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

wSunday, October 20, 2002 I have consumed almost an entire jug of apple juice...just today. I didn't go outside either, woke up at just before 2:00, propped open the window, took a shower and cleaned my room. I read some. I watched Death Becomes Her. I've got my halloween costume in order. I know that I could casually mention a reciprical interest to a few individuals and I would get lots of dates. I've been guilty of toying with people. I've got my palm over a raging world - mine. I'm not so smart, not so hard. Sometimes I feel as if I'm being swallowed, and I just twist around and spit into the back of its mouth. posted by Kate at 9:44 PM wSunday, October 13, 2002 Because there are very many good things: Wednesday night. Sigma Tau Delta reading. My poetry in the air and falling like water in a still room. Afterward, wine and talk and laughter at Dale's apartment. We climbed out on the front landing through a window and watched his cat, Alvis, chase another cat across the dark street below. Friday night at Dr. Stewart's. Very good lasagna and chocolate cake with the right kind of icing - cool and hard, not overpowering thick and fluffy sweet. Later, there were campfire and smores, though I could only sit and moan from the cheesecake and the rotel dip. Tonight. A new friend. Two green eyes staring from the outside of my right thigh, a sweep of tail, sweet whiskers. The sting of it still in my mind, something very permanent, very good. posted by Kate at 12:50 AM wTuesday, October 08, 2002 A few moments to complain - I've got a test tomorrow in my American Lit. class. I'm paralyzed with fear. I must log at least a good 2 hours study into it. I must go to the drawing room in Malone and work on my latest - an exercise on proportion, two chairs apparently humping. I'm appallingly behind on reading for my Brit. Lit. class AND my African American Lit. class. My room looks like a filthy hobo crashed it. I'm tired, and I'm annoyed and angry and bitchy. I must write. I must write. I must write. I must write. All of this to be accomplished before tomorrow, yes? I didn't even have time to shower today. posted by Kate at 7:07 PM wMonday, October 07, 2002 So I've been dirty for about 3 days. Clambering about rocks and dust and sunlit puddles strewn with empty beer cans and sad crumpled cigarette butts. Dominic picked me up at 2:30 on Friday. We were awkward - he, vying for politeness, and I, stingy with my personal space, my personal things, as always. I've never been very good at letting men do things for me like open doors or carry bags. I always feel so indebted afterwards...and for no good reason. Sandrock is a half-hidden landscape of pure mettle. Rocks rear their ancient heads out of mud and dirt, out of grass and underbrush and the nettly growth of north Alabamian wilderness. They stand like ageless sentries over the lip of the valley below, stern and quiet. Friday night we toted beers up to a look-out point and clambered all over their knotty tops. The next day I would be predictably horrified by the sharp fall to beer consumption ratio, but that night it was simply beautiful. The valley below was lit up in a constellation of cities, cars moving smoothly like ropes of fireflies in the night. Saturday morning Anderson and Ray set up two climbs off the east face of a smaller rock. I was harnessed up, knot-tied, and belayed half-way up the first climb before I couldn't go any further. The second climb was incredibly easy once I scrambled up the difficult start. All the way up there are small puzzles for climbers to solve. Where can my foot go? Is that pocket in the rock big enough for me to place my hand in, sharp enough for me to hold? There's a perfect horn jutting out just three feet above me. How can I hoist my wait up to grab it. The key lies in your legs, not your arms. It takes a lot of trust and a lot of bravado, and sometimes you just have to lunge for something-not-quite-a-sure-thing and if you get a hold and cling to - congratulations - and if you fall off - try again. I suppose the sense of accomplishment in a good climb is crack-cocaine to climbers. The body is trespassing the unforgiving rules of nature and gravity, snaking up rocks, clinging to vertical cliffs of sand and pebbles, of granite and dirt. Trusting yourself is releasing, lunging past safety toward something better. I'm not good at it, not by far, but I am unrelenting with my body and I try to be with my mind. There are so many things that I'm scared of. Fear is a constant agent in my make-up. I wake up to it every morning, fall asleep with it every night. So I take a job where changing an adult diaper is the most normal part of my day. I learn how to wakeboard. I go skydiving. I climb rocks, then I rappel off of them. Anything to understand that I am not defeated, ever. posted by Kate at 12:44 AM wTuesday, October 01, 2002 Foot propped on the desk, red light blinking from my answering machine positioned upon the modem right behind the chicken lamp Audra gave Bonnie and me as a sort of but not quite gag gift for our first dorm room, Freshman year. There is a whole truck-full of people loudly conversating on the corner of the building right between my east and north windows. I distinguish a muffled "muthafucka" every so often. They gather there frequently, loud, excited, talking all at once late at night or early in the morning as I lie in bed, gathering their conversations all around me like folds of dark dreams fading too fast to be completely comprehended. Earlier today I walked the stretch of mottled concrete down to Malone, my portfolio in tow. It bobbled against my legs clumsily, especially as the wind blew, catching the gigantic flat breadth of it in awkward gusts. It was quiet and cold inside the room. People began to file in slowly, set up their equipment, set the angles, dragging the heavy metal easels against the worn linoleum floor. Someone turned off the overhead light, turned on a soft spotlight. The model wore a red robe. When she took it off her skin glowed like warm brass. We were allotted 20 minutes per pose. Drawing is like poetry is like swimming to the bottom of the deep end is like rolling from the belly of an airplane – everything is consumed by Now. posted by Kate at 12:58 AM