I woke up this morning, in a house full of all the people that I really love and realized something: for the first time in a very long time, I am happy.

Perfectly happy.

Last night, on the phone with Lise, my birth mom, I realized that there is really nothing that I lack. Nothing. I have a great family, two moms that have served in different capacities throughout my life, I have a great best friend and roommate, I have a great boyfriend who adores me, I have a group of friends who are hilarious and strangely caring.
I have a supportive family who deals with everything that I am and everything that I’m not. I have grandparents, a woman who I consider a grandmother even though she’s my cousins’ and not mine; I have uncles and aunts who love me a little bit; I have a brother who is the most wonderful person on the planet.
I was on the phone with him last night, and he told me that he would pick me up from the airport for a price. I asked what the price was and he said, “A hug.”
How can you not love Fruitypants?
I go to school most of the time, but not always, not today.
I have a beautiful city that I love, a little apartment nestled on its north side. I have a comfortable bed with a huge nest of blankets. I have a kitchen full of random odds and ends. I have a mildewy shower curtain, two pigeons who sit outside the bathroom window and coo when they hear us, windows that have never been washed, candles.
I have my computer that works half of the time.

He makes the pancakes while I’m checking email; I make coffee when I’m done. He puts chocolate chips in them, just the way we both like them. He flips them and makes sure that they aren’t “fail-cakes.” He hugs me as I stand next to him, wrapped warm in his big sweater, and I realize that these people have become my family.
I love them, I really do.
We play charades at night to pass the time. We watch movies. We talk and laugh.

Dear Mom,
This morning I went to get a pair of pants from my drawer and there they were, crumpled underneath a shirt: my ballet shoes.
Fail.
Love, Katie

The boys have been hard at work editing their newest features. Hunter’s is the second installment of a fake movie trailer that we made in September (which has been their most popular youtube.com video). It was filmed on a better camera in more locations around Chicago; this time it’s in color, and it’s insanely intense. It looks legit. There’s even a soundtrack to it with possible voice-overs to come. Ian’s is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the second trailer. They are both hilarious, although sadly, not appropriate for audiences your age.
Since I was killed off in the first trailer, the only picture you see of me is my dead body at the crime scene, and there is a picture of me and Emily in Colorado during one of the scenes with the detectives.
The behind-the-scenes film features me coloring Coupe’s hair with Hunter’s toothbrush, throwing a cucumber at the giant statue of Abraham Lincoln (and getting made fun of because I throw like a girl), and an interview with me discussing what it’s like to be Hunter’s girlfriend.
A good portion of the trailer was filmed in our apartment and our back stairs because they are so creepy and thus the perfect location for horror/comedy film making.
Ah, well, things are progressing. I’m throwing a surprise party for Emily on Friday night, so we’ll see how that goes.
Last night was the first official snow of the year! It stuck a little bit to the ground and it was terrible and cold. But yay!
Also, in worse news, I failed my first test ever today. We’re into the part of Logic class where it’s all symbols and strange theorems and it’s beyond my comprehension. So, I went in, scribbled on the paper for about twelve minutes, and then left. Way before anyone else in the class was done. Wow. I hate that feeling. It’s scary. But seriously, when am I ever going to need to scribble theorems and know things like Modens Tollens?
Never. I should have taken college algebra instead.
I register tomorrow for new classes!

I still love Chicago, even if it is determined to make me cold and miserable all the time.

Below, a special treat for you on a terrible ballet Monday. This is the load of crap that I turned in as 2 ballet journals. It totals six pages typed and doubled spaced. It’s a rather, uh, suppressed look at my reaction to ballet.
Also, it would be helpful to remember that on the first day of class, I asked her to call me Katie. I signed the email that I sent this with as Katie Barry. Notice the response, printed below the story.
Ah, well I’m off to go buy new ballet shoes because I’m a space cadet and lost mine. Thank god they’re only $25. Now I will have two pairs, hopefully.

(And trust me, the only reason ballet ever comes into my head is when I’m cursing it. It’s not the terrible contagious disease she wishes it was.)

Ballet: By Katie Barry

She’d been skeptical at first.

The idea of a performance at the end of the semester hadn’t thrilled her. What are we going to do? She wondered. We’ll look like three-year-olds dancing at the big-girl dance show. She remember all too well the littlest of the girls, dressed in their little pink tutus and tights, led out in a line onto the stage, some pointing their feet, others looking around, trying to see through the spotlights into the audience to find their mothers, one usually facing the back wall, confused. She remembered waiting in the wings, anxious, stretching her toes inside her shoes and realizing that no matter what happened, at least she knew more than them. She had been older then, ten, maybe, dancing with a set of high school girls who had come to love her. She didn’t understand their discussions, but she loved that they’d pick her up and swing her around before practice.

The first note of music snapped her out of her memories. She jumped a little, hesitating, and then thrust her legs out and began to run. She stopped on her mark, a straight line on the floor running vertical to bisect the mirror at the ground.

She’d told her friends. “Guys, we’re doing some sort of performance in ballet at the end of the semester. You down to come?”

It hadn’t gone over well. “Seriously? You want us to sit there and watch a bunch of girls dance?”

“Yeah, you should. Besides, you went to Emily’s play.”

“For the record, only one of us went.”

“Think about it, please.”

Laughter. She’d realized then that maybe she should stop hanging out with boys. Her roommate understood, would come and sit in the back and probably laugh at her afterward, but she’d still be there and be supportive. Ugh, I’m never going to one of their things ever again, she says to herself. But she knows that they’ll be there. They’ll all take the train up to Loyola on the Red Line from their house and they’ll all clap and be polite. At the end of the show, they’ll hug and tell her she was wonderful. They’re actors, they do this all the time. They’ll all talk about it on the train home, one of them will hate it, one of them will love it and life will go on.

She sighed as the boys kept on laughing about the idea of ballet.

She had been wiggling, fidgeting around, doing a fake dance to get into the zone, or something like it, and consequently, missed her cue to begin the preparation that her arms would require to actually begin the dance.

“Again!” The cry came from the corner.

She retreated, retracing her steps until she was edged up against the piano. The music sounded and she followed the girl in front of her out in front of the mirror.

This time, she looked as serene as possible. All wiggling was on the inside as she forced her body to stay still. She didn’t miss the preparation this time, moving her arms from en bas into 2nd position, down to en bas again then through 1st to 2nd and down again.

First. One, two, she counted silently in her head. Shift. Second. Shift the weight, too. Three, four. Third. Where does my head go? Five, six. Fourth. Don’t forget to move the arm. Seven, eight. Fifth. Arms. Really look like you have great arms. Fingers, don’t forget the fingers. Thumb in. One, two. Arms into second, tendu, close first. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Repeat, left side.

Look like you’re smiling, sort of. Not too much, but a little. Look like you love it.

She laughs to herself then.

Balance. Slow down, she cautions herself. It’s a full four counts. One, two, three, four. And then shift. She looks up. The rest of the group is mostly with her, minus perhaps a second or two. She counts out another four and another and then does her soutenu, closing fifth, and then begins again on the first count. Left, right, left, run run run.

And she goes to the wall, stopping before she runs out the door, although she won’t lie, the thought has crossed her mind. It’s like Logic class, where the big windows look out into the rest of the busy city. She spends three hours a week there, usually writing in her journal or doodling as the concepts of the theorems fail to gain entrance to her mind. On one of the windows there, it says, in strange dripping red pen, like blood written somewhere in a horror movie, “Window of Opportunity.” And she’s never understood why, but that fascinates her.

Should it be to get out of the class? She wondered. Jump! It seemed to be saying. (It is only the second floor. Changes of walking away unscathed are rather high.) Or was it a warning? Don’t jump. This really isn’t a window of opportunity. It’s all fake. And that brings her to what it looks out on. Cudahy Science. Is college the fake window of opportunity, or did whoever write out the letters neglect to catch the drip marks? Either way. It’s saved her from having to concentrate on Logic for at least fifteen minutes, maybe more, this semester, and that may indeed make it a Window of Opportunity.

Switching places so that she’s in the back, she runs out again, this time, not so far. Tendu with the right foot. Slow yourself, she thinks. It’s slower than you think. Left arm up, right arm out. Arms drop as you face the mirror/audience and open to 2nd to tendu again. Twice. Now left arm is the one that’s up and we’re still tendu-ing.

Now, sort of fourth position, plie, open the arms, finish in fifth with the left foot forward and run off. Go, go!

Another group breezes past her.

The windows were open. They were driving down Lake Shore Dr. He was too late to take the train to work, so she’d offered to drive him. Music was on; it was a rather chilly day, but the allure of the windows was too much for her. Nothing made the windows go up except bitter cold. Give it a week, she thought, and I won’t be able to roll my windows down until April.

“Hey, didn’t you say something about a dance thing?” he said, grabbing her non-driving hand.

“Yeah, why?”

“When is it?”

“December, sometime.”

“Let me know a couple weeks in advance. I’d like to go.”

She laughed at him.

“No seriously. You came down for my comedy show.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I’ll be there, I promise.”

She smiled a little and squeezed his hand.

Now it’ll really have to be good. I can’t be the girlfriend who can’t dance, she thought.

And so she stands, even when they’re standing in the kitchen cooking, or watching a movie, or talking, or waiting for the train, shifting her feet through the positions. Sometimes the arms get thrown in, if they’re not so much in public. Her friends have grown used to seeing it, it doesn’t bother them so much anymore.

She hums the song absentmindedly, letting it carry her through homework or through the long walk to campus.

It’s not all bad, she’s realized. This dance thing won’t be terrible. Scary, maybe, but not as scary as horror movies in the dark. Well, she laughs to herself, we’ll have to wait and see about that. The only thing she can do is get all of her steps down, memorized, put into her bones, so that the only thing she’ll have to worry about is who’s in audience. And that shouldn’t be too hard.

“That’s all for today,” she hears from the corner. The girls gather around and hear the closing remarks and then clap.

“Did you get my email,” she asks the teacher.

“No, did you get mine?” the teacher responds.

“No, let’s do this through gmail.com instead,” she says laughing.

She heads back to the dressing room to throw on some sweats.

“I really hope we don’t get graded too heavily on our pushups,” she says to the girls there. “Because no matter how much I try, I always end up on my knees trying to push half of my body up and down.”

“I hear you,” another girl responds. “It is not something I can do well at all.”

“It’s helped though,” says another girl. “My lacrosse coach makes us do five pushups every five minutes and I have no problem doing it at all.”

She flexes and they all laugh a little bit. Her muscles are far from Arnold Schwarzenegger bulge status, but they’re not bad for a college student. She keeps meaning to let this inspire a workout, something she hasn’t done in years. Sometimes she’ll walk down the lake, or walk somewhere after class, just letting her mind wander, and that counts as exercise, sort of. How about today? she thinks. I’ll just walk until I’m halfway downtown.

She smiles and grabs her bag, heading out the door. Off to go home. Don’t forget this stuff, she cautions herself. Work on the waltz step.

Katherine,

WONDERFUL!!! What a great description of your experiences in and outside of class..Ballet is truly getting to you-whether you like it or not. It’s one of those things that sort of creeps up and you find yourself on the el platform going over exercises from class.

The great part of being your teacher is that I get to see your growth and evolution over time. I can honestly say that you have improved so much!!!! And it’s only been a few short months. Keep up the great work and thank you so much for your creative journal entry. It was wonderful and a pleasure to read!! More, please!

Best,
Sarah

Hey, do you think I’ll at least get a B?

So we all know two things:
1. I bruise easily
and
2. I really hate ballet.

This story incorporates both of those things. Our mandatory ballet uniform is pink tights and a black leotard. Great. I love being clad in tight clothing when I’m being judged by college girls.
Second, the tights are mostly see-through.
The other night, we were all watching a movie and as a joke (don’t ask) Hunter bit the back of my calf. Not even that hard. Well, as you can imagine, the result is a mouth shaped bruise that is huge. It’s actually pretty cool as far as bruises go, but it looks terrible. He feels terrible. He keeps apologizing, etc, saying he shouldn’t have bitten me so hard, but in reality, it was not a ferocious bite.
So I go to ballet yesterday, sans shoes, which I seem to have lost, and am sitting on the floor when the girl next to me says, “Oh wow, what happened to your leg?”
Without thinking, I respond very matter-of-fact-ly, “My boyfriend bit me.”
Seeing the look of shock and horror on her face, I attempt to backtrack and realize that nothing can be said to fix the situation.
“I bruise easily,” was all I could come up with. Followed by the failed attempt at a charming laugh.
Ah, ballet. Yesterday, we failed to get our waltz step down so she herds us into the corner of the classroom and tells us that we’ve pushed her too far; she can only be lenient for so long; we are the straw that has broken her back (I wish), and on and on, until: “All of your grades have been marked down.”
Seriously? This woman deserves the scathingly terrible review she’s going to get from me at the end of the semester.

Last night, Hunter and I were anxious, having watched a scary movie, we were determined to go out and see the world. And so we did, driving the usual path: Lake Shore Drive down to Roosevelt, Roosevelt to Michigan Ave, and Michigan back to Lake Shore. It’s perfect. We were watching a commercial for some movie and I told him that I wanted to have a destiny, someone who would chase me around the world. “I’ll chase you around the world,” he said. “But what are you running from?”
“You,” I said.
“What did I do?”
“We’ll figure that out.”
“I hope it’s nothing bad.”

Things are beautiful right now. My life, so often scattered, is falling back into place a little bit at a time. I don’t need to stress about everything right now. I am, but I need to realize that taking a step back and letting things fall together may not be such a bad choice. Yes, Logic is the hardest class I’ve ever taken; yes, I don’t understand it for a minute, but getting a C in it isn’t going to kill me.
Everything will be alright.
Grad school can happen later.

Also, Rome next summer? Stay tuned.

Above: Me and Ben (I think his name was) and Emily
Below: Brad (director, dressed as the villain from Casino Royale) and I

Ian and Emily

Below: Emily and I
Above: Emily, Ben, me and Hunter

I got my camera back early this morning! And so here are the pictures from Halloween!

from left: Ian, Emily, Katie, Hunter

Alright, I’m in the mood for some pictures. These were all taken at some point between April and September of this year. I love these people. We’ve become the Crew, tight friends who don’t quite match, but love each other anyway. Me, Emily, Hunter, Ian, Coupe and Kyle.
I love my roommate. Her opening night of her play, “The Good Woman of Sezchuan” was last night, so me, Hunter, her dad and a couple of other friends went to see it. I liked it; it was the best play that Loyola has done in awhile.
Two of my friends from Dairy Queen called me Thursday and asked to spend a couple of nights with me. They had decided to bring their girlfriends with them to spend the weekend in Chicago on a whim. It was lovely to see them. They met Ian and Hunter and Mr. Bates and did some sightseeing before leaving this morning to head back to Denver.
Today was a very lazy day. I fell asleep early last night and slept in today. Me and the boys made coffee, orange juice and cereal before going to wake up Kyle by throwing beef sticks at him. (Don’t even ask, but since you’re curious, I’ll tell you: Hunter’s grandparents bought him a huge box of food and it had this bag of terrible, dreadful, disgusting beef sticks in it. Coupe and I decided to hide them in Hunter’s backpack, shoes, hat, jar of peanut butter, etc. and since then, it’s been amusing to “beef stick” someone by throwing beef sticks at them.)
And then we all curled up and watched movies, went to the store, and then watched more movies. Good day.
I babysat for 9 hours yesterday. The little boys are adorable. They are so ornery though, but we still have fun. I made them macaroni and we played that we owned an ice cream store. They are fascinated by the thought of my car, so we had to go down and check on it to make sure it was still there. The baby is sweet. He has this little baby grin that he’ll shoot you right before he throws up on you, so that at least mitigates the fact that you’ve been thrown up on. We went for a walk to try and find geese (we didn’t) and to run through leaves (we did) which was nice, but a little chilly for my liking.

Enjoy these pictures as much as I do.

Trif, Ian and Emily the day the boys moved in.

me and Kyle

Hunter and I

Ian and I

me and Emily

Coupe at the bean

Coupe’s birthday

Emily and I

Me, Ian, Emily and Coupe

Me, Emily, Ian and Coupe at the bean

I slipped out of class early and hopped a train headed south. Two stops later, I met up with Ian and Kyle and we proceeded to head all the way into the heart of the city. We got off the train and were immediately met by mass confusion and excitement. Police officers at every corner, people selling souvenirs and buttons on the street, massive groups of people heading toward the park.
We headed there as well, scoping out the situation. There was no way to get across the bridges as they were all blocked off by the police. We wandered through the park, and then realized that the only way to get in was going to be by standing in a line several blocks long and quickly growing. Hunter was across the street at our friend’s apartment, so we went there and then realized that the line had nearly doubled.
There was no way we were going to get in. Maddie, Jeremy, Becky and Coupe were all in the middle of the line, blessed with tickets for the rally. We ended up walking through the crowd, mingling with the excited people and then we decided to hop a train headed north and go to my apartment to watch the election returns on tv.
And so we did.
When they announced that Obama had taken the election, we cheered. I was smiling so hard I thought my face was going to freeze. I felt a few tears drip down my cheeks and I realized that everything had worked out.
COLORADO WENT BLUE!!!!
I won the very first election that I voted in!
I hope you are all satisfied with the results. I am, absolutely.
McCain’s concession speech was well done and respectful and Obama’s speech was absolutely lovely.
We all fell asleep exhausted from the celebration and slept well knowing that our country has been handed into better care.

I know you’re not supposed to tell people who you voted for. I get that. But I am so excited to have voted for the first time in a presidential election that I can’t contain the news. As if you weren’t sure who I voted for:

I hope you voted, no matter who you voted for.
One student from Mullen, who I never actually spoke with but is a Facebook friend of mine, noticed that my status was GO OBAMA!! and then proceeded to comment that: Barack Hussein Obama is a terrorist. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I will say that I wasn’t very happy with that at all. I responded politely, telling him that he shouldn’t question the beliefs of someone he doesn’t even know and that perhaps he might check his facts, please.
Ignorance is really annoying.
Some of my friends are for McCain. I appreciate that. I accept their decisions, so as long as they don’t sit there and lecture me and spit incorrect facts at me. I don’t sit there and tell them untruths about their choice.

Either way, there is a buzz around the city. Tonight, I’ll be leaving class and heading downtown to a packed and very excited city. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll get to sit with my friends and watch as history is decided (hopefully in our favor).
Wish me luck! I will tell you that if McCain wins, there will be riots in the streets here. Even if Obama wins, there will be wild celebrations. I don’t have my camera, but I might end up buying a disposable just to be able to record all of this. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and I get to be here!

GO OBAMA!!

EDIT:
You know I love any excuse to skip class, so when Emily asked me to go vote with her, I immediately passed up Logic for the chance. And so we went to St. Ignatius, the church that the boys use as a landmark to get to our place without getting lost, calling it the Ghostbuster’s building, and she voted. For the very first time. And we watched as they fed the ballot into the machine, and the number rolled over. Precinct 27, Ward 40, Chicago, Illinois had gotten its 233 vote.
And you know what 33 means….good news!

CNN was saying that Colorado was most likely going to go to Obama! Suck on that, Republicans! We haven’t been a blue state since the 1996 election!

I ended up going as Goldilocks after she got mauled by the three bears. That night, while Emily and I were doing our makeup and getting ready, the power went out in our apartment, so we ended up having to do all of the fake blood while sitting in the hall. It was excellent. I found that dress for $12 at a thrift store and couldn’t help but buy the wig even if it is absolutely atrocious. The dress, however, will be making appearances at holiday parties, so expect to see more of it soon. It is awesome. It’s an ’80s prom dress complete with puffy sleeves and a ruffled bodice thing (the dress is a size too small for my frame) and then a huge skirt that ends at the knee in front and ends at my calves in the back. It’s epic.
Ian and I went to the first party and hung out with some friends and then went back to pick up Emily to head to the Driver’s Ed Mutiny wrap party with Hunter and Kyle. That was fun. We all had a great night, for the most part. I ended up meeting a bunch of people I didn’t really know and talking to them for a long time. Hunter went dressed as the girl character from the movie, so he was wearing a teal A-shirt and tight girl jeans. Ian went as Shaun of the Dead (it’s a movie, you’ve most likely never heard of it). Kyle was Two-Face. Emily was a fifties woman/Stepford wife.
The next morning, I had to drive downtown to appear for the third time in the movie. This time, they needed a picture of girls changing so that they can use it as blackmail for the driver’s ed teacher. Don’t ask. I got into my workout gear and went down and hung out downtown for a little bit in the men’s locker room of Roosevelt University’s gym. And don’t worry, it’s just my back. They’ve already seen my face in the movie, so it couldn’t be shown again.
Then I went home and Hunter and I just spent a lazy Saturday watching football and bumming around the house. It was really nice. He made me dinner (macaroni and cheese, nice) and then we went back over to his house and watched Seinfeld.
Emily’s show opens this week, so I’ll be there for opening night.
I won’t be able to get pictures of tomorrow night, which is super lame, because I don’t have my camera at the moment. (I left it at one of the Halloween parties and should be getting it back sometime this week).

GO VOTE!!! Don’t forget. I’ll be in Grant Park tomorrow night as part of the giant overflow crowd expected to support Barack Obama. It should be a good time. Something tells me that ballet on Wednesday isn’t going to be fun.

Aunt Sally sent the most wonderful Halloween package full of plastic containers (which I never have enough of), cookies, candy, napkins and a super sweet little Halloween candle holder.
Mom sent a bike lock, some decorations, mints, and other stuff, which is always nice.

I did my friend Kyle’s makeup today for his Halloween costume. He is going as Two-Face, a character from Batman who has had half of his face burnt off/destroyed. So we used Hunter’s stage latex and created a textured face and then I threw some old sort of dried liquid foundation on, topped that with lipstick and then used Hunter’s stage makeup to create a burned face. It looked so sweet. The final look was a little darker than the one in the picture, with more black and spots. He works at Borders and he texted me tonight and told me that I am awesome (obviously) and that people thought he was an actual burn victim
I wont be able to punctuate the rest of this entry as Emilys computer has something wrong with it and I just hit the wrong button but I am going as Goldilocks who got mauled by the three bears tonight
I have a black dress that i got for twelve dollars and a nasty blonde wig
excellent
pictures soon
better blog entry with punctuation soon