Kaos Reigns

Category: Life, the Universe and Everything

Things going on in Kate world.

  • not dead, just boring

    not dead, just boring

    I did stuff this summer, I swear. Just not a lot of stuff that was interesting enough to blog about. Saw a couple shows, just Of Montreal at the Gothic Theater and Clipse at Mission Ballroom, but there really weren’t many shows I wanted to see.

    Me, Patrick, Court and Andy at Of Montreal at the Gothic Theater. Sabrina is hiding behind Patrick’s arm I think. – 07/26/2025

    That all changes in 17 days, when my best friend Court and I head to Atlanta for Shaky Knees 2025. It’s a three day festival and My Chemical Romance is headlining day 2, so Court and I will lose our tiny little minds nerding out over early 2000’s emo. Devo is also playing and they are one of my top ten favorite bands ever. It’ll be my first time seeing them, which should be a blast.

    Then we get back, and the gauntlet o’ shows begins in earnest.

    Current Lineup for September – November:
    Sept 19-21 – Shaky Knees, Piedmont Park, Atlanta
    Sept 26th – They Might Be Giants, Ogden Theater
    October 1st – Autechre, Ogden Theater
    October 3rd – Wolf Alice, Ogden Theater
    October 9th – Yung Lean, Fillmore Auditorium
    October 12th – Twin Peaks: A Conversation with the Stars, Paramount Theater
    October 14th – Stereolab, Gothic Theater
    November 8th – The Faint, Gothic Theater
    November 13th – Devo, Mission Ballroom
    November 14th – Underworld, Fillmore Auditorium
    November 18th – Mars Volta, Mission Ballroom

    Clearly I will be making up for the lost time in the summer, and getting a couple bucket list shows checked off my list – Autechre, Stereolab, Devo and Underworld!

    Now back to your regularly scheduled boring for a few weeks. I’m just going to try to survive at work. And at home, Patrick tested positive for Covid 2 days ago and I tested negative, so trying to not get that shit again after it ruined my birthday a year and a half ago. Hoping I’m still relatively immunized to it…

  • Repeated cat-astrophes, shooting guns and new battlestations.

    Repeated cat-astrophes, shooting guns and new battlestations.

    It’s been a stressful week and a half. Last Wednesday night I had to take the cat to the emergency vet. Twice, in one day, actually. A few weeks ago, he had started straining to pee, and going in and out of his box and constantly licking his nether regions. We were worried but were able to get him into his regular vet the next day, and they were able to get him peeing again and sent him home with meds, and he was fine for like three weeks.

    Last Wednesday he started doing the straining thing again and our vet couldn’t get him in, so they recommended we take him to the emergency vet. So we did.

    He looks like he’s learned to disassociate pretty well.

    Anyway, they gave him some drugs to relax him but he wouldn’t even try to pee at the ER so they sent us home, where he started straining and going in and out of his box again. An hour or two later, we turned right back around and went back.

    Turned out he did have a blockage, so they had to keep him overnight and unblock him, then give him meds and fluids til he was pretty clear. He’d been pretty good with the new wet food (he now has to be on special urinary diet food) until today, when he started leaving little bloody puddles around the house while I was at a movie and Patrick was at home with him. I’ll write a review post about the movie later. So I had to hurry home, and we went back to the emergency vet this evening for a third time.

    Unsurprisingly, they remembered us.

    He felt safer in his Pokeball.

    Fortunately for my bank account, today we’re not looking blocked, just seems to be a badly inflamed bladder. So they’ve sent us home with kitty NSAIDs and painkillers and now I get to monitor him. Wheeeeeeeee.

    Fingers crossed this is the last of the shit and he’ll be good with the drugs and wet food.

    Other exciting things – I went with my friends Eduardo and Dolan and Dolan’s new girlfriend Kennedy to a gun range and shot real guns (not just the little shitty rifles they let us shoot once at Y-Camp) for the first time.

    Here is Eduardo being armed and fabulous:

    Pew pew, bitches.

    It was honestly an interesting and fun experience. Got to shoot 3 rifles and 2 handguns. It was louder than I even thought it would be. I liked the little Glock 9mm best, but the AR-15 was actually pretty fun to shoot if a little terrifying. The place we went was really nice and had a restaurant in it, so after we shot for like 2 hours we got some actually reasonably decent food.

    I would never have really seen myself as someone who would go learn how to handle a gun, but unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures.

    Last thing is that I redid my battle station (aka my desk) and I’m rather proud of how nice it looks:

    Think that pretty much covers the updates for the moment.

  • Vacation Tiiiiiiime!

    Vacation Tiiiiiiime!

    Hi there, if you’re out there reading this. I am not, in fact, dead. I am very much alive. I just haven’t been doing things like writing in this for a while.

    Mostly because we haven’t done anything particularly interesting in a while, but also because I’ve been lazy. Anyway, I’m here to rectify my lack of posting by meandering about a bit verbally.

    We are, however, doing something interesting in the next few days, and are taking most of next week to go explore Seattle, a place that is on our short list of “places we might consider moving to at a later date”. I have never been, Patrick on the other hand has lived there before, although not in the last 20 years, so we’re assuming a lot of things have changed between then and now.

    From what I understand, it doesn’t look like this much and is instead almost constantly rainy.

    We’re going in style, too. First class there and back on United, and we are staying at the most insane hotel I think I’ve ever stayed in. Patrick was like, “we are going big” and got us a “two bedroom executive suite” at this hotel in South Lake Union.

    This is not actually like a hotel room at all, it’s a whole ass two bedroom apartment with a balcony, full kitchen and living room, and a balcony. Check out one of the example floorplans:

    Is this not the most insane “hotel room”? I haven’t even touched on the amenities yet, but there are 2 pools, one indoor, one outdoor, 2 hot tubs (you will find me there at least once per day on this trip), a KARAOKE room, multiple outdoor areas with firepits and outdoor kitchens, a 9000 square foot workout room, a games room with pool and shuffleboard, a theater room, a “sports court with climbing wall”….we literally could entertain ourselves without leaving the hotel the entire trip.

    I am excited, though, because we’ve booked a food tour of Pike Place Market for the first full day we are there, at like lunch time, so we’ll do that for a couple hours then find something else to do in the afternoon. I had a $200 “experience” gift certificate from a long time ago at work that I hadn’t used in years so fortunately for us that means free food tour!

    Anyway, I’m excited in general. Two more sleeps til I get to go be fancy AF on a plane where they will serve me a nice lunch and all the free booze I want!

    The other thing I am very excited for will be awaiting me on my return home – I caved and bought a Moog Subsequent 25 because it’s being discontinued and was $300 off the regular price. I’d been eyeing one for a couple years now, every time we went to Chicago Music Exchange when we’ve traveled there. Now, it will finally be mine! Also I’m banned from buying any more synthesizers for a while. But look how pretty she is:

    I AM GOING TO MAKE SO MANY NOISES.

    Das ist alles.

  • Things are starting to take shape.

    Things are starting to take shape.

    I think that for now, at least, I’m just going to leave the looks of the site how it is. I like the simple, clean look. I’m so sick of every single page on the internet being crammed with ads and content, it’s nice to have space.

    Anyway, I think I’ve got the basics set up now. I also managed to download all my old Instagram and FB pictures and whatnot – they really provide you with a near terrifying amount of data when you do that. I think I’m fairly set to start closing down my Facebook account. For a month or so I will make all posts private except for occasional posts plugging this blog, and then delete it forever.

    I’ve really missed the days of the old internet, when I visited more than basically 3 websites. I’ve missed not being forced into consuming trash content from people I don’t know all the time. I’m excited for the projects I’m starting on right now.

    What projects, you might wonder?

    Well…

    First, I guess this blog is kind of a big project with a lot of little subprojects.

    Subproject 1:

    I’m planning to go through my entire record collection alphabetically (-ish, I have a somewhat freeform version of what alphabetical means, in that if an artist goes by several names I tend to shelve them all together under the primary name I think of them as), listen to the whole record, and write a little review of each one. Right now I’m going to start doing that on Sundays, because Sunday seems like a lovely day to listen to a record and write about it.

    Subproject 2:

    I’m also planning to start writing about film, like, a lot. Much like Subproject 1, I’m also planning to go through my physical film collection of things I have on Blu-ray and DVD. I’ve got probably at least 100 films then, so that’s fun. I’m also going to write up reviews of films I go to, and some streaming movies, especially more indie and foreign things I watch.

    My other, non blog related big project is learning FL Studio and recording some music. I’ve finally got a good setup, a bunch of instruments and equipment, and I’ve spent enough money on all these things that if I don’t start doing something with them, I will start being sad about it.

    I’ll of course post anything I create that I don’t hate here.