Sunday, September 16, 2001
[3:23 PM]

There's a belief in Japan that if you fold a thousand origami cranes within the span of a year, you will have extremely good luck. Every crane is bit of good luck.

I worked midnight until 6am last night, and that's what I did to stay awake. I decided I was going to join this thousand crane club, and figured I'll have to do about three a day over the next year to make it. I folded thirty last night. Ran out of origami paper and used newspaper and handouts, napkins and the label from a drink bottle. And old menus. I made a pair from a menu from China Panda, not thinking. Then when they were standing next to each other, on the edge of the flock I'd created over most of the evening, and the smaller crane crumpled over into the larger one, I remembered something special about China Panda. I dislike the place for it's filth and the workplace politics I didn't always know about, but when I was newly vegan and visited all my activist friends in Richmond years ago it was THE place to go. One of the first times I brought M., the old boyfriend from NYC who I've worried so much about this past week, to meet my friends we hung out in their living room making radical fliers or zines and called China Panda for some dinner. He told me to order for both of us, and disappeared to the bathroom. When he came out and asked what I'd called in for our dinner, I told him "Sesame Chicken." His eyes nearly burst from their sockets and he stood totally aghast, and the whole room of us burst into laughter. We forgot to tell him the entire menu was mock-meat seitan and gluten dishes, and of course none of us DIY punk kids would step on his eight-years-vegan toes. He sighed with relief and sank into the collapsing sofa at my back.

I think of that every time I've eaten at China Panda since. I don't eat there much anymore. Boycotted it for over a year at one point. The memory gets more and more rare, but last night it came back. I left most of the other cranes around the building, for other people to take for their luck. I took the menu cranes for myself, and for M.

We could all use a little luck right now.

 

  Saturday, September 15, 2001
[11:37 PM]

Okay, I decided to check my email before I went to work my midnight to 6am shift, in the hopes there would be a message about my still unheard-from person in NYC. Three messages from people complaining about me not having ____ represented on my icons page. THE WORLD IS TURNED ON IT'S FUCKING HEAD AND ALL YOU SORRY PEOPLE WORRY ABOUT IS GIF FILES TO MAKE YOU LOOK HIP TO YOUR AIM BUDDIES.

FUCK YOU.

 

  Wednesday, September 12, 2001
[8:11 PM]

Back to relatively trivial complaints: when will stupid little shits quit stealing my site? This one was bright enough not to use my bandwidth (so I can't change the images around on her) but she did steal my site design, many image files and even was idiotic enough to leave my contact information intact on some of the pages she ripped off. I've contacted her ISP and told her off on her voice mail, which she was stupid enough to leave on her... er... MY page.

If you'd like to call and blow off some steam, her name is Kat Michie, her IM nickname is FelixKat01 and her number is 361-825-4100.

 

 
[9:51 AM]

Almost everyone I've worried about is alive. The friend in DC was actually on business in Texas. His loved ones in DC are alive. I've never been so relieved to hear from my friends and loved ones as I have this week. People I didn't know to be worried about I'm finding out now were in the midst of the terror and are alive. A penpal, one of the first people to turn me onto the punk & zine scenes, worked in the World Trade Center on the 77th floor. He and his father were part of the stampede out of the building, and made it out just before the building collapsed. Most of my friends' family and loved ones have been able to contact them and let them know they're still alive.

We had an emergency meeting at work last night. Since I started that security job for the school, I'm a state employee now. VA is under a state of emergency, and we all had to be briefed on how to handle bomb threats and the tightened security measures. Lots of our residents have family and friends in the wreckage. One poor kid, his parents were on one of the flights. I am so afraid for those people, and my coworkers. It was very somber last night. Everyone has someone missing right now. We're only an hour from DC, many of my coworkers are from there. Lots of family is still missing. Everyone in the meeting was avoiding eye contact, afraid we'd break down and start bawling. We have to keep it together in front of the residents. Three of us stayed after the meeting, sitting in a row, staring at our feet or gum wrappers in our hands or a spot on the wall across the room and trying to make sense of everything that's happened. My boss has two friends in NYC who are still unaccounted for. A friend from Richmond just moved to NYC this month, and so far no one's been able to reach him. One of my former boyfriends lives in lower Manhattan and I've tried unsuccessfully several times to contact him. I can only hope and pray he's with family, away from the chaos. And that he hasn't lost anyone he cares for.

I'm looking for meaning anywhere I can find it right now. Trying to be strong for my friends who have people still missing. Trying to be strong for myself because I still have someone missing. Trying to be strong because I feel really alone right now, even though so many others are going through the same thing. I'm feeling superstitious, like irrational or questionable beliefs and explanations will help me make sense of things. I went to put gas in my car yesterday, and a black cat crossed my path -- but my bad luck had already happened. I hope. Three of the five lights in my ceiling fan burned out yesterday. I didn't see any of them go, but one at a time, they were just black. It happened over a few hours. I'm looking for meaning in burned out lightbulbs. Two days ago my biggest concern was getting homework done, perfect and on time. Now my attention is on mortality and prayer.

My heart goes out to everyone with loved ones still missing. If there is anything in my power to do for you, don't hesitate to ask.

Love to you all,
                          Kate

 

  Tuesday, September 11, 2001
[2:44 PM]

I can't get in touch with a long time friend in DC. He was doing work for the DOD the last time we talked. I'm very afraid for him. Randy, if you see this, please please call me.

My boyfriend and I are separated by shut down highways in and around DC. My cousin and her family are on an Air Force base at Langley, VA. My mom is staying put, despite my pleas for her to come here to be with me or to go visit family in western NC, in her house that's right in the midst of 4 Navy and Army bases.

Most of my friends and acquaintances in DC, NYC and Pittsburgh are safe and accounted for. A few are MIA. I hope it's only because they can't establish phone contact.

 

 
[2:40 PM]

 
dumplingpants (12:49 PM): the only thing i think of is "independence day"
flaming kitsch (12:49 PM): yeah
flaming kitsch (12:50 PM): I'm seeing Pearl Harbor movie trailers going off in my head
dumplingpants (12:50 PM): me too
flaming kitsch (12:50 PM): and goddamn the movie industry for making me associate Ben Affleck's face with imminent death and destruction

 

  Monday, September 10, 2001
[10:06 AM]

Is it that obvious that I pay a ton more attention to writing in my other journal now than this one? I really appreciate the friends-only post option there, and knowing/controlling who can see what. The set up feels safer and more natural.

The updates for here:

- I'm getting over a sickness brought on from lack of sleep. 18 credit hours and 2 jobs (60 hr/week) will do that to a girl. I don't know what's worse about being sick: the aches and stuffy head, or the fact that I have to go out in public when I can't help but be a mouth breather. I hate mouth breathers.

- My anniversary is on the 22nd. We're going to see Margaret Cho.

- I love being back in school, even though my schedule is making me sick and insane.

- That security position is fun. My coworkers are mostly awesome and one of the buildings I work in is a converted mental hospital. Some of the guards swear it's haunted. I like doing floor walks around the morgue. I've had a supposedly locked-down elevator open while I was in front of the morgue door, but despite what the skittish guard told me, I'm convinced it was an electrical malfunction. It was still locked-down when we climbed out of the basement.

- Thanks to very late night and/or very early morning hours at the security job, I haven't lost all my leisure reading time.

- My body is running on caffeine and only ceases to run when dosed with Nyquil. If I started eating bacon and biscuits, you could probably cut me open and find innards identical to In-The-Ghetto era Elvis.

- I finally quit that bookstore job.

- I feel loved and appreciated right now. My boyfriend woke me from a 22-hour Nyquil induced sleep to help me run errands and made me an elaborate breakfast of stuffed, spiced pears. An online friend bought me a bunch of books off my Amazon wishlist because she saw I was having a crappy week. (And I'm totally enjoying these on the late shift!) One friend hooked me up with a much needed element for a school project. Another couple of friends hooked me up with this job so I could quit the crap corporate one.

- I get to wear my Slayer tshirt to work. Fuck, I get to wear comfortable shoes to work. I cannot express how GOOD this is.

- There are a lot of armed robberies near where I live, and I've been the foolhardy one who walks home in the middle of the night, alone, rather than wait 45 minutes for the student escort. But I'm kind of at peace with this, and I make myself as ready to be robbed as anyone ever is -- which means not carrying my wallet with me. No debit or credit cards for them to get if they hold me up. I've usually got an ID card and $5 or $6 in my pocket, unless I spent that on dinner. My biggest fear is actually them stealing my bag and getting away with one of my sketchbooks with all my personal drawings and notes in. That would burn me more than loss of money, to know some dirtbags were looking at my life on paper, knowing such intimate things about me.

- Friend is not out of the hospital yet.

 

  Monday, September 03, 2001
[11:18 AM]

A friend is back in the hospital. Things are not looking good.

I'm trying to write back to a professor about numinous objects and broader feelings about religious art and iconography and confusing it all with the flurry of emotions I have about dying and purity and hope, and trying not to interject this because I'm not sure I want anyone I have to see regularly for the next half a year to know all this about me. But then when I subtract all the heartfelt communication from this, I sound like those pompous assed academians who I am bewildered by for their lack of humanity.

I keep deleting stuff. Fussing around and undoing my work. It has to all be done today before work. I've started abusing caffeine again, which is necessary if I'm to stay awake at both my jobs and in classes and get homework done. Now I can't even sleep when I have a few hours to rest. My judgement is probably not at it's peak, and I fell asleep face down in my dinner on Friday. The exhaustion caught up with me. On the one hand, it's hilarious, on the other it's nothing short of pathetic that I'm so exhausted I can do this. At least it wasn't soup.

 

  Thursday, August 30, 2001
[2:16 PM]

I'm gonna have to start taking speed if I have to keep up with this schedule for the next few weeks. Too many jobs. Too much school. Getting up at 6am and not getting back to bed until 1am is already habit now. I put in notice at one of the jobs, but it's not going to help me for the next two weeks at least. Shit.

Also, I need a good digital camera and a printer. Shit.

 

  Wednesday, August 29, 2001
[11:33 PM]

To the person who has msged me twice on AIM this week and I have barely or not responded to: I meant to talk with you, really. I am not blowing you off just to be a jerk. Sorry about that. I have 2 jobs and 18 credit hours and a lot on my mind right now.

 

 
[2:52 PM]

What can you do for someone who's very ill, possibly mortally ill, to make their life easier? My first inclination involved cooking, but part of the illness is not being able to keep anything down. So I bought a potted Gerbera daisy, bright cheery pink and called to see how they were feeling and if I could bring the gift over. There was barely a voice in between the retching and wheezing, and it broke my heart but I wouldn't let that show. It was a very bad day there. Not a time when I would be wanted over. So the daisy plant is sitting in my window waiting, while I beat myself up for thinking a stupid flower plant is going to make any difference to someone who can't eat, who can't even speak through the retching today. I'll give it to this person anyway, because I don't want them to think that out of sight means out of mind.

 

  Sunday, August 26, 2001
[2:04 PM]

Two things today.
#1. My great idea for a memorable last day at work consisted of me drinking Ipecac in the hopes of getting one righteous spew of bile to splash on my hated, slimy boss. But she wasn't there, so I didn't bother to drink any. After all, I bear no ill will towards my own stomach, the carpeting at the store, or the cleaning guy. Only that manipulative boss.
 
#2. I'm starting to think almost everyone who signs my guestbook is a dipshit. I know it's a lot of pressure to be witty in three lines or less, but really... if you can't do it, don't try.

 

  Friday, August 24, 2001
[1:27 PM]

Tomorrow is my last day working for slimy bad people who lie to and manipulate their employees. (At this job anyway.) I have an idea for a non-violent, gross and amazing goodbye, but I'm scared to write about it here lest something go really wrong. If everything goes as I hope, you'll hear about it tomorrow.