Category: Domestic DemiGoddess

Aug 09

Things I Love.

This week while perusing The Internets for inspiration (in general, for life, but also for the wedding) I sifted through a lot of sand and then I hit gold.

The thing about weddings today is this: everyone wants their stuff to look vintage. Don’t get me wrong, I am a sucker for warm lighting and faded colors. I love a good solar flare and think that aging effects on photos are lovely. I love all things vintage. They remind me of my Mimi, which we all know is something that is very dear to me all of the sudden. (Getting married, I think, has made me miss her deeper, more prominently.)

But in ten years, I am likely not going to want my photos to look Vintage because, at that point, they will be. And then, I will want them to look timeless. Under all the fun effects I’m sure I’ll apply to the images, I am going to want strong photographs that tell the story of our wedding day all on their own, solar glare or not.

So. Something I Love: Strong images, that transcend any trends we see in photography. Like this series of images:

Image from Jayd Gardina Photography

Other Things I Love:

This Alice in Wonderland themed engagement shoot, courtesy of Green Wedding Shoes.The details were just delicious– literally.

Then I found a great honeymoon idea from The Wedding Chicks. Essentially, you give people the opportunity to contribute gifts toward the adventures you’d like to have on your honeymoon. It’s perfect for the couple who already have everything they need for their home {unlike James and I, who have almost nothing} and want to offset the cost of their honeymoon as much as possible.

Brilliant, brilliant!

And my friend Crystal over at Budget Bride Chicago found her DRESS! So you should check that out. Because it’s also lovely.

Unrelated to weddings, my favorite writer {Kyran Pittman} added to my List of Reasons To Love Her with {this} post about family and life and how surreal it can all be sometimes. It’s soul-stirring, and very likely good for your heart. Read it and you will not be sorry.

But more than anything else in the whole world, I love my new desk, and the windows it looks out of, and Elephant, who protects me from squirrels. Bless her pudgy little heart.

-MM.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Gettin' Hitched, Mine All Mine, The Moxie Chronicles., True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia, Warm Fuzzies

Jul 01

With Distinction.

Someone, somewhere, once said, “There’s a big difference between quitting while you’re ahead, and just quitting.”

That person is very, very smart. They would probably agree that my choices, lately, have strategically played right into their very smart utterance. You’re all, “What? What’s she saying? Metaphor?”

Nope. Literal.

Last Thursday (a week ago today) I put in my notice at Tretorn. My last day will be July 18th. (And Kindle is mostly to blame, and I’ll tell you why later.)

A week later, I type those words and it terrifies me. Mostly because James pointed out that I’ll no longer have insurance, but partially because Going Back To School For Real, Full Time is a very serious undertaking. One that I need to now buckle down and get moving on.

I’m going for my MFA in Creative Writing. This announcement has split people right down the middle, into two schools of reaction. Reaction 1: “You write?” Reaction 2 (of which my mother is the tallest standing member): “Well, kiddo, it’s about damn time.”

If you’re in the first reaction pool… Yes, I write. I like to think I do it rather well. Better, anyway, than I can say I bowl. Also better than I am at doing math in my head.

If you’re in the second reaction pool… Well, I know. And I’m sure you’re also thinking about all the stories I’ve told you, and all the support you’ve shown me, and all the times you wondered why it took me a week to respond to your e-mail, only to get a novella in your inbox, one it took you a week to then read, but you forgive me because it was so excellently written. Let it be known, People of The Second Reaction Pool: I could not have done this without every single one of you, or without every single little nice thing you’ve ever said about me or my writing. (And, sure, some of the mean things. Because it gives me stuff to write about.)

I know what you’re thinking now… But why leave Tretorn?

Well, let’s be really honest here for a second: I was never going to Grow Up to be a retail store manager. I was going to learn how to do my job the best I possibly could, then transition into a corporate setting where I could develop training programs. I wanted to work with Cate Hewett, who has (since her departure from PUMA) morphed from my Professional Mentor into my Life Idol. (Coincidentally, thanks to e-mail, I get to work with Cate anyway, we just chat about writing and getting married, two things that she likes as much as I like.)

Cate left the company. James got the job at Marvel. I learned I was no longer eligible to work on Special Projects for PUMA, and anyway James was not thrilled with the idea of me Globe-Trotting for the first 11 months after we were married.

Fair enough.

But then we also moved to the Suburbs (which is sort of OK, I’m still sorting it all out) and I’m suddenly Getting Married (actively, it’s an active action you take, over the course of 500+ days, that requires a lot of time and thought and feelings about things like doilies and stationary). And then one bad thing happened at work, and then another. And then another, and before I knew it, I suddenly didn’t feel safe there anymore. I felt like I was being attached by people. People who used to be My People. While moving to the suburbs. With my Future-In-Laws. After realizing my professional trajectory with the company was likely not going to happen.

I think “dysphoria” is the proper term for how I felt, though I probably spelled it wrong.

I was quite miserable for quite some time, studying things I would not be using in the career I was no longer going to chase. I was giving up Manhattan, and My Own Space and (most traumatically and recently) My Last Name.

It was a lot. And I was, put simply, good at my job but no longer actively engaged in it. At least not the way I had always been engaged in my work, which is to say that I used to spring out of bed in the morning, thrilled at the prospect that I got to spend the whole day helping people– wait for it– shop for shoes. It, really, was the perfect job for me through this phase of my life.

This is where Kindle comes in. If PUMA wants to blame any one thing on my departure, they should call Kindle Headquarters and give them the business. I put the Kindle App. on my iPhone and LO! Did you know that Public Domain books are free?

I started reading again. I read Around the World in 80 Days. I re-read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I read Sherlock Holmes (almost all of them) and The Wind in the Willows and The Wizard of Oz and Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck.

My imagination yawned… stretched itself out again. Perked up. Asked for some coffee. And then for a pen.

I sat down and wrote for the first time, and I could feel my voice struggle a little to get the words on paper without them feeling clumsy, or bumping into one another in a jostled sort of way. But it was all there, my creativity and my language and my funny, odd sense of humor. My characters, who had I guess been napping all this time, were just as charming and chatty as ever.

I realized that I didn’t want to work in Retail as a Store Manager anymore. I have nothing against Retail, and I’m immensely, incalculably grateful for every single day I was allowed to spend at PUMA. But it is very much time for me to start the next chapter of my life.

So I put in my notice and filled up my Kindle. I’ll worry about insurance later. I have a couple more weeks to figure out how to roll over my 401K. I’m starting from scratch. I thought it’d be a lot more traumatic than it is, but instead, for the first time in a very long time…

… I can hear the breeze whispering stories into my ear, and the clouds take on shapes I’ve been blind to for so long. My heart beats faster when I come up with a really good snippet of dialogue, and my imagination just runs and laughs and spins and jumps. It’s free.

I’m free.

And that’s not all! But, I’m not in a place where I can blow the rest of my plans up to everyone yet. For now, I’m getting applications together and looking for a part time job, where I would like to specialize in Excellent Customer Service.

I’m also giving myself two full weeks off, from July 18- August 1. Because I am so far past Exhausted that I wouldn’t even know the breaking point if I were able to sidle back up next to it.

Yes it’s scary and a little, perhaps, immature. But if I don’t chase my dreams now, I’ll always be too timid. I’m not allowing myself any more space to do things that aren’t specifically What I Love.

Well, What I Love and, also, laundry. Because someone always has to do the laundry.

xo

-M.

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Posted in Book Worm, Domestic DemiGoddess, Mine All Mine, The Moxie Chronicles., The Ugly Truth, Working Girl

Jun 16

Queen Elephant

Elephant has had a grand old time adjusting to her new house. Where I find myself clumsy in the space and lost in the kitchen and homesick for my own family more often now, Ellie wasted no time in making herself right at home. Little monster.

It’s true– living with a new, different family is a challenge. There is a certain level of domestication that, having been on my own for so long, I simply lack. Dishes sat in my sinks for days, sometimes a week through college. Fish hates clean water because the concept of it is entirely foreign to him. I don’t even want to tell you where I used to keep wet towels, because “piled up on the floor” is the best case scenario.

I have over 200 pairs of shoes, and I haven’t changed body-size for a decade. I work in fashion, so every quarter for the past three years, I was given a whole new wardrobe. And Lord, did I make shopping into a sport in my heyday.

I haven’t even mentioned to you the books. I have a confession: I have kept every single text book I’ve ever had to buy, right back to my SUPA Biology book senior year of High School. Paperbacks! Classics! Theory! Essays! Techincal mumbo jumbo! And the very best sampling of For Dummies, if I do say so. Between my wardrobe and my bookshelf, there was nothing I couldn’t solve with five minutes of rummaging.

Put simply? I have always had a lot of stuff. I kept it everywhere, and anywhere, and sometimes in neat piles, but mostly not. It always made the empty spaces I moved into and out of feel more like a surrogate home, while I nursed my aching, homesick, country-grown roots that I had ripped up without thinking, when I came to this city in the first place.

Home is something you take for granted right up until the moment you realize you have to make it for yourself.

And it’s twice as hard because James has half the crap I do. So he is already cometely unpacked, with a shiny new flatscreen HDTV.

He’s also Home. He knows where the towels go, and where the ziplock bags are, and how to get to the upstairs bathroom at night without having to turn the lights on. He sleeps through the midnight car alarms and the water sloshing through the air conditioner, because it sounds familliar. Jen coming home late and door hinges creaking and the sound of the house as it sighs itself into the night, they’re all his lullabies.

Mine sounded like wind through the trees, and reeds squealing as the lake breeze tickled them, and crickets. It’s a symphony, a country night. It is an opus I know by heart– that’s how I know it’s so far away. And this place, however warm and loving, however similar is not yet the same.

The first thing Elephant did when we let her into the bedroom, still strewn with boxes and piles and memories of our old life, was weave through the mess and climb up to the bedside table, set beside the window. She daintily shoved the alarm clock and lamp out of her way. They both went crashing to the floor; Ellie knows how to make an entrance.

And she knows how important it is to have a Home Base when everything else won’t stop spinning.

I just scratched her head and opened the window wider so she could smell all the air had to offer her. She pressed her little face to the screen and settled in. It is her place in the world.

This strange new world.

This weekend, I’m clearing off my desk. I’m snapping my Home Base into place, and hopefully the rest– (the wet towels)– will follow.

-M.

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Posted in Book Worm, Domestic DemiGoddess, The Moxie Chronicles., The Ugly Truth, True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia, Warm Fuzzies

May 31

Stairway to Heaven

The move is complete, except for all the awful unpacking. James and I are still ready to collapse under the exhaustion of it all, especially since we got to move ourselves in all that heat on Saturday.

Would you like to see the best thing about the new house, according to the cats?

That, ladies and gentlemen, are stairs. But according to the cats, it is a giant obstacle-course-scratching-post, with human feet-bait that run up and down it. They are in their kitty-glory. Moose has become a perpetual motion-blur since we let him out of the basement to run free. He’s all but feral now.

And, oh… The glorious, glorious windows with– SQUIRREL!

After a bit of exhaustion, and before a bit of a nap… (I do not have a black eye. I don’t know why the Hipstamatic App made me look like James taught me a lesson about how women should behave.)

The cats have staked out every single window in the house. If a window they want to sit in is not open enough for them to force their little bodies into it, they meow until someone runs in and opens it for them. Elephant is the worst offender. They’re now living like spoiled grandchildren, their every whim now being granted by no less than five people at any given point.

And! We got to spend a lovely Sunday with Michelle and Arune (below) while Nate and (a different) Michelle got married.

The ceremony was beautiful, Michelle was beautiful, the weather was beautiful…

It was everything a bride hopes for on her very special day. Including a series of semi-uncomfortable moments between James and Arune.

… We couldn’t ask for a better Best Man at our wedding. :) Once the dust settles, I’ll be super, super excited.

xo

-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, Karmic Gold, Mine All Mine, My People, The Moxie Chronicles., True Life: I'm Surviving Suburbia

Apr 13

I am Woman.

Made a friend on the train to work today. How? Well, I smacked her with my bag.

Accidentally. I accidentally smacked her with my very heavy bag. And then we were friends.

I was late, train was full and nobody would move to let me get past the traffic jam just inside the subway doors. So I pried my way toward the back, and when I turned to take my spot, I hit a lady who was sitting in the knees with my heavy, heavy bag. Hard.

“I am SO SORRY!” I said in an urgent hushed whisper. The alarm and sincerity must have been apparent. “Oh, no. You’re fine!” she told me. She smiled. I smiled. I took a closer look at her and complimented her beautiful silk scarf. She thanke me graciously and we chatted politely for two stops until she exited the train. Her name is Nancy, and before she left, she wished me a good day.

She made my morning.

A couple weeks ago, during a bout of fairly violent emotional soul-searching, I came to a sudden and startling realization: I am here to help. I thought I had tapped in to some sort of higher cosmic destiny for myself, certain that Sweet Baby Jesus himself was endorsing this revellation.

“I am here to help!” I said out loud to James. He tries to piece together where it had come from. (Admittedly it was not part of our previous conversation, not that that stopped me.)

“You mean, like, with the dishes?”

Not quite. I see all the time people less fortunate, and it seems unfair, and I feel helpless. I’d like to save everyone. For a very long time I chalked it up to Being Crazy, which runs in my genetics much like freckles and pale skin and blue eyes, only in stronger concentrations.

Tutns out that instead of finding a larger cosmic purpose in life, I had really just struggled through a barrier of biological reality. The book I’m devouring about female psychology, Why She Buys by Bridget Brennan, acutely runs you through what makes women tick, as both consumers and human beings.

My want to over-communicate and rush to the rescue? All girlie-fueled. My ability to ask anyone for directions? Estrogen-based. Even my tendency to prefer one-on-one friendships over always being in a group is derived from the fact that my brain is set up to operate a certain way.

How awesome am I? I am Woman.

I’m eagerly reading on, learning an abundance about myself and my customers. Women… We’re a whacky bunch. But once you get what makes us tick, we’re a very interesting species. Read the book. Get to know us.

The search for the higher cosmic purpose continues.

xo
-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, I Love NYC, Karmic Gold, Mine All Mine, My People, The Moxie Chronicles.

Dec 14

Twenty-four.

I got the big promotion.

I keep rolling that sentence around in my head, like eventually it’ll hit me and this wave of relief at what I accomplished will wash over me. I keep waiting for that. Relief.

Before he left for Miami, Nick (who I will always admire for his unapologetic honesty) told me that what sets me apart an makes me successful as a manager is that tiny tug of fear of failure that I carry with me. He said that’s what sets true leaders apart from would-be’s. The fear, you see, instills an unebbing desire to push for more, greater success.

Fear I certainly have, with my first round of official visits a mere 15 hours away and my Profit and Loss knowledge not quite where I’d like it to be.

“I’m new at this,” I want to remind them. “I’m not trained at all, and my mentors were prepping for your big scary visit, too.”

It’s not invalid– it’s just also not relevant. The reality is that I’m in the pool already, whether I realized we’d be swimming so soon or not, and it’s now up to me to sink or swim.

And it will not get easier. It will become more fluid, I’m sure, and more natural. I have a lot of growing to do, behavioral to curb and best practices that I need to utilize every day, all day.

That’s my job now. To do everything I used to do every day to the best of my ability, only… better, now.

I turned 24 Saturday. Kristin gave me a lifesize cutout of herself. Mom and Grandma criticised everything I said, did and thought.

I’m a college graduate, starting my Masters’, living with the man I love more than anything, and I got the big promotion.

Exhausted, a little overwhelmed and hanging onto my last fraying nerve? Absolutely. But you couldn’t pay me to be anyone else.

You’d have to pry this perfect life of mine out of my cold dead hands. I worked my ass off for 24 years for this taste of success.

I’ll tell you how sweet it is once I’ve survived this week.

-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, Manhattan Globetrotters, Mine All Mine, My People, The Moxie Chronicles., The Ugly Truth, Warm Fuzzies, Working Girl

Nov 29

Christmas

We officially have our first Christmas tree.

Elephant is convinced that it’s a delicious treat that we brought home just for her to play with.

Moose wishes he could chew it without being sprayed.

James is laying on the floor spraying them both if they try to eat and/or climb it.

Now. She’s a total fakey fake. The cats have already tried to ingest a bough each, and they’re pretty sure James is just playing with them with the water bottle. I boiled cinnamon with orange peels so it smelled like Mimi’s house used to at Christmas time.

James and I have our first Christmas tree. We built it together and tied ribbons through the globes and strung up all the lights. It’s beautiful. And it’s perfect. And it’s all our own.

-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, I Love NYC, Karmic Gold, Mine All Mine, My People, The Moxie Chronicles., Warm Fuzzies

Nov 12

Meatloaf.

James is the best boyfriend, ever.

I was having a sort of crappy day. Sort of crappy meaning that I kept adding things to my To Do Or Everyone Will Die And Be Fired And Never Get Paid And MUTINY WILL ENSUE list faster than I could cross them off.

I did the schedule for next week five times. The first time it was perfect, except, wrong. And then the three times in the middle, it sucked, but was fine. Then the last time, it was perfect and sucked a lot less. So we kept that one. That one was the winner.

James texted me around 4pm: What would you like for dinner?

Kittens. Boiled. With a side of evil, evil spite.

Meatloaf ok? he asked. Yes, dear. Yes, yes it is. Now, to be fair, James does not know the history of me and meatloaf. My mother made the first Meatloaf Memory that I can recollect. It was inedible. I mean like, fork tines bent. The dog wimpered. The garbage disposal groaned. Mom’s brick meatloaf lives in infamy as one of our touchstone jokes. She still takes the chiding well, two decades later.

James’ was decidedly more delicious.

Now, I’ve been told that I have Paula Deen to thank for this juice hunk of deliciousness. And I did ask him why he didn’t use, oh, a meatloaf pan. “It was big.” Yes, yes it was. But I walked into my apartment after a sorta crappy day at work, and the delicious smell of seasoned ground beef and cheesy goodness and sweet tomato sauce mixed in the air and got me drunk as soon as I opened the door.

This is my perfect boyfriend. That’s my delicious, delicious dinner. It’s the reason why I’m now sitting happily watching Grey’s Anatomy with my evil kitten wrapped around my head on the back of the couch and a very full tummy.

Don’t judge me. It might not look as amazing as something Amy Cao came up with. But it’s PERFEFCT, and if you wanna make something of it, I’ll knock you on your ass and hold you down and tell you all the gory details of my sorta crappy day at work, INCLUDING my payroll matrix woes.

Yeah that’s right. Better that you just move it along. Go look at Amy’s cookies. You’ll feel better.

-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, I Love NYC, Karmic Gold, Mine All Mine, My People, The Moxie Chronicles., The Ugly Truth, Working Girl

Nov 04

Things I Can Spare.

He seemed to be in a hurry, the total stranger. He had styled hair and a nice camel-colored houndstooth coat. He looked like he had had a morning like I had had. He wasn’t smiling.

I saw his metrocard reader flash the most unholy of all error messages when he swiped it: INSUFFICIENT FARE. He was going to run very late.

I had a transfer on my card, because I caught the bus this morning. I had enough on my card to get the both of us on the train. So I did. He was turning, a bit wild-eyed, looking for the metrocard vendor, trying to get out of the way. “Sir! Sir!” I called. He turned to look at me. “It’s ok. I’ve got you. Go ahead.”

And I swiped him through. Because I had the extra ride, and I could spare it. I gave a homeless man my last $2 last night because I could spare that, too. I have the blessed good fortune that leaves me with the security of knowing that if I go to the ATM, there’s more money there for me. I choose to live with the belief that if I were running late and my metrocard expired and a stranger was in a position to help, she would. I believe that because I live that way as often as possible.

If you can spare it, say thank you for the blessing and pay it forward.

The stranger looked at me with such genuine surprise and gratitude… His day got better. It’s 9:30 AM and I’ve given that to someone already. Maybe I’m not off to such a bad start, after all.

Seeing the homeless on the streets, suffering through the colder nights and malnutrition… It breaks my heart. I can’t save everyone, but I can try to help.

James and I–me, especially– need to weed out the excess clothing we have laying around our closets and drawers. Cluttering up our floor and hampers and desk chairs and couch.

And then, I’m taking it all straight to the local charities. There are people out there who can benefit from my years of hoarding clothing. There are people out there who can find far more necessity in the garments I take for granted.

And, if we’re being really honest here, most of what I own are all things I can spare.

So it’s time to be thankful for my blessings, then take a look at where others can benefit and pay it forward.

-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Fashionista, I Love NYC, Karmic Gold, Mine All Mine, Raging Shopaholic, Shoe Love is True Love, The Moxie Chronicles., The Ugly Truth, Warm Fuzzies, Working Girl

Nov 02

On being not angry.

I should preface this by saying that I’m not even engaged to James. Just so we’re all perfectly clear on that right from the get-go here.

It’s no secret that my mother can’t keep a secret to save her life, bless her soul. She made a comment to that effect on her Facebook page today and it tugged at my heart a little.

You see, I had to call my mother yesterday morning and tell her that I wasn’t mad at her for telling my baby sister that I don’t want her as a bridesmaid in my wedding.

My mother didn’t lie, exactly. I don’t want Kar as a bridesmaid. I don’t want Jen, James’ little sister, as a bridesmaid, either. To be fair, I had told my mother all this, including the next and most important bit: I talked it over with James. On our big day we have something much bigger that we want our sisters to do.

Mom didn’t tell Kar that, though. She just told her that I don’t want her as a bridesmaid, which naturally hurt her feelings. Understandably. And I got frustrated with my mother because (and I’m circling back here) I’m not even engaged.

So the fact that my wedding plans were a topic of conversation was the first puzzling thing in a long list of puzzling things that Mom mentioned casually on Saturday morning when I gave her a call to see what was new. It was all just so horribly out of context.

I called Kristin. She told me that when she and Ryan had gotten married (with only immediate family present) she had effectively angered every single other person they knew. She does not care. It was her perfect day getting married to the man she loves. “Decide what your guns are, Mal, and stick to them!” Best. Advice. Ever.

I’m not going any further into any details about anything, except to tell you that calling my mother to tell her that I’m not mad at her was the best thing I’ve done all week. And also that when James and I get married, our sisters will probably not be bridesmaids. They will be something much, much better.

And that’s all anyone needs to know.

-M.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Family Shackles, Mine All Mine, My People, The Ugly Truth, Warm Fuzzies

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