How to write the long-languishing oratory of your life

Like most writers, I’m really quite fascinated with myself. And I’ve toyed with the idea of writing some sort of auto-biography which adequately depicts my emotional, physical and spiritual trials and tribulations.

I know you’d all just die to read to it.

Although i haven’t worked out the details, I’ve created an outline that I’d like to share with all of you. Please feel free to amend this literary skeleton, as it is a work in progress.

Part 1: I was born in a small town to small town parents. I lived in the meandering drudgery of mid-western existence. As I am an extremely interesting person, and extremely interesting people do no often thrive in such limited circumstances, I fought my way out…due on to my tenacity, vivaciousness and…the fact that no one really wanted me there anyway.

Yadda yadda, blah blah blah…what’s in the middle doesn’t really matter…yadda yadda yadda.

Part 25: Like most truly delicate flowers, I cannot bare the hardship of this cruel world. After many failed relationships, I decide to retreat into a world akin to that of my predecessor, J.D. Salinger. I come out of my house only to get my daily paper, I never give interviews. None of my cats will even talk to me anymore. Occasionally they appear on Oprah, detailing their tragic mistreatment by a woman consumed with the pursuit of do-it-yourself blogger fame.

I’m thinking parts 2-24 should incorporate just about every minute and tedious aspect of my very existence. The time I wore mismatching socks in the 7th grade, the bad haircut I received my junior year of college, and the rather lackluster report card I got in graduate school. In addition I’d like to personally attack every man I’ve ever dated–not because they deserve it–but rather, to add more “color” to an anthology that may or may not be filled with unsubstantiated heresy, half-truths and conjecture.

I’ve really got this bio thing down, don’t you think?

The Lady is a Tramp

Me: I really am starting to despise discussions about “what is art” or “what art is” or “what art isn’t”…all the pretense makes me a little nauseous.

Paul: So, when people have those discussions what do you do? You’re “educated” …you could chime in.

Me: i no longer have the desire to prove that I’m a classy, worldly dame. It’s never gotten me anywhere.

Paul: Oh, but you could prove to the exclusive men in such exclusive intellectuals that you’re desirable. That they’d be lucky to have a lady like you on their shoulder.

Me: Or I could shut up and silently imagine what men that pretentious and self-centered are going to look like when they’re 89 years old and they have no companionship aside from the live-in health assistant. (Pause) I’ll probably find more joy in that.

Paul: You’re really a quite a horrible person.

Taken

Today a little boy ran up to me while I was on my walk and said, “My name is Charlie. And you’re beautiful.”

Thanks, Charlie.

Nachos, bella?

Sometimes I think I spent my past life as an Italian stud.

I think I must have prayed on lonely women who visit Rome in an effort to forget their abusive/closeted gay/simply not interesting enough middle-aged husbands.

I think this because I often find myself invading my male friends personal space when I sense that they are in emotional distress. I don’t consciously do this because I want to sleep with the, but perhaps there is some sort of inner skeaze I haven’t fully reckoned with who hopes to get, at the very least, some sort of monetary reward for the gesture.

Perhaps, another reason I question my former position on earth, is because during such interactions (which more often than not take place at sports bars, pubs or any other place where liquor is cheap and isn’t considered poor taste to purchase alcohol at ten in the morning) I usually comfort them by saying banally worded, yet somewhat toughing in their emotional simplicity, nuggets of pseudo-wisdom that would cause any woman my age to roll her eyes in the back of her head.

For instance, when my males friends say, “god my shitty car SUCKS so bad and I need to get a new one.  SHIT!”

I say, “Emotions are what separate us from robots, go on cry.”

And when they look at me like, what are you talking about you crazed woman? I respond with something like, “Say it like you eat, put it plainly! And lay your head down if you must!”

Usually they don’t understand my simple heart or my philosopher and poet nature.  Most likely I get  a strained stare, questioning whether or not they have been friends with me out of stupidity, desperation or simply plain, tragic oversight.  Sometimes, they offer me nachos.

My rock candy of love

Today I saw 2 little girls and a little boy playing “Rock of Love” with each other. For those of you who don’t know, Rock of Love is a downright terrible (yet, somewhat appealing in the way a bad haircut with too much hairspray is appealing) game show on VH1.  Brett Micheals (everyone’s favorite washed-up rock “musician,” who is probably best known for his sex tape with Pamela Anderson).

The little boy (Brett) was standing outside with the two girls standing across from him.  As I walked by, the little boy pointed to the little girl to his left and said, “Amber, you are my rock of love.”

“Amber” jumped up and down and began to gleefully shout “I’m a rock of love!”

The little girl next to her turned to Amber and yelled, “I wanted to be Amber!”

Then she punched Amber in the stomach.

The great part about this is that it seems life imitates art a lot sooner than we’d expect it to.  The not so great part–”art” is now a cheaply shot, reality show on a stale music network.

Another reason I sometimes hate men.

Do you really need to yell as I’m walking down the street, bothering absolutely no one, lose weight/get a tan/ugly girl etc.

Seriously. I know people. People with very strong stomachs. And I will have you killed.

KT’s urban dictionary: Entry one.

Luv*

*Cute aphorism for liking someone or wanting to get on their good side. Usually used on IM, cell phones and facebook/myspace/friendster posts. Not, as commonly thought, synonymous with a sickening, unhealthy obsession (love) which is usually only used while in bed.

Could I have some more patriarchy, please?

Yum Yum. I love the word “patriarchy.” Using it makes me feel like I’m some kind of over-educated feminist post-modern literary critic with very little tact but a whole lot of spunk and a great ass to boot!

You know, the kind of character Barbara Streisand usually plays.

I kid. Barbara Streisand hasn’t made a movie in forever.

And I actually have a huge amount of respect for my feminist sisters, especially if they like to blog-it. And here is my new favorite blog o’ the moment:

I Blame the Patriarchy

Sunday, bloody Sunday.

My friend P. and I used to have a weekly brunch before he moved to Austin, TX. We did this for about a year, and I started to call our get-togethers “bloody Sundays” because of the mass quantities of bloody Marys we would consume and the mayhem that would invariably ensue.

P. was fantastically flamboyant, and would oftentimes show up to the various establishments we had agreed to meet in shocking neon boas and white gloves. I have a feeling part of the reason I would consume so much alcohol was to get over how self-conscious I felt when he would undoubtedly arrive at the table I had snagged (he was always late) and announce in a deeply baritone voice that carried at uncomfortable levels, “Oh darling, sexual white chocolate has arrived!” (He was irish but wouldn’t touch Guinness with a five-foot pole. Why? Because, as he insists to this day, he’s a lady.)

P. would then commence scanning the room for men for both him and me. The cute ones? His. The ones who looked like they made a lot of money? His. The ones who looked like they were in a band or who might know someone in a band? His. The ones who looked like they may be really into you for about, say, a month, and then suddenly decide that you weren’t as beautiful/smart/fantastic as they thought you were originally. Mine. Why? Because, as P. put it, I was the “strong one.”

Now, you may ask, how is it that one (me) discerns if one they are observing is such an individual. Well, I still really haven’t mastered that, but I do know that they usually wear leather jackets.

On one such “bloody Sunday,” P. and I agreed to meet at Coobah on the North Side. I sat outside and sipped a Mimosa while P. dilly-dallied and eventually showed up 20 mins later, his hand wrapped around the arm of a leather jacket wearing hipster donning aviator glasses.

“KT!” P. exclaimed upon reaching his seat, “This is Aaron. Aaron and I got to talking at the bar…”

“The bar,” I said, “How long have you been here?”

“Oh for about 30 mins…I saw you come in 20 mins ago, but I knew you wouldn’t be expecting me for a while…so I just kept chatting,” he said. Then, turning to Aaron, whispered, “I’m always late. She doesn’t even expect me until an hour after she shows up anymore.”

“Yes…” I mumbled. “Is your new…friend staying with us?”

“Yes,” P. said firmly, “And I won’t have you turning him away. He’s just broken up with his girlfriend. And he needs to…vent.”

“Um. OK.” I said. “Uh, Aaron, was this a, uh, long relationship?”

Aaron shrugged and smoothed his hair back. He rubbed his day-old scruff and squinted his eyes in a deeply serious, expertly cultivated glare. For a second, I believed he was suffering SO much that he had only a half-lucid, wholly injured version of himself to offer the both of us.

“No,” Aaron said. “We only dated for a month. I just…lost interest.”

I turned to P., who at this point, is silently rubbing my left shoulder in an effort to appear nurturing and affectionate and said, “I hate you and don’t touch me.”

Eh, I didn’t have to pay to get in.

Until this day, my greatest honor has been getting into bars/clubs/venues for free because I knew someone who worked there. Now, I have a new greatest honor. Apparently I’m featured in some kind of poetry book. How this happened…I don’t know. I think it has something to do with a poem I wrote a while ago that ended up in the Rocky Mountain Review. All I know is that I’m receiving a whopping $45 royalty check in the mail sometime soon.

Oh yeah, and here’s the link, just so you know I’m not lying:

Names in a Jar