A Canadian Christian minister born on Halloween... I knew there was a reason this guy was cool.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Happy Birthday to the Radical Rev!
A Canadian Christian minister born on Halloween... I knew there was a reason this guy was cool.
Dia de Los Locos
Kristian: Do you want to come to a Halloween party?Katie: "No thanks, I like Halloween for kids, but I get creeped out when adults partake in it."
Kristian: "How come?"
Katie: "I don't know, it might have something to do with the time I lived in Santa Cruz and threw a Halloween party. I woke up the next morning and found a big dude in drag at my breakfast table, grinding his teeth, strung out on cocaine."
Mummy Makes Dinner
David: “Annie, do you want asparagus?”
Annie: “No way! That word sounds too much like Sarcophagus!”
Monday, October 30, 2006
Quote
"Man's love is of man's life a part; it is a woman's whole existence. In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.”
~Lord Byron
I'm Screwed
Annie: "You know why I like to ask you for things when I know you'll say no?"
Katie: "Why?"
Annie: "Because sometimes I like to let it out and scream and cry, and also, I just like a good challenge."
From Post Secret
But of course I was always prettier than my ex-boyfriend's new girlfriends. Wasn't I Tai? You were telling the truth, weren't you?
After Hours
When I was little, I had the same fantasy that many kids have (I assume,) to be locked in a toy store overnight, run through the empty aisles and play with all the things I would never own. But now, being in my apartment, surrounded by my books and music, and with an endless supply of things to ponder (like the nature of sleep among other things,) this is my fantasy.
I'm seriously fading, falling asleep as I write. I will stop hitting the keyboard and go hit the shower, then reluctantly I will go to bed.
I understand how people can be unhappy, but I don't understand how anyone can be bored. Ever.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Some More on Sleep
As I mentioned, and I know this is important to everyone, I have been receiving the benefits from sleeping fewer hours during the night. However, I have yet to achieve my goal which is to, in addition, have a nap or a doze at some point during the day. Seth says (yes, he’s the dead guy I sometimes refer to,) that our dream state is as real, if not more real than our waking state, and that there should be less of a divide between the two so we can benefit from both states of consciousness more of the time. However, it’s difficult to do when there are so many hours between the two states. (8 hours of sleeping and dreaming, then 15 or more hours of being awake and so on.) Thus, Seth’s recommendation for breaking sleeping and waking hours into two parts.
When you’re dreaming, you’re connecting to yourself in a way that you’re not when you’re awake, and when you’re awake, you’re connecting to yourself in a way that you’re not when you’re dreaming.
If we can sleep in the way Seth recommends, and in essence blend the two states of consciousness, we fill the gap during the times they occur, and the constant communications from our inner selves become more fluid.
The dream state is not subconscious garbage; it’s not simply the releasing of daily stress. It’s a place we go to, out of body, that is a real and true part of our reality.
Whatever name you give it, be it God, your higher self, whatever, the divisions between “It” and “You” are arbitrary.
Turn your subconscious into your conscious, be awake while dreaming and dream while you're awake.
Why not have it all since it’s all right here?
Damn, that made me tired. I’m going to bed.
Xoxox,
Katie
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Dream On
Seth says that for optimal health, both physical and mental, it's preferable to sleep 5 or 6 hours during the night, with a one or two hour nap during the day. Even a ten or twenty-minute doze would be beneficial. This is something I've been practicing of late, sans the nap (although it would be nice,) and already I've been programmed to need less sleep. I have more hours of waking time, which is like getting a bonus every day, and I have more physical energy than before. But what I really notice are my dreams.
It seems that I "stopped" dreaming in the past few months, often waking in the morning feeling kind of dull, having to find my way back to myself, laboring to feel connected to my life.
I'm a firm believer that sleeping dreams help us in our daily lives. They provide a place to work out conflicts, bring to light our weaknesses, help us to walk through fears. Even if we dream that we have a thousand toes, it means something, and it's a beautiful gift to us from our subconscious that we receive over and over.
Saturday Morning
I went to bed at 3 this morning and woke at 8 to the realization that I have learned more about myself in the past three months than I have in the past 43 years.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
After School
Me: "Annie, please wash your hands."
Annie: "I'm in such a happy mood, I'm willing to do ANYTHING!"
Smotherly Love
Annie hugs me and says:"I just looked at you and realized that you were my mommy, and I feel so lucky."
(I have my arms wrapped tightly around her as she's talking, and I stay like that after she's finished.)
Annie: "You can let go now mom, the moment's over."
Secret
Sometimes I go to bed very late and wake up very early, like this morning, no alarm needed. Sometimes I am so in love with life that I want more hours to live it. Just to do little things like read and listen to the birds sing, turn on music and write something for the Half Note, light a candle and scrub the stove.
Sometimes, when I get close to that kind of connectedness, I also become close to my own mortality, and in those moments, I battle to hold on to my contentment.
Wednesday Night
Tonight is one of those beautiful New York City nights. The air is cold and clean, the sky is dark, almost clear. A stray cloud hangs low, bright, white and blue, peaking through a row of streetlights. It’s the kind of night to walk with a lover and laugh while trying to keep each other warm. It’s the kind of night that chills your skin and grabs your heart. It’s a night to stop at an Italian café on Bleeker Street, order coffee, share desert and talk for hours, until the old man starts mopping the floor and stacking the chairs.
A city night like this is what poetry is born from, it’s music, it’s what makes life worth all of it and inspires us to stay up until dawn. ~Katie
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Seth Says:
“When you let yourself go, you are yourself. You forget what you have been told you should be, you forget must and shall and should, and you are, as a bird or a flower or a god is.”
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
In the Moment
I'm editing today, a short film called "Infinite Tree." Annie is drinking hot chocolate and doing her homework. She stood up to show me a picture she drew in her notebook, a picture of a mermaid, and she read the words she wrote below it: "I want to draw a picture of a mermaid."
It's a short sentence, a simple one, but the way she said it, with a big smile on her face, her eyes looking so tired but still bright, she's too little to be at school all day, working, behaving, holding it all together.
It made me want to run away with her, to a place like Costa Rica, and let her grow up on the beach, collecting shells and studying the birds.
With Love, Daddy.
Annie's birthday is the time we re-discover the journals we started for her days after learning I was pregnant. The words on the pages are a never-ending source of comfort, entertainment and sadness, our baby growing up so fast. I love reading what David writes, about the expansion of his heart, or a rant on the world he knows his child is entering into.
One day Annie will treasure every word her father has written her, the silly ones, the sweet ones, and the words that I've posted below, (Written before she was born,) pure David.
July 7th 1997
Watched a show called “Real World” last night, I hope it won’t be on when you’re a teenager, so here’s what it’s about—It’s on MTV and it takes seven men and women of different races (mostly white,) with usually one lesbian or homosexual, all in their late teens to mid-twenties, and sticks them in some fabulous house in some cool city and videotapes them night and day for five months. The raw material is edited into half-hour segments, and there is your TV show called “The Real World.”Every generation has some kind of dumb fad, some kind of revolting thing they flaunt in the faces of their parents to horrify them. All this is done in the name of individuality, but somehow everyone looks the same, they think the same, talk the same, dress the same. They think they’re wild and crazy, living life much fuller than their parents.
Every single generation goes through that. Every one. The costumes change but the people do not.
Anyway, a couple of the really stupid fads in vogue with young people today are: cigar smoking and body piercing.
Cigars stink, they cause lip and throat cancer, they stain your teeth and make your hands smell. Enough said about that.
Body piercing—nose, belly button, eyebrow, nipple, tongue—this is the big sign of rebellion and hipness right now.
Not only do you lisp with a pierced tongue, but food and bacteria collect around it and it just becomes a little garbage heap in your mouth. Plus, you drool a lot.
I’m glad these fads will be quaint when you become a teenager.
I can only imagine what your generation will be into. Global Terrorism? Macramé? Transcending the dumbness of Conform-or-Die society and becoming true individuals connected to the awesomeness of the universe so the world can be changed in a positive, beautiful way?
Work on that with your friends, kid.
Love ya.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Meter Reader
I’m puttering around the apartment this morning, having my coffee, some lively African music is playing, and there’s a knock at the door. It’s the Con Ed guy needing to read to my meter and see just how much electricity I use each month. He comes in, starts to enter numbers into his machine, then he turns to me and says, “Looks like you’re gettin’ BUSY in the mornin’!”
“EXCUSE ME?” I say, taken off guard.
He motions to where the music is coming from.
“OH,” I say, relieved.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Happy Birthday Annie Kosh!
David and I have kept a journal for Annie since before she was born, and every year on her birthday we sit together and read from it.
Below is the page I opened to this morning, written by Dave.
March 23rd, 1999
Annie,Yesterday you were 17 months old. Today, you are 17 months old and one day. Tomorrow you’ll be… I’ll stop this right now.
You were a baby the last time I wrote in this book, Part I, and now you’re a toddler, already leaning way to the side of “Kidness,” so far from those ancient days of infancy. (There’s a famous quote from Franklin Roosevelt, President from 1932-1945, referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, which precipitated the U.S. entry into World War II, -- He said of that date, December 7th, 1941, that it was “A day that would live in infamy.” I’m telling you all this just so I can get in a bad pun—“A day that will live in infancy.”)
No more days of infancy. It’s strange and wonderful to see what a person you’ve become.
Last Sunday (Which was the first day of spring), we had a little brunch. Uncle Danny, Josh Cohen, Susan Brown, and Heather and Mark Nutting with their 4-month-old baby Ian, were our guests.
You were fascinated with Ian, squatting over him as Heather changed his diaper on the rug. I watched you do this and I felt a sadness I couldn’t describe. It took me a day to figure it out, but here it is: Separation. Your mom and I refer to you as “The Baby”—How’s the baby? Is the baby sleeping? Is the baby crying? But here you were—“The Baby”—studying another baby, seeing him as one smaller than yourself, younger than yourself—someone who came AFTER you. That’s a big concept, and I don’t know if you entirely grasp it, but you certainly have a piece of it.
This little baby was different from you, at another level of babyness, and you sensed it. You’re becoming distinct, an individual, an observer of the world around you. There is an Annie Kosh in the world now. You have a Self. You’re an “I” and a “Me.” You’re on your way. You live with us and we love you and take care of you, but your life is your own. Your experiences are yours only. That’s how it should be, but still, I felt a little sad.
You’re such a treasure to us, such a delight, even when you are miserable and you’re changing and growing so quickly, --we just want to hold on a little, slow things down so we can absorb the wonder of you. But I have a feeling that your wonderfulness is so immense that we could never fully absorb it. So we have to go for the ride, learn to live with the fact that you exceed all the boundaries and edges. You are uncontainable—our love for you is uncontainable, hence the little ache every time we look at you. It’s the wonderful ache of our hearts stretching past infinity.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Go-Going, Going, Gone!
Sold! (to me) A pair in pink, one in red, and another in white.I really need to get a job.
Friday, October 20, 2006
A Gift
I received a package today, a gift that was made just for me. Edible treats, music and more; there was even something inside for Annie.Precious time was spent on its creation, much consideration and care went into its preparation, and as I opened it, I wished to savor the moment forever.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Thursday Afternoon
I don't smoke marijuana, and the few times I did, I didn't like it. But every day around this time, its faint scent gently blows through my bedroom window, and for some reason it calms me, comforts me, and gives me a feeling of home.
Power Breakfast
Yesterday morning I wanted to scramble up 2 eggs for myself, so I cracked open the first egg and two yolks fell into the bowl! Now just for the record, in all my 43 years I have never seen such a sight and I admit, I gasped in horror. I stared into the bowl for some time, seeing the two yolks, not as breakfast, but as aborted twins. I couldn't EAT them could I? I quickly phoned David at work, expressed my concern as well as my disgust, and he assured me that since they were not fertilized eggs, there should be no reason for me to view them as anything other than, well, scrambled.
He then went on to try and lighten my mood by convincing me that if I did eat the eggs, they might actually give me super powers. (David knows how much I want to be a superhero, and he knew what kind of effect his comment would have on me.)
“You mean, I might have super chicken powers?” I asked.
“Yup,” he replied.
“I could be ‘Chicken Girl,’ I said.
“You bet,” he said.
So I hung up the phone, tossed the eggs into the pan, added a dash of salt and I ate them.
I'm still waiting...maybe the powers will come tomorrow.
Cluck......
Happy Birthday Peter!
When I was sixteen I spent 3 weeks on a 34-foot sailboat traveling the British Virgin Islands. I was with a group of friends, a useless chaperone and three crewmembers.
I'll never forget being on the Caribbean waters, listening to Peter Tosh's album "The Toughest," getting high on cheap rum, and sleeping soundly, cradled inside the massive white sails.
From "Overheard in New York"
Girl on cell: "I still don't get why you dumped him. Just 'cause you're a lesbian and he's got that thing for unicorns doesn't mean you wouldn't have been cute together."
~2nd & Avenue "A"
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
