Precious Little Princess.

This is making the most out of your work. What a fine example to us all.

So Much to Say

I got the word squirts. They just keep coming, and I can't type fast enough to make them form coherent sentences. I don't even really know what I want to say. I guess I'm just excited.

People always seem to be in disbelief when I say I'm terrible at talking. I'm just not good with words, and putting them together orally. They assume that because I can write, then I should be able to speak too. This is a common misconception. Because writing is completely different. People don't speak like they write, although sometimes my writing does come off as conversational. But with writing you can go back and fix and delete. You have time to think of the most eloquent diction and syntax to best convey the point of your sentence. For example, I just rewrote that last sentence 3 times before I deemed it fit. Writing is like choreography, it's beautiful, and it's all planned out down to the beat. Onetwothree onetwothree onetwothree. It's very different than free-style improvisational dance, and requires a different set of skills. Same with forming sentences.

Writing is my way of being able to make a connection. Even when I speak in sentences to someone, I write it out in my head first, edit the things I want to say, and then say it. Unfortunately, most of the time the sentence arrives a beat too late and is no longer relevant. But hey, it was a good sentence. Katherine can speak words.

But even still there are some things I can not explain in words typed up on my screen. Not even on this "New Post" screen, where all my best writing seems to come to life. That's when I turn to music. It's why when I initially pulled up this screen to write about my day and why it was so wonderful, eye-opening, free, I came at a loss for words. I can't really explain sufficiently what happened today at the San Diego Zoo as I was walking through jungles with one of my best friends, just being able to talk about whatever comes to mind and with out limits in the midst of such a beautiful place. It fails to express how I even came to be such good friends with this person who seems just way to cool to ever want to hang out with me, but there we were anyway. It's realizing that ya know, his shit does stink just as bad as mine. And why realizing that was such a relief to me. I can't explain in words why that happened. Or how I felt tonight at this bonfire with a group of some of the best people I have ever met and love so much, and as we all circled around and all took turns to send off our Senior to college. I can't explain the love, the closure, the pride I felt as we all shared things we love about him, my ex-boyfriend. It reminded me why we went out in the first place, how he truly was one of my best friends, and what a shame it is that we've fallen out of touch, because I do still consider him a dear friend. I do still love the guy. I can't explain all those things sufficiently with words. And how all those things can be experienced all at the same time.

Music eliminates the middle man (words) and brings you straight into the emotion. And its not just a representation like words can be. For example I can tell you how good this piece of cake tastes, but you wouldn't actually be tasting it. Music makes you actually experience things first hand. You feel it. And everyone can feel it. There is no language barrier in music. There isn't a time barrier too. It never ceases to amaze me how I can play Clair de Lune (my favorite song) today on my piano at home and hear and feel and experience the same thing that Debussy experienced and felt in France just over a century ago.

It kind of blows my mind. It's like time travel.

So today was just a great day. I have so much love in my heart right now, and I wish I could share it with everybody because I know not everyone is feeling as great as I am right now. So in an attempt to share a little slice of heaven with you all, here is as close as I can take you right now. Just take a deep breath, open this video, and just listen. Stop everything else you're doing and listen. And you will be transported back to a French village in 1890 where there is dancing, victorious love, and the opportune life. Where they can't seem to believe their happiness. And song mingles with the moonlight: Clair de Lune.

Enjoy
~Kat

P.S. Happy birthday Ms. Beltran. I owe a great deal of my happiness to you. And I wish all of it upon you, hope it was a good one <3

Story Time!

Everyone has their inner creep. The Facebook stalker who knows exactly what you did last weekend but asks you anyway. The nosy neighbor watching you trim the tree.

My inner creep consists of all of the above, but I discovered last year I also have an inner Stephen King. We had an assignment to write a short story last year in my English class. They had to have an element of magical realism. And I definitely surprised myself with my cynicism. It remains as one of my favorite pieces of writing I have ever done just because of how surprising it was even to myself as I was writing it.

So here it is: the Bluest Eye.

My alarm rings. I get up and shrug into my slippers. Saunter across the room to my mirror. My face has blue beady eyes looking back at me. I shut my eyes so I don’t have to see them. I hate my eyes. They match the color of the room, and the sheets, and the floor, and my pajamas. I’m drowning in a sea of blue. Yet I know I will never change the wall color, or the sheets, or the floor, or my pajamas, because my wife picked them out. It's her favorite color.

I shave my face with my two-bladed razor, without looking so as to free myself from the blue because I can’t stand to see one more bit of it. My face stings more than usual as I pat on my aftershave, and although I already dried my face, it still feels wet. A warm wet. I quickly turn from the mirror—I don’t need those beady blue eyes judging me—and I look down at my hands. They are red now, I smile at the beautiful color. I don’t know how to describe it, other than that it wasn't blue. I rub the color onto my wall and paint myself a red mural. I touch my face again and more of the red appears on my hands, to my delight. I rub that onto my sheets, so that I can fall asleep that night with red on my mind. Maybe I will dream of something other than blue. As I am doing this my wife walks in.

“Oh John, what are you doing this morning?” she says, charmed I’m sure.
“Do you see this new color? It is beautiful, yes?”
“Yes, of course. You like red, do you?”
“Yes, maybe we can make the whole room red. Wouldn’t that be nice, dear?”
“Oh, yes, that would be nice. Here’s your breakfast.”

My wife sets down a tray with a plate of eggs, bacon, and orange juice. She loves to treat me with breakfast in bed, so I give her a smile to show her I’m pleased. This in turn makes her happy, and a happy wife makes a happy life. She smiles back at me with her pretty straight teeth and leaves me to relax and eat in quiet. She likes to give me this time alone in the morning to think. Although I miss her while she’s gone, I know she’ll be back to pick out what I will wear today. It is another thing she enjoys to do, so I let her. She also calls up my pals for me so that we can play poker.



My alarm rings. I get up and shrug into my slippers. Saunter across my room to the mirror. Shave without looking, and pat on my aftershave. It stings and a warm red liquid appears on my hands. I like the color of it, for it is not blue. As I decorate the room with this red liquid that comes from my face my wife steps in. She has short cropped hair and pale skin with green eyes. That’s why I love her so much, I have never seen a color green like that other than on her eyes. They aren’t like my eyes, which I hate, for they are blue like everything else.
“Oh John, what are you doing this morning?” she says, charmed I’m sure.
I suggest for her to further decorate the room with the red. She politely agrees with me but I know we will be sticking with the blue. She’s a stubborn woman. She then gives me my breakfast on a tray and leaves me to my quiet thinking time. Finally, she comes back when I’m done and leads me out to the foyer where all my pals are sitting around the poker table. I play and banter with them until my wife calls me to dinner, by that time I have won myself two dollars. Not my best day. I give the winnings to my wife who is very appreciative. I eat my dinner, say goodnight, and go to bed.



My alarm rings. I get up and shrug into my slippers. Saunter across my room to the mirror. Shave with my eyes closed. Decorate my room with a beautiful red liquid that emerges from my face. I like the color red, for it is not blue. My wife brings me my breakfast on a tray. Says she likes my decorating, and politely leaves me to my quiet time. When my beautiful wife returns in her floral t-shirt and blue pants—the same blue as my eyes, the room, the sheets, my pajamas—she leads me out of my bedroom to the poker table. I deal the cards out around the table and as I’m scanning my hand, a quite lucky one, one of my companions looks up from his cards.

“You, sir, are cheating.” He is looking at me. I don’t know how to respond, I have never heard this man speak before.
“I am not cheating, how can I be cheating? The game hasn’t yet begun.”
“But you’ve played this game before. I have finally cracked your code. I’ve been silently observing you day by day and have come to the conclusion that you have played this game over and over again and have thus memorized the deck, so as to give yourself a perfect hand. Cheater!” He yells the epitaph at me. I call my wife in.
“John, it is not yet time for dinner, is everything all right?”
“Yes, I just wish to spend some alone time with my friend here, will you let the others out?”
“Oh, of course,” she replies. The other men leave promptly and I am alone with my accuser.
“How has this arisen, my good friend? I know not of what you speak of.”
“Let us go into your bedroom.” He leads me into the blue room. The red is now cleaned off of the walls and my sheets and blanket have been replaced back to a clean blue. “Now, tell me about your day yesterday.”
At this question, I suddenly realized I couldn’t remember what I had done yesterday. All that came to mind was what I’d done today. So that’s what I told him.
“Well I did what I usually do, I get up, I shave, I eat breakfast, and I come out to play poker.”
“But more specifically, my friend. What did you do?”
“Well something unique did happen yesterday. I decided I would shave with my eyes closed and then this red liquid emerged on my hands when I would touch my face, so I decorated my room with this new color, to give it a change of scenery. But of course my wife has cleaned up again and now my room was back to its normal blue again this morning.”
“Amazing. Truly remarkable. John, do you know what date it is today?”
“June tenth I believe.”
“Interesting. No John, today is July tenth, I overheard your wife chatting on the telephone the other day. She mentioned the date, which was different from what I had believed it to be. I too thought it was June tenth. So I began to investigate.” He paused. “Tell me, what happened on June tenth of this year?”
“Well, I woke up, I shaved with my eyes closed, and decorated my room with this beautiful red color, and then played poker.”
“John, I have something very stunning to tell you, you may want to sit.” I sat on my clean blue bed. “John, it appears you have been doing the same thing every day for the past month. But that’s not it, you have been living the same day. And you have been stuck in this day, June tenth, for what looks like a month now. I believe we all have. Somehow, our world has stopped turning, and we have been cursed to live the same day over and over again.”

As he says this to me, I realize how right he is. Now that I think of it, the only memory I have is of waking up, shaving without looking, and decorating my room with red. We have been cursed. Only a witch could have set a curse like this. And a very strong one at that.

“A witch,” I said, “A witch has done this.” My friend nods in agreement. “I assume you know who this witch is?” Again, he nods.

“It is your wife. She is the keeper of time, and has kept us stuck in the same day.”

Again, my friend is very right. Maybe I should have felt a bit saddened to hear that someone I loved as much as I love my wife is a witch, but I’m not. All I feel is a need for revenge, revenge for having my future taken from me.

“What shall we do?” I asked. My friend has a sly grin on his face.

“We reverse the curse. And the only way to do that is to eliminate the creator.”

“The witch,” I replied, “I know exactly how to do it.”



Birds sing. I wake up with my friend sleeping next to me. We are lying on a bed of damp grass, cars whooshing by us in the street. I bump my friend, he wakes.
“Look, what do you see?” I say.
“I see that we slept on the side of a very busy road last night. What do you see?”
I see a newspaper rack, freshly replenished just this morning on the sidewalk by where we slept. I stand and saunter over and pick up a copy. The date says July eleventh.
“I see something other than blue,” I reply. “We are free my friend! We succeeded! It is July eleventh!”
I continue to read the paper, for I have not seen a newspaper in I can’t remember when, probably before June tenth. The headline says TWO MENTAL PATIENTS ESCAPE FACILITY AND KILL NURSE. There is a picture below it of the nurse, she has beautiful green eyes, like my wife. Under that is one of the suspects, a haphazard looking man wearing a blue shirt with blood stains on it and blue beady eyes. It’s amazing we make it through the day with crazy people like that on the loose.

Crushed

definition: a crush that doesn't work out, has no hope, makes you feel crushed.

I was inspired by this video, of an Irish lad who wrote a beautiful song for his crush, and performed it in front of the world on Britain's Got Talent. All the girls in the audience fell in love at that moment. But when he did sing it to his girl, she shut him down. Crushed.

My first crush was Matthew Morton in kindergarten. He was blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and four feet of five year old beauty. Everyone had a crush on him.

My first celebrity crush was Chad Michael Murray. He's blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and six feet of 31 year old beauty. Everyone still has a crush on him.

I have a crush right now, and I will keep on having crushes the rest of my life. But this is the first time that I have ever been "crushed." I think being crushed is actually worse than being broken up with. For me, when I've established that I have a crush on someone, I'm already pretty emotionally invested. So being crushed is like being broken up with, but before you could even experience how good it could have been, before they even knew, and it leaves me wondering "what if." It lingers like a cough in the middle of flu season. Whenever I see him it just reminds me of the initial love-sickness, but not seeing him would be worse. There's a lot more that goes into this story. A lot more of unfortunate parallelisms to past wounds; pouring salt in an old one I thought was already patched up, while creating another one just as deep as the first.

So this is Crushed:

He's the man who can't be moved
Out of my heart
No matter how hard you pull its strings
Every picture I see of him with her is another yank
It reminds me just how closely tied I am again

I look forward to every jam sesh like Christmas
And I've now realized it's not just because of the music
Not the strings of our guitars that are plucked into Good Vibrations
That tickle our souls
Make our hearts beat in excited palpitations
Tapping out a Morse Code that can only be understood
In the heat of a song
But if you could decode the message of my heart
It'd profess its 4 Chambers of Secret afflictions
For you

You'd know that when we sing
I imagine you're singing about me
Just like I sing about you
As I find myself actually Falling Slowly
Possibly, regrettably, terribly
In love with you

Possibly because every time I get a text I secretly hope
Regrettably because I told myself that was the last thing
And terribly, because I'm not the only girl I know who feels this way too

I know I'm going to step down
From the top block to number two
Because the last thing I want to do
Is pour salt in an old wound
That was just patched up
Over competing feelings for another boy
A crush, just like you

Only this time, I'll do nothing.

And just like an ant at a picnic
Hungry for more
I'll let myself be crushed.

~Kat

The Test of a True Talent

How do you test if someone is super strong? Make them rip the phone book.
How do you test if someone is a great singer? Make them sing the phone book.
How do you test if someone is a great dancer? Make them dance on a phone book.
So... how do you test if someone is a great poet... I think you can figure it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py3aRXMPJ74

If you want to read some of Miss McFarland's brilliance, here's her poetry blog: http://maddielacypoetry.blogspot.com/
I highly recommend it!

That is all for today. Kiss your mum!
Ta-ta
~Kat

AP Tests: A Survival Guide

I, like many other high school students, are looking out across the vast ocean which is AP tests. They never seem to end, and the other side is a long and arduous journey away. It may even involve some sea sickness. But I would be lying if I said I was shivering at the thought of jumping in. Maybe I'm just in denial that they're happening (a very real possibility), or maybe I've just finally found my wet suit to keep all the scariness of AP tests out, and all the real priorities and the warmth of their goodness in. Yet, I know that my situation is somewhat unique. I see plenty of my peers white-knuckling it through these bad boys, and forgetting that it's okay to relax your grip. Maybe even better. Ain't nobody got time for hand cramps.

So this is how I keep the AP-waters tepid and free from raging storms the night before an AP Test:

1. I make sure that I've tied up any loose ends (concepts, etc.) the week before, so that the night before, I'm not cramming and trying to learn anything new. By this point your picnic basket is full. There is no use in trying to squeeze in one more apple, it will only smoosh the sandwiches.

2. I review some stuff for my test, notes, review book, etc. AND THEN I STOP around 4:30 or 5.

3. Relax. There's nothing more you can do. Trust your teacher, and yourself that you've done everything you can. Now just go about a regular routine. Read a book, watch TV. Go to bed early, around 9ish. And make sure to have all your stuff together for the morning so I don't have to rush around. And eat a big breakfast, protein (eggs, sausage, bacon), piece of fruit, some carbs (toast, bagel), and juice. I like tea too, it's a good time for comfort food.

The key I think to not worrying about this stuff, is knowing that twenty years from now, I'm not going to be thinking "oh I should have studied for that AP Bio test more." It's just another small step along the way, and really it's not an ocean, just a puddle. You can look at it as something that will get your feet wet and cold, or it can be a chance to make a splash and do some stompin'.

You're smart. You're ready. You've prepped all year for this. Take a deep breath. Own it.

Happy Testing!
~Kat

P.S. Here's a little happy distraction. It's sure to make you smile, even now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1seI7NFeSU

Harry Potter is My Lover

Harry Potter is my lover.
I'll take him in bed, in the living room, in the kitchen, at the airport, at school
Even in front of my parents
I know, I can be scandalous,
But it really isn't as it sounds,

I just like to read.

I eat him up
Just like a ruby red tomato,
Not everyone will enjoy taking a bite
You either love it or you hate it
But I find the contents to be quite delectable

But even if he's not quite your type
You can easily understand the appeal

Any man who will take me to exotic locations
Who can work magic to get us a table at a 5 star restaurant
Without a reservation
Any man who can turn his words into actions
Would cast a spell on any girl's heart.

Plus everyone falls in love with a dork at some point in their lives
The cute glasses
Unending intellectual thought
Colorful opinions spiced with advance vocabulary that could make the phone book sound interesting
Who knows, you might even marry one

So now I say again, Harry Potter is my lover
I can escape with him any time of the day, anywhere
He's the star Quidditch player
He's smart, has the cute glasses
Can work magic anywhere
I can teleport to be with him by his side always, just by flipping a page

Harry Potter is my lover
Jealous yet?

~not Kat

P.S. Explanation: Harry Potter is not Kat's lover, 10 points to Gryffindor if you know who is. But yes, I am jealous.