wow, time flies. And stays extraordinarily still at the same time.

So, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. Raise a glass to my mom, if you're so inclined. I think she'd like that. Maybe have a smoke too, just to taunt the gods, and then say "fuck" to make it a Kate's mom trifecta.

It was hard to not talk about her today, but harder still to say more than "Here's to Mom." I am however, grateful to all the friends and family who've supported me/us in the last six months. It would have been so much harder without you, and I love you all.

My Mother

My mother died two weeks ago. She had a heart condition, and at the end of June she went into the hospital for valve replacement surgery and didn't come out.
These are the words that I spoke at her memorial.

My Mother

Not everyone loved my mother.
The cashier at Wal-Mart didn’t.
She bought a magazine, then remembered something else she wanted and went right back to the front of the line.

The nurse at her doctor’s office asked my mother's doctor a question when my mother left. “Why was that woman mad at you?”

My mother got mad at me once for putting a supermarket cart back in the rack.
“What are you doing that for?” She said.
“Because my mother taught me to put things back.” I replied.
“No, she didn’t.” She said.

My mother gave me a tip about dating, that she said she got from her mother.
“Go out with anyone who asks you, because you never know who their friends are.”

My mother took us to get library cards the moment we moved into our house.
She went to the library every week and would get at least a dozen books.
She'd have to take at least four of them back because she’d already read them.

My mother grew up on a farm, and she hated home-made things.
Books were the best gifts, so we got her a club card from Barnes and Noble.

We loved her. Anyone who spent time with her remembered her, and they appreciated her. Some of the things people have told us over the past few days have included these words: wonderful, infectious laughter, voracious reading, quick wit, proud of her family,
interesting subject for a biography.

My mother loved Judge Judy, and Solitaire and Free Cell. She loved pictures of flowers, yellow roses, and grilled cheese sandwiches.

She loved her family, and raised us in a way that helped us to be who we are, independent and self-sufficient.

One day as we watched Oprah talking to a mother and daughter having problems, my mother said she didn’t understand why the mother would spend all of her time obsessing about and interfering in her daughter’s life.

I told her, “Well, you could be like that mother, but then you’d have to put down your book and get up off the couch.”
Then my mother laughed, her loud laugh, and admitted that I was probably right.

Carolina

Carolina told me a story today. She's 15, and she was born in Mexico. She had an argument with her history teacher about whether or not she's an American. She says she's not, she's proud to be from Mexico and to have lived there until she was ten.

One day, right after her fourth birthday, Carolina and her cousins felt eyes watching them while playing on the patio of her house in Mexico. Something watched them from the trees. Her cousins got frightened and started to run away. They yelled at Carolina to run away too, but she wasn't fast enough. A bruja flew down from a tree and swooped her up.

The bruja flew Carolina to a cave, put her down and made her sing and dance and tell stories to the other witches there. Carolina did what they told her, and after a while she lay down to sleep. She woke in the grass of her backyard near the patio of her family's house. She had been with the brujas all night.

Carolina went indoors to see her mama and papa. They said, "Which cousin took you home?" Carolina told them what had happened, that she'd been gone all night. She asked her cousins why they didn't tell her parents about the bruja. The cousins all said that they were afraid they'd get beaten if they told what happened.

Then Carolina looked at me and said, "No one believes me when I tell that story, but it really did happen to me."

Tales of Teenage Trouble

I got invited to prom today. One of my male students told me he doesn't have a date. Then he said, "Miss, will you go to prom with me?"

I said, "No offense, but ewww. I'm way too old for you, and I'm your teacher."

The girls at the table closest to me started to giggle, and said, "Miss, that was mean!"

I didn't think so, but when I told my mom she said, "You didn't say 'eww' to his face, did you?"

My students seem awfully concerned with my personal life. Who am I dating, and if not, why don't I have a boyfriend? Do I go to the clubs? How do I dance? Do I like cheese?* Do I think the principal's hot? Would I date the principal if he wasn't married? Would I date the principal and break up his marriage if I knew he was the love of my life?

Perhaps their next step will be to set me up with their relatives.



*For those of you that don't know, cheese is a drug combination of heroin and Tylenol PM. They were trying to trick me into saying that I do drugs.