About ME

I’m Katie!


As you might glean from the inflection, I try to be a positive, pleasant person. I am not always successful, some might even say that it is the exception rather than the norm, but that’s my general aim. I find that having a goal like this makes things seem less dire and often more comical than if you expect things to be bad and are then proven right. I prefer to be wrong but cheerful. My husband is fond of pointing out how often I am wrong, but I feel that to be beside the point.


My life has taken a series of somewhat interesting twists, and so I decided to chronicle them in this blog, which began in October 2007. I had intended it to be a record of medical school and life thereafter, but it quickly became what is generally known as a “mommyblog”, as I became pregnant shortly after this site’s inception. I have found amazing solace and joy in writing here, but still cannot quite bring myself to say the words “I’m a blogger” out loud. I have even resorted to referring to this as “my website” so as to avoid the word “blog” altogether. I may need professional therapy for this.


My husband, Patrick, and I live with our perfect little children, Colin and Caroline, as well as our two dogs, Sally and Myra, and our three cats, Julius, Pongo/Old Cat, and The Pickle. The amount of fur in our house is beyond description, as are the interpersonal problems, and we have sworn that we will never have this many living things under our care at once ever again. For now, though, it is quite fun to see people’s reactions when we share our head count. In fact, I wish I could see yours right now. (We're down a cat since I first wrote this. Our Emma is not with us anymore. She's brewing potions and hexing us from Hell, in all likelihood.)


I have had many careers in my not-that-many years, the most current being training in OB/GYN, having earned an honest-to-goodness Medical Degree. I have chosen this particular field because I love talking with women about their lives and the paths they have carved through life; I also find boundless joy in listening to a fetal heartbeat on a Doppler stethoscope.


Other career paths that I have enjoyed include opera performance, acting, secretary, personal assistant, pizza slinger, retail manager, and census bureau employee. (No, really! That job was awesome.) I am immensely proud that I was able to support myself as an opera singer before realizing that I completely hated professional music. It will be interesting to see what other professions I can delve into before I retire at the spry age of 50 in order to write a memoir and backpack around the world with my beloved little dog.


You should know that I love stories. I love to read them and to hear them, but I especially love to tell them. I believe that stories should be told properly, with good timing and build-up and with an appropriate climax, resolution, and message. Stories aren’t necessarily born this way, so sometimes events need to be embellished before they can be a proper Story. Very little written on this website (see? I just did it again…) is true in its entirety, though it is almost all based on some little acorn of fact. I like to flex my brain when writing and may take a story in a completely different direction than what actually occurred, so if you think that something is a little too perfect or a little too farfetched to believe, you’re probably right. I promise, it’s more fun to read than what actually happened.


The notable exception, as you might expect, are my little Colin and Caroline, who are indescribably perfect and, thus, are wrongly represented here as being slightly less perfect than what they really are. But words and pictures can only do so much – their perfection is a force that must be experienced in person to be understood. Maybe we should go on tour.


I am fond of lists, fast-paced yoga, anything made from an avocado, and lazy Sundays. I believe in respect and equality for all living things and that most things happen for a reason. I have an unnatural affection for commas, as you no doubt have already noticed, and hope to someday be capable of cooking my own dinner but think that all the optimism in the world may not be enough for that one.