A History Of Over Thinking

I'm bad with bills, little kids and well-lit places. All the good writers were alcoholics, and I aim to be great (sorry mom).

[katienotkate-blog]

Relief From Recovery, And How I Stopped Hoping You'd Call

I once knew a girl so addicted to another person that she gave up everything else, even living, when his addictions pulled him in a different direction, And everyone at her funeral whispered about what a shame it was, because she was such a pretty girl and he was an evil man, but sometimes even the prettiest girls can be ruined by even prettier men, And I think sometimes we lose the ability to control where we're going, because I've found myself driving off your exit when I was already late for work, Sometimes the universe is tugging us left but all visible signs point right, and then all of the sudden we're in the middle and it's time to choose, and sometimes we don't choose right. I'd like to think recovery from you is less than a twelve step program, Step one fuck you, Step two fuck off. But I've found myself folded into the back of a taxi too drunk to give him directions to my house instead of yours, And recovery feels like looking at the moon over the city on nights like that instead of staring across the river at your house knowing you're in bed. Recovery is proudly counting the thirteen days it's been since i lasted wondered whether there's a new person on what use to be my side of your bed. After sixty three days of sobriety, I'm getting good at forgetting the once important things, like how you liked your coffee, how to get to your house when it was rush hour, or how I never seemed to mind sitting in traffic when I was on my way there. I'm getting great at answering questions about how I feel without wondering if I'm too much, because the worst part about quitting you was that I always was, And you never took the time to tell me I wasn't. The proudest moment so far was being able to look another whole human being in the eye without trying to cover the parts of me that were still missing, And I'm getting closer to accepting that it's okay to wake up with bloodshot eyes every so often, but nights spent crying over you are so few and far between. Recovery is speeding past your house on my way out of the city and not slowing down to see if you're home, And knowing that I Am getting Better.

[katienotkate-blog]

For The Woman Who Would Cut Her Skin Before Letting Him Touch Her Again.

I had a dream last night that the two of us ran into each other three months later, in that seedy bar we used to always go to for Trivia Night with your friends, And I couldn't help but laugh because you never introduced me to any of your friends, and the ones of mine you met asked me to not bring you around again. All I could think about was how I wanted you to notice my new hair cut, the absence of bags under my eyes now that I'm not losing sleep over you, how I suddenly had become everything you ever wanted, But the only way you ever wanted me was wrapped up in my own doubt, the only way you ever liked to see me was begging you to stay, asking what it was that I needed to do to get you to stay, The only way you ever wanted me was looking up at you with uncertainty as you pushed me towards the places that were far away from your heart. When I woke I tried to conjure up memories of you that didn't taste unwelcome, like blood in my mouth, But all I got were the ways my body could rearrange the letters in your name to spell regret, Pity-fucking boys who looked at me the longest in the bar every Monday night, chasing after men who chain smoked cheap cigarettes on my back porch, lighting them up with your old Bic. You left all your bad habits behind, and I picked them up just like you knew I would. If only my grandmother could see me now, the once favorite granddaughter turning her lungs black for boys who never call her back. I spent four months thinking you brought light into my life because you happened to sneak back into my bed right before the sunrise, And recovering from that lie means counting the seconds between eye contact with handsome men in smoky bars, waiting for someone to ask if I want to get out of here, because I'm always dying to escape, even if it's only four blocks away, five flights of stairs up, and six minutes of fumbling under the covers, because it's the farthest I'll be from you for that day. I'll forget his name twice that night, once when we're hailing a taxi because I refuse to walk in these shoes, and he'll do anything for the girl who's about to fuck him, And again when my hands make their way to his belt buckle and shirt buttons, His name doesn't sit so heavy on my tongue like yours, and I'll bite it off before I have to say it again, I don't know which is worse, that forgetting his name means remembering yours, or that no matter how hard I try I can't forget you, can't lose you in the sheets of men who don't smell like you, sound like you, talk like you or fuck like you, Or even worse, That I don't want to.

[katienotkate-blog]

"Some men plant flowers, others just pick them". You fucking get it, huh?

If hearts were empires, we could say that some men build them, and some only tear them down.

[katienotkate-blog]

Spring Song

I spent all winter locked in the arms of someone who kept staring past me out the window, finding new ways to disappear into late-night snow storms, hiding behind

“I’m busy, talk later?” text messages, and half-assed apologies for forgetting my birthday,

till one day I stepped outside and discovered that, much like my twice-broken heart, everything was beginning to thaw, icicles on once barren trees dripping onto the ground to make every step I take away from you that much softer,

that much easier.

Suddenly it’s spring and you’re gone, but that’s okay because I’m walking through the park towards a boy who’s smiling at me, and the wind is blowing my skirt to the side, and my face is pointed to the sky, and I’m realizing that it’s okay to ask for what you need, realizing that some men plant flowers, and others pick them.

Sometime you get excited about something, and you feel like you’re headed in the right direction, but then the path changes, the winds change, the seasons change,

and even he can change.

North can become south, and suddenly you’re lost, because when the snow melts and he’s gone, that’s what it feels like.

But it’s spring, and you’re okay, and the sun is shining, and maybe that new boy is still here and maybe he’s not. Flowers do not bloom only once,

and you’d be wise to remember that.

[katienotkate-blog]

Amnesty and Anesthesia

When the love of my adolescent life begins to date my best friend, my mother pats my head and says,

“To love is to suffer”

and ten years after the fact, I begin to accept this as her apology for sending me away to my father’s two weekends a month, ninety six long hours of watching him chain smoke and gamble, till night came and he would tuck me into bed, the blankets wrapped so tight that no monsters could get in,

but  he did.

At twenty four, I still wake up gasping for air and suffocating under the weight of blankets that aren’t even on me.

Growing up, I’d like to think I was an exuberant child, but as I get older I have more and more flashbacks that make me wish I had learned the word

M E L A N C H O L Y

before it was too late and I had disappeared into a void, a black hole that threatened to eat me from the inside out,

because that is what secrets do,

and because saying it now still feels new, like there’s a chance I could wake up one day and decide it’s not for me,

but the truth I acknowledge every day is that I’m still a girl walking with her face down, refusing to make eye contact with men who look like her father,

afraid they’ll fuck like him, too.

Afraid they’ll refuse to apologize for committing crimes they do not remember,

like him,

Afraid to accept that we are all women at the whim of our fathers, though some of us are still trying to decide whether we’ll spend our lives as skeletons in his closet, hiding from wife number two and second-chance stepchildren,

wondering why no one has heard our hearts beating so loudly.

When I’m sleeping with strangers and becoming one myself I will remember my mother’s words,

because to love is to suffer,

to sit at the edge of someone’s bed knowing I’ll have to let him prove he’s a man for five long minutes,

to moan a name that sounds like a cry for help,

though this one too cannot tell that underneath my pleas for more,

I am singing swan songs in a pitch only dogs can hear.

[katienotkate-blog]

Life is good, hair is great.

[katienotkate-blog]

For The Girls Who Are Not What He Wants.

It took your mother two divorces and seventy-six bottles of cheap scotch to remember that the legacy of her failed marriages was not a broken heart but a daughter, And by the time the seventy-seventh bottle had made its way down the kitchen sink, you had blossomed into a woman who was unafraid to face flames, unafraid to exist without someone needing you to exist. And all it took was one boy with a crooked smile and a feather-light touch to make you cave inward, to realize that fear is real and it takes the form of loneliness, a threat that who you are is only enough till it's not, and that you can feel absence the way some people feel sunshine on their face; softly at first and then all at once it is the only thing you can feel. All it took was one glance from him, a disinterested sweep of his eyes to recognize that some men see love like a tourniquet, and no one likes to be tied down. So you make compromises that feel like betrayals, you agree that what you want is too much all at once, and your mother calls with the seventy-eighth bottle and a reminder to see what is happening, You wanted to be in love again, only now you're realizing you never have been, and you're missing the way someone looks at you before they knew you needed to be saved, Before realizing what he wants and what you need are two different things. So now you are a woman conquered by a man who's tired of exploring the same land, who needs to see his achievements honored in something other than your adoration, And I am begging you to reclaim your wild, To let someone else be lost for a while. To let yourself be lost for a while.

[carterthomaspoetry]

Some things you can't forget,

The crack of foreign bones under the weight of your own anger, The smell of lechery and rancid lust in your bed sheets, Your first real drunk, the sickness therein, and the demons you raise your glass against, Your first love, Your last love, And every love in between, The dull hollow emanating from your best friend’s casket, The tangible weight of the world’s great darkness, The hope you cling to and the falling dusk that eats it away, Yes, some things you can’t forget, But some things you shouldn’t.

- Carter Thomas

[katienotkate-blog]

I could not ask, and neither could you.

[softerexits]

I’ve got a shrine of almost loves,

Living in my head.

This sober smile grows tiresome,

Won’t you take me back to bed?

You’re lovely when the light hits,

And magnetic in the dark.

You’re the magic of missing things,

Just be gentle when you rip me apart.

You write my body into braille,

Goosebumps where I ache.

You taste like all I’ve ever wanted,

Or at least my best mistake.

[katienotkate-blog]

For Women Who Leap Off Ledges Without Thinking About What’s Below

There are places I’ve been for love that are distant memories, 

pictures in frames that are physical representations of how we put the things we don’t want to talk about on ledges no one else can reach. 

I’ve been to places where I’ve loved someone so fiercely it felt like the very earth trembled under the weight of what would become my first great heartache. 

Places where in my mind I can see us on separate ends of the bed, miles of space in between the place we should have met and where we actually ended up. 

I can see myself getting up each morning and putting on a face, with each stroke of mascara I am burying my grief under rosy blush and lipstick in my own personal shade of Inferno. 

There is a private place I keep hidden far in the back of my mind, I read once that we unconsciously subdue every painful memory into a place they can’t hurt us anymore and I never understood why it had to still be inside of me, a poison slowly leaking into my bloodstream, the most accurate way to describe a heartbreak I never fully recovered from. 

All of a sudden, I am in a new place and he is there but I am different, because where we are isn’t a place where Adam is always reminding Eve how much better off he’d be with one more rib, and we can live with each other’s mistakes, the consequential regret, the inevitable ending. 

I’m walking down a well-worn path towards something real and true, and I can hear him calling from the forest, just behind the trees, but I’m walking with my face down and my fingers wrapped around one last desperate attempt to prove I can live without you, but that doesn’t mean I want to.  

Sometimes, we light the match thinking we can control the burn, 

and I’m sick of waking up in ashes. 

Suddenly I am aware that this isn’t place isn’t real, and I can’t spend my life setting fires to coax someone out of the shadows, because I am meant to be more than kindling or a fire starter. 

I am meant to be a flame permanently ablaze, and some people are just water under pressure, ready to extinguish what they think can hurt them. 

So this place is real, the pain is real, his absence is real, the decision he made to love someone who isn’t you is real. 

But this place is real. 

[katienotkate-blog]

“Those Who ( Still) Can’t Fall In Love Make Blueberry Muffins”

Exactly three years ago, I found myself awake at quarter to midnight. It was a Thursday night, and my mind was, for lack of better comparison, a sink full of dirty dishes after making blueberry muffins. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a muffin freak. I love making muffins. My friends and family love that I love making muffins. What they don’t love is the mess I halfheartedly clean up afterwards. If ever there was a better way to describe my love life, it is 

half. 

I am halfway to feeling like I can do this on my own, and halfway from the point where I know what “this” is. Since moving to a city of over a million people, I’ve been on two dates and slept with one person. The dates were complete opposites; one was in a crowded coffee shop and lasted an hour and a half before both of us couldn’t bear to be in the same room a minute longer, and we never spoke again. The other was at my house, intimate, I made dinner, we kissed, maybe I let him touch my bum. 

Isn’t it painfully true that we aren’t wholly aware of our own faults and how alone we are till we’re faced with the harsh reality that two people, at no one’s fault, can feel very different about the other person? No one wants to be alone till someone’s not around, no one realizes how lonely they are till someone’s not calling. 

Life has this funny way of making the beep of a kitchen timer so quiet that I can’t hear it over the sounds of me (poorly) belting out Adele in the next room.

Lucky for me, I’ve got this great ability to sense when things are done. If you ask my friends, they’ll tell you that sometimes I jump the gun and turn the oven off before whatever’s inside is done. 

These muffins are perfect. I’m gonna be alright. 

[katienotkate-blog]

I made some art because I had a shitty day at work, and then I did some yoga. I'm sore and I have paint in my hair, but I guess maybe life isn't so bad.

[thecastironchef]

Advice to First-time Line-cooks:

Expect to learn a lot. Whether it’s how to do something, or how not to do it. Every person you meet knows something you don’t. 

Have low exception, and be completely amazed. 

You will work when others play. When others work (or sleep), so you shall play. 

Be clean, be organized, be safe.

“Yes, Chef.” “What’s next?” “Behind you.” “Sharp.” etc.

Don’t complain.

Hard work pays off.

Always have a sani-bucket at your station.

Have a side towel ready. Hide three more.

Always, always, ALWAYS ask permission to use someone’s knife.

Familiarize yourself with your station.

Start learning the next station.

Never loose your cool on the line.

Go yell in the walk-in if you must.

Invest in good shoes: Mozos for flat feet and Danskos for arched feet.

Then go out and buy insoles. And Aleve.

2 black click-y pens, 1 black click-y Sharpie, 1 small notebook.

Keep an extra pair of pants and a backup coat in your bag.

Bring street clothes to change into after shift when the crew goes out for beers.

Beers after a shift are important bonding ritual. It makes the crew stronger. 

It’s polite to buy at least one round.

But don’t go overboard. You gotta work Brunch tomorrow. 

Shut the fuck up and cook.

[katienotkate-blog]

“The Theory of Loss”

[katiemcvay]

Men Not to Fuck in 2k16

Hi, guys. Here is my heteronormative-as-fuck list of men to not fuck in 2k16.

Man-Literature-For-Men Man - Are Hemingway/DFW/Franzen bad authors? IDK. Life is complicated and shit, but your top author list should cite something not from the White Man’s Handbook for Looking Learned

The Christopher Hitchens/Malcolm Gladwell/TED Talks Guy - This man is gonna yell at you in an Olive Garden about how he took philosophy 101 and condescend to you about your worldview. None of this in 2k16. You want to act like you know something, you better actually know something.

The Ayn Rand Lover/Libertarian - Libertarians are people who read a Nietzsche quote on a desk calendar once and cemented up their worldview. No emotional children in 2k16.

The Male Feminist - This man is gagging to call you a cunt in bed. And maybe that floats your boat but there’s gonna be some half-hearted oral to follow so… he doesn’t get this one. Also, he WILL talk over you at a party about bell hooks. This man is the worst man because he has so assured himself that he is the best man.

Guys with No Guy Friends - In 2k15, we learned to back away from the woman who “doesn’t get along with other women.” The same is true of men who “don’t get along with other men.” They’re relying on platonic women for all the emotional labor in the world and aren’t gonna have a good relationship with you either.

A Man All About Space-Based Franchises - We fucked enough dweebs in 2k15. Star Wars is gonna leave the box office and, frankly, “nerd culture” is founded on talking loudly and sweatily over women. It is fine to like nerd shit but don’t be all about it.

“I’m Working On…” Guy - Unless that phrase ends in “my car,” run away from that man. He’s gonna be working on that play/movie/screenplay/adaptation of/book/novel/comic book for the rest of his days without any forward momentum or planning. He’s not “talking to” some agents. He’s talking to his mom and his diary.

The Wet Mop - This guy had hopes and dreams and then he fell down in a puddle. You’re walking around like a person who has her shit figured out, and he wants some of that. But you’re gonna try to lean that wet mop against something and it is gonna fall down again twice as hard. In 2k16, just leave that mop on the floor. Let it figure its own shit out.

The No-Bed Guy - Does this guy have a twin bed? Does he have a mattress on the floor? Does he have a futon? Does he have a mattress on a box spring on the floor? Does this guy have an air mattress? Does this guy just sleep on a pile of ex-girlfriend’s old scarves? Do not sleep with this man. If he isn’t bothering to invest in a bed frame and a bed you can comfortably fuck in, he won’t bother to invest in you.

The Finance Guy - Do not fuck this man. Have this man take you to dinner, and don’t fuck him. Have this man buy you some stuff, and don’t fuck him. Make this man take you to France, and don’t fuck him. Make him buy you a car, and don’t fuck him. Don’t fuck this man. It will drive him nuts, and he’ll think about you constantly when he is in the suburbs with two kids that have the names he thought about giving to boats, and you’re doing your part to destroy the capitalist system from the inside. Plus, he is 100% going to be bad at sex.

A Man with An Active Reddit Account - I do not need to explain this one.

A Man Who Reads Richard Dawkins - No one wants a man playing devil’s advocate between the sheets. 

The Man with Six Shirts - This goes back to No-Bed Guy. If a man cannot invest in himself, he cannot invest in you and you have THINGS TO DO. You have things to do and places to be and this man owns SIX SHIRTS. Do not reform this man in 2k16. Leave this man where he is.

The Man Who Mentions High School - Why? Why is he doing this? Does he have no plans for 40? For 30? Does he miss the days when his mom made him lunch and his only responsibilities were thinking about how he could be an astronaut but not actually doing anything to  be an astronaut? Get away from this man.

A Man with a Hoverboard - Either you are accidentally considering fucking a teen or you are considering fucking a lawyer. Either one should be illegal. No men who embrace high-cost fads in 2k16. They’re gonna think they can “trade up” at some point.

This list will be ongoing, because men keep being alive in new and terrible ways.

[bookoisseur]

::highpitchedscreaming::

[katienotkate-blog]

"If he isn't going to invest in a bed frame and a bed you can comfortably fuck in, he isn't going to invest in you".

Really fuckin vibin with this list.

[katienotkate-blog]

I made a bucket list for myself to complete in the next year, because I live in the greatest city and sometimes it's important to accept that quote often I put off till tomorrow what I could be doing today. Three hundred and sixty days from Friday, I'll have checked them off.