A Retrospective Inspection

Three weeks into the semester and already my life feels drastically different.  This past year has been psycho enough as it is, so you would think I'd be used to a constant crazy mess, but I'm not.  I'm still adjusting.

This time last year I was going through major adjustments.  I had been away from home for more than three weeks, in a new city.  I was thrust into the frightening university world, left to battle monstrous word counts and an eighteen-year-old roommate who still thought her mom was going to come behind her and clean her messes up.

I drew naked people, in a shocked stupor at first, but then with resignation, and then with relish (the human muscle structure is poetry, people).  I exposed myself--no pun intended--to the art world of Tallahassee, in all it's fearsome and strange wonder.  I explained five million times to one million people that I was a transfer student.  I attended every single day of a class in which the professor never took attendance.  That was just the first semester.

Then it was off to making friends in experimental drawing, going to unicorn parties, learning to not hate technology, traipsing through a Frank Lloyd Wright house, making crazy new friends, dancing salsa with my Spanish teacher, getting 5 hours of sleep a night, and illustrating my first book.

I made my summer home in Panama City, because for some reason I guess Tallahassee wasn't humid and hot enough for me.  I learned how to swim butterfly and breaststroke, and I learned that I have an unnatural fear of suffocating.  I helped bring a gigantic Joann Fabric's into the world, with the added bonus of getting to wear a radio and learning the proper way to cut fabric.  I painted, but not as much as I wanted to.  I got to go to North Carolina (YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!).  I went on my first date (and started my first relationship).  Best of all I became an aunt.

 I swam in this really awesome waterfall.  It was cold.

 APPALACHIAN TRAIL!!!!  AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

My first week back I discovered how horribly inferior I felt.  While going to a community college for a bit before heading to a university has it's advantages, it will haunt you forever.  Well, maybe not forever, but I'm still feeling it a year later.  I come into classes in which I have all the required prerequisites, but my prerequisites lacked quality.  For example, I painted with oil paints once, in high school, and it was a horrible experience.  We're painting with oils ALL SEMESTER LONG in my painting class.  Did I mention everyone else has painted with oils a million times before?  In my printmaking class we're starting off carving in wood.  I've never carved in wood before.  Everyone else has.  Everyone knows what they're talking about in fiction technique.  They're all English majors.  Week one was pretty awful.

Week two was more of that mess (Like staring at a canvas for two and a half hours without putting any paint on it).

Week three was an altogether different animal.  I started carving in wood and I discovered it's a lot like carving in linoleum...and I liked it.  I got over that horrible oil painting experience and I...actually...like oil painting now.  Then, to end the week we did a group workshop on our writing exercises and everyone liked my writing.  Spanish is still bad, but that's expected.

So, one year later and I still have this blog.  I'm one year, twenty pounds, and one less roommate different.  The Tappers are still tapping, the Beaters are still beating, and the Stompers are still stomping.  As I speak there are psychos roaming the halls being loud and obnoxious.

Did I mention it's almost midnight?

This semester is going to be really interesting...

That Beautiful Silence

Some moments are too good for words.  Thursday I had one of those moments. There he was naked and pink and quiet.  Dark waves plastered around a creased face.  A fleeting glimpse of an eye.  Pink lips tucked between chub cheeks.
 
I was seriously afraid I might break him.

But as I folded all of his nearly nine pounds into my arms for the first time my momentary fear was gone.  Everything else disappeared and that little squishy face was mine to look at.  My mind wandered back to the little note I’d written him when he was still merely Baby, and I realized that this was one of those moments that give life worth.  Thursday, I became richer than Bill Gates could ever hope to be.

It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the world right now, because my world just gained another thousand miles of perfection.  His name is Nolan.

Hippie Anniversary

5:30 AM

I laid my head against the window and felt the car engine vibrate through my entire body.  It didn't matter if I closed my eyes, I'd never be able to go back to sleep now.  Not that I wanted to.  It had taken years of pain and years of prayer to get there.  Every step made me wince, made me live vicariously, made me want to cry.  I nursed my tea and sent up constant prayers for forty-five minutes.  It was going to be a very long day.


9:56 AM

We sat together in the maze of seats, settled in and ready for the wait.  Our pastor had come to pray, the anesthesiologist had come, and we'd had to leave.  As the wheelchair had come out before we went in my dad had taken the crutch.  "You won't be needing this anymore."  Truth in six words, even though we didn't know it then.  Somewhere in the labyrinth we'd all met with the doctor.  Patients were never on his mind all weekend but this one had been, and he was ready for anything.


11:55 AM

Two hours in and the monitor couldn't tell us anything we didn't already know.  We ate and we came back.  Have you ever spent a whole day waiting on the edge of your seat, hoping for something good?  It's like sprinting twenty-five yards in a pool with no air: an eternity of discomfort.  Some friends had come to wait with us, but it was only comforting to a certain extent.  The rest was faith.


12:53 PM

The doctor had finally come out to talk to us.  No bone graft, nothing out of the ordinary.  Everything went perfect even though the x-rays said it shouldn't have.  The anesthesia was still wearing off, though, and we couldn't go back yet.  We were still basking in relief, and a deep breath of fresh air.


7:47 PM

We were finally in a room, an actual hospital room.  After waiting for hours we had finally been allowed back.  The anesthesia had still had a groggy hold, but everything was okay.  Then we got lost a couple times before we found that room at the top of the hospital.  Seeing her awake was heaven.  "Are you glad you did it?"....."Not yet."


It really was one of the longest days of my life, exactly one year ago, today.  It was the day my mom got her hip replaced.  She had wrestled with the thought of surgery from the moment her doctor told her she needed it.  That was years ago, years of prayer and alternative medicine.  Then, last year she decided it was time to be courageous.  It's been a long road of recovery, but she stuck with it through the tiredness and the pain and the inconvenience.  A year later and she's kayaking and gardening and working as hard as she can push herself.

My mom is a hippie, and I've never been more proud of her.

I'm Special...

It's been a while since I've written anything.  So here's a big sorry to all of my fans (there are probably five of you...or less).  It's not from a lack of time, I've just kind of felt empty on the blog-writing front lately.  My cousin Sophee told me to write about swimming but other than the fact that I smell like chlorine all the time and swimming with teenagers is very entertaining there's not really enough to write about on that front.

Last week I was thrown deep into foreign territory, far outside of my comfort zone.  Someone made me the center of attention by thrusting me into the middle of an impromptu art show.  If there's one thing I don't like, it's being the center of attention.  My aunt, the perpetrator, says I need to get used to it if I'm going to be an artist, but it's hard for me to take all the attention in a room full of people I barely know or don't know at all.

People who don't know me very well think I'm a really quiet person who pretty much never talks.  People who know me well know that that assumption is only about 10% true.  I'm not much of a talker sometimes because when people I don't know ask me questions my mind goes blank and I get that deer in the headlights look.  I panic.  I don't really know why, but that's what happens.

When I'm around my friends and family everything changes.  I become this crazy weird person, in a good way.  I'm very fond of goofing off.  It's my favorite thing to do with my friend Caroline.  Our version of goofing off isn't normal, though (Ha, normal goofing off).  We talk about epic pigeon choirs and beards with magical powers and give people weird nicknames.  We laugh uncontrollably and enjoy riding the bus so we can listen to other people's conversations about vegan hair care (whatever that is).  We're not typical twenty-two-year-old's in any way shape or form.

There is at least one true conclusion that you can make from this: If I'm a weirdo around you, I've become comfortable enough in your presence to seriously be myself.  If I'm not a weirdo yet, give it some time and I'll get there.

Wow, this post was really short...and there were no pictures.

I'm a strange person.

Oh, wait, here's a picture of me and my cousin's being weird:

And I just really wanted to give you this:

DALI LLAMA!

Memoirs of Really Sweaty Emotional People

Around this time four years ago, I was here:

And here:

And here:

But before I got anywhere near that, I had to be here, wearing this:




I remember the forecast not looking good that day.  I remember it raining and I remember the sun coming out and sending up humid waves off of everything it touched.  I cringed at what it and that ridiculous hat would do to my hair, my perfectly flatironed hair.  We walked in loud and horrendous lines out to the soggy football field and got into place.  I was nervous and smiley all at the same time.  We walked in two's on cue, just as we had practiced.  My walking partner kept pace with me after I threatened to make him carry me if he didn't slow down.  I wasn't in heels or anything, I'm not crazy like THAT, he just had ridiculously long legs.  When we all made it to our seats I could only imagine what we looked like as a sea of hideous purple.  A lot of people talked and a lot of hot sun beat down.  I was a sweat monster, but that's what Florida in May does to you, and the robe didn't help.  I remember whispering things to the people next to me, but I don't remember anything of what I said.  I managed to snag a seat on the front row too.

For weeks all anyone talked about was class rankings.  People were constantly going to guidance to see where they ranked in GPA, what number in the class they would graduate as.  I ignored them and focused on getting through my last classes.  When anyone asked me I would just say I didn't know.  People expected me to graduate high, and they wanted to know if they were right.  I decided it was none of their business.

At graduation practice we all sat in the stands of the gym while teachers called names to tell people where to sit in the array of folding chairs set up on the floor.  I heard my name called and went to sit in the last seat on the right side of the first row.  Apparently I was 11th in my class.  Who knew?  Umm...not me.

So there I was, my name being called again out there on the field.  I walked through the soggy grass, I shook hands, I got a medal....and an empty diploma case.  More talking, more crying, more sentiment.  Then we got to file back out.  I didn't care anymore if my walking partner was in line, or if I was too close to the person in front of me.  By the time I got to the goal post we were pretty much all celebrating, and then the families came down from the stands and we all became a seething mass of really sweaty emotional people.  Pictures abounded, everyone was hugged to death, and there was a lot of searching.  For me, though, We couldn't leave soon enough.  I'm not fond of squished masses of people unless they're doing something funny and I'm not in it.

As I looked around at all the graduates before I left I saw a lot of partying in their near future.  I prayed that no one would kill each other with drinking and then I left.  I saw partying in my future too, but I don't party like normal people.  When I got home, my cousins and I jumped into the pool.  Just the three of us under the moon.  It's a memory I'll never forget.  Who knows how late we went to bed...who even cares?

Two weeks later we set off on an adventure, we being my mom, my aunt, my two cousins Lauren and Sophee, and me.  Destination: Grand Canyon.  We drove a rented minivan all the way there and camped along the way.  Yes, five females camping.  There was lots of craziness and lots of drama, but it was so worth it.  I had a lot of firsts on this trip...

First visit to a national park:





First time experiencing snow:

First time visiting a dam:

First bear box at a campsite:



First time going to the vertex of a graph of a quadratic function...I mean, first time going up in the Gateway Arch:



And those were just SOME of the highlights...

I've concluded that some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life I saw on that trip.  There were times when we were sleeping in freezing weather and heating ourselves to death when we all kind of wished that we were home, but I honestly could have gone all the way to the Pacific.  Our trek west stopped at the Grand Canyon, though, which really wasn't a disappointment.

We all kept journals for the trip and we recorded some pretty interesting stuff.  I also ended up writing an essay a couple years ago about one of my experiences.  I would have never gone on a trip like this alone, you know, and not because it would have been frightening by myself.  The five of us forged some seriously unforgettable memories on that trip.

Four years later a lot has changed, but every year people still walk across that field and graduate.  So if you're not a squished crowd kind of person then stop looking at it like a seething mass of really sweaty emotional people and start looking at it like a teeming mass of emotional memories being made.  I think it's a kind of art.

Seeing things differently yet?

My Name is Katti Wheeler, and I Used to be a Spy

I don't remember from what patch of thin air I pulled this obsession, but I've had it for a while now.  It's kind of waned over the years but it's still there.  I am obsessed with spies.  But like I said, I wouldn't really call it an obsession anymore at this point in my life.

It may have started with the fact that I'm the little sister.  I used to really enjoy spying on my older sister, whatever she did.  I think I also enjoyed getting her in trouble, but what little sister/brother doesn't enjoy that?  My cousin, Lauren, joined me in my obsession and we started to pretend we were spies any time we were together.  Sometimes we even roped her dad into playing along with us.  We went on covert 'missions' and had meetings with other spies who were, in reality, non-existent.

In middle school I happened upon this really awesome subscription in the monthly scholastic catalogs.  Each month they would send you new gadgets and a book about being a spy.  The starter kit would have been enough for me, but my mom kept the subscription up so I got something new every month.  Things got serious then, especially when my cousin started to get the subscription too.  Every outing was a mission.


 
  This is basically what my starter kit looked like.

We started our own spy organization then.  We came up with the ridiculous name "Federal Agent Bureau," which we frequently shortened to FAB.  When I say we were serious, I'm not even joking.  We had an FAB file book, which was essentially a handful of notebook paper in a binder.  It had at least five different files, including lists of agents, mission logs, and meeting logs.  We were the only two 'real' agents, but we pretended there were a lot of us.  We really did have meetings, too, and an oath you had to take to be an agent.  When we were apart we would send each other coded letters, or letters written in invisible ink.  We even had matching uniforms we had scrounged up.

Over the years our interest in being spies waned, but I still had a thing for it.  When Kim Possible was around I loved her.  I drew her, and variations of her, almost constantly, but I grew out of that eventually too.  In those gap years of high school I still kept the dream alive by writing spy stories, even though I didn't have any inspiration to look to.  I mean, there were a few bright spots, like National Treasure.  I totally knew they were looking at an 'Ottendorf'' cipher (book cipher) before they did.

Until Burn Notice came out.  Here was a niche I could finally settle into without it being an obsession.  I still watch it all the time, even though I haven't always been able to keep up weekly when it's on television.  Now with the availability of Netflix to me, I'm watching every episode they have up this summer.

This retired spy hasn't totally left everything behind, though.  I still have all of my gadgets and books in an old messenger bag up in my closet at home, and I occasionally take them down to look through my past.  I also still have our file book.  I will probably always keep them so when I'm a hundred years old and sitting in my rocking chair I can reminisce.

I've never been able to make myself like James Bond though.  It's great to get this secret past off my chest guys.

Movie Pie and Art...and the Beginning of an Adventure

Sometimes I just really want to pull my hair out when it comes to movies nowadays.  Here have some homemade pie:

 This rant comes after I discovered that Disney is releasing a fifth 'installment' of Pirates of the Caribbean.  Perhaps they felt like they hadn't been confusing enough in their last one?  I'm really not surprised at this development though, given Disney's current reputation for horrible movies.  I'm not saying all of them are horrible, I'm just saying that most of them probably make Walt turn over in his grave.  He's made it nice and roomy by now.  And then just think what they're going to turn Star Wars into...

The last good movie I've seen from Disney was Brave.  I've heard people say that Merida just runs around and does nothing and gets nothing done, but at least she's not running around with some random guy.  I was just finally happy to see a Disney princess who didn't need a guy.

Disney's partnership with Pixar is one of their only bright spots.  I've seriously never seen a Pixar film I didn't like.  Their relationship has been a bit rocky in the past, though...something about Disney being greedy I think (I hope you caught the sarcasm).

You know, when I was little I would have given anything to work for Disney.  I seriously wanted to be an animator.  That dream died a long time ago.  Today, I have absolutely no desire to work for Disney.  None.  I'd rather tell my own stories, like this one:

Yay!  It's my book!

The story is based on a dream I had which I'm currently turning into a short story.  It involves time travel, memory loss, and  paradoxes.  I started out wanting it to flow smoothly and transition from frame to frame in a very understood way, but as I went through the process of planning it out I began to fragment the story, purposely not giving any one narrative or meaning, giving it a dream-like quality.  I want people to interpret this the way they see it, I them to come away with their own interpretation of the story.  I've begun to understand that in order to make my art more accessible I should pull back and not make things so firm and planned and set in stone as I usually do.  In no way do I see this as a sacrifice, though, I see it as growth as an artist.  I'm more proud of myself for that than for doing all the work on this book.  However, because of time constraints I had to cut out the last four pages, but I intend to finished them and add them in this summer.

Now that we're done with our personal growth session, more pictures!

From the back.

From the front.

When you put a light source behind the book you get to see the hidden phrases in the pages (the writing isn't actually on the drawing, it's behind it).  These are my three favorite pages where the writing worked especially well with the image.

The cover took a lot of work too, but I really love the way it turned out.  The only thing I'm not sure about are the comments from my classmates that it kind of looks like a giant ice-cream sandwich.  Do you see that?  The fabric is a discontinued sample I got for a dollar at Joann's (win!), and the metal piece was something I found on the sidewalk one day when Caroline and I missed our bus stop and walked back to the apartment from the next one.  I really pleased at how successfully this came out and I'm looking forward to doing more of these in the future.

Guess what else? I finished repainting my ukulele!  Now begins the horrendous period where I have to tune it  every five seconds until the strings get back into their comfort zone.

Awesome accents, right?  They're actually more aqua/turquoise but the lighting made it look blue.  But I know what you guys are really waiting for...

BAM!

I think I love this back soooooooo much more than the first one.  I'll be keeping this design for a while.  And a special thanks to my lamp:

This little guy helps me out with lighting since the lighting here in the apartment is really stinky.  If this guy died, I'd be so sad.

Okay, it's summer guys.  The semester is finally over and I survived my first year at FSU!  So what's next?  Adventures galore!  Tallahassee has really overwhelmed me with a lack of possibilities, or maybe it's underwhelmed me with possibilities...I don't know, I just know I need a break from this place.  Today is my last day here for the summer.  Tomorrow I'm going to Panama City!  I'm staying there for the whole summer to work and have fun and work and hang out with family and friends and work and go to a wedding and work.  Did I mention I'm going to be working?  Not just at a job, but also on my artwork.  I have a painting to work on and I'm going to start another book too.  I'm beyond excited!  Let the adventure begin!