what is the word

Today is my one-year blogging anniversary. Happy birthday to you, little blog.

Best email of the week, & it had some stiff competition, arrived in my inbox from West Africa & no, it is not a plea for access to my bank account. It's from Seydou, my family's old housekeeper back in Abidjan.

Tres chere kat nous sommes tres contents d'avoir de tes nouvelles, votre pere nous a beaucoup aider. Je te souhaite également JOYEUX NOEL et une BONNE ANNNE 2005 pour toi et ta soeur LIZ de meme que toute ta famille. sinon que nous sommes tous en bonne santé aussi.
Je vous laisse sur ces lignes tout en espérant vous lire bientot.
BYE

Like Seydou I shall wish everyone une BONNE ANNEE et JOYEUX FETES over the weekend. Nobody seems to know what the fuck is going on for New Year's Eve yet, but let's hope it's CHOUETTE, n'est-ce pas?

Much love to Mike Toole for posting for me yesterday when I couldn't be bothered. Also, I had fuck all to report, as he relayed to you.
I still have fuck all (read: nothing) to say, except that if I could be anywhere right now I'd be at home reading this fantastic book Anna (I) Anna. I can't get enough of it. I started it about a year ago but I left off reading it for one reason or another & now that I've picked it back up I don't know how I ever put it down before. (Which is actually eerily analagous to my love life at the moment.) I bought it at a certain store for its cool 70s-looking cover but it turns out the book is amazing. Anna (not Anna or Anna but Anna) is a Danish expat who becomes obsessed with the idea of killing her young daughter. She wakes up very early in the mornings & whets all the knives till she completely freaks herself out & has to go back to Denmark. Except she doesn't; she runs off to Rome with a drug-dealing hippie instead.
You can tell the book is written by a man (Klaus Rifbjerg, actually, a rather famous Danish poet) because in the interestingly fluid narrative style, which fluctuates from first person to third seemingly at random (hence the parenthetical title), the protagonist is, between knife-whettings, either reminding us of how devastatingly beautiful she is or masturbating in inappropriate locations. Not that I have a problem with that (in fact, I think it's A-OK!); I'm just saying it was obviously written by a man, poet or no poet.
Yesterday when I wasn't quite as busy at work & while Mike Toole was toiling away at my blog for me, I was reading up on old Klaus, who seems fascinating, in a sturdy, Skando sort of way of course.

"We ourselves are a work of fiction; remembering our life is a work of imagination." - K.R.

Hi. My name is Mike Toole, and Kat has allowed me to be a guest blogger today. I emailed her telling her to update this thing because I was bored of her last post, and she said to me, "why dont you write me a guest blog??? please? i have fuck all to say."

I don't know what "fuck all" means. Well, I know what it means. It could be written on the back of a heavy metal shirt or it could be the rallying cry of a porno star, but I don't know what it means when you say "i have fuck all to say." I know it means that she has nothing to say. But how "fuck all" means nothing confuses me. I don't get that as a saying. Same thing when people say "We are hoping against hope." I never got that.

So me and Kat used to be co-workers and now we are former co-workers. We also used to be neighbors, and now we are former neighbors. She left my job and I left her neighborhood. Now we are friends and we email and communicate via our blogs. Kat let me know her username and password to get on this thing. That is trust. I feel like I need to reciprocate that trust. Kat, my PIN for my ATM card is 5391.

Kat has a funny laugh. Kat laughs like she is in a silent movie. Not because she is trying to convey laughter like a silent movie actress would, but she actually has a silent laugh. Her mouth opens and nothing comes out. You should see it.

OK. I don't want to get carried away here and talk too much and make Kat's loyal readers mad. Since Kat often ends her postings with a photo, I thought I'd post this adorable picture of some baby monkeys that are about to do it.

Happy Boxing Day. I ate too much food & I got more presents than I deserve. For example, I'm blogging from my NEW IBOOK. For dinner tonite we ate hare & foie gras & red snapper & chestnut/lobster soup & a whole wild trout. We drank a lot of champagne & there were children everywhere & all of them were shouting Look at me! Look at me, Tia! & right now I'm going to sleep on my sister's pull-out couch because there is a houseful of people here. & next I'm going to put my new iBook & me to bed.
This afternoon I told E. how much I missed him. I want to hold you, he said. Me too, I said. You & me & my new iBook.
I can't wait; I can't wait to get back to New York.

What a blah week, what a blah day. I have a lot of nothing to blog about. I've been going straight home after work in an attempt to be good. I've been cooking all of my own food & packing my own lunches. Yesterday I was very very good indeed. I finished all of my Christmas shopping, save the nephew because God help me, I couldn't bear the Toys R Us at Union Square. I walked in thru the revolving doors, took one look at the ravaged landscape & wild-eyed anarchy & swiveled out again straightaway. Lo siento, Tono. I'll try harder today. & I'll bring a machine gun just in case.
So anyway after that I went home with my packages in hand. I was bad in a way because I didn't clean my room & I smoked massive amounts of weed with my new roommate & her new bong, but then I was good after all because I finished up a second draft of the short story I'd been putting off revising for weeks. I finished an entire second draft even tho by the end I could hardly see the screen because I was so stoned. My new roommate's new bong is this massive handblown thing with a thick wavy tube at the top & a giant pretty marble at its base. The first time I smoked out of it I scribbled notes to myself in my bedroom, & the next day when I looked at them they just said, "Gosh. Wow this Holly Golightly record is the best thing ever. Why is it I don't have more records exactly like this one? Wow wow wow."
So I finished up draft number 2, despite my impaired vision & my impaired typing. I think I'm going to have to cut the ending after all, which makes me a little sad. I was happy with the ending & now it doesn't belong anywhere, so I'll put it here.

That summer we didn't have A/C and it was very hot; we played Hangman under the sheets with a flashlight in the dark. We were like children with terminal illnesses, or in the final days of summer camp: our time together had already been spent. I thought about it again in the fall, when I buttoned up my coat against the new chill, getting ready to leave his place one morning. I thought how different it was from the last time I'd been there alone. His room so bare and blue, not a speck on the walls, and only his clothes hanging in the closet. It was only M.'s place now; a little less together; a little bit lost; barer, dearer.

I'm having a stressed-out day, a backwards-looking, dim, bleary sort of day. It's flat & cold outside. I slept at Leyla's last nite because E. went away to California that morning & I didn't want to sleep alone. We watched some of Zoolander before bed & I was sleeping on a futon & every once in awhile I caught the sour smell of bong water as it drifted over from the coffee table.
Today there's a cold sore burgeoning on my lip & my fingernails hurt, of all things.
I'm trying to stop my mind from doing calculations, subtracting the costs of the Xmas presents on my list & the bills that must be paid from the disturbingly finite sum in the bank. Dividing the remaining amount by the number of days -- too many -- left before the first of January. Remembering that one of those days is New Year's Eve.
My weekend was off to an early, rather drunken start on Friday after the office holiday party. The parties didn't stop after that either; it was one Xmas party after another, plus an impromptu engagement celebration (congratulations, B & J!), plus finding a bag of weed in front of 265 McKibben just when we needed it most. & in between, a lot of car services & schlepping whiskey & champagne around. A lot of agonizing over what to wear, but somehow wearing the same thing for three days straight. A lot of Buffy Season Seven. A lot of worrying about money. A lot of dreading Sunday, & then Sunday came.
Wondering what to get me for Christmas? This would look awfully pretty on my mantelpiece (if I had one).

I have no time to post today. My company's holiday party starts in 2 minutes. I can't believe it's during the day & in the office, but I can't argue with an excuse to drink cheap wine at noon.
If you want something to read hit up my friend Nicole's photo project protesting the MTA's proposed camera ban. There's even a picture of me in there, even tho after getting my subway violation I was pretty much scared to even look at a train cross-eyed.
Or read all about Sterling Fassbinder's company XXXmas party (scroll down to the chick passed out on the picnic table). I can only hope mine is half as awesome.

YES!!!! In your face, Amanda! Eva is America's Next Top Model!!! That's my girl, since Day One. Anna didn't want her to win because she's a bitch (Eva! Not Anna!), but I don't care. Models are supposed to be beautiful, skinny, & fashionable. If they have a healthy bitchy streak (or a raging drug habit), so much the better. I couldn't give a Chinatown Murakami bag about what models have to say about anything, unless it's something terribly glamorous like "I won't even get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars a day, daaahling."
My sitemeter this morning is filled with "Eva Pigford ANTM winner" & all sorts of shit like that. So for those searchers, I'm posting my favorite pic in Eva's portfolio. Both of them are Eva, by the way, & both of them are smoking hot.
& may I say, just one more time, how relieved I am the blind one didn't win?

So the official line is that E. & I became actual boyfriend & girlfriend (respectively) on Sunday. It happened because I am still in the seventh grade relationship-wise & I wanted the affirmation that only a semantic label can provide. But I feel like today is more significant because, quite suddenly, today was the day I changed my status on both Friendster and MySpace from Single to In a Relationship. So now it's out there for real. Plus, here I am blogging about it. Tho I do have way more Friendsters than readers. Anyway the point is, I'm all over the internet with this shit.
Tho I don't know why I'm proclaiming anything to anyone, since, due to my seventh-grade-ness, I have an uncanny knack for fucking up a good thing. As soon as I meet someone who isn't a lying asshole (as E. very definitely is not), I go into a tailspin & basically dash all chances of happiness for both parties. So wish us luck, okay?
In other news, I've finally caught that magical Yuletide spirit. I got paid today, for one thing, so there will be "Love, Kato"-labeled presents aplenty under the Johnson family Tannenbaum. To top it off, my favorite blog crush (even tho he can't be bothered to post anymore) sent me a request to be his MySpace friend. It's a Christmas miracle!
But darn! Suddenly MySpace knows I'm In a Relationship. It's okay cos the blog crush is married & more importantly, he lives in LA, & thirdly, I'm joking. But still, it's vaguely ironic.

Slither slither slither slither went the tongue...

Big ups to Tom Wolfe for passing the Electric Kool-Aid Flaccid Test (sorry) and snagging the bad-sex-in-fiction award.

But the hand, that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns -- oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest -- no, the hand was cupping her entire right -- Now!

So anyway. Things with me are okey-dokey, smokey. I'm bitterly realizing I'm about the only person on earth who isn't going to see the Pixies on at least one of the many dates of their tour. Both my roommates went on Sunday nite. Skot & Melly went in Chicago. (Frankly, I can't even remember if Melly said she already went & it was awesome, or if she is going later & is really excited.) I have about a million friends going tomorrow too & another million going on Saturday. I adore the Pixies but I'm cheap and broke so instead I'm just going to be bitter about it.
Last nite I got pretty stoned at Leyla's house. She was watching the third Harry Potter movie but I wasn't really into it. I kept thinking about this SNL skit where Lindsay Lohan played Hermione, back at Hogwarts from summer vacation with brand-new boobs, & how I wished I were watching that instead. But I read an amazing short story & stayed till the end of the movie & then even tho I was broke I took a car home. During the ride I scribbled notes on the back of the short story, stupid stoned thoughts about one by one half blocks apart the wool-hatted people in the navy air or some such bullshit. I'm the champion of scribbling bullshit in the backs of cabs. & then I got home & for the first time in what felt like ages I washed my face & put on moisturizer & slept in pajamas in my newly made-up bed.

I'm feeling very non-bloggy lately. It's really so much easier to write when I'm at least mildly depressed. Besides, I've been busy. Busy isn't quite the right word tho. I've been very hedonistic these days, even more so than usual. I pretty much spent the weekend lazing around. I slept a lot. I ate a lot. I drank a lot, too. Also, I went to the new MoMA, which was gorgeous. On that particular day I felt most moved by Matisse's blue room & a portrait of Gerti Schiele; E. liked a trio of Richter screenprints (only one of which I found online) & a giant red canvas with vertical lines in it, by whom I can't remember. We were in agreement regarding Mondrian & modern sculpture (except for Brancusi's elegant forms, which we adored) but saw less than eye-to-eye on Jasper Johns.
& then last nite I actually tried to be productive. I met with my creative writing group for dinner. The evening began on a civilized note, with Conor posting a new story & everybody reading poetry & discussing our work. It descended into a few drinks too many, a loud case of the hiccups (it wasn't me!) & a screening of the Paris Hilton sex video. The video was pretty much the opposite of hot, unless your idea of hot is an underage, glassy-eyed, zombie-like heiress getting very monotonously fucked by her grunting frat-boy boyfriend. A much better viewing experience, which also includes tits & zombies, is the Dawn of the Dead remake. I saw it on Saturday. It was so scary I almost died. It even had a zombie baby! That movie is totally sweet; go rent it now. That is all for today.

Tuesday nite ended up being really fun. There wasn't any malt-shop drama at all, Stuart, tho that comment cracked me up. I don't know why I was even worried & anyway the bartender at Siberia put me at ease immediately. I got there before anyone else arrived, & in fact for awhile I was the only patron in the whole bar. Don't worry, I told the bartender. Other people are joining me.
Yeah? he said. Like who?
Um, I said. It's sort of my ex-boyfriend & his current girlfriend. I asked the guy I'm seeing to come too; I don't really know what we are yet, altho we have established that we are Hot & Heavy.
Oh, said the bartender. That's quite a situation. You know, I have a similar problem.
Really? I said, wondering which part of what I'd just said applied to him.
Well, my girlfriend just dumped me, he said.
I saw that it wasn't really the same at all, but he clearly wanted to talk about it with someone & anyway I hardly had a real problem. I was there for about 20 minutes before anyone else showed up & I listened to the nuances of their failed relationship, the mistakes he'd made, the second chances he blew, the parties he couldn't go to anymore. It was funny to be on the civilian side of the bar listening to someone's life story, but not in a bad way.
& then H&H arrived, followed by Jimmy & Jenny (aren't their names just so sweet?), & Matt & Tracy came too & there was nothing awkward about anything.
& then last nite Anise & I went to see a pre-screening of The Life Aquatic at MoMA. It was pretty great. Since practically no one else has seen it yet I'll refrain from gloating... & commenting. But it was great; go see it.

My ex-boyfriend Jimmy is in town with his new girlfriend. I don't know why I insist on calling Jimmy my ex-boyfriend when we have been friends for over ten years now & we broke up for the last time (which was probably the thirtieth time) about four years ago. We met when I was sixteen & he was fifteen. I mean we used to make out to the Geto Boys at his mom's house. & besides, any sexual chemistry that once existed between us has dwindled away to nothing at all. At least, I think it has dwindled away; I haven't seen him yet. The point is that he is here with his stupid new girlfriend & I have to hang out with them. I don't know why I insist on thinking of her as stupid & new either. They've been together for over a year now & I met her once in DC & she was quite nice & very not-stupid seeming. Still, it is sometimes easier to think of these things in immature, simplistic terms. But I will try to be on my best behavior tonite.
I'm off to lunch & to buy a copy of Vanity Fair. Anise said there might be a picture of my back in it somewhere.

I'm at Polly's house. I'm supposed to be revising a stupid short story I wrote, but I can't; it's all too stupid. There is a printout of a poem on Polly's bulletin board & I keep reading one of the lines: But that fervor must be somewhere.
I'm so tired. My brain isn't working properly. I can't sort out the problems in my story, I don't know how to make it work. I am drinking a wine called Les Heretiques & I am resisting the urge to go home & sleep. I need to sort out this story but I can't. I can't figure out if the ending is the only part of it that's worth anything or if it is hopelessly out of place. I can't figure out how to pull the narrator in any sort of direction. I'm wondering if I should write one of the main characters completely out. It's a very little story & it doesn't mean anything to anyone, at least not anymore. I can hardly write this post; I don't know what I think I am doing. Why are some days so hard to live out? Today seems interminable & yet it is slipping away from me, in that dread-filled way of all Sundays. It seems impossibly hard to finish the wine in the bottle & that is oddest of all.

In bed the body's glorious grasp of its anatomy
will move off with its pleasure, and the shape of the bones,
the muscles and tendons must all be relearned.

I have an idea for another story, about something I saw over the weekend. It is a better story than the one I am not working on today, because it doesn't have anything to do with me. That seems better, smarter.
I am considering not going to work tomorrow because somehow I feel like that will enable me to get done all of the things that I ignored over the weekend. I need to find the subway-violation summons that I lost & I need to do my laundry & clean my room & pick up my new bike & go to a coffee shop & work on my story without a horrible hangover putting my brain on mute. I want to clear more space in the closet for my new roommate & put my record albums in order & mail off my Netflix so I can get Buffy season seven in return. I'm so tired that I feel I need a day off work in order to put the Netflix envelopes in the mailbox. An entire day just for that, at the very least.
In spite of this it has been a lovely couple of days. Lots of drinking. Lots of glasses & bottles being drained & discarded & swiftly replaced. Lots of everybody loving each other. Friday I went to see Live Girls!!! at the Pussycat Lounge & it was a veritable love-fest. Unless that was just me, transfixed by this redheaded stripper who was wearing cat ears. At the Pussycat Lounge the strippers are way behind the bar, which reminded me of the Lakeview Lounge in Chicago, only there it's bands, not strippers. One of my friends slipped me a dollar to give the redhead. I wanted to give it to her in a sexy way but it was pretty stupid cos there was so much space between us so I more or less had to give her the old smoldering eye & then sort of reach over & just hand it to her across the bar like an idiot. After that she gave me the old smoldering eye back for awhile & I felt terrible because I had only given her a dollar & you could tell those girls probably don't make any money, being so far away from the clientele, as it were.
At this point I've been neglecting my story for 2 hours or so & I'm going to spend the next 20 minutes finishing the Heretiques & then I suppose I will head home so I can catch The Simpsons. Sigh. How I loathe Sunday evenings.

I'm way too busy to blog properly, but I while I was attempting to work I ran into this fucking hilarious thing. I was innocently trying to figure out what the hell a "dice weave" is for a report I'm editing & Google Image sent me here, which then led me to this, which is even more awesome-o. Please click on them. Now I am going back to work. Tho I still have no idea what a dice weave is.

My new roommate has Please Kill Me, which I've been wanting to read for ages, so it made me very happy to see it on her bookshelf. Even better than that, it creates yet another obstacle blocking the way of my ever finishing A Remembrance of Things Past, a.k.a. In Search of Lost Time. This morning I was reading it (PKM, not IROTP/ISOLT!) on the train. I'm on page, like, four or something, but it's already the best book ever. Everybody is so bitchy! Nico talked a bunch of trash about my favorite icon Edie Sedgwick; she said Edie was far too concerned with her lipstick to pay any attention to Nico, as if Nico was saying anything worth listening to anyway. & this guy Al Aronowitz, who seems like a bitter old name-dropper to me, said everybody got a piece of Nico but him, because she preferred her lovers half-dead, like Lou Reed. Zing! 2 horrible insults in 1 fucked-up sentence!
In other news, I am very, very lazy. I have been putting off doing my laundry (which only involves me walking it down the street & dropping it at the Polish place) for about 2 weeks. Today I am down to my very last pair of clean skivvies. This actually should have happened yesterday but yesterday I wore a bikini bottom because I knew the crisis was coming. Is that sort of punk rock tho? Or just gross?

Evening prior, over many dollar lagers, Kato resolved never blogging double units only. Blogger very lazy; project very stupid (also very tricky).