...In which our heroine is in the trenches

Swine flu, Day 5. I am feeling somewhat better, but still pretty woozy. I can't do much of anything without feeling like I'm gonna pass out, but my fever is gone. I'm pretty sure I have a double ear infection now, which is unfortunate but not surprising. I do like having an excuse to sleep for 12 hours at a stretch.

I have no idea when I'm going back to Chicago - I have a bus ticket for Monday, but I'm guessing I'll need a doctor's clearance before I do so. I hate missing so much class, but I can't really do anything about it. I'm trying to remember the last time I had the flu, which was Christmas when I was eight, but as far as I can tell, this isn't that much worse. It came on quicker, but feeling shitty is still feeling shitty.

Watched Antichrist yesterday, and believe the hype, it's terrible. I can see why Cannes was all in a twist about it, I just don't know how anyone actually enjoyed it. A large part of the plot is poorly done sex scenes between Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. The shock moments weren't even that shocking - maybe I'm just callous to violence but I was like yeah, she just severed his testicles and then performed self-circumcision, but it's so fake looking. Nevermind that the overall message is the inherent evil in women. Not worth anyone's time.

I started watching Twin Peaks too. I like it so far, weird as it is, and it'll help fill that Mad Men gap after Sunday. David Lynch gives me mixed feelings - he's either brilliant or bat shit crazy, but probably some of both. I really enjoyed Blue Velvet, but Wild at Heart and Mullholland Drive left me cold. My parents both loved Dale Cooper and company, so I'll probably like it as well.

Tonight's thrilling activity includes watching The Godfather Part II, which I have sadly never seen. I'm definitely in the higher tier of Columbia film students in terms of what I've seen, but there are still areas where I lack. A girl in Production II has never seen Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, ET, Forrest Gump...the list goes on and on. This is sadly the case with a lot of film students, and I wonder what it is that made them want to go to film school then. The Dark Knight is often the answer, seriously. I love it too, but c'mon kids...

It's probably nap time again. I am just too much fun!

...In which our heroine joins in on the biggest fad of 2009.

Bacon has finally exacted it's revenge on me - I have swine flu. I figured after the highest fever of my life last night, so bad I contemplated going to the hospital, I should probably get it checked out.

I feel like death as expected. Spent an obscene amount of money on medicine. Attempting some pita chips, although nothing else has stayed down. Had to curse out my dear roommate because despite the fact that I was moaning in feverish delirium, she thought it was fine to being doing step routines in the kitchen at 3AM with her boo. My mommy is coming to get me tomorrow, and I'll get to recuperate in the Queen City, lest I have to get quarantined here.

My immune system doesn't exist anymore. Three nights in a row returning home post 4AM was probably not helpful in boosting it. I won't be going to class for a full week - that's how long I'm contagious for. Joy. I'd still rather get the natural immunities than take a marginally tested vaccine. Thankfully it's a slow work week. Watching Michelle Duggar talk about the benefits of natural childbirth. I try to hate the Duggars and I just can't. Why I can't agree with their lifestyle, they are such good-hearted people. They harbor not hate for anyone and give back constantly. 18 Kids and Counting sucks me in waaay more often than I'd like to admit.

Hopefully I don't end up with Captain Tripp's, the superflu. The miniseries for The Stand, my favorite book ever, is kind of terrible, but I've seen the whole eight hour thing probably five or six times.

...In which our heroine survived, once again.

Of course Halloween weekend gets a ramble! It was my first time going out into the city for Halloween, and the city kept up its end of the bargain.

I know when we get off the blue line train at Logan Square and see Vincent Van Gogh and Amy Winehouse, we are terribly underdressed for the Dan Deacon concert. It's chilly and windy and smells like dead leaves (and the dirty ground) when we're walking to the venue with a ton of other scene kids. Emily and I play the "look at that fucking hipster" game, and have a hard time deciding who's dressed up. The shitty opening acts take forever, but one of them has these awesome neon green shark heads that move while they play their instruments. As always, Emily knows people there. Dan Deacon keeps yelling at people to move away from his table but no one does. We dance and drown in electronic neon bliss. Dan thanks us for not doing drugs. This really is a rave, with everyone dressed up like bumblebees and luchadores and the crazy 88s. Two dance contests later, I'm disgustingly hot but then "Woof Woof" comes on. It is an insanely fun show, but I'm so toasty I'm glad when he says thank you and goodnight. Of course then it is freezing outside, and I realize we have to take two trains and a bus to get back to Wrigleyville. This takes approximately one million years. We stop by Ben's apartment and I wonder where he got that obviously original Dark Side of the Moon poster, and if he misses his Johnny Cash t-shirt. We are cordial and friendly as always, and I feel bad when he says all he does is work and school. By now it is very late, and we stop at McDonald's on the way back to Emily's. The stuff we smoke is ungodly potent. We eat, and sleep within the hour. Her couch eats me alive, and at some point in the middle of the night, it sounds like her neighbors throw a body down their back stairs. My mom wakes me up with a phone call - she's in Philadelphia watching Pearl Jam close the Spectrum out, her 23rd and 24th shows. We discuss what we call "good groupie skills" and she tells me she was only twenty or so rows away, and I say Dan Deacon stood a foot away from me, because he did. Emily and I go back to my apartment - everyone on the train looks far rougher than us. I shriek with terror when we watch Candyman with Heidi, Telly, and my RA Megan. Heidi does outstanding gore makeup on Megan's neck, and Emily and I prepare our TV characters - she's Nancy Botwin, I'm Meg Griffin. The costumes are covered with tin foil, and we go to Chipotle. For some reason I get a new burrito combination which is quite delicious. Back on the blue line. We go to a party in a loft in Wicker Park, and the costume stopping is fantastic. On the train we sing Cher with a Rollergirl in drag and female versions of Dr. Gonzo and Raoul Duke. The party is awkward, and I want to go immediately after arriving. Strawberry jello shots are better than cherry or lime, I discover. Telly and I smoke one of her hand-rolled cigarettes and say hi to Wolverine and Catwoman. It's midnight before we can get Emily and Heidi, social butterflies anywhere, to leave. Back on that same trek from last night, except it now takes two million years. I run into Leah from class while waiting half an hour at the Belmont stop, and drunk or not, it makes me smile at how glad she is to see me. A girl eats her dropped Subway off the train platform and I grimace. She gets arrested a minute later for smoking on the platform. We finally get on the train, and to Kris's where everyone is GONE. Tyler gives me a Parliament,which tastes like last fall. I love the smell of tobacco in my hair, and get giggly, eating too much candy and watching Kris and Tyler do Wrestlemania impersonations. Grace falls asleep in her Audrey Hepburn makeup, and we don't leave until 3 or 4 - half our phones haven't made the switch yet. This is the latest I've ever taken the train. A very drunk Mike Tyson gets abandoned at some stop by his friends, and in his place a guy gets on and smokes a bowl, right in the middle of the car. A very scary homeless man sits behind us, and while I'm not paying attention, Telly grabs Heidi and I and tells us to move. I assume he has a weapon, but no, Telly says he was getting personally intimate. On the train. This is why I do not take it alone past one. I thank my lucky stars for making it home alive and not vomited on. The multitude of shit shows in the lobby is amusing. Amateurs. Bed has rarely felt so good, nor has brushing the sugar off my teeth, like my eight-year old self. Some things change, others stay the same.

Sara Quin (Telly) of Tegan and Sara and Meg Griffin make careers out of being awkward.

Heidi should've worn her helmet on Legends of the Hidden Temple...

Emily IS Nancy Botwin. And that is oregano and basil, I promise.

Obviously this is not the Dan Deacon show I was at, but we did this. So, so fun:

Dan Deacon Dance-Off from kata rokkar on Vimeo.
As an aside, why do no one's posts show up in my blog list anymore? And neither do mine. It still shows that my last post was actually the third one ago I wrote. And it says the same for Cassandra and Gallacher. WTF maaaan. How do I fix?

...In which our heroine addresses the elephant.

That's Crystal Renn, my obsession of the moment. She is so naturalistically beautiful - the hair, the lips, the eyes. She's a plus size model now, at 165 pounds, 5"9, but entered the industry at 95 pounds:

Yeah...I don't think there's a question on what looks better. She's just written a book called Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition, and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves, which I've yet to pick up. Renn says she gets more work now as a plus-size model, worked for Dolce and Gabbana, and even closed a Jean-Paul Gaultier show in Paris last year.

For me, seeing her do this is a revelation. It marks a slight change I've noticed in the fashion industry in accepting more normal body sizes - not that 5"9, 165, is normal, but it is an improvement. It makes me feel great that young girls who aren't a size XS can have someone to look to up to. I look at Renn, and say "hey, my thighs look like that too!"

I've written and re-written this post about a thousand times because I never know how to say exactly what it is I want to. I've come to terms with a lot of issues about my body this first year of college. Maybe it's being out of the bubble of high school, and maybe it's not being sixteen, but for the first time in my life I can say I love my body. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with this, that'll my Applachian-bred hips will never fit a size four, that yes models have cellulite too, it just gets airbrushed away.

Growing up, I had absolutely no positive role models of women who were curvy, plus-sized, fat, whatever, in the media. No one. My family was always making sly comments about "could I just cut back a little," and my mom, as much as I love her, has always compared me to her, if I would just eat fewer carbs and smoke two packs a day, I could be just like her. I remember seeing Real Women Have Curves in seventh grade and for once finally feeling like I wasn't alone. I can't help but think more positive images of women in the media - and I'm not even talking plus-sized, I'm talking more womanly, like Christina Hendricks, Liv Tyler, America Ferrara, or Kim Kardashian, would have made me accept my body and all of its wonderful flaws sooner.

In the past couple years, I've noticed more and more big girls getting exposure in the media - aside from Renn, I've seen Mia Tyler, Kate Dillon, and Lizzie Miller all in print ads recently. Glamour, praise them, ran a story recently about how they are going to try and portray more realistic images of women in their magazine. To this photo from the issue, I say bravo.

It is simply ridiculous to think the size zero, airbrushed and photoshopped like there's no tomorrow women that permeate the media are reality. I really hope that this trend continues. I hope more stores like Torrid or Forever 21's new plus sized line, Faith 21, pop up that give girls options to stay fashionable. I know it would've helped me.

I get bothered by the fact that fat really is that last taboo. In my Culture, Race, and Media class and we were talking about that stupid More to Love plus-sized dating show. I made a comment about hating watching the poor fat girls cry because I've learned being a fat girl and crying about it does not make you more attractive to men. People fumbled in their desks. My teacher changed the subject. It's the elephant in the room - I'm fat, let's talk about it.

I lost a bunch of weight the summer after seventh grade - when my diet consisted of McDonald's and candy bars, going from a very unhealthy 225 to 190, and the goal then was a size 10. Right now, I'm a size 12, thin as I've been, since no joke, third grade, probably as I ever will be. I realized one day that I could lose weight, exercise more, eat better, but who couldn't? If I wasn't fat, I simply wouldn't be me. I look exactly like the women on my dad's side of the family - dark-haired, fat arms and hips meant for child wrangling - and I've learned to take pride in this. I'm never going to be as skinny as a lot of my peers, but the average sized woman is now a size 16, so what is normal anymore?

I wish someone would have instilled in me that I was beautiful just as I was at an earlier age, or that I would've had women in the media to look up to. Hopefully, with models like Crystal Renn and the trend of more realistic beauty, girls entering adolescence today won't have to sigh and fret as much as I did.

I was shopping with Emily at Forever 21 today and she told me that she loves how I accept my body and dress it well, without trying to be something I'm not. Still, I laughed because Forever 21's clothes rarely fit me: my boobs are too big. Hey, there's one fantastic benefit of being a curvy girl. It took me a long time to find my confidence, and there are still times when I get looked at and think 'is he really checking me out," and those days when nothing in my closet looks good on me, but I've learned to love myself, and for that, I am thankful.

It's also Katydid in the City's 200th post, so I thought I'd get personal. Happy blogging milestone and sheer geekery!

As if I could write about real women and their curves with showcasing the delightful Joan Holloway, who was FINALLY back in fine form in last night's episode.

...In which our heroine dares disturb the universe.

In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

-TS Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Decisions. We make a thousand and one of them each day - good, bad, indifferent. Sometimes, like poor Mr. Prufrock, we're so worried about what impact those decisions will or won't have we're stuck in a state of inertia that keeps us from doing much of anything at all. And as Greg Dulli of my favorite Cincinnati band ever says ""You've got indecision/and indecision is my enemy."

It has been a year since I made the best decision of my life. I can say this with certainty now, in the sweet hereafter. It didn't even occur to me until I was on the phone yesterday with Cassie, and she mentioned running into him, Paul. Unsurprisingly, she said he gave her a hateful look. I felt bad for ever involving her in that situation, and still do.

I know that at some point all of this boy talk becomes a broken record - everyone is in relationships that are like decisions - good, bad, indifferent. Maybe I shouldn't talk about all of my personal business here, but this has become a journal of sorts for me. I write to get my feelings out, and even if no one read them, I'd keep writing. So this is why I talk about these things so much, because the writing helps me process.

But it's been a year since I've spoken to him in the flesh, the person who I was once closest of all to. I was going home for the weekend, the first time since coming to school - causing a spectacle with Kelsey, we were holding hands walking past his dorm, and he was outside smoking. I'd been ignoring calls and texts for about a month, dodged the bullet when he saw me out and about several times by cleverly ducking behind something. But there he was and he came up to me, waving his hands. He asked if I checked my phone anymore. Where had I been? What was I doing? Why wouldn't I talk to him? He followed me for the block, me giving curt answers all the way. The last image I have is him standing arms spread with "are you really walking away from me" look on his face, mouth open, cigarette in one hand. And I walked away.

My mom and I had a long, late night talk about Paul over pie this summer. I told her a lot of things she didn't know, that I had "forgotten" to mention. They were things I'd only told two other people on this planet. In high school, it was kind of a joke that I was so into Paul and he was so very not into me (which he actually was, but that's another story). I think a lot, not all, of our friends viewed it as stupid high school infatuation that just needed enough drinks to finally happen. Even my mom thought that way. But things were more serious then even I thought until afterwards.

If I could've avoided him totally until this point, I would have. This spring though I finally was forced to say everything to him when he started talking shit to Ben, making me panic with empty threats, putting a strain on our relationship that contributed to its end. At least now he knows, and I know, about all of it. We both said the things that were left unsaid, and haven't spoken since.

It was the best choice of my young, naive, green life to leave him on that street and never look back. I don't regret Paul, or spending as much effort as I did on him because I don't regret things, but I wish I would've done it sooner. But I learned oh so much from that situation, and still am, a year later.

That was a good decision. A really good decision. Maybe it was a bad decision to involve myself with him in the first place, but it was a decision nonetheless. I learned more than I could ever say from it, and that's all I can ask. I did what Prufrock couldn't: I dared. Did I fail? Absolutely.

And indeed there will be time to wonder "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair.

You get a major bonus point if you know why I picked this song for this post. It has to do with a lyric, but not the one you'd think. Pure 90s goodness. Oh, Gavin Rossdale.

...In which our heroine is ill.

You know what sucks? Is when the antibiotic you're taking for your sinus infection works well for that, but makes you so sick you can't eat without puking. Or drink anything beyond green tea. But I can breath. Tough call there.

I officially broke up with Glee tonight. So much potential - too much in fact. Something I read today mentioned how they liked slow-burning story-lines more. I agree. Only three episodes of Mad Men left. Le sigh.

In all probability, I'll be going to the third, just announced Pixies show simply because: why not. How many more chances will I have to see them (few), and the opening band for that show is Bad Lieutenant, which features Bernard Sumner of New Order/Joy Division fame, which is as close as I'll ever get to seeing them. I digress.

Pre-production, and my first editing project are due tomorrow. I cannot believe it is midterms already, despite the fact that I only have one, and it's a project. I'm still not excited about my group for the film, but I can't do anything about it. I did make a couple of friends in that class - Leah, who has the most proficient liquid eyeliner skills I've ever seen, and Daniel, who ironically enough I met last year through you-know-who. They were roommates. Small world. We created the whiskey commercial scene from Lost in Translation Tuesday in class which was pretty fantastic. Set design and hair/make-up done by yours truly.

This is a ramble-y sort of post, just less artful. I ran into the boys tonight - smoking outside of Harold's Chicken, unsurprisingly - and I think Ben was actually glad to see me. I thank him for not being an asshole. Take note, men.

What is with the number of pregnant girls/moms I know on Facebook? There is not a more terrifying thought than being a mommy. You are girls indeed, not women, and birth control is $9 a month at your local Walmart. Being adult enough to have sex means you're adult enough to have a baby too, not get your bellybutton pierced afterwards. Kids today...

...In which our heroine is a copycat.

Stealing a page from the delightful Miss Cassandra (that sounds like a groupie name and makes me think of Almost Famous. Can we be Miss Cassandra and Miss Kate from now on?)...

Currently -

Drinking apple juice and a enjoying Halloween-sized Twix, thanks momma.

Watching Castle, which is a sub-par show at best but it has Nathan Fillion. Thus, I accept its mediocrity.

Finishing Production II homework, avoiding Culture Race and Media like the plague.

Talking to Emily, despite the fact that she left my apartment no less than an hour ago.

Breathing like Tony Soprano thanks to my diagnosed, and now antibiotic treated sinus infection.

Last movie watched - Honestly, I was disappointed. The first hour or so was fabulous, and I loved the wild things, but I thought the story didn't go anywhere or carry any emotional weight.

Last song listened to - I don't know a damn thing about this guy, other than I love the upbeat sadness in this song.

Last book read - Borrowed from Heidi. Not that interesting, and didn't tell me much I didn't already know. I was proud of myself for knowing all the things discussed in the Chicago chapter.

Last item cooked - I wish I could make pot roast like my mom's. It just isn't the same...

Current desktop background - This is perfect Seth Rogen from Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Do you know boys like this? Send them to Chicago and give them my number.

Article read - Justice Says It Won't Go After Medical Marijuana Users from Time magazine. It's about time. I can has legalization?

Phrase said - "Really?" In response to WGN's use of "Werewolves of London" in their cheesy ass Halloween story.