Category Archives: narcissism

The Ten Greatest Things I’ve Ever Done

Posted by katie ett on July 30, 2013 – 12:00 pm
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The Ten Greatest Things I’ve Ever Done, Chronologically

• Managed to find the most perfect best friend for me and love her immutably for nearly 30 years

• Came in second to said best friend in both of our elementary school spelling bees (losing on the words convertible and monstrous, and she’s such a good best friend that she never brings up how much better she is than me) but went on to win basically everything ever in school after that

• Loved my mom through her year-long battle with brain cancer–during which she lost the ability to speak, write, and eventually even recognize her family–but came out of the ordeal being much closer to my dad

• Spent an extra year at The Ohio State University to write a senior thesis in narrative nonfiction about my feeeeeeeeeelings

• Moved to NYC with one box of possessions and $3,000 to my name and made it WORK

• Won a poetry contest based on a six-word piece about my mom’s meatloaf

• Learned to appreciate the farm in Ohio that I came from

• Somehow cultivated amazing taste in food/music/film/fashion despite growing up on said farm

• Started a photography business on nothing but the love of it and the support of my ex-boyfriend

• Cut my hair super-short before leaving for vacation in Puerto Rico last week. The haircut is really the entire purpose of this post. It was such a good decision that the rest of my accomplishments pale.

You? Tell me in the comments, or better yet, on your own blog.

Life as a Single Lady

Posted by katie ett on June 4, 2013 – 12:00 pm
Filed under everyone's married but katie, living in new york is neat, narcissism
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I know you’ve been thinking about my well-being every moment of every day since I announced the year-in-the-making Great KamKat Breakup of 2013, and I want to assure you that I’m doing fine. Much better than expected. Terrific, really. I don’t want to say that I’m flourishing, exactly, because that somehow implies that Kamran was holding me back, and on the contrary, I think it was he who set me up to flourish: there’s a certain kind of confidence that comes with having been loved so hard for six years. When I visited my family last week to shoot my first wedding, my stepmom sent me home with a card that told me she and my dad were really worried about me in the days leading up to Kamran’s leaving but that I’ve handled myself “beautifully”. That was meaningful.

Before he moved back to California, I wrote in my journal that “the cons associated with Kamran’s leaving are too immense to even begin to list. My life is about to change in just about every way I can think of, and even the things that are staying the same will be affected.” And it’s true that my life has changed, but it doesn’t feel nearly as melodramatic and bleak as I expected. Granted, it’s only been a little over a month since he left, and my feelings may be different when I decide to date again and find that the only available men are finance guys who didn’t get married in their 20s because they were busy “working hard and playing harder”, and by that I of course mean “sleeping around”.

But so far, here are the pros to “being alone”, and by that I of course mean “not dating Kamran but still being surrounded by the love of my friends and family”:

• I’m now actually living in the apartment I’ve been paying rent on for the past two and a half years. All of my things are in one place for the first time in six years.

• The subways that converge at my apartment are as follows: A, B, C, F, G, N, Q, R, 2, 3, 4, 5. I never have to be annoyed at having to go to the West Village or Tribeca, because everywhere is convenient now.

• My roommate is great. The time we spend together doing the mundanest things somehow feels important.

• I have an oven to bake in instead of just a two-burner stovetop. I haven’t baked anything, but I can, goddammit.

• I have a freezer to store ice cream in. Do you know what six years without a quart of ice cream in your home at all times is like? DEATH.

• I have a gigantic 3-D TV and six seasons of “The Sopranos” on HBO Go.

• I have a memory foam mattress and can take up as much space in bed as I want to. Sleeping in the center of it feels like life’s greatest luxury.

• I can order whatever I want for dinner. And if that’s Indian four times a week, no one cares.

• I buy the toilet paper I want to. I have my own bathroom. All of the cabinets are filled with girl stuff. I am a princess.

• My commute to work is one subway stop. One.

• No one will give me a hard time about my low-carb diet. Butter on my omelet! Pizza toppings!

• I can do my laundry once a week or once a month.

• I can go to the gym or not go to the gym.

• I can take up totally random hobbies. Archery!

• I can stay out late on Friday nights with my friends and not have to worry about having anyone to get home to.

• I can wake up the next day whenever I want. I can stay locked in my room that day until 1 p.m., and no one will pretend to clean up around me just to make noise so I’ll get up before I’m ready.

• I can do a photoshoot that afternoon and then go out for dinner without feeling like I have to ask anyone permission.

• I can stay up that night until the sun comes up listening to music, or I can go to bed at 10 p.m.

• I can kiss boooooys.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m enjoying being an independent lady. The great thing is that I have so much time to do anything I want to now, and there’s no one waiting at home for me making me feel guilty about seeing my friends too much.

Let’s forget about the fact that when there’s someone waiting at home for you, there’s nothing you want to do more than sit at home with that person.

It Was My Birthday, and You Forgot

Posted by katie ett on October 10, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under holidays don't suck for me, narcissism
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It was my birthday yesterday. I didn’t post here, because I wanted to separate my regular, old blogfriends from the people who would track me down and thrust their friendship upon me on Facebook in order to be able to wish me a happy birthday there.

Just kidding. I was just lazy.

Kamran said this was a prime birthday and therefore didn’t count for much, so he only took me to Dylan’s Candy Bar for a diabetes feast, proved once again that he’s the driving force behind Ettible Photography by buying me the lens I wanted, and let me do whatever I felt like in general.

I picked him up from work, we took the bus home, we ordered gyro platters from The Famous Chicken Place (ridiculous name, awesome food), we watched season 2 of “Big Brother”, we ate candy until we were too sick to continue. He offered to stand a birthday candle in a pile of Skittles for me to blow out, but I was too busy munching to care.

It’s pretty great getting old.

Thoroughly Thorough

Posted by katie ett on September 19, 2012 – 12:45 pm
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Boy, I’ve been such a bad blogger lately. It seems like there’s more to write about than ever, but I never have the time to write it, and for a few weeks now, I’ve been wondering why. At first, I thought it might be because I’ve been chatting with Cassie nearly every day, all day. Then I thought it might be because I’ve been taking so many pictures and have really been loving the editing process. But then I realized that no, it’s just because I’m a freak who can’t be trusted with the Internet.

It hit me today, when I was trying to pick out matching earrings for my BFF, Tracey, and me. I’m going home for the Circleville Pumpkin Show next month and wanted to make a tradition of bringing pumpkin earrings for Tracey and me to wear on the maaaaany days we’ll go to eat carnival food. So I went to Etsy. And an hour and forty-five minutes later, I emerged with links to about twenty pairs that I like.

(The picture of last’s years earrings is incredibly creepy and 80s, don’t you think?)

Pumpkin Earrings

And it’s the same with anything Internet-related I do. My cousin’s wife announced recently that she’s selling Scentsy products now, and upon hearing this, I spent an entire day Googling what Scentsy is, whether they’re electric or candle-powered, and what the different kinds of wax tarts are. Then, when I actually decided to buy one, I looked at 90% of the Internet to make sure there wasn’t a non-Scentsy warmer I liked better. Then I checked Etsy to see what kinds of homemade tarts crafters are selling. And then I ultimately bought a Scentsy warmer and tarts, just like I should have done eight hours earlier.

When Clinique recently discontinued the T-Zone Shine Control gel-to-powder stuff I use to keep my nose not-shiny throughout the day, I swear I spent a week Googling replacements and asking for help from Kinard. I ended up at Sephora, where I got samples that didn’t work at all. And then I Googled some more and ended up putting Monistat Chafing Relief Powder-Gel on my face against all of my better sensibilities, but that didn’t work, either. And so I Googled some more and probably joined every makeup review site on the Internet in the process. I still didn’t find what I’m looking for at any of those, so you know I’m going to end up trying bull semen or frog urine or something as I reach farther and farther into the depths of the Internet for suggestions.

I’m not obsessive. I’m just thorough.

Bad Girl Gone Good Gone Bad

Posted by katie ett on July 17, 2012 – 12:00 pm
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I started being a little hardcore in the gym a few weeks ago. “Hardcore” for me, of course, is a relative term, and you’ll note that my hardcoreness conveniently coincided with packing for the Jersey shore and realizing–oh, crap, a whole week in a bathing suit. I’ve been going to the gym off and on for the last few years thanks to Kamran’s prodding and the lingering guilt that comes with living in an apartment building that has a gym right inside, but I’ve mostly done as little as possible: using the stationary bike so I can sit, ramping up the resistance on the elliptical just enough that I have an excuse to go slow, anything else that’ll keep me from sweating. Because eww, sweat.

But then I got on the stairclimber the other day because all of the ellipticals were taken by those stupid girls who wear sports bras without shirts and then hold on to the handrails so they can move just their legs a hundred miles a minute. I have no idea what would compel someone to think that’s any kind of workout, but hey, it’s probably better than sitting quietly on the stationary bike and hoping no one notices that my legs aren’t moving at all, so instead of kicking one of them off of the elliptical, I just took the stairclimber. And then I sweated and sweated and sweated, because that shit is hard. And I. Felt. Awesome.

Now (meaning for the past few days), I totally scorn everyone in the gym who doesn’t appear to be working as hard as I am. 80-year-old lady only doing eight reps on the chest press? I SEE YOU. Superfat dude on the spinning bike going negative miles per hour? I SEE YOU. Oh, you’ve already lost 63 pounds doing that? I STILL JUDGE YOU.

I’m also really excited about eating “well” right now. I’m reading Gary Taubes Why We Get Fat, and I haven’t even gotten to the part where he tells me to stop eating refined grains and processed crap, but I still spent most of Sunday afternoon prepping vegetables and fruits and multigrain crackers and lean meats to take in the teeny-tiny totally-not-enough-food-to-feed-a-real-human bento box that I bought years ago and then never used when I got excited about Adventures in Bentomaking for a very, very short time.

I’m also really excited about saving money right now. I make myself a yearly budget, and I generally stick to it so I don’t end up out on the streets, but I’m never very precise. Well, I sat down the other day and really figured out exactly how much cash I have to spend every week, and then I went and took this week’s allowance out of the bank. And when I bought my stepmom’s birthday present online today, I went and put the equivalent amount of cash back in the bank. I thought about buying a pair of jeans when I got home, but then I stopped myself and actually had superiority feelings about my self-control.

I know myself, though, and I know how short-lived all of this is. I’ll get bored of the gym and will go back to spending half my time there cleaning my weight machines and filling up my itsy-bitsy water cooler cup over and over. I’ll really want some chicken fingers and then some pizza and then some ice cream and then a whole week of burgers and fries. I’ll scrimp and save for months and then one day explode into a fireball of Forever 21 leggings and BareMinerals lipstick and Nikon macro lenses, all bought on credit. It’s like I’m only good so I can later be so, so bad.