PlatKat.com: December 2007

Monday, December 31, 2007

Last Night

"I'm going to shove a bottle up your ass and kick it till it breaks!" he said to no one in particular as we entered Garden d'Lights, a family event in the affluent suburb of Bellevue, Washington.

And I thought I wasn't into romantic types.

posted by platkat @ 11:58 AM 0 million people love The Kat

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Three Good Things About Christmas

I don't like Christmas, or the Christmas season, or Christ, but here are some pictures of things the holidays brought me this year.

Photobucket

As you can see, I have Christmas in my heart, or at least in that girl's leg. Nothing says "tis the season" like a bunch of people in Santa costumes on the prowl for booze and mischief-making. After attending last year's Santacon in New York, I decided that I must do it again—where, when and how being almost irrelevant.

Photobucket

I simultaneously love and hate this so much, I don't know where to begin. I took this picture in Issaquah while smoking a cigarette outside someone's condo (a sound real estate investment!). I think horse-drawn carriage rides are the smelliest, most boring idea ever, and I don't have much better to say of the suburbs. But seeing that thing crawling up the main drag made my fucking day, and reinforced my decision to live where I do.

Ehhh, check out my new boots! I don't normally break the bank for footwear, but it's cold here and that probably won't be changing. So I purchased these warm snowflakey boots, and they're awesome. If you disagree, then get out of here Nebulon—no one likes your style.

posted by platkat @ 2:12 PM 0 million people love The Kat

Saturday, December 29, 2007

A Running List of Fucked Up Shit People in My Family Have Said to Me

1. "We didn't believe in abortion."

-Dad, when asked why he and my mother carried a child to term (me) even though they were clearly not prepared to have children. A better answer would have been, "Because your mom wanted to know what it would be like to have eight pounds and seven ounces of awesome shoot out of her pussy."

2. "Well, I don't know what you did to make him break up with you."

-Mom, in response to my devastating (at the time) breakup with my boyfriend during my sophomore year of college. For the record, I know I did nothing. He was a jackass and I had my whole life ahead of me.

3. "Stick to writing, hon. You'll never make it in radio."

-Aunt Jeanne, after I had answered another relative's question about interests I had hoped to pursue in college. Holding a degree in the esteemed field of interior design, my aunt was clearly qualified to give unsolicited career advice.

4. "Well that sounds like a situation you'll want to stay very far away from."

-Mom, when I told her I was coming to Houston for a few nights because a good friend of mine and my then-boyfriend's turned up missing right after his wedding (in which my ex was the best man).

5. "So should I still invite Gus to the wedding?"

-My younger sister, almost immediately following news of a somewhat nasty breakup with Gus, involving my relocating 3,000 miles away from the residence he and I once shared. If she were friends with him, this wouldn't be fucked up, but she only knows him through me.

6. "We know these kinds of things are hard, and trust me, we're on your side. But at 27, you're not getting any younger. You're going to have to make a decision pretty soon."

-Grandpa Taylor, also regarding my breakup with Gus. It was really nice of Grandpa not only to remind me that time moves in a linear fashion, but also to amuse me with his utter cluelessness about everything.

7. "That's a nice dragon there."

-Great Grandfather Gerty, after carefully studying what I thought was an accurate interpretation of a sun, some clouds, and a rainbow, given the tools available to me at the time. I defiantly told him what my picture was and my dad "helped" by explaining the rainbow synthezation process of water reflecting the sun's light. (This one isn't so bad, I just threw it in for fun. Poor guy was at least 98 years old when this happened, so I'm amazed he even knew who I was half the time.)

I'm sure there are more. I'll keep updating this and changing the date stamp as they come to me. Also, I'm sure after reading this, you're thinking, My family has said more fucked up things than those. And that's splendid. Really. Feel free to share them here or write your own blog post about them. My family may not be more fucked up than yours by any stretch of the imagination, but they are less non-fucked-up than I would like.

Update: 12-25-07

8. "That isn't your room. It's the room that you stay in when you're here, but this isn't your house. You're a guest here."

-Mom, referring to a room in our new house in Louisiana, which the family had begun occupying shortly before I went to college, therefore implying that at 17, I was to call "home" a 10 x 12 pre-war dorm room that I shared with a girl who resembled a basset hound. Thus it is no surprise that I recall this quote on Christmas Day, which I am celebrating with someone else's family halfway across the country.

Update: 12-26-07

9. "I pay more in taxes than you make in a year."

-Dad, in a phone conversation unrelated to money. This is an unoriginal quote, surely uttered by many a person trying to make a point in a heated (and maybe drunken) debate. But honestly, for a man to say it to his daughter is a plain-old dick move. Sorry I haven't joined the millionaires' circle at age 25, Dad. I'll get right on that.

Update: 12-29-07

10. "You're a loud-mouth bitch with a fat ass."

-Dad, when I was 14, 5'8", and 130 pounds. Further explanation not required.

posted by platkat @ 3:28 PM 3 million people love The Kat

Friday, December 28, 2007

Craigslist Find of the Day

Haven't done one of these in awhile. This time I'll paste too so the ad will be timeless.

Ballard cougar! - m4w - 28

I have seen you many times in Ballard but have never had the nerve to say hello. You have short dark red hair and blue eyes, with a curvy figure and long fingernails. You are older than me, by how much I don't know (late 30's maybe? don't be mad if I'm wrong!), and you have that sexy cougar thing going on. I have seen you at Bartell's, Thaiku, Safeway, the BalMar, Hattie's, Sonic Boom, and Archie's. Do you live in Ballard? I'm the guy with short black hair, pierced ears, tattoos on both arms, 5'11" and 185 lbs. At Sonic Boom I was able to see you weren't wearing a wedding ring. I hope you're single, and I hope you read this. I'd like to buy you a drink.

While I believe that younger men with crushes on attractive, older women is the most adorable thing in the world, this post raises a few questions. He's seen the object of his affection in over a half-dozen places, so why doesn't he just ask her out? This isn't really a "missed connection." He's practically stalking her!

Also, if she's that much older, she may not be as well-versed in the interwebs as us young twenty-somethings. I know I'm making a harsh generalization here, but I wouldn't be able to do it if it weren't mostly true. In fact, this finely aged woman is assumed to be in her late thirties by her admirer. She's probably actually in her forties and could be as old as 50! That calls to mind my mother's successful attempts to master the art of online chat and her innate fear of using a credit card to buy something online. My mother is rather well-educated compared to the masses, but due to her age, it's highly doubtful she even knows what Craiglist is, let alone what to do once she's there. Why would this guy think she's checking the Missed Connections secion?

One more thought... a minor one, and I'm directing it right at you, buddy. You need to think about what you're saying here: "Late thirties maybe? Don't be mad if I'm wrong!" Why would she get mad when she can simply not contact you? Likelier still, if we ignore the statistical correlation between age and internet usage that I nod to in the above paragraph and assume she is even reading this ad, couldn't she just assume you're not talking about her because you got the age wrong? That was a rhetorical question. Of course she could.

Anyway, in case our young pierced and tattooed lover boy takes a break from broken-in beaver-chasing and happens to come across this post, I have some advice. Be a man and ask her out. If she agrees to spend time with your humble fledgling soul, continue being a man. Ignore the age difference, treat her like a lady, and act as mature as possible. But first and foremost, be a man.

Godspeed, my friend.

posted by platkat @ 12:43 PM 0 million people love The Kat

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Interior Design for Fecal-Fetish Linux-Lovers

posted by platkat @ 12:58 PM 1 million people love The Kat

Friday, December 21, 2007

This Pretty Much Sums Everything Up

Anytime you can make a simple diagram explaining something as complicated as how men and women relate to each other, I'm all for it and then some. In fact, I'm pensively wishing I'd thought of it first.

posted by platkat @ 10:13 AM 0 million people love The Kat

Thursday, December 20, 2007

A-Stabbing I Will Go

Much to no one's surprise, in my short time here I have already compiled a list of people I'd like to stab mercilessly. Their mere presence in the hallway, near my cube, on this earth sickens and disgusts me such that it takes every ounce of my being to keep from thrusting my company-issued ballpoint pen into their fleshy, bobbling necks.

Going into the specifics of why I want to stab people would take days. Here, I will concentrate on one instance where I feel the stabbing would be especially warranted.

There's some old lady here who works in a cube near me that I just encountered today. She's fairly thin and on the shorter side, but sturdy enough to be noticeable. If she has children, she definitely has grandchildren, but to throw out a number to guess her age is as pointless as analyzing how many grains of sand there are in the average handful. I don't know her name, her role at the company, or anything about her, and I don't care. All I know is that I absolutely hate the way she looks at me and I wish she were fucking dead.

All my life, everywhere I've worked, I've always been on the younger end of the scale, if not the youngest person in the group or company. (Someone, somewhere is laughing very hard at this.) As a professional young female human, working in a male human's world (Futurama reference), I've encountered and also successfully avoided many a conflict with my elders. I've found that going out of my way to be extra-nice to them is crucial to evade the common practice of putting a bounty on my head. Uglying up for the office also works.

Still, some conflicts are unavoidable, so as with any other ridiculous bullshit gone horribly awry, I deem myself responsible for muting it as much as possible. I manage to do it through a myriad of nonchalant, passive-aggressive activities, such as writing blog posts like this one.

I don't know what the fuck is up with this lady, but every time she looks at me, I internally cringe. On the outside, I try to smile and look pleasant. Regardless, every time I pass her, she looks at me with the face and posture of maddening condescension. Surrounding her pale frame is a giant electron cloud of indignity, ridicule, mockery, and a pinch of straight-up dispisal. This is so far above any level of unprecedented, undeserved malice toward another person that there isn't even a true word in the English language to appropriately describe the air of disgust this woman exudes in my direction.

Oh my God, I want to stab her more than I've ever wanted to stab anyone in my life. Whatever assumptions she has about me are probably horrid and most likely true. Be that as it may, this type of treatment is totally ridiculous. If I can't stab her, I really hope she drops dead. I don't know if I can take eleven more months of this without going completely insane.

posted by platkat @ 2:15 PM 2 million people love The Kat

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Today's Latest Installment of DUMB

Having lived at the loft for a little over a month, I found that I'd given that address as my permanent one to quite a few people/businesses. Even so, my mail would only be delivered there half the time, and usually not the half that I wanted. For instance, a letter hand-addressed to me containing a check for all the freelance work I've done for the last few months—Impossible! We can't deliver that! But the phone upgrade notice from T-Mobile that was sent "just for my reference"? Yeah, let's go ahead and make sure that gets to me alright.

But when it's all said and done, I'm just glad my roommate's boyfriend was able to get the last part of his severance pay delivered to the loft after he was fired from Washington Mutual. I'm sure that 60 dollars will really improve his life of not paying rent in a place where he stays up until 2am bullshitting with my roommate at least four nights a week.

Anyway, I've tried to be diligent about notifying everyone about my change of address, but sometimes things slip through the cracks, like the new Futurama DVD (Eric, you rock, I'm sorry). But today I thought, Hey, why don't I alert the postal service to my move, just in case there's an igloo's chance in hell that something important might be rerouted and actually get to me?

So I went to the USPS site to fill out a change of address form. It turns out I can't change my address because I'm an Individual and the loft I was living in is considered a Business. So now I have one more reason to complain about this world being full of Morons.

I also have an even stronger argument that this business-come-living-space had some extremely unique conditions that should have been (but of course were not) laid out specifically before I moved in. I'm quite impressed with myself for putting up with it all for over a month, actually. Ambien helped.

posted by platkat @ 3:25 PM 4 million people love The Kat

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Shameless

Today I went to Rite-Aid and returned a box of Trojan Twisted Pleasures Condoms and a gift bag. I bought the condoms for a green-themed white elephant gift exchange at a party that I didn't make it to due to my own drunkenness.

How many characteristics of a creepy old man must I assume before I actually become one?

posted by platkat @ 12:01 PM 2 million people love The Kat

Friday, December 14, 2007

LOLdeling

My (ex)roommate is a professional photographer. I am a professional writer who put on a dress and got her picture taken: These are my results.

Most people don't believe this (I certainly didn't), but modeling is hard. You're supposed to give off a strong presence and really connect with the camera in order to make some kind of impact on your audience, but there are no mirrors to help you determine whether you're actually doing it or not. I want to look intense, but I just look mad. I want to look excited, but I look kind of scary. I had no idea I was so tense in the legs or that my lipgloss was smeared or that I was sitting so my skirt was hiked up just a little higher than I would have liked. There's no way to tell! There's a just box with a lens, and every few seconds it goes, "Snap."

There were actually 50 or so frames. I felt the 18 in the link were the only ones that were admissable. Even so, I had delusions of photoshopping some of them, or having someone else do it. I decided to just throw them up here because I don't have PS at the moment. Considering my heavy procrastination on getting an ISP at my new apartment, it'll be quite awhile before I pursue a copy of PS.

So, late post, unretouched photos, meh. I'll stick to writing.

posted by platkat @ 11:42 AM 0 million people love The Kat

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Listen, All Y'all

It's a sabotage. And that's the only time you should ever use that phrase.

A fellow ex-Austinite at work just asked me how long it took to drop "y'all" from my vocabulary. I smiled sweetly and replied that I haven't, and wasn't going to. He looked surprised and amused by my response, so I went on to explain that although "y'all" is not a fully accepted form of speech in most areas of the country, I continue to use it when I need to get someone's (or some group's) attention.

Normally, I make a strong effort to speak properly and use slang sparingly among close friends only. This way, when a situation creeps up in which I do not have full command of a room and need it, I throw out a "y'all" and everyone is so surprised, they shut the hell up. I understand that this can be achieved by swearing, but that's something I'd always like to avoid. Swearing in frustration is what simple people do because they can't think of better words to describe how they're feeling. Failing my attempts to keep a clean mouth, I only want to swear when I'm really pissed off and in good company.

My coworker seemed intrigued by the "y'all method", and I hope he tries it. If you decide to try it, keep in mind that it only works outside the South and that results may vary if you or anyone you're talking to has been drinking.

Balls to the wall, y'all! (Translation: Go get 'em, tiger!)

posted by platkat @ 2:11 PM 0 million people love The Kat

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Status

I'm still technically homeless, even though I signed a lease on a studio apartment in Downtown Seattle and paid a deposit. That should change tonight. It's a long, stupid story that pretty well matches all the other long stupid stories regarding my living situation since I arrived here.

Anyway, the purpose of this post was to mention that I'm feelin' the love. Eleven days after my birthday, I have once more been reminded that it's still worth mentioning. My favorite 8-bit musician, Bud Melvin, wished me a happy belated birthday on myspace. Despite my growing displeasure with the 5-million-headed social networking beast, I still keep a strained grasp on my account and often forget why... until stuff like this happens.

Consequently, that reminded me that even though I'm a homeless freak with no direction in life, people really do like me. Lots of people, in a bunch of different states. I got phone calls and text messages from Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, California, Illinois, South Carolina, New York, and Kansas. And several of my new friends in and around Seattle each did a little something awesome to make this birthday stand out. Some super-sleuth even gave me this.

Gush, gush, gush. I think I'm going to melt.

posted by platkat @ 2:43 PM 0 million people love The Kat

Monday, December 10, 2007

Fuck You, I'm Not Moving to Kirkland

Think "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine.

The story of my move to Seattle is so ridiculous, anyone who isn't me might find it hilarious. It started when I sublet an artist's loft conveniently situated on a series of train tracks by the shipyards. Also, the "one girl who's never around" that I was supposed to be living with turned into the "one girl and her boyfriend who are always there talking, playing music, setting off fire alarms, and fucking". Combine that with train horns blasting at all hours of the night, I couldn't get to sleep without sex, drugs, or alcohol. Even with those, it was still dicey sometimes.

Growing very tired of that, I explored my options further. I want to be close to a bus, enjoy a short commute, be able to conveniently buy groceries, and pay as little as possible. Perhaps Kirkland was the answer.

Maybe it could have been, if the stars were properly aligned. But instead of living with one other female around my age (criteria I should have stuck with), I moved into the million-dollar house of a man in his forties who was so hard up for cash that he couldn't wait for my 700-dollar check to clear. And because he was not only over-extended, but also just plain fucking creepy, I was out of there in less than two days.

Then, I was homeless. Yes, the prissy PlatKat, with her fur-collared jacket and diamond earrings, curled up with her laptop and Sidekick LX at the Seattle YMCA for a long weekend of wallowing in apartment-hunting woes. So many people in this town are ready to collect a check from a short-term roommate, but so few are ready to actually house the said roommate.

I don't know why I didn't think about this. When I moved to Austin, fed up with a controlling boyfriend, crappy job, obnoxious roommates in a cracker-box apartment, and a lackluster program at a sub-par school, I decided I was going to live alone in a place that made me happy. I wouldn't talk to anyone unless I felt like it. I wouldn't have to escape. My place would be mine. And the only stuff I had to see or hear would be as a result of me. I set those parameters, in addition to my requirement of being on a main drag near a landmark, since I get lost more easily than a set of keys. I assessed my needs, and then I met them.

Why did I ever stray from that?

Some crazy shit happened around this time last week, and I procrastinated making a decision. I found that my life here was not going as planned, and I needed to do something about it, but didn't know what. A huge change was in order, and I was so scared of making the wrong decision.

It turns out I did anyway. For some reason, "Just move to Kirkland, buckle down, do your work, save money, the commute is good, etc." sounded reasonable. It sounded like something that would be really good for me in the long run. But it dawned on me: I came here to be here, not to live in a fucking suburb. So to everyone who said "Kirkland," I say, "Fuck you." And, "Let's go out for coffee and get to know each other a little better."

posted by platkat @ 5:18 PM 0 million people love The Kat

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Flipper Baby Carrot

Daddy was a crackhead, momma was on Acutane.

posted by platkat @ 11:44 AM 1 million people love The Kat

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

A Bus that Goes to Redmond but Not Microsoft

My only question: Why?

posted by platkat @ 6:21 AM 0 million people love The Kat

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

MS Rainbow

This picture makes Microsoft more dismal than it is. Or maybe I just haven't been here long enough.

posted by platkat @ 1:56 PM 0 million people love The Kat

Monday, December 03, 2007

I feel like I'm in 'Nam set to the tune of an old-timey sci-fi movie. Perhaps a dystopic film.

The Seattle Transit-copter air-dropped me in the Microsoft Jungle at 08:00 hours. It's constantly raining, everyone is foreign, and I want to smoke cigarettes like they're candy.

Everyone seems happy, and I can't understand why.

posted by platkat @ 4:38 PM 1 million people love The Kat

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Bike Show!

On Thursday, I went to a biker bar near my house and met some bikers. One of the bikers said he was going to a bike show at the convention center by Qwest Field. Since I like bikes and I can throw a rock at Qwest Field from my loft, I suggested he take me with him. He did and that's how I found this beauty:

If I wasn't so hell-bent on buying the most expensive car I could realistically someday own, I might have looked into getting my very own zebra bike for fun and transportation. Oh, and I also heard it rains here sometimes.

posted by platkat @ 8:14 PM 2 million people love The Kat

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