some days are really great. i mean, let's be honest, my life is good. really good, in fact. i don't have a whole lot of room to complain. but then every once in awhile i have these moments, like this one, where the world just feels too overwhelming and uncertain for me to handle on my own. i don't think this feeling will ever go away. i don't mean that i'll be in "a mood" for the rest of my life! i just mean that i don't think i'll ever reach a point in my life where things are 100% perfect. and that's ok, cause then i think i'd get bored. it'd just be nice to have a hand to hold when i have these weird moments of uncertainty. that's all. just a hand.

i saw geese flying north today. bring it on, springtime! :)

on love.

Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us. We read its message much as gypsies read the images made by coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup...

Necessity knows no magic formulae--they are all left to chance. If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assisi's shoulders.

-Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being-

on loving chicago.

earlier this evening i had all these great ideas of what to write here when i got home... now i'm too tired to think in such lofty philosophical ways. in a nutshell, i was walking to the el and once again realize how much i love the city of chicago. the top of the sears tower all lit up, the crazy cab drivers, the el trains running over my head, the lights up and down state street, the chicago theatre marquee, the picasso monkey face, even the cold breeze off the lake. i think i've gotten over my intense desire to live in the city. i still think it'd be fun, but it's just so expensive. the cost of living as well as the cost of eating, drinking, shopping.... it's just too much. i'd rather live somewhere cheaper and have the money to actually ENJOY the city when i'm there. but for now, i'm really grateful i still get to go downtown twice a week for class. and i'm grateful i get to take the el again, because it gives me the chance to walk more to and from the station instead of just parking across the street from school. i've only got about 5 more months as a roosevelt university student, and as this phase of my life is rapidly drawing to a close, i'm realizing how truly great it has been. these two years have brought me alot of independence, but at the same time i've formed some really great friendships (and strengthened some old ones!). my writing has grown and improved immensely. and in spite of my frequent moments of doubt (that i'll never actually get a book published, that i'll be a horrible teacher, or never get a teaching job, or will never pay back my student loans, or that this has all been an enormous and expensive mistake...) i know none of that's true. i AM a poet, and i HAVE grown a ton from this. mostly in ways i can't articulate. i just FEEL different. i AM different. it was a rough start, but it's just been good. really good. and so i know whatever comes next will be good too. i'm not quite ready to move on yet, but i think when i get there i will be. for now, just enjoying the rest of the ride.

poor george...

i heart this show :)

ha, and i always thought i was a sappy romantic...

Your Candy Heart Says "Get Real"

You're a bit of a cynic when it comes to love. You don't lose your head, and hardly anyone penetrates your heart. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: is all about the person you're seeing (with no mentions of v-day!) Your flirting style: honest and even slightly sarcastic What turns you off: romantic expectations and "greeting card" holidays Why you're hot: you don't just play hard to get - you are hard to get

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

II

from Twenty-One Love Poems, by Adrienne Rich

I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming.
Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each other,
you've been at your desk for hours. I know what I dreamed:
our friend the poet comes into my room
where I've been writing for days,
drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere,
and I want to show her one poem
which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate,
and wake. You've kissed my hair
to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem,
I say, a poem I wanted to show someone . . .
and I laugh and fall dreaming again
of the desire to show you to everyone I love,
to move openly together
in the pull of gravity, which is not simple,
which carries the feathered grass a long way down the upbreathing air.

on my drive home tonight i passed a car with the license plate "ktb 22". at first i thought "hey cool! ktb, just like me!" and i think i assumed it was someone's initials or something. which of course, isn't the case with me, my initials are actually kmb. everyone just calls me ktb cause there are so many katie's in our generation that they need the last initial to distinguish one from the next. so i thought this license plate was cool and all until it occurred to me that this person might be in the same situation as me. her name might be katie and her last name start with a b, and everyone calls her ktb and it's this great nickname. and when i thought this, i got kind of jealous....

google: "unfortunately [insert your name here]"

"Unfortunately Katie has the undeniable talent of hitting on the only gay man at
the party." (hahahaha)

"It was a hard battle which unfortunately Katie lost, but we are so proud of how she fought it."

"Unfortunately Katie's character 'Isobel' was chosen next to last. " (this is in reference to katherine heigl on grey's anatomy!!)

"Unfortunately, Katie was again out with injuries the following year."

"Unfortunately Katie has also suffered some setbacks, which could hinder her Olympic dream."