My Special Someone

My next writing challenge assignment is to write about my feelings for someone. So, I decided to write about my current love.

Smitty. Yes, my cat. We love each other to the point of ridiculous. I haven't felt such pure love from any being in my life except from Daisy, my beautiful Persian girl who died two years ago.

Smitty came to me in the same manner that my two older cats did. Out of nowhere. I was sitting out on my patio, in the dark, when I heard a mewing sound coming out of the blackness. Naturally, I stopped what I was doing and followed the sound. It was starting to get light when I saw a kitten run behind my neighbor's trash can. When I tried to get it to come out, it ran next door, to another neighbor's house, and onto their porch. I could see it well now. I guessed it to be about twelve weeks old, with light, Siamese markings. Once more, I tried to catch it, but it got away from me and I lost sight of it.

As I started to walk back home, the neighbor came out. I told him I was trying to catch a kitten, and asked him if he could try to catch it if he saw it. He said that he would. That evening, the neighbor brought the kitten to my door.

He was a male, pretty calm, but a little scared too. He was beautiful, with his Siamese markings and big blue eyes. He spent his first night under my bed, waking me up every so often with loud mews. By the second night, he was sleeping quietly with me. I went to our park office to ask if anyone had called, looking for a lost Siamese kitten, and she told me no, and that I could keep him if I wanted him. I went home and named him. It didn't take long to think of Smitten Kitten, shortened to Smitty. I was in love.

Smitty is now eleven months old, and definitely a Mamma's boy. He's still growing, but he's bigger than seven year old Susie already. He's very friendly and loves most people. He's twenty-five percent brat, and seventy-five percent sweetheart. He gets real wild at times, but the rest of the time he's a little love. 

A few weeks ago, I was lying in bed, on my side, when Smitty jumped up on the bed and laid next to me in the spoon position. I wrapped my arms around him, and he wrapped his arms around my arms, and we laid perfectly still for forty-five minutes. I had my eyes closed and I was so absorbed in the love passing between us that I didn't think of anything else the entire time. Not even a cigarette. We didn't move a muscle. I felt pure, unconditional love. 

I've lost count of all of the special moments we've had together. He's smart, funny, and adorable. Everyone who meets him wants to take him home. One time, when I was in the beginning of a severe depression, I laid down, and Smitty came to me and loved me up. I felt better immediately. No medication has ever done that. 

He's my little angel baby. He's my handsome young man, my sweet prince. I love Smitty as much as I've ever loved anyone. He has my heart.

Lust Letter

My next writing assignment is write a short poem, and since I haven't been inspired to write any poetry lately, I'm posting an old one.

big

sloppy

stinky

brilliant

sweet lover

that my mouth could be bigger

to take a bigger bite of you

I like your aftertaste

walk down this road

and bring it back

I want to give you me

clean and soft

I want to see

the transformation

in your face

I love your face

and I like your tattoos

you are to me

life itself

bumbling and perfect

and unafraid of death

don’t be afraid of me

I’ll only hurt you well

come let me bathe you

and feed you

and fuck you

and make you strong

then I will

send you back down your road

Dear Ewan

My next writing challenge is to write a letter to anyone. So, I wrote a short and sweet letter to my Ewan McGregor.

Dear Ewan,

I love you. If there were such a thing as the perfect man, you'd be it. You're a great actor, husband, father, and activist for good causes. You're an adventurer. You're so beautiful that I've actually cried while watching you act. You were a wild boy when you were younger, smoking and drinking and having a good time, but you gave that all up to become a family man. You're such a stand-up guy and I love you for that. You're funny and you cuss like a drunk sailor. Is there anything not to love about you? 

Yes, Ewan McGregor, I love you.

All My Heart and Soul,
Kelli 

Christina Perri Review

Ironically, the next writing challenge assignment I'm doing is a review. Having saved the best for last, my friend and fellow writing challenge partner, Toni, chose Christina Perri from three choices and I'm glad she did. 

CHRISTINA PERRI 

I listened to pop radio for two years and only came away with only two favorites - Ed Sheeran and Christina Perri. 

Christina Perri is my newest favorite music artist. She writes her own songs and she uses cords that give her music that atmospheric, haunting quality that I love. Her sound is unique. Her voice is beautiful, yet has a little bit of that edge I'm so crazy about. The girl's never written a bad song that I've ever heard. She moved to L.A. from Philadelphia and struggled to pay rent while also trying to get her songs heard. Her song, Jar of Hearts, was played on So You Think You Can Dance and received a lot of attention and she rose from obscurity to fame in a short amount of time. 

Her current hit on pop radio is Jar of Hearts. It's a good song, but not my favorite, which is Tragedy. Before I knew the name of it, I called it the la la song because it's got la las. It's so very Christina Perri. It's reminiscent of something perhaps heard in the late 60s in it's style. 

 NEWS FLASH: 
I just heard one of her songs on Pandora and found it to be relatively lame. However, I have to say that her worst songs are still head and shoulders above all of the other watered-down songs heard on poop radio.

I find Christina Perri to be an extraordinary, gifted, and special talent. Really though, as if that's not enough, she's also drop-dead gorgeous. Though charismatic in her videos, she seems a little shy when performing live. She likes to keep those beautiful eyes almost closed when she sings. I've watched tons of her videos and I never tire of watching her. I've included two videos, so that you can see her live and in one of her production videos.

I think she's extremely endearing. What do you think?

Another Rant

ANOTHER RANT

Censorship. It's often absurd and usually unnecessary, in my opinion. What are swear words, really? They're just words. We'll always find another word to express what we need to say, so why is that word ok and the other, swear word, is not? Who decided that one word was ok and one was not, anyway? I will admit, it gets a little better all the time. Twenty years ago, you could not say a lot of the things you can say now. It tickles me, though, that the uptight people who get their panties in a bind over words, with all the horrible problems this world needs help with, spend their energy on something so trite. Oh well, I guess. It takes all kinds, right?

Rant About Boobs

Rant About Boobs

The hardest part of this assignment was deciding which rant to choose. I had a long list going, then yesterday I found myself ranting to The Geez about a subject that has long been sore with me. Man boobs.

I have nothing against any boobs, actually. I think they should be allowed to fly free anywhere, at any time. For men and women. I personally like to keep mine under wraps almost 24/7 because they are getting up there in age and they're falling down and I sweat under them without a bra. When they were young, I let them be as free as I could without getting arrested. I didn't wear a bra unless I was at work. 

What irks me to the core is how a man, with boobs just as big as mine, is allowed to let them fly, free as a bird, but I am not. How is that right? I have an ample breast size, but I've seen guys just as ample, walking around shirtless. 

I have a neighbor, I'll call him George, (who is also sort of stalking me, but that's a whole other story, which I'll save for another time) and I swear this guy doesn't believe in wearing a shirt. It has been 35° outside and I've been sitting out on my patio, wearing my warm coat, and this guy comes driving up to talk to me, not wearing a shirt. I can see his house from where I sit, and I see him outside, doing outside things, always without his shirt. He's quite fat and I kid you not, his boobs are every bit as big as mine. 

It's downright sexist. Granted, women's breasts are probably more alluring than old George's, but not all women's are and why aren't they allowed to let them air out every once in a while? It's not fair. That's what I think. What do you think?

My Roller Coaster Life ~ Part Two

My Roller Coaster Life (part two)

After a short stay at my dad's in Kansas, I moved to Tulsa again, this time on my own. I slept on my mom's couch until I had a job and an apartment close to where I worked. I only lived in Tulsa for four years, but those four years were so full of memories that I could literally write a book on that subject alone. But this is supposed to be a short autobiography, so I will try to keep it that way.
I always look back at my times in Tulsa as my good old days. I made friends, went out often, and heard loads of music. I had more than my fair share of boyfriends. I kept my head above water financially, and just generally had a good time.

Then I met Spike. He was the second love of my life. He was young, only seventeen when we got together. I was twenty-five. I always looked young for my age and Spike looked older, so our age difference wasn't noticeable to most people. He was tall at 6'-'7". When I met him, he was a skinny, gawky kid with bad skin and bad hair. By the time I left him, three years later, he had filled out, grown his hair out a little, and really transformed into a cute guy. He had wonderful blue eyes. When he came to work at Louie Ds, where I worked, we were practically enemies. I thought he was immature and a pain in the ass. Then one day, out of the blue, I watched him hand a plate to a customer with those beautiful long hands of his, and I fell in love. I thought it must be a joke. I couldn't possibly take those feelings seriously, but, the longer I was around him, the more I fell in love. The night we finally got together, I couldn't stop giggling at the absurdity of the whole situation. I was, however, stone cold in love for the next three years and for years afterwards. However, there was a problem that was big enough to make me leave. Spike was extremely jealous. Lord help me if I went without a bra, or was fifteen minute late coming home from work. It never got better, only got worse, until I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't happy with my job either. Things had just slowly fallen apart and once again, I called my dad, and he came and got me.

This time I spent two years in the small town of Pittsburg, Kansas. I worked part-time in my dad's flea market and saved money to move back to Arizona. I had a small circle of friends and went out a couple of times a week. Nothing really extraordinary happened, and when I turned thirty, I moved back home to Arizona.

I loved my little home in Arizona where I lived for the next three years. It was a park model travel trailer, just the right size for me, and I had it parked by the river in a really peaceful park. It was a relatively uneventful time except for the crazy boyfriend I had for a year. I kicked him out on a weekly basis, but he'd wait until I fell asleep, then crawl back in through the window. He'd be next to me in the morning and we would make up for the next week. It was a crazy year. I could write a whole story about that year alone.

After three years of happily living on my own, but sick of being broke, I decided to move back to Kansas again. I worked at my dad's flea market full-time and didn't go out at all. My best friends were a married couple who were in their mid eighties. She was my mentor, and he was a sweet man who always knew the right thing to say. I loved them dearly.

After working there for five years, I was extremely burned out. Both the customers and the dealers in the flea market were driving me crazy, so I saved enough money to live on for a year, and I quit.
The next year was very interesting. I fell in love with Ewan McGregor after watching Moulin Rouge, and I discovered the internet. I printed out enough Ewan pictures to wallpaper my whole bathroom. Then I found a chat room called PalTalk and I practically lived there. I met a woman from Denmark with whom I'm still friends to this day. I met tons of guys and was really juggling the boyfriends. Then I met a man from London, and everything changed.

He was different. He was soft spoken and sweet, and I fell in cyber-love. After talking online and by telephone for several months, he bought me a plane ticket to London, and off I went. He had a ten year-old daughter and I stayed with the two of them for three months. We went everywhere. He took me to every tourist attraction in London, we went to the seaside several times, and I got to see a lot of the countryside. I adored London. What I liked best was simply going for walks, taking it all in. One night, I went alone to a pub nearby and met a bunch of people, and I had a blast. I fell in love with fish and chips too. After having the real thing, nothing else will ever do again.
Unfortunately, there were bad times as well. I have memories of arguments and battles of wills. I was supposed to stay six months, but left after three. Looking back, I remember the good times most, and I'll cherish those always.

Not long after I returned home from London, my dad brought the mail in one day and handed me a letter. It was from my first love, Jimmy. I was in shock, and I didn't even open the letter for hours until I regained my composure. He said he was out of prison, where he'd been for the last thirteen years, that he finally had his life together, and wondered if I was interested in calling him. I called the next night. We were both very nervous, and it was a little awkward at first. So I said something funny and he laughed. It was the same laugh that I remembered from twenty-three years before, and I just knew our chemistry was still there. We spoke on the phone every day for a month before I flew to Arizona to see him. We got married a month later.
I've written a whole, long story about Jimmy and myself, and if I write it again here, this will become a long story instead of a short one. So I will just sum it up the best I can.

Our marriage was a roller coaster. Jimmy would leave, and I would have episodes of depression, often accompanied by drunken rages. We couldn't live with or without each other. I can't count the times my heart was broken, and I'm sure it was the same thing for Jimmy. But I also can't count the beautiful, heartfelt, intimate memories Jimmy and I made together. Then, right before Thanksgiving, seven years ago, Jimmy left me for the last time, and went back to Arizona. This time, he didn't come back. He wanted to, but he got sick. He went to the hospital and found out that he had MRSA. I tried to go to him, but the only bus ticket I could afford was a twelve day in advance ticket, but Jimmy only lived eight days. Part of me died with him, and I doubt that I'll ever be completely over him.

I've been here in Kansas ever since. We moved to Topeka three years ago, which was a big step up from Pittsburg. I call this my bored period. I've pretty much been bored ever since Jimmy died. Also, around that time, I was diagnosed with bipolar and clinical depression, and started taking medication. I also have a couple of physical limitations, so I applied for disability and, while I've been denied twice, I have a good lawyer this time, and I'm pretty confident that I will win my case this time. When I do, I'll be moving to Portland, Oregon, and starting a simple little life on my own with my cats.

So, that's the story of the first half of my life. I'm really psyched about the next chapter. I shall be letting you know in time...

My Roller Coaster Life ~ Part One

My Roller Coaster Life  (part one)

I was the first Kemper girl born in eighty years. That was fifty years ago. I call it my roller coaster life because of all the moving and starts and finishes I've experienced in my time on this planet. I've lived in Topeka, Kansas, all over Southern California, the Verde Valley in Arizona, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Seattle, Washington, and I've spent a lot of time in Portland, Oregon. I was born to a vagabond family and I've pretty much stayed one throughout my adult years. 

The first ten years of my life were spent moving between Topeka and Southern California. We never stayed in either place more than a year and I was constantly changing schools, which was hard on a painfully shy kid. We never had much but we were a close family and the first ten years were pretty happy. I'd usually just have one close friend and I was kind of a loner and a bookworm. 

At ten years old, we moved to the small town of Cottonwood, in the Verde Valley in Arizona for the first time and it was a turning point in my life. I fell madly in love with the place. At that time, the Verde Valley, Arizona was relatively undiscovered. It was so beautiful and wild. The whole valley was our playground. There was a river running through it and we spent a lot of time at different cool spots on the river. We climbed rocks and could ride a bike all the way through town without seeing a car. It was glorious. These days, all the places where we used to roam free, you now have to pay to get into and everything is tightly controlled. A lot of people from California have moved there and it's become a fast-paced, rapidly growing little city. I'm just glad I got to live there when I did.

We moved briefly back to Kansas after that first move to Arizona but then we moved back and actually stayed for a whole ten years. That's why I tell people I'm from Arizona. It's always felt like my true home. 

Between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, I was was quite the wild child, sneaking out of my bedroom window to go party with the boys at night and my mom would send me to California to live with my dad when I got too incorrigible for her to handle. At age sixteen, I met and fell in love with Jimmy Murray and I settled down. At age seventeen, we moved up the mountain to a little town called Jerome and the people in that town would play a big part of shaping who I would become. It was formerly a ghost town that was reinhabited in the 50s or 60s by hippies and artists and it was a very mind-opening experience. Unfortunately, soon after I turned eighteen, Jimmy and I broke up. 

When I turned nineteen, I was old enough to get into the bars and I began to dance. While the crowd was sitting out the first couple of sets, I would dance, with the whole floor to myself. Once the crowd got drunk enough to get up there, that's when I would mostly sit it out. It was too crowded for me. I never danced the same way twice. It was ever-changing, free-flow dancing. I was in my element. 

At twenty-one, I left Arizona to move to Kansas with my new boyfriend, Leonard. We stayed with my dad and Leonard worked until he'd saved enough money for a car and a move to Tulsa. I didn't really get to know Tulsa that first time living there. We both worked multiple jobs for a year to save money to move to Seattle. Leonard was sometimes abusive to me and I left him once, after he gave me a black eye, taking the cat and everything I owned to my mom's for a couple of weeks. My mom's new husband had a little chat with Leonard and he never touched me again. We moved to Seattle after all.

I loved Seattle. I've lived in quite a few cities and Seattle was by far the coolest. We only lived there for a year but it was a year with plenty of ups and downs. The first six months were full of great memories but the second six months were hell. 

First of all, Seattle is lovely. Secondly, there's so much to do! We both had decent jobs and really had our shit together. Leonard worked at the Space Needle and I had a job downtown, working in a little deli, which was walking distance from our tiny studio apartment. Life was good. We went out to hear music often. This was actually right before the big Seattle explosion and the music was free, with no cover charge. There was one street that had a dozen bars all in a row, all with live bands and we hopped from one to the other. To this day, I'm not really sure whom all I heard play. Could be I saw bands that later became famous.

This was also the time when I opened up to movies and became such a big fan of them. There were no less than a half dozen cool little theaters within walking distance from our apartment. Each one was uniquely full of character and cheap. We went as often as three or four times a week. There was a film festival once with preview openings. Many directors attended and spoke about their films. There were six hundred films played in a couple of weeks and we saw so many cool movies. 

Then there were the beer places, with every kind of imported beer imaginable, the coffee houses, and my favorite, the juice bars, where even the the ice was made of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and  bowls of shelled sunflower seeds were provided at no extra charge. 

I made some good friends from my job and would go out with them occasionally. I was cuter than kittens in my fake leopard fur coat, my 50s cat style sunglasses, and hair in a Pebbles pony tail. Leonard and I kind of stuck out in our wild, colorful garb while Seattle was still a sea of black-haired, black-clothed, pale-skinned people. It was the end of a goth period and the beginning of grunge. I would wear my big, purple hippie skirt with my converse shoes and a flannel shirt before it was fashionable. It was a really good time. 

Every other weekend, Leonard and I would drive to Portland to stay with friends and do drugs. We vowed to each other that we'd only do them every other weekend and never at home. Then came the day that Leonard brought them home. His excuse was that I was sick and he thought it would help. We got hooked. Days melted into days and everything slowly fell apart. My friends looked at me with worry on their faces and we never went anywhere except to cop drugs. Then came the day that we were apartment sitting for our landlord when Leonard suggested that we pawn some of his things for drug money. I said no fucking way! I was scared out of my drug-induced coma by visions of living behind dumpsters with our drug dealer friends. I called my dad and told him what was happening. He sent me a plane ticket, so my cat and I got the hell out of Dodge. Sadly, Leonard continued down that path but I never touched drugs again.