"75 cents to the dollar is what that statement is worth." a typical response from the HSF in our on-going battle of the sexes debate. I fight on behalf of woman all the time because although, we are crazy bitches, I also feel like we are directly a product of the suppression we have dealt with and the places we have come from. Not to mention, the scientific difference between men and women, and on how on two very different levels we emotionally process things.
I feel bad for woman, more often than not. Because I think we are smarter than we are acknowledged for. And after centuries of being told we are good, but not good enough, we ourselves have begun to believe it. We hold ourselves back, if anything, because we have had affirmed over and over that we are the lesser of the sexes. We don't know how to be the best because we've constantly been told that we can't ever be. I would be a more vocal advocate of this, but I am a girl, so I am insecure and constantly cowering from having a challenging opinion. Ha.
Every conversation between man and woman can stand as a point in either the 'girls or boys' column in the scoreboard of life. Often times girls are responding off of an emotional reaction that makes our argument come off is irrational or invalid. Where as men, more often than not, lack he ability to find any answer in the emotional gray area that does very much so actually exist. One thing remains true to most situations though, which I hate to admit, women lack honor.
Men can be huge assholes, looking out for no one but themselves and constantly scheming new ways to get ahead be it in a job or a relationship. But when it comes to friendship, family, and love - men remain honorable through the very end. Us bitches will turn on each other at the drop of a hat. We turn on each other faster than men turn on us, which is very quickly and all of the time. Men will fight the good fight, get a bros back no matter what or who he may have done prior to that moment. Because, above all else, men live and die with honor.
I don't have many girlfriends (red flag) but from the ones I have had and been close with, I think we can all agree that even though we have been closer than words - have laughed together, cried together, made vows to one another, and have held each other's hands and hair through many long and wonderful memories - we have all thrown each other under the bus in some way shape or form for the sake of a dude. Because love, romance, sex, and lust will always mean more to us than honor. Which is probably a bad thing, but a true thing nonetheless.
I want to make it a point, since I have recognized this short coming in myself, to live with more honor. Keep an eye out for those other people in my life, be them men or woman. Because at the end of the day - men don't get a lot of things right, but if there is one thing we can learn from them it is that 'no man left behind' all-for-one way of living. All we have in this life is each other. And hopefully some honor.
11.28.2011
11.23.2011
Why Georgia Why?
I have started writing 3 different blog entries to lead me to this one. The first one was this awesome screenplay-esq tale of my top 6 most significant ex boyfriends being chloroformed and put in a room at random left to figure out how they got there and what connected them all. The second version was a blog about being inspired to write that previously mentioned blog. And the latest version was a novella style interpretation of a story that was told to me by HSF. The last of which is actually a full blog entry sitting in the drafts folder of this here blog site...
Here's the problem...I have put all too much pressure on who is reading my blog, how they perceive me as a result of my blog, and how I can shape my words and phrases to be someone that is more likable to the masses in my blog. And for what purpose, really?
I know, for the most part, my audience when I write my words into this online journal. I know the people that hang on every last terrifying story of my awkward social encounters. And I know the people that read this with hopes of piecing together some lager puzzle of who I am and how I got here. And I know that my original intention for this blog was just for nothing more than talking about the mundane experiences of my life as they happened.
And then my dad got cancer, my heart got broken, I had to reevaluate all of my relationships (family and otherwise) from this 24 year old single girl perspective. And it hasn't been easy or pretty to deal with these things on such a public platform. But I've felt, from the beginning, that this blog has held me accountable to dealing with things as they happen. And maybe that's the demise. That is where this blog becomes less about pleasure and more about the pressure of dealing with it all in an eloquent way for everyone else.
HSF mentioned tonight that this summer, as fucked up as it was, has been awesome. And as the cynic in me wants to disagree, maybe he is on to something. Maybe, despite all the obviously horrific things, I've not only survived, but enjoyed what I was given to work with this year. I am an insanely different person than who I was when I wrote my first blog entry January 1st, 2011. And though I will more closely examine that and the specific details of what this year was in an upcoming end-of-year blog, I will now make mention to how much worse it could be.
This particular blog lacks focus, theme, and any sort of character development. And to be honest, that is the most accurate description of my life I could make these days. I have lots of things to say. Things not as easily mapped out for me as 3am breakups, or Charlie and Adrian meeting in a dark lite room with dripping pipes and bars over the one small window in the corner (if they are going to be chloroformed, let's at least be realistic about where they end up.)
I wish I had better stories. I wish I didn't sound like a cheesy column in Cosmopolitan magazine. I wish I could find the words, not only to achieve a brilliant blog post, but to get me from here to January 1st, 2012. I wish I could find a more profound way to say that none of this is pretty, or fluffy, or fun. Nothing that I write about is nearly as quippy and snarky as it comes off as on this blog. And I am not going to try and make it that way anymore. Because, quite frankly, I can't take the pressure.
Here's the problem...I have put all too much pressure on who is reading my blog, how they perceive me as a result of my blog, and how I can shape my words and phrases to be someone that is more likable to the masses in my blog. And for what purpose, really?
I know, for the most part, my audience when I write my words into this online journal. I know the people that hang on every last terrifying story of my awkward social encounters. And I know the people that read this with hopes of piecing together some lager puzzle of who I am and how I got here. And I know that my original intention for this blog was just for nothing more than talking about the mundane experiences of my life as they happened.
And then my dad got cancer, my heart got broken, I had to reevaluate all of my relationships (family and otherwise) from this 24 year old single girl perspective. And it hasn't been easy or pretty to deal with these things on such a public platform. But I've felt, from the beginning, that this blog has held me accountable to dealing with things as they happen. And maybe that's the demise. That is where this blog becomes less about pleasure and more about the pressure of dealing with it all in an eloquent way for everyone else.
HSF mentioned tonight that this summer, as fucked up as it was, has been awesome. And as the cynic in me wants to disagree, maybe he is on to something. Maybe, despite all the obviously horrific things, I've not only survived, but enjoyed what I was given to work with this year. I am an insanely different person than who I was when I wrote my first blog entry January 1st, 2011. And though I will more closely examine that and the specific details of what this year was in an upcoming end-of-year blog, I will now make mention to how much worse it could be.
This particular blog lacks focus, theme, and any sort of character development. And to be honest, that is the most accurate description of my life I could make these days. I have lots of things to say. Things not as easily mapped out for me as 3am breakups, or Charlie and Adrian meeting in a dark lite room with dripping pipes and bars over the one small window in the corner (if they are going to be chloroformed, let's at least be realistic about where they end up.)
I wish I had better stories. I wish I didn't sound like a cheesy column in Cosmopolitan magazine. I wish I could find the words, not only to achieve a brilliant blog post, but to get me from here to January 1st, 2012. I wish I could find a more profound way to say that none of this is pretty, or fluffy, or fun. Nothing that I write about is nearly as quippy and snarky as it comes off as on this blog. And I am not going to try and make it that way anymore. Because, quite frankly, I can't take the pressure.
11.15.2011
'Umiliante' Is Italian For Mortifying
verb (used with object)
I have had a handful of moments in my existence that I would qualify as mortifying. Though, I use the word for more than these specific events that it applies to. Fact of the matter is, if something is truly mortifying, you find that even looking back on it years later it still makes you feel like you want to crawl out of your skin. Well, one of these mortifying things happened to me this weekend. And after it happened I swore to myself I would never tell a single soul. I was so mortified I vowed to take it to the grave only revealing it (maybe) to my future husband on my deathbed. Then I though about it, I thought about it over and over again. It occurred to me that there is some serious entertainment value in the mortifying things that have happened to me. And if I am brave enough to tell everyone about them, maybe over time they will feel less mortifying. In the very least, maybe you will read one of these and be like "man, thank GOD that never happened to me." In which case, that's good enough for me too.
Without further explanation, and for your own personal enjoyment, I now present the top 4 mortifying events of my entire life.
7th Grade. 1999.
It was a passing period, just the tail end of it. I was still pretty new to my Jr. High having just moved there that year. It was a hard transition for me because the elementary school I went to was K-8th. So I had had the same classmates forever. I started school in one building when I was 5 - and didn't have to navigate myself through a new school at any point. Coming into a Jr. High that started in 6th grade, already had me at a disadvantage because everyone else had had a year to familiarize themselves with the layout of the school. I was lost all the time. At least I could fall back on my good looks, right? Wrong. I was hideous.
So there I was with my half-mullet and my perfectly round gold framed glasses (if only Harry Potter became cool 5 years earlier...) just trying to gather my books for my next class and then figure out where exactly that class was. Somewhere between bundling my books and closing my locker door, two 7th grade boys approached me and started teasing me, calling me a dog. I was not a very confrontational kid, so I did what anyone would do, kept my head down and kept walking to where I thought my next class was. But these kids were relentless. They thought I was a dog, and they wanted me to know about it. I picked up my speed as they followed closely behind me barking, literally barking at me, sporadically interjecting that they were barking because I was a dog. Yep, thanks guys, got that.
The fast walk, turned into a jog, which turned into a sprint to my next class. These two boys behind me the whole way. By the time I had gotten to the right room, most of the 7th grade had watched this happen and would reference this moment for weeks to come. Needless to say, mortified.
Senior Year. 2005.
It's never been a secret that I became a little slutty at a young age. Since about 14 years old I have found the very little self esteem I have from the validation of men wanting to bed me. Not something I am proud of, and one of the many things I have been working on in therapy. But at this point in my life, at the ripe old age of 17, I didn't even know it was wrong. What I did know was that I was spending a lot of time with older men in the Chicago rock scene. And these men a. didn't know I was only 17 and b. were used to really slutty groupies that would do anything to steal a moment of their attention.
Since I was receiving attention from these men, I had to compete with gorgeous 20something girls who had the time, money, and IDs to seduce these men in bars after shows when they are good and drunk. All I had was my parent's basement and a digital camera. So, some pictures were taken. Some really inappropriate illegal pictures. I had sent them to a handful of men I was attempting to win over, and made the silly mistake of leaving them on the family computer. One day when I had gotten home from school my mother asked me to take a ride with her. This was the first red flag that something was wrong. She took us to the Oswego Park District parking lot where she confronted me about finding them, and explained how awful it was that I even took them nonetheless sent them to strange old men. She was right. But I was mortified.
New Year's Eve. 2006.
Taking the last story into consideration, I found myself at a friend's family friend's NYE party the winter after I had left college. I was 19 now, but clearly my judgement hadn't improved much over those 2 years. At this house party, there were people every where. Lots of adults with kids, some grungy teenagers drinking heavily behind the house, and a group of old biker dudes showing off their motorcycles in the driveway (this was also the first time I was ever on a motorcycle...on December 31st). I scanned the party for the first half of the night checking out the prospects for my midnight kiss. So far the position was going to be filled by my gay friend Paul.
After one two many beers in the garage, and strangers filtering in and out for drinking and dancing, I met an older man who seemed to be very into me. And I seemed to be very into being drunk and looking for a make out buddy. We were a match made in drunken holiday heaven. It was getting closer to midnight and we found ourselves alone in the garage, he made the move, he leaned in, and we kissed. A little kissing turned into a lot of kissing. It was a full blown makeout session before I realized more people had entered the garage as well. Turns out, those people were his wife and 2 small children.
For a very long time I never told anyone this story, other than discussing it with my one girlfriend who was there that night. This is one of the harder stories of mine for me to swallow because my stupid decisions didn't only affect me that night. And I try to consider that I was 19, and at that point didn't think to look for a wedding ring. And really, fuck that guy - he's skeezy as shit. What makes this story mortifying was that I spent the first half of the evening dancing with these 2 little kids. Dancing with them, spinning them through the air, showing them how to do the twist. They were my little buddies, and they adored me, probably until they heard what their mother said about me on the ride home. Mortified.
November 12th. 2011.
My friend had asked me to be a plus one at a wedding he was attending. I didn't know anything about the wedding other than that there would be a limo at my house at 3pm to take me where I needed to be. I put on a pretty black dress, and some fancy dancing shoes, and let my limo take me away to the most beautiful wedding I have ever seen in my whole entire life. The ceremony was at a cathedral on State and Erie in the city, and following the vows everyone was charter bussed over to the Peninsula Hotel for a reception in the Grand Ballroom. First of all, holy shit beautiful hotel. It looked like Nate Berkus had designed the ballroom from top to bottom, from every beautiful center piece to the perfectly crafted nameplates and menus. I was in awe that a wedding could be so breathtaking.
I took my seat and made small talk with the other guests at my table. I was at one of those younger tables wedding couples through together since they don't fit in any where else with the older friends and family. And though I was at the young table, I was still 10 years behind everyone else. So I played extra cool, used my best manners, and paid very close attention to which fork I was using. After a few minutes the wedding party headed in, one couple at a time. Once the bride and groom were in sight I stopped with everyone else to raise my glass of champagne and toast the beautiful couple. Out of the corner of my eye, as I stood up, I noticed a gigantic blood stain atop the white linen covered chair I was sitting in. Oh hey period blood - could your timing be any worse?
I was quick on my feet, given my complete and total horror. I pushed the chair into the table, covered with my napkin, and ran to the bathroom to calculate my next move. I choked backed tears in the stall of the ladies room, and strongly considered running out the door and not answering my dates phone calls for the next 5-10 years. Instead, I cleaned up, went back to the table to sit over the spot until the next morning when everyone was sure to have left. But to my surprise when I had gotten back to the table, a new chair was in it's place, a new linen folded nicely sitting on my dinner plate and no one had said a word about it for the rest of the night. It took a few cocktails to get my heart rate back down, but by the end of the night it was as if it never happened. But I will never forget the shear mortification of that moment.
So there they are. In all their glory. The top 4.
I racked my brain for a 5th, just because a list of 5 sounds better than one of 4. But I think I have relived enough embarrassment for one day. I am sure 100 more terribly mortifying things will happen between now and the day I die. But in 24 years, this is hands down the worst of it.
1. to humiliate or shame, as by injury to one's pride or self-respect.
2. to subjugate (the body, passions, etc.) by abstinence, ascetic discipline, or self-inflicted suffering.
3. Pathology. to affect with gangrene or necrosis.I have had a handful of moments in my existence that I would qualify as mortifying. Though, I use the word for more than these specific events that it applies to. Fact of the matter is, if something is truly mortifying, you find that even looking back on it years later it still makes you feel like you want to crawl out of your skin. Well, one of these mortifying things happened to me this weekend. And after it happened I swore to myself I would never tell a single soul. I was so mortified I vowed to take it to the grave only revealing it (maybe) to my future husband on my deathbed. Then I though about it, I thought about it over and over again. It occurred to me that there is some serious entertainment value in the mortifying things that have happened to me. And if I am brave enough to tell everyone about them, maybe over time they will feel less mortifying. In the very least, maybe you will read one of these and be like "man, thank GOD that never happened to me." In which case, that's good enough for me too.
Without further explanation, and for your own personal enjoyment, I now present the top 4 mortifying events of my entire life.
7th Grade. 1999.
It was a passing period, just the tail end of it. I was still pretty new to my Jr. High having just moved there that year. It was a hard transition for me because the elementary school I went to was K-8th. So I had had the same classmates forever. I started school in one building when I was 5 - and didn't have to navigate myself through a new school at any point. Coming into a Jr. High that started in 6th grade, already had me at a disadvantage because everyone else had had a year to familiarize themselves with the layout of the school. I was lost all the time. At least I could fall back on my good looks, right? Wrong. I was hideous.
So there I was with my half-mullet and my perfectly round gold framed glasses (if only Harry Potter became cool 5 years earlier...) just trying to gather my books for my next class and then figure out where exactly that class was. Somewhere between bundling my books and closing my locker door, two 7th grade boys approached me and started teasing me, calling me a dog. I was not a very confrontational kid, so I did what anyone would do, kept my head down and kept walking to where I thought my next class was. But these kids were relentless. They thought I was a dog, and they wanted me to know about it. I picked up my speed as they followed closely behind me barking, literally barking at me, sporadically interjecting that they were barking because I was a dog. Yep, thanks guys, got that.
The fast walk, turned into a jog, which turned into a sprint to my next class. These two boys behind me the whole way. By the time I had gotten to the right room, most of the 7th grade had watched this happen and would reference this moment for weeks to come. Needless to say, mortified.
Senior Year. 2005.
It's never been a secret that I became a little slutty at a young age. Since about 14 years old I have found the very little self esteem I have from the validation of men wanting to bed me. Not something I am proud of, and one of the many things I have been working on in therapy. But at this point in my life, at the ripe old age of 17, I didn't even know it was wrong. What I did know was that I was spending a lot of time with older men in the Chicago rock scene. And these men a. didn't know I was only 17 and b. were used to really slutty groupies that would do anything to steal a moment of their attention.
Since I was receiving attention from these men, I had to compete with gorgeous 20something girls who had the time, money, and IDs to seduce these men in bars after shows when they are good and drunk. All I had was my parent's basement and a digital camera. So, some pictures were taken. Some really inappropriate illegal pictures. I had sent them to a handful of men I was attempting to win over, and made the silly mistake of leaving them on the family computer. One day when I had gotten home from school my mother asked me to take a ride with her. This was the first red flag that something was wrong. She took us to the Oswego Park District parking lot where she confronted me about finding them, and explained how awful it was that I even took them nonetheless sent them to strange old men. She was right. But I was mortified.
New Year's Eve. 2006.
Taking the last story into consideration, I found myself at a friend's family friend's NYE party the winter after I had left college. I was 19 now, but clearly my judgement hadn't improved much over those 2 years. At this house party, there were people every where. Lots of adults with kids, some grungy teenagers drinking heavily behind the house, and a group of old biker dudes showing off their motorcycles in the driveway (this was also the first time I was ever on a motorcycle...on December 31st). I scanned the party for the first half of the night checking out the prospects for my midnight kiss. So far the position was going to be filled by my gay friend Paul.
After one two many beers in the garage, and strangers filtering in and out for drinking and dancing, I met an older man who seemed to be very into me. And I seemed to be very into being drunk and looking for a make out buddy. We were a match made in drunken holiday heaven. It was getting closer to midnight and we found ourselves alone in the garage, he made the move, he leaned in, and we kissed. A little kissing turned into a lot of kissing. It was a full blown makeout session before I realized more people had entered the garage as well. Turns out, those people were his wife and 2 small children.
For a very long time I never told anyone this story, other than discussing it with my one girlfriend who was there that night. This is one of the harder stories of mine for me to swallow because my stupid decisions didn't only affect me that night. And I try to consider that I was 19, and at that point didn't think to look for a wedding ring. And really, fuck that guy - he's skeezy as shit. What makes this story mortifying was that I spent the first half of the evening dancing with these 2 little kids. Dancing with them, spinning them through the air, showing them how to do the twist. They were my little buddies, and they adored me, probably until they heard what their mother said about me on the ride home. Mortified.
November 12th. 2011.
My friend had asked me to be a plus one at a wedding he was attending. I didn't know anything about the wedding other than that there would be a limo at my house at 3pm to take me where I needed to be. I put on a pretty black dress, and some fancy dancing shoes, and let my limo take me away to the most beautiful wedding I have ever seen in my whole entire life. The ceremony was at a cathedral on State and Erie in the city, and following the vows everyone was charter bussed over to the Peninsula Hotel for a reception in the Grand Ballroom. First of all, holy shit beautiful hotel. It looked like Nate Berkus had designed the ballroom from top to bottom, from every beautiful center piece to the perfectly crafted nameplates and menus. I was in awe that a wedding could be so breathtaking.
I took my seat and made small talk with the other guests at my table. I was at one of those younger tables wedding couples through together since they don't fit in any where else with the older friends and family. And though I was at the young table, I was still 10 years behind everyone else. So I played extra cool, used my best manners, and paid very close attention to which fork I was using. After a few minutes the wedding party headed in, one couple at a time. Once the bride and groom were in sight I stopped with everyone else to raise my glass of champagne and toast the beautiful couple. Out of the corner of my eye, as I stood up, I noticed a gigantic blood stain atop the white linen covered chair I was sitting in. Oh hey period blood - could your timing be any worse?
I was quick on my feet, given my complete and total horror. I pushed the chair into the table, covered with my napkin, and ran to the bathroom to calculate my next move. I choked backed tears in the stall of the ladies room, and strongly considered running out the door and not answering my dates phone calls for the next 5-10 years. Instead, I cleaned up, went back to the table to sit over the spot until the next morning when everyone was sure to have left. But to my surprise when I had gotten back to the table, a new chair was in it's place, a new linen folded nicely sitting on my dinner plate and no one had said a word about it for the rest of the night. It took a few cocktails to get my heart rate back down, but by the end of the night it was as if it never happened. But I will never forget the shear mortification of that moment.
So there they are. In all their glory. The top 4.
I racked my brain for a 5th, just because a list of 5 sounds better than one of 4. But I think I have relived enough embarrassment for one day. I am sure 100 more terribly mortifying things will happen between now and the day I die. But in 24 years, this is hands down the worst of it.
11.05.2011
Bubblegum Cigars For Everyone.
I have walked a very fine line with this blog in what I want to
write about my life for entertainment value, and what I need to write
about my life as a way of learning and growing from the experiences
I have had. My reservations with talking about some particular topics
are mainly because of my audience here. I have some friends, family,
and mentors that check into this blog and I feel like if I share certain
things that they will see me in a different light. That they won't see
this badass Katie MF Keller persona that fills these pages with quippy
stories of love, lust, and sex.
I have always had a desire to use the negative things I have
experienced for good. That maybe some where, some day, the right person
would hear my stories and know that it is going to be okay. And not
that I am necessarily the picture of that reassurance yet, I know that
some day where I came from and what I have gone through will mean
something to someone. So what better time to start throwing it all out
there than the present. Especially when one of these experiences came
bursting through the forefront of my mind in recent days.
"The plot thickens..." was the text I got from Kurt last night.
And before I even asked for him to continue on, I knew exactly what he
was going to say. I knew that he was going to tell me that recently
engaged ex-Andy's fiance was preggers. Which is fine. Good for them.
Having babies. (I wonder if they will home school?).
Of all the things in my life I have struggled through, I am the most public about my abortion because I feel like there needs to be a voice for those of us who made the decision to live the best life for ourselves, rather than bringing a child into the world that we couldn't provide for the way we hope to when we have children in the future, as adults. Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing protesters outside of clinics, because I was there. I made the toughest decision of my entire life, and when I had to walk through the clinic doors on the darkest day of my 24 years on earth, I had a group of people screaming at me the whole way. "You are going to hell! If you go in there you will DIE!" Well, thanks guys, but that isn't helping.
I guess at the end of the day pro-lifers will never be able to understand the heartache that goes into making the decision to terminate a life. And I am not going to pretend that that isn't what I did. I just truly believe the life I want to give to my future children was not one that I could provide at the age of 19. And you can make your arguments about adoption all day long, but I know myself better than to think I could bring a child to term and then hand them off to someone else. If I am having a baby, I will love the shit out of that baby myself.
I know this is a hot button issue for a lot of people, and believe me when I say it's something that runs through my mind every day that I am breathing, and will until the day I die. But I don't regret it. I'm proud that I was strong enough to determine what was right for me without being swayed by society's perception of right and wrong. And if it was a huge sin that god will punish me for forever, than that's on me. I think the big guy will be more peeved I spent years telling people he's not real.
Someday I will write a blog about the 8 weeks I was pregnant, because it was a roller coaster worth reliving for the sake of the story. In the meantime, I wish nothing but the best to my ex (again) and hope that he has the chance to be a father on better terms than he would've been 2 months after we had started dating and I made the decision that I did. And even more, I wish that someday I will make up for that decision with all the beautiful babies I will love and parent using everything I have learned along the way.
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