New York

The wing flirts with oncoming night,
dancing with dark and shadows.
A blanket of shimmering light
spreads as far as I can see.
I think of gathering it up
and presenting it to Grandma's
Singer sewing machine.

Back home in the light of one small lamp
her machine hums softly for her,
she and it working as one,
each no more than an extension of the other.
This woman-machine
defies logic, creating exquisite clothes
one would not think such a
mismatched pair
of wrinkled lady and rusty noisy machine
left over from another age
could fashion.

If the blanked outside my window
was set upon Grandma's table
left to the care of she and the Singer,
it would perhaps be molded
into a risque evening gown.
The seductive shimmering robe
would follow closely the curves
of any body it draped across,
winking softly as it played wanton
games with light and shadow.

The illusory dress jolts from thought
as I am jostled
in my straight-backed
worn to the floatble cushion seat.

I look at my table with the
crumpled pretzel wrapper clinging
to the bottom of my dewy
plastic cup, condensation pouring
down the sides, born from
cool of iced Ginger Ale.
Accompanied by the rustle
of garbage bag filled with
napkins and pretzel wrappers,
the stewardess steps up the aisle
and squirrels my garbage
into the bag with all the rest.

Back outside the window
my potential gown has dissipated
into a mass of broken lights, no longer
meshed into the breathtaking
glitter blanked that Grandma
and her Singer would have coveted.

- Kathryn Krueger, 1997

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

I shame the tiger

I shame the tiger
The brilliant streaks
which comprimise his coat
pale
against the intricate web
of confused
yet proud
streaks, spots, interlocking bands
of blazing color and light
which amalgamate my soul.

- Kathryn Krueger, 1998

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Grey, rubbery, ballooning its way up through my abdomen, my pain said to me, "I protect you.

'I hold all your other pain."

In simply noticing it, it changed. The air slipped out. This thing which had been large, rubbery, now became small, snakelike, snaked in amongst my intestines and other orgrans. And it slithered away out of sight, silently, leaving hardly a trace.

---

My right half; red, prickly, firey. My left; calm, smooth, orange, rubbery.

"I am your right side," says the right to the left. "I am an animal. I feel. I live. I burn wild and free, I am consumed."

"I am your left," says the left to the right. "I cool you. I protect you. I cradle you when you hurt. I am forever healing you, calming you, sedating you. I need you to calm yourself, and to pay attention. To feel less. To tame yourself. To be more like me."

"I need to burn," says the right. "I burn. Burn with me. Live and feel. Nothing that is around you is important."

Do they then begin to merge?

Flesh. Now we draw closer. The question is: can I love Connor, who will die someday, any day, the smell of his shoulders becoming only a memory. Can I soften to love, with full knowledge of the suffering I welcome in? Thomas Merton said the love we most cherish will, of necessity, bring us pain. Because that love is like the setting of a body with broken bones.

- From Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

As I was driving back to school after our break tonight, I found myself at a red light with an old guy in the car next to me. He was looking over at me, smiling, waving. Seemed so happy! I smiled and waved back.

Then, he leaned over, holding something to his face. I thought he was blowing his nose, so I let my attention wander back to the traffic light.

Momentarily, his left turn arrow turned green. I turned to look at him once more as he drove off, and ... he was transformed! He had slipped a rubber rat-nose onto his face. Was stroking his whiskers, waving at me again, and giggling like a little school girl. I had just moments ago been listening to loud dramatic music, but now couldn't help but laugh, myself, as well. He was such a sight, and so very, very happy.

In the vein of Jon, LINKFEST:

• Helicopter!
• Cyrkam Airtös

Behold, Chris's super-cute photography assignment: Lonely Death Bender.

Rants from Seattle's Newest DJ

I got some new DJing software for my computer, and an external USB sound card, so that I can both preview and send output from the same machine.

And that software, man, it's been crashing all over the place. I'd heard from Alex that it crashes for him, but he thought it was because he loads his whole music library. He said that it doesn't crash for Kevin, because Kevin drags and drops. Well, I didn't even load a playlist, much less my library -- I was just dragging and dropping files. But still, the crashing.

Also, I don't think I understand it very well yet -- at one point during the Practica I accidentally played two songs at once. I quite unfortunately had my headphones on when the incident occured, previewing something else, so I didn't even notice right away. Took a short while for me to realize what was going on and stop the offending second song. It was horrific! I had, like, FIVE people come up to me later that night and say, "Hey, it's cool that you're trying to mix songs and be creative and stuff, but the beats weren't matching up too well. You maybe need to work on it a bit." Argh! What I really need is to work on playing one song at a time.

In other news, I seem to have some crazy electro-static field that wreaks havoc with mics and such. During classes, we kept having problems with huge bursts of static over the sound system, so bad that we had to power the whole system down several times. And I swear, I'm not being paranoid, but it was somehow tied to me. It sucked.

I hate email. I hate that I can write any number of emails to any number of people, and sit for days, or weeks, and never get any response. The same for phone messages.

So, getting no response - what does that mean? Someone read what I wrote and didn't feel it warranted a response? Didn't read it at all? Didn't even get the email?

Do I just let it go, or write another, or call, or write a real letter? At what point does reaching out to them more become an annoyance, where they are perhaps sending some signal that I'm not picking up on because it's all-too-subtle?

I dislike the little ball of something-bad that gathers in my chest when I've written someone about something close to me, and it's been days, and they haven't responded, and at this point I'm not sure they ever will. I almost want to be angry, but then again, I'm probably one of the worst for being consistent in responding to emails and phone messages. So who am I to hold it against anyone else? It would be so hypocritical. So the ball just sits there. Sort of like the ball that you can feel in your stomach just after you've eaten Dicks, a little ball of fat and grease and salt just sitting, only this one is less salt and grease and fat and more bad feelings.

Or maybe I'm still just feeling the Dicks from last night.

As of yesterday morning, there are no more metal fillings in my mouth.

Jonny fell asleep last night in the crook of my arm, purring! We've come so far.

Then he woke up at 3:00am and started batting mugs full of pens off of my desk. He does like to knock things to the floor. Especially in the middle of the night. Especially if they are made of glass. Bat-cat.

Happy Birthday Me!

Seriously, so many people have written, called, sent little notes - it's a bit overwhelming. I'm so used to my birthday going relatively unnoticed, and then y'all have to go and remember it. Almost enough to make a girl cry.

We were talking, tonight, about birthdays, Chris, Chris, Coquina and I. Coquina asked if any one of us ever had one birthday that was really, truly, memorable. I told this story, which I will now share with you -

I remember, on my fifth birthday, walking down the hall of my nursery school with my uncle. In the course of conversation, he said, "You know, you will never be four again."

Just like that. Exactly those words.

I was traumantized.

Four was a good age, you know? I quite enjoyed it. At that point, it had been a quarter of my life so far; I wasn't really ready to give it up. This is one of my strongest persisting childhood memories, this point of surprise and horror at the passing of time, at the thought that four was now in the past, unreachable for all the rest of time.

I'll never be four again.

the days fly away like leaves in a gale

each breath fills my lungs
breath in
breath out
an endless repetition
my heart bleeds
to and from
each organ
each limb
every extremity
fire consumes my vision
time blurs the days, a parade
what was yesterday?
so many heart beats ago
the air which filled me
which left me
long since replaced

- Kathryn Krueger, March 2005

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

I'm really finding that, at heart, I'm a social dancer. I want to teach, I want to DJ, I want to build a dance community -- but most of all, I want to social dance. I want to be out every night that I can be, dance with a variety of people, search for connection, and occasionally connect with someone in a way that is so compelling, beautiful, and powerful that I can't help but keep going out searching for a repeat or a sequel to the experience.

We've been cat-sitting for a few weeks. Jonny is a 2-year old white cat. But for the occasional scuffle, he and Louie have been doing quite well.

The cat loves Chris's chair. He will lie in wait for hours, until Chris gets up, and then attempt a steal.

He also loves to break things. Set a perfectly good mug down in the middle of the table, and the cat might jump up and purposefully knock it all the way to the edge.

Don't we all love to break things, though? I mean, I do. I just don't act on that love all too often.

I do miss having cats about. Such a different energy than that of dogs.

Much of what I am posting now I have stolen from correspondence. Lesley, if you are reading, do not be offended -- I took the time first to write you, and only now that it has already been written am I picking out bits for journaling.

In other, related news, Chris and Chris and I are moving. A whole 50 feet, or something. We're moving to the lower apartment next door, which is owned by the same landlord. It's a bit bigger, almost the same price, has windows on 3 sides of the house instead of 2 (none of which face a driving school parking lot with cars going in and out and blowing exhaust right by the house), has 2 bedrooms which I think would be big enough for my personal belongings AND my massage table (which will be great for me, not to have to depend on someone else's space!), is not directly underneath noisy 6:00 AM driving classes in the summer, and generally, feels to be a good change. We've been given permission to fence off the back yard and let Louie run back there. Chris will rent the shed in back and turn it into a dark room. Many, many good things. See, Kat? Change isn't all bad.

Jaimes has left, also. Right now in New Zealand. Soon to be in Vancouver, Toronto, Portland, Eugene, and then off to Beijing; pretty much gone from Seattle through August. How things do change.

Christa has moved away. It's quiet without her. I miss her, but perhaps the break is good. I think we were simply too close for a while there at the end, and it was stressing our friendship. Hopefully the break from daily-roommate-living-stresses will give our friendship a chance to regenerate.

In the meanwhile, one of Chris's friends is staying in our 3rd room. His name is also Chris. From living with Christa and Chris to living with Chris and Chris... cute. He's only here until June 13th, when he heads off to Rome. I'm not sure what we'll do with the room after that. Maybe, when deciding, we should make a rule that if "Chris" is not at least a portion of your name, you can't live there. Just to stick with tradition and all. You know.

Is it possible to miss someone and to be glad that they've gone, all at once?