Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Monday, Nov. 25, 2002 - 12:46 a.m.

Ya know, I have to say, Sundry has just become my very favorite Diaryland denizen. I adore that chica and would totally make her my new best friend, if I were that type of girl - and, you know, mentally 16.

Bygones.

Wow, it has been like the most boring weekend ever. I have, however, studiously avoided doing anything more than quickly scanning the yahoo headlines, specifically so I would have no vitriol to vent here...don'tcha just love me? Please say yes, because I am totally DT'ing over the lack of news. It's not that I mind missing all the stuff that stresses me out and pisses me off, it's that it really bugs me I could be missing out on something cool or a really excellent stupid quote.

I hate to bore you people with yet another olfactory mystery, but I went down to the local Kaffeehaus (all german nouns are capitalized; that's not the name of the giant, supertrendy, tragically hip coffee corporation, I just don't wish to give them any free advertising) to get the boyfriend and I afternoon libations (okay, okay, we slept late and it was actually brunch libation...at 5:00), and for some bizarre reason, the lid to my tea misto smelled vaguely, yet definitely of pumpkin. Not pumpkin flavor or pumpkin pie goodness, pumpkin. As in, the inside of a raw pumpkin. What the heck is up with that?

Bedtime Already?
I have to get my sleep schedule back on track. I took one stupid job for one measley week, working 7pm to 3am, and that was that. I should have known better, because I've been a nightowl my entire life, but I didn't think that 5 months later, I'd still be battling to get back to a normal schedule that didn't involve pain. And yes, it is painful to open your eyes at a decent morning hour when you didn't got to bed until 4 that morning. Not to mention being hard as hell. And being unemployed isn't helping, because yes, I have to get up and jobhunt, but jobhunting is like the most hideous experience ever, next to going to the dentist, the ob-gyn, apartment hunting, and the actual job interview. And, you know, stuff like having your bones broken or your brain sucked out your nose, but in general, those things lie beyond the realm of probability, so we're not counting them. I'm talking about stuff you have to knuckledown and do every so often. Like job hunt when your company offers you a stupid promotion, only it isn't really a promotion at all, it's just broadening your current scope of responsibility and increasing your workload by 2 other jobs but only compensating you an additional 50 bucks a week, when you are already horrendously underpaid to the point that when you deposit what is arguably called a paycheck every week, the bank tellers point and laugh, but I digress. The deal is, I turned the "promotion" down, so they laid me off, and I have to jobhunt. So I have to get up every day. And that is the suckiest of the suckage when you've had a whopping 3 or 4 hours of sleep and the thing you are getting up to do is something you really, really don't want to do anyway. ::sigh:: I want to be a kept woman. I kind of am, I guess, because the boyfriend is supercool, and I don't have to pay rent, but I would loooooove it if I didn't have to do this fruitless job hunt thing either, or worry about whereinhell I'm gonna get the money to finish out my degree, which I have decided to finish in horticulture, instead of english lit (don't ask).

College and Other Trials
Actually, do ask. That is, in and of itself, a saga. I was a theatre arts major, until I discovered that I was working with people who had MFA's and were making the same money I was, doing the same shows, and a degree in theatre arts pretty much qualifies you to lay carpet - I thought at the time - so why not drop out and be a Professional Actor, right?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (repeating into eternity)

So anyway, after 8 years of supporting myself quite happily doing the acting thing, my progress came to an abrupt halt through no fault of my own, unless you call cancer a fault, which, actually, I guess it is, being mutated cells, and all. But I got rid of that and discovered I had lost my impetus. I became a struggling semi-actor and stopped putting real effort into the experience. I had, meanwhile, gone back to school, after changing my major from its declared German status to environmental marine biology.

But Katie, you say, I thought you were a theatre arts major? Ah, my friends, that was what I really was. But I was declared German, because my mother refused to let me live at home while I was in school if I declared theatre arts. She wanted me to be a journalism major, which my journalism teacher had discussed with her, and since I had all this great "promise", that's what I was supposed to be. I did not want to be a journalism major. I hate journalists. Passionately. So I passed on the full scholarship to Texas Tech that, unbeknownst to me, my journalism teacher had put me up for, and I opted instead to go to UTA, which is where, 3 months away from high school graduation, my mother informed me I was to be relegated. My little brother got to go to UT, and Mom paid for the whole damn shebang, but it's not like I'm bitter, so we'll move on. For some reason, even though I was an honors student with straight A's, I never heard back from a single one of the colleges to which I applied, so since I was going to have to pay for the whole thing myself, I went to the University of Texas at Arlington. Oo. Ah. And since I was bound and determined not to be a journalist, and my mom was bound and determined I was not to be an actor, I declared German, and every semester I took 1 German class, and the other 17 hours of my day I was in the Fine Arts building, learnin' to be an actor...until I finally woke up and changed to biology, which I loved.

Actually, I loved chem. I had a bitchin' chem teacher. My biology teacher was a sonofabitch. So then I decide fuckit, I'm going to quit acting altogether and move out to San Diego to study at UCSD (which was one of the schools I hadn't heard from); I'll just go and worry about what to do when I get there. So I'm in CA, I'm studying biology, I got pulled back into acting and I'm in the longest-running show in San Diego history, life is mostly pretty keen.

And then I had another cancer-type surgery and had to drop out of school, so I was once again a loser, trying to figure out what in hell to do with my life, having seen how both of my uncles spent 18 hours a day in a lab and realizing that as hard as it was for me to meet new people (read guys), if I spent 18 hours a day in a lab, I would die an old woman living with 80 cats. And I don't even like cats. But once again, Serendipity stepped in. Sort of. I read a really great book during surgical recovery and thought hey, english lit. I love english lit and I'm not really acting. I'll get my degree in that and go teach in some ivy-covered hall somewhere. I was writing novels and short stories anyway, so it's not like it was that big a leap. And since I was miserable in California, I moved back home, to Texas. But not before I met the boyfriend and we became friends and then dated a little right before I left.

Back in Texas, the first thing that happened was I went with my friends Runi and Sven to see a play their friend Donald had written, and Donald turned right around and offered me the lead in the play he was about to direct, about the life of Mary Shelley. I said gee, that would be swell. And it was. But then I had the acting bug again, and I had discovered I didn't really fit in in Texas anymore, so after a year and a half, I moved back to Los Angeles. And eventually started dating the boyfriend again. And got a job working in production, which led to my own little hell and the promotion I turned down, which in turn led to unemployment and me wondering again what the hell to do for a living, seeing as I was sick of living hand to mouth, and since I love my plants, and I'm pretty good at growing them and stuff, my old boss suggested landscape design, and I thought about it pretty hard for a few weeks and then said yeah, that's a good idea, assuming I can learn to draw (which I suck at), and now, 4 months and a semester later, I have found I love the plant thing and want to get an actual BS in horticulture, so I can tell people all about plants and how to properly care for their plants, and maybe even heal sick plants, because plants do not complain, they do not give you unrealistic deadlines that demand you pull miracles out your orifices (only so many will fit, you know), they have no egos, and they do not scream at you at 9:01am because they can't find something they need and somehow that translates to All Your Fault.

I love plants.

And as one of my design teachers guilted us on the last day of his class, as a landscape designer, I am the Champion of the Plants. It is up to me to protect them, so that plants that need sun do not languish in shade, and plants that need shade are not tortured with sun, etc. I talk to my plants, so I figure I can be the Defender of Plants pretty easily, and if I know all there is to know about horticulture, I'll be even better at it. So I plan to get on the horticulture bandwagon in the fall, when the first part of my design stuff is done. Maybe having been unemployed half of this year, I'll even actually qualify for student loans for the first time in my entire life.

There. Aren't you glad you asked? Oh, shut up; who asked ya?

Peace out,
Katie

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In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
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In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
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