this is a summer blog

#1 FAVORITE GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK!!! (a top four series complied...

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:15:00 -0400

#1 FAVORITE GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK!!!

(a top four series complied by caitlin)

#2 TOP GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:14:00 -0400

#2 TOP GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK

#3 TOP GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:13:00 -0400

#3 TOP GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK

#4 TOP GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:13:00 -0400

#4 TOP GRAFFITI OF THE WEEK

"I think my penis might be bleeding."

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:59:00 -0400

“I think my penis might be bleeding.”

- John McKetta after dancing much too hard at Gahl’s orthodox wedding. (via bransonreese)

“IN THE LAND OF AUSTIN, TEXAS” [ july 2009 ] by...

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:31:00 -0400

“IN THE LAND OF AUSTIN, TEXAS”

[ july 2009 ]

by caitlin.

new york premiere on july 11th, 2009 with the tenement street...

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:03:48 -0400

new york premiere on july 11th, 2009 with the tenement street workshop.

written and directed by bekie berkman-rivera

starring erika strasburg and caitlin kimball.

“JULY 4TH//AMERICANA DE CLEVELAND” by caitlin

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:31:00 -0400

“JULY 4TH//AMERICANA DE CLEVELAND”

by caitlin

"real world/white russian nights."

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:32:00 -0400

“real world/white russian nights.”

- a new pittsburgh tradition. (by caitlin)

“conqueror worm” starring: bekie berkman-rivera,...

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

“conqueror worm”

starring: bekie berkman-rivera, erika strasburg, nick bonnar, alex falberg, ryan melia, ben ferguson, john mcketta, dan weschler

directed by graham swindoll

photos by caitlin.

a new project. by caitlin.transcripts from “the...

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 03:29:00 -0400

a new project. by caitlin.
transcripts from “the hills”
youtube.com/watch?v=_Gv9Ceha-Y0
(the original, the beautiful inspiration)

more to come with different reality shows, different “actors”.

“etch-a-sketch project” by caitlin. i plan to leave...

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:32:00 -0400

“etch-a-sketch project” by caitlin.

i plan to leave an this unreal toy on my coffee table and take pictures of what people create when they are just sitting around during evening festivities at my apartment.

this first one is mine from when i was at home in orlando. got the idea while waiting to get my hair cut. they just had one on the table where you wait. which was great. the hair cut looks awful. but i got an idea out the experience. and hair grows back, bitches!!!!!!!!!!!

i’ll call this sketch “mario labyrinth” !!

The Queen Of Prospect Park (a short work in progress by...

Sun, 31 May 2009 11:17:39 -0400

The Queen Of Prospect Park (a short work in progress by Bekie)

This is not a love story. This is a story about the day Michael Stein touched me privately in the tent behind his tree house in the third grade. Oddly enough the incident took place the same day Ms. Rudolph, our English teacher, made me recite the sex organs of an earthworm in front of the entire class. It was a cruel sort of day to begin with. One of those days you wake up and just know things aren’t going your way.

My mother always says that cruel days like these begin as a result of people waking up on the wrong side of the bed. I’m guessing this is what happened to me, because on the day of the incident I woke up feeling as if I was going to cry – like someone was inside me just waiting to tear my stomach and heart to shreds. I didn’t think much of it at the time and went downstairs to eat the runny mess of eggs my mother prepares for me every morning with a glass of cranberry juice and toast. All was seemingly normal- the juice tasted fine, my mother was smiling, and the paper towels were folded into little napkins (which I never used). But then! Something must have gone awry because I threw the entire meal back up (red juice and all) onto my favorite yellow dress. I had to change, even though the stain didn’t bother me, mom looked as if she might cry. I was late to school as a result.

Upon arrival into my favorite third grade class, five minutes late, I felt the heat of something creep across my face. Sam Leato was laughing at me with the hideous chuckle that earned him the nickname “chuckler” and there was the oddest silence in the air as the 10 other kids stopped their third grade reading and just stared. “You are five minutes late,” rang the stale voice of Ms.Rudolph (her coffee and onion bagel breath pungent despite the four feet distance between us).

“I have a note,” I blubbered. But the sentence took what felt like hours to get out, on account of my struggle not to cry. Then it got worse: screeches from the corner made the light bulb pop: “She looks like a lobster,” said one - And everyone lost it in laughter as I realized that in fact I did look like a lobster due to the combination of Ms. Rudolph’s tone causing my cheeks to turn a glowing red and the cherry colored dress I had exchanged for my dirtied yellow one.

The yellow dress was my favorite. Good things always happened to me in that dress – like surprise parties and big hugs from dad. Had I not dirtied my dress with upset stomach, then I would have worn it to school and things would have gone swell. Instead I was wearing a red dress – which only helped to make me feel worse – like some kind of girl lobster – that morning the incident would take place.

I often wonder if that morning’s incidents were random or predetermined by someone (if not god someone with a really kooky sense of humor) – because all the moments of that cruel morning led up to the cruelest incident in the day.

Michael Stein touched me privately with his dirty first grade boy hands in the back of his mother’s third street apartment and when we crawled inside the tiny orange tent he had gotten for his birthday, Michael told me he loved me. I didn’t say much because I was busy licking the remains of a cherry icy we bought on our way home from school off of my lips and nose. We weren’t going to get ice’s after school because Michael and I decided in solemn agreement that we had both outgrown them and were ready to move on to bigger and better things like chocolate milkshakes, but when we saw our favorite vendor, Victor, sitting on the corner of 7^th and 5^th, with a pathetic grin on his face, we couldn’t help ourselves. The truth is when it came down to it Michael and I felt guilty leaving Victor high and dry without a final farewell. So we purchased two cherry ice’s with the money Michael’s mom gave us for pizza and informed Victor that we would not be seeing him any more on account of us growing up. He took it much better than I expected, which I found slightly disappointing.

I let Michael touch me privately, even though he never really asked. But he did say he loved me. His hands were soft, despite the dirt that was stuck inside the crevices of his wrinkled palms. There was something even delicate about Michael Stein’s hands, and although I shrieked when his nail dug past my undies hitting places I didn’t even know were there - I think I may have liked it. I hit him anyway and ran out of the tent half smiling even though I felt the hot tears begin to swell up in my cheeks.

sam, the straight A student without many friends, speaks up on the playground. (by caitlin)

Wed, 27 May 2009 16:17:24 -0400

Yo mama is so fat, she gets tired walking up a flight of stairs.

Yo mama is so fat, she has low self-esteem.

Yo mama is so fat, she needs two seats on an airplane to be comfortable.

Yo mama is so fat, she has to go see a doctor to get on a health plan.

Yo mama is so fat, she just went up another notch in her belt.

Yo mama is so fat, she is considering laxatives.

Yo mama is so fat, she has to wear XXL.

Yo mama is so fat, you don’t like to be seen with her.

Yo mama is so fat, ….how does one win this game?

a conversation with the goldfish by my bed (by bekie)

Wed, 27 May 2009 14:51:39 -0400

“good morning goldfish.”

“it’s mr. goldfish to you.”

“I’m sorry mr. goldfish.”

“don’t let it happen again”

“I won’t”

spontaneous road-trip to new york. may 9. caitlin photo upload...

Wed, 27 May 2009 03:29:00 -0400

spontaneous road-trip to new york. may 9.

caitlin photo upload #2.

sweaty knapsacks. (jesus christ thats awful)

Wed, 27 May 2009 03:26:59 -0400

us: branson! its caitlin and bekie. we need help with our blog name. for our summer project. everything we are coming up with is shit.

branson: well what have you thought of so far?

us: ugh…umm nothing good, soggy summer, (but we dont like the way that sounds or looks), sweaty knapsacks, we thought of combining our names (lame), summer—-

branson: sweaty knapsacks? sweaty….knapsacks?

us: we need help.

[he proceeded to laugh at us for a long, long while, then later that evening we received the following text messages]

branson: some name ideas…

lfo presents: summertime girls

girls gone mild

sweaty knapsacks

a taste for death

“i’m gonna cut your head off with my dick”

the heat is on

sweaty knapsacks

summer of blood

bloodfest 09

we pooed our shorts

sweaty knapsacks

a very BAITLIN summer

what if dog’s had weapons?

pittsburgh nights

sweaty knapsacks

buffy the campfire slayer

sweaty knapsacks

the summer that harry potter and the half blood prince came out

the two caballeros

sweaty knapsacks

the boatless

the girls of summer

summer bummer

“everytime i look in the mirror i see a stranger”

the hot tears of the damned

muy caliente!

sweaty knapsacks

poop troop

us: hahahahahahahah. stop, we are dying!!!

branson: that’s a good one too.

“bekie with the groceries by the garage” caitlin...

Wed, 27 May 2009 03:12:00 -0400

“bekie with the groceries by the garage”

caitlin photo upload #1.

another forgotten letter ( a short story by bekie)

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:26:00 -0400

It begins here: Drinking lemonade and slurping lucky charms out from styrophome cups (gnawed on )- hands too clumsy and fingers too lazy to keep cool milk from frolicking out onto sunburnt thighs. On this almost October morn I think: “I could get used to this.”

I search your face for something unfamiliar. You squint. Your eyelids still sting from the excess of sunscreen you lapped on the day before when you took me out for another “just friends” picnic.

Suddenly you discover that I have a scar. Something you have always suspected, even searched for, even dreamed of - but never dared to see (until now). My scar glistens in the sun where it sits a top my chin like a fragile ant waiting for a sign, and you say: “it’s shaped like fog.”

I am quick to retort (as always): “but fog is shapeless.”

And because you like the way I look when I say “fog” - like a squirrel caught in the act - you smile ever so sweetly and keep quiet (even though we both know that ‘fog’ most distinctly has a shape).

And then it starts to rain. At first fragile - as if the small droplets take offense at the ground they so daintily caress. And then suddenly it is heavy, angsty striking the plastic chairs spread across your mother’s patio with rhythmic fervor.

We run with vigor too hungry for our pajama legs and unbrushed teeth to realize, until we reach the awning of your garage I fondly refer to as the barn, and here we are safe.

And… For the first time a moment beside you feels vulgar - I despise my feet for carrying me here. I look up - because now you are taller than me but it was not always this way- and to my surprise you are whistling.

You never whistle.

“If I’m a squirrel then what are you?”

The question erupts from my lips like a mistake- but we both know it’s not.

This is the game I often play in the moments of silence that land between us like lumps of sand. In my head you always tell me that you are a bear, even though I know that you are really an amphibian - like a frog (which is odd because frog sounds like fog). But today I’m unsure, and your real voice might comfort me, so I squack again:

“If I am a squirrel than what are you?

You look deceived.

“I don’t know… Some sort of…” your response lingers which makes me nervous because it is not in your character to linger. In fact I can only recall one other incident (in the third grade) when you lingered in this way : Danny Mundell asked if you had two moms or just one…. and instead of kicking him in the shins (as I would have done) you lingered.

“Some sort of what?” I hasten you trying my best to mask the urgency in my tone- but you catch on quick and linger even longer.

You savor this opportunity to tease me. You suck on it like a blueberry ring pop until finally you nudge me and reply: “a frog, definitely a frog.”

And then it happens. I kiss you- not because of the way you squint when you say frog (like fog) but because I have an instinct - like a piece of ice you drop down my back when I least suspect it- and in this moment I am suddenly sightless.

You are so salty - the way I expect you to be just with a little more pizzazz (like something from a specialty shop- the ones that only sell nuts) – and I am surprised by absolutely nothing.

The kiss lasts for only a moment – which seems more than appropriate since neither one of can stand excessive nonsense. And we just sit – the two of us – under the barn – as I dream of one day writing you this letter.

some things you should know, before you embarking on the...

Mon, 25 May 2009 23:54:00 -0400

some things you should know, before you embarking on the following:

1. my name is bekie. my name is caitlin. WE ARE BAITLIN. OR CEKIE. (so sorry for that)

2. we started a summer camp. selfishly, we are the only campers.

3. summer is the time for fireflies, inflatable pools, and sweaty knapsacks.

4. we almost titled this blog: “sweaty knapsacks” (you can thank branson reese for not allowing this to happen.)

5. this is a collection of the things we may find along our way.

6. find out what happens…when people stop being polite…and start getting real.