Good... And Good for You

dear my local congressman, hey there. it's an honor to correspond with you today. i totally voted for you. here's the thing, as a resident of the great state of ski utah i truly understand the concept of snow storms being an inevitability. two months of a frickin' winter wonderland and then 2 months of dispair. and you know what? fine. i don't blame you, my local congressman or congresswoman or whomever you are, for the weather. i blame the weatherman. and jack frost who i would love to personally nip in the ahem nose. but where are the plows? where are they? why am i always driving to work in this? and also, do you know how hard it is to find your camera in your purse and take a picture while sliding across a 4 lane freeway? as a resident of a state with a foreseeable 4 month actually snowy winter, isn't there supposed to be an allotted number of tax dollars going towards, you know, not having cars smash into each other? i'm just saying. love and kiss

by the end of last year, i was basically doing a non stop "i hate 2008!" chant, mostly because i enjoy rhyming. those of you who know me well probably got to see me do it. i imagine that while doing so, i looked something like this... erhm...anyways. in some ways this year has been harder, but in the final tallying, this year has had some pretty great high points and since i feel the new year looming, i think it's time to list 2,009 things that made the year 2009 awesome. and when i say i'm going to list 2,009 things... i am lying. i will never be that thankful. also, i will never have an attention span that intense. top travels: dublin, san francisco top moment: flight of the conchords in concert, sundance film festival. top tv finds: truly interesting people don't watch tv because it's a waste of time and instead of watching fictional people do interesting things, we should all be out doing interesting things ourselves... whatever, i love tv. th

9 years ago, i was a sophmore in college and i was not happy about it and i will tell you why in great detail because there is nothing more important than delving into the trials of the nineteen year old co-ed. kidding. because there is, of course, nothing to delve. my first day back at college i almost consciously decided i hated my roommates and my apartment and my neighbors who just happened to be the cool kids from my high school and the boy who didn't love me even a little. i hated them all. after about thirty seconds. all i can say is it seemed completely rational at the time. the upside of hating my roommates and apartment and neighbors and boy who didn't love me even a little was that campus became a refuge. after class, i'd spend the day hidden away at a corner cubical in the basement of the library with fresh bread from the campus bakery and a bottle of apple juice and my homework and my walkman which basically played "every breath you take: the classi

autoimmune hemolytic anemia. i googled "cocker spaniel blood disease" and that's what popped up. in any case, that's what my parents' (mom's) dog has. she's had it forfreakingever and as i understand it, up to this point it simply means she takes steroids and gets to live life as the most spoiled creature on planet earth. last week little daisy crashed and ended up having to get a blood transfusion. and now she gets super high doses of steroids and daily blood tests at the vet. i've taken her to the vet a few times and have come to the very black and white conclusion that there are two types of people;* animal people and not animal people. the animal people read "little daisy crashed" and had some sort of sympathetic aww-ish sound go through their head. the not animal people read "blood transfusion" and thought "they paid to give a blood transfusion to a dog ??" you know, and there is no right or wrong. except for th

i had a very serious conversation with my car radio this morning as i drove to work. the man on the radio told me a recent survey shows that, compared to years past, drastically less people believe global warming is a serious issue. radio man asked me, "has your opinion about global warming changed in the last year? why don't you think global warming is a serious issue anymore?" " because i am driving to work in a snow storm right now!! ga a a a!! where am i? am i in lehi? what is happening? ? ", i calmly and attractively replied. sanity is such a relative term.

halloween is high up on my top 40 list. top 40 list referring to rad yes, i'm bringing "rad" back * ness and not pop songs. and also, there isn't an actual list because i'm making this all up as i type. i'm trying to find a find a fancy way to tell you that i really enjoy halloween. it's rad! and i seriously wish there were other yearly occasions where people would costume up because if i walk into a costume party i can tell you in the first two minutes who i want to roll with. halloween costumes make a group of people so much easier to gauge. they might as well be wearing signs around their necks announcing what they think is cool and i'm very interested in finding the people whose costumes say, "i'm awesome, ask me how." i've started as of 2 minutes ago when i started writing this making a list of the costumes i'd like to see at some point and it includes... dwayne wayne the karate kid shower costume the doppler effect is &qu

during the space race in the 60's, NASA spent $11 million to finance the development of this... a pen. a pen with nitrogen and special ink making it usable in extreme temperatures, underwater, and without gravity. do you know what the russians used? pencils. okay, okay. that's a myth. kind of. the the nonexaggerated story is that the U.S. used pencils as well. they, in fact, spent $128.89 per pencil which (for some unknown reason!) people found ridiculous. NASA also saw the broken pencil tips as harmful and didn't want anything flammable on board (a rocket ) so they spent $1 million on space pens. i don't really know what the russians did. just roughed it, i guess. harmful pencil tips and all. i haven't decided yet which story is going to be the version i tell people.

one of the most inconsequential letdowns of my life was when i read "pygmalian." i was 17 and in a super serious relationship with oscar wilde. and what do you do when you're infatuated with someone? that's right, you get to know their friends. thus "pygmalian." also known as "my fair lady" except not because of the absolute lack of "by george, i think she's got it"/"the rain in spain"/"i've grown accustomed to her face" moments. let. down. age 17 was also the year i waited in line to see "phantom menace" on opening day thinking i was finally going to experience first hand "star wars" awesomeness. letdown. i mean, completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things but still. letdown.

i cannot, for the life of me, remember whether or not i turned off the stove this morning and since there's absolutely no way i can commute home during lunch to check, i'm doing the next best thing... obsessing about it. imagining everything i own being burned to a crisp, including the secret stash of cash i forgot to deposit when i went to the bank on friday. and then i start thinking about that scene from "the unsinkable molly brown" where the unsinkable molly brown- attempting to out think potential bandits- hides her piles of money in the stove. then i wonder how i'm going to explain to my mother that i burned down my grandmother's house and hummels. however, if i'm keeping it real as i'm not really prone to do, the only thing i'm obsessing about is the fact that my poor little dog is alone in the house and the first (and really only) rule of pet ownership is to not leave your pet in a burning building. in summary, some life advice: if you can&

the other day i saw a real life recreation of a pivotal scene from "teen wolf". you all know what i'm talking about... now, "teen wolf" is an awesome, awesome movie. it taught us all the importance of both accepting and controlling our own inner wolf. see, the whole wolf thing is like a metaphor. a wonderfully weird, basketball playing metaphor. and i felt like i needed to pull these real life teen wolves aside and explain how the whole point of teen wolf is to NOT go van surfing. and also, m.j.f. had a stunt man because standing on a van while your doofus friend veers around isn't- wait, what's the word?- SAFE. and also, m.j.f. had a stunt man do the whole skateboarding/holding on to a truck bumper thing too. just f.y.i.

an irate russian woman threw a tea cup at the mona lisa yesterday. i think this will become my new standard of stress measurement. am i mad enough to throw a teacup at the mona lisa? no? then i'm not really mad. i've watched, like, every "end of the world"/"robot uprising" type movie there is this summer- i assume you've been doing the same (b.t.dub, one of the previews being shown is essentially doing nothing but giving credence to my cousin's theory about the apocalypse and because, in my mind, mayan calender nuts are just repurposed nuts left over from y2k and shouldn't in any way be acknowledged, john cusack and i are fighting. tragedy.)- and it's changed me. not really. really. i will never change. let's talk about it... 1. far be it for me to bring up a topic as incensing as gun control i hate guns. they should be controlled. but i think all parties will agree that in a post apocalyptic world you will have to know how to s

on sunday, my family and i celebrated the 42nd* annual julymas and i like to think you were all celebrating along with me... in your hearts. the form my celebration took was to cook the traditional mountain of food and then eat it. sadly, i didn't take any pictures of the feast but i did make a quick sketch of what it was basically like... i'm very talented. *give or take.

i hate cell phones. with an "on fire with anger" kind of a vehemence. mostly because i'm awkward on the phone. like, painfully awkward. and then you add to that all the, "are you still there?"s and "... wait, what did you say?"s and the "hahaha... i'm replying to you in the most ambiguous way possible because i'm not really sure what you said and i don't want to ask you to repeat yourself AGAIN but i think you might've said something about your kid"s... cell phone conversations are a misery. but what i hate even more is that i CANNOT remember how people functioned before cell phones. my family didn't have a cell phone until i was 17 and i didn't have my own until my sophmore or junior year of college so i know i used to be okay. but i don't remember how it actually worked when i was running late or had car trouble or needed a ride. did i use payphones all the time? it bothers me that i don't remember.

last week, i went to the first of this summer's twilight concert series . it was all very impressive. from the flannel shirts to the crystal spiders to the solitary blonde effectively blocking the view of a whole wad of people by standing on a chair and trying to nonchalantly see who was looking at her (answer: all the people who can't see the stage because you're standing on a chair. that's who's looking at you). by far the most impressive part of the whole thing was jenny lewis, whose voice is much more powerful than rilo kiley ever led me to believe. i like music (possibly the most daring opinion anyone has ever posted on any website ever )(i'm a maverick ) but having as many audiophile friends as i do, i don't feel i can claim anything more than that. as it is i'm worried i might have to prove my likeage through a series of trivia questions and karaoke challenges. please. never put me through that kind of mental torture. the other day, one of the li

the thing i like best about gardening is that when i talk to people about it, i get to use the word "literally" a lot. as in "yep, i have a garden, so i get to literally enjoy the fruits of my labor." because i'm growing strawberries. BAM! get it? ... it's fruit. thank you for listening.

i'm almost through my busy time of year. in fact, i'm so close with being done with halloween and christmas '09 i can taste it. and when i say i can taste it, what i mean is that i'm currently eating candy samples from what will be my next packaging project... nostalgia candy. i'm surrounded by all my most favorite candies from my childhood. don't worry, i'll list it out one by one. i'm talking about pixie sticks, pop rocks, ring pops, cry babies, fire balls, candy necklaces and fun dip and something called "zotz". i'm telling you, this totally makes up for the taj mahal themed gum drop label i had to make.

man, the weirdest thing happened last night. i was hanging a clock on my bathroom wall when i slipped, fell and hit my head. when i came to i saw this... i only wish i knew what it meant.

some lesser known rules of human nature... 1. my friends and i will never be able to finish a plate of baked goods because nobody wants to be the person who takes the last piece. we will however break the last piece in infinite halves. this is a real life example of zeno's dichotomy paradox . 2. in any given dvd commentary the word "genius" will be used 32 times. 3. a person's moderation, patience, and (let's face it) basic decency diminishes sharply the moment they stop communicating with someone face-to-face, ergo an otherwise normal person has a high chance of being mean and crazy via phone. here, i've graphed it out... my first job was as a telemarketer and i wanted to quit after the first fifteen minutes. but i didn't. i quit after 4 hours. which is why i have this sympathy for the telemarketers of the world. i have no problem sitting through their speech and required three attempts, and usually when i do they are so filled with relief they start m

the other day i went to chevron for a diet coke and my chevron boyfriend was all, "i haven't seen you for a while." and i was all, "ya, i know." and then he was all "where have you been?" and i was all, "i don't know... busy?" so there you go, month of may. i've been busy. disinterested, non caffeinated, and busy. supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting... and busy.

i have a truly disorganized brain and i don't trust it. it doesn't focus or remember. it lacks the ability to think something through in one sitting. it messes with me on a regular basis. it is not to be trusted. i lack the ability to think something through in one sitting which is why i live a life of post-its, lists and journals. that way my pinball machine brain has a safety net. here is today's work list... first, i want you to notice the "holiday 2009" heading because ya, i've started christmas. i really do think this is what the inside of my brain looks like. it started out all nice and neat and flushed to the left, but then i started scribbling little changes and addendums all over it and now my brain would be completely indecipherable to anyone else. and yes, there's probably a flower doodled somewhere at the bottom of my brain.

you know how the internet keeps track of your every move and then synthesizes and analyzes all the pertinent material to better place applicable ads on your sidebars? ? last week, on my sidebar... http://www.gk2gk.com/ the place to "find your geek match". you rent one season of "battlestar galactica"... i feel a special thrill in arguing at work. i decided to not drink diet coke during the month of may and i will tell you why... because i'm not addicted to diet coke. i mean, i like it. i like that it has no calories. i find it refreshing and delightsome and on par with drinking sunshine and unicorns... but let us get one thing straight, people who i work with, when you compare diet coke to a crack addiction and i say no, diet coke is not crack, and you say yes, it's basically the same thing... you make me insane. and you must be proven wrong. so i gave up diet coke for the month of may and here's the thing, at no point did i have a caffeine headache or

i spent most of saturday "gardening" and i type the word "gardening" in somewhat sarcastic quotation marks because for all i know i'm cultivating a wasteland. however i fully enjoyed myself, what with the novelty and the feeling that i was playing some sort of trivia game with mother nature. a three part game, actually... part I: weed or plant? the winner was, er, not always me. there's an incident with 40 year old geraniums/chrysanthimums i cannot at this time relate. part II or deux: taking a break or taking a nap? either way i won. unless it was a competition between me and ziggy because then he won. unless the competition was to see who could lay in the sun and not get sunburned because then i won. part III: is that a bug?? is that a bug?? all i know is it's the neighbor's problem now. p.s. in the "suggested friends" portion of facebook i have to keep rejecting "jesus" and i'm starting to feel guilty about it.

i'm completely addicted to pirate news. can't get enough of it. let's explore why... first, i've never understood what navy seals do. i knew they existed. i assumed they did stuff , but i never heard about the stuff they were doing and i'm not going to lie to you- the silence scares me. hearing about their awesome captain-rescuing skills comforted me a little bit although it did little to nothing to diminish the image i have of demi moore shaving her head in "g.i. jane". second, it totally made me laugh when the pirates were all, "why would you kill us? we are OUTRAGED that you would kill three of the men who kidnapped and held that ship captain for ransom and tried to take away food and aid you were sending to our starving countrymen. OUTRAGED! what did we ever do to you?? well. now we're going to have to crack down. you've forced us to. this is all your fault really. from now on, when we attack an unarmed vessel, we're going to kill ever

firstly, the only april fools day "pranks" i ever see ALWAYS (i don't exaggerate) involve girls announcing they're engaged. it makes me feel weird. lastly, (i should start numbering my points due to their sheer magnitude! ) i don't like being told what to do and who does, really? nobody. trust me. i tell people what to do all the time and they never like it. depending on the circumstance i'll tolerate it if i have to but most often i'll scream, "you're not my mother!!" and then i'll stomp off. except when it's my mom because then i'll scream, "you're not the boss of me!" and then i'll stomp off. and when it's my boss i scream,"...." nothing. because i like being employed. so, ya. sometimes i act like a three year old, but for the most part i try and take it. because really the easiest thing to do is smile, think snarky thoughts, nod, and then go off and do whatever i want. because i'm a grown u

my goal for the month of march was to figure out the difference between "affect" and "effect". i thought i knew. but turns out i did not. so i put it to you on this the night of march 30th... dear smart people, why is it wrong for me to say that something "effect"ed me? why? i just want to be more like you. thanks ever so, kat

let it be known. there is only one movie ONE! that nicolas cage has been bearable in... ... and that's basically because moonstruck's awesomeness eclipses the cage's weirdness. so i ask you... HOW is he still making movies? who is his fan base? WHO? i demand an answer.

i react to stress in two very cliched ways. can you guess what the first way is? whoa, my lack of self restraint could really get me into trouble. it's a good thing i don't work at a chocolate factory. ... wait.

one blog i check out pretty habitually is spEak You're bRanes . it's basic mission is to mock comment threads. it's secondary mission, as far as i can tell, is to bring joy to my life. the following post especially. joy. to my life. "Thanks to Angel for finding this comment on a Times article about violence against women. women are often as attractive and as beautiful as flowers(with brains) it is normal that they want to show the best of themselves through being sexy : it is the essence of feminity and real men like that .Those who dare hitting a woman are not well in their mind.Who would hit a flower Didier, paris, France I tried to explain that to my girlfriend once. She said I was a patronising jerk and then wept as she beat her tiny fists ineffectually against my manly chest." of course then i read the article and the joy was ebbed.

being single is awesome. i don't really blog about dating/singleness very much because, well, first of all i don't have much to say about it, but mostly i worry that no matter what i say people will think that i'm lying or overcompensating or secretly filled with insecurity and bitterness when, seriously, i've never been more content and sure of myself than i am right now. although now that you bring up insecurity, the secret third reason i don't write much about dating is because guys i've dated or wanted to date or who wanted to date me sometimes read this and i can't help but imagine them sitting at their computer saying, " i could tell you why you're still single, heheheh..." and then my soul shrivels up a bit . but i'm going out on a limb today because the only other thing i've got in my arsenal is a story about an impromptu square dancing party that took place during family dinner on sunday between mom, dad, carolyn, and mohamm

now, i'm not saying i have an addiction. i'm just saying that when someone opens a can of soda, i have a pavlovian response. as in, yes, drooling like a dog. speaking of things i hope you find strangely endearing... this is what i see when i leave for work every morning. yes, yes. a lovely brick house, but just like a "where's waldo book" (is that the best comparison i could've made?) you have to look closer... closer... " maybe you don't want to go. " that is what ziggy's ears and forehead are saying. so let's just add some things to the classified ad i hopefully will never get to the point of actually writing: #1 must love dogs #2 must love diet coke and #3 must love the fact that i have a picture of ruben studdard next to my computer (he's my muse of the month)...

in less than 60 hours i will be on my way to dublin and i cannot tell you how excited i am, wait, yes i can. because i am literate. i'm very excited. of course i also realize that in less than 40 hours, i'll have a knot in my stomach and will start wondering if there's any way i can get myself out of this trip and shouldn't i just stay home and watch tv instead? because i am a crazy person. and i recognize that. i broke out in hives two days before i went on my cruise. so if i write any desperate, kidnapping victim type blogs in the next couple of days, just do what my friends do in real life: roll your eyes and say, "oh, kat. you'll be fine."

as is the way of my life, i spent the first half of february up to my elbows in frosting. it was sexy. wait, no. no it wasn't. i was a little less willing to do the frosting heart thing this year because while i was working 10 hour days, i kept picturing my actual work piling up and up and up toward the heavens... and i just didn't want to deal. but it was fine. because even with the frosting and the work and the commuting and my determination to run sprint intervals every night so i could fit into the "ireland pants" i'd ordered online with a 37" inseam that i was GOING to fit into because they're a size smaller than i usually wear and seriously, if i was going to be shopping in a land with european sizing, i was going to need pants sized in the single digits to change back into and stop me from hating myself... i love valentine's day. my love has been tested. my love has been proven. and nothing can tear us asunder.

i've come to accept that movies are exponentially better than real life. it's because of the background music. and the mantages. mantages are brilliant. i don't care what you're mantaging, you will not disappoint me. and then there are taglines. one sentence to make people want to see the movie. i love it. i want a tagline of my own to use when i introduce myself, so people will be like, "yes. awesome. i must know more." but until i figure out my own, original tagline i should probably borrow one and see how it goes over. here are some of my favorites... " kat : still the fairest of them all! " i'm just telling it like it is. just putting it out there right at the get go. you know, because maybe the person i'm talking to doesn't have eyes. that's right. i said that. " kat: nothing like it has ever been on earth before " ...powerful stuff. " kat: she was everything the west was - young, fiery, exciting! " i lik

you might be interested to know that my father, the 6'4" giant of a man who kills spiders for me on a regular basis, knows a lot of big words. words like gauche, autocratic, and macabre. you might also be interested to know that my father used each of those words while talking to my brother-in-law, the tall, zoophobic iranian who is learning english by watching "while you were sleeping" with the subtitles on and wore his "proud to be a berkley mom" sweatshirt to dinner a few weeks ago. and you just might be interested to know that in each instance i left the room to laugh hysterically into a pillow.

in an 8 hour period i... saw a cute movie starring george michael (not the singer/songwriter) bluth which struck rather close to home at times, called a cab to take home a guy named churi because i was too scared to give him a ride home, realized i'm not a hipster nor do i want to be one if it involves awkward headwear, dark rimmed glasses, and a lack of underwear, was asked what salary bracket i fall into, cleaned up vomit, worried that i was racist, laughed a LOT at michael cera and realized nobody around me was laughing because it is not hip to laugh but it is hip to not shower and talk about how you totally saw bowie, saw a quasi celebrity (not bowie) and didn't care, saw a cartoon about "moonies", received an explanation later about what "moonies" are, stole money from my sleeping grandmother, received a bill for having my ovaries removed a procedure i do not remember having, fell into a deep, overstimulated slumber. so... typical friday night. for, yo

ever since i started harboring a secret and all consuming love for gilbert blythe , and also jack kelly , and also paul maclean , and also the volleyball scene from "top gun"... i've had a t5 list. it's gone through several incarnations- let's be honest- because that's just how life is, my friends. and securing himself a spot on the list is neil patrick harris a.k.a. doogie... Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes a.k.a. dr. horrible a.k.a. my soul mate. now i have the rotten task of deciding which of the existing members gets shoved off a cliff. some people say blogs are the "manifestation of the twitchy narcissism of my generation"... i just don't see it. 5. neil patrick harris 4. jack lemmon 3. hugh jackman 2. gene kelly 1. han solo and/or indiana jones sorry fresh prince of belair. you're out. who wants to share their t5's? you know you've got them.

i've decided there are two different kinds of winter. there's the glitzy, hollywood winter where i sit next to a fire with hot cocoa looking like this... ... and then i run out in the fresh, beautiful whiteness and make a snow angel. somewhere between november 15th and january 2nd. that's hollywood winter. and i can get behind that. it's the second part of winter i can't handle. post-inversion. where the world seems completely enveloped in one big smog cloud. my heart seems enveloped by one big smog cloud. and i want to say i know the sun exists but i'm going purely on faith. and it's important to not roll in the snow because it is frozen and it is black. hollywood never shows that winter. the thing is, it's hard to tell when you've hit winter stage II because it kind of sneaks up on you. so here's a tip: i have found the best indicator of the true state of winter is the people. when winter stage II hits- for a lack of better phrasing- everyone

stuck in my head: "my baby don't mess around because she loves me so and this i know fo' shoh..." i might be ever so slightly behind the trends. as is my morning tradition, i was sitting on my couch watching whatever random dvd i was watching shout out to blockbuster.com what up? while i ate breakfast. and as is morning tradition, ziggy came tottering out of the bedroom, jumped on my lap and immediately fell back to sleep. for you see, my dog is not what you would call a morning canine. he tends to sleep until noon or until he is roused by my incessant calls to action and glory when he'll finally emerge- ears askew-, do his morning stretches of destiny and then fall back to sleep on the nearest lap. and as is morning tradition, i mocked his laziness and his ears which were especially askew. i mean, seriously, how does something like that happen? heheh... fool. then i finally got up off the couch, did my morning stretches of destiny and went up to my mirror to fin