i heart nick corcoran.

June 19, 2004 started out rainy but turned out to be the most spectacular, cloudless beautiful June day ever. We exchanged our marriage vows at Christ's Church in downtown Binghamton. This is my favorite picture of the day, my aunt took it. I love it because I'm holding the hand of the cutest, kindest, most considerate, creative, intelligent boy I have ever met surrounded by the people we love and the city we adore.


We didn't have extraneous people at the wedding, we had only people who enriched our lives. (and 4 couples who were friends of our parents, but they enriched their lives...) Five years later not only has our love grown but our family of friends. We are the luckiest people in the world; I am the luckiest woman alive. Not only do I get to be married to Nick but my life is full of brilliance thanks to the people in it. Thanks, HP, for the true blessings that I have been given...

these are the same people who cheered me on as I have gone through a hellacious 3 months of writing. Which, might I add, was greeted with these words from my prof: "Hello Kate, I did get your file. In fact, I have read through your thesis and I am quite happy with the revisions you've made."

rock on!

stillness

Hip hip hooray, I completed my thesis!

As I wait for my prof's review/comments so that I can truly completely never have to write again I've just been sitting here in my pretty orange office contemplating.

My body still shakes a little, coming off this wild ride I decided to begin on March 15. I started freaking out a little, what's next? What's my next big accomplishment? And then I thought to myself...BE STILL! "Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." (Omar Khayyam) WHO CARES WHAT I DO???? I'm FRIGGEN DONE WITH MY MASTER'S DEGREE.

I can do whatever the hell I want!!!!!!


Yesterday, after I clicked SEND on the 36 pages of writing I've slaved over for the past 3 months...well, honestly, I cried a little at first. Then I cracked a beer and sat in the yard, the sun beating down on my SUPER WHITE skin, READING A BOOK THAT I PICKED. Today I spent time with my loves, Kami, John and G and didn't worry about getting back to write before dinner.

I can do what I want.


There are no more classes hanging over my head.

There are no professors waiting for my response to something I read.

It's just me and my thoughts and whatever I want to create here in my orange office.

thanks be to the HP... and St. Theresa and whoever it was that sent her prayer to me just as I took this on...

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God [kmc:the HP] that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God[kmc:the HP].
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of you.



I'll write my complete page of dedications later... :)

...still...
a moment on Chase Lake...last friday night...

awesome.

I found this on facebook and thought I would share... as I procrastinate the final pages and edits... :)

my favorite month

Dear June,

I love you. You are my favorite. You remind me of the anticipation of the end of school. Of early in the season days at Cole Park which were filled with school children who only came for a few hours and a lot of chit chat. You remind me of summer classes at Penn State. You remind me of bonfires in high school and solo back yard beers at slootsville manner, state college. You remind me of graduating high school, of moving to baltimore. You remind me of the best weekend of my life, when I married Nick. You remind me of all the possibilities that lay before me not only when I hit a milestone in my life but each day when I wake up.

June, you inspire me to dance barefoot in the rain feeling the mud between my toes. You inspire me to take road trips. To write poetry beneath the trees. To eat popsicles with children. To skip to my destination rather than walk or run.

Thanks, June, for the way you make me feel inside. For invigorating my senses. For causing tears of joy and sheer exuberance in my heart.

Forever and Always,

Katherine Mary

Ode to Mrs. Woolfe

My introduction to one Mrs. Virginia Woolfe came my senior year of high school when I wrote my very first literary research paper of any worth titled something like "Feminism in Virginia Woolfe." I'm sure I still have it somewhere in my papers. Later in my intro to lit class at Capital University (my first college) I really got into A Room of One's Own. I owe this second transition in my home to this book.

You see, I traded off parking my car through the long, treacherous winters we face in Upstate New York for a room of my own. A room I had a dream about, actually. It's graduation season so continually we are reminded by the late Eleanor Roosevelt that "the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." I dreamt in orange. I dreamt in walls of bookshelves and a door I could close and make the rest of the world go away. No, really, I had a dream I painted the office orange and so we did.

Orange represents the sacral chakra in the lower abdomen. Associated personal elements include emotional expression , sense of feeling..."utilization of creative forces into all aspects of being". excellent.

Nick and I, we need rooms of our own. He needs the garage and a half to belong to him. He needs his space to create, build, paint, do whatever things he does with his tools down there. I need my room to do the same thing. I just implement different tools: keyboards, books, deep thinking sessions...

This room has become the most perfect spot for me. It went from this:


To this:





In the worlds of Woolfe herself..."A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

The Hood.

I spent an hour last Wednesday evening trying to figure out how to wear my master's hood. I was online looking for examples, none of which were helpful. There were directions with the hood but they were made for the high dollar hood, which SUNY Cortland does not give you. I tried it every which way finally stopping at 1030pm...with an exasperated "I GIVE UP" -- not quite my style.

Friday I was dreading going to graduation, everyone is going to be wearing their hoods and I am going to look like a jackass. Plus, I have no friends to ask to help me so I'll have to ask some stranger and look like a total jerk...

Guess what? Of course, that didn't happen. They actually handed out directions for your hood when you got there. You don't even wear your hood in, they put it on you in the hooding ceremony which is actually what I was going to, not truly a commencement. Get it? So Cortland of them.

What else was so Cortland was (a) the director of English Graduate studies also didn't know how the hell the hood went on (b) the key note speaker was Austin MacRae. Right. He also got his MA that night. In English. But he's published and sipped grape soda with some really awesome guy so he's extra special. Luckily we got to hear a poem he composed after said soda sipping. That pretty much sums up my experience at Cortland. Grape soda. Sounds good, but its just nasty dyed syrup and carbonated water.

But I have my hood and that's pretty cool.

Here I am getting the hood put on:
I did it:


The hubs and I:


If I look spaced and exhausted in this one, its because I am. I didn't realize Corcoran was taking the picture. (Should I mention I said good bye to a bunch of my babes this day, too at work!) Wait, I lied, in this picture I am contemplating my future... thinking two words "holy shinikees!"

transformation #1

the living room...

my amazing husband...and my fabulous taste (in both men and colors)

goes something like this:

Red is one of my favorite colors, however, this was too much...


it is pretty and big, though...




So, we taped...


there i am, cute as a button, after taping. . .

and there's my cute hubby (that orioles hat is his painting hat ONLY not to be worn in public!)


and corky primed (we were almost asphyxiated the first night we tried to prime, apparently using the contractor degree of primer in a non-ventilated area causes your "explosive gases" alarm to go off, and also for you to start hallucinating)



then it was perfect, well except the crap everywhere...