Mutant

Day: 386

Photo taken on Monday, August 22, 2011 in my office at 350pm.

There is something seriously wrong with me.

I accidently cut myself with long scissors and the first thought I have upon doing it is, "why isn't this healing faster?"

Why isn't this healing faster?!

Most people would say "ow", or "shit", or immediately spring into action and get a Band-Aid but no, not Kate. Kate thinks to herself, "why does this hurt so much?"

I think the problem lies in the weekly Marvel games Justin has been holding. I'm reading so much manga and comics and playing the role of Megatron so well that I am starting to believe I have super powers. As I'm watching the blood ooze out, I am actually annoyed that the cut is not sealing itself Naruto/Wolverine style. What the hell? Do I really need a bandage?


I'm a little worried about Kate. I think she's gone mental.

Avatar

Day: 382

Photo taken on Thursday, August 18, 2011 at The Surge at 349pm.

This is what I would look like if I were to magically become an anime character: My eyebrow piercing would come back, I'd somehow obtain the same scar as Kakashi, tribal paint would become my thing, I would pretend I was in Gryffindor, be related to the Silver Surfer, and have a potty mouth.

Picture Pages

Day: Three Hundred and Forty Nine

Photo taken on Saturday, July 16, 2011 in our kitchen at 1025pm.

I have a habit of leaving my cell phone home when it is important that it should be with me. I am now showing signs of that same behavior with my camera.

Unfortunately I have left my camera home for our lovely family dinner at Umberto's in New Hyde Park. Luckily I have a very responsible sister who takes plenty of pictures tonight as well as others during her New York Getaway (click there for the great shots!).

Thanks for letting me whore out your BLOG sis!

^_\

Roots

Day: Three Hundred and Thirty Eight

Photo taken on Tuesday, July 5, 2011 in the living room at 1042pm.

When I am a wee one I have beautiful blonde locks. Then it starts getting dirty and then I start putting a few highlights in at the age of 16 so it emphasizes the lighter strands rather than the darker strands. Then I turn it apricot. Then it is stripped of the orange and back to all blonde. Then I toy with lowlights to get it looking normal again and then back to highlights. It comes to a point when my hair takes on six different shades of blonde and my hairdressers at Head Sessions in East Northport agree that this is how it should stay. But then after November 6th, I decide to save money (or be lazy about dying it) and stop adding anything to my natural color. This is the result. It's a ratty brown with a few blonde hairs interspersed throughout. Seems kinda flat and boring. I think I should start coughing up the dough to fix it again but...

I'll probably do nothing about it.

Pain Scale

Day: Three Hundred and Twenty Three

These series of photos taken today represent my pain scale. I'd like to think my tolerance to pain is pretty high but I am sure if you punched me in the face I would proceed to cry like a baby. However, I have made a pain scale that only goes from 1 to 7 because I have yet to experience pain that goes past a 7 since there are many things I have not-and hope to never-feel.

PAIN is at 0:

Obviously I am not in pain. See how the smile reaches my eyes? Today is a good day for skipping rope and playing hopscotch.

PAIN is at a 1 or 2:

The smile faded from the eyes but I'm still in a good mood. I might have a paper cut or an annoying gas bubble in my chest.

PAIN is at a 3:

I'm most likely sore but a good sore because I must have worked a muscle group that hasn't been worked in awhile. Today sneezing induces sharp pains in my torso or I might be unusually stiff in my bad joints due to the weather. Regardless of the weakness I feel, I'll still go about my day as normal.

PAIN is at a 4:

Okay, I'm uncomfortable. I'm probably starting my period and my boobs feel like watermelons and every step I take is like a knife in my heart (though a knife in the heart will be higher on the pain scale for stuff I don't know about). My cramping is irritating so I go and run a few miles and although it hurts the boobies, it stops the cramps.

PAIN is at a 5:

Okay, today officially sucks. I'm in a lot of pain. I fell down the stairs and have a huge bruise on my tailbone so when I sit it hurts, when I talk it hurts, when I pooh it hurts. I might also have eaten buffalo wings that were a tad too hot for me too. I think I may have strep and a fever and what is that sound? Oh that's me whining.

PAIN is at a 6:

Holy shit I've just been shot! Oh wait a minute...the pain is gone...oh right that's just my sciatica from the herniated disc in my back that is laying on the nerve to my left leg. Though short lived, the pain takes your breath away for a few seconds. But also at a 6 includes pouring hydrogen peroxide in a cut, being pushed through a glass door, falling off my bike, getting hit with a man's slap shot, crashing into a boulder while skiing in the woods, and anything else that is stupid that I have done that landed me in the hospital, like slamming my thumb in the car door.

PAIN is at a 7:

This is unbearable. I need to go home. I want to die.

This is pain that has not gone away all day or daySSSS, or weeks or for a year. My GI issues can get to this point. When I'm crying, I'm at a 7.

PAIN is at an 8:

I've broken a foot and toes before but never anything significant like an arm or a leg or a rib. 8 is definitely for bones that can be clearly seen sticking out of the skin. 8 is also reserved for anything that is shown on Tosh.0 that the audience says, "OOOOOHHHHHH!" for.

PAIN is at a 9:

Dismemberment. I can't imagine the pain one must feel upon losing a limb. I am sure the aftereffects of losing an appendage is also hard to come to terms with as well as the phantom pain they experience.

Some types of torture would be here as well. You may use your imagination to think of the gruesome details but I do not have the stomach for it.

PAIN is at a 10:

I'm on fire. This has to be the worst pain imaginable. Nothing can be worse than any kind of burn. I never want to be on fire or have acid thrown on me either. I never want anyone to be on fire. Even when stuntmen are on fire I don't like it. Fire is just scary.

Alan Wu

Day: Three Hundred and One

Photo taken on Sunday, May 29, 2011 on the dock at 558pm.

Since I missed the opportunity yesterday for an epic picture, Steve allowed me to tie him to a chair with my jump rope and mimic kicking him off the dock 300 style. That's love.


*Why I titled this Alan Wu: Alan Wu was one of the behind the scenes guys on Talk Soup that wore Coke-Bottle glasses and would do anything asked of him like dance around in red silk underwear. One time on Jerry Springer they had a woman that was to set a record of sleeping with the most men in one day which would be a total of 300. After the clip when they came back to John Henson, Alan was standing over his shoulder holding a slip of paper with 301 on it. He was sad. Both Alan and I had missed out on our chances so that deserves a lonely Wu-hoo today.*

*And now maybe some of you understand why I write Wu-Hoo! in text messages to you instead of woo-hoo.

"Stop looking at me swan!"

Day: Two Hundred and Ninety

Photo taken on Wednesday, May 18, 2011 in our backyard at 1119am.

Yeah, I pretty much take this picture for the sole purpose of using a Billy Madison quote as my title.

Purple Nurple

Day: Two Hundred and Eighty Two

Photo taken on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 in the bedroom at 1002pm.

One of my favorite entries I wrote for Life's Adventures was about me getting a new phone. I highly recommend you reading that one to fully understand why I am holding a new purple phone with very little effort on my part. It will help you grasp the concept of me being lazy and I know what you are thinking-I move around way too much to be lazy-but I assure you, I'm lazy. Because honestly, instead of me writing a BLOG entry here, I am directing you elsewhere.

Lazy.

Pretty much the new phone of that previous BLOG entry, the Orange Rumor, has been slowly deteriorating. First the right arrow stopped working which impeded on the fluid navigation of Facebook on my phone but Katie being Katie, I found a way around it so I didn't have to go to the Sprint service shop. Then the 7 button stopped working which made it very hard to delete my voicemails so I just stopped doing that too. Then the 8 and 9 stopped functioning as well and I just made calls through my contact list or the Surge phone or just didn't make a call at all. I think this behavior would have continued on for awhile if it wasn't for Moma calling up Sprint herself for another reason and then forcing me to get on the line and speak with a representative. And then they MAILED it to me because you and I both know, that new phone would sit in the store for awhile before I actually walked the four blocks to pick it up.

...Yeah, I'll voluntarily run a marathon but I won't subject myself to four city blocks.

Hummingbird

Day: Two Hundred and Seventy Five

Photo taken on Tuesday, May 3, 2011 in the upstairs bathroom at 1147pm.

I hate clipping my fingernails. I hate the sound of it regardless if I'm doing it or I witness someone else doing it but I hate the feel of clipping them off as well. It makes my arm hair stand on end. In order to accomplish this awful task, I hum to distract myself. And I don't hum anything in particular like Yankee Doodle Dandy, I just hum. The volume of the humming will fluctuate depending on how much it is bothering me which really just bothers whoever is hearing me hum.

Whoopsies!

Day: Two Hundred and Forty Seven

Photo taken on Tuesday, April 5, 2011 on the 7 platform in Long Island City, NY at 519pm.

I'm an idiot.

And as I'm trying to take this picture my hand is shaking because I'm giggling like an idiot too.

Steve and I have planned a trip down to our new digs this evening to drop off some stuff (namely the two tie-dyed bean bag chairs that I have insisted are important enough to move TODAY) so I have been instructed to get on the Farmingdale train. I love this train because A) It goes out of Hunters Point therefore I skip the Penn Station hassle (B) It has three seaters so no one sits next to me and (C) I rode it for three years and even had my own "assigned seat"*.

So today, as I'm heading to the 529 LIRR train, I get wrapped up in two songs on my iPod while the 7 subway speeds underneath the East River towards my destination. I'm changing the lyrics to two particular songs so they can be tailored to my voicemail. Some of you have been privy to my voicemail but others simply stick to texting me probably to avoid my voicemail because I sing it. It's been decided that I have had my own rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" for way too long so right at this moment I'm stuck between two other hits to use instead. I'm so engrossed in this process that I don't even realize we hit my stop.

And then pass it.

I don't even realize something is amiss even when we start inching out of the underground tunnel and sunshine streams across my face because I'm staring intently at my iPod. When I switch the song I look up, just in time to see people filing along a platform, waiting for an incoming train.

My incoming train.

But I don't even realize it then either. I swear to Jesus I just look out at these people and think to myself, "huh. Look at all those people at Hunters Point."

A beat.

Another beat.

Wait for it...

"Oh shit! Hunters Point!"

And that's when I start laughing out loud. And that's also when other passengers slowly start to inch away from me. And that's also when I realize I have no idea when the next stop is so I quickly shoot off a text to Steve letting him know I just may end up on the usual Smithtown train. Though somehow, through some stroke of luck, I make it back to Hunters Point with time to spare and find my assigned seat vacant and waiting.

Life is good.



*"assigned seat"- Believe it or not, there are many LIRR commuters that have become accustomed to sitting in the same seats day in and day out. It's hard to do in Penn Station because they call the train before the train shows up so then everyone pushes in at the same time, thus making it hard to get the same seat twice. But at Hunters Point the 7 train drops us off in waves so it is easy to fall into a routine of getting in the same car with the same people in the same seats.

Call Now!!

Day: Two Hundred and Five

Photo taken on Tuesday, February 22, 2011 in the shower at 942pm.

You don't want to miss this outrageous deal:

Limited Edition CDs of Katie Jaye Sings in the Shower.

Don't you want to hear classics such as Styx's Come Sail Away and Billy Joel's Downeaster Alexa butchered? How about listening to her tackle such wonderful Broadway hits like Luck Be a Lady and On My Own? The acoustics in this bathroom make her voice sound like a tone deaf angel and can literally bring tears to your eyes. If you like being emotional, we'll even throw in her gospel tunes remix CD with the ever popular hymn Here I Am Lord and Shrek's Hallelujah.

Got kids? Then they will just love her version of some Disney greats like Just Can't Wait To Be King and Whole New World.

If you call within the next five minutes, we'll give you her Sounds of the Seasons for HALF PRICE! It's pretty much her redoing The 3 Tenors Christmas album as the 3 Tenors themselves. Her rendition of Sleigh Ride will astound you! You'll never believe that she is a natural with no opera training what-so-ever after you hear that carol.

Other titles you will hear on these CDs that you wish you didn't:

Perfect Situation
My Own Worst Enemy
I'm Movin' On
and I Love The Way You Lie just to name a few.

So call now, right this second, and you will receive a FREE OCD-shaped loofah for your showering pleasure. You can walk away with all of this merchandise for just three payments of $19.99 (plus shipping and handling). It is the deal of the century!

Disclaimer: Katie Jaye is not responsible for whatever happens to you when you listen to the CDs. If you slip in the shower trying to turn off the CD player once track one starts it is not her problem. These CDs can cause side effects such as hearing loss, the inability to function normally, insanity, and brain deterioration. No refunds or exchanges. You bought it, you live with that choice.

Que un mundo!

Day: One Hundred and Seventy Seven

Photo taken on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 in the hallway at 924pm.

We have been trying to tip our Poland Spring delivery man, Steve, since December but we always forget to give him his card as well as put our bottles out for collection. Yesterday, as I hear the rumble of the truck leaving I curse myself for not remembering yet again and go downstairs to haul the frozen bottles in (yeah, it's around 4 degrees). About 15 minutes later I leave for my doctor's appointment and see PS-Steve across the way, delivering to a business as I maneuver Sai around his truck. I feel guilty when I see him because maybe I could have caught him having known his delivery route.

An hour later, upon returning from the doctor's I notice 347 is shut down going west and then I see it, a totally mangled car. I hate witnessing any kind of aftermath to an accident because it just makes me sad knowing people were hurt. Seeing the road shut down makes me think there is a fatality and then when I see the Poland Spring delivery truck my stomach bottoms out.

I immediately think it's PS-Steve. I've been gone for an hour and judging by the large amount of traffic at the light and the fact that there are no ambulances left, it quite possibly could be our guy.

I'm so upset that I call Hubs and shakily tell him that PS-Steve might have killed someone with his truck. I am so upset that I am convinced the man in the car has to be dead with his vehicle looking like that and then I start blaming myself. If I remembered the card maybe PS-Steve would have taken an extra ten seconds to open it and this accident would have been prevented. This is all my fault!

Steve assures me it's not.

I call dad. I tell him I killed a man in a mangled car through PS-Steve.

Dad assures me I did not kill a man.

For an hour I watch News 12 to see if the news of my murder comes on. It doesn't. I go on about my day, but reluctantly and with constant thoughts of PS-Steve and that unfortunate man in the busted up car.

Today, I crazily search the internet and with great relief find the article here that reassures Steve and dad's beliefs that the man in the vehicle is not dead, nor is it PS-Steve's fault for the accident. Turns out, the man in the vehicle rear-ended PS-Steve or who I still think is PS-Steve. The article has yet to confirm that belief of mine.

Because you know, anyone driving a Poland Spring truck in my area has to be PS-Steve.


(In the picture I am acting out my horror of seeing the accident with a Poland Spring bottle as PS-Steve and a half-transformed Transformer as the man in the vehicle.)

60 Hour TiVo

Day: One Hundred and Sixty Five

Photo taken on Thursday, January 13, 2011 in my office chair at 736am.

No medical records request has made me this giddy before. When I open the envelope and slide out the papers inside, the letterhead makes me full out laugh:

Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman, & Dicker LLP

This is where Kim used to work before moving down to Virginia. The first time I call her office I get her voicemail and as she speeds through all the five names of her firm, I only hear the last one. When it is time for me to leave a message, I giggle into the phone, "hee hee Dicker." From then on, whenever she answers or doesn't answer her office phone, I respond the same way, "hee hee Dicker."

And then Kim makes the mistake of telling me about a pizza party they have one Friday before a holiday weekend and from then on, every Friday I ask about her pizza party that Dicker is throwing for them. Kim then explains to me every Friday that they only get pizza parties when it is before a holiday weekend and that Dicker doesn't throw them because he is retired.

Then the next Friday, I ring her right before lunchtime to ask about Dicker's Pizza Party anyway.

Breakies

Day: One Hundred and Fifty Eight

Photo taken on Thursday, January 6, 2011 at the front desk of the Surge at 1253pm.

The New Year brought with it a sign out-and-in sheet. Whenever we leave the building, whether for lunch or a break or to sneeze, you have to write your name, time out, and why. Then when you come back, obviously you sign back in again, and we're doing this because some people disappear and no one knows when they are returning. But the whole point of a sheet like this is to actually use it because I highly doubt only one person left the building from my lunch break yesterday to today's lunch break. I know for a fact that Bossdad walked out without using the sheet because I caught him and pointed to it and he just kept moving like he didn't hear me (he did).

But of course I need to make a mockery out of the sheet. If you ask me for a reason for me going on my unpaid break, then you're going to get a non-serious answer. I spend yesterday's entire break thinking up different reasons I would have to leave the building and still be feasible to get accomplished in a half an hour. I'm thinking "jetting off to Vegas" might be a good possibility for next time.

Mood Swings

Day: One Hundred and Nineteen

Photo taken on Sunday, November 28, 2010 at 937am.

Sometimes when I work I get bored (weird, I know, right?) so I tend to draw at my desk. Since I'm not a very good artist it takes a long time to finally create something that has been floating around in my head for awhile. Today I finally finish my third "Katie's Moods at Work" picture. These are the only three moods I have at the Surge and I use manga characters to depict them:

1) Nara Shikamaru- "Work...what a drag." This is when I'm being extremely lazy and complain a lot. I'm usually in the "Shika Mood" every Monday without fail. I'm also in this mood when I am busy wallowing in self pity from some personal issue not caused by work but more often than not caused from transit or something equally as trivial.

2) Edward Elric- "Determined Chart Face" Eddo already resides in my head but he definitely comes out when I have a fire under my ass usually on Tuesdays and Fridays. These days I get a ridiculous amount of work done as if I have a bunch of shadow clones working beside me.

3) Ryuk- "Let's get out of here and play some GTA4." (I think I left out the A in Grand Theft Auto, I knew it looked off!) When I read Death Note I read the shinigami as a goofball even though he's supposed to be scary. When I'm most like Ryuk, I'm bouncing around the Surge, talking up a storm, getting work done but doing it in a fun fashion.

I think I'm preferred on my "Ryuk Days".

Popping up a Sidewalk

Day: One Hundred and Eleven

Photo taken on Saturday, November 20, 2010 by the butterfly table at 904pm.

I'm very hard to define: outwardly I'm not the most feminine creature but I do love earrings, bracelets, and things that are pink. I'm certainly not traditional yet I hold my drumsticks that way. I'm Republican but I agree with the liberals on issues like gay marriage and abortion. I get very sensitive and emotional at times though I understand men better than I do women. I'm very logical with my thinking but irrational with my compulsions.

So when it came time to pick a last name on my marriage license, I struggled immensely. I wanted to honor thy husband and take his and I rationalized it by saying I would only have to change two letters, that it would still be the same initials and length. But then I felt my individuality start to slip and I panicked, asking Steve if I could keep my own last name. His initial reaction was one of hurt and I resigned myself to getting used to my new last name.

A year passed and I still never got used to it. In fact, I hated it. I didn't like to be referred to as Mrs. Reed and continued to make reservations under the name Raab. I then started to compromise using a hyphen and decided to eventually go to the courts to make it official. But then I started to get mail in the new hyphenated name only it had no hyphen. Not only did the hyphenated name sound ridiculous in the first place, it looked ridiculous without a hyphen.

Today after receiving one too many mailings with Raabreed on it, I screamed and Steve conceded.

I'm going back to my roots.

Ta-Da!

Day: Ninety Eight

Photo taken on Sunday, November 7, 2010 in the living room at 1242pm.

I am happy to learn that I still know how to blowout short hair and that I still have my old styling products. So what if they're four years old...

Pizzatime!

Day: Seventy Nine

Photo taken on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 in the kitchen at 1014pm.

For some unknown reason we have been getting free pizza coupons in the mail (not like I'm complaining) but whenever I go to these places to retrieve my free pie, I can't help feeling a little guilty. How do you go into a pizza parlor and just walk out with a large pie for free? So I usually make Steve buy a soda or something to make up for the $15 freebie. Only today do we run into a problem; they don't take cards unless there's a $10 minimum. So now we're leaving Monte's with a free pie, two sodas, two pieces of cheesecake, a half dozen knots, and a buffalo slice for just $13. Not too shabby yet Steve can't help glaring at me on the way out for some unknown reason.

Don't be dirty...okay be dirty.

Day: Sixty Nine

Photo taken on Saturday, October 9, 2010 inside The Best (and Worst) Games From Japan That You’ve Never Heard Of panel in Room 1E13 of the Jacob Javits Center in New York, NY at 740pm.

This is my new bag that I just purchased on the merchandise floor of Comic Con. I seriously debated if I needed this bag or not considering I came here carrying a very similar bag. As Steve and I share a lukewarm Coke before heading into another panel, I tell him my thought process on how I came to own the bag. After my ridiculously long explanation of my thought process on said bag, he realizes I must have two personalities duking it out inside my head at all times plus a voice of reason to mediate between the dual parts. Being that we are currently in the heart of a geek convention, Steve assigns anime characters to the three voices in my head:

Meet the Mediator: This is Iruka-sensei from Naruto.

A pretty benign character that kids tend to vote for in the popularity polls even though he hasn’t been in a chapter since the first volume of the manga but he’s likeable. He’s the typical teacher type, fair and nice. He’s the perfect voice of reason.

Meet Voice #1: Ed from Cowboy Bebop.

You spend most of the anime series thinking Ed’s a boy but really Ed’s a girl. She’s a quirky computer hacker that loves games and messing around. Her whole life revolves around having fun. Ed represents the side of me that gets giddy at the sight of shiny new toys and loves amusement parks.

Meet Voice #2: Another Ed, this time Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist.

This Eddo is extremely smart and determined to accomplish whatever task set before him. Edward is prone to violent outbursts which usually come about when someone doesn’t take him seriously or mentions his height. Edward represents the cynical side of me that bites back with sarcasm and knows that amusement parks set off my Positional Vertigo.

So pretty much when I spot the bag hanging at the back of a booth, Cowboy Ed pops up with Fullmetal Ed close on her heels:

CE: OOoooooOOO An FMA bag!

FE: You have plenty of bags. Move along.

CE: But Katie doesn’t have an FMA bag!

FE: It looks like the man-bag you have over your shoulder right now. Let’s go, next booth.

CE: Yeah but the price is reasonable.

FE: I don’t care about the price. You said you were only spending $50 and that bag will send you over. Iruka, she’s being unreasonable!

I: Okay, settle down. Let’s see, you both make good arguments but the pros and cons seem even so it might be a wash-

CE: The bag is gray! Katie doesn’t own a gray bag!

I: Ah, touché. Buy the bag then.

FE: That was such bullshit, Iruka. Fine then, I want a tee shirt too…

Sup?

Day: Fifty Eight

Photo taken on Tuesday, September 28, 2010 at 1030pm in the guest room.

I don't know why I'm throwing a peace sign that resembles a "greater than" sign. I don't know why I pick up shades and put them on Corey Hart style. I don't know why I'm in the guest room either. All I know is that I'm conversing with Pher long distance and he's complaining that I'm being "fidgety" as he talks to me.