dreamt i was a sparklehorse song

my name is kathy. i am a prison break fan. in particular i find theodore "t-bag" bagwell to be an entertaining character.

i would ask for forgiveness, but i suspect that most prison break fans (or even those who just watch it every once in a while) find t-bag as one of their favorites. "whiskey makes me....irascible". how the hell does t-bag know the word irascible? i had to learn it from the GRE study book. perhaps t-bag has a secret past that the producers aren't letting us onto. For kicks, watch an interview with the actor...it'll trip you out.

on a side note..there was something funny to me about michael scofield coming to a door as a repair man. i'll just leave it at that.

the dialogue was priceless. "whatsup snowflake?" has to go down as one of the best lines in prison break history (which probably isn't saying much).

things are going well. i went for a walk on the beach today.

since blogs don't necessarily have a way to post music (and if there is...please teach me!) but i thought i would institute a "currently listening to:" part of the blog...

Currently Listening to:


Sparklehorse: Dreamt for Light Years In the Belly of a Mountain

upon a first 1/2 a listen (while walking next to the ocean), i have this to say, fantastic. sparklehorse played a very large role in my young adult life...and i must say, i feel delirious with joy to have a new album to enjoy. more on that later.

As If...

As if I needed any other reasons to adore Ted Leo...read his post from 8/24/06.

He hates Jeffrey as well. That makes me very very happy.

Project Runway tonight... (JUST KIDDING...my surprise to find out that its not coming on tonight...are you f-en kidding me?)

My prediction for top 3: Jeffrey (despite my wishes -and Ted's as well), Michael, and Uli. Of course, I believe we could substitute Laura for Uli as well. They both seem to have a "style" they are unwilling to change. Jeffrey does too, but he is often lavished with attention by the judges for his "rock and roll" look. oh kill me, please. (And apparently...there isn't a final 3, but the four we got...those are our four).

I'm still rooting for Michael.

PS Prison Break is and always was...unbelievable.

easy livin'

not much to report...i've been sick all weekend. chest cold. pretty typical.

its as if when fall arrives, i get sick...to remind me...hey, a new season is coming. you are going to be nostalgic, reflective, and melancholic. i love fall. its inspiring me to work on writing again...which hopefully is a positive.

here is an example of how beach living can go too far. this morning as i was driving to school, an older woman was starting to walk across the street. i thought she saw me coming down the road, but just to be cautious, i stopped anyways. Good Thing! She kept on walking...and this is the thing, i realized she didn't see me as she continued to cross at a leisurely pace. then after she crossed, i drove past her and she still didn't even notice that she almost got hit by a car. now, that would have been a bad start to a monday morning.

teaching this week has been going well. high school was particularly fun today. i think things are starting to smooth out and calm down with them. we did an exercise with children's books where we look at male and female characters and then note whether they are in active or passive roles. loads of fun. apparently sometimes gender is so ingrained in our minds that people assume it is natural.

so it always seems to be something with my high school students...today, instead of questions about whether conor wears boxers or briefs...they got on the myspace line of questioning. "Miss Katherine, are you on myspace??" I tried to explain to them that it would be unprofessional of me to be on myspace. Someone was telling me recently how some school systems prohibit their instructors from having myspace accounts....because it could create false boundaries between the teacher and the student. i concur. or a false sense of consciousness.

on a happier note, in my class today, upon asking if anyone would identify as a feminist....the number went up...out of a class of 17, 4 folks raised their hands, including one guy.

TGIAF...thank god its almost friday

it feels something like the longest week of my life. it hasn't been particularly difficult or trying...just seems like i'm moving in slow motion...

so to recap...what do we have for you this week?

last weekend...tim and i visited more flea markets, as well as brookgreen gardens in murrells inlet...i've started a new obsession with a woman named bessie. i have a letter that a male suitor sent her in 1904. he was staying at the sulphur springs in hiddenite north carolina, where apparently he was being healed for some type of illness. he talked about the base ball craze. that's right. baseball...but back when it was two words. i'm assuming he was desiring to attend a game of a local textile or mill team....but fascinating.

brookgreen gardens are beautiful. everyone should visit. they contain a sculpture garden, as well as a nature walk of sorts. the sculptures and flowers...were wonderful. it just felt so beautiful and peaceful. the nature walk was trying on my nerves at times...i almost walked into a spider web that was the size of my skull. no kidding.

we also had dinner at a lovely restaurant, collector's cafe. it was delicious. i'm really really really enjoying tim's weekly food articles...as i'm receiving some of the benefit.

after a nice relaxing weekend, i plunged into the work week. not too much to report there...things have been going smoothly. the high school class is starting to calm down. this week has included lectures on race and ethnicity, culture, socialization, gender, and aging. my favorite discussion has to be on immigration. it really gets some people very upset...particularly if you start talking about learning how to speak spanish. i was told by one student that he shouldn't learn spanish because he doesn't live in spain. weird, i thought there were people outside of spain who speak the language. my bad.

i also blew some minds today when i spoke about the smallpox blankets that were given to native americans. i was honestly surprised that most of them haven't heard about this. doesn't anyone watch king of the hill other than me?

other than school....prison break...that cop guy is cracking up...thank god...tim and i had dinner at a very nice restaurant called filet's last night...we met a wonderful young fella named donald...who i wanted to ask to be our new friend...and then project runway....awww, kayne. too bad.

i'm rooting for michael all the way and for the demise of jeffrey.

i'm giving an exam tonight...and i'm more excited than ever...that means i can read my new girly magazine and demonstrate to my class that you can be a feminist and still indulge in the mindless sexist literature of cosmo.

which by the way, out of a class of 42 college freshmen...there wasn't a single person in the class that raised their hands to say they were a feminist. what the fuck?

who needs bread?

yes, its true. for some reason tim and i started discussing the food pyramid. i think tim said something like, "if i could only eat one type of food for the rest of my life...it would be vegetables..." i shriveled in disgust and thought to myself, "what would i pick?" But my shrivel was not based on veggies a la athens restaurant or any random cafeteria. i personally am a big fan of the following veggies: cottage cheese, mac and cheese, and fried okra. i don't think they technically constitute veggies, though.

so, for me...another hypothetical posed to the small handful of people who actually find this entertaining...if you could choose but one category off of the food pyramid to eat for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

I think I would have to pick dairy, particularly cheese. "Cheeeeeese" (Old School reference for you, Jennie Ann).

Well, the work week is over. I still hate Jeffrey on Project Runway and his "design" if you can call it that was anything but flattering. Thank goodness he doesn't have immunity.

Plans for this weekend...more flea markets in my near future. a really fancy restaurant in the area called Collector's Cafe (which is a combination of restaurant, art gallery, coffeehouse). and an afternoon at the brookgreen gardens (which apparently has a sculpture garden, wildlife preserve, and history.

wait, are these the kinds of things you find really exciting once you hit the 30 year mark?

sunbathers and high school

so, on my way home from the grocery store this afternoon, i noticed a woman sunbathing in her front yard. it was a couple blocks down from my place. so keep in mind this is about one block from the beach. doesn't seem to make any sense? why sunbathe in front of a house instead of the ocean? perhaps she has body image issues.

classes went well today. the high school found me a new classroom. its a science class, so while i lecture...i'm standing next to a skeleton. its a small one, but it is wearing a sombrero. true. i swear. it reminds me of the scene in manhattan....

"But you're too easy on yourself. Don't you see that that's your problem: you rationalize everything; you're not honest with yourself. What are future generations going to say about us? Some day we're going to be like him [motions towards skeleton] - this is what happens to us. It's very important to have some kind of personal integrity. I'll be hanging in a classroom some day and I want to make sure that when I've thinned out, I'm well thought of."

the first five minutes of class (and last five minutes) consisted of my students asking me questions about how i know conor, how i met him, if i know tim kasher, does conor have a drinking problem?, and is arienette real? i suppose its exciting to people who are younger and grew up while saddle creek was in its prime...to me, it was in its prime when it was just starting...regardless, its hilarious to me that these students are so curious about this person. i think i decided this...i'm glad i'm a sociology instructor and not a rock star. i personally would prefer not to have people all over the world speculating on my health, my relationships...i'll settle for it locally.

speaking of saddle creek, i'm listening to the new eric bachmann. it was due time until he put something out on saddle creek. its awesome. you should get it...wait, wait...tim, you already have it...and yes, i recognize that i've used another google image.

project runway tonight...right on.

francis and cecilia

hope everyone had a great labor day weekend. i sure did.

so...friday night, tim and i ventured to a bar/restaurant near our house. i had been curious about this place for a couple of weeks. it was decent. small. within a few moments, we listened to the owner and the other two patrons talk about how they CAN'T WAIT for the tourists to go home. then the lovely bartendress asks, "so, where you folks from?"

no doubt, there is an interesting tension between the tourists and the locals. a situation that causes for both to depend on one another. reminds me of that old cursive song, "who needs who the worst?"

the night progressed into a sort of made for tv movie about racial inequality and domestic violence. i was freaked out and shocked. i think we must have laughed all the way home.

on saturday, jennie ann made her way to the beach. before that, tim and i made a trip to the flea market. i haven't been to a flea market since i was the size of a flea....but i was suddenly captivated. we planned to return...as tim was eyeing a beautiful new bike.

regardless, saturday night...we cooked out on the grill. it was delightful. "which was lovely"...we sat in the front yard, listening to the cars and prince...while meeting new neighbors and talking about god knows what.

sunday, we returned to the flea market...where i bought an antique sewing machine, a necklace made from whale bone with a carving of a whale and masted ship, a faux pearl collar necklace (no jokes, please), Elizabeth Taylor's My Love Affair with Jewelry, some old pictures from the late 1880s to early 1920s, and my most treasured piece...a postcard from 1912.

so here is the thing with the postcard...we found nearly 15 postcards that were correspondence between a woman named Cecilia and a man named Francis. The postcards are beautiful. so i started thinking about it....what was it that cecilia wanted francis to remember that she had asked him about...

i then wondered if they were linked to a family history on the ancestry site...and guess what? they were! I found the email of the individual who put together the line. I also found out that the postcard I bought was written one month before cecilia and francis married. perhaps she asked him to get married?

i wrote to the person who put together the family line...who happened to have a couple of pictures of cecilia and francis, which she sent me. i posted a picture of her when she was young. its just so fascinating to me. i'm going back to the flea market on friday to get the rest of the postcards to mail to the great niece of francis. isn't that cool?

yeah, i'm a total nerd. i can't help it. its inspiring me.

jennie ann left yesterday, which was sad. then tim and i tied up the evening by cooking out once more and watching the braves beat the mets.

awww, labor day.