update on the clock

roommate woke up & was peering at the clock. oh dear.

i told her i think i broke it.

she assured me its not that fragile & then fixed it. tick tock. great.

i told her i like the clock, its nice.
couldn't she see i was lying through my coffee-stained teeth?

just opened window on 40-degree morning. the sound of the interstate blocks the tick tocking quite nicely, thank you.

tick tock, tick tock

my roommate, who is a lovely woman i am excited to have found as a temporary livingmate, just put a clock in our kitchen.

now, i am pleased as punch that she finally appears to be moving in, settling in. her things are slowly popping up around the apartment--i like that.

but i have a thing about those clocks that tick really loudly. you know the ones--quite popular at stores like target. they usually run on a double-a battery & look cutesy. that's just fine.

but the ticking. oh my god. its like it enters my brain & i can't get it out. greg says i'm being over-dramatic. he doesn't know i'm the kid who had to take the battery out of chris' heirloom clock by taking it off the wall one night as i slept over. or that i used to take the one off my parents' kitchen wall when i was up late studying in high school...the ticking just does me in.

so now. she sleeps late in the a.m. & i have dislodged the battery. i'm finishing a paper for tomorrow; i think i'm justified in doing so. but i also seem to have broken the hour hand. shit. the ultimate irony will be when i realize i can't fix it & have to spend my hard-signed-for-loan money on a loud, ticking clock. woe is me.

phone tag

i think erin & i win the contest on this one. between my launch into finals & her grad school/work schedule, i think we have each left 4-5 messages for one another. i'm not sure i've ever played such a great game of phone tag.

i thought this sort of thing was supposed to end with cell phones. weird.

i wonder who wins in this kind of game.

lookin' forward to the game, e!

several bad signs

let me unpack all that is wrong with this scenario:
1. the only good coffee on the east coast is starbucks. east coast sucks.
2. i drank coffee in the afternoon. i haven't done that in months. that means i was uber-tired by 3pm. will i be able to sleep tonight? no good.
3. its friday after 5pm & i'm staring down a long weekend in the library.

on the plus side:
1. please note that i have no scab on my forehead from nervous picking!! wahoozers!!
2. black t-shirt is new (therefore, not smelly)!
3. note the window behind me. i've found a new lovely spot in the library. with a bigger table--all the better for spreading out my stuff!

welcome to finals, my friends.

three weeks from today, i'll have written 4 papers, taken a test & (assuming i pass them all) will be skating to graduation.

housing

okay, so i know i'm supposed to be writing my final papers and studying for my final test (what??! a TEST in grad school? whatever), but g&i are thinking about what kind of standards to have for an apartment-hunt in juneau.

here's what i've got for standards:
-wood floors are a must(preferably no carpet at all)
-washing machine in building
-monthly rent won't break the bank
-nice landlords
-good light is a definite plus

what do you think about in rentals?

back to the papers.

live!

i know, i know. the wait has been dreadful. but fear not!

kate & greg wedding central is now live.

we even have a cheesy wedding email: kateandgreg.wedding@gmail.com.

later loves,
k.

the time has come

i wonder if the thing about getting older is true--somehow the pace of time actually changes. is it possible that the length of an hour is as intersubjective as we are? is it possible time changes rhythm with us?

its true; i'm in an existential anthropology class. was it the jargon that gave me away?

i have entered the time flux grumpily known as "finals." four papers, four weeks. may 18th, loves, may 18th. and then chris comes on the 22nd!! wahoozers!

(and then i get to work on the fun stuff: young women & catholicism!! project going smashingly! nothing like living in the moment, huh?)

off to write about nuns in 1834 & the fire at the convent. gotta love the 19th century scandals! latergators, k.

st. joseph

all right, loves. i need to do some research on you. if any of the following questions are compelling to you, please email me.

if you have happened to stumbled across my blog on the very bottom of searches for "st. joseph, real estate agent," welcome.

the paper of the week is about st. joseph statues and the practice of burying them upside-down on a piece of property on is trying to sell, in order to aid the process. so...

1. have you ever participated in this kind of ritual? if so, what happened? what were the results? were you surprised?

2. has anyone in your family done this? what happened? what do they think about it? what do you?

3. have you heard of this ritual? if so, what do you think about it? why?

thanks, loves.

(and, just for the record, i own my own statue of "st. joseph, home seller kit." purchased by greg, at the mall. the mall. the carmelite chapel and giftshop at the mall.)

hair cuts

have y'all seen "stranger than fiction"? i'm a fan. but what i'm actually more of a fan of is maggie gyllenhaal's hair in that movie. can i have that 'do?

greg kept reminding me that she doesn't wake up with it looking like that. maybe mine'd be different.

itching for haircuts is usually a reverberation of other changes going on in my life. i, like other pals of mine, somehow want a physical marking of the larger, less obvious, changes going on. like g&i are moving to juneau, ak. like g's leaving at the end of the month. like i'm completely unmotivated to do my homework. like i'm nearing the end of my masters degree & have no idea what to do with it. like i'm spending a LOT of time thinking about catholicism. like i'm doing marriage prep.

so, hair cuts. too bad i don't have a professional staff following me around, making my hair look like gyllenhaal's. well, they'd probably make me wear more than just a black t-shirt & jeans, a sacrifice i'm not quite prepared to make. so i guess its okay.

save that date: sept 22, 2007.

its coming to a mailbox near you, friends.

to 26...

Twenty-six has been many things. It has been the year I got engaged to the man I love. It has been the year I launched into one of the most meaningful projects of my life to this point. But one thing it has not been is angst-free. In fact, it has been the most “angsty” year of my life.

My theory on 26, as many of you have heard, is that it is a uniquely angst-ridden age. You are too young to think rhythm and patterns are blessed; you are always waiting for the next thing, for the current thing to be done. Waiting, anxiously, for the next event of life.

By 27, I hypothesize—dream, perhaps—we have a better appreciation for what it is to be patient, to know that this is life; its not about waiting for the next adventure. Now, that is not to say that I expect adventures to cease or even subside. But I do think that with 27 comes an understanding that they are not all that life is.

When I was 13, I used to trip and fall down a lot. My aunt promised me I would outgrow it when I turned 14. Now, most of you here know that I am still waiting to grow out of that phase! My dream, today, is that 27, unlike 14, will be the dawning of a change. My dream is that tomorrow morning, I will usher in an angst-free, mellow-style, appreciation for the moment, spirituality in the daily way of being.

Anyone here who is 27, don’t tell me I’m wrong. I don’t care; I have to believe.

To those of you who have yet to turn 26, I am sorry.

To those of you are still 26, I am sorry. It is good on this end.

To those of you who are beyond 26, I’m coming!

And, to 26 itself, good riddance, fuck you; a toast to your passing!

birthday

that's right.

its february. i'm a pisces.

and i'm throwing myself a "thank god i'm not 26 years old anymore" party.

we're making sushi burritos, burning an effigy of 26 & i'll be making a speech about 26 itself. festivities start at 7pm; effigy & speech at 8.

peaceout, peacesters, kate

young women & catholicism

so! its official: i am working on a project with my friend & colleague (that's what we're trained to call each other here at hdiv!) jen. we want to collect memoirs/experience-based critical reflections by young (18-35) women in Catholicism & publish them in an anthology!

any of you interested? it is quite true that motivation for this project comes from beautiful conversations with friends about the role of catholicism--sometimes tormented, sometimes beloved--in their lives. i'd love to read more about it & hope you consider submitting.

youngwomenandcatholicism.blogspot.com.
much love. k.

redux: experiment

okay. so i have had a couple days of chilling & am ready to report that is do seem to have grown a bit paler (thank you, andover library) & maybe lost a couple of pounds (who needs weight watchers when stress will do the job just fine!). but, all in all, i do seem to have made it through january in one piece.

and only one or two of the papers are embarrassing!

that's right, team...i'm bbbbbaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkk!

DONE!

DONE!!!

berenstein bears & too much trident

its true. i've been chewing a lot of gum.

picking my head less, though. nervous habits; gotta love 'em.

gum & bananas.

ah, the diet of champions.

my paper is going down the drain & greg is sick.

dreamin'

let's go here, huh?

screw the last paper & just get on a plane & go to ireland.

how worthwhile is a masters, really? does anyone even know what a master of theological studies is? c'mon...none of you kind of want to ask "what are you going to do with that? all of my farmer winegrowers in the gorge did.

it snowed a teeny tiny bit this morning...just enough to tease me into thinking it might actually snow. but no, it's already stoped. there's something odd about writing papers in the greyness. some people argue its motivational because they don't want to be outside & so they just dig into their work. valid. but i kind of think there's something nice about an hour of two of sun-shininess (not hot, mind you, just crisp & bright) to lift the spirits.

i'm too much of a perfectionist to blow off this last paper & hop a plane. too bad, really. someday, maybe i won't be like that. any bets on the chances?

three down, loves, three down. one left. one more to go.

countdown

okay, so the irony of being in finals in january at hds hit me as i sat in a class at boston college this afternoon. for all of the rangling and bashing of catholics i have done, i definitely thing the catholics trump the uus (hds is a long-time hotbed of unitarian universalists) on this one. finals before the birth of christ, before the celebration of lights, before everyone goes to mecca, before the macabbees beat the bad guys.

now that that's clear....

six days left. well, seven if i count today, but that doesn't seem necessary. i have already been quite dramatic enough this month. somewhere around 144 hrs. but who is counting? well, greg probably is. he may be the only one who hates january at harvard with the same intensity i do.

burtsbees

it is with a sense of pride over having not lost my burt's bees that i reach the metallic bottom of a tin of the ol' beeswax lip balm.

when i reach the edges, i know its time to get some more.

today, pals, was that day.

with a tinge of sadness, i throw away the old guy & take the wrapper off the new. its been real, old tinny. thanks for the ride.

signs of too much

i've been, basically, writing papers since the middle of november. with the exception of 8 or 9 days off at christmas, its been nonstop. with 9 days left until my last paper of the semester is due, here are signs that i have been writing for too many days in a row:

1. the other night i dreamt that greg & were having a conversation and i kept trying to catch the words that came out of our mouths & organize them into a more coherent order.
2. everywhere i look, i see little pieces of papers with my handwriting scribbling some brilliant thing that came to me while running or falling asleep or driving to school.
3. some kid saw me in the cafeteria and told me he was surprised to see me out of my office on the 2nd floor of the library.
4. am seriously wondering if they'd forward my mail here.
5. keep finding myself cheering to myself: "go, self! c'mon! just give it an hour of good effort." sad, friends, sad.

three cheers to the end of january 07,
k