Kirsten

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:31:04 GMT

Only another breath I will breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward,
And then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers.

Khalil Gibran

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sat, 16 May 2009 01:15:52 GMT

Is it time to make friends with the internet again? Y'know, now that I'm leaving the country and will be with not a single soul I know on this earth right now for an entire month.

Don't know!

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:49:42 GMT

Also - if any of you are readers and have a goodreads account, you should let me know.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:47:44 GMT

This was the best Christmas I. Have. Ever. Had.

Between spending the night Christmas Eve with Nathan at his parent's house, cooking a homemade Mexican feast, staying up until one drinking wine and how much I friggin' love his family; sleeping with Chloe between my feet in Nathan's old bed; waking in the morning, playing with Cayenne, ND, Nikita & Dylan the kitten; making tamale breakfast tacos with the night's leftovers and my berry-stuffed french toast, and drinking coffee with Amy and his parents; to coming home and wrapping the rest of the presents, and taking the apple-cranberry-walnut pie I'd baked the day before to Geneva and Sherman's new house, where Amy, Geneva & I cooked together a homemade Christmas meal of roasted brussel sprouts (yeah, to die for), green bean casserole with home-fried shallots, baked mac & cheese made with gruyere and fontina, my sweet and spicy sweet potato hashbrowns, challah rolls, and a ham with brown-sugar-clovey glaze while listening to a Charlie Brown Christmas. Exchanged meaningful gifts, drank more wine and took pictures of Geneva with baby-belly.

Looking forward to the New Year, and all I have planned for it. I think my only resolution will be to keep a journal as I go - not a journal such as this, but one I actually carry, keep on hand. With all that I have coming in the next year, it will be valuable to me to have these words and reminders close.

Today, savoring the time I have off and the next few weeks before I begin another semester, I have had four or five cups of coffee, made migas for Nathan & I for breakfast. I finished reading Maus II, and began reading some short stories, and went out and bought two more books I've been wanting. Now, I'm knitting my mother a scarf to send with my late Christmas package, Nathan just came over from work with some PBR, and we're going to watch finally There Will Be Blood, and I'm making wheat pasta with pesto and sundried tomatoes, and a tossed salad with miso dressing.

These are happy times.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:14:32 GMT

Wanting to go home.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:16:46 GMT

Is depression feeling like you don't have anything to say to anyone? Ever?

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:38:24 GMT

Feel as though, in odd moments, the air is slowing being pumped back into me, my life, my heart. Like with one of those old accordian-fluted air pump things, can't remember what it's really called, that probably has some other function that would be really embarrassing to discover in relation to my comparison. In either case, it would probably be fairly true, because I have a whole lot of stuff to flush out of my system. I listened to the Arcade Fire while I was cleaning, and I stopped in the middle of what I was doing partway through the song 'Wake Up' when it came on, never really having listened to it before. Something filled up / my heart with nothing / someone told me not to cry / but now that I'm older / my heart is colder / and I can see that it's a lie.

Something about acquiescing, about giving up, and acceptance. Missing from my life. And it has, really, all been a matter of which direction I turn my head.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:48:54 GMT

Wish I could have something this delicate tattooed over my left shoulder blade.

it's been a good while

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:31:00 GMT

this is nathan. we had both liked each other a long time, and then, one night. in late november, not long after my 21st birthday. not long after i watched the way he watched me, walk into a room.

here is a picture of a particularly hot and humid night. after failing to get in to see the kills. we wound up slugging local beers at lovejoys instead, a place full of the pierced and tattooed, but extraordinarily friendly bartenders. my new camera took some photos, but later i found the data was corrupted and this was one of the few to survive. when nathan went out to smoke a cigarette, he came back with a rose he had bought off the street - pale yellow, with flaming pink tips. i took pictures of gabi holding the rose, at different angles and perspectives and focuses. i lost all of those, too.

what i've lost is not what is important though. there have been many things i have tried to gain, and many times in which i've known to myself, quietly, that my motives are not pure. i have made friends, lost them, made more new friends. i've had drunken nights, i've puked in discomfiting public places. i have cried quietly to sleep at times, not quite knowing why. i have resolved myself again and again, and lost my pluck. plunged back into school only to have it end in disaster. and i come up with reams and reams of plans, plans to counteract my failures, plans to make myself noticed, plans to set my life in motion.

some of them are working, some of them aren't. i think i have a clearer path ahead of me than i could have hoped for the clarity to see in some time. for the sake of my own disgusting habit of naming things, then watching them just as quickly disappear, i will not voice what i believe to be the phantoms of my future.

i think, for the most part, this sounds worse than it really is. i have learned to trust my failures because they are much more honest than my successes.

and, but still. i am here.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:26:16 GMT

I crave Newcastle, books and long naps. the more people you know, the less you know about people. so I choose otherwise.

Ha ha

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:42:58 GMT

The other day--

Nathan: hands me a 12 pack of beer, and I put it in the fridge
Geneva: Wow, how did you get that to fit?
Nathan: She's really good at tetris

--

I'm going to WA tomorrow. That's all. See you kids later.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:40:15 GMT

Yesterday morning I overslept, waking up to my alarm only to fall back asleep and have a nightmare about marriage and ancient, brittle teeth, wake up all a-fluster and late, break a glass while I'm trying to make myself iced coffee and get out the door. I actually hit Eileen's car trying to park in the morning, while my jerk boss watches the whole thing and then makes a big show over inspecting both of our cars -- not a scratch on either one, but I still felt really weird all day for having done it in the first place. The rest of the day was work, got off and drove home and got a call from Tara inviting me to go see the South Austin Jug Band at Mercury Hall. While I was envisioning actual jugs? No, in fact it's a bunch of young guys playing really good, really pretty bluegrassy music. I lusted over the mandolin player over the weak vodka tonics Geneva kept me in supply with (he was from Spokane, guys!), smoked a cigarette and talked to Jenny about her VISITING, YES and after the show, a bunch of us decided to take a night swim over at Justin and Mary's apartment pool. I called Gabi and she drove over to meet us, while Tara, Geneva, Mary and Patrick and I dragged a cooler bag on wheels over to the pool and jumped in. We ended up drifting and drinking beer and going back and forth from the heinously hot hot tub to the pool, which wasn't cold at all, and playing chicken. So, Thursday night was really my Friday - we were out until two, while I drove home Hannah called and we had a long, long talk while she made guttural noises into the phone, went to sleep at some ungodly hour, woke up still a tad bit drunk and went to work. The day was busy as all hell, so I managed to stay awake and actually do pretty dang well. After work, Geneva, Sherman, B and I went to Maudie's for dinner where I had the tastiest salad in existence, then went back to his house. B fed me half of one of his special cookies, and Geneva a whole one, which pretty much ended the night right there - I was falling asleep on the back porch by eleven o'clock, so Geneva and I went home, ate the rest of the ice cream in the house, I think, and passed out. And get this - I slept until one o'clock this afternoon. What the hell is that? Whatever, now I'm going to make as best I can with the rest of my weekend.

Everybody at Mercury Hall

Mary, me and Tara

Patrick on Geneva's shoulders, right before knocking me into the water

Grapples? Plumcots? Cut it out science guys, it's not funny anymore

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:56:13 GMT

Yesterday, Tara and Geneva and I hiked to Sculpture Falls, drank a bunch of lone star and got high and jumped off the rock embankment down into the deep water over and over, and it was the coolest thing I've done in recent memory. After the hike and hours of swimming and a late dinner of Mexican food, we all passed out on the couch and it's the first time I've been asleep by eleven o'clock on a Saturday night that I can remember. Today I was tired, drank a lot of coffee, watched a lot of TV, read some Sam Shepard short stories, watched Dead Man, ate a very yummy dinner and laid around on the couch some more instead of going on the planned night swim. Tara is making me jealous with her not-having-a-job getting ready for school thing. Which makes me kind of wonder, when am I ever going to make the time to go back to school? When will I have the means? When will I have the balls to finally suck it up and take out a ton of loans? But that is another can of worms entirely.

Also, I need to own a bike. I've got wheels, but a bike?! Come on. I always want more things when I don't have the money for them. Maybe if I spent less money on booze and food for cooking experiments, I would have more money for a bike and a nicer bod. Which, speaking of spending money on booze - less than three months until I turn 21. I should make one of those paper chains that you make when you're in grade school, when you're counting down days to Christmas, where you cut off a link for every day. I wish I could say something like 'I'm going to start cashing in favors for drinks!' but I can't think of very many. Instead, I will be a lot broker and will have in my possession a horizontal Texas driver's license.

And um, um. I am going to Washington in two weeks, and there are so many people I can't wait to hug.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 04:18:28 GMT

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:21:44 GMT

I hosted a party last night for Gabi's birthday, and it was a success! The people Gabi invited over were really cool, I might try to get together with some of them, and there was only one problem child, and one girl positively freaked over Sherman refusing to play Lou Reed instead of Kings of Leon, but that factored nowhere even close to dousing the good-people-party-vibes. No one got shitfaced, all the beer was drunk but everyone stayed cognitive and talkative. The raspberry almond birthday torte was consumed in its entirety, the food disappeared, we only had an excess of hummus and anyone who knows hummus knows that is no excess at all! The last folks left at 4:30, Geneva, Nathan and Tara and I spent some unwinding time on the porch, Tara spent the night. Geneva and Tara and I got up in the morning and cleaned up, we all ate rounds of egg sandwiches then Jesse and Erica came over and we went to the Green Belt and "swam" in the stream, which really meant we tried to drift down and mostly ended up bumping our asses on the rocks in the shallow beds and laughing about it - I definitely have some rockburn from trying to "rawdog" it. The cold beers turned warm in our hands pretty much at contact, and the water was nowhere near cold enough to ease the fact that the temperature climbed over 100 degrees today, but it was still a very good time. Came home and showered off the exhaustion, grocery shopped, Geneva made Phad Thai and I did my laundry and ironing.

No matter how fun the things I do are, writing about them makes me sick of hearing myself talk. If I don't have anything going on upwards and beyond the normal, what's the point?

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:49:09 GMT

So, the time to seriously look for a new job is here. Having worked under a manager who treats me like a negligible, worthless human being for just these few months has done quite a number on my self esteem. If I can't punch him in the face whenever he does something terrible (many occurrences daily), then I will just say fuck it, and find a new job, and maybe think of a way to leave my scathing opinion of him in my wake if I'm feeling vindictive. Problem is, I'm done with banking - I mean for real - and I want to find a job that is more interesting (which doesn't work well with a car payment!).

I would like a job that I don't have to dress up for (dress pants in 80 degree at best weather on a regular basis, are you kidding me?), and I really really really don't want to have to be fake with people. At least, not any more than in a smiley customer-servicey how-can-I-help-you sort of way. I don't want to pretend to be interested in other people's lives or their financial decisions. I don't want to find common ground with you so I can figure out a good way to weasel in an insurance sale. If you don't want that preapproved credit card, I want to say, okay! And unroll the red carpet for you to walk away on, more power to you.

So there it is, people. I want to wear jeans, be happy, do interesting things, and not feel undermined in any manner. Ha ha.

Excuse me, but you're sitting on my floordrobe

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 04:49:12 GMT

Weekends are fun, I like my car. The Flight of the Conchords songs are following me everywhere I go, if it's not one song stuck in my head it's another. I also had a dream in which a girl I had just met bought me a 'team building exercise '99' t-shirt. Played some pretty decent games of pool in the garage last night with Ariston, Nathan, Carl, and a bunch of the other folk that were over, all while dancing to Jackson 5. There was plenty of drunk talk about going out to Brenham to jam, which probably won't happen but it would be fun if it did. I busted out some pretty good words when the mega mad lib book got pulled out. I got sick and vomited in my trash can, boo. Placed an order for 18 breakfast tacos for the hungover company at La Mexicana Bakery this afternoon, since they're the only place on Sunday that is actually open and makes them past 2 o'clock without charging double. Some of Tain? Tane?'s company were over congregating on the living room floor for a while, and I managed to introduce myself with my fly open. I really need to buy myself a new digital camera and go on adventures with it in my car, I've always had a camera for a companion and I am feeling the lack more actutely these last few weeks.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 23:57:21 GMT

Gabi came over last night and we made curry soup, I wanted to try making something similar to the soup I had in Madison and even though I winged it, it actually turned out pretty well. Chicken stock, coconut milk and water, with yellow curry paste and powder, rice noodles, cabbage, spinach, red onion, mushrooms, tomato and basil. It was yum. But then the leftovers got left sitting out on the stove overnight because between Gabi, Geneva and I we drank two bottles of red wine and well, forgot about it.

I have a summer cold or allergies, I can't decide which. So I am going to crash on the couch for a while and watch some Wonderfalls. By myself. Ha, woo. The Harry Potter torch has been passed on to me, so I may just start reading that. But really, I am not in the mood to sit around the house by myself.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 01:05:15 GMT

This weekend has kind of passed in a blur, which I blame on my recent lack of focus. Woke up groggily Saturday, went to read on the couch and only fell back asleep, I think not working for the first Saturday in while (while at home, at least) threw me for a loop. Went over to Matt and Katie's, where their friend Emily chatted me up when she found out what I do. She said she knows the VP of Sovereign Bank and is meeting with her on Wednesday please-email-me-your-resume, with so many words in so few breaths I can't believe she didn't turn blue. Geneva and I left to go to Emo's, found out the act we wanted to see didn't go on until 12:30, went to the Iron Cactus to have appetizers and for her, drinks, and finally decided to just go home. Today, thrift shopped mostly unsuccessfully, had pancakes at Magnolia and saw Harry Potter. Went for a run, and I think I may be reaching the point where I need to reconsider my workout routine, because as of all this running, my shins and ankles are killing me.

A Washington trip needs to be planned, a Jenny-coming-to-visit-me event needs to follow. I am done with guys for the time being. All of this has been about recovering my identity, and not just getting laid. Duh!

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:03:17 GMT

For those of you Kitsapers out there, listen to this song, and tell me: does it not sound strikingly similar to something the Schoolyard Heroes would do?

marnie stern, every single line means something

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 05:14:24 GMT

I miss being an awkward little high school girl, when everything was still new and exciting. And by that I mean, I really wish I had never lost touch.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:58:36 GMT

I was doing really well with running every day, but I might be on the exercise down and outs again. I dropped another five pounds, but I am not running tonight and I am drinking a beer.

Gravy Train is playing Emo's on Saturday, as well as some other acts I'd really dig seeing. I can't think of anyone who'd really enjoy it though, or at least anyone I know in Austin, and last time I was at Emo's I got kicked out for drinking. I've had a haircut since then and all, but still - I know that bouncer works almost every show.

I bought a car, a little '94 toyota camry, and it's cute and functional and was very cheap, but now that I have the car I don't know what to do with myself. Where to go, what to do? I've used a half tank of gas since I bought the car on Tuesday and I'm not entirely sure where it went.

We bought a lot of produce tonight, wow.

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 22:52:01 GMT

Today I alternated doing sets of crunches and taking sips of a beer, and later I plan on doing my ironing while watching TV. I rock.

Also, went shopping at Central Market earlier, and while I mostly practiced restraint, I may or may not have spent almost $8 on grapes. They were just so firm and succulent I couldn't help myself!

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 20:22:19 GMT

Maybe you guys can tell me. What's your favorite music to work out to? Or what do you imagine WOULD be good music to work out to? I go running every day, and my small selection of things that are steady and upbeat is starting to get a little grinding a repetitive.

Compulsive weekend journaling

kirsten.sorensen@gmail.com — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 04:35:51 GMT

Friday:

Saw "Sicko" with Gabi, my Austrian friend, then came home and smoked the sweet spliffs she rolled while playing with her dog and drinking beer.

Saturday:

Worked from 10-2, had planned on going to the last day of the Andy St Martin gallery (it was closed) and Dana's baby shower, but the brakes started going soft on the car, so the car had to be taken to the shop, only to find out the entire system is completely shot. It's not even worth full repairs - it's a '91 Honda Accord with a lot of miles, it's beat up, the paint is oxidizing and the driver side mirror is held on only by virtue of bright yellow duct tape. So we decided to do the minimum repairs and get the rear brakes fixed, but which meant we were out of a car this weekend, and I need to start looking at buying a car for myself. AKA my traveling days may be over sooner than I think? Hopefully not. Anyway, Jen picked me and Geneva up, and we went to Fino for hors d'oeuvre, which was a totally cute place but a little expensive. Dropped Geneva at home, and went to go see the third Pirates movie, which wasn't fantastic, but it was fun - I at least didn't feel like I had been sitting in the theater for three hours. Came home and watched SNL with Sherman and B, and then while everyone fell asleep I holed myself up in my room and wrote the skeleton of a story.

Today:

Woke up deliciously late and thoroughly cleaned out my closet while drinking delicious weekend coffee. Jen called, and we went to IKEA to shop for furniture for her new apartment, I bought a print of poppies, a cheapass but sweet picture frame, and a mesh waste paper basket. We then went to Target, where I bought a few more decorations for my person rather than my room. Also went to Mozart's to sip coffee on Town Lake, and talked for a couple of hours. We hatched some loose plans, some things that I am rather excited about. I have decided that at least once a week I want to make a priority of doing/trying something new in Austin, so I can get better acquainted with this awesome town in which I live. Jen may prove the perfect buddy for it, since she has lived here a good time going to school at UT, but she is so slammed with school, her two part-time jobs and her internship, she doesn't really know Austin all that well yet either. Anyway she dropped me off at home and I watched some Venture Bros and ate some of the fresh spring rolls that Jesse and Erica made. Made plans with them and Geneva to go down to the Green Belt and hike down to Sculpture Falls on the fourth of July. Now I am sort of making a CD, and I think I am going to settle down into my beautiful freshly made bed and read some more of Snow.