what my phone wants to tell you

So I've been texting a lot on my phone lately, and it's got this handy feature I like to call the Vocabulary Butler -- basically a program that runs around and grabs you all the words you might possibly want. To type, that is. But sometimes it's so far off the mark it's entertaining.

For example, I was trying to type "Is it wrong to poke out your own eyeballs out of boredom?" and the Vocabutler (TM) wanted me to say "Is it wrong to poked outside yourself owner eyeballs outside of boredom?"

It's a little tricky when you're recreating old messages (I am discovering, wearing out the pads of my little fingies) because Vocabutler (TM) is smart, and learns your words, and adds them to his little dictionary. So I'll have to try some new ones.

"I'm testing your features to make a point" comes out "I'm testing yourself debuted to oakland a soggy."

"Blog readers are interested in your features" comes out "Blogger reading are! Hovered go yourself fictional."

"The people at work are retarded" comes out "Them penalty at york are! Setting"

"Kate is so cool she should get a prize" comes out "Later) is so come viable sherlock! Since getting a psis."

WTF? The Vocabutler (TM) knows psis but doesn't know brunch! I think I need to send it back to elementary school...

Now you try it! See what your inner Vocabutler (TM) wants to say!

shaking it off

Part of being an actor is being able to shake things off -- rejection (primarily), bad rehearsals, an evil auditor, the last character choice you just made -- you name it, we either have to fight through it or shake it off to deliver our best performances. Because the more we hold onto stuff that has nothing to do with the scene at hand, the more that scene veers off track. Sometimes holding onto stuff can be useful and informative, but most of the time I've found it's just dragging shit into the scene that doesn't belong there.

I had an experience the other night in life, not onstage, where I actually shook off my own emotions and it was so astoundingly eye-opening, that I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier.
I periodically get myself into an emotional place where I feel like a little girl -- I feel like crying and hiding and retreating to where someone else will take care of me. This can be caused by any number of things (as many of my friends can attest to) -- a bad day, too much rain (GAH!), hitting the subway just as my train is pulling out... I'm not picky about what upsets me. When I get in this mode, I usually end up stuck in it for a while, sometimes a minute, sometimes an hour, sometimes a day. If I get upset enough to cry, I'll come out the other side of it a little more quickly, but more dramatically, which is fine when I'm alone, but tricky when there are other people around.

Anyway, the particular day in question, I was beating myself up about mistakes I've made in the past, and got stuck in the mode (near someone else who I wasn't sure would completely understand). And I got up, walked around, shook out my body and pretended like that was just a scene I was rehearsing that didn't go the way I wanted it to.

And it was amazing! The feelings didn't go away completely -- I mean, I wasn't acting them in the first place, I was living them. But I actually shook myself out of the mode, which freed me up to look at the situation on its own merits.

It doesn't sound like much, but if you know me (and you know the mode), you know how much of a triumph this was.

bald guyz

I saw a whole phalanx of these in the window the Duane Reade downstairs.
Yeah. Head Wipes. For Bald Guyz.
They have a website, too, http://www.baldguyz.com/, that showcases their products (which include SHAMPOO and CONDITIONER... hello, they're bald) and some men who are "bald by nature" and "bald by choice."

Visit them. Then tell me if you think Mr. Bald By Choice shouldn't reconsider his choice.

i am a creepy service magnet

A few nights ago, I getting into a cab in the somewhat wee hours of the morning and the first thing the driver said to me was, "So how was your date?"

I demurred, trying to let him know that my evening was not what I wanted to talk about (not that I particularly wanted to talk at all), but somehow that didn't stop him from asking me if I had found Mr. Right, if I thought relationships were as simple as banking transactions, and what did I do for a living?

"Oh Lord," I thought, "I've got a chatter. And I think he likes me."

We get stuck in traffic (gee, who knew there was construction on the Bowery approach to the Manhattan bridge?) and he pretends to not want to talk about himself and "this other thing I do -- I don't drive cabs all the time."

"Really? You don't?"

"Naw. I do something else. But you don't want to know about it."

"Oh Lord," I thought, "I've got a serial killer. And I think he likes me."

As it turns out, he's an aspiring cinematographer who spends some days working electrical tech stuff for small films and some nights driving a cab. And he's got some choice thoughts about actors -- mostly, that we're all in it because we want to be famous. Thanks, Dr. Phil, for your profound insight.

I had to tell him (at this point I've given up on the Silent Treatment -- traffic was a bitch, and my cellphone was dying) that some of us are in it because we believe in art, that all we want is to be able to do the work and that (gasp) some of us don't want to be famous.

At which point, I think he's going to pull over on the Manhattan bridge, cut me into small pieces and fling them one by one into the river.

So I change the subject.

"What makes you want to be a cinematographer?"

"blah blah blah blah," the familiar sights of Flatbush Avenue roll by, "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah," thank god for Fourth Avenue, "blah blah blah blah blah blah bl--"

"It's that green one, on the right. Thanks! Good night!"

I slammed the door (yes, I slammed the door) and quickly locked myself inside my three-lock paradise of an apartment.

I was safe.

Until the next day, that is, when I met his lovely, large-breasted, heavily Eastern Euorpean accented cousin. At the hair salon.

I went in to get a haircut, and, since I'm a girl, they washed my hair. And that's always a nice part. Sit there, have someone rub your head, run warm water over you, scratch your scalp. Really nice. Really relaxing. Really terrific.

Unless it's not.

Irina, (I think that's what her name was -- she was either Irina or Olga, which was too Chekovian to be real) did the shampooing part with some skill. Not as great as that guy on East 57th street several years ago, but not as bad as my four year old cousin. A solid B+ /A- shampooing.

Then she started on the conditioner. And I'm just not sure I can explain this without having your head to rub. It was the most indecent, awkward, stomach-churning experience I've had in recent memory. She covered her hands with goo, and then very lightly, very delicately started caressing my head. Much like an amorous lover might run his fingers delicately over his beloved's breasts. Or as if she were sticking her fingers in the frosting of a cake -- heavily enough to get some frosting, but lightly enough not to leave any trace of it behind.

Meanwhile, her boobs were swinging (undelicately, unamorously) in my face.
I closed my eyes, grit my teeth, and dug my skull into the basin of the sink.

"Oh Lord," I thought, "I've got a large, foreign lesbian here. And I think she likes me."

Door Slamming: or what kate doesn't understand about human nature

I don't get it. I really don't.

This morning, my neighbors -- the ones with the swanky new door (see my unwarranted triumph and jubilation here) slammed it. I don't mean they closed it noisily, or that they were hasty in their departure and didn't close it with caution. No, they slammed it.

And I just don't get it. What part of "please don't slam your door" did they not understand three months ago when I started asking them that? What part of "I'm a really light sleeper and it wakes me up" don't they get? What is it about them that makes it OK to do whatever they please with no regard to the people living around them?

This is where I question human nature. I know I am a very empathetic person, one who is not only aware of other people, but so acutely aware that it is often to my own detriment. So I acknowledge that my perspective on the matter is skewed. (And I admit to being a light sleeper, so my perspective on the early morning noise thing is skewed, too.)

But when someone asks me to do something (or to not do something) I make an effort to follow their request, to respect the effort they put into asking me. That, to me, is human nature.

Now, I'm not perfect. I get drunk, or angry, or self-absorbed and don't pay attention to how I'm impacting other people. I'm not tiptoeing around the world, asking permission to breathe. (and I do so loathe the people who are, but that's a whole nother story) But if I get drunk, it's not at 7:30 in the morning, and when I'm self-absorbed, it never last so long that I have time to repeatedly ignore requests people have made of me.

There's selfishness and then there's Selfishness. And my neighbors are Truly Selfish.

Or, conversely, they are Ignorant of How To Close a Door. Which is entirely possible, as my sister is Similarly Ignorant. So for those of you who fall into this category, please give the flight attendants your undivided attention for a brief moment:

To close a door, follow these three easy steps:
1. Turn the doorknob
2. Slide the door into a closed position
3. Release the doorknob and walk away.

Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

blindsided and hoodwinked!

I was doing a little research online today about mystery, and how to keep it in a relationship, since I have problems with that and was thinking about doing a little post on it (we'll see if it ever happens), and so I did a yahoo search for "maintain mystery," just to see what else was out there.

Apparently the Catholic Church does a really good job of maintaing mystery -- but not the romantic kind.

There's a blogger out there, weez, who seems to worry about this, too, but more about internet mystery than romantic mystery (although the argument can be made they're one in the same).

And then I find one called "Kiss Frogs (and Fairy Tales) Goodbye"

Seems like I might be onto something, so I follow the link and find this:
"Perfect!" I think to myself. Let's see what a teen magazine has to say about it -- reduce things to their earliest experiences, and see where I might have formed this malfunctioning pattern.
I start to read.

"In fairy tales a princess kisses a frog, and it becomes a prince. But in reality, kissing a slimy, warty, green frog won't deliver a prince. And even kissing the wrong kinds of guys (aka frogs) won't get you a good husband.

When it comes to romance, the choices you make now will affect your life. Satan knows that if you believe his lies, you'll make wrong choices that will result in a disappointing and empty marriage. Unless you recognize and replace the lies he tells you with truth, youll miss the awesome marriage that God has planned for your future, and you might settle for a frog."

Awesome!

It only continues to get better. I highly recommend that you go here and read the rest. It's festive!

6:55 IS TOO EARLY FOR HAMMERING!!!

Ok, so I know a lot of you wake up far earlier than 6:55 and probably give me a big boo hoo for being so rudely awakened at what you would consider a reasonable hour. I can accept that. But if that's the case, I'd like you to be woken up an hour and five minutes early by HAMMERING, POUNDING AND CLANKING coming from the downstairs apartment.

The best part, too, was that as soon as I was out of the shower? No more hammering. It was a limited time offer, I guess.

Luckily, on my way out, as I handed my landlord a sizable check for my rent, I said, "any chance the hammering can start at 8 instead of 7?" and he said, "Oh, I thought everyone was up at seven" (and I forced myself not to roll my eyes) "since you're always out the door at 8:20... you must get up at 7, right?"

"No," I said, smilingly, "I'm just super-speedy."

On the plus side of things, Mr. Smelly (who lived down there) has moved out, and the landlord is renovating (or "renovating"... hard to tell yet, although the old bathtub was in the garbage this morning...) the apartment for new tenants. New, quiet, soft-shoe dancing, whispering neighbors who delight in competitive games of Silent Statues and eat only mushy foods. I love them already.

I hope.