The Famous Last Word's Guide to Small Talk

After I stopped playing softball, my dad helpfully suggested that I start following professional sports, since I was "bad at small talk" and would "need something to talk about."

Look, I'm no wunderkind like Ashton Kutcher Paris Hilton Jenny McCarthy, but I think I can reasonably say that my parents have always underestimated my social skills. 

Now, some of that may be my own fault.  High school Katie didn't play the long game.  Uninterested in explaining who my friends were and where they lived, I would always just tell my parents that I was at one of two people's houses.  They're not illogical people.

They concluded that I had only two friends.

I love you Wilson.

This conclusion had consequences.  The reason they encouraged me to play a sport in college, my brother later told me, was because they thought it would force me to socialize.  "Katie only has two friends," they told him.  "This way she'll be forced out of her room."

Computers: 523891098   Parents: 0

And then I dropped softball, and my dad and I had that talk on the front porch.

His words come back to haunt me all the time.

I was told by one former co-worker, who caught me hiding at an event, that I "don't play the game."

"Baby," I cooed, "I don't play no games."

Baby I bowl but baby that is a sport.

It's true.  I don't play games.  I master them. You can therefore count yourself lucky that I will share my wisdom and help turn you into the social butterfly of every occasion. Just stick to the below topics, and the moment, as they say in France, will be perdu a jamais¹.

So you think I have....oh. Oh.

From: XXXX, Victoria
To: XXXX, Katie
Subject: Wide calf boots

I want wide calf boots for xmas, but have been on the hunt and seems impossible.  i am hesitant to order online for the hassle of returning when they most likely won't fit.  Have you found any?  I'm also slightly giggly about the fact that they call it "wide shaft" boot. Ha ha ha.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From: XXXX, Katie
To: XXXX, Victoria
Subject: Re: Wide calf boots

Was this suposed to be for me?

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From: XXXX, Victoria
To: XXXX, Katie
Subject: Re: Wide calf boots

yeah!  We both have soccer girl calves.  Have you found any good boots?

How Not to Reassure a Cynic

As the black Santa Claus who worked at Macy's in December of 1990 can attest, I am an extremely skeptical person.

For the past several months I've been enduring chronic lower back pain. It's nothing close to a demon drilling into my eye, more along the lines of a troublesome imp kicking my lumbar. A gremlin rotating my spinal discs, or perhaps a lesser goblin operating a gondola service through my spinal canal.

The best treatment to chronic lower back pain,  people smarter than me say, is to see a Chiropractor. The cynic inside me was yelling "let me out, I have a family! I'll give you anything!" and also something about chiropractors not being medical doctors. As stubborn of a skeptic as I am, I'm open minded enough to try most anything at least once. Plus my insurance covers it.

Suddenly, mobile.

And this year's Halloween costume just creates itself.

For the record, I'm under 30.

Yep, that's the new home oxygen tank.  Complete with 25 feet of tubing for your home oxygen comfort!


Cat: i'm about to go to walgreens and get you some slippers, a house coat and some cigs
oh can you start using motorized carts at stores now!??!

with your tank strapped on to the back!?!?

can i if you wont!?!?

beep beep!

(that's my motorized shopping cart)

Me: omg maybe i can get handicapped parking??

Cat: a handicapped designated driver.

you are the best friend ever!

Today's another day.

So I admit to you all that I have nothing much to post today.  I've been up since 3:30 am with another cluster headache hospital run; I'm at work.  Not quite sure if the head fuzzies are a result of being up since the before-mentioned hour or because my head is still doing weird, cluster-related things.  Oh well.  But I swore something would be posted here everyday, so post I will. 

Katie: my hope is that we can get an oxygen tank in the apartment today so that we can both start getting a good night's sleep

Sal: See if you can also get a tank of helium, too.

Sal: Maybe they have a special

Sal: BOGO, you know?

 

 

 

Cluster Headaches Redux

Further, I did not care for this film.

Reliving the worst experience of your life is never fun.

Catch y'all on the flip side.  Speculation as to my real whereabouts is promptly encouraged.

An Open Letter to My Officemate: I don't like you.

Dear Officemate,

I don't like you.

For a while I thought I just didn't know you.  There you sat, sometimes chatty but mostly quiet. We said good morning to each other and made bland remarks about the office temperature (usually too cold).

But you've worn out my last nerve, officemate.

I hate your stupid polite telephone laugh, exactly three syllables long each time.  Do laughs even have syllables?  The fact that I'm questioning this makes me hate you all the more.

I see you checking my computer screen and judging whether or not it is directly work-related.  And don't think I don't see you checking your Netflix queue.  Your double-screen placement isn't nearly as good as mine.

Officemate, you think you're so superior.  You with your organized  box of work shoes under your desk and your collection of extra umbrellas in case any of the higher-ups need one during a rainy day.  Kiss ass.

And dammit, I can hear you smugly eating your salad at me.  I don't care about your nutritionally-savvy lunch choices, nor does it impress me that I have never seen you buy a lunch.  Ooooh look at you with your organized mornings spent both ironing and getting your lunch together.  Ooooh look at you, getting to work "on time" and then "staying late."  I know your game, officemate, and I'm still leaving at 5. 

Oh, and how about that time I was sick, and you were the only one-- the only one!!-- in the office who didn't ask how I was feeling when I returned.  Like you didn't even know I was gone!  I'll remember that slight the next time you're out sick, officemate, and you'll see how YOU like it.

Not that you're ever out sick. 

I want the book back I lent you.

Most sincerely,
Your Disgruntled Officemate

Cluster Headaches, or A Demon is Drilling Into My Eyeball, or How I Spent My Columbus Day Weekend

In this particular image, the dying natives on the bottom symbolize the left side of my head.  Also, genocide.

This post gets a little long, so I'll wait until you're ready.

Ready?

So last Thursday night I woke up from was electrocuted out of a dead sleep to an incredibly intense pain on the left side of my head, coupled with the feeling that something was savagely twisting my eyeball from the inside.  I stumbled into the bathroom and took two ibuprofen (for only your harshest eyeball twists), and eventually managed to fall back to sleep.

Sometime later-- at what now can be assumed was around 6 am-- I awoke again, this time to the same type of pain, except, if possible, a hundred times worse.  I thrashed around in my bed in agony, unable to control my own body--

Realistic.

--for what felt like forever before I had the strength to get up and take more ibuprofen, which didn't really help.  Eventually I fell back to sleep, but then woke up shortly after to get ready for work.

I thought it was all a dream until I saw the open Costco bottle of ibuprofen on the counter.

Not realistic.

Now, David was gone from Thursday morning until Sunday, first on a religious retreat, and then away to a bachelor party.

Same thing.

So I was left to my own devices.

My left eye felt strained during the day, nothing too severe.  Certainly nothing to prevent me from having some friends over for dinner and to collectively go through "a few" bottles of wine.

What we now know is that alcohol can trigger my particular condition.