wBillieupool Hi. My name is Kate. wArchives: -- HOME --

wTuesday, October 30, 2001 Here it is. Please, this is my poem. Don't pilfer it. I don't know if anyone even reads these posts. I don't know if anyone even knows I'm here, but if you want you can leave me your thoughts. I'd like to hear from you. Ophelia, Before the Madness So tell me - what now? Do I wait for you? Yes, I wait for you. I wait because I have the courage (unfathomable by you) to wait while boulders sink to sand, while river pebbles wear to glass and because there are stars piercing through from the night whose lights are lies. I know this about you and I don't care. What is this love that it reverberates through all of life? Even if the source is dead it still insists, knocking over those of us who wait patiently in the dark for lost loves to billow up like smoke, then disappear. I know this about you but I will wait because I can, because my attraction to you is not a violent one. You are not a flame, not a cliff, not a knife. I am not a moth, nor a lemming. There is no sadistic pleasure here, no taste for blood, no self-destructive urges. And when you sink by the weight of your own turmoil I will be quite alright so that when it is finally too much for you, when you are helpless, when you are the one drowning, you can look up from your lake and find me here always, waiting and waiting and waiting. posted by Kate at 5:11 PM w For the first time ever, a title and an image for a poem has presented itself before the actual poem has had a chance to come into existence. It's called "Ophelia, Before the Madness," and it will be all about the new advent of physical touch on someone who had kept herself so closely guarded...and the waiting and the patience. But can I write it now? I must write again. I'm walking around and I feel like ash inside. posted by Kate at 1:57 PM wMonday, October 29, 2001 Yes, there is lots to be done. And no, I haven't done it. posted by Kate at 8:58 PM w 5:00 a.m. and awakening after having fallen asleep with Richie Kate: KEYS! KEYS! KEYS! Richie: Mmph. Hrmph...rrr... Kate: KEYS! KEYS! WHERE ARE MY KEYS?!!! Richie: Mrmhmphle...Bruhmph... Kate: Richie! Hey Richie! What did you do with my keys??? Richie: Mmph. Huh? (He sits up, looks at me, kisses me on the cheek, and then lies back down) Kate: RICHIE! WHERE ARE MY KEYS?!!! Richie: Mrhmphhhhh...Frumph...FRUMPHLE! Kate: What? Richie: FRIMPH...FRIMPHLE...FRIMPHER!!!! Kate: Huh? Richie: FRIMPHER...FRIMPHER...FIMPHER!!!!!!! Kate: OH! Finger! I'm on your finger? OH GOD, I'm on your finger! Sorry... He then got up and retrieved my keys. As I was walking toward the door he pulled me into the bathroom, pointed to the mirror and said, "look." I can tell you there couldn't have been a sadder looking pair of people looking back at us...rumpled and sleepy and irritated. Oh well, at least I got a kiss on the cheek out of it. posted by Kate at 12:08 AM wThursday, October 25, 2001 A mood far too sober, blackberry merlot rememberings and Ani DiFranco echoeing all the while... I see you and I'm so perplexed. What was I thinking? What will I think of next? Where can I hide? In the back room there's a lamp that hangs over the pool table. When the fan is on its wings, gently, side to side, there's a changing constellation of balls as we are playing. See Orion and say nothing. The only thing I can think to say is fuck you and your untouchable face and fuck you for existing in the first place and who am I that I should be vying for your touch and who am I. I bet you can't even tell me that much. posted by Kate at 3:00 PM wWednesday, October 24, 2001 I love my mother. posted by Kate at 12:22 PM wTuesday, October 23, 2001 What I hadn't realized is that I've been rebounding for quite some time. Now I'm in very real danger of jeopardizing some really great potential friendships. Complications inevitably arrise between inter-gender friendships. It's so hard to keep it platonic, and then sometimes I myself slip up and find myself wanting more...makes me wonder about my tendency to make mostly male friends. Of course, my really close friends are all female: Bonnie, Miranda, my sister, even Sarah...but, uh....the list stops there. Everyone else I hang out with is definitely very male. I enjoy it; most certainly I do. Guys are the greatest. They're refreshing and fun and entertaining and, for the most part, very honest. But I still feel, sometimes, as if though a great majority of my friendships with guys revolves around that ever omnipresent potential of date-ability. And to a certain extent that annoys me a little even though I do, I definitely, definitely do enjoy the attention I recieve...for the most part. But there comes a time when I just want to shut them all up. Yes, you've told me I'm cute and I know what parts of my body you find attractive and I know it's all in harmless fun, but I'm so much more than what my appearance is, and even though my friends are my friends for my intellect sometimes I still long to divorce the physical from the mental because physical attraction just seems to muck things up. Yes, I'm on the rebound. I don't quite understand why I'm acting like I am right now. I'm sorry if I hurt you. posted by Kate at 2:30 PM wSunday, October 21, 2001 Sometimes, just because two people like each other very much, it doesn't mean they can ever successfully date. posted by Kate at 7:58 PM wSaturday, October 20, 2001 Red Mountain Dew, tuna and crackers, a brief interlude with Richie (I do like that boy), romping about in the Arboretum after dark, stumbling through overgrown trails, pretending to be in a bad spy/war movie, hitting Scott up for entertainment, retiring to our respective dorm rooms, Animal Planet blaring on the TV, heavy lidded discontent...it's only 10:00 and I'm so tired... Tomorrow: dress up and look nice for once and then off with Scott to the choir concert. After that: world, surprise me. posted by Kate at 10:16 PM wFriday, October 19, 2001 Just now I danced very badly to Moby's remix of the James' Bond theme song - exhilerating. I also took a 5 hour nap this afternoon. My life seems to consist of boring, normal days, mucked full of deadlines, petty obligations and small talk; my nights however... Last night I was simply scooped up into someone's arms and carried across a room. It was if I was no more than a small child, and I realized that for all my pretenses of being tough and self-sufficient (and much heavier than I actually look) I really am relatively small and helpless. Messes. I am constantly engaging myself in messes. You can't imagine how beautiful the stars were at 4:00 a.m. posted by Kate at 7:46 PM wThursday, October 18, 2001 Because this is all at once where I want to be and what I want not to be and how I want the will of words to bend in my fingers and how I know they truly bend me and why I love it and abhor it all within the same breath... "Under One Small Star" My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all. Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths. I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m. Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time. Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water. And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage, your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed. My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs. My apologies to great questions for small answers. Truth, please don't pay me much attention. Dignity, please be magnanimous. Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train. Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then. My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man. I know I won't be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light. -Wislawa Szymborska posted by Kate at 4:46 PM wWednesday, October 17, 2001 Walking back from French, I was suddenly submersed in a wind swirl of dead leaves. I swear sometimes I have my own private weather. posted by Kate at 12:40 PM wTuesday, October 16, 2001 Pulled another one of those surreally strange nights: talking of everything and nothing at once with whomever would listen...mostly Richie and Snyder and sometimes Miranda. I felt simultaneously involved and alienated - nothing unusual; I feel like that often, but it was magnified last night somehow. Somewhere in the haze of exhaustion, of M&M cookies and the audacity of being totally groped by Richie, of ludicrously deep conversation, of the innocence of Frank's wagging puppy-dog, of jadedly recieved compliments and insights once more into the male mind...somewhere within all this I simply dumped myself onto the carpet and then without making any sort of fuss whatsoever, gathered myself back up and locked it all tight within again. I wonder if anyone noticed... posted by Kate at 1:17 PM wSaturday, October 13, 2001 Gone pud-muddle jumping! What homework? posted by Kate at 10:11 PM wFriday, October 12, 2001 Hello Friday. No rest for a while. Just play and work. I don't mind it too much. I've got 3 packets of poems out in the mail, circulating through some cold, impersonal editor's office soon. It's a soul-sucking process - this writer's plea for a chance, a forum. I will write much more as soon as I can breathe and stop this rushing around, as soon as I can quit passing out the moment I stop. Hopefully I will be able to see Apocolypse Now Redux tonight. Hopefully, hopefully. Saturday will be mad fun, full of shopping for Halloween and spending time with my mom and sister and Miranda, and then the madness will begin: french exam to be studied for, science project to be finished (and begun by the way). Sunday I'll be at war with the natural world again. Tell me what it's like to canoe 6 miles down a river? I don't know either, and that's why I'm going. posted by Kate at 12:42 PM w 56 rejections. I have been sporadically submitting poems to magazines for almost 4 years now. I have 56 rejections and 5 acceptances. When I ponder on the nature of this it seems that I am crazy: who airs their demons out in public, much less submits them for criticism on an acceptance/rejection level? Apparently I do. The rejections don't even phase me anymore. They don't. They do. Let's put this week to rest. I have a weekend to begin. lately i have been feeling sorry for all the opportunities missed. there are many. many things i should have done. many people i should have known. many places i should have gone. the flip side of this is when one flings oneself headfirst into the drama one often gets hurt. eh, josh? ...not fair. he didn't mean it. this isn't even about him anymore. posted by Kate at 1:02 AM wThursday, October 11, 2001 Because I am bored, because French homework is so utterly unappealing to me right now, and because I seem to really like to talk about myself...well, here goes: PERSONAL STATS: Given (First) name: Katharine Middle name: Billieu Nicknames: Kate (really everybody calls me Kate), Katie (if you want to piss me off), Martin Peas (a reference to the philosophical nature of my personality as expressed in Candide), and Kato (hi Dad). Screen names: kabillieu Heritage: mostly Scottish/Irish Mayflower Pilgrim, a little French as well. Birthday/Age: May 29th, 1982...I'm all of 19. Zodiac sign: one of those pesky Geminis. Place of birth: Alexander City, AL Height: 5''4'. Eye color: dull blue or blazing swimming pool blue. they're hardly ever inbetween. Hair color/cut: a natural dirty blonde. very, very, very short. I like it that way. Tattoos/body piercing: nope. I used to have pierced ears, but that landed me in the emergency room at 10:00 one night...yeah, it was brutal. Shoe size: 7 1/2 Normal style of dress: total granola crunchy earth muffin. very casual. jeans are god's gift to mankind. I will marry my Birks one day. WHAT: Is your stance on abortion? very pro-choice, though god help me if I'm ever actually in the position to make such a weighty decision. Is your good luck charm? the silver music note necklace my friend, Audra, gave me in 11th grade. Do you want to name your kids? Jane, if I ever have a girl. I haven't explored the possiblities of boys' names yet. Do you like to do for fun? um...hang out with my fun, goofy friends, go on weekend excursions/adventures, other things too...heh heh...oooohhhh... Do you think about Ouija boards? I had one once. might still have it, in fact. Famous person do people say you look like? no one in particular. though I have had several people tell me I look like a little elf. Are you afraid of? failure. rejection. powdery laundry detergent. "business" phone calls. small talk. cancer. apathy. stupidity. a world without chapstick. cars. bank tellers. and spider bites. Are you wearing right now? Union Bay jeans. my favorite blue baby tee. 3 rings. a watch. 2 homemade bead bracelets. my music note necklace. bra: white and Wal-Mart. underoos: blue and Victoria's Secret. Is the most romantic thing someone has ever done for you? not really big on romance. perhaps nobody's really ever treated me in a romantic fashion and I just don't know what I'm missing. but the best thing any guy's ever said to me was, "I wanted to because I have so much fun with you," right after he kissed me for the first time. Do you think of roller coasters? hell yeah. (oooo but the straight down drops scare the bejesus out of me). Is on the walls of your room? my hand-painted bulletin board and a blown-up-to-poster-size framed picture my mom took of a stained glass window in Georgia. I used to have my one and only water color hung up too, but then one day it fell off the wall and hit me on the head. that hurt. Is under your bed? tupperware boxes of...stuff. drooling, red-eyed dust bunnies. Is your lucky number? 2 Is your dream car? ha. yeah right. if it gets me from point a to b and has air conditioning i LOVE it. Career are you going to pursue? free lance writing. poetry...sigh. I do like to eat so...*shakes head* Was your favorite thing to do when you were little? dress up like Sleeping Beauty or Maid Marion and entertain myself for hours in my magic make-believe lands. Would you do if you saw your guy/girl flirting with someone? get pissed. re-examine our relationship. HAVE YOU EVER: Drank: yes, though never excessively. Smoked no. Gotten high? on M&Ms and exhaustion, yes. Come close to dying? no, but I have been given a survival rate before. 98%. not bad, except for that pesky 2% always lurking in the bushes somewhere. Told someone you loved him or her? never outside of my immediate family, and even that is hard. Cried for no reason? there's always a reason. things build up and if the fact that I can't find my left shoe releases the floodgates one day then so be it. Betrayed a friend? no. I hope I never do. Broken the law? of course. Ran away from home? no. Broken a bone? no. Played strip poker? hah! yeah RIGHT! I'm terrible at card games. I'd be naked in 2 seconds. Played "Truth or Dare"? yep. Been in a fight? nuh-uh. girl-fights are so tacky. though I would definitely defend myself... Been out of the U.S.? does the Bahamas count? Ridden in a fire truck? sadly enough, no. Been on a plane? a small private one, yes. I got to, like, steer it for 5 seconds! Been convicted of a crime? unless you count my one speeding ticket, no. Been in love? infatuated? yes. in love? no. Thought about changing your name? no. I really like my name. Had a scary experience in the ocean? nah. Been hurt by someone you really cared about? yeah...yeah...yes. Said, "I love you" to someone and not meant it? never. WHERE: Do you hang out the most? my itsy-teeny dorm room, the TKE house...I do a lot of wandering, but not much hanging for the most part. Is the farthest from home you've been (without your parents)? Tennessee. Is the farthest from home you've been (with your parents)? Rhode Island. Is your computer? sitting atop this awful metal/woodgrain monstrosity of a desk that's built into the wall of my room. Do you do your homework? homework? Do you see yourself in five years? not sure. writing hopefully and making headway into literary respect. Do you see yourself in ten years? *refuses to think that far into future* WHO: Is your best friend? my sister. Is the most annoying? I avoid annoying people. Is always there for you? physically? my parents, god bless them. mentally and emotionally? I've learned to rely only on myself. Is like a sister/brother? yeah, that would be my sister and brother. Knows you the best? ha. good luck with that one. Who do you look up to? my mom. my dad. my sister. Miranda. Who are your closest friends? Bonnie. Carrie. Miranda. Scott. and John, even though he's been distant for a long time. FAVORITES: Color? blue. Smell? the afterscents of people: after they're long gone and yet you can still smell them even when the scent should be long worn away. Word? I don't have a favorite particular word. but I am completely and utterly in love with everything about language: the images, the structures, the way it feels spoken aloud...such a dork, I am. Food? jesus, anything homecooked right about now. Cereal? I honestly don't really like cereal. Apple Jacks if someone has a knife to my throat. Sorbet? when have I ever eaten sorbet? Vegetable? far, far too many to decide. Candy? peach rings, M&Ms, Mike and Ike's, kisses: Hershey's, Reeses Peices. Drink? Coke, chocolate milk, 2 %, water, Dole's strawberry juice, mmmm... Restaurant? don't really have one. Movie? not going there. TV show? when I do watch TV, which is practically never, Jackass, anything with Brak in it, Sports Night, uhhhh...Gilmore Girls (come on, I have to have my estrogen fix). Magazine? Time and Poetry. Comic Strip? Zits, Mutts, and (faithfully, faithfully) Calvin and Hobbes. Thing to talk about? bunches and bunches and bunches of things. bunches. Animal? cheetahs. Sport? I can stand baseball. I have an admiration for soccer. (I love to watch ice skating). Season? spring. Holiday? I do love Christmas. Inside joke? superpsychofreakythunderbootysisters. blueberry waffle orgasms. the wig store burned. posted by Kate at 9:39 PM w Smell: Febreeze because I've been over at the house again and in the midst of all the sociables and their cancer sticks. Funny how I really thought I wanted to socialize too. It's been such a mucky week already, and I've been stuck inside my dorm room with obligations since Sunday night, but really all I wanted was a talk, a sorting, a time to air my brain out. Thank you Scott. This weekend I'm going canoeing. posted by Kate at 2:35 AM wMonday, October 08, 2001 It was a good weekend. Simple. Good. I felt loved and loved and loved and loved. I think it will be a nice week. I hope. posted by Kate at 12:08 AM wFriday, October 05, 2001 Crushable. I am. Exhaustive wrestling matches with Ritchie. Stumble in at 7:00 a.m. Sleep...maybe two hours? Class. Two hour drive home. Doctor appointment. i am so dissappointed with the way my back healed. so tired of doctor appointments. tired of this helplessness that cancer spreads. Then family time. Explaining to my mom that I'm not dating Josh anymore, that I'm having trouble keeping food down and nausea seems commonplace now. My dad yelling at me over my checkbook fiasco. The supper I barely ate. The two hour drive back to Troy. Dark. Dark. Darkness. Over to the TKE house to fetch my sweater. Techno music and two unwelcome jello shots. Exhaustive wrestling matches with Ritchie. Cyclic. Bad karma. I'll feel better in the morning. Good night. posted by Kate at 1:38 AM wTuesday, October 02, 2001 How is it possible to separate love from infatuation? posted by Kate at 12:57 PM w His name was Alex and he liked me when he was sober and he liked me a lot when he was drunk. After all this I am still attractive to the opposite sex. No use in surrendering myself to nunhood quite yet. I'll be interested in dating again. I'll come around. I'll stop thinking about Josh. posted by Kate at 12:21 AM wMonday, October 01, 2001 My left shoulder is stiff and sore. Too many rocks to climb. I was laughably poor at it. When I'd finally scrambled up the trail to rappel for the first time from the face of the cliff the view winded me. Imagine: miles of rolling foothills giving way before you, sun lit trees like broccoli dissolving into shadowed pockets of darkness, a shining lake spangled with refracted sun and wedged into the forest below. It looked for all the world like a lone puddle made and forgotten by both time and the process of evaporation. I pulled the harness as tight as I could. It cinched at my waist and made me feel tiny and fragile and undeniably feminine. The wind was cool on my skin, the sun, burning bright into my eyes. Anderson hooked me up to the rope and told me to walk backwards to the edge of the cliff. I could feel infinity, like destiny, spread out beneath me, undeniable, inescapable. Initially I almost panicked as I felt myself dip over the edge. Then I stepped down and I was hanging off the side of a 93 ft. drop, my body parallel to the ground, my feet parallel to the rock. About a third of the way down I stopped and looked to my right and then to my left. It was like staring at a postcard. A human being was never meant to look at the side of a cliff from a horizontal viewpoint. There was gray rock and blue sky and green trees, and I was sideways in the air, pulling the old figurative sheep skin over gravity, crawling downward like an ant searching for purpose and a destination, feeling for all the world like I was stepping onto the glossy surface of a post card because the gray, blue, and green colors were assaulting me with their vivid potency, and I knew I wasn't allowed to see the harsh beauty of nature so closely in such an element of fundamental danger. The rock was craggy beneath me; I could feel myself fluctuate and recede, so close to being out of control and yet so controlled and all the while the rock grew above me and my left arm screamed tiny threats of betrayal as it maneuvered my speed and restraint and therefore my safety. The second time I rappelled using a single rope instead of a double rope. When I pushed off with my feet I felt like a bird for moments at a time. My wings were simply not strong enough, and for all my flapping my feet touched ground once more and here I sit, with nothing much to show for scaling a mountain other than cuts, bruises and memories that scream and a burning from within to find that place again where I can escape my own pathetically human limitations. posted by Kate at 10:13 PM