MFEO Part 3 : The Katie, Chelsea, Andrew Story.

I have been meaning to write this blog since last week, yet my mind got muddied up by a whole bunch of other nonsense.  Well, enough is enough.  Something amazing happened.  And I want to write about it so I can look back at it and freak out a little every time I do. 

Since I was about 13 years old, I have been listening to a musician named Andrew McMahon.  He is just a bit older than me, born in 1983.  He got big right around the time he was graduating high school with a band called Something Corporate.  Throughout all of my high school and college experiences, the songs on those albums defined for me every emotion I had processed.  I have copies of letters I wrote exboyfriends in which half of it was my own over-dramatic ramblings and the other parts were nothing by SoCo lyrics.  Every last heartbreaking word that Andrew wrote that could better describe what I was feeling than anything I could come up with on my own. 

I have so many specific memories with his music holding my hand through horrific experiences.  Awful sad times were made easier by feeling that someone on the other side of my headphones understood what it felt like to be hurt, abandoned, and disappointed.  His second band Jack's Mannequin released their first album my first week in college.  That cd was a staple in Stephanie's car for hours of driving and singing at the top's of our lungs.  We would car dance and pour our hearts out to Dark Blue over and over again.

The most incredible thing about Andrew is that just before Jack's Mannequin's debut album was released he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  In fact, the day the album was released was the day that he had a bone marrow transplant from his younger sister Katie.  He was forced to cancel his tour, and was laid up in a hospital bed when he was supposed to be supporting the album.  He was 22 years old, and was just beginning an amazing new chapter in his life - to watch it all come crashing down and having cancer take over his body.

Obviously this resonates with me more now than it did then.  When my Dad was diagnosed last year, I buried myself in the music Andrew wrote about his experiences with cancer.  He continued to make me feel strong through another devastating period in my life.

A girl that I had gone to college with, and had remained in little to no contact with since leaving AU, had posted on her facebook that she had an extra ticket to see him in Milwaukee this past Monday.  It was a few months before the show - and I really didn't think by the time the show was approaching she would actually want to spend the evening with a girl she barely knew from 5 years earlier.  I mentioned anyway that I would be interested in going with her.  Imagine my surprise when she messaged me just a few weeks ago to solidify our plans.  I was now not only freaking out about seeing the musical love of my life, but now I was freaking out about reconnecting with a long lost friend.  Anxiety tripled a few days later when she informed me we were going to a sound-check and meet and greet before the show.  The reconnection process started early as we then spent hours texting about what we would wear, and how we could avoid vomiting everywhere when we met him.

As we got on the road to the show, I instantly liked her.  We got to catch up and start freaking out about Andrew.  Just before we were about to get to the venue for the sound check she turned to me and said "we have time to go to the bar for 3 shots." I thought I was falling in love.  Then we sat down at the bar - and she ordered 3 shots.  Then I knew it was in fact love.  A little buzzed and incredibly high on adrenaline we got to the show and gathered around the stage.  It was just us and about 10 other kids, concert posters in hands anxiously awaiting Andrew's arrival.

He walked on to the stage and sat down at his piano so nonchalantly.  He played around for a bit, sent a text or two, and waited for the sound guys to finish setting up.  There was an amazing moment where he turned out to look at all of us staring at him, wide eyed with jaws dropped.  He looked at Chelsea and I, give this stupidly beautiful grin, and waved the sweetest wave in our direction.  I'm surprised neither one of us passed out right there and then.  The greatest part of being at the sound check was that they were only 4 dates into this tour and were working out some kinks and rehearsing.  They ended up playing 7 full songs as Chelsea and I danced and bobbed up and down, not caring that we were drawing more attention to ourselves than any of the 16 year old kids around us.  We even asked the club manager if we could go up closer to the stage to really get in there.  The little ones couldn't have been happier we took the initiative to do so.

Andrew bantered with us for a minute, noticing one of the kids wearing a "No Man is an Island" shirt.  And graciously said "hey man, let me play that song for you in case I don't get to it tonight."  He finished up sound check and came down to the floor to take pictures and sign autographs.  The next 3 minutes are kind of hazy for me.  Like a black out from drinking, only this was from shear happiness.  He came up and put a hand on my arm.  "Hey there, thanks for coming."  I felt my face turn flush and these words or a combination of is what came out of my mouth.  "I am so happy to meet you.  I want to tell you, and I will keep this brief and try not to get emotional..." the second the word 'emotional' came out of my mouth a giant lump formed in my throat and it took everything in me to not lose my shit right there.  I touched his arm - his very fuzzy soft yellow sweater sleeve loosely hanging off his terribly thin wrists. "thank you so much for the music you make. It's meant so much to me.  Everything you sing...just thank you."  He said thank you back - which pissed me off.  NO, Andrew.  I'm thanking YOU.  He smiled big as we took a few pictures together - and even appeased my request to kiss his cheek for one of them. 

We said thanks again, and that we were looking forward to seeing him tonight.  And with that we were back on the streets of Milwaukee, skipping and singing as loudly as we could down numerous city blocks.  We were electric.  We didn't have to even say it - we both just got it.  We both just knew how big that moment was for the both of us, and we just soaked up the excitement like school girls giggling down the street and back into the bar.

The concert that night was amazing.  Andrew's live performance is incredible.  One of the most talented pianists I have ever seen, and his voice is as raw and heart-shattering as it has been on those records over all those years.  I can, and will someday soon, share more stories of the quality girl time found in the night with Chelsea.  But the point really worth driving home in this blog is that I had the opportunity to say thank you to a musician who has truly changed my life in the most pivotal years of my existence.  I would give anything to sit down and spend hours talking about his life, and his music, and the finer details of what it has meant to me. But I got to say thank you.  Something most people never have a chance to tell their heroes. 

I can't thank Chelsea enough for the opportunity to put my arm around someone that means so much to me.  And an extended thank you to my dearest friend Matt for helping me get there too.  It seems silly.  It seems like Beatles mania for some pop/punk singer most of you have never even heard of.  But it is a memory that I will hold so close to me forever. One of the happiest moments I have to date.  

Got Me Going Crazy

Relationships make me crazy: literally.  I remember having a conversation with Andy not too long ago (of course this was before the engagement and pre-baby on the way).  It was a few years after we had finally, for keeps, ended our relationship.  The on again off again had finally run it’s course and we gave each other 2 years to recover before we had a conversation , that quite frankly, I don’t give either one of us enough credit for.  

“Hey, Katieface.”  His voice was the same as it always was before.  A bit raspy and constantly on the edge of a low, deep chuckle.  We had the obligatory “where do you live now, work now, what do you do now.” banter.  And then we loosened up enough  to get to the good stuff.  The reminiscing stuff.  We laughed about ridiculous moments we shared, we confessed the little things that we secretly loved and hated about each other.

We had gotten on the topic of one of our more epic fights where a baseball bat was smashed through a picture frame.  It was then that he said something so god damn accurate - he told me that we brought out the craziest versions of ourselves when we were together.  We literally drove each other insane  And looking back at it, yes, absolutely.  I was a different person back then anyways - but separate from that there was this crazy person in me that was reserved exclusively for our relationship. 

In our time together we threw things at each other, stormed out of each others homes at 3am after screaming matches that would cause noise complaints from the neighbors.  I threatened once to throw a baseball through his windshield.  I melted one of his videogame controllers in a fire! (This one still makes me smile.)  So many crazy bad moments of us just making each other nutty.

It would be unfair to mention the crazy bad without recognizing that our crazy made for some incredible moments too.  Sunday mornings sneaking out of the apartment to go buy new sexy lingerie while he slept, cooking breakfast and waking him up to bacon and a scantily clad me.   The diamond necklace scheme of Christmas 2007.   Wrestling matches and tickle fights that wouldn’t end until I said “Gary Bussey”.  And crazy awesome sex.

There is a certain element of this crazy relationship Katie that has existed with every guy I have been with since, but never to this extent.  My on again off again relationship with HSF has become very reminiscent of the relationship I shared with Andy.  We have some crazy amazing moments, conversations, and sense of understanding of one another half the time.  The other half of the time he makes me tear shit off the walls and scream loudly around my house.  He brings out my crazy in a way that nothing non-romance related could ever do.  I don’t get crazy when I get overwhelmed at work, when I have to deal with family stress, when I try to process my father’s sickness.  I get specific relationship crazy as a result of the awful stupid things that this kid I can’t seem to stop doing and saying to one another.

The fucked up part is that though I realize that this is unhealthy, all these kinds of relationships are, I think I am addicted to them.  I think I feed off the drama of it so intensely, the good and the bad, that I latch on the hardest to the people that incite the most real feeling in me, good or bad.  It makes me feel alive either way. 
I think maybe someday I will want a calm relationship, and it will be nice.  And we will be happy.  And maybe that will be enough.  Or maybe I will find what it is that I am really looking for, which is all my crazy good, and a more productive outlet for the crazy bad with someone that loves me anyways.

The Sexless Innkeeper

For all of my faithful readers who have followed my sexual escapades in this blog for the past year, please be seated - for I have a very important announcement to make.  I, Katelyn Amanda Keller will be taking a vow of celibacy for the the next, well I'm not quite sure, but let's just say long while.  In rehashing the past 6 months of tomfoolery with HSF, and looking at the bigger picture of highs and lows of my life; it seems as though a lot of my issues have been a direct result of my highly active sex life.

I lost my virginity at a very young age (what? wait? where'd ya go?).  I don't regret the first time I had sex, but it wasn't with someone I cared about.  In fact, it was someone I hardly knew and though we had repeat sessions a handful of times after the first, we never kept contact and we never even entertained the idea of being in a relationship.  It was after that initial time that I realized that sex didn't have to be connected to any sort of emotion.  That you could just have it, with anyone, and it would feel good - and in turn I would feel better about myself because in the very least I knew that I was wanted sexually if nothing else.  I kept this mentality all throughout high school and well into college.  It wasn't until a few years ago that I started to connect the fact that a. I wasn't really making myself feel better for any longer than the time it took for the guy to put his pants on and walk out the door.  And b. no matter how much I like to pretend I can have sex like a man - I will always want more than just a lay from a guy I allow myself to be intimate with.

So my vagina is going on sabbatical.  Because it keeps confusing my head, and my heart.  And until I have sorted out the mess it has caused in both of those areas there is no need to make bigger messes.  You'd think that this is a given when I said that I was taking a break from dating, but like previously mentioned, those two have never really coincided in my life in the way society claims they are supposed to. Old habits die hard, so I don't expect this to be easy.  I expect to go through a lot of pornography, and by pornography, I mean old episodes of Grey's Anatomy.  I will have to make an effort to avoid certain social situations in which I can get myself into trouble (i.e. any drunken nights with a list of about 10 different people in my phone book).  And I will need to constantly remind myself how much more enjoyable sex will be a year from now in the off chance I find someone who can make me feel wonderful things without having to be inside me.

It's been 10 days.  Let's go for 355 more.  Think of the time I will save on shaving!  Wish me luck.

Unburnable Bridges And Other Tall Tales

I haven't written a blog since the beginning of the New Year.  Probably because I was so positive and excited about 2012 when I wrote that last entry that I didn't want to let anybody down by being in the state I am in now.  Which, quite frankly, is really fucking pissed off.  I am not letting go of the notion that this is going to be a good year, and I want to stay true to my 'HappyThankYouMorePlease' mantra.  But God Dammit has the past week been a shit show. 

I won't get into all the gruesome details - all I will say is that HSF turned out to be just like everyone had warned me that he would.  I learned a valuable lesson that my guy friends are always right when it comes to men.  At least men suitable for one particular KMFK.  Adam told me at Kurt's Christmas party, "are you still seeing that douche bag 20 year old?" to which I immediately jumped to HSF's defense and listed 100 reasons why he was a great guy.  "Listen, if you want to fuck around with him, that's fine.  But if you tell us you are going to marry this kid - we will have to kill him."

Valid.

The red flags are so evident now.  And not that it matters - or that I would've done anything differently.  I've said in this blog before and I will say it again, I want so desperately to see the good in people.  The potential of who they have the capacity of one day becoming.  Seeing someone 5 years down the line though blurs the person that stands in front of you today.  I don't know how many more times I will have to learn this lesson the hard way.

I was accused of a lot of things in the final goodbye from HSF.  Some really mean, hurtful things.  And if I was the person I was 12 months ago, I would believe him.  But I know better about myself now, if nothing else.  And maybe I will make the same mistakes with men over and over again.  But I'll be damned if I will take steps backwards in what I know to be true about myself.  I am not a high maintenance person.  I love with all of my heart, no questions ask.  I will give and give and give everything I have if someone is in my life.  I am supportive and kind, and honest and fair.  And for the past 6 months, I dedicated my heart to him and only him.  It wasn't a bad run.  In fact, I loved the time we spent together.  I just know that time meant what it did to me because I was under the impression I was spending it with someone who had the ability to care about anything besides themselves.

So.  We move forward.  As Drufke told me the other day, I am no longer allowed to date anyone who is unemployed - for starters.  In fact, I am going back to my old rules of not dating at all for a while.  I know I said that 6 months ago, and Lord knows I didn't plan on any of this with HSF to happen.  But I am going to hit reset and try again.  I am going to see Jack's Mannequin a week from today (check that one off my musical bucket list).  And I am going with an old friend I am super excited to reconnect with.  This weekend I am going to go see Greg Behrendt at the Improv (LOVE his standup).  And then I am going to go back to work, be really great at my job, and figure out whatever comes after that.  Probably a combination of more writing, some stand-up, getting some new websites off the ground with a very ambitious and business savvy co-worker, and continuing to respect who I am enough not to get myself into toxic one-sided relationships anymore. 

Here's hoping. 

HappyThankYouMorePlease

So I wrote the first half of my year in review last week with every intention of posting it for the New Year.  I wanted to give some closure to 2011 for a number of reasons; the main one being that I started this blog as a resolution for 2011.  I started writing on January 1st, and made a promise to myself that I would write what I wanted to, to get things off my chest, and use this blog as an outlet for unfiltered, honest Katie Keller. I am incredibly proud of what I have created here in the past year, and even more proud of myself for having the follow-through to do what I said I would 367 days ago.

When I was writing the recap of the year, I got through all the gruesome details leading up to the beginning of June.  By the time I had gotten there (Charlie relationship, Dad's diagnosis, Charlie and I's breakup) I was in a pretty bad mood.  If I would have continued writing on through the end of the year, it would have gotten lighter and happier.  But I was pretty beat by rehashing the bad stuff that took place in the first half of the year, I just didn't have the energy to finish it up.

That was last week.

So it's now the 3rd and I haven't written anything new.  And I have made no progress on giving myself that written closure for the past year.  But 3 days in, I have already decided that I don't need it.  (Maybe I will finish that entry up for the published version.)  With a new year comes taking a deep breath and letting go of the year past - closure or no closure.  I decided at midnight, in the company of a great friend, that I am going to forgive the people that have wronged me in 2011 and move. the fuck. on.

Since making this determination for myself, I am happy to announce that I have had the best 2012 ever!  I don't want to get too excited or think that life will be smooth sailing from here on out.  But I do like this feeling that with the turn of a calender page, I get to start fresh.  I don't have to carry anything unnecessary with me moving forward - and in just a few days time I already feel a lighter load on my shoulders.

Dad's still got cancer.  HSF is still on the way out of town.  Work is still exhausting.  And I still don't have a car.  But my resolution for 2012 is to practice mind over matter and positive thinking. I want to practice forgiveness.   I want to practice happythankyoumoreplease.  Shit will suck sometimes.  But just yesterday I was the Queen of the World with a tray of OreIda curly french fries and a Mad Men marathon in my pajamas.

I'm happy.
Thank you, more please.