The big event I’ve been telling you all about for two months is happening this weekend. It will be awesome.

It will be even more awesome on Monday, when I can actually leave at the end of my scheduled shift and on Tuesday when I can sleep the whole day.

James is even telling me we can go see Alice Monday night, and I keep remiding him that I’ve already said yes, so he doesn’t need to bribe me anymore. He laughs and kisses my forehead and let’s me pass out cold on his chest as soon as I rest my head there. He is a good, good man.

Yes, I’m exhausted and overwhelmed and wondering how we’re going to pull this off, exactly. The weather is going to be beautiful, the customers are all abuzz and the first thing I’m going to do is get all the product out of my stock room that I possibly can.

Tuesdy night, I promise you’re going to hear all about the new look of the store and how sleep is as lovely as I remember it being. For now, I’m still blissfully happy to have James, the monsters and the quickly-focusing light at the end of the tunnel.

-M.

Well, if you haven’t heard the news… My mother clearly doesn’t have your phone number.

Thus far, I can report that Engaged Life is just like Girlfriend Life, except with a little more sparkle.

James went above and beyond to ensure that the proposal was a special one. He and I actually met in the dark room, so I should have seen this coming when he mentioned the dark room earlier in the week.

I worked 82 hours over the past two weeks, and that’s before taking two sick days (which boosted me up to a whopping 98 hours in two weeks). NINETY EIGHT. I can’t even count that high at this point.

James and I had all sorts of plans to get together and reinstate Date Night. Monday’s plans turned into a 9-hour shift at work. Friday’s plans turned into a 10-hour “half day.” James has been very understanding of my career aspirations and the additional strings attached to me now that I’m Store Manager. So when I called him to tell him that I needed to go in Saturday morning at 8am to receive emergency replenishment, and I caught a bit of attitude from him, I was pretty shocked. He never gets frustrated. He’s my perfect boyfriend!

To be fair, he canceled our first date three times. (2.75, officially… He showed up the third time.) I should have known when he seemed frustrated at me, that something was up. I finally managed to show up to the dark room, half-frazzled and windblown. To his merit, James can always tell when my nerves are about to reach critical mass– spending a day making prints and hanging out with Professor Sayre really would have been the ideal decompression after the weeks we’d had.

I made one print of Very Pregnant Kristin. It came out lovely. I was working on James’ favorite shot of Moose when he threw a blank piece of photo paper at me and asked that I put it in the developer. “What?,” I snorted. “You can’t walk all the way over to the developer?”

I tossed them both in, my photo on top. Moose’s contrast stripes were developing nicely, so I flipped the photos over to see what James was working on. At first, I thought it was a photo of James’ hands holding one of my own Blackberry phones. Then the photo developed a little further, and I realized what was in the image.

I turned around in time to catch a shy smile on James’ face, and he got down on one knee. He popped open the ring box, which was illuminated from the interior. When I tell you that the only thing missing were the voices of angels singing as that little light lit up the entire dark room, I am not exaggerating. “So whattya say?… Will you marry me?” I was wearing sweatpants, we were both in Tretorn rain boots… All the haze and the blur from the preceding days cleared, in that one perfect moment.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. And I’ll give you a list of reasons why.

1. Elephant. You’re right. My pudgy kitten would be devastated if I turned down the person who keeps her favorite pillow warm at night. To that, I say, “Yes.”

2. You got Kyran Pittman involved. In my book, the only thing that could have topped that would have been enlisting Baby Jesus himself, and, to be frank, I’m glad you went with Kyran on this one. One of the things I love most about you is your ability to appreciate respect– the respect I have for you, our families, the people we mutually admire. I respect Kyran and her talent and moxie, and I love you for seeing that and incorporating it into one of the most meaningful gestures our relationship has seen. To that, I say, “Yes.”

3. If I have a superpower, you’re it. You’re my gravity when I’m off the map. You’re my crutches when life beats me up. You’re the sun on my face in the middle of winter. You’re the wind when I can’t seem to catch a breeze. … Mountains aren’t an issue if you have the ability to soar. I do believe that, working in tandem, there’s precious little the two of us can’t conquer. To that, I say, “Yes.”

4. You don’t make me change the zoom lens. The day we shot the castle in the park, it never occurred to us to switch your lens onto my camera. You didn’t think twice before handing over the whole camera to me, so I could get close ups of the squirrel drinking from the hole in the middle of the ice. It was seamless. Before you came along, I was a fiercely independent person. In what looks like a whirlwind from the outside, you came along, sidled up next to me, and we’ve been together step for step ever since. People who knew me Before You ask, What changed? I tell them, Nothing. And that’s exactly it. There was nothing about me you pushed in one direction, or tried to pull in another. Nothing had to be toned down, reigned in, amped up, smoothed over or pressed out. How do you tame a girl like me? … You don’t. I wake up with you and every day, I just get to be Me, no questions asked or strings attached. And that’s why I love you so completely, with all of my heart. To that, I say, “Yes.”

5. “… But here’s the thing…” I can start a story, get distracted, and pick the story up two days later and you never need clarification. It’s like your brain is a rolodex for all the half-finished conversations we’re always in the process of having. You can read my whole day with one look at me, you know exactly how to hug the bad stuff away and exactly when to let me charge forward on my own, ready to be there when I remember what it was I was telling you that one time when we were on our way to the place. You know, where we had that delicious cake. To that, I say, “Yes.”

6. You could teach a goldfish to play violin. Not because you’re a master violinist. Because you’re that patient. I can’t even sync my iPhone without there being a dramatic episode (it ate ALL MY APS!) and you’re so great at standing there, in the middle of the chaos, saying things like, “I understand that you’re frustrated, but smashing the phone against the desk might not solve all your problems.” Whether it’s Moose eating a shoelace or Elephant setting up camp in the closet or my perpetual battle against technology, you’re the calm in the storm. To that, I say, “Yes.”

7. You say, “No.” I love you because you give me everything I could ever ask for. Stability. Room to breathe. Snuggles. But what sets you apart is your gentle ability to relate to me, even when I’m over-sensitive, irrational and unreasonable. You never react, you always tend to… intercept. And you never deny me anything I’m pursuing unless you have damn good reason. I know when I’m about to cross a line, because you don’t lay boundaries in our relationship simply for the sake of maintaining a pattern. You voice discontent only when you see us heading down a path that would take us away from our mutual goals and common value systems. I love you because when I lose sight, hope, sanity… You’re right there, a gentle beacon of light. Never aggressive. Never forceful, or condescending, or entitled. You, in your every action toward me, are an advocate toward our beautiful life together. When you say, “Yes,” you keep your promises. And when you say, “No,” I know I never have to question you. I trust and respect you with my whole heart. To that, I say, “Yes.”

The date is set. The families are excited. The cats aren’t sure what’s going on, only that Mommy gets REAL ANGRY when you attack that new shiny thing on her hand. Fish is as ecstatic as I’ve ever seen him.

James and I are putting together a website specifically for the wedding, where all the information on dates, vendors, the wedding party, etc. can be found. In the meantime, another huge Thank-You goes out to Kyran and Professor Sayre, whose contributions made the proposal such a special moment for us both.

Holy shit, ya’ll. I told you I was going to marry this boy one day.  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

-M.

I’m engaged.

I promise to give you all the details as soon as my brain stops going WOOOOWOOOOWOOOOOWOOOOOWOOOOOOWOOOOOOWOOOOOWOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the meantime… You should read this little ditty on Kyran Pittman’s site www.notestoself.us, because I wasn’t crying up until I realized what a large undertaking his plan was, and how fortunate I am that I have a man who loves me enough to reach out and enlist my favorite writer into a diabolical scheme to get me to commit the rest of my life to him. (It worked.)

Today is totally WOW. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Complete story soon. I promise.

Wow.

-M.

Last night, my mother totally rocked my world by calling me on Skype. I was so happy to see her beautiful face that I didn’t think to tell her how impressed I was that she made Skype work.

We talked about wedding gowns, and James, and about having patience, and all our money woes. I told her about school and she sipped her wine as I ate some yogurt. We were both in our pajamas, and it almost felt like it does on the first night I go home to her house and we snuggle into great grandma’s homemade afghans in the living room and whisper all our lost stories to one another.

Moose then knocked over a vacuum cleaner, which switched on just as I grabbed him, and in a fit of blind terror he sank his claws into the nearest surface he could find to launch himself off of. Incidentally, that surface turned out to be my left hand.

One fistful of cat hair and my blood later, I was in full-on hysterics. Did you know that I don’t know how to turn our vaccuum cleaner off? I didn’t know that, either, until last night. Moose was still having a small heart attack over The Sucky Monster and I was clutching my wounded hand with my other hand and howling. I didn’t realize that THAT MUCH PAIN could emanate from such tiny fingers. The things you learn when the cat gets scared.

Mom got to witness the whole thing via Skype, and I bet she won’t be calling me back anytime soon. Needless to say, she talked me through the pain and stressed the importance of cleaning everything immediately. Initially I thought I’d be needing stitches, but after Mom’s recommended salt water bath and some seriously applied pressure, the bleeding slowed enough for me to skip the trip to the hospital and just call James for first aid supplies instead.

The verdict: Two bone-deep puncture wounds, three pretty deep scratches and one semi-superficial arm laceration. Moose and I made as much peace as we’re going to this morning, and I’m probably going to request another Skype date with my mother this evening, with promises that James will be the one to keep the cats off the vaccuum.

Because after the semi-disastrous state that my life seems to perpetually find itself in lately, I’d do just about anything to get back to the place where it feels like I’m on my mother’s couch with a glass of wine, wrapped in a homemade afghan, whispering all my secret stories to the woman I respect and admire above everyone else.

But don’t tell her I said that. She’ll never let me live it down.

-M.

Hi, there. I’m watching American Idol. Some people are super talented. Some people just need to tweeze. (Their eyebrows. Not their voices. I don’t think you can tweeze your voice.)

We’re watching American Idol because Amy was speaking favorably about it at dinner, because Dinner with Friends is something James and I are apparently doing semi-regularly now. Have I mentioned that Amy bakes a bitchin’ brownie? And will randomly repeat the funniest snippets of conversation half to herself, just when you think she’s not listening? It’s adorable. If you haven’t had her brownies or heard her hilarious mutterings, you’re really missing out. And aren’t you tired of your half-empty life? Yes, yes you are. Work on that.

Now James and I are home, talking about what lovely friends we have (Jason and Allison were also in attendance) and watching Ellen be less funny than we expected. Simon Scowl seems to be abating all the fun energy I remember there being on the show. Maybe if Ellen were drunk, like Paula always seemed to be. Or if they let her dance! That would be lovely.

Apologies for being so brief. Just thought I’d blow the dust off this site and say hello again. “Hello, again.”

Also, Ellen and her make-up… She’s a cutie, no?

-M.

Here’s the thing about Being 24. Every day, you’re still young enough to wake up all bright-eyed and ambitious, certain you can take on any challenge presented to you. You are smart! And newly educated! You’re stylish! And live in the City! And have a great boyfriend! And love your job!

Your life is full of exclamation points, before you roll out of bed. And then The Day gets ahold of you, and if it gets to you before Glorious Coffee, good luck with that. The Day just womps you, and womps you, and womps you. You’re reminded of all the things you have to do, and you divide those things into two categories: Things I Don’t Have Enough Time For and Things I Don’t Have Enough Smarts For.

Half the people in your life will blindly cheer you on, telling you that everything you’re doing is GREAT! And you’re totally AWESOME! And you should be SO PROUD! The other half are there, snickering quietly off to the side, reminding you that you’re always on the verge of messing something up.

The first group of people– even if, maybe, they’re not familiar with the intimate details of how you are sometimes the Queen of Awful– make everything possible. The getting back up again when life lays you out, the reminding yourself that you do love the cats (even if the Big One keeps eating non-edible items and the Little One proved with alarming acuity that she can disembowel an entire roll of toilet paper in under ten minutes), it’s all possible when your mother reminds you that she loves you even if your hair is being weird, and when your boyfriend kisses your forehead and eats the burnt dinner because, hey, he likes burnt garlic best, anyway.

The second group of people… Well, that’s where Mastering It comes in.

For two weeks now, I’ve been studying Corporate and Organizational Communications. My Masters’ degree. I’ve learned that this new job is going to be, more than anything else, challenging. I have to reprogram a lot of habits I have when it comes to my interpersonal communication skills. I can’t be reactive. I have to stay neutral. I have to be diplomatic, and balance The Company against My Staff, and keep everyone’s respective needs in mind.

I have to step outside my comfort zone. I have to embrace these new challenges.

… I have to Master It.

I’m on my way.

Better stand tall when they’re calling you out. Don’t bend, don’t break, Baby, don’t back down.

-M.

Yesterday, you could feel winter yawn here in NYC. The unforgiveable, crushing cold grew weary of itself and took a rest. The grateful city laid out under several hours of sunshine, soaking in and reawakening memories we had all forgotten of spring days and all their promise.

We still feel better, even with the forecast of rain today.

I wandered over to the Upper West Side to have coffee and catch up with Megan, my Junior year apartment roommate. She knew me after The Tequila days and through The Great Drew Disaster. She tolerated my clutter and the preliminary stages of my thesis research.

Megan has since been my reality litmus test. She was one of the only people brave enough and real enough to tell me me when I was kidding myself or way off base.

Megan is not a buyer of bullshit, no matter how thoroughly I had sold it to myself, no matter how pretty I wrapped it. She feels no obligation or responsibility to tell you how great you are unless you’re being great, which makes it so much more profound when she gives her stamp of approval. It’s not something distributed lightly.

And she taught me that it’s ok for my real reasons to be my real reasons, no excuses, no explanation required. No prettily-wrapped bullshit.

I knew that if my new seeming accomplishments were superficial, Megan would tell me. She provides perspective, very acute and grounded perspective. That’s why I love her.

I told her about James and work and my education and the move and all the bells and whistles. I waited for her to give a little laugh and raise an eyebrow, hearken me back to reality and sober me up a bit. Is it possible to really finally be this balanced and happy?

Yes.

We concluded, Yes. She’s a spitfire, full of passion and ambition and wholehearted good intentions and love for humans in general. She’s also grounded, and I really respect and admire her for achieving and maintaing such a delicate balance.

She told me about her life and her work and the moves she’s trying to make in her life. She told me about how music has opened up the world for her, and invited me to the New Orleans Jazz Festival this coming April.

We talked about how great it is to finally see all our hard work start to translate into a position in life where we find ourselves able to look at the challenges before us and still excitedly whisper to ourselves under our breath, “Regardless… This is possible. I can DO this.”

The city reclined back and took a day off from grumping through winter, and I had coffee with an old friend who once again stirred my soul awake. We laughed and chatted through the sunshine…

… And I find myself, even the cold morning after, once again reminded that even in the dead of winter you can find yourself a patch of spring if you’re fortunate enough to have friends with hearts as warm as the ones I find in mine.

-M.

I’m just testing the new iPhone Wordpress app. I’d like to see if it will capitalize letters on it’s own. Yes! It does!

It’s new software, a whole new program, and I believe I like it.

Let’s see if it starts to eat posts, though. Or suddenly changes its mind about capitalization.

-M.

I had Giant Chewy SweetTarts yesterday. They taste like Summers in Upstate New York, tangy and sweet. They remind me of when Mimi would take me to the store and I’d get to choose any candy I wanted, even the fancy kind. I always chose Sweet Tarts. They taste like summer camp and grass under your feet and fresh air.

Mimi passed away the summer after I turned 13, and suddenly what it meant to be part of a Family changed for me. She was the second grandparent I had lost, but had been a family cornerstone. Her house smelled like fresh air and cinnamon and Irish Spring. Her hugs fit just right and there was always something delicious in her kitchen, waiting to fill your soul.

I think a big part of the Mid-20-something Emotional Growth we all do is the reconciliation of Family. You lose someone you love, Family changes. You face a parent’s mortality for the first time, Family changes. You leave for college, Family changes. Evolves. It means different things.

I go Upstate now and it’s not so much “going home” as it is “visiting my parents.” I don’t have a bedroom in that house anymore. They’re still my people, but it’s no longer my home.

And that’s OK. It doesn’t mean I love them any less, just that I’m growing into someone new.

This Someone New wants to find a new sense of Home, though. It’s unnerving, feeling uprooted and transient for such an extended period of time. Being in college is essentially reverting back to a nomadic lifestyle. Every four to eight months, your living quarters drastically changed. And now that we rent, even with new promotions and all the promise we show economically, it’s not always easy to make ends meet.

It is for all these reasons, and for the desire to get our life together started out on the right foot, that James and I have decided to swallow a bit of pride and move in with his parents for awhile– a year and a half, maybe two years.

The amount of money this will let us save is staggering, and if we don’t get our feet under us now, we’re going to be trapped renting forever. We don’t want to do that. We want to make good on the promises we whispered to one another about our kids being able to grow up with a treehouse and and a big yard. That’s more important to us than it is to live ten minutes from all the action.

Half of me rails against the idea of living with someone else’s family again. It’s been six years since I’ve had anyone else be The Woman of the House. Bit in the bigger picture, and the longer term, James and I know that we’ll happily relinquish a little responsibility again. Sometimes it feels like we forfeited being a young couple too soon. And we both know that we’ll search forever and still not find the appropriate words of thanks for his parents. They’re giving us our shot, our chance to start our life together off right.

His parents are giving, the most sincere and generous people I’ve ever met. We came home yesterday from his parents’ house with two cans of soup and enough hugs to fuel us through the week ahead. I didn’t realize his mother had slid the soup into the bag. She’s good like that. (She also cooked an entire Turkey dinner for us, and the resemblance to Thanksgiving was wholly appropriate.)

I had a taste yesterday of what it means to be part of a family again, what it means to have people who love you enough to take care of you. Who have the luxury of that proximity. It brought me back to when I was 12, eating Giant Chewy SweetTarts and running around barefoot with the grass and sand under me, taking for granted all the love and security of Family and Home.

James and I want to build together all those good things, to give to our kids. Eventually. The thing about Eventually is that it sneaks up on you.

And, really, there are no words to express how grateful I am that he and I are being allowed to get a head start on the future like this so soon.

-M.

This morning, James went into work on our mutual day off to throw a celebrity kid’s birthday party. I’m not going to say much of anything, except that I passed Brad and Angie as they were on their way out (laden with Build a Bear bags and happy children in tow) and, my goodness, that woman is beautiful. And Brad’s tall.

And it was very nice to see Brad help boost each kid into their vehicle, while Angie protectively scaned the street for paparazzi (there were none, just me, trying hard not to drop James’ coffee, which was stacked on top of my coffee so I could futz with my phone). They love their kids, and they laugh with one another. That’s all you need to know.

Last night, I went out to dinner with The Girls. (Technically these are not The Traditional Girls, which will always be Maxine and Christine, and we will always be 22 and laughing in the face of Real Life together.) To be more specific, last night I had supper with Amy and Allison, of Amy Blogs Chow and That Girl Allison. They’re the New Girls. And our Mid-20s selves chatted at 44 1/2 about life and boys and how Freelance is great if it can pay the bills. I got to talk about my cats, the texture of the peppers under my crab cake and the zen approach I bring to dating after all the interesting mistakes of college.

When you haven’t related to other women over cups of cocoa in awhile, you forget how soul-soothing it can be to have other females close enough to pass twinkles from eye to eye.

I’m no Angie. On girl-dates, I talk about my cats and my boyfriend. My hair is not long and pretty, and I wore a turtleneck last night that reminds me a lot of the turtlenecks my grandmother used to wear. But Allison told me that my makeup looked really pretty, and it means something else coming from another girl than it does when James gets all goofy-faced and tells me I’m pretty. With James, it’s a sign of adoration. With other women, it’s a sign of mutual respect. (Allison’s makeup, as always, put mine to shame, but that’s another story.)

It was my first time meeting Amy, and she’s like what a cupcake would be if you could bring one to life, give it an adorable voice and a little bit of a head cold: She’s super-sweet, but has substance and the ability to fill you up with warm, happy feelings.

I’m starting 2010 making conscious efforts to let go of The Way We Were in hopes that I’ll find new happiness in the people I have here, now. I’m no Angie, but last night, laughing at dinner with Allison and Amy, I felt like an Uber Celebrity. Somebody chic and fabulous eating out in Hell’s Kitchen with other chic, fabulous women.

Of course I then went home and put on sweatpants and snuggled with The Cats. And that’s fine. I don’t suspect Amy or Allison would think any less of me for it (or for the fact that if we go shoot the park in a bit, I’ll probably change back into sweats for that, too).

I’m in my mid-20s and rewriting all the rules for my life. What could be more Uber-Celeb than that?

-M.