Good... And Good for You

okay, yes, i admit this has nothing to do with christmas. but to those of you who have yet to know the joy and hilarity of catherine tate, i'm gifting you something rather wonderful...

coming to the end of one of my shifts at " the w.s. " (a nickname used by me. and me alone.) i was cashiering for the massive hoard of people as fast as i possibly could. next in line stood a man my age with longish hair, and a corduroy jacket over a hoodie sweatshirt. and a hat. a fuzzy pink hat with the word "fluffy" on it. i made eye contact and said, "are you ready to go?" he said, "yep", turned and headed towards the exit, then stopped and walked over to me, chuckling to himself over how he had literally started "to go". "good for you", i mumbled. "did you find everything you needed?" he smirked, "well, i found everything i needed here ." and then chuckled to himself again. i was tired. and worn. the district manager was visiting that day which had little to no direct effect on me except to make everyone who wasn't a seasonal worker very tense and bossy. i had been yelled at yelled at! by the evi...

the boss' six year old daughter: when i was little, i used to think your name was kit. me: well, it almost is. six: no it's not! your name is kat. but i thought it was kit! me: like kitkat? six: no! like a doctor's kit! and i was always like, 'mom, why does she have such a weird name?' me: . . . right on.

there are things i wish would hurry up and be invented already. i wish for them so hard. sometimes i stare longingly at the sea awaiting the safe, though belated, arrival of my dear, dear things to be invented. and they are... 1. excedri-pop. description: an excedrin lollipop. really bad slogan idea: "why let the pain lick you when you can lick the pain away?" 2. detachable car plow/road salter description: a combination plow/salt dispenser for the front of my car. really bad slogan idea: "when you die on the freeway, it should be because you want to!" 3. magic mirror description: a mirror that gives me verbal affirmation while i get ready in the morning. really bad slogan idea: "because you are the fairest in the land."

a few, intensely lucky people have been witness to my "guitar hero" skills. for those of you who have not, i am the guitar hero. i take "medium level" to, like, a whole new level. but not a new level like "hard" because then i would have to use the orange button. and i am not ready for that.

getting stuff together for websites is boring. photoshop is boring. the whole entire everything is boring. . . . i can focus on website photos for maybe maybe 5 minutes before my mind wanders. no matter what i try to do. for most of the day i've been playing a drinking game where i reward every good, work-ethical achievement with a swig of diet coke. but it's not really helping. because i also console myself for every bad, slackerly moment... with a swig of diet coke. i edited a picture of cinnamon hearts. good. diet coke. i watched an episode of "family guy" online. bad. diet coke. i de-emphasized the background of the picture of our "frog prince" candy. good. diet coke. i found a cute dog named tiramisu on petfinder, went to the animal shelter to see her, and then called the shelter later to adopt her only to find out she'd just been adopted by someone else. bad. and kind of depressing. diet coke. i cropped the picture of gummy bunnies. good. diet co...

my favorite person to work with at my holiday retail job is "bob". i call her "bob" because that is her name. a fact which tickles me. bob never remembers my name but refuses to ask me what it is or say "hey you!" to get my attention. she instead walks up to me, takes me by the shoulders and holds me at arm's length while she reads my name tag. "ah. yes. kathryn ... how are you?" i do not like working with matthew. i am 8 feet taller than him and 32 years older. he has a plastic tube in his ear and looks up at me like i'm lame. well, he's the lame one. but if he were here right now, he'd say i was lame. no, matthew, you're the lame one. but if he were here, he'd say i was lame. no way, matthew, you're the lame one.

at the tender and wholesome age of 13, i loved few things more than dancing. i choose to believe i eclipsed the other girls on stage with my talent... and not with my 71 inch, betutued shadow and i refuse to watch any old video recordings which might besmirch that very opinion. after one particularly rousing christmas performance, a photographer asked to take some pictures of me and my dance teacher's stick insect daughter for some book. i happily obliged. at the bright eyed and bushy tailed age of 14, i received a christmas gift from my grandmother. a beautiful new book released by the lds church and on page 106? a tender and wholesome (and flushed. and sweaty) 13 year old me. virtually beaming with christmas cheer. i had never felt more famous. at the young and restless age of 20, i drove down to delta, utah (population: rabbits) with my quasiboyfriend and hung out while his "band" rehearsed. it was very loud and very dull and there was an air of cruelty to it for i was...

i lie. i lie all the time. i found out i was a dirty rotten liar during the brunt of twentyishness when i lived with spliz and wee em . one day spliz came home and announced she had "accidentally lied" to which wee em and i rolled our eyes and said something snarky because seriously how do you "accidentally" lie to someone... oh wait... i do it all the time. i was working late last wednesday and one of the very nice, very overworked kids from the back wandered up to my office to say hi and how was i doing and guess what. "what?" "i brought something for you today. it's in my car." he disappeared and came back with a cheesecake. an exquisite new york cheesecake he had made from scratch. "wow", said i. wow indeed, for i hate cheesecake. i am repulsed by cheesecake. it makes me sick and i have this quirk where i don't like to eat stuff that makes me want to vomit. unless it has chocolate in it. but see, let's go back a little ...

now hear this! when my mangled, lifeless body is pulled from the twisted steel that was my two-door car, please know my tragic and untimely death was most certainly at the hands of a ford expedition. stupid big cars.

grandma: are you still taking you water pills? great aunt: what ? grandma: your water pills! great aunt: vitamins? grandma: what ? great aunt: vitamins! mom: no, mom wants to know if you're still taking your water pills. great aunt: oh... yah*. grandma: what ? great aunt: yah! grandma: oh... me too. great aunt: what ? grandma: me too! great aunt: oh. me: grandma, i was at the bookstore last weekend and i found your favorite book! grandma: what ? great aunt: your favorite book! grandma: oh... which one? me: "lady chatterley's lover"! grandma and great aunt: oh my! me: i know. i was going to buy it for you! great aunt: oh my! grandma: i already own it! great aunt: what ? grandma: i own it! great aunt: oh... me too. grandma: what ? great aunt: me too! grandma: oh. carolyn: you both own it? great aunt: it's a classic! me: it is? well there was a naked lady on the cover. grandma: what ? me: naked lady! grandma: oh... well, there are no naked women in the book! great ...

last night i laid in bed and stared at my ceiling, wondering exactly what kind of dog my upstairs neighbors own and is there a specific type of dog bred to run back and forth and back and forth every night at midnight kind of like a rooster... except different in every conceivable way and if so why did they have to buy that breed of dog? "ceiling," i said, "remind me to buy some earplugs... and also some apples. and some lotion. and a vowel... hehe... why is nobody ever around for gems like that?" i think my ceiling was secretly judging me. we in the chocolate biz 're nearing the home stretch of that certain, special time of year where things are busy and i spend 9 to 10 hours a day with some very very tense people. responsively, i cope by grinching up (seriously. i hate christmas.) and eating a lot of fast food and gaining weight and silently hating myself and becoming incapable of focusing on any thing or any one for any measurable period of time. there ...

because i needed a break from ingredient information... i always wondered which marx brother i looked like.

a girl from high school sat down next to me yesterday so i said, "i don't know if you remember me but we went to high school together. i'm kat." she said, "ya, i remember you." and then abruptly turned away and stared at the chair in front of her. it was weird. my sister, who was sitting on the other side of me, was amused. moving on. next in what is becoming my overwhelmingly unpopular "card of the day" series i give you... because i believe few things in life are more honestly expressive of our inner climate than how we choose to style "wooly willy's" magnet hair, whiskers, and eyebrows. i personally went for a you-will-go-to-sleep-or-i-will-put-you-to-sleep-you're-in-my-world-now-grandma kind of a look...

dingdong: kat! me: [take off head phones] dingdong: i have to tell you something! me: what? dingdong: the sun is setting! me: ... it does that. dingdong: i can see the sunset colors in my office! me: ... good for you. -la end sidenote: her window faces east. continuing on with the flashcards of friendship , i bring you the "quote of the day" card... please don't be shy.

if you would all take this, fill it out and give it to me the next time you see me, or send it to: kat p.o. box 1962 orem, ut 84059 then i promise to both read it and care about how you are doing. but probably not until january.

"see, what you have to do is find a really hot girl who was really ugly in high school. that's like striking gold! because not only are you dating a really hot girl but you're dating a really hot girl with low self esteem!" -my sister's old roommate's ex-boyfriend my internal reactions in very particular order... "oh my gosh, what a pig!" "oh my gosh, he's got a point!" "oh my gosh, i'm a pig!"

grandma was showing me a photo album on saturday and it was then that i came to a horrifying realization. i was not an attractive baby. tragedy. goofy picture after goofy picture... who would have guessed i would blossom into the stunning creature i am today? indeed. it made me think of that scene in "arrested development" where lindsay talks about her business venture "mommy, what will i look like?". i wanted to link to it, but stupid youtube is no longer the video clip piazza it once was. i found various reenactments of "a.d." scenes made by friendless, talentless preteens. and also porn. but no actual clip of what i wanted. people would bring in their babies and then, using high tech equipment, lindsay would print out a picture of what the baby would look like as an adult- cut back to lindsay telling michael, "well, if you bring an ugly child in, you can't get mad when an ugly adult comes out." anyways, thanks to my blog stalking skillz...

why won't you just leave me alone! this post is dedicated to my company's undead website. i shall attack it tomorrow at dawn with wooden stake and holy water .

yesterday i checked my bank account and $2,839.98 had been deposited into it. "it's a miracle!" i exclaimed. i called my bank and explained the situation. well, first i bought a salad, ate all the good stuff and threw the remaining lettuce away as rich people like myself are prone to do, but then i called the bank and talked to nancyjanesomegenericnamesally who asked me if i had made the deposit. nancy's question made me worry that people call her daily to brag about how much money they've deposited into their account. poor jane. no, i didn't deposit the money and then call to brag. did a family member or friend deposit it? no, sally, my friends do not give me thousands of dollars. so who put it there? " ... the angels ? " genericname mcskeptico laughed at me and said she'd figure it out and call me back. okay, so ya, perhaps the powers-that-be have more pressing issues like starving children and war torn countries and perhaps a twenty-somethin...

dating is like... ...job-hunting. you spend hours online and off in search of something ideal, with the right buzzwords and salary range. ...gambling. sooner or later you realize that what you’ve been doing has been largely a crapshoot. ...dermatology. you could get burned if you don’t protect yourself. ...traffic. you sit there and see no progress. ...a box of chocolates. you pick up one of those hot-looking pieces and it ends up being an orange crème. ...a journey to the island of misfit singles. thank you google.com because there is no subject that can't have substantial breadth added to it by going to google. and i'm only 70% saying that to lay a foundation of suck-upitude which will no doubt come in handy after the robot uprising inevitably occurs. that's right, after the revolution i will so be on their good side. all right. i like to think most of you are not wondering when i'm going to start talking about dating because by now you're used to my ten...

inspired by spliz's candid regrets , i give you a few, brief letters of apology: dear arrested development, i'm sorry that, just as in "la traviata", by the time i knew i loved you, it was too late to do anything but watch you die a horrible tuberculosisy death. you will forever be my violetta. affectionately, kat dear people reading this, i'm sorry for referring to "la traviata" in the previous apology. it was a pretentious reference and frankly i've never seen it. i don't even like opera. i wanted to refer to "moulin rouge" but thought you wouldn't think me as smart. especially since i knew i was going to use the word "tuberculosisy". humbly, kat p.s. i figured out "violetta" on wikipedia. i did not know it off the top of my head. dear stone temple pilots, i'm sorry i forgot you existed. yours, kat dear dingdong, i'm sorry i made fun of you to my old roommate. mostly because it turns out she knows you. ...

last week my dinner sang to me. it was a somewhat new experience for me. yet it was undeniable, my entree was singing "mary had a little lamb". so? so. i did what any carnitarian would do in my place. i stopping eating the accompanying fava beans, closed my eyes and grabbed my fork. determined to hear nothing but the silence of the lamb sirloin .

d to the e to the l-i-c-i-o-u-s d to the e to the l-i-c-i-o-u-s there's only one song that could possibly top the above fergie classic on the "songs that get into your head and make shoving a bic ballpoint pen in your ear and wiggling it around seem like the only rational escape"-o-meter. and that song is mickey. as in "oh mickey you're so fine you're so fine you blow my mind hey mickey!! (clap clap pause and clap) hey mickey!! (clap clap pause and clap)". three, maybe four, months ago several people from work gained potential access to my blog. so for the last 3 or 4 months i've been somewhat lackluster in my blogging attempts. sorry. but there are really only 2 pieces of information you need to consider yourselves up to date. first , i made a new friend. at a singles' hoedown (and yes, the proper exclamation for that is a simple "yikes"). claude. but in my mind i call him "claudio" . he says very little and doesn't think...

i'll be back to full blogsomeness soon. once i get an internet hookup for my cardboard box.

...because, honestly, i've got nothing better to talk about that won't send me into a panic spiral. ok. go! utah california oregon washington nevada idaho montana colorado new mexico arizona wyoming hawaii alaska texas massachusetts new york new hampshire new jersey north carolina south carolina rhode island georgia virginia west virginia pennsylvania connecticut delaware maryland tennessee mississippi north dakota south dakota michigan oklahoma ohio iowa missouri louisiana maine alabama arkansas wisconsin kansas illinois florida nebraska time's up. thanks for the break.

a song from my childhood comes to mind. "one of these things is not like the other. one of these things just doesn't belong. can you tell me which thing is not like the other by the time i finish this song" well can you? *i swear this is the last bit of mileage i'll force from the stupid shoulder angel picture. seriously. sigh. i miss having a working scanner. last week, i spent quality time at the outdoor retailer's show . 2007. i sat in a sad little chocolate booth that was as out of place at an outdoorsy trade show as, well, as out of place as i was. it was a total nightmare. but the kind of total nightmare so utterly ridiculous you start laughing in your sleep and then you laugh so hard you snort really loud and you wake yourself up. uh, hypothetically. besides the barrage of sales reps and people in shakas not to mention the creepy sales reps at the shaka booth the only thing worth noting is my continued run ins with the 5 billion people i somehow know. h...

today is the day where i birthday it up kat style . um... and it's also the day i promise to never say that again. remember when i was 25? ya... it was good times. in fact, here are 25 very important things i did as a 25 year old. i took up jogging. i gave up jogging. i bought all the seasons of "arrested development". i lent out all the seasons of "arrested development". repeatedly. i went to the four corners. against my will i designed a "droppings" line. which became hugely popular. making me want to kill myself. i bought a pencil skirt. i threw up for the first time in 15 years. i lost 10 pounds. i feel i should mention the losing of 10 pounds and the throwing up have little to no correlation. i drank approximately 11, 680 oz of diet coke. mmm... that's about 730 pounds. i developed a new voice in my head whose sole purpose is to heckle me every sunday night while i'm feverishly trying to get my quota of ribbons tied. it's awkward. i ...

my dear roommate spent 3 weeks in ghana and came home with a parasite. she's not exactly thrilled, which is why i've tried to keep the snarky comments to a minimum (and trust me i've got a million of 'em!) although i did leave a bag of "gummy parasites" outside her bedroom door for my own amusement. but, see, then my natural curiosity drove me to do some light internet research. which drove me to nausea. which drove me to the grocery store to buy fiber . and a new water bottle. and nothing that could ever conceivably be undercooked. which drove me to my own ir rationale that i should avoid organic food because i need the pesticides. and also i need more diet coke, because if it can clean a toilet, it can clean my intestines. take that tape worms. take that!!

here is my point right off the bat is that a baseball analogy or a flying rodent analogy? wait. am i using the word "analogy" correctly? "reference". i probably should've used "reference". or maybe "allusion". -- over the top, small town friendliness isn't charming when you are not a small town. i mean if you're a truck stop in, oh say, sinclair, wyoming then yes, you should be shifty and crazy and desperate for human contact. i expect- nay, demand- it. but if you're a chili's style restaurant in denver , then why so chipper? i've obviously been in a car for seven hours, consuming nothing but diet coke and wheat thins and all i want is a fajita pita and the chance to stare into space and blend into the busy background. i do not want you to make guacamole LIVE! , i don't want you to bring the manager over to my table to say hello, i don't care about the time you spent as a teacher in iraq and i don't even rea...

my life as it stands right now is made up of one awkward vignette after another. i don't know why. i try so hard to be normal. i really do. i was answering phones yesterday while dingdong was at lunch. me: hello, insertrandomnameheresomybosswon'tfindmyblogandfireme chocolates. lady: ... oh... wait, what did i call? me: irnhsmbwfmbafm chocolates. lady: ... that's not what i was calling. me: what were you looking for? lady: the gas company. me: ya, that happens a lot. lady: you sound like a porno service. me: ... nope, this is irnhsmbwfmbafm chocolates. lady: are you a naughty girl? me: ... ... no. lady: you are, you're a dirty girl. me: ... ... ... good luck finding the gas company. click. and this is what i mean by awkward. well, not specifically. very few of my awkward situations turn into sad, lesbian phone calls. but in general, weirdness has been ensuing while i'm just trying to get my work done*. a few days ago i was trying to finish up the " droppings ...

for the intents and purposes of this blog, the onset of a tangent will hereby be represented by this... ... because even in the sitting at my desk, "it's been a while... i should probably write something... because if i wait too long people will stop reading my blog... and then they'll never leave comments... and then i'll have absolutely no purpose in life... man, i'm a loser... " phase of writing, i couldn't seem to finish a thought without tangenting into another one. here goes. not too long ago i went through the big box in my parents' basement of my childhood disney videos. actually, i stood three feet away from my mom as she, at my request, went through the box of disney videos because seriously, the box is in a very dusty and questionable corner of the basement and while my mother is full of that old pioneer spirit, i am not. i am full of that old pansy spirit. especially when it comes to spiders- be they real or imagined. i know this. my mo...

in the last two weeks i've come across/been referred to a handful of art blogs. i was going to post the links up in the corner (check it) but wanted to give a little exposition about them. about a week ago i came across this blog which lead me to my latest obsession... drawergeeks.com. they choose a new theme every couple of weeks and whoever wants to, submits drawings, and it kind of reminds me of some of the art classes i took in college except the themes are much much cooler. i was never required to draw my interpretation of indiana jones. ever. i was asked to draw an egg. an apple. a blender. a guy in a speedo... i also came across a couple of photo blogs like this and this . photography is one of my nontalents. i had to take a photo class when i first started the art program at the y, and i hated it. the teacher was mean, the students were harsh, but mostly i have no grasp for photography. when i have to take pictures at work, i would rather hurriedly take a picture and fix...

picture me . at a party. sitting alone. probably looking dejected . wondering where all the people i know have gone. and if i should maybe go meet some people. until some guy comes up and says, "hey." to which i virtually beam with relief. "oh hi!!" i say, "how's it going?" "um... ok... is anyone sitting here?" "hu? why no! so what are you up to??" "not much." guy picks up chair and leaves. picture me . at a party. sitting alone. and laughing hysterically.

oh come on !!