I will never be bored again.

Yesterday morning, I took Mary out to breakfast at the B&O. Yummy!

On the way home, we walked by Half Priced Books. Usually I walk right by, but they had a clearance shelf out on the sidewalk and I noticed a hard cover copy of A Thousand Acres out for sale, available for $1.00. A Thousand Acres! Only a dollar! That's it. That started the feeding frenzy.

I ended up walking off with 40-some books, most for a dollar or two, a select few priced at $3.00. I figure I'll never be bored again. Probably not until Christmas, anyway. Certainly not before the summer is up. And I won't make back everything I spent, but I can make back at least a portion of it by selling the books back when I finish with them. Heck, if I borrowed the same set of books from the library, I'd probably rack up the same price in library fines anyway.

Check out this photo:



The translation of the French portion reads:

Wash with warm water.
Use mild soap.
Dry flat.
Do not use bleach.
Do not dry in the dryer.
Do not iron.
We are sorry that our President is an idiot.
We did not vote for him.

The label is from a series of Tom Binh brand bags. Some blogger posted the picture above several months ago, which started a media frenzy. One of the articles is posted on the Tom Binh site. Cute, eh?

New findings from the Kath-Lab:

Remember Goo Gone? Turns out that peanut butter works just as well, and is far cheaper. And you can eat it, too!

I met several new people when I was down in Eugene the other weekend, Olga being one. Upon meeting her, she said something to the effect of, "Oh, you're Kathryn. Greg and I found your blog."

That was pretty crazy. I mean, I've had friends/coworkers/etc. find it, but this was the first time I've met anyone who know about the blog before meeting me. I guess it's not totally surprising; they'd been searching the net for info on Seattle tango people, and since I am addicted to tango and friends with a number of people within the community, it does come up. And, although we live in a big world, the world argentine tango community is actually pretty small.

Still, it was quite the experience.

I've had a thing lately for heading out to the beach in the middle of the night. I'm fascinated by the water in the moonlight.

Tuesday night, after the Practica, I managed to talk Patrick into taking a jaunt with me. We originally tried for Golden Gardens, but there were several police cars sitting in the parking lot so we drove on through. We ended up hanging out on dock at Greenlake, instead. Still very nice. The sky was clear and beautiful, the stars bright. The water lapped at the shore and the moon shone down upon us. A blue heron stood guard just across the water for white a while. It had been a while since we had spent any real time together, so we talked and caught up. Lying on the dock next to Patrick, chatting and watching the water and the sky, I dozed off a bit. It was very peaceful. He says that I'm a beautiful sleeper -- calm, content, reaching to hold onto the arm of whoever is near me and curling up against it. I'm just glad that he doesn't take it personally when I nod off during our late night conversations. Not long after that, I woke up and we went home for the night.

Friday night, after the blues dance, I dragged several folk out to Alki. Tegan, Cynthia, Krista, Miles, Jason, and Patrick. A nice crowd. Friday was much colder than Tuesday had been; the day had been gloomy and cold, and the night wasn't much better. We all curled up in a pile of blankets against a log nearby the water and talked. I was really happy. We were talking, laughing, joking around, and it felt so good giving myself up to laughter. Someone -- Tegan? Patrick? Cynthia? -- said that it was nice to see me smiling and laughing, that I look serious too much of the time these days. I think they might be right. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's that I hang around different people these days, and these people bring out a different side of me? Maybe it's that tango seems more serious to me somehow, so I become more serious. I'm not sure. Whatever the case, it was nice to be out with old friends and to be in such good spirits. The night was chilly but pleasant, the water was beautiful, and the company was enjoyable. After we left, we all met up at my place and everyone hung out for a while more. We chatted a bit and then popped in The Secret of Nimh. I don't think I could be that social all the time, but as a once-in-a-while sort of thing, it's very beautiful. The good feelings carried over into all the rest of the weekend.

Patrick and I are talking now of organizing a small camping trip out to the Olympic Penninsula oen of these days soon. I can't wait. I've rarely seen the ocean, and not by night; should be quite the experience.

I took tango workshops from Julio and Corina this weekend; very nice. Their performances on Saturday night were amazing. I felt almost on the verge of orgasm -- their intensity, their control, their movement, their musicality -- all exquisite. I could hardly breathe all the while that they danced.

Wayne and Kirill came up from Portland for the weekend. After the Saturday night Milonga they and Krista came back to my place, and we danced on the roof of my building well into the wee hours of the morning. It was warm and intimate; very nice. I will remember it fondly for quite some time.

An article in the NYTimes today quoted Wikipedia as a source. How awesome is that?

Have you ever felt that you're being sent a sign? I've seen two magnificent, wild herons in the last three days.



My life is diverging right now. Somehow this gives me the feeling that I'm headed in the right direction.

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.