What's the happs?

Hey Blogiverse. I've been busy. Doing what?

School. School. Cookies. School.

In August, I went to the annual NCRA (National Court Reporter's Association) Conference in Nashville. It was the jam. Not only did it get me all jazzed up about court reporting, it helped me implement some plans and goals.

NOW, I am one who previously poked fun at goals, associating the term with stuff like this:

Ew, golf. However, one thing I've known all along, and what the conference helped to reiterate, is that practicing to get nationally certified as a reporter is not going to happen without some goal setting, organization and planning. Yeah, I know I sound like your HR Person/Guidance Counselor. Dreams, Goals, Achieve, Lunch and Learn!

Part of this work is sharing your goals with others; creating more accountability of sorts. That being said, here's my plan of action and a few new things that are helping me. Check me out!

1) If I'm going to get out of school by next year, and pass the big national test, this is what I need to do. Please invite yourself to the inside of my closet! I have posted a calendar, certification requirements, and dates for the timeline of finishing my speeds/words per minute. 140, almost crushed. The fun-times Japanesy picture is just for decorates.

2) I'm reading The Plateau. A friend leant it to me. It's basically a book/manuscript acknowledging the point that court reporting students reach where they feel they can no longer progress in speed and diagnosing why. What I've taken from it so far? The importance of writing with clarity, identifying struggles and working on being a better, more professional student.  

3) Practice journal. I found this cheesy thing in an old duffle bag. Every day I write down exactly what I practiced for that day. When it looks empty, I frown.

A Note on Relaxing

"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets." -"The 'Busy' Trap" by Tim Kreider

Two weeks ago, A-Cakes and I went to a lake house/cabin for three vacation days in North Georgia. We drove up armed with the cabin's address, two bags of groceries, 18 beers, five books, and no plans. After loading bags in, we made lunch. Following the Doritos, when the sandwich course was over, we stared at each other. We didn't have anything to do. No agenda at all. And it was quiet. And peaceful.

This was stressful.

So, like any other people struggling to relax on vacation (it sounds ridiculous even as I type it) we did what those who can't wind down do best: started to make plans! There was the consideration to hike, take the kayak on the lake, go into town to check out an antique store, invent a new drink, photograph some bugs, or even play Boggle. This became even more stressful.

Last year I read this article by Tim Kreider:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/

It addresses the absence of leaving enough time in our lives for no plans, and that we are, oftentimes, excessively busy by our own accord or because of our surroundings. Tim makes good points.

It's becoming truer the older I get. People, U.S. Americans in particular, struggle to do nothing. Did you know that the United States is the "only developed country in the world without a single legally required paid vacation day or holiday"? (Thanks, USA Today) Maybe we don't feel entitled to downtime?

I'm no different. The biggest effort I take to chill some days is unwrapping a tiny Dove chocolate whose wrapper instructs "treat yourself today" or "promise yourself more moments like these" usually when I'm behind a desk, cursing in traffic, or waiting in line behind somebody I don't know but who is probably moving too slow, delaying my day. Even as I'm writing this, I'm stressing about 17 more productive things I should do. I say LAME.

So, forced into it, we did nothing on our vacation. And it was really hard. But it was awesome. We talked, ate, napped, and read. And nothing else. Some days I didn't change out of my PJ's. I returned feeling laid back and weirdly accomplished.

How/where do you like to do nothing?

 

 

Call me Betty Crocker......or maybe Donna Reed. She was hotter.

If you know me, you know I don't really cook that often, especially if you consider cooking merging more than three ingredients over a heating element for longer than ten minutes. I made a hashbrown casserole from the Cracker Barrel recipe (shut up, you know you've had it, it's delicious) for some friends. I had some, and if I do say so myself, it was stupid good.

You want to know how to make it? Here you go! I would show you a picture of the actual casserole, but we ate it all.

Recipe:

• 2 pounds of thawed hash browns
• 2 cups of cheddar cheeses
• 1 can (10.5 ounces) of Cream of Chicken soup
• 1 pint (16 ounces) of sour cream
• 1/2 cup of melted butter
• 3/4 cup of chopped onion
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350, spray a 11x14 inch baking dish, or 2-9x9 dishes, with cooking spray. Combine ingredients in a bowl and and stir. Spread evenly in the pan, bake for 45 minutes until the top is golden brownish.

 

If you're feeling cray cray, throw some cheese on in the last few minutes. If you're completely awesome, eat this with Sriracha. Bam!

                                                                          

                                                 Yeah, you do.

Adventures in Drumming

While not the baddest by any means, I have been a Band B*tch. If you don’t already know, the Band B is a lady-person who comes to every practice and show in support of a band/collaboration/musical project, regardless of how bad they suck. I use the b-word here in a sincerely and respectful way. I mean like awesome. These beer pounding b-words are loyal, supportive, and always help with load in. Combined with a long history of watching bands, and an interest in loud music, I guess it’s not entirely unusual then that I myself always wanted to be in a band.

I’ve sourced the root of this inspiration to 1987. It was the Christmas I received the Barbie Rockers’ “Hot Rockin’ Stage”. Not particularly hot or rockin’ it was no more than grooved cardboard fashioned into a neon, roller rink backdrop held together with plastic. It came with fake spotlights and Barbie sized key-tars. And damn if my pretend bands weren’t awesome! My three Barbie dolls (and one Ken) would hold band battles between Jem and the Holograms in epic turf wars. They performed covers, but also played my original compositions about rocking, boys and being generally outrageous. I knew from that moment on that choir just wasn’t going to cut it.  

BUT let’s be clear, I was never good at any instruments. Even the recorder was too hard. The guitar too confusing. The piano too traditional. The ocarina too lame. I always yearned for a saxophone, but my parents were convinced that I wouldn’t take lessons seriously and was just really into the sax solo in James Brown’s “I Feel Good”. Years of watching others excel at their respective instruments, I longed to join.

Flash forward to age 23 me. Recent college graduate, living in Japan and soaking in all that a small, rural Japanese town has to offer……delightfully fresh fish and the elderly. Needless to say, I was always looking for new stuff to do. This is how I ended up at a Taiko class. If you don’t know, Taiko (which curiously translates to “drum”) involves beating a gigantic, red barrel drum with an object resembling a night stick. It’s an old Japanese tradition usually performed at festivals and field days. So one solemn Sunday night myself, a friend and 15 Japanese grandmothers in Hammer Pants lined up at the local community center behind huge barrel drums.

We were given printed music sheets, instructions in Japanese (of which I understood about two words of) and told to start whacking. Good thing music scores look the same in Japan as they do here. While I was beating away, I had fun…..and noticed that I was hitting the notes at (mostly) the correct times. They must have been particularly desperate for warm Taiko bodies, because after 30 minutes they asked me to be in their annual recital the following weekend. I couldn’t make it. 

 
Months later I had moved to a large Japanese city, one with an intricate subway system and a Denny’s. While wandering around an eleven story Japanese mini-mall in the heart of Nagoya I noticed a Yamaha Music School offering trial lessons on traditional drum kits. Here was my chance! An instrument that was cool, perhaps within my capabilities and loud.

The first lesson was only about $5 U.S. and it turns out that music lessons in Japan, like everything else, are a group effort. One 15x15 foot practice room held six students (in my case three Japanese high school girls in skirts so short I think they probably ended up getting their lessons for free, one middle-aged guy who only listened to Japanese lounge music and me) rotating on three full drum kits and 3 practice pads. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard six people simultaneously practicing six completely different beats in a glorified, soundproof closet, but it’s a whole new level of ridiculous. The teacher, Shibata San, was cool, from what I could understand of him, and he always wanted to talk to me about music. Mostly about Sting. He really liked Sting. So we had a textbook and were expected to come in weekly and show what we had been practicing.

Due to a sheer lack of space you can’t really wail on a drum kit in Japan, especially in a city, especially in an apartment. What you CAN do is rent practice space, amps and a drum set included by the hour. Managing to track one down, I went one or twice a week to practice. Every time I would call to reserve time, proud that I knew the Japanese word for “reservation” and working on my pronunciation like I had no accent, they’d be all, “No problem, Kate!” I guess I didn’t blend in as well as I thought.

So I started learning how to play a drum kit…… on about eight different drums sets. I made a playlist of songs I liked (with easy drum parts) and learned how to play them, or tried to. There was nobody there to tell me to use the clutch on the snare, adjust the high hat stand or where the cymbals could go, so I had to just kind of wing it. God only knows how terrible it must have sounded.

When I returned back to the States, I was still interested in drumming; but with no drums to play, I again signed up for lessons in an effort to continue. My teacher was a totally sick drummer who liked arty films and took a lot of vitamins. I nearly pissed myself the first time we met and he asked me to play something. The next week I went to buy drumsticks the salesperson asked what kind I needed and I said I didn’t know, to which he replied, “What kind of boyfriend sends their girlfriend to buy sticks and doesn’t even tell her what kind?” I would learn to get used to dipshits like this.

After almost being conned into buying a used Pearl Export on Craigslist for $900, not including cymbals, I wised up (with the help of my instructor) and bought my own brand-new drum set and cymbals with a cymbal bag and a throne. A five-piece Tama Superstar with white satin finish, shiny stands that sparkled in the light and new drum smell. It was the sweetest feeling, aside from the reminders by the salesperson that I “really better make sure I was going to play them” and “this is not an investment to be taken lightly“ and “how long have you been playing”? Do salespeople ask the same about other big purchases involving commission like washing machines and cars? All I cared about was setting them up and watching the instructional DVD (featuring the Mr. Big drummer, Pat Torpey.)

 
I was SO proud of this kit (which I managed to fit entirely into a two-seat convertible…….don’t even ask) and in turn shared the good news with everyone. ”I own drums. I can play any time I want!” to mixed reviews. My grandfather laughed when I told him. “How exactly are you going to play drums? Like with a group? At church?” Others mocked my efforts relentlessly. “What, are you going to be like some, drummer? Girl? Who what? Plays drums?“ Nobody cared this much when I took up needlepoint. 

Then there was the issue of where to play the drums I now owned. So, I decided to rent a storage unit as a makeshift practice space. These rental units, more like dungeons with potential to be crime scenes, smelled like a wet stack of magazines in an unfinished basement. My assigned unit was deep inside the building and because there were no lights in the individual rooms, I had to run a 100-foot extension cord from a lamp to a socket outside when it was time for me to practice. The hall lights were on timers so when you left the room, you’d have to run through a pitch black hallway to the main door to turn it back on. As someone who is terrified of the dark, these were hard times.

There actually were full bands that practiced there. A local death metal band in particular was so loud I literally couldn’t hear myself play when they were there practicing. And playing in a room with metal walls, that’s loud. Random band members and musicians who stored equipment in the space would stop by to ask about my drums and to give me loads of unsolicited advice, most of it good, some hilarious. One guy was horrified that I didn’t know how to play that song “Crazy Bitch” on drums and promptly demonstrated.

After about eight months I decided it was time to move out when I discovered dripping water in the space one rainy day. I luckily salvaged my drums before they were ruined, yet the manager had no qualms telling me that it wasn’t a faulty roof, but in fact a bullet hole that had caused the leak………suddenly a dark hallway seemed like less of a concern.    
                                                                                          
Time passed, and I eventually moved on to a proper practice space. This in turn led to playing with other musicians AND, my goal since my salad days, being in a band!!! Nervously at first, literally almost throwing up the day of my first show, I had a lot of fun and felt happy with the performance for the most part. One show turned into many more and I started to really embrace my hobby.

Having never been in a band before I didn’t really know much to start and little about what to expect. Like when you show up to a gig with the band as a female, people rarely assume that you play an instrument.

For example:

“Hey, can you tell your drummer sound check’s in 5?” OR

“Hey, do you know where those band dudes are that you came in with earlier. Can you tell them they play first?” AND my favorite

“Yeah, sorry, drink tickets are only for people in the band."

And then, after pouring your heart and soul into a performance, the reactions immediately after a show are priceless. From the ass backwards/condescending compliment:

“Man, that was good! I saw you setting up your drums and I was thinking, ehhh this isn’t going to be worth watching. But it totally was!” OR

“I heard the drums from outside and I wanted to see who was playing and it was YOU! Hahaha.” Would “Thanks” be an appropriate response?Also, the funny:

“Man, that was, like, so on time and super loud.” Really, drums do that?
To the downright rude:

“Hey what kind of sticks do you use? Yeah, I forgot mine I’m gonna need to use those.” Oh, and you’re welcome.

Or my most favorite:

“That sucked.”

Over the years I’ve learned that even just telling people you play drums is like coming out:

“What, you play drums? That’s crazy! You’re a girl and you’re like, this big!”

“Drums? Like, with sticks?”

It’s like the first step to playing drums as a female is admitting you play drums:

Hello, my name is Kate and I’m a female drummer. I’ve been one for a few years now. I’ve spent a lot of money on drumming. I enjoy playing drums, several times a day sometimes, but I can stop any time I want.

I mean I’m not the one to make an issue out of it, but there are differences being a female drummer……and not necessarily cool ones. Few men have limitations on being able to wear heels, skirts or dresses to gigs. And then there’s the issue of being really sweaty and not being able to take off your shirt when all the guys do even at a 150-degree house show in the dead of summer because you don’t want to be in your bra around a bunch of strangers. And let me say that a bra for a female drummer is just a glorified sponge for your boob sweat, BUT you need to strap it on so your girls don’t flop around while you play.

Also, there’s the importance of the breathability of cotton panties sitting on a sweaty plastic drum stool because avoiding oncoming weirdness in your nether region is totally necessary. 

And yeah, playing out of town shows? No, sorry. I’m not sleeping on a filthy scabies mattress in your barf-stained living room because I’m not a dirty boy, although I certainly appreciate the offer. You don’t have a working toilet? Shit.

But it’s cool, and it’s fun. Like a lot of things in life you just have to fake it ‘til you make it. Or embrace it ‘til you make it, knowing good and damn well it won’t always embrace you. And own your stuff.

Band b*tches, inspired by Barbie or not, I think that the more ladies in bands the better….especially the drum queens.

Our drum stools aren’t called thrones for nothing, after all.

Longing for a longboard?

Not to make you jealous, but longboarding is the MOST FUN EVER! The pollen has been terrible in the A, but we've managed to get some good boarding in around the neighborhood. Thinking of picking it up as your new best hobby of all time, too? Check out my sweet tips:

Just know you're going to fall off of your longboard. It's inevitable. Don't be a pansy, wuss.

Wear your helmet. I've caught sass for this, but I only have one brain, and I kind of need it to work.

Watch for sticks and debris in the road. That stuff has the potential to wreck your face, even tiny pieces of bark that an ant could carry might stop you in mid-roll.

Look out for cars. They will not look out for you, especially if they are driving a big navy pickup truck and wear a John Deere hat blasting "Mumford and Sons" while they almost run you over like a jerk racing down Bonaventure Avenue…….not like that happened or anything......

Wear practical shoes and ones that fit. Shoes that are too big will make you fall off of your board. Also, wearing sandals is a really convenient but a generally terrible idea.

Know that a hill looks a whole lot less steep when you are in a car or on foot. You will start to go way faster than you anticipated, and you will wobble, and you will fall into a trash can, and neighbors will laugh at you because it will be hilarious to watch. This leads me to my next point:

Practice stopping or jumping off of your longboard. It will be the most important thing you practice doing, besides riding the board of course.

Have fun, duh!

 

I love boarding this much!

Boardin'!

Thanks, Ambush Boarding Company and friends for all your advice. Now it just needs to stop raining.......
 
 

 

Springtime

It's spring! This means pollen, unpredictable weather and a revival of hobbies…..and maybe even new hobbies.

1) Revival of old hobby: gardening

It's that time of year, and I love gardening as much as an elderly person. I like crosswords also. My spirit animal may be a saber tooth, suck it. A few years back I had a most successful garden which included carrots, tomatoes, collards, various lettuces, beets and peppers. This year I don't have quite as much room, but I'm planning on giving it a shot. I feel like container gardening is the best solution when you don't have a lot of space.

http://www.sunset.com/garden/fruits-veggies/small-space-vegetable-gardens-00400000044403/

 

2) New hobby: start longboarding!

Longboarding is like skateboarding on a longer board. You probably already figured that out. Due to its longer size, the idea is that long boards are more stable and let's face it: if you're going to put yourself (me) on a piece of wood with wheels on it, you're going to want more control. I have a helmet, and I'll be checking out some options. Here's what I've been thinking:

I also want to draw something awesome on it. Rabid panda? Spring-a-ling!

band·o·mato·poe·ia

Bandomonapeia (n.): a band that plays music that sounds like the band name, (based solely on one's personal opinion, of course). I doubt I coined the word, but here are examples I have come up with so far:

• Glass Candy: 

 

 

• Baroness
• Suede
• Hum
• Vegan Coke:

• The Stooges
• Boris

This is fun! How many can you come up with, yo?

 

 

Is it really too much to ask that I play mediocre guitar in a terrible punk band before I die?

I don't whether it's the poorly tuned drums and guitars, the awful recording quality or the bratty, adolescent lyrics, but I've always had a slight warm spot in my heart for crappy punk bands. It's been a weird dream of mine in the past few years to play guitar and sing in one. What's up with that?

I may or may not have found my first gray hair today, so I feel like I'm pushing my luck on this because I'm not 16, and I don't have 30, one-minute songs about hating the school Principal or a gig set up on Public-Access TV.

As of late, I've decided that The Gizmos is my favorite crappy punk band. (See below.) What's yours?

 

Will update soon, in the meantime.....

a friend posted this on FB the other day. Isn't this just the best Audrey picture ever? She's so rad. I want her bangs. And eyebrows!

BOOK IT!

Most days I'm busy. Like, I have to schedule a five minute phone conversation or time to pee because just-about-every-minute-of-the-day-is-full busy. I'm also a big fan of reading. In elementary school, I was always the one in class who was most enthusiastic about BOOK IT. Remember this??!

You read a certain number of books every week and wrote down the titles on a sheet. A certain number of books equaled a star, and then those stars on your BOOK IT pin got you a personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. One time in second grade it was raining, and my Dad went into Pizza Hut to get my pizza while I stayed in the car, and they didn't want to give it to him because he wasn't with a kid. I like to imagine my Dad trying to hustle a personal pan pizza by exploiting a reading program for elementary school children. Don't worry, they ended up giving it to him.

Now that I'm older I realize that Pizza Hut was probably just trying to generate some sweet revenue, but I always looked at the gold star as a huge honor.  

So, speaking of books, this was the best book I read last year:

It's about a professor in South Africa, a scandal and his daughter. It starts out one way, and then it goes in another direction entirely. I'm not here to give you a plot summary, just know that it's very good. My goal for the year is to try and read at least a handful of, let's say at least seven or so, books. So far in 2013 I have almost completed a book of Dave Eggers' short stories, How We Are Hungry. Sigh, I need to make more time for reading!

What's your favorite book?

What's up with hedgehogs?

I felt like I knew what I needed to know about hedgehogs thanks to Sega Genesis. However, as it turns out, I did not. For example, I saw this video the other day and learned that they can swim/float:

You're in love with hedgehogs now too, right? What if you had one that lived in your bathroom and helped put toothpaste on your toothbrush every day??

Facts:

• Hedgehogs are mammals.
• They make hog noises while searching for food, often while hanging out in hedges. hedge + hog = yep. They're carnivorous and can even eat poisonous snakes.
• Hedgehogs hibernate.
• They're covered in little, hard quills, and can roll into a tiny hedgehog ball to protect themselves from danger, like an owl or a lawnmower.
• You can keep them as pets. They live for four to seven years, and a hedgehog starter kit is only $80!

It's a good thing that these people exist because, no, I do not like conflicting and fractured information about hedgehogs. I've always wanted to write a children's book. Do you think I could write one about a hedgehog? Here's a drawing I did:

 

I feel like his name could be Herbie the Helpful Hedgehog or something equally as catchy. And then I remembered this:

We meet again, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. Well played, Beatrix Potter. Well played.

Teppanyaki; i.e. A one-way ticket to Frown Town.

Everybody's always like, "Let's do teppanyaki! It's so good and you can eat all this meat and there's sauce and it's just the best." To which I say, no. No it's not. It's regrettable at best.

If you aren't familiar teppanyaki is an eating experience where you sit around a big grill and the chef juggles the food you're going to eat and you sit there and pretend to enjoy yourself. Lots of people like it.

Here are my issues:

• Authenticity. The only thing really Japanese about teppanyaki is the name, which translates to "iron-plate grill". I don't think they even exist in Japan. Japanese people have yakiniku, which rules.
• The food. Mountains of grilled meat and vegetables that have been smothered in oil and made airborne. You do have the option to drench your food in a nondescript "white sauce." What is that stuff? Why is it never refrigerated? Shouldn't there not be a better name for it than "white sauce"?
• The price. Expensive. $20-$25. See all other bullet points.
• The show. I don't want to pay someone with a lampshade on their head to throw food at my face. Read the Wikipedia description of what goes on under "In North America". Is someone making fun of us? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teppanyaki
• The crowd. You sit next to a stranger and at the same time next to the person you came with so you have to talk while staring in another direction. And if you go with a group, there's an excellent chance you'll sit next to someone you don't know while attempting to scream across the quadrangle of fire to talk to someone that you do. Just get comfortable staring at your napkin.   

But seriously, it's popular. If you want to go for your birthday, I will go with you. I would never say no to free food. You're paying, right? 

This should sum it all up for you.

Mornings, am I right?

I have never been and will never aspire to be a morning person. Sleep is my favorite hobby, and I can safely say it's the one I do best.
 
Recently, I've had to get up before 7:00a.m. for school. This is, for me, torture. What I have learned are a few things to make my morning go a bit smoother and get me places on time. I thought I would share them with the blogosphere.
 

• Set your entire outfit out the night before, down to the underpants, shoes and earrings. Then you don't have to think about it, or try to match socks in the dark.
• Put your alarm in the other room. Then you have to get up to turn it off. And since you're up and walking around, just don't go back to bed. Dance or something.
• Don't snooze your alarm. Snooze is not your friend. Snooze wants you to fail.  
• Shower in the evenings. This way you go to bed clean every night and you don't have to worry about the mathematically proven time vacuum that occurs during morning showers when you zone out and stare at the wall for 45 minutes when you think it's been only five.
• Pack your lunch at night. If you have to rush around to make it in the a.m., you might end up with a lunchbox full of various condiments, jelly packets and shredded cheese....recently happened.

Shazam!

So, remember when I was all "I wrote this Japanese tattoo artist, and I hope he emails me back." Oh, it happened! This is what I heard:

Hey Kate,
I am HoriToyo's buddy here in Yamanashi. I'm from Atlanta as well. Anyways, he will be in Atlanta sometime this year and we will get in touch with you when we have dates and times. How big were you thinking? A full upper arm may take 8-10 hours? So, just think about exactly what you want and the size and HoriToyo will draw something up for you. Thanks for the interest and good luck with your first tattoo...

Neat, right? This is a sketch I drew in the meantime as an idea. 2013 is coming up Kate.

La-Di Da-Di, We Like to Toddy.

It's cold outside. And I feel like I'm getting sick. You know what that means:

Won't you take me to......toddy toooown?!

I swear by these. They will make you feel better for a few dollars, and you don't need an insurance card. Follow this simple recipe:

• 1 shot of whiskey (to kill germs......and make you smile)
• 2 shots of water (to not get you too wasted)
• 1 Tablespoon of honey (to soothe your aching throat)
• 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (vitamin C!!)
• 1 Lemon Slice (for taste, more vitamin C, and to float in your drink and make it look legit)

Combine everything, except for the lemon slice, in a mug. Microwave for, say, 50 seconds. Add your lemon slice, stir with a spoon and sip. You may want to add more honey, you may want to add more whiskey.  It's your toddy, so knock yourself out.

懐かしい!

I heard about this photo contest through The FayBoo. The winner gets a trip to Japan! It was fun going through some old photos. If you have a sec, please vote for me at the link below! I don't think you have to log in or anything.

http://japanphotocontest.jp/eng/entry/?pid=25326

I will give you a high five and may even get you something with Hello Kitty on it if I  go. Maybe I will even dance like this.......this is not me, even though it looks like it could be. I would own that stuff. I took it at a Japanese department store where I bought a mug this one time.

Stenokate; not a verb, but should be.

Some of you may not know that I'm studying stenography!

ste·nog·ra·phy, /stəˈnägrəfē/- Noun; The action or process of writing in shorthand or taking dictation. Anyone who can master this process is a borderline ninja and should be compensated as such.

* Side note: Googling this, I found out that steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages. This is not really that at all, so try to keep up.

Court reporting, taking down literal courtroom and deposition testimony amongst other things, is no joke. See below:

 

(The above is a totally badass steno machine, roughly $5 G's.) Each court reporter owns their own machine. To blow your mind further, here's what the keyboard means:

Yup. Typing on this machine breaks down words phonetically. You can make any of the 26 letters of the alphabet using the vowels and seven letters on the right. Oh, I said it!

The end goal to finish school is transcription at 225 words a minute. I'm almost through my 100's. I will elaborate more on this later, but schooling is hard, challenging and at times results in excessive drinking. If you know one, hug a court reporter.

Hold on a second!

Now, for those of you who don't know, or are not kinfolk to me, I will be 30 this year. To celebrate three decades of me, I want to have a party. More than that, I think I may want to get a tattoo. Could I combine the two and have a tattoo fundraiser? Hmmmmm.

I've thought a lot about tattoos over the years. Yeah, I know, I'm probably too old. That being said, I've narrowed it down to a few things. Even if you don't know much about Japanese culture, you've probably seen this:
 

Kabuki theatre is boring, BUT the masks are awesome. This particular one is from a play called "Shibaraku" which means "hold on a second." Catchy!

While researching kabuki masks, I found this tattoo artist. http://horitoyotattoo.com/

He's Japanese and awesome. I also noticed that he comes to Georgia sometimes, what are the odds?! So, in my horrible, halting Japanese I sent him an email. It probably sounded like this:

Most honorable Horitoyo:

I am Kate. I used to live in Japan. You are so super cool. Will you have the kind pleasure of coming to Atlanta, GA sometime soon? I want to have meet you. I want to have tattoo and maybe you could make it for me?

Most humble,

Kate

Let's see what he says!

 

Oops, I did it again.

Are you there blog? It's me, Kate.

It's been a hot minute since I've blogged, and let's get real; I missed it! So I'm back. I don't even know if the young folks still read these things. Can you read a big blog on a tiny iPhone? What is a Tumblr, and do you have to stretch before you use it? Could someone help me send a Tweet? 

I say "Daily" Katorade with a lot of hope, knowing that daily may be a stretch for how much I'll actually be all up ons. Hey, for what it's worth, writing is fun for me; so I'm gonna give it a shot.

Come along with me. (Put that to music as you feel motivated to do so.)

Love,

Bilbo Bloggins aka Katorade