Second, and since I’ve been horrible about making all of those promised changes to the site layout, I’ll continue to update the site with my standup schedule - which, to date, includes:

• Tuesday, January 19th at The Middle East (10 P.M.ish)
• Friday, January 22nd at Great Scott (7:30 P.M.)

I’ve also got some magazine stuff in the works, and will post about that when all is said and published.

Rock on,

Karyn (With a Whine)

P.S. - “Mas chistosas,” I think, means “More funniness” in Spanish.  Even my foreign language skills are un-PC (and grammatically incorrect, likely).

Oh, and if you’re interested in seeing me perform my (still very green) stand up comedy, I’ll be at:

• December 11th at Great Scott, 7 P.M.
• December 15th at The Middle East, 10 P.M.
• January 15th at Great Scott, 7 P.M.

While friends and family may forgive my rampant lateness, my behavior didn’t fly - no pun intended - with Logan Airport security last week. Despite being dressed appropriately (my mother would call it “sensible”; I call it “wearing my fat jeans”), I had packed lightly, and had arrived not only on time, but early.  Yet somehow, I proffered suspicion to a latex glove-wearing auxiliary.

“Ma’am?” a voice called out. (I base it on principle to never respond to ‘Ma’am’ unless there’s a gun in my face.) Still, I turned with a wide, obligatory smile.

“Yes?” I croaked, spying a Starbucks just beyond the metal detector, my esophagus wheedling for an overpriced soy latte.  I waited patiently, as if good manners would grant salvation and prevent me from missing my flight.

“There’s no outside food allowed past this point.”  Confused, I looked around for flagrant pizza crusts and sultry bonbons that frequent the landscape of my apartment, when I noticed the gleam of plastic heralding from my purse.  I’d forgotten that I’d packed enough Tampax for the weekend to last me through menopause.  My homemade tampon variety pack blossomed from my bag like a bouquet of feminine hygiene; and to be honest, it looked stunning under the glare of those harsh lights, like a movie star on cue for a passionate kiss.

“This?” I asked, nudging my forefinger into the bag to indicate that I was merely packing period protection and not a Beretta.  “This is nothing.”

“Ma’am,” the guard continued sternly, “I’ll need to search your bag.”

I sighed and him my purse. The crowd behind us started to whisper.  I slinked back into my hooded sweatshirt as far as I could, certain that the curse of menses was scrawled across my forehead like a scarlet letter.  I promised God that if he could just let my digital camera make it through this ordeal unscathed, my ass would be back in church every Sunday, Girl Scout dropout’s honor.

This, however, is a soliloquy of another color.  Or, one of another layout, I suppose.  After a summer that consisted of chronic unexpectedness - some of which admittedly threw me off course for awhile - I’ve regained my footing along the muddy shores, now that the storm has passed.  (Hey, the least I can do is wax poetic after my creative hiatus.)  And, so, I’m going to induce a shakeup of another kind, and morph what is presently my public journal into an even more public portfolio in which I may showcase my linguistic mastery.  I don’t expect changes to come overnight - but then again, technology seems to move at that pace - and so, at times, the site may be down.  Eventually, the section you see now, which is really the pulse and artery of my site, will be secondary to my work.  And so it goes.

I have to say, though, I’m very pleasantly surprised at how much traffic my site has received:  almost 60,000 visits in a mere 6 months of being “live.”  My analytics software have indicated that the following Google searches have lead the herds to Karyn With a Whine:  ‘Karyn Polewaczyk,’ ‘Karyn With a Whine blog,’ and ‘What happened to Blackstreet,’ to name a few.

(Though, if I had to answer the last question, I’d merely offer a shrug of my shoulders and a quizzical eyebrow raise.  And so it goes.)

See, years ago - before many of you knew me; before I allowed another craft to take main stage and steal the limelight; before so many other ever afters that have come and gone - I drew. I painted. I sketched. I drafted. And, truth be told, I was quite good. My artwork continually won prizes while growing up: some school-wide blue ribbons; a few state-wide accolades; and I even placed as a finalist in a national contest once upon a time. Unfortunately, as I grew older - and things like having the right clothes, the right haircut and the right length between my perpetually bushy eyebrows started to matter more - my passion and my talent started to matter less, and eventually grew to become a figment of my adolescent imagination.

Though my memory is hazy, I think I purchased this sketch pad on a whim on some ordinary Saturday afternoon, as if to ignite the passion that lay dormant beneath my Maybelline-colored epidermis. The sketchpad, no doubt, remained a stationary figure through a tumultuous time of my life - to college dorms and back again; amidst few family moves and to each of the three apartments I’ve lived in independently as an adult. Perhaps I’ve torn a sheet or two to jot down my ‘To Do’ lists (manicures and pedicures; dry cleaning and laundry; scheduled times to meet a friend for a drink and maybe meet the Man Of My Dreams), and I’m sure that a charcoal outline of a city scene with my name on it lay in a dumpster somewhere. I’m sure, too, that a proper set of colored pencils - finely sharpened and never used - exists somewhere in my tiny studio beneath a box of old letters and photographs.

We all have sketchpads - some literal, some proverbial - stored on shelves - some in our hallways, some in our subconscious - that are pining for liberation. Pages that crave the caress of lilac-colored watercolor and the depiction of a never ending sunrise. The spirit of the artist in us that yearns to be freed - as Sylvia Plath would say, “To shoot off in all directions, like a Fourth of July rocket” - but is dampened and dimmed by the could haves, would haves and should haves that we pack into schedules that often leave us less than satisfied. Our plates are full, but our stomachs are empty.

I eventually gave up on locating my iPod, finding a certain relaxation through the gentle pounding of my sneakers on the city pavement. But more importantly, I found a part of my wholly creative, unabridged and unapologetic past that can’t wait to introduce herself to 2009.

I turned ever-so-slowly, as to not disrupt the delicate work of my chiropractor as well as to not drop, in haste, the two-months of dry cleaning that lay bundled in my arms. There he stood: one of the eager beaver, Greenpeace volunteers that raid Davis Square like a pack of liberal rats. Forget Starbucks, forget The Burren, and don’t even try to make it to the Somerville Theatre - these Greenpeace follies will brigade across Elm Street to block your every move, arms and clipboards smugly linked as you attempt, but fail, to huff past to your desired destination.

Other superbly original lines chanted by Greenpeace volunteers include: “Hey, do you care about the planet and the fact that we’re all going to DIE?”, “I bet you wouldn’t be drinking out of that disposable cup if you knew it was going to give you ovarian cancer in 20 years,” and my personal favorite, “Hey, gorgeous - what’s an environmentalist like me gotta do to persuade a catch like you to sign my clipboard?”

(The answer to the last question, if you’re curious, is to get the hell out of my way. There’s a meatball sub and 16 ounce Sam Adams waiting for me at Mike’s.)

I gave a once-over to the Greenpeace gringo, who now looked legitimately scared that he had stopped me. Understandably so. My glare of steel met his quivering lower lip; my mind churned to elicit a comeback that would send him back to his patchouli-scented watering hole.

“Oh, I look like an ‘environmental crusader,’ do I?” I shifted the 50 pounds of plastic bags from one arm to the other, shook my iced soy latte in it’s disposable plastic container and scuffed my PVC sneaker to the sidewalk like an over-consumptive American cowgirl in a country western with a capitalistic theme. “Really? Little ol’ me, with my big ol’ plastic bags, full of chemically-treated, imported clothing, my coffee from corporate America and my sudden urge to start a smoking habit because I’m repeatedly harassed by you and every other do-gooder this side of the Charles River?”

My counterpart’s face fell suddenly and turned ashen. He knew I didn’t look like an environmental crusader: I looked like a woman on a PMS-induced bender. And now, he looked like an asshole. I live in Cambridge, home of the hippie and land of the ladies who don’t shave their underarms on purpose. Wasn’t that enough?

For me, it was enough. I stalked away after shooting a second dirty look for reinforcement, impressed with my ability to spit out a coherent sentence with decent anecdotal properties and syntax, as well as my ability to balance a shitload of dry cleaning while slurping on a slippery caffeinated beverage. Truth be told, I do care about the environment; and, okay, maybe I have donated to Greenpeace before. But no one puts Baby in a corner, especially when Danny Zuko’s got Grease Lightning revving around the corner at the dollar store.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my gas-guzzling chariot awaits.

A woman with greying hair, a turtleneck and a no-nonsense set of freshly sharpened pencils glanced at my peach tote bag crammed with my laptop, a handful of borrowed books and a copy of season 3 of Sex and the City poking loudly out the top.  I, too, glanced, at the other members of the conference room gathered around the table:  fresh notebooks, fountain pens and other weapons of trade rested in their composition queues, engines humming and rearing to go.  Their owners, a collaboration of distinguished-looking types and those so disheveled you know they’re either pure geniuses or purely insane, sat behind these crossbows and waited for my answer.

“Creative writing?”  I half-asked, half-answered, unfolding the paper calendar the clerk at the help desk had given me to keep.  And sure enough, there it was:  a creative writing group that meets Thursday nights in one of library’s media centers.

She refused to answer or make eye contact, instead focusing her bifocals back on the news clippings stacked neatly to her right.  She nodded slightly in my direction, my cue to pull a plastic folding chair to the table and officially introduce myself to the group.  As names and titles were swapped, it became apparent that my intuition had been proven right once again:  I was now seated amongst a room full of published authors, newspaper journalists and former librarians.  Rap stars of the very linguistic world to which I don’t yet own a map, and I was just a groupie.

“And do you know what we do here, Carrie, in our creative writing group?”  Her eyes remained fixed on her own belongings, while I apologetically explained that my name was Karyn, not Carrie.  She paused, and glanced once again towards my bag.  My cue, once again, to speak.

“Well,” I replied, “I guess, I’d think that you write here.”  It seemed like a good enough answer - simple, to the point, and with minor hesitation.  Score one for Team Carrie.

And with this, her eyes - dark eyes that had likely seen a hundred thousand bright young things come and pass faster than a shooting star - met mine.  A glittered power stare, one that made her slight, delicate build seem ten feet tall.

“And do you write, Carrie?”

It was at this point that I knew I had met my match.  Another stranger coupled with another set of doubts that a pretty girl has more on her mind than lipstick and emerald cut engagement rings.  One more cynic who lacked respect for my case, because I hadn’t earned it.  She didn’t know me from a hole in the wall.  And for all that she cared, I was just a hole in the wall.

An amateur by trade, I began to slowly name the small, barely existent list of accolades I’ve pegged on my totem pole, and just as a question had formed in one of my classmate’s mouths - who? what? why?  I’ll never know - we were interrupted by our gracious host to begin the class.

I was in the right place.

I delved deep into the details of my conundrum, details I made loud and clear as I traipsed my way into a coffee shop in Harvard Square while babbling on the phone. Onlookers stared in horror as my five or six tote bags full of miscellany swung about wildly and created victims out of stray napkin dispensers while I attempted to simultaneously maintain the conversation with B., order a latte (and a cookie) and extract my Visa card from my wallet with my teeth.  

“I just can’t have this mess with my writing,”I whined to B as chunks of chocolate cookie splayed down my super-trendy peasant blouse that fit a bit too snugly for hipsterdom over my D-cup breasts. “But I can’t figure it out.”

“You’ve got to cut this whimsical bullshit,” retorted an exasperated B., getting right to the point as a man about to take the bar exam should. “I’ve never heard you like this.” He paused. “Or, at least not this bad.”

You try explaining logic to a girl who used to risk suffocation on a nightly basis by hoarding 23 stuffed animals into a twin sized bed with her because she was afraid that if she didn’t include and every plush creature  she owned that she’d hurt the excluded teddy’s feelings.  

Yeah, 26 was a tough year.

Oh, hi there. I almost didn’t notice you until you shoved your shopping cart full of women’s underwear, empty beer cans and boombox circa 1989 in front of me as I made my way to Starbucks in search of a caffeinated euphoria. This was no ordinary traffic stop, though. You eyed me up and down as if I were a cherry popsicle from the ice cream truck on the corner of Mass Ave, licking your cracked lips, tongue waging between the gaps where your teeth presumably once were.

“No diggity, no DOUBT!” 

Say what? 

I turned around to confirm that I was, indeed, the intended recipient of such a warm welcome to the ‘hood and found that the only other conscious people within a 10 foot radius were a rather, ahem, robust blonde woman with a Tweety Bird tattoo on her left arm who was yelling loudly into her mobile phone about her “mother$%#!ing custody rights” and a meek Asian girl likely off to biochemistry class at MIT and emotionally scarred by the scene that was unfolding in front of her bespectacled eyes.

I turned back around and fixed my gaze on the Starbucks store that was a mere 50 yards from the crosswalk I was stationed at, praying I hadn’t made accidental eye contact in the interim, but it was no use. You, mistaking me for an impromptu American Idol judge, broke into full rap.

“No diggity, baby! NO DIGGITY NO DOUBT NO DIGGITY!”

I wanted to correct you on the lyrics - No Diggity is actually one of my favorite jams and brings me back to my high school days of flared jeans, clogs and braces - but feared retribution by way of soiled panties tossed at my head. And so I nodded politely, half smiled, and proceeded to run into traffic before the light turned to Walk, figuring that getting hit by a car would be less painful than a stray bullet of saliva that may or may not have ejected from your mouth during the chrous.

Play on, player,
knp

In no particular order but with equal amounts of importance, here are 26 noteworthy lessons I’ve learned over the past year. 

1. Some decisions are the products of hours, weeks and months of careful thought; some are made in a split second. In either instance, I regret none of mine.
2. Though, the decision to test the lactose intolerant waters with slices of pizza and the occasional scoop of ice cream (or Tasty D-Lite) will always be met, in the very least, with gastrointestinal upset.
3. Cutting way back on coffee: smart. Attempting to nix it entirely: unabashedly stupid and an experiment I doubt I’ll try again anytime in the next 26 years.
4. I really, really like my natural hair color, even with the occasional, single grey hair that keeps popping up on the left side of my scalp. Which I will continue to pluck out with tweezers.
5. Cooking is therapeutic, especially while watching someone else do it for me as I sip an alcoholic beverage.
6. There are times when it’s good to speak up to voice opposition, and others when it’s best to keep those thoughts to oneself. Remaining silent doesn’t mean that I haven’t an opinion of my own - tact can be a beautiful thing when employed properly.
7. Re-reading Strunk & White’s ‘Elements of Style’ has helped with my writing in countless ways. Adjective abuse is so 2008.
8. A sense of style goes deeper than the clothes on one’s back.
9. It’s okay (though a bit nouveau) for me to say that I have a budding writing career. No quotation marks, no apologies, and no existence without the people who pushed me to make it what it is today. 
10. Flirting to cut the line, whether it’s at a bar or at Whole Foods, is a skill to be cherished.
11. Doctors can be very, very wrong. I trust my intuition and know my body better than anyone else.
12. ‘Family’ is the most transient word in the dictionary and goes deeper than blood relations. I have the best family in the world.
13. Home truly is where the heart is. 
14. But nothing beats the feeling of sleeping in my own bed after days or weeks away.
15. I have a sick addiction to raisins, with tendency to eat multiple servings in a matter of minutes. (Shrugs.)
16. You only get what you give, and more often than not have nothing to lose by putting yourself out there, completely and entirely. 
17. That one semester on the crew team has left me with pretty solid back muscles. I’ll take a halter top with built in bra for $400, Alec.
18. Betrayal can pop up in unexpected places. And what can I do about it?
19. Love can pop up in unexpected places. And what can I do about it?
20. I have chronic food envy and will never be entirely satisfied with my choice from the menu until I sample from the plate(s) of my fellow diner(s). 
21. Lying about one’s age is an activity best saved for the birds.
22. I try to keep in mind what my grandmother, the epitome of class and elegance, would do as I make my wardrobe choices. Sayonara, sweatpants at the supermarket.
23. Focusing on what I don’t have will cause me to feel depressed and anxious. Focusing on what I do have makes me feel blessed and abundant.
24. On the topic of abundance, I have a love/hate relationship with my breasts - but nevertheless am happy to say they’re my own.
25. I will continue to fall down, step into uncharted territory and question my direction. And that’s okay, as long as I keep going.
26. Every day is happily ever after.