Where to find me these days, take II

So, things at KCFreePress.com were great until they weren't. If you do enough Googling, you can find all of the (mostly true) gossip on your own. Now I'm back to full-time freelance and I couldn't be happier. Does that mean I'll update eefers more often and maybe even get it looking nice? Perhaps, but I'm so busy with all of my other freelance projects it's unlikely, at least anytime soon. But one never knows. In the mean time, feel free to keep up with me on Twitter or my "portfolio" site, which I update somewhat more frequently than eefers.

Where to find me these days

KCFreePress.com. You should go there.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Yesterday my dad left this message on my voice mail:

'On January 9, 2010 I blasted off into space on the NASA space shuttle to the moon with the other astronauts. I brought my diary so I could write when there was nothing to do. But I had to go to college for six years and I brought back three moon rocks.' Can you tell me where this quote is from?

I thought, and thought, and Googled and Googled some more, thinking it must have been from a book I loved as a child. It didn't make the most sense in the world, but pretty poetic, right?

Tonight I sent him an email telling him I gave up.

Oh. I found it while going through some boxes yesterday. It's from a student newspaper "printed" at Courtney Elementary. It's your prediction as to what you will be doing in 2010. Second grade, I think. Maybe a little later.

Seriously? In the second grade I knew it would take me six years to finish college?

More or less scary than my crazy cat lady prediction?

The Night My Cat Saw Her Ghost (And So Did I)

I woke up to a strange sound. Eve was at the window hissing. Usually the window is open but because it was so cold, I had closed it. I pulled back the curtain. At first all I could see was that every time Eve hissed she fogged up the glass. It took me a minute to realize that on the other side of the glass was an all-white cat, sitting still as a statue, on the fire escape, just staring at her.

If You Can Make It Here, You Can Make It Anywhere, or, Kansas City, Here I Come

The time has come for me to say goodbye to the city I've called home for eight years. I spent the entire Bush administration in New York, and guess what? Now that Barack Obama has been elected President, I'm no longer afraid of the Midwest. But that's not the only reason I'm moving. I went home to do promotion for the book and fell in love. I've grown a lot in eight years, and so has Kansas City. I saw buses with bike racks!

When I left at 18, I was fleeing my Meth-ridden hometown of Independence (a suburb of KC) and a foreseeable future as a knocked up bank teller with dark roots and sweat pants. I can safely say I've evaded that path in life and I'm now free to live out my fantasy of residing in an amazing apartment in the urban center of a not so urban place (a place that's constantly changing, for the better).

And when I say amazing apartment, I mean you should come stay in my guest room. Then I'll cook you dinner in my fully equipped kitchen. I'll serve it via the butler's pantry and you'll be seated in the built-in bench in my dining room (the bench that's up against a bay window and flocked by two built-in China cabinets). While the dishes do themselves in the dishwasher, we'll retire to my front balcony through the french doors and sip whiskey while we look upon West 36th Street. When it gets too chilly, we'll go inside and sit in front of my tiled fire place. Before you sleep peacefully in the guest bedroom (which will be separate from my office, which will be separate from my living room, which will be separate from my bedroom), you'll soak in my claw-foot tub.

I'll be using all of that space to continue my freelance writing career (and my job at Nerve), and I feel like having more mental and physical space will really open me up to write the things I've wanted to write for a long time.

This is not to say I'm not scared to death. I'm scared of falling off the face of the Earth, and I'm just plain scared to leave. New York sucked me in and promised to never let me go. And that freaked me out. I'm not ready for the lifetime commitment. I certainly don't want to be that lady on the subway (you know who I'm talking about).

Lucky for me, as Gawker so famously pointed out last year, Kansas City is the new Greenpoint. I will find out if this is true and report back. Who knows? Maybe I'll hate it there and return to the original Greenpoint. But I'm going to give it a year. And in the mean time, I'll be back often.

I'll definitely be back for at least a week in April to attend a friend's wedding and meet another friend's new baby. I'll need couches to crash on and I'll probably want to go out for sushi and Indian and Thai food. And I will come back for the Casserole Party and other food/book related events throughout the year. But I see it this way: I leave New York in the summer anyway and I hate it here in the winter, so if I come back for a few weeks in the spring and fall I'm getting the best of all worlds. And I can spend my winters in KC sitting by my fireplace, sipping hot toddies.

Thank you all for making my time here amazing. It breaks my heart to leave. But I'm excited to start a new life with space and family and central air. Oh, and Dairy Queen. I have really missed Dairy Queen.

Dammit All to Hell

It's 3:08 a.m. I was just about to fall asleep and heard a rustling coming from the closet. I looked to my left. My cat was there. I grabbed the flashlight (that I happened to have in bed, because my new bedroom layout didn't allow for my bedside lamp to be plugged in and I've been too lazy to rig it any other way) looked to my right and a giant cockroach was making a mad dash for my bed. Then he flipped over on his back and started flailing his legs wildly in the air. Knowing he was too injured to chase me (hey, it's happened before), I jumped out of bed and looked for the bug spray, only to notice it was between me and the big guy.

I tried to direct the cat from the bed to the floor, tempting her with the flashlight, but she just stared at me, who had also begun to flail wildy. (Seriously, why do these things only happen when I'm naked?)

Realizing the cat was of no fucking use to me in this time of crisis, I ran to the kitchen to get a heavy Pyrex lid to put over the intruder, but realized that would actually require getting close enough to be accurate with the placement of the lid... and that one of my Pyrex lids would be forever tainted. So I went to the living room and found the heaviest book I have, a Spanish textbook from college. I stood in the doorway and threw it on top of him. Thank goodness it was big, because my aim is never good with these things.

Problem is, now I'm sleeping next to a giant fucking cockroach which is "sleeping" under my Spanish textbook. Er, should I say giant fucking la cucaracha? Anyway, I'm glad the textbook finally came in handy (I totally had to google the spelling of "la cucaracha") but I'm so fucking jumpy I'll never be able to sleep. Seriously. It is right next to me. I'm not even asleep and I'm already having nightmares of his mighty cockroach strength overcoming the weight of the textbook.

You Can Get Back on a Horse, A Bike... Just Not Roller Skates

This is what happens when one has four shots of whiskey and decides she can roller skate. Well, really, this is what happens:



So, I probably should not go to the roller disco that's coming up next weekend, huh?

Top 10 Childish Things I Wish I Could Get Away With as an Adult

As George Bernard Shaw so famously said, "Youth is wasted on the young." I wouldn't have believed it when I was a kid, because I wanted nothing more than to be a grown up who could do whatever I wanted. Guess what? Doing whatever I want sometimes sucks, especially when doing whatever I want involves not paying my bills on time or going three years without a visit to the dentist.

Ah, what I wouldn't give now for a strict bed time and some fish sticks -- two of the Top 10 Childish Things I Wish I Could Get Away With as an Adult.

10. Going to summer camp.

Is there anything more exciting for a kid than going away to summer camp for the first time? For most kids, it's the first time they spend extended periods away from their parents and for me, it was when I learned the most about myself as a young person. Luckily, I still go back as a counselor (yes, I'm quite possibly the oldest camp counselor in the history of the world) every summer and run the journalism department at a camp for the fine and technical arts. I have to hold on to my youth somehow, right?

9. Eating fish sticks for dinner, and that being okay.

How can anyone not love fish sticks? They're like fish 'n chips minus the chips and the sexy British accent. Sure, they come from the freezer section, but they're fucking delicious. All that breading would probably make me fat if I consumed as many as I did when I was a kid, though. And you'd probably laugh at me.

8. Going to bed at 8:30.

I can only dream of going to bed at 8:30 when I finally go to bed at 3 a.m. after getting most--but not all--of my work done for the day.

7. Going to the doctor and never seeing a bill.

I used to think the doctor took care of me because he wanted me to get better, not because he wanted a new car. Now I have to truly believe I'm on my death bed or be absolutely certain a bone is broken before I'd even consider getting within 500 feet of a medical professional, lest I want to default on my student loans (which brings me to an honorable mention: free school).

6. Picking my nose.

Sometimes there's just one you have to get. Definitely loses all charm when an adult does it.

5. Being applauded for everything.

When was the last time someone clapped when you pooped in the toilet?

4. Bursting into tears when I don't get what I want.

Not that I haven't cried over unrequited love, lost apartments or plane tickets that doubled in price over night, forcing me to cancel my vacation, but it's not the same when Dad isn't there to comfort me and give me my first lesson in personal finance while explaining that he just doesn't have the money for that Shetland pony I was so, so in love with.

3. Running around the yard naked.

Not only would this require a yard, it would require the self confidence to actually run while naked. There are so many things wrong with that picture I won't even begin to go there.

2. Believing my parents are immortal.

1. Asking random boys to show me their penises.

The "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" line only works until about 11. Then you're expected to do more. But I could have saved myself a lot of disappointment in my teens and early twenties had I been able to check out the goods before committing to any physical contact.

Originally posted at Nerve.com's Scanner blog.

I Feel You, Joyce

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