I'm very into lists lately. I think it's a symptom of reading McSweeney's, which is great because I like encountering new ways of organizing my life in my head. (Listing things is a particularly new way of organizing information, y'all. Try it; it'll be the "big thing" of 2010. )

Nicknames I have picked up since moving to Tallahassee, FL:

Pelican Legs

Party-Starter Kate, or, alternately, Party Kate*

Dharma

Lazy Kate

Fangy Kate

Kater Tot

Sassy Kate

Allikater

and, most complimentary, Greedy Garbage Gut.

And believe it or not, there are more that I can't remember (just call me Forgetful Kate).

This is more nicknames in three months than I've ever had in my whole life. Previous to this, it was "Lady Kechler," "Wee Katie," "Old Lechler" (for a brief and unfortunate period in my life), and the ubiquitous "KT."

There are several possible reasons for this. One could be that I'm in a graduate program now where all my friends are people whose professional focus is the English language and its varying permutations. In such an environment, playing with words is second nature and nicknaming could be a natural outgrowth of that.

Another reason could be that I have a lot more personality now than I used to and am therefore more nicknameable. This reason is easy to shoot down. While I have come out of my shell (whatever that means) more than previously, I was always pretty . . . personality-filled? Quirky? Charismatic? I'm not sure what the word here is, but I was definitely it.

A third reason, and the most plausible in my book, is that "Kate" just seems more nickname-friendly than "Katie." Maybe one-syllable names might tend to pick up more epithets along the way--just attach any old word to "Kate" and it rolls right off the tongue.

Katie, on the other hand, is just too long already for people to complicate things further by adding adjectives.

I was known for 27 years as Katie, and when I moved here, I made the shift to Kate, because I thought it sounded more professional. And let me tell you, it has been weird. At the beginning, when people called me Kate, I felt like they were talking about someone else, and had to stop myself from looking behind me, asking "Who is this Kate person?" I felt like I was deceiving people about my true self, like somehow their experience of me would be falsified because it was missing that one crucial syllable. Who did I think I was, pretending to be a Kate, when it's so obvious that I'm just a lowly Katie!? (That's a joke; some of my best friends are Katies!)

I still refer to myself about 50% of the time as Katie, and often have to correct myself when I'm introducing myself, as if I don't know my own name or am operating under a badly-formed alias. And I am still glad when someone calls me Katie--it feels more like the name of my heart, and like that person really knows me and values me in a way that "Kate" can't convey.

However, the other day, I caught myself thinking about me as Kate. And that was cool. I already have so many selves inside; I don't want to feel split about my exterior identity for the rest of my life. At some point, the Katie has to join hands with the Kate, or Vulcan mind-meld, or something to make me a whole, a single, person again.

I guess, given all the trouble that this one paltry letter, this solitary syllable, has given me, it's a good thing I didn't decide when I got here to go with my middle name--Gertrude.

*Courtesy of one Taylor Murphy (see, you made it into my blog!)

(I'm not sure what started this train of thought; all I did today was exercise and go to the mall.)

Sometimes I think that, instead of dating, I should pick someone I know only superficially, marry them, and make it work. While I do believe from the bottom (and top, and sides) of my heart that marriage is a huge decision, there are so many factors and so much flux involved that it seems just as likely to be a happy marriage by picking "eeny meeny miney mo" and getting on with it.

In the holiday spirit of rash decisions, here is a list of people I don't know or who are imaginary, but whom I would marry anyways:

Alec Baldwin--actor--unattached

Cate Blanchett--actor--married

Michael Chabon--author--married

Rivers Cuomo--frontman of Weezer--married

Matt Chapman--co-creator of Homestar Runner dot Com--married

Jim Halpert--character in The Office--too perfect to exist

Colin Hanks--actor, son of Tom--engaged*

Eugene Hutz--frontman of Gogol Bordello--not sure

Eddie Izzard--executive transvestite, actor, comedian--unattached

Ryan North--creator of Dino Comics--dating

Michael Sheen--actor--dating a ballerina**

Jonathan Strange--character in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell--married

T-Rex--character in Dino Comics--on the prowl

The entire 2008/2009 cast of SNL except for Andy Samberg--actors--universally awesome

*to a publicist!

**what a cliche

I ended last night walking back to the car under a colossal live oak tree, hung all over with shreds of moss and lit from beneath by one spotlight. It appeared out of the darkness like an enormous ghost and through its branches I could see Casseopeia and a crescent moon.

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful Saturdays of my life.

I started it out by horseback riding. Getting up at nine on a Saturday is (I admit) a bit of a trial for me, but by the time I got to the ranch, I was happy to be awake. The sun was out and there were only a few wispy clouds on the horizon. I rode Poco, a black and white quarter horse who can do tricks, like count and answer Yes or No to questions. There were seven or eight of us and we rode around the 700-acre ranch for about an hour.

We saw white birds that looked like ibises without the hooked bills; when we got closer to them, they took off and wheeled around the sky before settling down in the field next to us like a bunch of lilies. We saw a line of red maples against a background of green pine trees. We saw ponds scummed over with eutrification, or clear with lilies floating in them; one of the ponds had a drainage pipe in the middle of it that made it look like someone had cut perfect circle out of the water. We saw lots of fields, horses, cows, trees, and sunshine.

It doesn't sound that amazing, but really, there is almost nothing better than riding a horse on a beautiful day.

When I went home, I worked for a couple of hours and cleaned up some of my house. Then my band mates came over (I know! I have a band!) and we worked on songs for a while. I met Matt and Drew through Nicholas Mallis, a crazy-random-happenstance friend who I met in Lincoln right before moving to Tallahassee. Nicholas is a musician from Tallahassee and when I got here, he introduced me to many people, and let me sing with him. Hence, Matt, Drew, and band.

What's funny is that we're all very different, musically. Drew has a voice like Neil Young meets Bob Dylan, with a touch of whiskey, and he wrote a song that is lovely and heartbreaking like Iron & Wine. Matt has one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard--clear and strong and pure. His voice (not his music) reminds me of Adam Levine from Maroon 5. But his music is mellow and upbeat, or indie and emo, depending on what song he plays.

And I've been feeling the jazz/blues thing lately, and have written a couple of songs in that vein--"Sad at You" and "Home Alone Blues" (it has nothing to do with Macauley Culkin, I promise, although I've thought about opening my mouth real wide and slapping my cheeks between verses). I like them, and I feel inspired to keep writing, and the boys like my voice, so it works.

Yesterday, we get together to hear each other's stuff, work on harmonies, and figure out how it can all go together. And we come up with this idea for . . . . wait for it . . . . . a musical!!!!

Yes, we're going to do a musical. An onstage musical about a couple in crisis. They've been together a long time, they're not sure they're still in love, and they're trying to work through these thoughts and feelings. And all the songs will have to do with this situation, and Matt and I will act them out.

The idea is so cheesy, it just might work. As my friend Aaron said, "ARRT!" Art indeed.

Which brings us up to last night. Last night=EPIC.

When I first moved to Tallahassee, I heard of this place called Bradfordville Blues Club, BBC. It's outside of Tallahasee, it's backwoods, it's tiny but consistently packed out, the music is awesome. These are the things I was told.

Last night, BBC was stormed by a bunch of us English types. (Seriously, at one point in the night Wil and I heard Dario say from across the room "representations of masculinity," and we looked at each other and were like, "The English are here.") Anne and Rob, Leigh, Chris, Dario, Wil, and I all showed up around the same time, having braved the dark night and the dirt road, ready for some blues and some gettin' down.

This place is like Muddy Water's dream of a backwoods blues bar. It is a collection of shacky-type buildings in the woods, with a fire pit out front, surrounded by the aforementioned live oak trees. Inside, the lights are blue and red and yellow; the walls are hung with portraits of blues greats who have frequented the BBC; the waitress dances as much as she waits; and the crowd is half under-thirty, and half over-fifty.

The first group we saw was called Pepperdrive. The guitarist was incredible. The organist/harmonica player was incredible. The female vocalist was incredible. I mean that word literally, folks. I was incredulous; I could not believe how amazing they sounded, because they all looked like my students' age. And as soon as they started playing, the world fell away for me and all I could think about was the music.

Blues is hot music. Hot, sexy, sweaty music. I used to like jazz best. I might have been wrong.

As I sat there, huge perma-smile on my face, butt shaking in my chair, foot tapping frantically, I thought, "This could not get any better." And then they played "I Got a Feelin'," by the Beatles. And I screamed just a little bit.

Basically the whole night was that good. At one point I said, "This is the best part of my day. And I started out today by horseback riding." We all got up and danced a bit, especially to the second band, the Blues Disciples. I loved seeing everyone dance--Anne and Rob all lovey-dovey/sexy-sexy, Leigh shakin' it with Chris, Dario and his eclectic mix of Russian cossack dancing and Irish jigging, and Wil, as he says, is a large man who can't help but be all over the place. So many sweet couples dancing together, and this one old guy who looked like a hound dog and danced kind of like a sad zombie, but in a cute way, if that makes sense.

And then we left, walking out under that fabulous tree, backing up and zooming off down the dirt road.

Seriously. The only thing that could have made my night better would have been a fish fry.

Imaginary Interviews about my Important Opinions on Mundane Topics: Issue 1*: Food

"So, how did you two meet?"

I look down at my plate of kimchi fried-rice and laugh.

"Well, it was the wasabi sauce that made it all possible."

"Oh really?" The interviewer leans forwarded, interested, and turns on his tape recorder.

"Yeah, that was the proverbial icing on the cake. But let me back up. I'll tell you the whole story.

"I've been cooking for a while now (eating for even longer), and have never really had a favorite meal. Oh yes, I've made meals that I really liked a lot, even loved. There was a brief relationship with a chicken risotto that I remember fondly. I was always proud to been seen with a dish of Tom Yum Gai in my arms. A certain potato leek soup and I always seemed to do well at parties and other social gatherings.

"And of course, like an old high-school flame that you were kind of too good for but never really get over, the idea of a Papa John's pizza with onions and mushrooms, with an extra heaping of pepperoncinis and garlic butter, still makes me salivate.

"But I'm getting older, I've had my fair share of tasting, and last week, I realized it's time to settle down. I'm ready to commit.

"Now, a few years ago, when I was living in Korea, I met kimchi. Kimchi was a little too feisty for me at first, but then it kind of grew on me. We had a daily relationship and when I got back to the states, I realized that what I had first only tolerated, I now craved. To put it plainly, I missed the little bugger.

"So I started trying my hand at this dish, kimchi-fried rice. And it was good. We had a good time together. Kimchi really mellows out under some heat, you see, and this was perfect for me. But it wasn't something I was ready to do all the time; I would buy a jar of kimchi and it might take me four or five months to finish it--sometimes longer--cause I was still seeing other foods pretty regularly.

I take a bite and continue my story.

"Then I discovered beer. And let me tell you, they talk about beer and pizza? Well, nothing goes better with a crisp, hoppy, medium-bodied ale than a plate of spicy kimchi-fried-rice, or, as I've nicknamed it, KFR. So we started seeing each other more often. It also helped that KFR was extremely cheap to make--I could make a huge batch of it to feed five or six people for maybe seven dollars. And my friends LOVED it. It's important to me that my friends get along with the food I'm making, and I honestly can't remember serving this dish to anyone who hasn't enjoyed it.

"And I started doing new things with it--sauteing garlic and ginger ahead of time, adding seaweed to the mix. It was a feel-good staple, but we could be creative together, too. Spontaneity is important in relationships.

"Now, my old roommate, Katie Carlson, will laugh when she sees this, because honestly, she probably knew that there was something going on between me and KFR a long time before I did. I mean, I knew I liked it, but I started going through large jars of kimchi about every two or three weeks. Something was obviously up.

"But the deal wasn't really sealed until I moved to Florida. And this is where the wasabi comes in."

I look lovingly at my bottle of Bookbinders Hot Wasabi.

"I found this wasabi at Publix when I moved here, and it has revolutionized my relationship with KFR. I mean, I am in love. This wasabi isn't too hot--it won't hit the back of your head like a truck--but it still has that sharp bite to it. It's also just a little bit creamy. You almost can't use too much; that's how great it is!"

"Anyways, that's the story. Me and KFR--I think this could be the beginning of a lifelong thing."

The interviewer sighed. "Wow, what a great story. I sure hope that happens to me someday."

"You keep cookin', kid; when you meet that dish, you'll know."

*Probably the only issue.

Recipe for awesomeness:

Heat up a frying pan with some wok oil or stir fry oil (regular oil works fine too but this is better, I think).
Chop up the kimchi. Use about half as much kimchi as you want to eventually eat, because you'll be adding rice to this.
Saute the kimchi until the liquid in the bottom of the pan starts to look more like a glaze.
Add your (already cooked and seasoned with some rice vinegar) rice.
Mix this into the sauteed kimchi, and continue sauteing.
At this point, pour a little bit of kimchi juice from the jar into the mix. You can also add bits of dried wakame seaweed which will re-hydrate.
Keep mixing and sauteing until the entire mess looks red, and kind of congealed. (Trust me.)
Remove the kimchi and rice, or push it off to the side of the pan.
Fry an egg (I like mine a little bit runny, but this is up to you.)
Put the egg on top of the KFR, and mix it all up.
Add a bit of wasabi and soysauce to your liking.
Eat that shit up!

“When I was in Lincoln, I looked forward to getting on my bike,” I said. “Now that I’m here, I dread it.”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to excuse myself from the dinner table, go to the bathroom, and cry quietly while counting my rosary beads. But since I was surrounded by people I barely knew, I stayed, smiling, at the table and made nice talk instead.

It’s true, though, and I hadn’t realized it until just then. I dread biking now. And that is a huge and terrible loss.

Part of me feels like a moody teenager, not being able to get over missing Lincoln. I want to slap myself, say “Snap out of it, woman!,” and just get on with my adult life. It’s the sensible thing to do; besides, what do I have to complain about in my life now?

Tallahassee is fine. FINE, I say. It has some nice restaurants, a couple good bars and music venues, some interesting shopping, and I have to say, I still get a kick out of the fact that my glasses fog up every time I leave an air-conditioned building. Heat, humidity, Spanish moss dripping from every live-oak tree on every corner? Bring it on!

I’m also lucky to be in a department full of extremely (read: almost oddly) nice and friendly people. I have not felt ostracized or pushed to the margins here; I don’t feel like I have new-girl-itis. People seem interested in having me around, which is wonderful.

And missing Lincoln, Nebraska? As Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers would say, “Really?” I mean, I know it’s no New York, San Francisco, Austin, or the ever-lovin’ Portland. It’s piddly, barely a blip on the national scene of culture, music, food, theater, or anything else I’m into. In fact, what Lincoln best known for is football, which I hate.

So why can’t I get over it? Why do I feel sad? Why do I compare every street and building in Tallahassee to what I left behind in Lincoln?

Meh. I know the answer to that one already but I don’t want to say it. Okay, okay, it’s because I had a great summer there. Not great: epic.

Gosh, I feel like Woody Allen or something, admitting this: like this one summer in my life was so fantastic, so emblematic of how I want to live, that forgetting it just isn’t an option, and instead I’d rather re-live it in my memory, or try vainly to recreate it, or at the very least mope about it neurotically, than move on and live my life as it is now.

I am truly unable to let go. (I am also truly unable to do a Woody Allen impression in text. Trust me, I’m much better in person.)

I guess what it all comes down to is youth. Youth and adventure, that tantalizing word that my friend Hannah loves so much. That’s what I want in my life. I had that this summer, every single day. And biking is the metonymous symbol of this summer—the part standing for the whole. Getting on my bike at any time of day or night, in shorts and flipflops or a dress and heels, made me feel young, strong, adventurous.

I need to find a way to feel that now, when I’m in a car, the windows rolled up, my hair shielded from the wind and rain, my eyes hidden from the moon and stars. The people in the houses I’m passing will continue sleeping, not realizing that a force of nature has just cruised by singing Frank Sinatra at the top of her lungs.

Today I saw Julie/Julia, a Nora Ephron film comparing the lives of current-day food blogger Julie Powell and French cooking legend Julia Child. It hit me in the right spot today because, more than food and cooking, the movie is about passion and partnership. I just happen to also share the characters' passion for food.

I've heard reviews of the film that were disappointed with Amy Adams' in the Julie Powell role, but I didn't mind her. I'm a huge Amy Adam's fan anyways, and tend to stick with my already entrenched loyalties, but I thought the two stories and the two actresses performances balanced each other nicely.

As Eric Powell points out to his wife Julie, the Julia Child in her head is not the real Julia Child. The movie itself even bore this out. The Julia Child in the movie seems like a fairy-tale version of the woman and her life. She and her husband Paul have a loving, passionate relationship which takes place in an idyllic Paris in the 1950's.

This story line is nicely countered by the Powell relationship, which is visibly strained at times and whose scenes are filmed mostly in Julie's cubicle, on the subway, and in their cramped apartment above a pizzeria. Of course Amy Adams seems like a narcissistic bitch at times; she's playing a real person. On the other hand, Meryl Streep's Julia Child is a tall, burbling Gaia--a beautiful, life-giving goddess (i.e. a fantasy).

As I was watching the movie, I was struck by another Eric-ism (the husbands in this movie were really the voices of reason and stability). He said that even Julia Child didn't start out as Julia Child. I started thinking about how these legends become iconic; it's interesting to think of them starting out, no real end goal in mind, just putting one foot in front of the other and going where the path takes them. She didn't set out to write a fantastic cookbook and host a cooking show. She started out to learn how to bone a duck. Everything else followed.

My last thought about the movie comes from a more personal place. I got past my overwhelming desire to "be married" a few years ago, and am very happy with where I am in life now. However, if anything could restart that marriage engine again, this movie could, because it shows marriage in such a positive and realistic light.

As my roommate said, these were just healthy people in strong relationships who loved each other and had good sex lives. There wasn't any romantic drama; no one cheated on anyone else, or worried that the other person didn't "like" them anymore. There were fights and crises of personal growth, but the message was largely about partnership, support, and a healthy give-and-take. Watching a movie about this was lovely, and poignant, and more than a little wistful for me, because that's what I want, really, out of any relationship--a partnership.

In the end, though, I loved watching a movie about passion for food. I will probably never make food a significant part of my career, but a deep love of the physical and aesthetic enjoyments of food will always drive me. Food not only nourishes our bodies, but the making and sharing of a meal nourishes our souls. Mealtime is one of the blessed places where beauty, necessity, and community can combine. So, in true Julia fashion, after we saw the movie, Meg, Kim, and I went out for a delicious meal. And for the first time in my life, I had escargot.

I was walking down the street and I thought, “How handy it would be to to throw up on command.”

Seriously, what a nice trick to throw off an attacker. No matter how strong or brave someone is, he would have to be pretty unfazeable to fight the twin effects of surprise and revulsion. Even if just for a split second, he would startle, and then I could grab him by the testicles, squeezing and twisting until his face turned blue from pain. Then I would get in his face, less than an inch away, eyes bulging, teeth bared, hissing and screaming, to show him that I was not afraid.

Most males who prey on females perceive women to be easily frightened. Show them that you are not scared by being loud and threatening, and they will easily back down. So I’ve read.

I’ve also read about the benefits of learning self-defense. I could learn karate, but a sense of how to unbalance someone, how to strike a blow correctly, and pressure points, isn’t helpful if they’ve got you pinned and are stronger than you’ll ever be.

Projectile vomit, though, is a force to be reckoned with. As one of my professors rather crudely put it, “a man always carries his weapon with him.” I don’t like this because it demonizes the penis, making it a tool of violence and destruction, but in some very real senses, it is true. And projectile vomit would just be a good counter-weapon.

Here’s how I remember it:

I rode the bus home to Jungsan-ship-danjee from LaFesta Mall. I had gotten a haircut that day. I got online and began talking to my friend Nathaniel. The garbage was stinking, so I ran downstairs to leave it on the curb. As I left my apartment, I startled a man on the landing. He ran upstairs, and I assumed he must live up there.

I did not lock my apartment; I was only running down three flights. On the way down, I encountered a boy and a girl playing with toy trucks on the stairs; I remember this very vividly, because it was so peaceful and beautiful, and also because they did not hear me later.

I was not out of my apartment for more than sixty seconds. When I got back in, I continued talking to Nathaniel. About five minutes later, I said, “brb. I have to use the bathroom.”

I never made it back to that conversation.

As I entered the bathroom, in the millisecond that it took me to notice a dark shape in the corner, he lunged at me: the man from the stairs. He was shorter than me but built like a bull. He put his hands around my throat to keep me from screaming and threw me down on the bed, threatening to choke me until I stopped crying.

We tried to communicate. I could not speak Korean, nor he English, but somehow he told me that it was a mistake, that he didn’t mean to be there, something about a girlfriend. I begged him to leave. He kept apologizing. I told him it was okay, if he would just leave. That I wouldn’t tell but he had to go.

He finally said he’d leave if I laid down on the bed and closed my eyes. I heard him get his shoes on, but I didn’t hear him opening the door. Finally I opened my eyes. He was still standing there, in a vest, shoes on, looking at me. I started to scream again, and he lunged at me, laid on top of me, kissed me with his mouth full of smoke, alcohol, and kimchi smells. He choked me again, kissed me, told me I was beautiful, rubbing against me. I was desperate, willing to do anything if he’d go, willing to give him anything he wanted, but he said, “No sex. You American, I Korean.”

Which does not reflect anything I learned in sex ed.

I kept screaming, so he kept choking me, harder and harder. I almost blacked out. I could hear the sounds I was making . . . inhuman croaks and gasps that I had no idea could emanate from my throat. I could hear the sound of my own labored breathing through the crush of his hands. I could reach my pocket though, and thought of punching one of my keys into his neck. This image was dreadful, and even in that moment, I didn’t know if I could go through with it, cutting his jugular, his hot blood spurting out all over me, but finally I tried. He grabbed the keys and threw them across the room.

Keys are not as sharp as I thought. Or else human skin is more durable.

All I could think about was how I’d die and no one would know for days, my mother would never see me again. How if only my boyfriend and I hadn’t broken up, maybe he would have a key to my apartment and, “happening by,” save me. I cried out, “Abojee, abojee”—“Father, Father,” praying in Korean. I ripped the cross necklace from his neck, and he grabbed it. He got up and left. I grabbed a pair of tweezers, the sharpest thing I had on hand, and ran after him, screaming. He was gone. I burst into the neighbors apartment (co-workers, luckily) and threw myself at their feet, sobbing. I had bruises on my neck and collar area.

Later I found the golden clasp of his necklace on my floor. I still have it today.

Today I am filled with a strange mix of calmness and rage and revulsion at this story. I feel like I must be really fucked up from this, right? Wouldn’t most people be? But I don’t feel messed up, don’t feel too traumatized. I just feel a pent up anger that is just waiting to be unleashed on the next person who tried to mess with me. I feel an unmerited bravado. I feel fatalistic, like it is bound to happen—a kind of prescience. Someday someone will enter my home again and attack me, and this time I will fight back, I will be angry, I will not weep and beg, I will claw and swear and spit and bite.