Socially Awkward...

2006-10-20T16:44:00.000-05:00

In middle school, I really, really liked frogs. Really, really liked them. Although I've since realized that monkeys are the way to go, I thought frogs were great for a long time.

In seventh grade, I liked frogs so much, I wrote every English assignment about them.

When we had to write a myth, I wrote "Why the Frog Hops." When we had to write a concrete poem, mine was shaped like a frog. Usually, the frogs were named Stuart; I forget why Stuart, but Stuart nonetheless.

Mr. Roth eventually wrote on an assignment, "I'm beginning to worry that you write about frogs all the time." On frog dissection day in science class, he asked if I cried. (I didn't. I dug right in. Dissections were awesome.) Frogs, man. Frogs are the shit.

2006-10-06T21:29:00.000-05:00

I missed my first class of the semester today. Why?

Because I slipped on some stairs and landed on my tailbone, effectively making it impossible to sit or lay, stand, walk, run, or bend.

2006-09-03T20:35:00.000-05:00

The Infamous Pants-Falling-Down Story

I started this blog with hints at this story, and I think it's finally time to tell it. It's one of many moments from middle school that would have been memorable, if I hadn't repressed so many of them.

When I started going to public school, we had lockers, but we weren't allowed to use them any time except before and after school, and before and after lunch. In sixth grade, when we had lunch 7th period, this was pretty damn inconvenient--everyone had to carry the three-ring binder they required us to use, plus all of our textbooks and any supplies we would need for any class. Last class before lunch was band, all the about as far from our lockers as you could get in the building.

When I started going to public school, it also marked the first time we didn't have to wear uniforms. It took until about 7th or 8th grade before I got into big, baggy t-shirts, but I definitely wore big pants then. But no belt. I just hitched them up. (I still do it, because it's hard to find pants that fit my thighs and aren't huge in the waist.)

One day, walking back from band, I kept having to hitch them up with all my books in one hand and my clarinet case in the other. Not an easy feat, as you will see. The hallways were packed as everyone changed classes, and my pants just wouldn't stay around my hips. But my books were falling! About 100 feet from my locker, my books dropped. So did my jeans.

And, as is always the case when you are in middle school, 0mg0sh the boy I had a <3crush<3 on was RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-09-03T20:20:00.000-05:00

I was really into newsboy caps before they got popular. I bought them from K-mart, and wore them, and looked fabulous... or as fabulous as one can look as a chubby 15-year-old wearing big glasses and an old man's hat.

My cousins, brother and I went bowling one afternoon, and I wore the hat. Naturally. And my cousin Patrick--who must have been about 8 at the time--insisted that I unbutton the little button that holds the brim to the folded-forward part of the hat. See?
"You're buttoning the LUCK!" he kept shouting at me if I tried to fix it. "You're BUTTONING the LUCK!" (I'm sure the button-status of my hat made all the difference when I bowled a 60 that game. Awesome.)

A few lanes over were 3 boys who must have been deaf. They were signing to one another, which absolutely fascinated Patrick.

"WHAT ARE THEY DOING?"

At least they couldn't hear him, I guess. But everyone else within 4 lanes certainly could. "Pat, that's sign language. You use it to talk to someone when they're deaf."

He watched them for a few frames. When I sat down next to him, he asked, "What does this mean??" He flailed.

"I don't know, Pat, I don't know sign language."

"Why do they keep looking OVER here???"

"I don't know."

My next turn to bowl came.

"THEY THINK YOU'RE HOT!"

2006-08-25T16:58:00.000-05:00

Genetically awkward-- now I have an excuse.

My family and I were at the Jersey Shore yesterday, and set up in front of us was a family with a baby who was about 3 years old. He was all chubbly and chatty and sitting in this little beach chair trying to open an empty bottle of water. My mom leans over.

"There's a cutie for ya, Kate."
"I know, with his little beach chair!"
"Not the baby!"

So I look past this family.

"Mom, that kid is, like, sixteen!"
"Oh, are you sure?"
"Mom, he doesn't have any body hair."
"Oh."

As for the genetic aspect, I can't decide whether I should be relieved that there is an excuse for my awkwardness, or depressed because it's biological and unchangeable.

2006-07-17T11:03:00.000-05:00

Apparently, I've been given, not one, but TWO good dog names in my life. And they have made for some sufficiently awkward conversations.

In 6th grade, I switched from St. Isidore's, which ran K-8, to the public school system. Even though I was scared shitless, I made a friend the first day. She said she liked my frog shirt, and I said I liked her blue dress with pink fuzzy trim. Her step-brother threw up in homeroom. The first time this friend and I talked on the phone, as I was telling her who-remembers-what, she snapped, "Katie, be quiet!"

...

"Oh, sorry, my dog's name is Katy." Actually, since her dog and I spelled our names differently (if a dog can spell, which it can't), my friend pretty much never spelled my name correctly, in the entire time that we knew eachother.

So, then I went to high school, blah blah blah, got into college, played 7s with the GW team, and earned myself the nickname Lucky. Gosh. Everybody and their mom knows somebody with a dog named Lucky.

This summer, when I went over to Mary Emma's to have an SVU party, her friends all wanted to know why her dog was at her apartment in DC. Then, she told me that when the dog comes to rugby games and hears someone call me on the field, it perks up and yips. I've got a dog name!

To top it all off, this morning as I walked to work, I passed a man with a dalmatian. "Come on, Lucky," he said after passing me. Great! Not only is it a name for a dog, it's a name for a fire dog so inbred that it can't even see.

2006-06-24T22:35:00.000-05:00

I was recounting this story today, and decided it might be an appropriate story of awkwardness.

Sometimes when I do homework, I like to lay on the floor; it's something I did before I went away to school, and that I had enough space to do this year. I'd just lay behind my desk, next to the couch, halfway into the kitchen. A nice spot.

One afternoon, I laid down on my floor to do some homework, and left the door open. We do that in college. People walked in and out of our room a lot.

I was pretty tired; it happens! So, I dozed off. On the floor. Face in statistics book.

Sometimes when I turn my head a certain way in my sleep, I drool. This was one of those times.

I woke up because my neighbor was trying to unlock his door, but was too busy laughing at me.

2006-06-19T19:48:00.000-05:00

Class, today we discuss the concept of mutual awkwardness. This phenomenon occurs wherever two relatively awkward lines intersect. See this example:

Mutual awkwardness at the DMV...

I had to get my photo retaken for my new driver's license while I was home. When they called my number, I walked up to the counter and handed my old ID and my photo card to the guy sitting there.

"Ms. Bolton, any relation to a Michael Bolton?"

Ok, I'm at the DMV, where my father and brother--both of whom are named Michael--do all their driver's license hoo-ha. Maybe he saw their name one time and thought it was a funny coincidence.

"Yeah, actually."

Blank stare.

Shit. How am I supposed to alleviate this awkward situation?

"Well, I mean, not the singer. My dad and brother are both... named..."

Blank stare.

It would seem that the awkwardness of one person, when in combination with the awkwardness of a second person, does not in fact double the situational awkwardness; it increases it by an exponent of two. In formula form:

AWK_katie x AWK_other = (AWK_sit)² = PCA

Where AWK_katie is a constant rate of awkwardness, AWK_other is a measurable quantity based on the other's degree of awkwardness, and (AWK_sit)² is the square of the two variables multiplied, resulting in an extreme Perceived Level of Awkwardness, or PCA. Consult your textbooks for further examples.

Class dismissed.

2006-06-12T19:39:00.000-05:00

So, one million apologies for not having publicized my awkwardness recently. It's been a crazy summer of moving back and forth between DC and Pennsylvania. So, I guess I'll put out a newer story and an older one.

For my birthday, I met some friends at a restaurant in DuPont Circle, and I brought the leftover birthday cake my parents brought along when I moved back down to the city the previous weekend.

I have this dysfunction---whenever I get off at a metro stop with more than one exit to different streets (ie Metro Center, Farragut West, and in this case DuPont Circle) I inevitably take the wrong side. Always. I have to leave early to allow time to wander around on the street looking for the exit I was SUPPOSED to use. Anyway, I got off on the wrong side and had to cross the circle with a cake in my arms. Despite being in plastic bags, it's still pretty obvious that it was a cake. In DuPont, there are a lot of homeless people that I had to pass with this cake.

On the other side, as I walked down Connecticut Avenue, a homeless man stepped in front of me. Already distracted at being late and disoriented from using the wrong exit, I was trying to be inconspicuous with this cake in my arms. "Hey, baby," said the man in front of me, "Can I have a piece?"

"Uhhhh... I don't have a knife." And then I ran like hell for the restaurant.

And, to compensate for my laziness, here's another awkward moment.

One day in April, on my lunch break from work, I went to get a Jamba Juice. I was trying to compensate for the fact that Jamba wouldn't be in J Street next year by drinking it about eight times a week. They started using your Gworld to enter your name on the receipt, so rather than yell "Strawberries Wild!!!" they could call "Florence!" and Flo would come get her Jamba.

Anyway, before I handed the cashier my Gworld, she started typing in my name. Wow!!! "I'm like a Jamba regular," I thought excitedly. But instead of Kathryn, she entered Katie, a name she would never have known unless...

I was wandering around campus with my nametag on from work. The one that says my name, where I'm from, and that I'm an ADMISSIONS ASSISTANT.

Well done, I say. I promise to be more diligent, and consistently awkward, in the future!

2006-05-20T05:31:00.000-05:00

An IM from Anna:

"i'm just going to share something funny with you: (the lead-up) i was just reading your blog and i read the first one where you mentioned some past awkward moments, (the funny thing) when i read the part about your trousers, i thought to myself "oh my gosh! that did really happen!" (the explanation) not to make you feel any more awkward, but i was there when that happened, and after all these years, i had convinced myself that it was a figment of my imagination and was always too scared to ask you. :-) have a spectacular night."

2006-05-15T17:08:00.000-05:00

I'm an awkward runner.

My apologies---I'm too cheap to pay for the pictures, so I can't actually upload them. It happens. But check out that intense, tongue-is-too-big-for-mouth powerwalking face. I was running, no matter what it looks like.

**EDIT**
My CF (or to those of you who don't go to GW, my RA) just came by to ask my neighbors a question, but none of them were around. So, in other words, he busted me sitting by myself in the dark, listening to "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and doing WebSudoku.

2006-05-14T09:52:00.000-05:00

It rained Thursday night.

I went out to Tenleytown to meet a family that I'll be babysitting for all summer, if I find a job to pay for me to exist. (For any of these place names to make sense, I guess check out a Metro map. I started at Foggy Bottom, blue and orange lines. All other locations are on the Red line.)

When I left Foggy Bottom, it wasn't raining. By the time I got all the way to Tenleytown, it was friggin' biblical, just a torrential downpour. I met the family and wasn't unbearably awkward, I hope, because that would be a different story.

Afterward, Liz's friend Jacqui dropped me off afterwards at the Tenleytown metro. It was lightly drizzling. So, I thought, fuck it. Why should I go all the way to Metro Center to wait 10 minutes to transfer, when I could just get off at DuPont Circle and walk to campus in 10 minutes anyway?

Oh, probably because when I actually did exit the Metro at DuPont, it was another biblical, torrential downpour. It was raining so hard that by the time I was remotely close to campus, I couldn't even see where I was, and I was soaked completely through.

I took the elevator to my floor, because who wants to climb the stairs in wet pants? Of course, I turn down the hallway and at the end, their door is open, and everyone in the room is staring at me. No hello, no why are you so wet, just the scornful look you give THAT girl. I wasn't halfway across the floor of my own room when Lisa calls from next door that Cory--who hasn't spoken more than 10 words all year, I think--declared "Well, that was awkward."

Apparently I'm an awkward blogger as well, because I was typing this and I went to take a sip out of a cup of water that's sitting by my desk. Did I say water? I meant warm lemonade and vodka. Gross.

2006-05-11T01:44:00.000-05:00

As though my last post couldn't get more awkward...

Liz suggested that maybe the Admissions Counselor was "a weirdo" because, of all places to fart, the bathroom is probably the least offensive. Granted.

Well, actually, her words were something more like, blah blah blah "when you farted in the bathroom" blah blah blah. And some guy walking past us on the street turned around to stare.

Happy birthday, Liz. Thanks for commenting, and making me look awkward on campus

2006-05-10T00:31:00.000-05:00

I've debated exactly how I want to format this... whether I should focus on past incidents of awkwardness, or detail my daily doings in all their awkward glory. Lisa is my roommate; she says that telling recent stories proves that my awkwardness is "ever-present and ongoing." She must be right; she used big words! Here goes.

I can't be the only person who hates public bathrooms. I just don't like listening to other people pee! Anyway, today at work* I was in the bathroom, taking a crap. It happens, it's natural, please get over it. Unlike my usual bathroom breaks, though, someone was in the next stall. So, I finish my business and suddenly, I fart. It is loud. I'm sure the toilet bowl amplifies it. Natural, okay, but embarrassing nonetheless. Of course, as I'm flushing, the person in the next stall flushes too.

Shit. (Figuratively, this time.)

Maybe they didn't hear it. Maybe they don't care, because it's a bathroom, after all. Maybe they won't wash their hands! Oh, God, I need some way to waste 45 seconds without leaving the stall!!! There's nothing. I can't waste any more time, or I'll look more awkward, if that's even possible.

At the sinks, arguably the friendliest admissions director doesn't even look at me. She doesn't say hello, doesn't acknowledge that I even exist. I am a methane-pumping, silence-breaking freak. And I'm working there for another week after finals end.

But don't worry, I've been much more awkward; wait and see.

*I have an awkward job: I work for the Admissions Office, and they like to have me do a lot of electronic filing. I'm too awkward for customer service.

2006-05-09T14:41:00.000-05:00

I'm awkward. A lot of people say that, but they don't really mean it. They mean "quirky" or "silly" or maybe "embarrassingly drunk." No way, people. Right out of the dictionary:

awk·ward (ôkwrd)adj.

Marked by or causing embarrassment or discomfort: an awkward remark; an awkward silence.

Welcome to my life. In 6th grade, my pants fell down in the hallway. In 12th, my mother told me it was "okay to like boys." I'm really good at laughing at myself; why not share it with the world?