i asked for it.
it's cold here. it's just really really cold. so cold that walking back from the el today i was so tense from the cold that i thought i would puke. ask and you shall freeze.
i. hate this.
a good weekend, a long blog.
my mom was here this weekend, and it was pretty great. too bad chicago is so cold. not only is it cold, but it also forces you to be outside a lot. walking to the train, walking from the train to wherever you're going, and, especially if you're downtown, walking outside and then into every individual shop. it was cold.
but it was also weird because we went to places like nordstroms and the water tower place and it just makes you realize how broke you are. those places have some expensive shite and no way can we afford it. also, it was just weird going to those places. normally, if i'm downtown, it's either to go to work or to see
superMike or something like that. i don't actually spend time shopping around or anything. so it was almost surreal. maybe touristy is the word.
i've decided that my blogs are too long. not to mention they were getting too sad and stupid.
love, kate
biiiig misunderstanding
dude. you guys. i'm totally not leaving chicago. no way. sometimes i want to, but, as mentioned in previous blog updates, it's mostly just the cabin fever and a few phone calls from my brother that are feeding my homesickness. and partly, i just want to go to rock shows in st louis! st louis is my home, and that's that. i miss it, yes, but me moving back home really won't accomplish anything. i'd be there for my dad, and i'd be there for my brother, and, not to diminish the importance of doing that, but it really wouldn't solve anything for me to move back home. my dad would still be sad sometimes, and jeff would still be angry, and scott would still be not talking to mom. i wouldn't have a job with benefits like i do now, nor would i have my art classes, not to mention i wouldn't have my roommates who i love so much. i would just be another winchester back in collinsville.
i do love living in chicago. i do. i'm supporting myself and making a life for myself out here. i love that. who wouldn't? but it's just hard sometimes to be away from a home that i love just as much. but it's life. i'll definitely move back home for grad school, if i get in at siue, and until then i'm happy right where i am. no worries people! katie is here... for at least another year!
love, kate
ps- sorry the blogs have been such downers. i'll work on it.
i left my heart in st. louis.
it's sunday night. technically, it's monday morning because it's 12:15 am. my phone rings waking me up and leaving me confused. you know how it is when you answer your phone after it wakes you up. it took me a second to realize that is was my brother, even though i'd just read his name on the caller ID. he had to tell me who it was. then, after talking for a few minutes, he had to tell me he was drunk. usually i can pick up on that stuff. he told me this right after he asked me when i was moving back home.
my little brother has had it the worst out of all of us kids during this divorce. he was the one at home when my dad would break down and he was the one who had to pick him up and dust him off. my older brother is there for us, so he says, and he's been there for my younger brother, but whenever i go to talk to him about any of it, he gets really quiet and stubborn and if i try to convince him to talk to mom, we get in a huge fight.
i feel like i totally cheated out by moving up here. i just left everyone behind and was like, "yeah have fun picking up the pieces! i'm gonna go chill out in chicago." so i did. and i'm having a great time. but my brother still has to call me upset in the middle of the night about how he's still so angry about everything or how i need to move back home because he has a hard time dealing with all of this on his own. which is completely understandable. i don't know how he did it and also kept straight A's and also got into dental school after only 3 years as an undergrad. the kid is fucking amazing. he's easily the best person i've ever known.
so today i let my mind wander. i started thinking about moving back home. i really wouldn't leave much behind in chicago as far as a job and friends go. believe me, leaving my roommates would rip me apart, for sure, but my only other really close friend is my boss at work. and the other people i work with are great and diverse and chicago itself is a big world that i just fit into. collinsville is small and hick and close-minded. but it's where my family is.
in reality, i miss the fun things i did in st louis. i miss the rocket bar. good lord i think about that damn place and the shows there all the time. and also everyone else at those shows. and i'll miss the zoo in the summer. and i miss the boy i left behind there. i miss my best friend, jim, and i miss my brothers and i miss my dad and i kinda mis my dogs. i miss that i don't get to make my mom happy all the time when i see her. same for my dad. over the summer i was my dad's "date" to places we went. my mom has someone to be around all the time, but my dad doesn't. i want to be there for my dad so he isn't alone so much. i had such a great time in st louis last sumer, i guess i feel like it will be warm and muggy and fun when i go back. in reality, it will be cold and boring and i'll sit around wondering why the hell i left chicago.
i guess i'm just homesick. not in the summer camp kind of way where if i don't go home now i'll die, but in the grown-up kind of way, i guess. i just feel like i left my responsiblities in down south.
but it's all the more drive i have towards going to grad school. i think moving back home then is what i have to do. i really want to go back to SIUE. and i want to be a teacher so bad i can taste it. agh. i just have to be patient, and try to help my brother from up here as much as i can.
love, kate
i'm so bored.
i hate it when my roommates aren't home and i don't have to work. it's so boring. all my cds feel old, but every once in a while i can scratch out a desire to hear something i haven't heard in, i dunno, a week. i recently brought back my "big wreck" cd from senior year in high school. man, was that crazy. it even sounds like 1997. there's one song on it that i remember listening to when i was so sad. it's strange to listen to it now and all of a sudden i'm lying on my back in my old bedroom. mom is making dinner, dad's in a bad mood finishing up work in the basement, scott's guitar is too loud again, and jeff is watching tv or playing video games.
so much has changed. when i was home for christmas i had the house to myself all weekend. i just wandered around upstairs and looked at all of our old rooms. jeff's is my dad's office now, scott's is a guest room, and my dad's is my dad's room, it's not my parents' room anymore. my room is the only one left with any furniture in it resembling a bedroom. and even then it's all empty shelves and boxes of things i never moved with me. i don't like change very much. i'm excited about the future, it's nice not knowing what is going to happen to you and it makes me eager to live, but i don't like it when i see what a mess the past has become.
mostly i just wish i could roll out of bed and go hang out with my brothers whenever i wanted again. and have my whole family in one room laughing. i don't understand how this all happened.
kate
i don't have much to say.
i really don't. other than i'm feeling cabin fever. real bad.
i think i just realized the term for it this second, but i've definitely been feeling like this for a while now. i'm tired of being inside and not being able to go running. it's like being in a car on a long drive and wanting to get out and stretch your legs. the sun was out the other day, and it was weird and made me realize that the sun hadn't been out in almost two weeks. two weeks! there's icy patches of snow left on the ground. and it's cold. the past few days have been okay warm, but it's cold here. the walk to and from the el is no fun anymore.
yes. it's chicago. i get it. it's actually warmer here than st. louis probably is. well, maybe. st. louis used to get really frikking cold. and now this false warmness gives a false hope that spring will be here sooner than we all thought. but this is the midwest. it's going to get really cold again really soon.
back to cabin fever. the fact that my truck was a total loss and is now being used for parts or something doesn't help fight the urge to get out of the house. i can't even go grocery shopping or do my laundry without having to figure out the bus routes or the el. and they raised the cta price to $1.75. that's an extra $10 a month i spend getting to and from work. just to work! not to mention i can't just go home when i have a few days off in a row. nope, i'm stuck here in my little room, laundry piling up and no food on my shelves. i just want to go running!
there are plus sides, though. i get to spend some kickass quality time with the roomies, it's actually kind of fun using only public transportation, and any other errand i have to run is like a mini challenge waiting to be figured out. i work at a coffeehouse people, it's not exactly a brain teaser.
anyway, this will all make spring that much better. people can come up to visit us in the spring and we won't freeze walking around chi doing nothing but enjoying the outside.
man, i can't wait for spring.
love, kate
it's all so fucking hilarious.
that's actually a line from "road to perdition." it took me forever to figure out where it was from.
anyway. the hilarity. what is all so hilarious, my friends, are relationships. it seems as though very many people i know are going through hard times. people at work, people at home (chicago and st. louis), my siblings, my parents, my friends, my everyone, and just people i know are all going through some weird love times. it makes me think a lot about marriage. and not in the "marriage is scary" way, but in the "marriage is just work" way.
it's becoming more and more clear to me that marriage is not love. i mean, in the beginning it is. in the beginning it's all candy skies and birds chirping and making out. but eventually that all stops, because making out with the same person can only be new and exciting for so long. then you have to start working. marriage is work.
basically, you grow up. and so does your spouse. thinking that, at the age of 26, you're going to love this person in 50 years the same way you do now is pretty ridiculous. because you won't even be the same people. marriage isn't falling in love, marriage is a decision. this is you promising that no matter what, you will stay with this person forever. all that love jive gets tangled up so that when people realize they aren't really in love anymore, they think it's over. but it's not. it shouldn't be anyway. you may not be head over heels anymore (let's face it, you do not look the same way you did at 26 and you've probably gained some strong opinions since then, too), but you still made a promise.
what i'm trying to say is that i'm slowly coming to realize that marriage is just that, it's a promise. it's picking the one person who you know you can live with for the rest of your life. not necessarily love the rest of yor life, but live with and share with and hold hands with. why do you think arranged marriages work so well? because it's not a choice, really. it's two people who have to do something so they make it work. you just have to try.
this might sound like i'm saying, "marriage is settling." it's not. you don't have to marry me if you don't want to. but if you get married, you have to realize what you're really saying. you're really saying that right now i love you, and i'm okay with the fact that we'll be different a long time from now, but i'm willing to grow old with you. who knows, if you're lucky, and you work with and understand your spouses growing needs and wants, you'll stay in a growing and changing kind of love that you never had when you were 24.
maybe then, you'll be like the old couples we all see and envy who still walk down the street holding hands.
love, kate
my new year.
my roommates and i had a new year's party. it was pretty good. it was actually really good. i hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and had worked a lot the past two days, so i was really tired and i didn't drink much, but it felt so good to have a house full of people who were having fun. the best was when one of shannon's old friends would show up and she'd get really excited. i think that was my favorite part of the night, seeing shannon so happy.
my other favorite part of the next twelve hours or so were the tons of people who would cram onto one bed for some right good cuddling. around 4 in the morning, i had about 6 people on my bed, just lying all over everyone else and talking and laughing. the next day, smaller versions of this occurred, and it was all good. the new year was brought in by mass amounts of bodily contact, and there is nothing better. especially since it wasn't sexual, it was just being near people you loved.
at midnight, we all went on the roof and watched what we could see of the fireworks downtown. at midnight it was too quiet. i mean, we were all excited and said happy new year, but there wasn't any loud music or cheering or the TV with dick clark or anything so it felt less than exciting, but still it's the first time i'd ever gotten to be around a huge group what i guess are my friends. i've never ever had a large group of friends before. i think chicago is the best thing that's ever happened to me.
this is the most journal-y entry i've ever had before. but typing feels easier than writing in my real journal. i'm the reluctant blogger. maybe my resolution should be to stop worrying about stupid stuff like writing in my blog rather than in my journal. resolutions are so stupid.
love, kate
