Love the Life you Live, Live the Life you Love

Not much news going on the past few days in the life of Katie (it’s moments like this I wish I had a catchier name, like Pi. “The Life of Pi” has such a better ring to it than “The Life of Katie” – someone should coin that phrase – just sayin’). I wake up at 6:30, hide under my covers until 6:45 when that moment of panic indisputably hits me and I leap to the ceiling like my bed has fleas (you know the one – where you look at your phone and a string of swear words run through your head like closed captioning while you run frantically out your bedroom door.) For most people it happens once a semester or so, maybe a couple times a year. I’ve gotten into the nasty habit of starting every day with that delightful adrenaline rush. I pitter-patter into the bathroom and pray that my hair looks reasonable enough to get away with not showering, but of course it never does so I jump around the bathroom pulling off my pjs and jump into the shower. I have no idea what I do in the middle of the...

I may have spoken too soon when I said that Kirkwood library was my spot. Here I am comfortably doing my speech-pathology work when out of nowhere: We took the square route of this and put it here and here and put it there and there.  My ears tuned in and I raised my head. I sniffed the air and suspiciously scanned the area. Yep. Math. Immediately I broke out in a sweat. Hands started shaking. Eyes twitched. Jaw clenched and neck twisted. Vomit literally came up my esophagus. Pavlov conditioning in it's purest form.  So this times this gives you this and this times this gives you that.  Focus, Katie. Hmm....a 2 year old with hearing loss who is struggling with some final consonant deletion, some stopping of fricatives, some devoicing? Now that, I am good at.... Now do you see inside your parenthesis that there is a difference of squares? No I don't see, lady. That past is long behind me and I'm never going back.  Right now I'm transcribing, identifying ...

Sunday night and I find myself again at Kaldi's doing work (blogging). I walk in and sit in my usual spot and to my delight - Mr. Angry Pizza Man was sitting across from me! He must be a regular, too. We exchanged "oh you again" glances and I sat down and did my work, giddy as he kept checking his phone. Perhaps he was waiting for a phone call! One can only wish. It was too good to be true, his phone rang a few minutes later. I paused my furious typing to eavesdrop on the latest. Sure enough, there was that tone again. The "keep calm I'm in a pubic place" tone where he precisely articulates all stops, fricatives, plosives, hyper articulates vowels. It's brilliant! He should have been a speech pathologist. Maybe if he weren't so angry all the time. I'll skip over the boring stuff and skip straight to the juicy goods: "No. You had your chance when I was TRYING to talk to you this morning and earlier yesterday when I was trying to tel...

Yesterday I went on Cor Jesu's Vivare "young alumni" retreat. My friend from high school Katie posted it on my wall a few weeks ago and tagged a couple other CJ sisters to the post and it struck my interest. I haven't done a single thing with CJ since I graduated and somewhere between moving to Boston and joining the triathlon team my Catholic past was put on the backburner. I figured I had nothing to lose except a Saturday and at the very least I'd get to hang out with my friends so I signed up and sent in my $25 without much thought.  I've never been the most devout Catholic. Most times in church I'm scanning the crowd for familiar faces, zoning out, and making Target lists- and that's if I go at all. Sunday is usually run-day...or ski day. Or sleep in day. Or study day. Or vacuum day. Whatever day it is...it's rarely church day. Despite being raised by two Catholic parents, going to a Catholic grade school and a Catholic high school, going o...

So Kirkwood library - sorry, library  consortium - is the best for studying, but if you're looking for the Kirkwood drama it's all at Kaldi's. I'm pretty sure I just witnessed a breakup. I only say pretty sure because they weren't speaking English so, lacking a Hindi translator, I can only go off my impeccable ability to read body language. Nothing ruins a latte with a cute little foam drawing of a bird or a tree like the ending of an era - I would know. Of all the break up spots - and I've had many - the coffee shop one is the worst. It's hard to hide drama from the judgmental eyes of fellow coffee drinkers, must less keep your tone to 'latte level'. Trying to keep the volume low and tone pleasant makes everything sound condescending, especially if you try to keep a smile on your face. Things tend to get eyebrow-ey. The best place for a solid break up is on your front porch. On the front porch you can throw things, scream, stomp (and it makes a ni...

I found my study spot. Here I was naively scouting out the best places to thesis edit, blog, do classwork, and lesson plan in all the different typical places in Kirkwood and the best spot was right up the street from me: Kirkwood library! I'm meticulously picky when it comes to "my spot" - Sheldon Cooper has nothing on me. Once I find the perfect study location I will hunker down for days, only getting up to eat, take a bathroom break, and ask an employee what day it is. Freshman and sophomore year of college it was the dining hall. Junior year it was Blue State coffee on Commonwealth ave. Senior year it was the 2nd floor study lounge in my apartment building. First year of grad school it was my cubicle. I'm not sure which fibers in my brain connect to tell the rest of my brain that this is the spot, but without a doubt it happens at the beginning of every semester. And once I sat down in the classic wooden chairs in the corner of Kirkwood library - I knew I was ...

Saturday night I went to a party. That could be a story enough for my post considering the extent of what my social life has looked like the past 2 years of graduate school in Utah (drinking a margarita sitting on my couch while doing work in my sweatpants surrounded by my dogs. Or if things get really crazy...drinking beer with Kate while making a pizza in my sweatpants surrounded by my dogs and Kate's dog). I passed my SLP Praxis exam Saturday afternoon and despite the fact that I would know all of 2 people at this party and it was a "villian" dress-up party...I was ready for a night out - any night out. I would have agreed to sipping red wine at BINGO with grandma if that's what was offered. I just needed to get out of my Miniwanca sweatpants, away from my bed, still covered in various notes and studyguides and flashcards, and be among the living again. I also was starting to hold lengthy, philosophical, very satisfying conversations with my dog, Luna. Enough w...