almost ending up in an unexpected place: a white rappers music video shot

The unexpected. The unexpected sometimes happens. You plan for something and end up somewhere else. And there you are requested the pull down to stop the train. Next stop please you find yourself yelling down the crowded car of strangers. The destination is not where you want to go. You need to get off and fast. But the distance between the stops grow. And the triage becomes faster and faster in your brain.

I found myself in the unexpected recently. I found myself on a way to a music video shot. A music video shot for a white rapper group. I am pausing to let that one soak in. How does someone end up on the way to such a place? Someone who by day counsels kids and helps raise kids by night be going to music video shots. Good question. The quick answer is alcohol and maybe hanging out with someone who pushes the limits of who you should spend time with. Some people need to stay in the dark of the night and never should transfer over to the day. It might have consequences. Like this.

The long answer is I started the day off hoping for some day drinking, eating, followed by some sex. And then meeting up with my friends for another beer night event. I felt my expectations were low. Little did I know I should have dreamt bigger. So as I pick up the gentlemen for the afternoon. I had never seen him in daylight except in the light of the day in the morning. As I pull over and wait. He comes into the car and kisses me on my lips. Alcohol breaths into my clean mouth. Its 3 in the afternoon and he still stinks from the night before. Nice. He is cloaked in clothes from the night before but he doesn't want to change. Just want to keep going. To the next place to start again. I was thinking late brunch and then back to one of our places. He was thinking of relieving his hangover and another bender. This might be why talking might be good.

As we travel in my car from my home into an unknown territory. I realize there might be a problem when sober conversation makes me want to drink immediately. The rain beats against the car when two people relative strangers talk about life and leaving and roaming and illegitimate children and things he admitted when drunk and not having feelings. The windshield wipers clean so I can see but the wetness comes again and blurry vision is all I have. But then the translucent eye to the world and I can see again. Again and again. See he says I am numb to everything. I don't have feelings. This type of dialogue means one thing he has more feelings than he would like to admit. But instead of pushing it. And pulling it out of him. To make this arrangement anything but what it is. I think that is interesting you would be attracted to someone like me who has more feelings than I know what to deal with.

See I can say it was unexpected that I almost ended a back up dancer in a rap video. But it wasn't. Not with this man. Too much alcohol fueled me to be in a place with someone I probably shouldn't. Not for a night. Not at all. As I sit on the bar stool hearing of the plans of the next stop. I wonder what the fuck I am doing. And how did I get here. But I thought the same thing as we drove here sober.

Loneliness is a strange hunter. It is hard to follow the rules all the time. Its hard not to find yourself in these place at night. By day being someone else. But although funny. My time is not. And I excuse myself. From the club. The club in the middle of a bad neighborhood. And watch the two self proclaimed southern gentlemen- him and his friend- who open doors and pay tabs watch me leave by myself no offer of walking me outside or hailing a cab. As the rain pours down on me. I have never felt happier to be alone. The cab waits for me right out the entrance. I open the door and go home. And watch the windshields as the rain washes over us again.

alcoholic bones: inherited but still mine, without stopping i remember i ain't no winehouse

Without stopping. I hadn't had one of those without stopping nights in awhile. The one that the motion propels you through with the help of alcohol and banter and the next place until you wake up the next morning to your head feeling as if it might explode. You write a letter: dear head, please don't fall apart. Not now. Love, me.

See I used to have without stopping nights all the time. In my younger years- the debut of adulthood and experimentation- I wonder if I mix these three alcohols will I hug the toilet later. Oh most likely I will. A weak stomach. I do. Have. Later in my working years. When I had cash to burn. Burn and a job I didn't like. In a group of friends. Who all seemed to follow suit. Or when I was depressed about what I wanted. My only solace was the pouring down of the medicine ordered by me. It felt so comfortable. It felt like home. For it was.

Not everyone has a bones such as mine. These alcoholic bones originally believed to be from my descents- my grandfathers or great on both my irish sides. No closer in my body these bones made a tight fit around the joints. Closer to me. Around the veins and organs and the pulsing in and out. Not just my grandfathers, and maybe a few cousins, and maybe a few aunts or uncles but the closest you could get. My parents. Both. Of. Them. No one told me. To watch out because of my parents. No watch out because of those far away folks, they said. No one wants to say. Addiction you have inherited and dysfunction now not distant relative but your sibling. Living in your home. No one says it. For denial is the way you go on in the island of my family. So it has been. Until. One day you realize. These bones. These ways. Are part genetic. But part learned. And feel like home. It is scary to admit aloud in someones eyes but dysfunction is my friend and alcohol could be the only home you've known. Comforting things not so comforting.

But it changed for me. Not in meetings. Not in saying aloud my name is kate and I might be alcoholic. Hi, Kate did not reverberate against my ears. Not in my dad checking me into rehab and me saying no, no, no. No intervention. No I walked the line the best I could. Until I had to slow it down. I wasn't figuring myself out anymore. Binge drinking became less cool. And so did the throwing up. And wasted days. I was running away from who I was. What was too hard to feel. So now I don't drink like I once did. I go out regularly and might have a beer or two. It might be because I am happier. It might be because I thought about it. It might be I never wanted to be a drunk. Destroyed and broken.

But as I wake up in this brightest room in all of the mission. My head ripping apart and my fear of my stomach release. I can't help but think without stopping nights are still part of me. Even if they don't happen as they once did. Even though this hadn't happened in almost a year. I will always have these nights a piece of me that wants to keep going and not caring. Until the am. In the brightness of this new day. And I realize I can dabble in the without stopping nights. But I am not built for them as I once was. I turn over and will my head to stay in one piece and roll into an embrace. My head will stay in one piece. I got to keep my heart in one too.

your nemisis is waiting in the line at the bar of underage drinking

hello folks-


a quick write from the word nemesis about me walking into my old undergrad bar of beginnings.
enjoy and thanks always for stopping by!


Nemesis. My own nemesis might not be a spandex clad villain trying to fuck up my ability to do good and fight evil on this earth. No, that might be left to the simplicity of super heros and the story lines in their confinement. No, my nemesis might be me. Me. You wake up, you roll over, you open your eyes to a younger version of yourself. You think you have evolved so much that you now have somehow changed and transformed into a more liberated non-caring this is me kind of lady- take it or leave it.


But one day. One day you walk into a bar. A bar of before. Before. The earlier you. That has exited before. The bar might have a new name. But the smell of beginning adulthood still musky particles of years past drift up to your nose. You breathe in and smell the smell of you. Your younger self. The one who had to underage drink before. In this bar. The room changed. Now with animals heads upon the wall. Expanded -walls taken down. The physical bar-the same-stretches long like the years past. Years. But living in a way right now. Right now. Food now available not left to the confines to the pizza line next store. It stops now. The flooding of what was and drifts away as I order no bud light or heineken or mixed drinks of my younger self. Kahula something-vodka this-all swallowed down in one sitting. Now instead. A more sophistication order of black ipa and a tecate. For I am driving. Shots, shots, spatters around us. No I don’t do shots. But before I did. Did in a way that killed me. Later.


But I was in the midst of figuring it out. Figuring out how to be me in the middle of this bar. In the beginning of being my own. Figuring out how to be. Without apologizing later. Or right now. Time passes quickly away. Away this night. And then its time to go. Go. This would be the first time I left this bar without the non-sober of drunken sway. I walk back up the dirtied wooden floors up the ramp and touch the bathroom door. And as I place my fingerprints upon the green smudged door and press my fingerprints, weight moves it open with it, against it, a downpour of it all comes back. Back. The lines. The lines I stood in. I am standing in again. The dress. The obsession of how to dress. The how to get in. And the nervous-forgotten. The waiting in line in this bathroom I had spent so many moments waiting. Waiting. Making sure to look pretty. And skinny. And happy. And not too bitchy. And not hurl. And not pee. And smile enough but not too much. Waiting in that line. But there is no line. Not now. No line for me to try and dance in and out of and through.


I walk straight to the stall. And lock the door with a bolt. The lock is new and heavy and hits the stall door hard. Hard. It shakes. I hover over the toilet and remember. Barfing here. And peeing here. And crying here. And as I flush, stall door slamming. Wash my hands. Clean. I walk out the door. There still isn’t a line. I didn’t have to wait like I did before. Before. I was thankful. And somewhat relieved to have visited her here. Now. Because there was no line of acceptance I had to wait in. Not again. Not in this bar. Not ever. Again. The line of waiting lived inside of me. I just stopped caring how I looked while I stood there. As I glanced at the mirror out the door. Back into the bar.

alcoholic bones- by accident napping on a a black and white checkered kitchen floor

What she heard. Are you okay? She opened her eyes. And realized the ceiling was above her. A face was next to her talking to her. Are you okay? He says again. Around her black and white checkers evidence that she is on the floor of her kitchen. What am I doing on the kitchen floor? You passed out. Twice. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It had been awhile since she was awoken and jarred awake and found herself on a floor. Napping but not knowing how. How she had laid down for a shut eye. The last time it was a bathroom one. A public one. Gross she knew. But she was sober. And that was 5 plus years ago.

So as he is piecing it together for her. The lean on the corner of the cabinet and then the sliding down. Down to the ground. Gracefully passing out. She did. So she starts to rolodex through the reasons as to why she is sleeping on her kitchen floor and when she should get up. Probably soon. This isn’t the first time. Should she go to the doctor?

She felt lightheaded she remembered that. Something about closing her eyes and making out for the first time in months while intoxicated on a tolerance that would make her ancestors and relatives wince- not good enough for her irish alcoholic bones like hers. There was a half glass of wine served in plastic and beers not sure how many because the guy she just met and his friends bought them from her- the never empty glass of beer gets her every time. She has blacked out once before because she was drunk when she was still in the beginning of her tenure of drinking. She has passed out twice after making out with someone once sober, once intoxicated (this very time). She has passed out once because of stress. Should she get off this black and white floor? Should she die of embarrassment? Should she see a MD? Should she get herself to a meeting? Or just her bed?

She knows, knows something is going on but she isn’t sure what. The heart beats too hard too fast sometimes with or without the help of alcohol. The tingling reaching up higher to her head, felt upon her ever moving hands. Now lay still. As she got up taking his hand, she wasn’t sure what was going on inside of her. But she knew it was better to pass out on her kitchen floor than in a public bathroom in a bar while sober. What she heard. She heard. She heard she should wake up. Wake up and stand on this black and white floor. Stand on the black and white square smudged kitchen floor.

alcoholic bones: kate-0 asphalt-1

go enjoy that heat if you are in sf! i don't care if i have to take multiple cold showers a day and my only refugee is water and the beach. this weather is needed. it will be in the 50's by friday. so take that look off your face and go bask in the sweat of it. . .

here is a quick write for the phrase- humor me-about a new years eve gone terribly wrong.


Humor me and tell me I’m not like the others. The other drunks out there. Go ahead. I might have believed you. I might have. I crossed the line over drinking too much early on in my career with the bottle and finding my head in a toilet and to the bed and to the toilet and to the bed. I would drink in such a fashion that my mixing, my escaping would put me completely out of commission. There was no ‘a few drinks’ in my vocabulary.

So the first time it went to physical violence, I was at a New Year’s Party just nearly out of the supposed grownup stair of college. The party was the type that costs 100 dollars but there is no food in sight but with an open bar to boot. I was having a love affair with vodka cranberries. I was hanging out with my older cousin and her friends-they my 5-year seniors. No food -me humping vodka crans all night after the infamous double-parked break up of my last boyfriend. I asked if he wanted to go to LA with me. He told me he wasn’t in love with me anymore. While double-parked in front of his house. Nice. That kick to the gut hurt. Hurt so much that my pain could be only minimized by you guessed it- that stupid open bar.

Fast-forward to I am now staring at my own reflection with blood all over my face. I stared at my bloody mary version of myself and I had no idea what had happened. I had no idea how I had got to that bathroom or how I was injured. I was staring and crying and women around me staring. Staring. Because who comes to a 100 dollar a ticket party and gets into fist fights. Something must be wrong with her their thoughts not spewing out but mixed inside their heads below their perfectly done hair dos. No blood was on their faces. But bloody mary I was.

My cousin appears and asks me who had done this to me. I don’t know I am breathing now through blood and tears and guilt and embarrassment. I didn’t know. Kate you have to tell me. I have to kick their ass. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what had happened. I knew I was in a fancy place and my love affair with vodka crans was done for now and I had an awful gash across my nose. My cousin gave me the first aid of family and of backup and putting pressure on my nose. I am going to figure this out as she stomped out of the public restroom. I didn’t care what happened anymore. I just wanted to go home.

My lawyer cousin became the investigator outside those doors of my protection. I wanted to go home but to go outside in the middle of a fancy party seemed like death to me. I might have, I might have broken my nose. Holy fuck. I am screwed. I hated the color red of my face, of my drinks. I hated the party for people not supplying food. I hated that guy for breaking my heart. I hated myself. I eventually would hate my cousin for keeping me there with a gash on my nose and then making me take public transit-the N home. In the bright lights of the train- everyone could see me, no bathroom where I could hide. I just closed my eyes and laid on my good friend’s shoulder. If I couldn’t see them-they couldn’t see me. It wasn’t real.

The facts came rolling in little by little not like a news station alerts more like calling someone without call waiting. It takes time to get through. You had to wait sometimes for the truth. So it turned out after my cousin had asked everyone there she knew and didn’t that I had gotten in a fight. A fight with the asphalt. Her friend replayed the torture of I was outside smoking a cigarette talking to him. When I came falling down like a tree in the wilderness. He thought I had blacked out. I hadn’t stopped myself. But he couldn’t stop me either. I had repressed all of it. All of it had. The worst part was I had to face my mother’s family the next day- a family I didn’t know very well- with a fucked up face. I had to come up with a story and quick. Humor me. Tell me the story.