Rant: Class of Who Cares.

Oh, dang, it's a rant.

Subject: High School Reunions.

I don't really understand the concept of reunions.

Firstly, 2008 was not that long ago. Therefore, no reunion is necessary. Nothing significant has happened in the last four years that would need sharing.

Secondly, what the hell is the point?

Idealists say: "Ooooh, it's for reuniting with your buddies from high school and sharing how much you've grown and how much you've accomplished!"

This is how I see it:

You leave each other for an indeterminate amount of time, usually about 5 to 10 years––something most people are almost crawling out of their skin to do, despite the tearful good-bye's at graduation.

Then, someone gets the idea of summoning you all back from remote corners of the world, only to have half the people show up. There are, also, the inevitable few who are forgotten, who find out about it after the fact. (These people end up being serial killers.)

After being badgered into going by high school "friends" who then leave you dry by not actually going, you don your semi-formal attire and meet in the smelly gymnasium to which fond memories of sweating like a pig are attached.

Then, when you're all drinking cheap wine and "socializing," meaning bragging about what you've accomplished (most of which are lies) or what you're going to do in the near future, you find out unsavory things about your classmates:

- Who has married who, which never really interested you anyway, since being married this early usually spells disaster.

- Who died. That's a really inspiring topic.

- Who's in jail or has gone off the deep end, the only topic of any interest at all, since you had bets on who would tank when you were still roped together as a unit.

- Who's made it in the world, which only makes you realize how little you've accomplished.

Then, after three hours of awkward half-conversations and way too much wine, you realize you hated all of these people anyway.

Of course, I didn't always think like this. 

When I was in high school, the thought of a high school reunion was a happy thing!

I would come back and everyone will have changed significantly, and they'd all be mature and more well-rounded.

You see, then I went to college, and I kept my F*cebook. After four years, I went back and browsed through the photos of those people I knew in high school.

Turns out, they haven't changed at all.

The drunks are even more drunk, the stoners are now hipster stoners, girls who were morally aligned are now skanks,  the skanks are wearing even less clothing and more spray on tan than they used to, and the geeks have leveled up into basement dwelling, blue-skinned WoW freaks who don't shower.

It's a crying shame. Well, not really. I'm not terribly surprised by this. Disappointed, but not surprised.

Of course, there are the select few who redeem the class, but those types generally avoid reunions or go for a short time to humor those who threw it.

Personally, I hope to end up in the "forgotten" category. I don't want the guilt of having to refuse a reunion of a class comprised of loathsome people.

So, if you hear a story about how a woman in Kansas snapped and there was a recent high school reunion followed by mass murder, then you know what happened.

Bleh. It seems like when I start these rants I know exactly where I'm going, but by the end, my brain shorts out, gets bored and whines about doing something else.

I'm going to go to bed now. This has been entirely too pointless and unnecessarily negative. But, a rant is a rant.

Peace off.

The Urge to be Emo

Well, I was sitting here, trolling around the internet, and I had the overwhelming impulse to do something exquisitely emo.


I'm not sure if this is left over emo-sediment from my Freshman year of college, or if I'm just massively hormonal, but occasionally, I just want to do something really, really emo.


Like:

Or 

Level of Emo.

Really emo...

Usually, my first inclination is to post a really angsty Facebook status like:


"Life sucks and guess what? You'll never measure up, and most of the time, no one will care about your lost hopes."
(I actually just made that up as I was typing this...)


But I have the feeling that 98% of my friends would give me that look that House gets when he thinks someone is really stupid. 

That one. 

BUT.

I also don't want other people, who don't really know me, to go:  

 OMG, I tuutally no how u feal. 

Which would be unavoidably followed by their own terrible story.

Which usually has to do with their parents being an unbearable burden because they wouldn't buy them a car only drug lords can afford.

Or because they wouldn't let them go out and ruin their lives by drinking enough to kill a 300 pound Irishman.

That foofaraw is a whole lot more annoying than people frowning at me, as if I told them all my organs had liquified due to my raw, untamed despair.

It's similar to having someone rub their hand on my unshaven legs––against the grain. 

Emo statuses also have a tendency to worry people unnecessarily. 

Especially when the cause of the distress probably had to do with the fact that A. ) I didn't get to shower that morning. Or B.) I got an 95% on a test and not a 100%. (Yeah, I'm THAT kind of person.)

So, because I don't want to be THAT person––at least not publicly––I don't ever post emo statuses. 

Though, I still have the itch to do something that reeks of teen angst and self-pity. 

My next consideration is to post a super emo photo of myself. 

I figure that a really blurry, high contrast self-portrait will properly alert people to my inner distress.

It would probably look something like this:

[Yes, this is another actual photo of me...]

In my head, my "truly emo" image evokes the same emotion as this: 

[Photo copyright to rockthenations]

But, in reality, to everyone else, I just look like this:

So, I don't post emo pictures of myself either. 

Do any other people have these urges? 

If you do, What do you do with them?! 

I'm completely at a loss. 

My only other option, aside from the ones above, is to sit in my room, in the dark, playing Red Jumpsuit Apparatus or Evanescence, and writing angsty poetry about the wittle mousey I saw get run over on my way to work.

And that is right out. 

If I did, all my hair would turn black, I'd have the urge to get myself pierced in unspeakable places, but even worse, I'd want to listen to Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber. (I've really got nothing against the Beibs, in reality.)

Bah.

BAH, I say.

Generally, when I get the feeling to be emo, I sit there and stare at the computer screen, wondering if I should purge my font of emo feelings or if I should squelch them under a large boulder of denial.

Or I go watch crime shows. 

Because hearing about other people's misfortune satisfies the darkness in my soooooul.

[Not really.]

Well, my angstiness has passed and I don't know what else to write. 

Peace off. 

Rant: No, You're Not...

Recently, I've had this horrible fever... I think I've got a rant coming on.

Subject: Facebook Profile Pictures*
*Yes, this is totally relevant to life. 


All right.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one this happens to, but occasionally, I'll get random friend requests from people from other countries.

Never met or heard of any of these people in my life.

However, I don't mind this!

In fact, I think it's kinda cool that someone has gone out of their way to find me amid all the other 743 million other Kate's out there.

What I DO mind is when the people that find me are:

1.) 30 years older than I am.

2.) Send me creepy messages.

and, the most irritating, 3.) Don't have a real profile picture.

100% of the people who have found me on Facebook, who aren't directly linked to me through a friend or mutual educational facility the government calls "school," usually satisfy at least ONE of these three things.

Usually, the ones who fall under 1.) and 2.) slide quietly under the table.

I delete their message, pretending I never saw it, much like the way I react to seeing people making out in public or animals copulating with wild abandon.

It's the people who don't have real profile pictures that get me.

I can understand hiding your age on your profile or your important information.

You don't want people to know you're a 50 year old creeper with no wife or job. I get that.

But when you don't put up a photo of yourself?

That's just too much.

Why do you think they call it Facebook, you ignorant buffoon?

Who really cares if you're balding, overweight, and have a chinbeard?

That will just make the rejection process quicker, so you can go creep on other people!

....

Okay, okay.

If you choose not to put anything up as your photo and you keep it the blue and white person silhouette, that's all right.

There's hope there that you might one day pluck up the courage to show your hideous face.

HOWEVER.

There is one thing that will never be acceptable to me!

Cartoon/Animal. Profile. Pictures.

Daaaaaaaaaah!

...

I do understand that you don't want your identity known.

If you didn't want your identity known, then don't get a Facebook.

Troll: But Kaaaaate, what are we supposed to do when someone needs to get a hold of us.

Well, have you ever heard of:

~ Phones?

~ E-mail?

~ Letters?

~ Skype?

With the technology today, there is no lack of communication.

There are so many different ways that you can tell the person what they need to know.

Besides, how are the people going to know how to get a hold of you, if they don't know who you are?

Troll: But Kaaaate, how are our friends supposed to get our email/number if they have no way of contacting us?

Well, then they're not very good friends, now are they? 

Someone should have your information somewhere. 

There was communication before Facebook. 

I'm getting sidetracked! 

The point is: Animals/Characters as your profile picture is unacceptable. 

It's tacky. 

I mean, it not only makes you look shady, but it also gives an insight into your psyche, which sometimes is not the most savory information to be forcibly given. 

Listen up, N00b.

You're not a Disney Princess, you're not an assassin from a video game, you're not an Anime character, and you most certainly aren't a tiger's head photoshopped to a squirrel's body. 

-grumble-

You may disagree.

But, you know what? 

I don't care.

I'm done with this rant. 

Peace off.

Dinosaurs are More Dangerous in Kansas

My boyfriend was in D.C. on the March for Life to defend the babies and he texted me during the middle of the afternoon.

Fuzzle: Hey, I miss you. I've been really worried about you today...

Being in Nowheresville, Kansas, cause for worry remains low, unless there is a possibility of tornado or a wheat eating pestilence.

Kate: What? Why would you be worried? Nothing happens here.

I expected him to send something like, "Well, being away from you makes me anxious" or some cheesy line like, "But I'm not there, so I have to worry, 'cause you're my Katiekins."

His response:

Fuzzle: A dinosaur might eat you...

Now I remember why I agreed to date him.

Because he's awesome.
_____________

OH! And recently I drew a comic of this little conversation.

Let me assure you, everything you see before you is exactly how it happened.

I swear.

Click it. You're not going to be able to read it from that size. 

Peace off.

Is He Staring? He's Totally Staring.

Last night, when I was watching crime shows and waiting for Fuzzle to text me and tell me he hadn't died on his way back home, I started thinking about human behaviors.

Specifically, high school behaviors.

In my opinion, high school as a whole is just one large awkwardness painfully stretched over four years, morphing through phases and changing shapes like a chameleon on steroids.

Well, while I was reflecting on said awkwardness, I started to wonder about something I saw in my own unsightly behavior.

I don't know if anyone else  had this problem, but during my entire high school career, I was hyper conscious of anyone looking at me.

Whenever saw––or even thought––someone was looking at me, my brain would convulse and release a deluge of questions, which usually ran along the lines of:

Oh my gosh! They're looking at me, does that mean they're thinking about me? What are they thinking about? Should I look back? What if I make eye contact? Then, I'll have to smile. I hate smiling at people because I don't want them to know that I'm looking at them. If they know I'm looking at them, then they'll think I'm thinking about them, and I'm not thinking about them, or at least I don't want them to know I'm thinking about them.  

[tl;dr] version: Oh, shit. Why?

Which would release adrenaline that would make my face flush involuntarily, most likely making people think that I had wet myself or some other embarrassment.

Of course, it was even worse when it came to boys, especially boys I liked at the time.

It was like my awkwardness had been forcibly given Speed and then sent to play with children with ADHD.

Whenever a boy even shot me a cursory glance or accidentally looked my direction after he turned around to talk check if his boxers were showing, it would feel like this:

Or like this:

Rather than register his glance as something normal, my neurons would misfire and interpret it as a secret devotion or overflowing love just waiting to break loose.

So, then I would fawn like a dog over this boy for the next couple weeks until I realized that they didn't even know I existed.

My ridiculousness makes me think of Helena from Midsummer Night's Dream.

"I am your spaniel; And, Demetrius, the more you beat me, I will fawn on you!" (Shakespeare 1.2.Something). [I did that from memory. Ooooh, yeah.]

I was such an embarrassment.

"Uuaagh, oh, [boy of interest's name], without you I'll just diiiiiiiie!" (Not Shakespeare).

But, after I healed from the wounds of my own self-delusion, the process would inevitably restart when some other poor sap would, in misplaced politeness, bless me when I sneezed. 

I'm sure other people had this same problem, but probably not through their entire high school career. 

I'm really not surprised that I never had a boyfriend until I got to college, but you all know what a horrible failure that was also. [See Not So Tragic Love Life of Kate Awkward Parts One and Two]

Well, at least until this year. 

I luh you, Fuzzle. 

I think I can name pretty much all of the boys that I was interested in throughout those four years, albeit in no particular order.

For their dignity, I will not put last names.

1.) Kyle

2.) Jared

3.) Adam

4.) Jantzen

5.) Eddie

6.) Jeff

7.) Bryan

8.) Dave

9.) Colin

10.) Jason

11.) Casey

12.) Matt

13.) Matt

14.) Matt (Yes, they're all different.)

15.) Andrew

16.) Johnny

17.) Chris

18.) Andrew

19.) Kyle

20.) Louis, fondly known as Lucy.

21.) Adam

22.) Stevie

23.) Sean

23.) Blake

24.) Kerry

25.) Kevin

26.) Kyle (They were triplets.)

27.) Tyler

28.) Trey

Yes, I'm that flighty. No, I'm not making it up. No, none of them were repeated and I'm sure there were more. 

I'm sure some of you, if anyone is reading this, are wondering, "Did you talking to any of them??"

The answer is no. 

That would require me to have a spine. 

Let me give you an example of a typical Katie-Guy conversation. 

Boy: Hey, Katie.

Katie: What? Oh! He-hey, there!

Boy: What's up?

Katie: Oh, nothingreally, justyouknow, waitingforclasstostartandjustsncnbdjsfjdhgbxmncjvdfh.

Boy: Wh-what'd you say?

Katie: Nothing! How'reyou?

Boy: Good. Thanks.

(awkward pause)

Boy: Soooo, what class are you going to?

Katie: Uuuuuh, World History... NO! (high-pitched giggle) Sorry, that's tomorrow. I have Acting 2.

Boy: Cool. See you.

Katie: See ya! 

Oh, the shame. 

So, clearly there would be no reason for me to talk to them because I would only end up making myself look like a caffeinated squirrel trapped in a human's body.

BUT. 

I grew up and I can talk to people normally now.

So, there is hope for all you awkward people out there!

If I were to give you any advice on getting out of this little rut, it would be: 

Don't watch early morning cartoons on WB and actually go out and talk to people.

Okay, that's all I got. 

I'm Kate Awkward and I approve this message.

Peace off.

The Not so Tragic Love Life of Kate Awkward: Part 2

[This post was previously published in mid-March, but was deleted. However, because the author is a violent hypocrite, she decided to repost it.]


This is a continuum of Part 1. If you haven't read the first installment, I would suggest you do so now.

If you've already witness the unappealing horror of that portion, then fear not. This one won't be quite as painful.

Though, by proxy, it will also be less funny. My apologies for not being able to drown everything in my insatiable wit.

All of the following is still basically true. The names of those unfortunate souls involved are still changed for the sake of their dignity, save for Kate's. She can still reap the failure she has sown.

Now.

As you might recall, Emo-Girl had just destroyed Goldfish's heart, but more importantly his lungs, since clearly she was the only thing stopping him from his consumptive smoking addiction.

With these heavy thoughts weighing on her soul, her feelings could only be described by this:

 [Photo copyrighted to Mr. Mark]

Unsure how to cope, she sought consolation in the psychopath, which, at the time, seemed better than melting despairingly into the purple shag carpet in her dorm room.

That same day, to aid her distressed caretaker, psychopath devised a brilliant plan:

Go find boys.

Fail el Numero Dos: Octopus

Since neither psychopath nor Emo-Girl were capable of sustaining real friendships with guys without either jumping down their throats about relationships or frightening them, they decided throw their unsightly presence on Corgill, the current love interest to psychopath, and his best friend, Octopus.

At first the plan seemed like one of worth, but rebound was a foreign concept to Emo-Girl.

In terms of taste, Corgill was more to her liking since he was cynical, theatrical, and an asshole but he was psychopath's turf.

Emo-Girl knew never to tread on psychopaths turf. Otherwise:

Which usually resulted in:

So, rather than have her spleen melted by sheer feminine rage, she turned her flighty attention to Octopus.

Due to her dramatic expulsion earlier, Emo-Girl's emotional endurance had withered considerably, so she allowed the Fates to take her where they pleased.

They took her into a Nerf-Gun battle.

Armed and dangerous [mostly to herself], Emo-Slinger fought valiantly against her adversary.

Octopus, despite his squishy, somewhat harmless name, was a fortress of a person.

He could be likened to a sentient oak tree on steroids.

He was agile, resourceful, calculating.

And he cheated.

Rather than stay in the fray like a real man, he used the safety of Corgill's room as a hideout.

All Emo-Girl had was a stool.

She did her very best to keep from having to surrender, but lack of ammunition and fear of entering enemy territory to retrieve some caused her to issue a ceasefire.

He stopped his barrage, but he was wary of her guile, since she had proved to be crafty when she feigned injury in order to get a cheap shot.

Psychopath, being ignored by Corgill, decided that she wanted to enlist in the warfare.

At last, Emo-Girl had an ally. She and her stool wouldn't have to fly solo any longer against Octopus Cheatermobile.

Ammunition was redistributed and the onslaught began again.

It seemed to be going well until

she was betrayed by psychopath. 

Confused and distressed by this, Emo-Girl stood up and faced her confederate. 

While she gawked, Octopus took his chance and resumed the skirmish.

Being shot at on both sides, Lieutenant Emo knew that her abilities as a Nerf gun-wielding soldier would not suffice. The best she could do was hide in the bathroom and hope they got bored waiting for her to come out.

As a last show of courage, she surrendered. 

<Due to the poor memory of the author, the rest of the night has been omitted for fear of falsifying details and because she can't honesty remember a dillydamned thing after this point.>

Emo-Girl laid in her bed, listening to quiet, angsty music and ruminating on her encounter with Octopus.

He had provided her with the first night of true, unhindered fun since she befriended the psychopath.

It was nice. It made her soul feel less black, like someone had sprinkled glitter into her murky, churning soup of melancholy. 

It was as if her soul had transformed from this:

Into this:

[Image copyright to Dragon Faerie]

However, Emo-Girl was more tentative to declare her feelings for Octopus as deathless love, since her feelings for Goldfish weren't as unconditional as she had pretended they were. 

Though, Octopus appeared to be a better candidate for her spastic, unstable affections than Goldfish. He was going to college (albeit community college) and had a job.

The Hunt was on again. 

She began by stalking finding him and talking over Facebook Chat because clearly Emo-Girl didn't learn from her first mistake. 

Facebook moved to Instant Messenger, which moved to text messaging, and finally to phone calls. [If you're not having violent de ja vu, your brain capacity is equal to that of a ground squirrel. Offense should be taken and hate mail should be sent.]

Though, unlike last time, the more they talked the more she liked him. She didn't have to force her feelings like she was eating unrefrigerated week old trout.

Another exquisite difference: they were able to have conversations about more than three subjects, which secured that Octopus had more than 4 firing neurons. She even was bold enough to believe that he had at least 30 that were continually working.

However, the magical, intelligent goodness that they shared was in grave danger.

Psychopath had turned her fickle attentions to Octopus, since Corgill had made it very apparent that there was nothing between them.

Now, due to unspoken [crazy] women laws, she expected Emo-Girl to bow out.

Emo-Girl knew this, but apparently she had a death wish.

Since, when psychopath liked a creature of the male species, no other female could even daydream about him without disastrously infringing on her rights.

But, Emo-Face continued to talk to Octopus secretly at her own peril.

Of course, because Emo-Girl couldn't lie to save her life and her sneaking skills were somewhat like walking on tile in a pair of lead flippers, she was found out fairly quickly.

You can guess what happened next:

Emo-Girl however did not, however, implode into panicked, fearful spasms of remorse and servitude.

She continued on her merry way, ignoring the fire-breathing psychopath that was intent on singeing her eyebrows off.

Eventually, after it was again made clear that she would have no luck, psychopath stopped drinking liquid flames and turned her attentions elsewhere. However,

 resentment festered.

[If you're not notably unsettled by this, you do not understand the monstrosity that is psychopath's wrath.]

<Fast Forward through the boring parts, which consist mostly of drama inducing IM conversations. To avoid boring you further, I will skip directly to the most exciting part, which by nature will quickly turn to the most horrific. You're welcome.>

It was a lovely autumn day. The weather was the kind of weather that was perfect for going on outdoor adventures, having magical experiences with the glories of nature. 

Emo-Girl, on the other hand, was:

-sitting in her room

-by herself

-trolling on the 1nt3rn3tz

-with all the lights off

...because that's how she rolled.

She was obviously a creature of the night.

However, despite her penchant to be vampirically antisocial, she knew something was wrong. 

She had not see icon nor screen name of Octopus all day. 

She was beginning to think that something entirely horribly had happened to him, like a herd of venomous deer with lightning for horns had caught him on his way to work and convinced him to join a nudist colony. 

Or worse. 

A Jehovah's Witness might have shown up at his door and given him pamphlet's about "Global Warming" which were really just thin disguises for their religious sect.

With these tantalizing prospects hanging over her head, she felt her fears had been realized when she was startled by psychopath's unmistakable panicked knocking on her door.

But when she answered, nothing was wrong. 

In fact, psychopath seemed to be eager for something.

Emo-Girl was bewildered. 

She went back to what she was doing, trying not to let psychopath's antics derail her from her very important fretting.

Then her phone rang, which startled her into more terror induced phantasms. 

At least until she saw who it was.

It was Octopus!

Her fears allayed, she answered the phone. 

They had some nice small talk, but then the conversation took a strange turn.

Kate: So, what's up?

Octopus: I... I don't think we can hang out over break.

What could this horrible omen mean for their wonderful future involving comic drawing children?

Stunned, Emo-Girl felt herself spiraling into anguish. 

Kate: Wh-what? Whyyy?

Octopus: 'Cause I'd much rather just go on a date with you.

Emo-Girl could not compute. 

Her brain had crashed and was now issuing the blue screen of death. 

Kate: Wah-... buh- Uuuaaaaaaaaht?! 

Octopus: Yeah, would you be up for it?

Kate: Wha- cuh- ffff, yes! I mean- shyeah, I'd really like that!

Octopus: Great!

Since Time is run by an ornery five year old with a temper problem, the night of the date arrived slower than Emo-Girl would've liked.

But it arrived. 

After much hassle with Emo-Girl's crippling indecision, the two had decided to go out to dinner and then to a movie.

The date started off well.

But then, they pulled into the restaurant.

<insert DOOM>

Emo-Girl had this notion that she was self-sufficient.

But when she went to exercise it by opening her door to get out of the car, Octopus nearly had a conniption and insisted that he get it for her.

She felt that she was perfectly capable of pulling on a handle and then pushing a door open.

Octopus was argued that it was the principle of the matter.

Emo-Girl was not convinced, but she ceded, not because he was right, but because he locked the passenger side door and would not unlock it unless she agreed to let him open it for her.

Opening doors from the inside was another skill that eluded Emo-Girl.

The date resumed normalcy until it came time to pay. 

As you can guess, Emo-Girl wanted to pay for herself. 

Octopus acted as if she had stabbed him and dumped salt in his open wound after which she lit on fire and laughed maliciously to organ music. 

Emo-Girl did not [and still does not] understand the courtesy of accepting people's generosity. She felt it was the same as indirectly enslaving someone to do her bidding. 

It also undermined her inner masculinity and frustrated her minute testosterone levels.

[Feast your eyes on her manliness. That poor creature next to Emo-Girl is her kid sister, Sqwaunkie.]

So, she insisted that she pay for herself.

However, when the waiter came around, he agreed with Octopus to have the tabs combined.

He didn't even consider Emo-Girl's unreasonable dilemma before he went then back to his business.

The silly girl-child was put out. 

So, in watered down feminist revenge, she paid for her own movie ticket and hid twenty dollars in his car while he wasn't looking.

She was so pleased by her rebellion that she didn't make a fuss for the rest of the evening.

She even let Octopus hold her hand during the movie. 

When they got out of their deeply romantic film [Bolt], it was still early in the night and Emo-Girl wasn't ready to part with her Mildly Chauvinistic Cashier.

Kate: So, whatcha wanna do now?

Octopus: Well, I don't have to have you home until 12:30, so what do you want to do?

Emo-Girl had another bout of immobilizing indecision to which she asked:

Kate: Why? Why do you do this to me?

Octopus: Because it's easy. 

Kate: ...

Octopus: Seriously, what do you want to do?

[Scott Pilgrim copyright to Bryan Lee O'Malley]

Kate: Well, we could go talk somewhere... Like a parking lot or something, since nothing will be open. 

Emo-Girl was not an avid watcher of horror films so she didn't realize her suggestion was somewhat abominable. 

But, despite her inability to sense a murder scene, they went and sat in the parking lot near her place of employment. [The only reason Emo-Girl had a job was because her father owned a business. Not because she had skill. Don't be preposterous.]

So, the talking commenced as they sat in his car. 

Suddenly, Octopus leaned across the seat and laid his head on her arm, which was laying unobtrusively on the armrest of the passenger seat. 

Emo-Girl was perplexed.

Men were still a foreign species to her and her lesson with Goldfish did not increase her knowledge in any respect other than what to avoid in the future.

She wondered if this was the beginning of the male mating ritual, since there was clearly no other reason to lean almost a foot and a half over in a car onto a female's left arm. 

With this in her mind, she had to decide what to do.

The three four choices from before surfaced in her mind, since she had no other point of reference and her teen fiction romance novels had failed her in every instance in the past.

But she quickly cast them aside because they didn't really apply in this situation (save for "Make Babies," but she felt that 'doing it' in a car was entirely undignified). 

She devised a new list of ways to react: 

1.) Ask what the hell he's doing.

2.) Spontaneously grow a third arm out of her sternum and poke his exposed ear.

3.) Pat his head.

Even though she preferred the second, she picked the last and gently tapped his head with her fingers, noting that his hair felt like what she imagined a goat would feel like. 

Though, upon actually feeling a goat at Zona Rosa, she was aghast at the horrible coarseness and realized that boy hair was nothing like it. 

Goats aside, Emo-Girl, unsure how to react further past the head pat, suggested that they go sit in the back seat, so they could talk better.

Unsurprisingly, this didn't occur to her as strange either, nor did it spark her inner "horror" detector. 

Octopus was not adverse to this suggestion, but he made sure to ask if she was comfortable with that.

The moderately dim poser didn't understand [or denied] what he could mean, so she responded with affirmations between bouts of nervous laughter.

They sat in the back of the car exchanging their past love stories, to which Emo-Girl grossly exaggerated her own, pretending that Goldfish was more like a telephone post than a hoers.

The conversation lulled after a while, since neither of the two of them had much of a romantic past. 

Suddenly, as if a storm cloud had taken up residence in the car with them, tension spiked to an electric level. 

Emo-Girl's fountain of hormones began to rush as if someone had stabbed her in the uterus, releasing a wave of womanly passions.

Octopus seemed to feel it too.  

Octopus: May I ask you something?

Kate: Yeahsurewhatsup?

Octopus: I know this is kinda soon for this sort of thing...

Kate: What? I'msureit'sfine. Shoot.

Octopus: Can- Can I kiss you?

Emo-Girl, despite her overwhelming joy, was cooly indifferent in her response.

Kate: Sure. That's fine. 

The process of kissing was less awkward than the first time, though trying to kiss a mule would be less awkward also.

They hesitated momentarily before touching lips, but when they finally did, it... 

It was not nearly what she had expected.

She had imagined it causing her heart to do something like this:

But alack. Nothing even remotely similar happened.

This was probably because she had her expectations up too high. 

Though, it would be quite a feat if a single kiss in the back of a car in a parking lot in the middle of the night caused a young girl's heart to explode out of her chest in a fiery, passionate blast.

It would also call into question your role as a possible serial killer. 

Though, because Emo-Girl had never been truly kissed, she decided that was what they were supposed to feel like and forcibly made herself like it.

The date ended with another short kiss, but it felt the same as the first.

<Fast forward> </Fast forward>

Returning to the veritable hell hole that housed her psychopath, she had an interval of drama, vomiting, and bitter, unmitigated weeping. 

Then Octopus came to visit for the weekend and she was free of her 160 pound ball and chain for the day, since she wouldn't deign to hang out with them. 

Albeit the day started well, but the visit went horribly awry by the end of the night.

It progressed as any hang out day would:

-Watch Octopus play Halo with Corgill and his other more intellectually advanced friend, Wallaby

-Wander campus in search of Enlightenment and the wild pudding bush

-Watch episodes of Invader Zim.

-Then send him home before it got too late.

Though, as they were carrying out the last step, Emo-Girl and Octopus had trouble letting each other go.

So, rather than do the mature thing and part without making things awkward, they decided to sit in the back of his car and talk for a time. 

Though, that quick declined into a three hour make-out session. 

Some new couples would call this a step forward, but for Emo-Girl this was a declaration of marriage. 

After he departed, Emo-Girl quickly fell into doubt. So she went to the only advisee she knew of:

Psychopath. 

Of course, if you recall from earlier: 

The resentment still festered.

[The terror this photo evokes should be similar to waking up to an axe murderer standing over your bed with a bloody hatchet and a glass of Tang to pour down your throat as you die to make your last moments full of sour watered down orange drink.]

So, going to the psychopath, her mind was warped and twisted into believing that Octopus was quite possibly going to kidnap her away to Yunnan to live with the Buddhists the next time they met.

His wonderful image in her mind had transformed from this:

To This:

[Art and Image Copyright to ChongoZilla]

So she resolved to break up with him the very next day. 

When the time came, because she was still a wuss, she called him on the phone and, unlike last time, ended the relationship in a tired, but dignified way, since it was nearly midnight.

<The author of this post would like to extend a not-so-apologetic apology for not including the break up call on the post. But she's still friends with Octopus (or at least she was) and she does not want to encroach on his dignity anymore than she already has. She also extends a thank you to her friend for letting her post this.> 

Thus, concludes the chronicles of The Not So Tragic Love Life of Kate Awkward: Part 2. 

If you haven't decided to hate me because I can't relay my life in a coherently amusing way, keep your eyes peeled for more awkwardness. 

If you have, well, screw you. 

I don't need your approval. 

Peace off.