By MBPDLPayday Loans

Archive for July, 2009

Jul 31

Other people’s babies.

The last time I saw Kristin, she was a thousand weeks pregnant and feisty because she wanted a cocktail and some sushi. Were it any other pregnant lady, I’d have been all, “One drink won’t kill your baby, lady. So have one and cork it.” But not with Kristin. That’s my godchild in that belly of hers, the darling little ball of love that kicks my sister whenever she feels Kristin’s belly.

I don’t wholly care when it’s other people’s babies. But he’s not just anyone’s baby– he’s Kristin’s baby. He’s special. And he might be coming early.

Kristin being pregnant, much to my mother’s dismay, has not compelled me at all to start pining for a family of my own. Do you know what it’s like when your best friend, the girl who taught you about vodka and mini skirts and boys and love and heartbreak and growing up, suddenly announces that he can feel her hips separating and that it REALLY HURTS? Women are built to do this. I get that. And it’s all worth it in the end. I get that, too.

But in order to snuggle Jonas, she’s first going to have to push him out. OF HER VAGINA, in case you missed the tutorial on where babies ACTUALLY come from. Vaginas, people. Gah.

When it hit me that she was going to really do this, I just kept looking at James and saying, “Her vagina!” And he would just solemnly nod in agreement with me, that this is totally batshit nuts.

Kristin emailed me this morning to tell me that Jonas’ heartbeat was low, an that her pelvis is small, and that he’s rather large, and that her cervix is in the wrong place. Not on her arm or anything, she assure me. But tilted. And apparently this could all lead to a c-section.

I am, apparently, the only one relieved that her vagina may not be involved in giving birth. They may induce her, or go c-section, but either way the new forecast shows Jonas slated to arrive sometime next week.

And at th end of all of this, I’m standing here, saying my prayers, but thinking, “… The fuck? How can your cervix be in the wrong place?”

Childbirth, perhaps, is not for me. I’ll give godmothering a go first.

-M.

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Posted in Family Shackles, Mine All Mine, My People, The Ugly Truth

Jul 30

Sweet Cream and Rosewater

It’s been 90 and rainy all week, and to celebrate I started writing my first novel.

Posting might end up a little lighter around here as I get ready to spend time with Kristin when she has Jonas and prep for the evil GMAT. I also need to pull together my article, hopefully still for publication and a focus group for the novel drafting process.

I’m being picky; I need people who will tell me when the ideas are awful. (Love you, Mom, but that means you’re out.)

In the meantime, I’ll hit you with shorter blurbs from on-the-go, and photo updates over at MoxieMoments.

I’ll be back strong September 1st, with a new godchild, article and I’ll be fresh off a week at home with the nut jobs I call Family.

Grab a bowl (or a teacup) of my favorite summer remedy: sweet cream or rosewater ice cream, and try not to miss me too much.

xo
-M.

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Posted in Book Worm, Food Snob, I Love NYC, Mine All Mine, Warm Fuzzies, Working Girl

Jul 27

Panic.

I had a semi- serious panic attack this morning.

I used to be able to tell you the exact date and time I had my last panic attack. I could list my exact symtpoms in the order they affected me. I used to be able to feel one coming and avoid it completely. I used to be in control.

I suddenly feel like I’ve let an old enemy creep up on me gradually.

In high school I was diagnosed with a generalize anxiety disorder. I was put on Lexapro, and honed my peer-leadership training to help myself be in communication with my body about where my anxiety was at any given moment. If I felt myself knee-jerk react with panic to a situation, I had the tools to calmly address the anxiety Ina constructive, productive way. I did not freak out, go into hysterics or lose my temper.

A lot of people disagree with taking medication for anxiety and depressive disorders. I’m not one of them. It wasn’t, for me, as simple as telling myself there was nothing to get worked up over. My adrenaline would surge. My body physically jolted itself with hormones, out of control. As left of center as my logic may be, I AM a very logic-motivated person, and still everything I knew about the sitatuons could not diffuse them from escalating to full-blown anxiety attacks. So I took Lexapro, 5mgs a day at first, up to 20mgs a day.

Then I realized that it wasn’t that the medicine wasn’t working any more- it was, I was not feeling anxious. I just had issue with he fact that I wasn’t feeling ANYTHING anymore. I talked to my mother, and she supported my choice to ween off the meds.

I haven’t felt 100% for the past week or so. The cats have me anxious, work has me anxious, life has me anxious. Your early 20s are a great time, but the opportunity for failure and the rate of change are so exaggerated that it’s impossible to keep up and keep sane. And that makes me nervous.

I’ve also gone off birth control, which has my body in a state of detox-shock, as I’d been on it for a mere 8 years. I also dabbled with coffee this week, because I perform so much better at work when I’m caffeinated. But, I spiral out of control when I’m not, and I wholly believe the caffeine probably has something to do with the panic attack.

This morning, though, was An unprovoked attack. There was no legitimate trigger, I just realized as I was getting on the train to go to work that I’d forgotten my wallet. I had been double careful to be sure I had it, and I had already just-missed a train. James had walked me to the train so I knew he was only a block away. It was 90 degrees and I was dehydrated but I had to chase him down. By the time I caught up with him, having seen him and been yelling for him for a whole block, I was too far gone into anxiety to reign it in. I just stood there in front of him and hypervetinlated, tears streaming down my cheeks. I explained what happened, and that I was late, and he didn’t even wait for me to ask before pulling out his metro card and stuffing a wad of cash into my hand for lunch.

I had to tell my boss, because even a small attack leaves me fatigued and sluggish. I called my mother, who mentioned I might need to reopen the idea of regulating my anxiety with medicine. She cautioned me that, at the very least, I need to select a doctor in NYC and closely monitor myself for a week or two, to gage whether this us a persitent problem or a one-time fluke.

And that’s the game plan. Loop everyone in on what’s goin in with me, monitor my moods, avoid caffeine and be really astute about when in starting to get anxious and what’s causing it. And I’m going to keep reminding myself of all the things I know. I know I can handle this; I’ve handled ot before. I know I have good people in both my personal life and at work, with whom I can be honest about my anxiety if I’m struggling. And I know this doesn’t have to be overwhelming. I just need to stand up now and take control of the situation and myself.

Always an adveture.

-MM.

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Posted in My People, The Ugly Truth, Working Girl

Jul 26

Deep Shit.

Moose has poop issues.

Maybe that’s inaccurate. Maybe I have the poop issues and Moose’s ability to cover himself in poop every morning just exacerbates my prejudice against excrement pawprints trailing through my bathroom and kitchen. Regardless, this new addition to my morning routine is neither pleasant nor welcome.

In Moo’s defense, I was roasting a chicken. It seems as soon as I’m productive somewhere, the cat senses it and launches a poop bomb somewhere else. They’ve both been on antibiotics for two weeks, and we’re fairly sure they both ate silica gel packets that were nestled up inside the springs of the couch, the only neurotic place I didn’t obsessively scour for toxins after reading Kittens for Dummies and realizing that the entire apartment was trying to poison the babies to death. So their poop has been, understandably, liquid in nature.

Still, if Moose could poo without excavating the entire litter box, life would be easier for everyone, especially him, as I’m not the one who then is forcefully rinsed off in the sink. Do you know what noise a poop covered kitten can muster when his 5lbs body is touched my just a single drop of water in the sink? It’s something between macaws being slowly butchered and a train wreck. If I could bottle that, women could stop carrying pepper spray for self-defense, the sound is so off-putting. I, for one, would have left him alone were it an option.

He darted into the kitchen, poop covered, right as my chicken was due out of the oven. Right before I was supposed to shower. I’ll admit it, I yelled.

To be wholly accurate, I screamed my head off at him. And then I yelled at James, who I had call me from work, and while I was doing that, I got soap with clorox in my eye, and if I didn’t have a good reason to lose it before, I certainly did then.

To make a long story short, the stupid cat is fine. The roast was ruined before it even hit the oven, thanks to inconsistent brine recipes, and my eye is still very, very unhappy. But we’re working on pulling it together, my temper and I.

Then the kittens crawled onto the kitchen windowsill, and proceeded to nap in the radiated heat from the oven.

When they do that, they’re so cute you can hardly tell they’re the evil henchmen of death.

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Posted in Domestic DemiGoddess, Food Snob, Working Girl

Jul 24

The Grumbles.

So far today I’ve managed to make an offhanded comment to James that turned into the guys at work reading about my panties because James put the comment on Twitter. Cue mortification.

I already feel like a total outsider at work because I’m the only girl on a team of guys who’ve worked together for over a year. So that’s fun.

Then I forgot to give a client his credit card back after a transaction. And they always love that.

Kristin is ready to pop and I’ve missed her whole pregnancy, making me feel like the worst friend ever.

Today is just a day of the grumbles.

-M.

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Posted in TechNerd, Working Girl

Jul 23

Catching up.

I got the iPhone last night. Nothing fancy, just the 3G. Still, I woke up, checked my email facebook and Twitter in a matter of seconds, and then rocked out to The Veronicas. All on one device!

Then I posted a pic of James sleeping, because I’m a total creeper.

Sam is coming up from Palm Beach tonight. It’ll be great to reunite with her, and I promise all kinds of fun pictures.

Work now. Writing later. Lots to talk about as breaking up, making up and catching up are the themes this week.

Until then. …

-M.

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Posted in I Love NYC, Manhattan Globetrotters, Mine All Mine, My People, TechNerd, Warm Fuzzies

Jul 22

James, snoozin’.

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Posted in Mine All Mine, My People, TechNerd, Warm Fuzzies

Jul 22

STOP! Rewind!

So, life moves too fast to keep up with a blog sometimes. This past month has been one of those warp-speed months.

So! A quick recap for you all:

The Puppy:

We ended up with kittens. Two kittens. Everyone: Elephant and Moose.

Moose and Elephant: A rare, sleepy-kitty moment.

Moose and Elephant: A rare, sleepy-kitty moment.

Elephant weighs in at a beastly 2lbs even and came into our home, with a cold. Which she promptly gave to Moose. Despite that, likes to run around and act as Moose’s personal chew toy. She also loves to watch TV, though she has yet to successfully stop the CNN news crawl. She will only sleep under the bed, on top of her carrier, or if she’s drectly in contact with me. She was malnourished when she got to the shelter, so she was syringe-fed. This makes it easy to clean her face-boogers and give her her antibiotics.

Elephant. (Also, "Ellie", "Ellie-pants", "Ellie-bean", "Ellie-belly" or "CAT!")

Elephant. (Also, "Ellie", "Ellie-pants", "Ellie-bean", "Ellie-belly" or "CAT!")

Moose. Moose, on the other hand, is 4.5lbs. He outweighs Ellie 2:1, and he’s a little more athletic than Ellie, who likes to perch on ottomans and nap under the bed all day. Moose likes to climb stuff– any stuff, indiscriminately. He’s a total snuggle-bug when he wants to be, and will charm the pants off you if he thinks he can get a treat out of it. He’s 100% James’ cat, and all-boy. Needless to say, he’s very cute. Which is why I didn’t kill him when he climbed my curtains and attacked my shoes.

Moose. (Also, "Moo", and "Monster")

Moose. (Also, "Moo", and "Monster")

It might not sound like much, but they’re enough to keep us both busy and exhausted.

More photos and videos to come, but for now… I need a little cat nap before I start preparing for the GMATs.

-M.

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Posted in Mine All Mine, My People, Warm Fuzzies

Jul 13

Gravity

I’m hyper-sensitive to gravity. I stumble, trip, slip and falter more than the normal person. This week, too, I’ve taken to dropping stuff. Not just a simple slip-of-the-fingers, though. Huge, indelicate acts of gracelessness.

I reach for a pen and it slips our of my hand, flying across the office. I thrust my hand forward to grab it and I upset a glass of water and the pen-holder. I grab for the papers the water is about to ruin and I knock over a stack of shoeboxes, which fall onto the adding machine, which spews adding tape everywhere. My boss walks in. What happened? Well. I needed a pen.

And my luck with pistachio donuts from Balthazar has been exceptionally foul this week. Of the three pistachio donuts I’ve acquired, I’ve been able to eat 1.75. That’s not very good. In fact, that’s just barely more than 58%. How the hell is your margin of error so high on eating DONUTS, Mallory? you ask! They’re the least confrontational of all treat-food, you tell me!

I know, people. I know. Trust me, it’s not like I dropped the donuts deliberately. It was more like it was when my sister and I were kids and we’d run around slapping things out of one another’s hands. The other day, my bag ripped open. And the donut fell out in slow motion onto the sidewalk. The dirty Spring Street sidewalk. My WHOLE dobut. Just– crrrrch! Bag ripped open, donut plunged to the ground. Bounced twice. Rolled. Landed pistachio frosting side up. Moment of silence, everyone. That was my afternoon snack.

Then this morning my last bite of donut literally fell out of my mouth. I did not miss. I did not drop it en route. I had it through my lips, and it propelled itself forward with a force as though someone had smacked me upside the back of my head , off the tips of my fingers as I howled “NoOoOo!!” The donut bit ended up on the ground. Passersby looked at me like I was  a total idiot. “Didn’t she have it IN HER MOUTH?” their silent eyes mocked me.

To reward myself for not crying either time, however, I allowed myself Five Guys for lunch. And since I didn’t spill any of THAT on my white shirt, I’m allowing myself ice cream on my second break. Who knows, perhaps Gravity– my nemesis– has taken the day off.

Don’t want to jinx it, though. So I won’t be grabbing another pistachio donut anytime soon.

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Posted in Fashionista, I Love NYC, Karmic Gold, Working Girl

Jul 02

Friends.

This is what it looks like when your soul gets a facelift.

This is what it looks like when your soul gets a facelift.

If you ask me the last time I laughed so hard it made my stomach hurt, I will tell you about the Great Umbrella Debacle.

It was a blustery day, and rain was imminent, and we knew this, but the three of us were determined to get together anyway. Because we rarely had the chance to get together any more, and what’s a little rain?

Hilarity and madness ensue. All the umbrellas flip inside out. As I announce I’ve never had an umbrella break, half my umbrella goes limp, dumping a pool of water down the front of me as my two best friends laugh uncontrollably at the irony. Maxine’s umbrella flips inside out, succumbing to the gale-force winds. Christine’s umbrella tries to drag her down Fifth Ave. We are laughing too hard to put up a fair fight. Those umbrellas, they had an agenda.

Then we look around, and everyone else on the street is TOTALLY UNAFFECTED by the weather. No one else’s umbrella has gone rogue. The wind, still spinning us in circles, doesn’t even seem to flutter the canopies of the other umbrellas.

That’s when we stopped, and we all laughed so hard our stomachs hurt. We laughed so hard it warmed our hearts and filled up our souls. Soaked, discombobulated, late for dinner, the three of us shared one of my favorite memories.

When we all graduated in December, I cried a lot because Maxine was going to Spain and Christine was going to Arizona and I was still stuck in Jersey, slated to move in with my boyfriend. None of it was the plan– I was the LAST one of us that was supposed to fall in love. These girls has saved me in college from years of feeling alone, misunderstood and apologizing for my quirky ways. They were my people. People aren’t just allowed to leave.

Except, but, they do. So I said goodbye, and cried a lot, and went to Boston on business, and moved in with my boyfriend, and walked at Radio City while Maxine traveled to Paris and slept on the beaches of Spain and Christine coached track at the local high school in Arizona while filling out law school applications. Life goes on, but I knew New York would never be quite the same for me. Like a gem necklace that’s now antique, appreciating in value for its endurance but not necessarily its luster.

When we found out we’d all be back in New York for the summer, I almost fell off my chair. It was too good to be true. We never thought that would happen for us again.

Of course our schedules would never match up, but we managed to have breakfast the week Maxine came back from Spain, and it felt better– more like home– knowing that they were within freakout distance if I needed them. (I never used the convenience; I’ve stopped having meltdown-freakouts.) We talked for hours, about everything we’ve missed. Life… I can’t get over it. Life just moves so damn fast!

I got a call from Christine just over 24 hours ago, telling me she’s moving to Texas pretty immediately for work. It would have been easy to go back to the Sad Place, where I cry unexpectedly on the subway, and watch Grey’s Anatomy reruns all by myself, missing the Cristina and Izzy to my Meredith. I didn’t cry. I didn’t get sad. I just got off my couch and went to Hoboken to help her pack. Then we rallied with Maxine and had one last girls’ dinner– because, let’s be honest. When are we all going to be together again?

We don’t know. They’re my best friends, have been for the past two years, and we don’t know. A year ago, that would have broken  me. But there’s something unique about the way I’ve bonded with Maxine and Christine, something special in the way we’ve kept in touch, how the world alone will never be big enough to truly keep us apart. They’ve helped me become the woman I am, held my hand through the hard times and watched me date the losers and rolled their eyes when I was all “I don’t know if I’m dating James or not…”

They’re my people. I’ve shared pieces of myself with these girls that you can’t give to anyone else. None of us necessarily lead the way as we forged our futures, but we were doing it together. We were a team. We still are… Always will be.

And I believe wholeheartedly that we’re ok as who we are as individuals now because of the time we spent together. It’s ok that I live with a boy, and I’ve hung up my tequila shot glass, that Tine coaches track and Maxine will hopefully spend part of the summer in Greece with the man we all hope she marries. (Sorry, Justin Timberlake. Max is the only one still pulling for you to be in the running.)

We’re all stepping up to start the next phases of Our Big Adventures. I’m looking at Graduate Schools. Maxine is heading to the Canary Islands. Christine will end up back in Phoenix. I can’t wait to hear about track practice, and life on the beach. They’re stuck listening to puppy talk, and about how my perfect boyfriend cooks and does the dishes.

And I know, eventually, it’ll all come together again. And we’ll find ourselves gathered together somewhere on Fifth Ave., doubled over in laughter… Laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. That’s what we do.

They’re my amazing friends, two of the strongest and most beautiful women I’ve ever met. We’re growing up, and stepping out. We’re each other’s people.

Always will be.

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Posted in I Love NYC, Manhattan Globetrotters, Mine All Mine, My People, Warm Fuzzies