Loss of hearing leads to tuna acceptance

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Feb. 22, 2008

It all started because my boyfriend thought I was going deaf. About a month ago, he noticed I had the volume on my TV much louder than before. He also mentioned I shouted into my cell phone—not just when I was talking to my parents—and my roommates were making references to things they weren’t supposed to hear.

Then, communication became an issue.

“There’s some two shelves down,” my boyfriend Jeff told me when I was looking for flour to make a batch of cookies.

“I will not have a threesome with a foolish clown!” I said.

And then, a week later:

“Does this dress make me look fat?”

“No, but the color sort of washes out your complexion,” he said.

“You’re lost in my perfection? That’s so sweet!”

And finally:

“Do you want to eat out or make something here?” he asked.

“Thanks, I’ve always thought my hair swings with the grace of a ballerina swan too.”

“Kiera, that doesn’t even rhyme with what I said.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”

Eventually, when Jeff tired of his unintentional compliments, I gave into his coaxing and decided to see a doctor. I called my dad to tell him.

“So how long have you and Jeff been together?” my dad asked over the phone after I explained my predicament.

“Umm, about 10 months. Why?”

“Well, a few years ago, your mom thought I was losing my hearing too,” he said. “But it turned out my hearing was perfect. I was just ignoring her.”

“Hmmm.”

“You and Jeff have been dating for a while now, so

I’d definitely consider that possibility,” he encouraged.

I was able to secure an appointment for the following week. First the doctors wanted to test my hearing to assess the magnitude of the problem.

But as soon as she stuck that pointy flashlight thing in my ear, she recoiled in horror.

“I think I see the problem already,” she told me.

“Your earwax has built up to unprecedented proportions, to the point where it’s negatively impacting your hearing.”

After a few excruciating hours of doctors poking and scraping my ear to extract the wax, they sent me home, explaining that wax was basically taking over my ears and they hadn’t managed to get all of it out. How embarrassing.

As the clock struck midnight on that evening last week, couples across the country kissed, wishing each other “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I, on the other hand, refused to stop screaming.

“I feel like I’m giving birth through my ear!” I yelled at Jeff.

“How would you know what it feels like to give birth?” he asked, suspiciously.

I shot him a seething glare and resumed my whining.

The next day, I went back to the hospital where I was promised that more cleaning would bring an end to my suffering. This time, I brought Jeff with me since neither of us wanted to spend Valentine’s afternoon alone.

“Will you still be attracted to me after this?” I asked him sheepishly. We both watched as the doctor pulled a rather large brownish chunk of wax from my ear.

“Wow, this one looks like a raisin,” she said, waving the piece proudly for all of us to see. “It’s too bad earwax doesn’t have street value.”

Jeff smiled and reached for my hand. “Of course I will,” he said. “But I never want to hear anything about my tuna and onion sandwiches again.”

If you’re craving raisins, please don’t e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.

Kiera vocal about adult videos, truckers

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Feb. 8, 2008

In high school, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was turning heads. It wasn’t, however, because of a perfectly proportioned body, an uncannily symmetrical face or a bosom that qualified as a separate limb. No, I was noticed because my voice makes me sound like a porn star.

When puberty began for my classmates and me, I listened to the girls gain more sophisticated tones while the boys’ voices just got deeper. And although the rest of me was able to keep up with them, my voice stayed exactly the same as it was since I emerged from the womb.

For some reason, people find the combination of a little girl voice in an adult body an indication of a budding nympho. In addition to the extreme creepiness factor of this idea, it was completely false—I was 14 and had never been kissed.

However, since my voice eerily matched those of the porn stars my adolescent male counterparts had come to adore, my everyday utterances triggered countless “that’s what she saids” and “your moms.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t say, “Can I borrow a pencil?,” “What’s the cosine of 140 degrees,” or “If you say taaaiiight one more time I’m going to eat my own hand” without the rest of the class thinking I was about to rip off my top and mount the teacher.

Once I got to college, I realized my pornographic voice had its perks. I used it one night to entertain my friends by talking to truckers over my friend’s car radio.

“Hey boys,” I said in my most seductive tone. “I’m getting pretty lonely out here all by myself.”

I received a bunch of hopeful cheers in response before I got scared and retreated back into my shell.

“Just kidding, bye,” I said, hoping to shut them up.

What I unfortunately realized later was that little girl would have had the exact same effect talking over the radio as I did. I figured this out my first summer home from college, when anyone who called the house mistook me for my 8-year-old sister whenever I answered the phone.

“Hello?” I’d answer.

“Hi Perri!” they’d respond. “How’s camp going?”

“Actually, it’s Kiera.”

“Oh,” they’d say, embarrassed. “I’m so sorry.”

Instead of assuring them it happened all the time, I often found it much more amusing to follow with a moment of silence to make them think it was uniquely their mistake.

“She’s very happy at camp,” I’d respond. “But don’t ask about my life or anything like that.”

Sometimes, however, I just rolled with it.

“Hi Perri!” they’d say. “How’s camp?”

“Pretty good,” I’d respond. “We spend our days pondering the existential implications of recreation while stripping for cash.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

While my voice has proved both humiliating and amusing at different points in my life, I eventually realized it’s not about whether its pre-pubescent quality is a good thing or a bad thing; it’s really just about embracing what I can’t change and figuring out how it can work to my advantage.

My voice has succeeded in convincing people I really did just lose my lift ticket when I tried for an extra day on the slopes, that I do deserve that second scoop of ice cream for free and even though I’ve never actually gotten out of a speeding ticket, my voice has elicited a lot of sympathy from the issuers.

Whether I’m a porn star in the making or have the innocence of an 8-year-old girl is something I can’t answer. I think it’s somewhere in between, as is probably true for most girls in their second half of college.

But I don’t think most girls my age can say strangers have offered to help them find their parents on the same night that they’ve been asked to star in “The Young and the Wetness.”

If you need a narrator for your cartoon or homemade video, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.

Art only a mother could (probably) love

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Feb. 1, 2008

For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to draw like the normal kids, my illustrations depicting green meadows, happy families and rainbows.

However, my impatience, coupled with my natural inability to imitate any life form with crayons and paper, kept the stickers off my star chart in art class and my name off the fridge for the majority of my childhood.

I realized early on that no matter how hard I tried, my horses would always look like Chinese symbols, and my landscapes would tend to resemble the Armageddon.

Consequently, I developed the one-color rule, which stated that to reduce lost time, any school art project would only require the use of the first color available. For years I collected green self-portraits, brown sunsets and mauve holiday feasts.

The trend continued as I got older. When I was 14, I once heard my housekeeper expressing concern over my 3-year-old sister’s development when she thought my sister made the clay tomato that I had actually created.

“Oh don’t worry, it’s Kiera’s tomato, not Perri’s,” my mom assured her.

“Thank goodness,” my housekeeper replied. “I’ll make a call and have her deinstitutionalized right away.”

However, over the next few years, we began to worry that Perri had inherited my inconceivable lack of artistic talent.

For my birthday, she eagerly handed me a wooden block glued to a carpet square. To occupy a rainy Saturday, she drew a witch flying through the night sky atop a gigantic phallus.

But eventually, she crossed over to the artistic side of the family where my brother and mom awaited her arrival, leaving my dad and I to contemplate the philosophical meaning of glitter glue and the savage inconvenience of two-sided tape.

By the time I reached high school, both my parents had pretty much given up on rearing the next Michelangelo and accepted me for who I was.

Whenever I had homework that involved some sort of artistic element, my mom was quick to volunteer her services, not wanting me to lose several hours to what would take my peers no more than 15 minutes.

In early November of my senior year, I asked my mom to make two puppets out of cans for a presentation I was doing to promote my school’s food drive.

She returned with one can sporting yarn hair, a witch’s pointy black hat and black cape, and the other can boasting a tiny, but very real, carved pumpkin glued to the top.

“Umm, Mom,” I told her. “This is a Thanksgiving food drive.”

I adjusted my presentation accordingly.

College did not fare much better for me in the artistic area. While I avoided the drawing classes like Chadbourne’s shepherd’s pie, my artistic failures managed to reinvent themselves through Power Point presentations, illegible blue books and interpretive redecorating strategies.

But after all these years, I’ve finally come to terms with the talent I’ll never procure.

I am ready to spend the rest of my life reassuring my parents that the doodles I drew on the message pad are flowers and not people having sex, promising my boyfriend that cupid is not carrying a chainsaw on the Valentine’s card I made him and explaining to my future children that the picture I helped them draw will not spring to life and eat them after bedtime.

If you can draw asexual flowers, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.

Kiera looks for relationship, sixth graders

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Jan. 25, 2008

I started dating when I was 15. Since then, I’ve had a slew of boyfriends, flings, dinner dates and objects of my stalker efforts. They’ve all been very different—I’ve dated tall guys, short guys, smart guys, dumb guys, birthday clowns, liberals and even one Republican.

But they’ve all had one thing in common: They all look like they are 12.

Now, this wasn’t much of a problem when I actually was 12 and had crushes on pretty much the same three boys as the rest of the girls in my grade. However, as the boys matured and my girl friends’ tastes sophisticated, my eyes wandered from the boys endowed with distinguishing jaw lines and early facial hair to those nature had left behind.

To avoid being arrested, I should probably emphasize that I’ve never actually been attracted to a younger guy, only those my age who look much younger than they really are.

As a teenager, this odd characteristic distinguished me from my friends, preventing the typical fight over a boy. While my friends would all drool over the brawny guy with a goatee across the lunchroom, my eyes would be fixed on his friend Timmy who never outgrew his bowl cut or Gap Kids T-shirt.

“Look at him,” my friend Megan said. “Oooh, the way he tears off each bite of his steak. I can only imagine what else he can do with his mouth.”

“And the way his jaw sticks out while he’s chewing,” Becky replied. “If I could just get five minutes alone with him I think I’d die.”

“I get so hot watching him eat his peanut butter sandwich and pureed prunes,” I said, staring intently at Timmy. “He does it with such conviction. Wait. Is he crying?”

Megan, Becky and I watched as Timmy angrily threw his sandwich on the ground, muttered something that sounds like “crust” and ran out of the cafeteria.

Life got a little more complicated once I stopped admiring prepubescent 18-year-olds from afar and started dating them.

“Kiera, we need to talk about the way you’ve been treating me,” my boyfriend Davey said.

“Aww, is my baby waby feeling sad?”

“You act like I’m your newborn or something”

“Coochey coochey coo!” I said, pinching his cheeks.

“You bought me a pacifier and a book called ‘Poo Poo in the Potty’ for my birthday.”

“Which you never read.”

“Kiera…”

“It’s OK, I’ll help you with the big words.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“There’s that smiley wiley I’ve been waiting for!”

My odd preference for choosing my significant others has never really been problematic. Aside from a few disapproving glares when I walk through the mall with my date, I can’t say my love life has been wildly unsuccessful.

It was really just a matter of finding someone who could balance his childish looks with mature composure in the relationship. My boyfriend Jeff, while he looks as if he could be anywhere between 11 and 20 years old, knows when to bat his eyes like a baby if he wants me to share my cookies, but can also use his big boy voice to protect me—like when someone else wants to eat my cookies.

Even though he is no longer teething and was potty trained before we met, I don’t think I could ask for anything more.

So when my eyes wander to a group of sixth graders trying to sneak into an R-rated movie as Jeff and I walk down State Street, I let him think it’s my maternal instinct and not my dating history that causes my eyes to dart.

If you’re celebrating your 12th birthday soon, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.

Lack of celeb crush list makes Kiera listless

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Dec. 7, 2007

Even though Emile Hirsch dies at the end of “Into the Wild,” I found myself leaving the theater strangely enamored. Deciding to attribute this eroticism to Emile’s on-screen charisma and willingness to do full-frontal, instead of, say, a budding case of necrophilia, I confronted my boyfriend Jeff about the possibility of making “the list.”

“What’s the list?” Jeff asked when I brought it up the next day.

“Well, I get to make a list of three celebrities that I can sleep with, if given the cosmically unlikely option, and you can’t get mad.”

“That doesn’t seem fair, would I get to make a list too?”

Damn it. I hoped he’d overlook that detail.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “My psychologist told me if my boyfriend insisted on making a list too, he was significantly more likely to kill and eat his children later in life.”

“Kiera…” Jeff replied, sounding vaguely hungry.

“Fine, you can make a list too.”

“Well, who would be on your list?” he asked.

“Gee, I haven’t really thought about it,” I said, “but Emile Hirsch, Shane West and the guy who sits behind me in my ILS class, in that order.”

“He’s not a celebrity…”

“Well, he did get the highest score in the class on our midterm,” I said.

“I’m still not comfortable with it,” he said. “I think that we should just promise to only sleep with each other, isn’t that what a relationship is about?”

“Whatever,” I said, leaving the room to devise a plan.

Recalling that Jeff had once told me about a childhood crush on Natalie Portman, I decided she was key to my list making bliss.

First, I Photoshopped Natalie’s head onto naked Playboy models’ bodies. Unhappy with the idea of Jeff looking at other women in the buff, however, I decided to Photoshop her head onto my body instead. I hid them under his bed—and waited.

That night, when I “accidentally” dropped my pencil, I came across the photos.

“Jeff? What’s this?” I said, showing him the photos.

“I’ve never seen them before in my life, I swear,” he said. “But they do look vaguely familiar.”

“Oh don’t worry honey, I’m not mad,” I said. “I’m just hurt that you would hide these gorgeous photos from me. I mean look at that perfect neck and luscious body. I just can’t contain my excitement looking at her.”

“I guess you’re right,” Jeff said. “I’ll think about the list.”

He was starting to crack—one more ploy and I’d be making love to Emile Hirsch in no time.

I created a new Facebook account under the e-mail nataliejeff4ever@hotmail.com, and of course, under the pseudonym Natalie Portman. For interests I wrote: starring in a lot of movies and Jeff, and under status I wrote: Natalie is I’m in love with this guy Jeff. My Hollywood career is over until I sleep with him.

After sifting through friend requests from various Jeffs around the country, I messaged my boyfriend from Natalie’s account.

“Hey sexy, you may not know who I am, but if you’re curious you should rent ‘Closer’ or ‘V for Vendetta.’ Anyway, I’m in love with you and want to have sexual intercourse with you. Please write back, I love you, Natalie Portman

P.S. I know you have a girlfriend, but if you put me on your list, she won’t mind.”

I never received a message back, but a few days later Jeff showed up at my apartment with his list: Penelope Cruz, Adriana Lima and Jerri Blank.

“What happened to Natalie Portman?” I asked.

“I’m over her,” he said. “Turns out she’s kind of a creepy stalker type.”

“Really?” I asked coyly. “What did you do with all those naked photos of her?”

“Oh, I didn’t want them anymore, so I just Photoshopped your head on them and gave them to my roommates as a joke.”

If you want to get on Kiera’s list, e-mail her at wiatrak@wisc.edu.

Tampon lesson soaks up male misconceptions

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Nov. 30, 2007

The time: noon. The place: my apartment on grocery day. The characters: my friend, Greg, myself and a malicious entity about to transform our lives forever—a tampon.

It rolled across the floor. Greg let out a blood-curdling scream. I dove to save him. But it was too late. The two touched. Greg was tainted with its sinister cottonyness forever.

A few hours later as we were watching television in my apartment, nursing Greg’s wounds, I decided it was time to resolve his tampon phobia once and for all. I excused myself, returning with the ghastly object in my hand.

“What are you doing with that?” Greg asked, inching away.

“Take it,” I said.

“No,” he winced.

“Just touch it.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Please?”

“No,” he said, resolve breaking and tears forming.

“One finger touch?”

“Oh my God, fine. Just give it,” he said, snatching it out of my hand. His expression quickly softened. He looked at me, pleadingly, for instructions.

“Go ahead, open it.”

He slowly stripped the plastic wrapper off the tampon and held the pink applicator apprehensively in his hand, as if it might suddenly spring to life and suck out all his testosterone.

“How does it work?” he asked, becoming more curious than disgusted. I grabbed a slice of Swiss cheese out of the fridge.

“So this is the vagina, all right?”

“O…K…” I slipped the applicator through the cheese’s largest hole and pushed until the cotton tampon slipped out the other side.

Greg’s expression brightened. “That was kind of cool,” he said. “Can I… see it?”

Greg examined the empty applicator in one hand and the cheesy cotton tampon in the other.

Overcoming his original anguish, he was free to examine them more closely.

He discovered, contrary to what one might think, tampons actually have a very pleasant odor. The smooth plastic and fluffy cotton feel very soothing against the skin, and the prongs of the applicator can be sculpted into a very beautiful plastic flower.

Satisfied Greg had sufficiently experienced the tampon, I snatched it from the coffee table vase where he displayed his flower.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m gonna throw it out. Unless you need it for something…”

“Well, I guess I don’t need it.”

“Do you want me to leave it here?” I asked.

“I mean, if you want. Yeah. I guess that would be cool,” he said.

Now I had something else to worry about—finding disfigured tampons all over my apartment.

Two-and-a-half hours later, when Greg was ready to say goodbye, the three of us (Greg, myself and the tampon) walked into the bathroom. I let Greg do the honors of dropping the tampon into the toilet. We watched it quickly expand in the water, and then flushed it away. Greg gave it a little sailor’s salute.

“Now I’ll show you how I shave my legs,” I told him. He eyed the razor on my bathroom sink with a little too much enthusiasm.

“Actually,” I said. “Maybe we should take this one step at a time.”

If you’d like to obtain a bouquet of tampon-applicator flowers, e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu, she’ll be happy to forward your request.

Clinic trip aborted due to lack of pregnancy

Or read it on the Daily Cardinal's Web site here

Originally published Oct. 19, 2007

It seems everywhere I look, it’s like a battle between pro-lifers and pro-choicers. But a little bit of research will show that most people from either side have never actually had an abortion. I’m not really sure what gives them the right to be so passionate about something they’ve never experienced.

I decided I was not going to be one of those hypocrites. So I headed to the clinic with my friend Isaac so we could make up our minds about the issue in an informed and educated manner.

When we got there, everyone was really nice —one point for the pro-choicers. But for some reason, they were talking like they felt really bad for me or something.

“OK honey, I’m going to take you into the back room. Do you feel ready?” one of the nurses asked in the tone my mom used when I was 3.

I nodded and waved to Isaac as I stood up.

“Is he here to support you?” the nurse asked.

“No, he’s going to get one too,” I said.

She laughed.

“I think it’s really great you have a sense of humor,” she said.

Wow, I thought, she’s really closed-minded about this whole thing—one point for the pro-lifers.

Only a few minutes after I changed out of my clothes and laid down on the table, the doctor quickly stood up and brought one of his colleagues into the room. They whispered to one another for awhile, occasionally glancing at me—seemingly confused—before walking back over to my bed.

“Kiera,” my doctor said, hesitating a bit, “did you take a pregnancy test before you made your appointment?”

“Oh no,” I responded. “I’m not pregnant. I’m just trying to make up my mind about abortions. I think it’s really irresponsible that most people decide before they’ve actually tried it. Don’t you?”

After they referred me to a series of psychiatrists, I went back into the lobby, as abortionless as when I arrived, and met up with Isaac.

“They wouldn’t give me one because I’m not pregnant.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Maybe I’ll have better luck.”

“Probably,” I said. “I mean they can’t require you to be pregnant before your abortion—men can’t even get pregnant!”

We both laughed at the ludicrous idea of a man giving birth.

“Isaac?” one of the nurses read quizzically from her clipboard. He stood up. She looked from him, to me, to another nurse and told us to leave and never come back.

“Gosh,” I said to Isaac later that evening, “All the pro-choicers claim to be so open-minded about everything. But we’re not good enough for them because I’m not pregnant and you’re not a woman. That doesn’t sound very open-minded to me.” He shrugged.

“But we can’t decide to be pro-life just because they threw us out. It still doesn’t change that neither of us got to have an abortion.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I told him, frustrated that I was still as conflicted as I had been the day before.

As I contemplated the events of the day, I wondered how the pro-lifer’s claim that more and more people were getting abortions could be true when they rejected Isaac and me for such trivial reasons.

But then again, the pro-choicers said everyone deserves to control what goes on with their bodies. They didn’t seem to know what actually happens at the clinics either—I had no control over whether I got an abortion.

I decided I’d just have to remain on the fence about the issue, unless Isaac was willing to stop at another clinic to try again. I wondered if we’d have time to stop the next day during our drive to Canada, where we were going to enter into a gay marriage with each other.

Want Kiera and Isaac to save you a piece of wedding cake? E-mail her at wiatrak@wisc.edu.