sob story...possibly the most pathetic i will ever let myself sound

Back to Charleston tomorrow. There is something about that place that I absolutely hate right now, and I think I may have finally put my finger on what it is: I have spent a disproportionate amount of my time in Charleston trying to get over a person that I dated for 1 month. Maybe slightly longer.

When I say get over, I don't mean "I'm so in love with him, I can't get over him." When I say get over, I mean trying to extinguish my hatred for him over the way he made me doubt myself and my worth, and the way he has made me project that hatred on to every guy that I have met since then. It seems so ridiculous, but when Allan blew me off (I used to say 'when Allan and I stopped seeing each other' but that feels like such a lie), it was possibly the worst time in my entire life to be broken up with. I had just moved to a new town. I had just started a new job. And my sister had just moved back home for the summer, leaving me with an empty house. So basically I was left all alone with my wounded ego and bruised heart, in a town where I possessed only the most superficial of friendships.

I'm not saying that I had no one to turn to. I talked to Kelly about it several times (hell, we just talked about it 30 minutes ago at her kitchen table), but for some reason 'talking things out' has never really done that much for me. As a matter of fact, I have as little tolerance for self pity in myself as I do in other people. I even gave a therapist a shot, so that at least I could relax in the knowledge that it was her job to listen to people bitch and moan about their personal problems all day. She was possibly the worst thing I could have done--feeding me lines of bullshit about how his feelings for me may have been so strong that he was afraid to take things further. I mean come ON--what fucking delusional You Go Girl School of Psychiatry did this woman attend anyway?

Anyway, the good news is that I noticed in early November that I had finally begun to feel as happy as I did when I first moved to Charleston. He still creeps into my head sometimes, but it is never out of context anymore--it almost always has something to do with a situation in which I find myself or a person that we both know. And the rage had subsided for the most part. Which is always good, because being angry is exhausting--even more so than being sad (although anger allows one to be much more functional, I've noticed).

So now that I've gotten over it for the most part, I am seeking the ultimate closure. I started thinking about what the ultimate closure could be. There are several options:

1. Get into great shape and look super hot so that he knows what he's missing, etc etc. However, this option is supremely stupid, because let's face it--unless you lose 100 pounds and get a face transplant, not much will be different to an outsider, just to you. However, if it boosts your self-esteem, go for it, just don't expect some dude who broke up with you to give a crap.
2. Become rich and famous for something cool and smirk when he comes over to ask for your autograph. Let's face it, this does not happen to many people.
3. Get "revenge". Do bitchy things to him and his friends and talk about him behind his back. This is the most pathetic route that can be taken. Any woman that resorts to this kind of behavior should be immediately thrust into a time machine and transported back to the 7th grade, because nothing else can excuse taking this route. It is also demeaning to women to act this way, because it gives guys the ability to use labels such as "that crazy bitch" and "that hysterical woman".
4. Become friends with him. Get him to trust you on a personal and platonic level. And then ask him what the fuck happened. This is the method that I plan to use. Plus I know from previous experience that I'm generally cool enough that guys who have wronged me usually end up regreting it in one way or another. This is the ultimate form of closure, because you will be idealized in their minds--it's like it's not even you that they remember. It's the best version of you. The ambassador of you. The greatest hits of you.

This is the most vulnerable thing I have ever thought out loud, much less written. I feel like I should be mailing it into PostSecret or something. But there it is.

jesus christ the lord

There is a painting in my house in Travelers Rest above the fireplace in the den called Alouette. It is set outdoors in the snow, presumably in a time before global warming where it snowed in places other than Antarctica and Wisconsin. On the periphery of the painting there is a group of trappers, bedecked in various types of animal skin and warming themselves by the fire. They are drinking, making music, laughing, singing, and shouting at the two figures in the middle. One of the figures is wearing a red coat and brandishing a flask of what can only be moonshine, and the other is smoking a pipe and swinging in a circle on the arm of the other.


This painting has been hanging in my house for literally 20 years. The best part is that up until I was 18 years old, I thought that it was an interpretive painting of Jesus and his disciples. I assumed that Jesus was the one dancing in the red coat (he seemed to be the most well-liked one in the bunch), and the other, John, his closest confidante.
Most people that I tell this story to laugh at the impossibility of the entire thing--the setting, the bootleg alcohol, the time in history--and tell me that it is funny how I was so blind to the actual theme of the painting for so many years. However, the first time I told my dad about my original interpretation, he looked at it for a couple of seconds, laughed and said "I like to think that that's exactly what Jesus and his disciples were like."
I like to think that, too.

Weblog, aka blog.

So I made a new blog just for myself because my friends told me it was a good idea and they really like theirs. I can see why this is so appealing. It's like you can tell yourself "these are my thoughts, for my eyes only!" just like you would with a diary that you hide under your mattress, but in reality it's sitting right out there in the open where literally anyone in the universe can stumble upon it. That way, you can say things that you would never say aloud, but maybe sorta kinda want people to know about.

Did I just negate the magic of the blog? Whoopsies! Hey, I'm not hatin' on anyone, I'm just laying it all out there in case some day someone is like "Katie, quit being so pretentious, no one cares what you think." Then I can just be like "I know, bitch! Check out my first blog entry! Booyah!"