K I T S C H — Cate's Blog

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

You want to hear about this dream I had, right? Right?

Hey! No, wait. Wait! Where are you going? Come back! This one's sort of funny. It's worth reading. Really!

Aw, you stayed. You're sweet!

Okay, so I used to figure-skate. And not especially well, I might add. But I was pretty good at spinning. Also at keeping up with all the intrigue that's bound to result when you mix thirty budding prima donnas with roughly the equivalent number of stage mothers and then throw in a handful of adolescent boys who aren't quite sure of their sexual orientation yet.

Scratch that. In retrospect, I'm guessing most of these guys actually knew what was what, even then. It's just the rest of us who didn't.

Anyway, the dream.

For reasons completely unknown to me, I decided to stop by the Achilles Figure Skating Club for their annual ice show. I had to pass through various high-security checkpoints (heh), but since everyone recognized me (total lie -- I wouldn't know a single soul there now), I got in without paying. They even gave me a free souvenir program. Woo-hoo!

Instead of just watching the show, however, I decided to skate in it instead. Yeah, I don't exactly understand that brilliant decision either. But I did manage to skate through the entire first half of the show. Of course, I didn't have even the remotest clue about the choreography, so I was always somewhere I shouldn't be. That's okay, though -- this type of show tends to suck, so I figured that as long as I waved my arms around vaguely gracefully, I'd be all right. Sadly, I was pretty much smack on there.

But even after years of (real) show stints playing Christmas trees or tornadoes or, um, Batman (shut up, right now), I was still unprepared for the choreography that awaited me in my dream. You see, the theme of this particular number was...APPETIZERS!!!

And not even good ones. I decided to be part of the group known as "Vegetable Balls," simply because all each kid had to do was curl up into a ball on the ice. Not exactly taxing. And certainly much less of an effort than trying to imagine what the hell a "Vegetable Ball" might be in the first place.

But I would never have the guts to try be part of the next group. They had to do split jumps and then land on their knees (ouch) to become...CRAB RANGOON!!!

Right. So, I'm not going to pretend that has any connection to reality.

Not at all to my surprise, I was usually out of synch with the other skaters, many of whom were less than a third my age. But hey, it's not like it was that long ago that I quit smoking. Or like I'd been to any of the rehearsals. Jeez. By the last number, I was getting kind of sick of always being behind everyone, so I skated really fast and cut off a bunch of little kids. And don't think I'm proud of that. All right, I may have snickered slightly at the time, but that doesn't mean I was proud of it. You know?

So, I remember thinking, Man, this is some wicked ugly-ass choreography, as I ruined the entire first half of the show. When I got off the ice, I asked my sister if she had noticed me ruining the entire first half of the show. It turns out she had. Apparently, it was kind of hard to miss.

I don't even want to think of which parts of this dream may have been based on the reality of my skating career.

Sunday, December 28, 2003

You expect this thing to have a mission statement? Really? Aw, that's quaint!

Hi! I'm Cate. You may remember me from such other educational writing as Cate's Garage Sale Finds or Television Without Pity.

But right now I'm here, and this is the first post in my, um...I'm calling it a blog, but I have no clue whatsoever what I plan to do with this space. I'm sure I'll figure it out soon. I just know that I miss writing on a regular basis, and I'm finally ready to get back into it again.

My last recap was posted on the day my father died. Since then, I've changed apartments, continued to be a really lousy email correspondent, and decided to move to Austin after traveling there to hang out with the fabulous Gwen and some other really lovely people.

Oh, and I also continued to not update the original part of this site. I like to be conscientious and consistent that way. It's the least I can do.

Do I plan to get back to updating Cate's Garage Sale Finds? Yes, I do, really. I even have something of a game plan for that. I'm hoping to concentrate on nasty teen hygiene manuals and really ugly crafts. Do you think there will enough material? Really? Heh. Yeah, I thought so.

Anyway, welcome. Thanks for coming out.