New Beginnings

The K Chronicles: New Beginnings

(The idea for the new format was blatantly borrowed from Jiaying…)

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the apartment building were the shouts of my cursing and screaming as I broke one kitchen appliance after another. Not only did my sink lose water pressure, but I dropped a baking sheet onto the heating coil of my oven and chipped it. At that point there was only one gift I was hoping for Santa to bring me… a husky, bare-chested angel in the form of a man. (Did I mention that I had watched It’s a Wonderful Life four times that week?)

Just before midnight I sat down to watch another not-so-cheery holiday flick- Christmas Eve with George Raft. I believe I’m probably the only person under the age of 75 that’s watched it and actually enjoyed it.

All my ill thoughts quickly flew out the window when I saw Justice hiding under the Christmas Tree- her favorite place to lie in wait for my bare feet to enter her line of sight. Since it was after midnight I told her that Santa had already come and put gifts in her stocking so we could open them up. I’m pretty sure she liked them as she dug immediately into the pile to play.

As for me, it was quite a blue Christmas… a warm blue blanket with dolphins… a blue silky scarf with dolphins… a blue sweater to match my eyes, the color of dolphins… and from my mom the blue necklace I’d been hoping for ever since my birthday.

Just in case I didn’t feel spoiled enough, there were a few other gifts to open. Cute little ornaments for Justice and me… a pink watch with dolphins on it (also good for my ego as I have to take out quite a few links for it to fit!)… and a Canon Power Shot A720! Anyone that knows me is aware of my huge, bulky camera that I carry around. Now, I have a travel sized one so I can get all those candid shots of my friends without them realizing it until after!

At this point I should mention that I made a big purchase for myself last week. I drove up to Raleigh and, with the advice of a car-savvy friend, bought a 2007 Mustang Sports Coup- V6, 4.0 liter engine, 210 horsepower. (See? I’m not just a silly girl driving a hot Mustang!) After many days of indecision I’ve finally settled on a name- Mustang Charlie! The ride home from Raleigh was nerve-racking: Charlie made the drive in just under 3 hours instead of the normal 3½.

Happy Birthday to ME!

10 September 1979

Your date of conception was on or about 18 December 1978 which was a Monday.

You were born on a Monday under the astrological sign Virgo.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 1/28/1979 and ending 2/15/1980.You were born in the Chinese Year of the Goat.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Bear; your plant is Violets.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Hathys, the third month of the season of Poret (Emergence - Fertile soil).

As of 9/10/2007 4:03:57 PM EDT
You are 28 years old.
You are 336 months old.
You are 1,461 weeks old.
You are 10,227 days old.
You are 245,464 hours old.
You are 14,727,843 minutes old.
You are 883,670,637 seconds old.
Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 4.0027397260274 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)

Celebrities who share your birthday:
Ryan Phillippe
Charles Kuralt
Randy Johnson
Roger Maris
Arnold Palmer

Top songs of 1979
My Sharona The Knack
Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? Rod Stewart
Hot Stuff Donna Summer
Bad Girls Donna Summer
Escape Rupert Holmes
I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
Ring My Bell Anita Ward
Too Much Heaven BeeGees

There are 366 days till your next birthday on which your cake will have 29 candles. Those 29 candles produce 29 BTUs,or 7,308 calories of heat (that's only 7.3080 food Calories!) . You can boil 3.31 US ounces of water with that many candles.

In 1979 there were approximately 3.1 million births in the US. In 1979 the US population was approximately 203,302,031 people, 57.4 persons per square mile. In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds. In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

Your birthstone is Sapphire The Mystical properties of Sapphire:
Though not meant to replace traditional medical treatment, Sapphire is used for clear thinking.
Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. Agate, Moonstone, Lapis Lazuli

Your birth tree is:
Weeping Willow, the Melancholy
Beautiful but full of melancholy, attractive, very empathic, loves anything beautiful and tasteful, loves to travel, dreamer, restless, capricious, honest, can be influenced but is not easy to live with, demanding, good intuition, suffers in love but finds sometimes an anchoring partner.

The moon's phase on the day you wereborn was waning gibbous.

When did... my attitude start to suck?

Maybe it’s just me- I’ve been told I’m an inflexible hardass that refuses to bend to something I believe is inappropriate. Or, maybe I’m hanging around the wrong people, shopping at the wrong places!

Still, I’d like to know when did…

…it become common to forget the name of someone you’re in a conversation with or thinking of asking out? (And yet the Starbucks Baristas use it three times within five minutes!)

…cops stop identifying themselves to young women while blinding them with a flashlight?

…it become couth to talk to a woman about your “peter”?

…those people that sell hand lotion in the mall kiosks begin to accost people with their product and grumble at them as they walk away?

…a $50 donation and pan of ziti to a local organization [in need of aid] not merit a thank you note?

…pseudo-non-conformists get the right to make fun of me because I didn’t jump on the Yankees bandwagon?

…husbands stop offering to carry the flat of bottled water for their wives?

…Bed, Bath, & Beyond allow their male employees to ask out female customers?

…relatives start to backstab you when you least expect it and crush every hope you had to make it through life in one piece?

... horny 15 year olds get to hang out in your favorite bar after hours simply becuase he can play a wicked violin?

…bill collectors decide to call at 9, 10, & 11pm asking for Christopher Walters, even though I’m obviously not him, as I’ve told them the 10th time this month?!

…Wal-Mart cashiers get the privilege to tell me my attitude sucks because I want to return a coffeemaker that doesn’t work?

Charleston's 9

"I'm going to find a way to honor those guys every single day. I will find a way. You need to find a way. Even if it means changing my car to No. 9, I don't care, I will find a way," Chief Rusty Thomas.



For nearly a week now I’ve been trying to think of something to write about Charleston’s 9 heroes. It’s just been too overwhelming and too heartbreaking. Even to think about trying to form the words causes tears to form in my eyes and a huge lump to settle into my throat.

I have re-learned an important, valuable lesson- there is nothing in this world more comforting, gratifying, or refreshing than the brotherhood of firemen. For three days my new city was permeated with firefighters from all over the country. FDNY sent their Emerald Society Pipes and Drums Corp. My local haunt, Tommy Condon’s Irish Pub, was completely overtaken all three nights by no less than 300-500 of our country’s heroes- talk about a fire hazard! I met men, every bit a hero as my dad, from Dallas, Los Angeles, Grand Rapids, Seattle, Orlando, and, of course, New York.

I was reminded of how much I appreciated and loved growing up the daughter and niece of firemen. I’ve never felt safer, more at home than I did this weekend among my large, extended family. In the end, I could never explain what it is that I feel in my heart. I think it was best said by Captain Jamie Green when he said, “The whole way back from the scene, I thought, ‘I couldn’t do it anymore… But after seeing this [the service], I couldn’t do anything else.” I too, couldn’t imagine being anything else than the being apart of a family of heroes.

It's All About ME!

I remember events in my life by the relationships (or non-relationships) I had at any given time. My sister might say to me, “Hey, remember that time at the rest area where you changed in the car and I told that mean looking group of motorcycle guys?” Instead of thinking (to myself) “Oh, yeah! That was on our first neo-family trip to Lake George!” I think “Oh! That was during the downslide of the brutal, messy courtship that was *Name withheld b/c I really don't care anymore*.”

The one thing I’ve learned throughout my collection of various involvements with men is how to be alone with myself. Not to endure it, suffer through it or wait it out until someone hacked through the briar patch in front of my castle and rescued me, but to learn to get along with myself and love parts of being alone, like:

Going to the movies alone: I’m not such a romantic but I still want to be taken over by a movie. I want to weep, yearn, burn with longing. In the dark. By myself so only I know.

Sunday afternoon at Barnes & Noble: I need to get lost in the aisles and not worry if a friend is impatiently waiting. I have to be able to buy hardback books without feeling guilty and the latest Scrapbooking Monthly magazine without justifying my obsession of all things crafty.

Microwavable meals on the couch: I know I’m supposed to value myself enough to set the table when I’m all alone, light candles and use cloth napkins, but I love eating Chef Boyardee’s Spaghetti-O’s while I watch Gray’s Anatomy and plan a McDreamy love affair I don’t really want.

Finding hole-in-the-wall bars: Nothing screams liberation like confidently strutting into a crowded bar, grabbing a stool in the corner, paying for your own drink and whipping out a crossword… sans company.

On the other hand, there are some things I hate doing by myself and always will:

Walking into a party alone: I still get that “what do I do with my arms” kind of feeling. “Why would anyone want to talk to me?” I wonder and sidle along the edge of the room until I can make an unobtrusive exit.

Cooking for one: Is a chore. I’d rather stand alone in the kitchen and laugh and drink wine while I whip up a fabulous gourmet meal guaranteed to win me a dining companion a few nights out of the week.

Reading the Sunday paper: I want to open the travel section and reach over and grab someone’s wrist and say, “We have to go to Easter Island right now!” and hear him (or her…) say, “Absolutely.” Even if we only go there in our minds.

Bedding down for the night: There’s no better feeling than slipping into freshly washed, smooth sheets and cuddling up next to someone that makes you feel safe and secure simply by putting his arms around you and nuzzling your hair.

Yes, there are sometimes when I want to put on a Pretenders CD and play “I’ll Stand By You” until my eyes swell shut from crying. But I’m lucky enough to have I’ll-be-there-till-the-end friends, and married couples who scoop me up in their loving aura and take me to restaurants and coffee shops and invite me for lunch dates and Thanksgiving dinner and insist we go traveling together. Who reassure me that I’m funny, sassy, and sexy and far too good for any one man to handle. Because they *HEART* me.

Cinder Child: Redux

As always at this time of year I reprint what, in my opinion, is the most meaningful piece I've written. My dad never got to hear it and I can't help but wonder how he'd feel knowing he was the source of so much pent-up emotion.

It is but a wisp or a leak of a shadow,
A thin trendil of smoke from the cinders that I blow,
A sooty black finger painting deftly upon high,
A blaming gesture at Sun for denying it Sky,
And in its rage it hisses and crackles and yearns;
The red, ruddy glow of hunger returns.

In the space of a second, a tongue lashes out;
Then three score more are dancing about.
The fire spirit screams and rips at the earth,
Turning on the wood that had given it birth.
This hiss now a roar, rumbles through the tress,
Brown curling edges lacing green leaves.

The glow now a beacon, white flames burning bright,
Great bodies crashing down through searching light.
The finger now a serpent, writhing back to its home.
Back to the Earth to be left on its own.

Now the angry child sits spent and weary,
A fading flame within a blackened clearing,
The fiery tantrum had worn itself down,
And the flame flickers out with hardly a sound.

In memory of the bravest dad I've ever known.

Breaking an Angel

To the man in the moon: Yes, I am beautiful and yours and whisper sweet thoughts when I’m silent with doubt. There’s a fear in me that I’ve never discovered and never charted, but I’m too wary and my walls are up too high for me to let you too close. But we could paint resilience and blindness on each other’s eyelids for a lifetime and still know, and still break with the knowing. The truth: the magnitude of your aura chokes me. It is too vast , and too innocent, too uncorrupted. Pure. I’m not used to purity. Nobody’s ever come to me outwardly whole, unbroken, and begging naively to be hurt and it scares me. There’s a commitment that comes with tainting purity.


Introduction: A new character. A man. Seemingly marvelous. Strokes my mind with his palm and coos to it until it is complacent, pliable. He speaks attention. Long lazy nights of talking in bed and intimacy in places forbidden. He is clean sheets and fluffy towels. He is my discovering the South at night. Scene upon woven scene into a detailed story tale all trimmed in a green disguise and slipped into freshly shined boots. He speaks attention- attention, a language I already understand and speak fluently. And crave! And how!I change when he’s around. I look at him and remember what it feels to be comfortably intimate with someone. He likes to play with my hair, softly, cat-like, pawing at my long red strands as if he’s stroking gold. He likes to push it out of my eyes, enjoys the excuse to touch me, and I, teasing, tilt my head for the sole purpose of surreptitiously making eyes at him underneath my hair.


But yet… so unfamiliar am I with such depths… I push and push until there’s nothing left and I plunge into the life with the one I’m most comfortable with: myself.


You could romance me, to be sure. Wine me, dine me, walk a step behind me so it’s clear who leads this dance. I’ll only seduce you over the edge. Like a lamb being led. Not to slaughter… to ecstasy. And when you’re pleading for salvation, I’ll kiss the corner of your mouth and whisper in the moments before your fall: leave me before you hate me.