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

wMonday, April 29, 2002 Ought to be asleep. God knows this week will offer little chance to sleep soundly, not until the required brain calisthenics of Thursday have been exhausted, at least. Must admit that last week was lovely. Brief itinerary for the environmental club's earth week: Monday: Tie-dye t-shirts for club profits. Sell only four t-shirts, all of which are pity purchases. Oh well. Tuesday: Clean and spruce up beautiful, winding forest trail behind Troy Elementary. Add one weed eater to repertoire of mastered power tools (gas powered, thank you). Discover to wild delight that the area behind Troy Elementary is the hilliest in all of south Alabama. Remember how much you miss the rolling hills of North Alabama in this land of dry and listlessly flat cow pastures and pollen dusted pine trees. Not that there's necessarily a surplus of deciduous hardwood in north Alabama either... Wednesday: Meet in the arboretum for more trail clean up. Turn (quite inexplicably) into a terribly unproductive member of the club. Refuse to muddy cherished Birkenstocks in a rank stream lined by beer bottles and discarded socks (I think people have been having sex in the forest most probably, or maybe, by evidence of progressing clothing items found, there's a naked man loose in the woods). Act like a girl. Feel quite unapologetic for it. Eat a hamburger. Gorge on the best strawberries ever, ever. Watch, first, as a weary spectator as the entire club unravels in the raucous throes of a water gun fight. Get blasted in the mouth by fellow environmental enthusiast and former friend. Say to hell with it. Become water gun-toting Rambo. Revel in the power. Thursday: Photo op with the mayor and a young elm tree freshly planted in park downtown. Learn a few useful things about planting trees. Main objective, though: to keep top of sundress in place. Result: questionable. Friday: Photo op with chancellor and a freshly planted young dogwood in obscure location on campus. When introducing yourself to the chancellor, temporarily forget you have a last name. Conversation goes as follows: Kate: "I'm Kate..."(shake hands with chancellor). Chancellor: "Oh, I'll remember that. I have one of those myself." Kate: "FERGUSON!!!! Kate Ferguson." Apparently, chancellor either has a daughter like-named Kate...or perhaps a dog. Either way, this is the third time you've introduced yourself to him, so you are quite sure he will not remember your name no matter what he otherwise claims. Items consumed this weekend: 1 whole (excluding one last slice) apple pie 1 pint of vanilla ice cream (atop pie) 1 beautiful plate of spaghetti (Prego bottle strenuously bought by me, noodles laboriously boiled by me) 1 salad filled with good things like mushrooms and cherry tomatoes and shredded cheese...and, oh yeah, lettuce 5 pieces (I think) of garlic butter french bread toast (again laboriously bought, cut, buttered, and garlic powdered by yours truly) 1 Sho'Nuff barbeque baked potato 1 hot dog 1 side of baked beans 1 unidentifiable side of something green and leafy (spinach? It was prepackaged and frozen. Give me a break.) Calories consumed: None of your business. Defense taken: I'll sweat it all off this summer. Ha! Other news: am suddenly stricken by strange exhaustion. Result: Goodnight. posted by Kate at 1:34 AM wSunday, April 28, 2002 Lately, all I can think of is how much I want to scream. There are so many wheedling little frustrations inside me, and they've finally been pent up long enough so that by now they're terribly pissed off, whispering little demons in my ear constantly, "kick some ass..." I never thought I would have to so deliberately and routinely control the constant urge of my limbs to forget their tact and reserve and lash out violently. Be afraid, peeps. I feel like I could give the smack down to anyone one of you at any time. ;-) posted by Kate at 11:26 PM wTuesday, April 23, 2002 The first freckles of summer have appeared on my nose. I mailed my camp counselor contract for summer today. Loose ends are being tied, one by one. I have one more paper to write and four finals to study for. This weekend I'm going home to a house empty of one brother, one sister, one mother, and one father. My cat and I are gonna chill on the couch all ding dong day long. We just might watch some movies too. posted by Kate at 2:41 PM wMonday, April 22, 2002 Bonnie: Do you think we'll do this next year? Kate: I'm always going to do things like this. I'm never gonna grow up. I'm going to be a little kid forever. In fact, if I ever have children it will be just a big excuse for me to play in an excusable grown up way. Bonnie: That's good. That's a good reason to have kids. Flew kites in the administration parking lot right outside of dorm sweet dorm, my poor little defective bird of a kite looping and swirling and thunking onto the cracked pavement. A nap and a couple of strawberry popsicles later, and now I'm blabbering about my very uneventful day. Next week will be a trial. Every single day is a countdown, a bittersweet latching onto of another year and way of life that will never quite be the same ever again. I'm going crazy, though. I need some massive rearrangements in order to remain a somewhat bearable person. Also. I have a guestbook now. Make me a very happy girl. Use it. ;-) posted by Kate at 1:59 AM wSunday, April 21, 2002 Picking and picking the bobby pins from my hair... Massive curls, springing from my scalp, lassoed back by the pins, some sprinkled with gold glitter on krazy glue, just to make me feel special. Tonight Scott took me to the Red Carnation Ball. Haven't looked this nice in years, I think. Almost feel bad as the last pin comes out, hair falling down into my eyes. After so many months of painstakingly growing it out, I am thankful that I have hair long enough to spiral out of control and then fall, helplessly, into my eyes. Dinner was nice. Dimly lit room, the carnation I left there, accidentally, blood red embracing the cloth napkins like some cheesy romance novel cover. People speaking and speaking, to me also...I just never realized. Weird to be in a dress. Weird to feel pretty after so long of feeling ugly, ugly, ugly. I know I am pretty sometimes, and tonight was sometime...after the hair, after the makeup, after the right dress. After so long of looking in the mirror and not seeing myself... Now I am so incredibly tired. Chugging water like everyone I've ever known has disapproved of...being fickle and cranky and picky. Sleep is like some foreign body of water, moving in now in lapidary waves. I love it. And water and this drunkenness that will not end. I'm sorry. No I'm not. posted by Kate at 2:33 PM wThursday, April 18, 2002 Perhaps you are tired of hearing this, but my back is an old battlefield, and sometimes I forget that I fight a constant war with the sun until I pick up a smaller mirror and reflect myself from a larger mirror, and then I remember all over again that I have to be careful. It's staring right back at me, right there - angry, red, slashing, and gaping - a crater, my own little Hiroshima, skin cells obliterated from the taut skin of my back in one massive surgical sweep and only a very small few of them actually cancerous. posted by Kate at 9:26 PM wWednesday, April 17, 2002 Sometimes, when I am still enough, and sitting down with my knees drawn up against my chest and my head tilted down slightly, sometimes I can feel my blood pulsing and then my whole body pulsing and I close my eyes and I am nothing but rhythmic movement, rocking, just my body, rocking, moving apart from any conscious consent. My body is vibrantly alive even when I am tired and want to not be for a moment - as if my atoms could disolve and give my body a break from the constant pressure of holding itself so tightly together. Often I am reminded of what little control I have over everything...most of all myself. posted by Kate at 1:36 AM wTuesday, April 16, 2002 Oxford scholarship finally submitted, job application mailed, decision to try Intro Drawing one more time made... breathe, Kate, breathe Speech to be written, fall schedule to be arranged, plans for weekend to be made, paper to be written, tests to be studied for, articulation video to be watched, passport to apply for... posted by Kate at 5:01 PM wMonday, April 15, 2002 first the poem by Linda Pastan: To a Daughter Leaving Home When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you as you wobbled away on two round wheels, my own mouth rounding in surprise when you pulled ahead down the curved path of the park, I kept waiting for the thud of your crash as I sprinted to catch up, while you grew smaller, more breakable with distance, pumping, pumping for your life, screaming with laughter, the hair flapping behind you like a handkerchief waving goodbye. and then my response: To Mother from a Daughter Leaving Home I hated you for taking the training wheels from my pink and white bike because I was already too old (eight can be ancient) to not be versed in the delicate balance of wheels on pavement or the way my body should know just how far to lean in during the smooth swoop of a curve like some graceful hawk circling down to perch and other children always laughing sun-speckled and pumping though tree lined streets though I knew it was always raining, even the sun, raining. I fell in the crusty slip of loose gravel until, disgusted, you left me to it which was better anyhow. Later, bumping through the springy downhill pastures of my backyard, I would teach myself the secret ways of bicycles and limbs sprawling and sprawling in wet grass. You weren’t even there when, finally, I pushed myself free from the soil. Saturday, I took Carrie to orchestra practice in Montgomery. Afterward, to celebrate her 16th birthday, we ate at a nice restaurant, and then I took her to the mall and bought glitter hair spray for her. I wore a freshly picked pink flower in my hair until it wilted, bought a gigantic butterfly ring in pretty pastel blue, and made a sprawling mess with with chocolate covered donuts in the floor bed of my car. My 16 year old sister rolled her eyes and said, "Kate, I can't take you anywhere." posted by Kate at 7:13 PM wFriday, April 12, 2002 Suddenly, my blog has sprung into a feeble and certainly unpredicted notoriety. I had done so much jawing about the process of blogging that my friends finally actually took an active interest in it and looked up billieupool themselves. The result: plenty of taunting and bellyjelly. So here's one more blog for you to enjoy, straight from the mind of my lovably kooky and creative friend, Sarah. The world shudders with fear as Kate and her computer-illiterate compadres prepare to conquer the web! Also, I'd love to implement a commenting system but can't seem to get anything to work. If anyone has any suggestions please email me. posted by Kate at 1:49 AM wThursday, April 11, 2002 Juice, grapes, and strawberry popsicles... Let no man (or woman) come between me and my comfort foods. posted by Kate at 4:28 PM w Joy stopped me in the Adam's Center today. Seems she saw a mutual highschool friend of ours during spring break - a chance meeting at a local restaurant. So now, for the first time in a year, I have access to John's email address. I've purposefully let him slip through my fingers since high school. And now I have the oppurtunity to see what's still left, what's still there, who he's become, who he still isn't. And I still don't quite know if I want to know. His memory is such a complicated ghost. posted by Kate at 1:12 PM wTuesday, April 09, 2002 Decided to post another poem. This one is...I'm having a hard time letting go of it. There is such anger behind it, rage really... I feel childish for being this sullen, this unwilling to come to terms with something that hasn't even really interfered with my life very much. It's just that I feel so betrayed sometimes - by the sun (a deep-seated love affair within itself) and by my own skin - its tendency toward, well, systematic decay. Tattoo One Year After Melanoma It was tiny, really, delicate orange so that you almost didn't notice it in the white nape of her neck, nestled there, just before the giving way of her upper back. A tiny sun for light in rain or fog or dark or any other place that could suggest death lurking there somewhere in the shadows where you couldn't even see it, waiting, which is why she chose a sun to see by and light the ragged sprawl of the scar below it, that terrible artwork of no one's consent. posted by Kate at 5:57 PM w Mocha coffee icey. An actual attempt to be socially polite on a quick errand to purchase aforementioned icey. The very receptive attentions of an attractive almost-stranger. Afterward, a little privacy, time alone and room to breathe. Sometimes, I am very easy to please. Which is why I'm going to reward myself with a nap. :-) *Caffeine kicks in* Okay...maybe not. posted by Kate at 4:08 PM wSunday, April 07, 2002 Geeze, such an unproductive weekend, scholastically speaking at least. I did nothing to further (or begin in some cases) work on my two impending papers or my Oxford scholarship application. What else? Schedules for fall 2002, job application for camps, applying for a passport, writing and writing because, really, my output is so pathetic... I did, however, take care of some much needed fun and me time. Friday, I cooked microwaved broccoli and reheated Wal-Mart chicken fingers. A half a bowl of grapes and a Bridget Jone's Diary later I was snoozing away. Saturday Scott called me and we went to Montgomery together. I found an 11$ pair of gold sandals for my formal dress (they're cool, really, and so cheap: they have clear wedges for heals! Should go nicely with my red and gold paisley strapless and my silk Japanese purse ;-). Afterward, we went to the Shakespeare Festival grounds. Glorious sunny blue weather + happy families with kites + paired off lovers with picnic baskets + the odd couple of Scott and me traipsing about on the rolling green lawns = slightly elated Kate with lots of energy and slightly carbonated tendencies. I'm annoyingly full of bubbly sometimes. We walked over to the art museum and visited for a while. There was a very enlightening portrait exhibit full of a wonderful assortment of famous characters. My favorites: Marianne Moore, T.S. Eliot, Tallulah Bankhead, and Andy Warhol's Michael Jackson. Back in Troy I ate more of everything I ate Friday night. Watched the Disney Channel, cried a little bit and went to sleep. This morning Sarah drove up from Enterprise and together we drove to the Montgomery Zoo. We ate picnic lunches on the bleachers beside our makeshift parking space in a sports plex, gaped at the cheetahs and tigers, spied on a really hot fireman, argued over which one of us he had been checking out (it was Sarah, no contest - she's thisclose to getting a modeling contract), rode the train, ate two very disappointing and bitter snow cones, bought postcards from the gift shop, then drove all the way home, tired, sticky, sun-soaked and satisfied. Mmmm... Weekends. Ah... posted by Kate at 9:28 PM w Oh my god...Jimmy Eat World just gave the most incredible performance on SNL. Not their first single...the one they must have just released or are just about to release. More and more often songs are beginning to just take me out...I'll be minding my own business, driving or straightening my room or whatever and then all of the sudden...WOAH! Like a punch in the face - Alison Krauss, Dashboard Confessional, A Perfect Circle... Music is so incredible. If I had a job maybe I could buy more CDs... So I was reading bluelikethat's beautiful blog (5 pts for alliteration) and she linked to a poetry workshop for undergrads. There's nothing quite like planning ahead, and it sounds so interesting so maybe I'll get that aforementioned job during next school year (since all of the money I'll make from this summer will go to my still tentatively planned England trip) and try my pen in Pennsylvania (more alliteration and *gasp* an almost-pun which is even worse than a genuine pun). There are fellowships awarded, but I'll still need spending money. And there are so many CDs to buy... My summer is finally congealing into a somewhat concrete entity. I'm almost 100% sure I'll be working at Camp ASCCA and Camp Civitan. I worked both places two years ago, and...it was hard. Hard because I worked 24 hours a day, hard because I was dumped into the middle of it without any training, hard because I'd never been the new girl ever, hard because I did things like dress my campers, give them showers, change their diapers...hard. And I'm going to do it all again for very selfish reasons, because the alternative is going home and working a job in retail all summer long. Fluorescent lights, folding clothes, customer service, clock in, clock out, go home, bed, work...ugh. I just can't do it. Maybe someday I'll have to because I'll have to feed, house, and clothe myself all by myself, but for now I'm very lucky and I have parents who have agreed to support my little leeching butt all the way through college (but not grad school) as long as I keep the scholarships rolling in and make 'em proud every now and then. Sooooooo that means I'm going to have fun jobs for as long as I can. And as hard as both camps will be they will also be fun. I'll get to play. On my breaks I'll get to swim and tube and ski on the lake. I'll get my weekends off. I'll get to meet new people from all over. And I'll love my campers. I'll love them and I'll try not to but I will anyway. I've grown up slightly since my camp summer two years ago. So I think I'll be okay this go 'round. Well, not okay, but at least I won't shut down like last summer and become a human robot; at least I'll feel something, even if it is sadness and frustration and sometimes just plain anger because I'm exceptionally lucky to be as bright and healthy as I am. And I don't quite understand why my campers deserve anything less than to have just as many chances in life as I will. posted by Kate at 12:31 AM wFriday, April 05, 2002 Testing. posted by Kate at 2:41 AM w So when I wake up the morning after my last blog, I'm hyper conscious like I never went to sleep. I shower, go to my 8 a.m., come back and work frantically on my speech outline, finishing it just in time to shimmy into my black and rose sundress, grab my backpack and lope across campus to the symphony band's annual children’s' concert. The children are noisy and multitudinous, fidgeting and grinning, little energetic squirmings in the black of the cold auditorium. I connect the joints of my clarinet and someone coughs and then they all cough, little phlegmy scatterings and gigglings - some great enthusiastic secret, fun grown-ups just don't get. (It's a future symptom of mob mentality, and also, just because I love children doesn't mean that I've forgotten what political little beings they are from the beginning). But the energy is good. I smile. I laugh too. Any disenchantment I've had with music this year immediately melts from my flesh as soon as we begin to play. Children don't have manners, they have unbridled enthusiasm. Music is a highly interactive art, and it deserves so much more than the sterile reception it receives from so many formal concerts. Its demand for audience participation makes music the most accessible art form...ever. Name one person you know who doesn't like music in any way. I dare you. Yeah, I thought so. So here I am, high with music, high with playing for little ears that don't care for names, key signatures, or technical complexity, that care only for the energy behind the songs that makes them so accessible, so immediately fun and beautiful. And they clap and whoop and sing and shriek...and and and it's lovely. Afterward, on my way to the band room to lock up my clarinet I pass a line of children waiting to load a school bus. One little boy with a star burst of freckles on his nose and scruffy hair the color of baled straw looks up at me, squints in the sun, smiles and says, "Thank you." I manage to mumble a "welcome." I'm bursting all over inside. I feel like music. And that hasn't happened in a while. posted by Kate at 12:20 AM wWednesday, April 03, 2002 Sober now. Working on homework while simultaneously rambling to Bonnie (wrapped snugly in her bed covers just 10 feet away) about the moral obligations that America imposes on its average citizen. Said some really thought evoking, beautiful things: tiny revelations like lighting in my brain, just lit flaming matches against the dark of this room when I finally sputtered to a stop, realized her side of the room was unusually quiet. "Bonnie? Are you asleep? Bonnie? Damn. And I really had something to say this time." posted by Kate at 3:05 AM w Welcome back. In what has passed to be my most pleasant drinking experience thus far, I'm sitting here, head nicely fuzzy, toasted by what in effect has been a most pleasant night without any unwelcome experiences with male tongues, ect... Miranda and I went to Wal-Mart, she freshly 21 and I still a dirtily illegal 19, purchased a family sized bottle of blackberry merlot and another smaller bottle of peach Boones and finished both off with encores of The Osbournes and a couple of forensic science shows on TLC. I still have homework to polish off for speech and a children's concert to attend at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow, but I don't even care, will do most of my homework before bed, giddly and without the usual anxiety that comes inbred in undone obligations. Mostly glad that the world can be such a dizzy, bright, beautiful place, and that I can have nice cheap wine and enjoy it so without feeling the need to throw myself at the threshold of said currently available male. Or very unavailable said male...whichever. I'm only a little drunk. I have only one paper to write tomorrow. I have only one incredibly small life to live, and only so much time to drink with beautiful friends and feel sweetness course through every vein and feel glad, glad, glad that I can let go let go let go let go and still be myself and still know my responsibilities and still feel night, cool and insistant against every pore and still wake tomorrow and feel the burning of the too bright sun and love it and hate it all in one glorious breath. Too much, you say? I am slightly cheesy. 2:00 a.m. blabberings tend to melt slack and surupy. It's delicious. posted by Kate at 2:05 AM