Here I am in Portland this last weekend:



And here I am at the same event, actually dancing:



I love tango. Someday I'm going to be super-awesome at tango.

If you don't know what I mean when I say "tango", check out the following videos:

• Chicho (Mariano Frumboli) & Victoria Vieyra
• Alex Krebs & Luciana Valle (Click here for larger version)
• Mayumi's video links (I particularly like "La Viruta")
• Jaimes Friedgen & Rachel Smith ("Milonga Triste" is my favorite of the two)

Pretty awesome, eh? That's how I'm going to dance, and sooner than you think.

Lately I've been doing funny things like cleaning and practicing my guitar. If you know me well, you know these are things I almost always mean to do but rarely ever actually get around to doing.

Not having internet anymore has a large part to do with it, I think.

I've traditionally not been good at being alone. I get down sometimes. Lonely. I'm scared of confronting myself, letting my thoughts run where they will. When I had internet, I think I used it as an escape whenever I found myself with down time. Rather than be alone with myself, I'd browse the web or play a game.

Cleaning, practicing music -- these things require the body, but they allow the mind to wander. I am coming to believe that part of the reason I put them off so often is that I could not deal with letting my mind freely wander in that way. I couldn't deal with my own emotion so I preferred activities that kept my mind occupied.

Now I am coming to love such activities. When I am at home I am drawn to them. I've grown a lot over the last year, I think, and deal better with myself now that I am finally giving myself a chance to try it out again. I'm happier and my thoughts are healthier. I actually prefer being alone sometimes.

You should see my apartment sometime, if you haven't lately. It's still a work in progress, but is becoming quite cozy.

Do you remember Jacob Wetterling? He was abducted from a small Minnesota town on October 22, 1989 at gunpoint, while riding his bike outside with his brother and a friend. He was 11 years old. He was only one month and 9 days older than me.

His abduction... it hit me somewhere deep inside, moreso than almost any other worldwide event that I can recall during my childhood. He was so close to me -- age, origins, geographical location, family characteristics. He could have been me. I could have been him.

Even now, 15 years later, I still think of him sometimes. What happened to him? Is he still alive? How could he never have been found?

I was compelled just now to look him up on the web. Hoped that someone had learned something in the last decade and a half, that his family had been granted some sort of closure. Not so. No one knows.

His family has since established JWF, a foundation intended to protect children from sexual exploitation and abduction, and they have become strong activists working for that cause. On the webpage for the foundation, there is a letter from his mother to the man who abducted him. I cried, reading it. She is a woman of strength and speaks from her heart.

I still don't understand how such horrible things can happen. I don't understand how people can recover from it. When the abduction occurred, I looked at it from the perspective of an 11 year old, from the perspective of a possible abductee or the friend of such. Now I am older. I look at it from the perspective of a parent, a neighbor. I don't know how I would handle it, were I the one left behind, how I would ever find peace within myself. I am amazed that people can be so resilient, can heal.

If Jacob is still out there, I hope that he is found someday. I hope that he has been alive and well and has made it through all these years. If he hasn't, I hope that knowledge finally comes to light about what did happen to him. I wish for his family to find some sort of closure, to finally know. Not knowing -- that is the worst part of it all.

So, as you've surely noticed if you ever were a regular here, I'm not posting so much these days. That whole no-more-internet-at-home thing gets in the way a bit.

I am still writing, more than ever. But most of it sits in journals now. Or on tape; I've also been playing around with vocalizing my thoughts.

I do plan to publish bits of these writings every now and again, but it will probably come in spurts. Like this one.

Today I drew a picture - rather, it drew me - and as I drew, I cried.

It's not that I was sad - I was actually quite happy, sitting in the sun on the Kirkland waterfront - it's just that that's what the picture required of me. I haven't been consumed by art like that in a long time.

This is my last post from my desktop in my apartment. I'm having my home phone and internet disconnected today.

Over the last few weeks I've been taking a close look at my life, trying to sort out necessities from conveniences. In an attempt to trim down and simplify I am letting go of some of the conveniences, and the phone/DSL is one of the first things to go.

That said, I won't be as responsive to email from here on out. If you need to get ahold of me, best try my cellphone.

My blog will also suffer a bit, I am sure. I will still be writing regularly, but I will likely post and publish my entries in spurts (even moreso than I have been doing lately).

I went out for Ethopian food with Rachel yesterday.

There are two sections to the restaurant. The busier section is up front by the doors. In the back, there is a darker more colorful room. On one side of this room is a bar, and on the other are two or three booths. We sat in one of the booths and we were the only people in the room. It felt small, cozy, intimate -- very removed from the rest of the world. Another world in itself.

We ordered food and got to talking. I've known Rachel for quite a while now, but we've not known each other very well. Yesterday, though, we seemed to really connect. She didn't have any agenda, no place she needed to be, nothing she would rather have been doing -- I'd forgotten how nice that can be, spending time with someone who is completely there with you, not half-focused on where they need to be or what they want to be doing next -- and I was happy to just be there, in the moment, as well. We talked for almost four hours. First more trivial things, and then we wandered in and out of wilder territory. It's the first conversation I've had in a while where I felt both I and my conversational partner were being completely honest and frank. It was refreshing. So often, there are so many things that get in the way of that: a preference for courtesy, fear of offending, fear of conflict, too many assumptions, lack of time, lack of desire... the list goes on and on.

Walking outside when we finally did leave was jarring -- exiting our cozy den, thrust back into the midst of light and traffic and people. Even now, though, there's a bit of a glow left over from the time spent with her. I felt so alive and happy.

Steve passed me on 520, on the way to work this morning. Such a small thing, yet it made me so happy.

Some of the Portland people make fun of me, saying that I always wear green. I don't wear it always, but I do wear it often.

The thing is, green is such a perfect color.

I drove through the Arboretum today on my way back from lunch. The sunlight shone down through the trees, highlighting leaves and grass and greenery. All shades of green, everywhere. Light green, dark green, olive green, forest green. Everything looked so alive, so fresh! And then through the trees the bit of sky that showed was the brightest shade of blue, setting all the green off all the more so. It was like a painting. I wanted to take it with me, to keep it close.

The best I can do, I guess, is to wear a bit of green now and again.

I didn't dance all weekend. Then I danced tonight, and now I have blisters on my feet.

Four days of not dancing -- that's all it took. What kind of wussy feet do I have? I wasn't wearing new shoes or anything. Same old shoes. Brand new blisters. Lucky me.

Lots going on in my life right now, but I don't know that I'm going to blog it all quite yet. If you haven't talked to me in the last week or two or I haven't yet updated you on all my latest plans and schemes -- if you are at all curious -- feel free to catch me and ask what's up. Or just sit back and hold tight. I'm sure it will all hit the blog eventually.

I don't feel like sleeping, quite. I think I'm going to stay up and clean for a while, and maybe make the sleep up with a nap after work tomorrow. My energy hasn't ebbed and flowed quite like this since college, but I like the way it's going. I feel like I could take on the whole world! For now, though, I guess I'll be content to just take on my living room.

Birds are so awesome!

I had not realized before that groups of passengers debarking planes from different locations look distinctly different.

The crowd of passengers heading up the escalator into the baggage claim, having disembarked a plane just in from Cancun, do not at all resemble the crowd of passengers just having disembarked a plane from Minneapolis, MN. The first group of people seems somehow... tropical. The second seems more pale, pasty, pallor.

A study of wild chimpanzees has provided evidence that girls have been faster learners than boys for six million years. Short attention spans and too much time spent swinging in trees are a bit of a handicap, it seems -- ha! Girl power.

I've been thinking recently about marriage.

I used to strongly believe that I would be married and starting a family by the time I was 25. Now I'm 26.

As men in my life go, there are generally three camps I can sort them into. Here is a diagram:



Yes, there is some overlap between "A" and "B". But note that there is not much.

Note also that this diagram does not imply any feeling on their part for me. Men in the overlap area (or in any area, for that matter) may have no interest in me whatsoever, although I suppose a lack of interest probably tends to push them out of the type "A" bucket.

And honestly, a lack of interest in me probably makes men a stronger candidate for bucket "B". Yes, I am drawn to men who are, for whatever reason, emotionally unavailable.

So what does this mean? Does it mean that marriage is not for me?

Does it mean that attraction and passion are not what I should seek out in a long term relationship, since it seems I am attracted mainly to men I am not really suited for? Should I instead be choosing my relationships based on other factors?

Or maybe I should just live and let live, go for whomever I am drawn to. Live in the moment, no regrets, no holding back. Be with whomever I wish to be with, and marry them if it ever comes to that.

It's not that "B" bucket boys are un-marriage-able; I'm just not sure it would last. We might have a torrid affair, an idyllic marriage at least for a time -- a hot and steamy honeymoon phase -- only to have everything ultimately come crumbling down. I'd be another divorce statistic or something. That would suck.

As an aside, I view love and passion as different beasts. I have love for men who do not inspire passion in me, and I am passionate about men I do not love. I am equally able to love "A" and "B" men.

Back to marriage --

I don't know if I can see myself married at all, at least not any time soon. It's strange to hear myself say that, a jolt that I'm starting to believe it. It deviates so much from the plan. Now there is no plan. I don't know where I'm going or how I'm going to get there.

Alex says he could see me married, but for it to work, it would be an unconventional marriage.

Why am I not passionately attracted to the "A" men in the first place? Is there some sensor in me that is malfunctioning?

Ironically enough, I think I am a "B" woman for many of the men who are attracted to me -- no promise of stability or solidity, a captivating siren nested in the rocks.

Sorry I haven't posted for a while.

Not much up with me and yet there's quite a bit going on, all at once.

I spent all of Easter afternoon out on the beach at Golden Gardens, dancing tango with friends. I saw my first sea anemones! Pretty awesome. Played in the water, made some groovin' sand sculptures, and had some lovely dances. Quite a nice time.

The last few days I've been back at work. I've had my lunches outside, enjoying the sun. Still hitting the Spanish classes, which are going well. Dancing lots of tango.

I went out swing dancing last night, for a change, to catch Kevin's last performance before he hits Europe. It was pretty sweet. Odd for me, though -- lindy has such different energy than tango. I felt like I'd stumbled into an alternate universe that I used to be a part of, but had since forgotten about. Superman returning to Krypton, or something.

My lindy connection felt off at first. This "all tango, all the time" thing I've got going on isn't helping my lindy connection any; go figure. I managed to sort it out by the end of the night so that it was feeling better, though.

My mood has been a little up and down recently. I think I'm affected by the moods of people around me more than I know. I started getting moody last week, and it turns out that a close acquaintance I see quite often separated from his wife around that time. His life has been going all crazy. I didn't know about it at the time, but I think in retrospect I picked up on his feelings and that's part of why I started feeling a little crazy up and down, myself. Interesting how that works.

Today has been good. Had lunch outside and read in the park for a little bit. I made daisy chains, on a whim; I hadn't done that in years. I'm still wearing them now. So nice to bring a little of the outdoors inside with me, given that I was stuck in my office during the better part of the day. Especially since work got crazy at the end of the day and I had to stay many more hours than planned.

I love daisies. The plump little sunshiny yellow centers surrounded by a soft white fringe, emitting a soft, fresh scent. I don't remember there being quite so many daisies back in Minnesota. Should I move away from Seattle, I will miss them.

If I find my camera any time soon, I think I'm going to make this more of a picture blog. Or at least make it the same old blog, but supplemented with pictures. Then I'll post pictures of the next flower ornaments I create. You will all be privileged to share in the flowery goodness. I am sure that you tremble with anticipation.

I just had a breakfast of strawberries, brie cheese, and stone ground wheat crackers up on the roof with Henri, taking in the sun. Louie hung out with us, as well. It was awesome. I love sunshine. I wish every day were as amazingly beautiful as today, although I guess I might not appreciate the days quite as much in that case.

Ha! I am posting this from my cellphone! How fucking awesome is that?!

Today is so beautiful it's unreal. Alex and I are at a used book store. Going to grab a copy of Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle", head over to a park, and then we're going to sit out in

(CONTINUED FROM LAST POST. Apparently my phone imposes an input length restriction on text boxes.)

...the sun and I'll read out loud. Envy us.

More wisdom from Brian:

--Perhaps I am happy in part because of the depression? The one highlights
the other, sets it off. In contrast each is something more.

Some believe depression is a sign of change... and that all people go
through varying degrees of depression when their life changes. SOme more
severe than others. It's the sadness of part of your life leaving to make
room for a new part of your life. It's the part of you that is still
trying to hang on to the old ways...

So perhaps this depression is just a sign that there is change on the
horizon. Some old part of you is passing away to make room for the new,
happier, and more grounded Kathy? Perhaps it is a completely normal
process in your mind.

Man, he's like my own personal sage.

I'm such a contradiction.

So many moments lately I feel my life is a gift, that this day, right now, this moment is one of the best I've ever had.

I'm thankful for colors, for landscapes, for sunshiny weather, for close friends and family. I'm grateful that I have the ability to think, to reason, to appreciate everything around me. Thankful for dance, for movement, for a working body, for creativity and expression.

I am aware of my own mortality, and all the more appreciative of everything I have right now because of this awareness. The relationships I am a part of, the connections I make, the scenes before me, the landscapes, everything that comprises the fabric of my life -- all of it is transitory and will become something else with time. Dust in the wind. But for the time being, it is all something wonderful, magical, and I feel privileged and blessed. There is so much goodness, I feel my life is charmed.

At the same time, I had the following conversation today, and there is truth in it as well:

FeebleAntelope says: XXXX?
Kathryn says: Er...
Kathryn says: I've kind of been avoiding XXXX.
Kathryn says: and I don't think it would be good to start up with that agian right now.
FeebleAntelope says: oh man..... you silly little twit.....
FeebleAntelope says: ;) sexy twit.....
Kathryn says: i've been a bit of an antisocial freak lately.
Kathryn says: pushing everyone in my life awya
FeebleAntelope says: why pushing away? Antisocial? Things are getting bad?
FeebleAntelope says: I actually thought that you might have been using YYYY as a device to push me away.... I don't think such a thing is really *that* bad and it can be an effective method but I'm sorry.
FeebleAntelope says: :'(:$:S
FeebleAntelope says: (or more specifically, since I was already withdrawing, as a device to ensure I didn't drift back) But again...... silly guy here. Don't throw anything at me.
Kathryn says: i think i'm a little depressed
Kathryn says: i wasn't trying to push you away using YYYY
Kathryn says: i've been pushing everyone away
Kathryn says: i really like what i have with ZZZZ, but at the same time i'm depressed by it, because he pulls me in but keeps me at such a distance at the same time, and i'm not quite strong enough to say "i deserve more than this" and give it up.
Kathryn says: so i'm freaking out a little bit
Kathryn says: i'm doing things like sleeping late
Kathryn says: and cutting out from things
Kathryn says: and skipping all the lindy stuff
Kathryn says: and some tango stuff
Kathryn says: and not making time to see friends
Kathryn sends: "Donnie Darko - Mad World.mp3"
Kathryn says: strangely enough, was listening to this just now, and it's sort of how I feel
Kathryn says: I dunno.
Kathryn says: I am prone to clinical depression, and it's probably at least partially that (it's been a few years, but the signs are there that it's coming back), and i should probably see someone, but my insurance doesn't cover mental health and i don't feel like i can afford it

So I'm the happiest I've ever been and yet, at the same time, I am slipping into a bit of a funk.

How can that be?

And yet believe that both are true. I have no doubt of my happiness, but I feel twinges of depression as well.

Perhaps I am happy in part because of the depression? The one highlights the other, sets it off. In contrast each is something more.

I'm going to start painting again. Harness some of this emotion, all this feeling churning within me. I feel like my emotions are in technicolor right now, all I need is an outlet to harness them and there will be something beautiful. So much happiness, colored here and there with splashes of melancholy, nostalgia, madness.

I have a friend who owns a consignment shop. She occasionally displays artwork in the store and sells it, and has offered to put some of mine up if I would like. It's an interesting thought. If my paintings turn out to be anything, I might consider it.