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Dear Inception:

Sorry you were so cerebral and loveless and I guessed your ending even faster than I guessed the ending of M. Night Watermelon’s masterpiece The Village, but you were awfully nice looking and you did, for one shining moment, make me think that if JGL wanted to buy me a $9 Pabst Blue Ribbon at an annoying hipster bar, I might let him. But only if Juno was there too.

Best,

Katie

The Problem, by Richard Siken

The problem (if there was one) was simply a problem with the question. He wants to paint a bird,
needs to, and the problem is why. Why paint a bird? Why do anything at all? Not how, because hows
are easy, series or sequence, one foot after the other, but existentially why bother, what does it solve?
Be the tree, solve for bird. What does that mean? It’s a problem of focus, it’s a problem of diligence,
it’s supposed to be a grackle but it sort of got away from him. But why not let the colors do what
they want, which is blend, which is kind of neighborly, if you think about it. Blackbird, he says. So be
it. Indexed and normative. Who gets to measure the distance between experience and its
representation? Who controls the lines of inquiry? He does, but he’s not very good at it. And just
because you want to paint a bird, do actually paint a bird, it doesn’t mean you’ve accomplished
anything. Maybe if it was pretty, it would mean something. Maybe if it was beautiful it would be true.
But it’s not, not beautiful, not true, not even realistic, more like a man in a birdsuit, blue shoulders
instead of feathers, because he isn’t looking at a bird, real bird, as he paints, he is looking at his heart,
which is impossible, unless his heart is a metaphor for his heart, as everything is a metaphor for itself,
so that looking at the page is like looking out the window at a bird in your chest with a song in its
throat that you don’t want to hear but you paint anyway because the hand is a voice that can sing
what the voice will not and the hand wants to do something useful. Sometimes, at night, in bed, before I
fall asleep, I think about a poem I might write, someday, about my heart, says the heart. Answer: be the heart.
Answer: be the hand. Answer: be the bird. Answer: be the sky.

• “I think you should put some more sex at the beginning.” -My mother, on the revision of the Giant Mofo Writing Project
• Headline in this Herald this morning: FREEBIES FOR ILLEGALS. Always classy, Boston Herald. Always classy.
• What I am wearing has a direct impact on how I feel about my day.  I don’t know how it took me 25 years to figure that out. Anyway, today I feel pretty good, thanks.
• Have you heard that thing about Bill Murray? That he’s going around New York sneaking up behind people and putting his hands over their eyes and saying “Guess who?” And then when they turn around it’s BILL EFFING MURRAY and he says, “No one will ever believe you”? Dear God, please let that be true.
• I think if someone handsome followed me around and scratched my back forever I would never be sad again.
• We’re seeing Inception tonight! I am eager to have my mind blown.

The Twenty-Five Greatest Things About This Summer So Far, in No Particular Order:

1. The Giant Mofo Writing Project that has eaten my whole life and makes me spacey and weird and not-bloggy

2. My dad trying to sort out the plot of Eclipse based on the information he’d gleaned from a conversation between my mother and me: “So…they’re a family of vampires? And they drive Volvos. But the girl isn’t a vampire, so she drives a truck.”

3. The chicken Meg roasted at this month’s book club with milk, lemon, sage and cinnamon (the company wasn’t terrible either)

4. Watching the planes land at Castle Island at sunset, one after the other after the other

5. Everything about this video: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfzRlcnq_c0]

6. The short ribs at Toro

7. Fab visits from JPal, Sierra, and Marissa including delicious dinners, drinks on the deck, and serious talks about religion and bounty hunters

8. The new Hanson CD

9. A goat cheese tasting at Formaggio

10. My new costume ring from American Eagle that cost like 12 bucks and sparkles and makes me happy every time I look at it

11. Tom giving me a hug, looking down, and saying, “God, you are so little.”

12. This song (don’t laugh, it’s amazing! Whatever, I know you’re laughing, and I don’t care)

13. A lot of really excellent time with my family: coffee dates and book talk with my mom, drinks with Miss J, coconut cake and Sabrina with my dad

14. White Collar on USA Network. Handsome men! Fedoras! Kelly Kapowski! WHAT IS NOT TO LIKE.

15. Pedicure, iced coffee, US Weekly. (Stars! They’re Just Like Us!)

16. Being on line in Walgreen’s in front of a guy who was buying three boxes of Lemonheads and nothing else

17. The fact that the new Domino’s crust really IS better than the old Domino’s crust! Kudos to you, Creepy President of Domino’s.

18. Limeade and lemon ginger iced tea

19. I might or might not have been promoted yesterday

20. Writing exercises that actually work, or at the very least are a pleasant way to pass a July afternoon

21. Swimming in the pool at Tom’s Aunt T’s like a small blue-suited fish

22. A slow, fabulous reread of Prodigal Summer

23. A suntan and a supportive bra

24. The tomato mozzarella sandwich from the New England Soup Factory

25. The chalkboard sign outside the yoga studio I pass every morning: Slow and Easy.

Aaaand we didn’t even go on vacation yet.

Oh hi there, blogland.

1. It’s almost June so we are in full-on party mode around here. My baby sister comes in on Saturday for a weekend full of summer love, including but certainly not limited to a walk on the beach, a six pack of raspberry UFO, and the 3rd annual kitchendoor Memorial Day rooftop barbecue. Speaking of which: would love your favorite recipes for BBQ-type salads. Will probably do a tomato+feta and an avocado+bean, but am always looking to mix it up a little. We live on the edge, you know. Am wondering abut a potato salad with bacon and dill.

2. Getting home from babysitting to find Tom asleep on the couch like a little kid with his dinner half-eaten on the coffee table in front of him. His response: “I…guess I took a nap.”

3. NPR’s Radio Boston. Also, the fact that the host of NPR’s Radio Boston is named Megna Chakrabarti. Also, the fact that I went to college with a girl named Katalaya Jiraboondilak.

4. Current uniform: skinny jeans + Gap v-neck + spring scarf + flip flops + sunglasses.

5. Daydreaming about cowboys and gas stations and broken-down bungalows with dusty front lawns and bathtubs in the yard. Calling said daydreaming “work”.

What are you guys up to?

1. Get a tattoo

2. Get a driver’s license, finally (groan)

3. Make a souffle

4. Take a corny picture in a phone booth in London

5. Start (and perhaps complete) the Novel That Is In My Brain

6. Become the kind of person who can fold completely in half

7. Successfully eat a lobster

8. Sell the sofa, buy the desk

9. Buy flowers every Friday

10. Write and publish a feature-length article, with interviews and everything like a grownup

11. Spend more time outside

12. Drink more water, read more books, eat more donuts

13. Learn to use the sewing machine to make things besides curtains and pillows

14. Learn to use the camera to take pictures of things besides the tops of buildings

15. Come out of this year with one photo of myself I actually like

16. Do something with the wall in the hallway, even if all that means is scrubbing the scuffs off

17. Get the record player to work

18. Make it to California

19. Be a little gentler with myself

20. Be a little gentler with other people

21. Publish something scandalous under a pen name

22. Learn a new game

23. Remember how much I like going to random concerts

24: Make some huge-ass art for the huge-ass bedroom walls

25: Remember the following: u b u. i’ll b me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_tBHoRaxns&feature=related]

I repeat-one-ed for an hour today while I walked down the Castle and back. Am not even close to getting sick of it.

Twenty-five today. Out celebrating. Back Monday with Five Good Things: Birthday Edition and a 25 in 25 list that I hope to actually complete. Imagine that.

are the titles, respectively, of those two photos. I had a third one for you, called “bread salad” but I can’t figure out how to make the pictures I take in my house after dark not be awful, so you will just have to use your imaginations. It’s a shame, though, because that bread salad–Ina’s Panzanella, more specifically–was a thing of great and terrible beauty. It basically is a pile of tomatoes and croutons soaked in olive oil, so really there was never any doubt.

This week we are having fancy dinners at my house, a) because I had not cooked anything in many weeks and felt terribly guilty about it and b) we are celebrating, among other things, a new writing gig (number five, bitches), my twenty-fifth birthday, and the series finale of Lost. Actually, it is Eat Your Emotions Week here at Kitchendoor!

Besides the bread salad: blackened chili lime chicken, steak with crumbled bleu cheese, grilled asparagus and corn on the cob, turkey avocado melts, and a cake plate full of chocolate chip cookies.

Look out, world. My emotions weigh ten pounds.