Last night was Maggie aka PseudoSis3’s bachelorette party in Bricktown. It was a room full of faces that I love, laughter and watching Maggie work the room, looking stunning it suddenly dawned on me.
Maggie is getting married.
MARRIED.
Dang.
Watching her open the many gifts, including the fun naughty bag of treats provided by moi, in front of her future mother in law was worth it all. Answering her fun Newlywed questions “boxer or brief? —I dunno his mom does his laundry”was maybe my favorite line of the night.
I look forward to the most fabulous of ceremonies. I still don’t have a dress/accessories and am having some major anxiety over that *another post for another day* but I seriously can’t wait. Michelle asked me last night about celebrating my birthday and I said, really I haven’t got any plans. I’m just focused on the wedding and then HER 40th at the end of the month which will be so fun!
I’m thankful that these women are in my life. I’m thankful for the people that they brought to mine. I’m so much better for knowing them and being loved by them.
Sometime last week Mark walked in and asked what I was doing this weekend. I said really just Maggie’s bachelorette party on Saturday night and that was it.
“Let’s take the trailer and go to the Talimena Drive. Wouldn’t it be awesome to wake up in a Fall Forrest?”
So on Friday night about five thirty we pulled out of the driveway and headed East. We had an idea of some camping places but nothing definite and knowing it would be dark when we loaded in we just figured if nothing else we would find a parking lot or someplace to sleep.
It was dark. And thanks to our navigation on the phone we drive directly to Cedar Lake Recreational Area, found an empty slot and boom. Done.
It got pretty cold last night, I wore my flannel hat like used to when I lived in Cincinnati and slept on the floor on a mattress I found. He decided not to change into soft pants. Snuggled up and slept so good.
This morning we woke up, he made camp coffee, we added a few more items to our camp list. I’m going to put together a few tubs of things that we need, that we can just grab and go camp. Extra mantles for the lantern, propane, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, playing cards, that kind of stuff. We ate some stale quick mart pastry that I bought last night and then headed off on a hike around the lake. It was about three miles and just gorgeous.
We visited with another teardrop trailer owner and looked at theirs before we headed out to the skyline drive.
So much color and beauty it was just gorgeous! It made me wish I had a real camera and knew how to take pictures.
Heading home we stopped on Krebs for our first foray into the famous Pete’s Italian Restaurant…stupid good.
We’ve passed gobs and gobs of people. In cars, on bikes, on motorcycles, everyone heading to Talimena. When we left Pete’s there were gobs of people waiting for a table.
“I think we’re doing this weekend right.” He says.
November is National Blog Posting Month…NaBloPoMo for short. One blog post once a day for every day of the month.
I’ve done this before, several times in fact.
It seems lately that I’ve just quit writing. Life has become so busy and frenzied that I have carved out zero time here, other than a post or two a month. I’ve even given very serious thought to taking down the site altogether.
“There’s really nothing you’re writing about that’s interesting/of use/important”
“You never really put any work into your blog by promoting it, or participating with other blogs”
“The blogs you read have dwindled down to two, maybe three, who cares if you have one to link to”
All of these things I’ve mulled over. Given some thought to.
Then I decided maybe I was just lazy. And I don’t care about traffic on my site. I have never done anything to make it a high traffic place. I don’t have a facebook page for it, or participate with Oklahoma Women Bloggers like I wish I did. I always want to be that kind of reader who reads millions of blogs, the famous ones, the ones of my friends, ALL the LTYM blogs, but I’m not. I haven’t been in the past, let’s say. But that can change now. Life is different, and while it’s still just stupid busy, there’s no good reason I can truly find to stop living in this creative space that I carved out for myself so many years ago.
Heather and Mari have started Oklahoma Women Bloggers and I am excited to really become an engaged member of that community. Listen To Your Mother has opened doors both virtual and real that I want to walk through.
So, long story short, I’ve decided to use the month of November (one of my favorite months) and the NaBloPoMo as a jumpstart back into writing. There are some things I want to join in on. Ann has started a meme #whereilivedwednesdays that I think I could really get behind. Heather has Thankful Thursdays, leading up to Thanksgiving and I’ve dabbled in that a bit but not as much as I want. So there are things I want to do here, maybe revamp how I use this space. Maybe use it more than just an emotion dumping ground/diary. Whatever it turns into, first there must be words.
It was the first real weekend I can remember in forever.
We slept.
I did laundry. A lot of laundry. I did household chores.
We went to the Diner for breakfast.
We had a Winter Wind show and saw friends and heard some great music.
There was coffee and CBS Sunday Morning and waffles.
The Mr. did his crossword puzzle.
I baked delicious zucchini/oatmeal/carrot/crasin cookies. And when he went to do the very final bits of OKC house duties, and gathered up his tools and gave back the key I did more laundry and made roasted vegetables and baked parmesan chicken for supper.
Bless his heart he’s exhausted, what with a late night, and it being 3rd Sunday 5am working today, he’s asleep before halftime of the football game. The cats are curled up on him, and all is quiet in my house.
I’m don’t even have any Sunday Mourning happening.
It feels good to get back to living. It feels really really good.
I’m making a list of songs that I want to learn with Mark. I’ve got a few in the queue for us to learn.
Any suggestions?
We’ve decided to take the teardrop to Granite next weekend. My California family will be there and we’re going down on Friday as soon as we can cut loose from the week. I can’t wait to see them, and to show Mark this town where I spent so much of my childhood. We’ll go for some walks and maybe go to Medicine Park/Mt. Scott on Saturday.
This week holds a cookie sale webinar on Tuesday, meeting to discuss Pseudo Sis 3’s wedding (which is less than four weeks away! zomgineedadress) and a CST meeting in Chickasha on Thursday. Zoom. Another week down.
After the crazy breakneck hours from my work, and the whole Grad School Thing finally getting closure, I just kind of flopped this past week. I had zero focus, could only make myself attend to the most menial and required of tasks. I would be asleep before Mark could turn off the tv and walk from the living room, most every night. But I think I needed that decompression time.
I still feel tired. This man and I are temperatureily incompatible. It’s our greatest incompatibility. But we’re working it out. Today we had waffles for breakfast. He’s doing his crossword, the cats are asleep at the foot of the bed, I’m playing on my computer and reading (I got the new Bridget Jones) and later we’re going to go do a few tasks at Julie’s house and pack up all of our tools and say goodbye to that project. Thank GOD. I’m sure I should do some laundry, or plan some meals, or do something in the yard…
but for right now I’m going to be still. and think about that puppy we are going to look at today. 🙂 *details to come
You remember the Seinfeld episode on masturbation, right? I mean, don’t we all? It seems ridiculous now in this day and age that THAT was so groundbreaking…but it was hysterical. And Kramer.
Kramer with the two seconds, then slamming money on the bar with I’m OUT!
Unspeakable things…unspoken.
About three weeks or so ago, I started my own personal test with myself.
I re-took my comprehensive exam for my Masters degree.
You who have read here awhile, or who’ve known my life remember that the first time I took it and failed…it was just the perfect storm of fuckery. There was no way I was going into that and winning. I didn’t know that at the time, so the failing was perhaps as big a blow as I’d had in many months.
It was during that time that the prophetic words of Bill became my solace.
“sometimes when things are falling apart, they’re really falling into place.”
That failure of the test rerouted me to where I am in my life today in terms of life work. I’m not sitting in a Ph.D program in Stillwater, I’m not on that vicious merry-go-round that is Academia. I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. In an altogether different kind of classroom, yet still advocating for women and girls to find their voice and know without a doubt that girls can, in fact, do anything.
Three weeks ago, I retook the exam.
And I waited.
It would be about a week and a half before I knew anything, they said.
It was a week. A Wednesday. I got the email.
Congratulations, Misti, your committee has decided to schedule your oral defense of your exam. This almost always means that you will pass.
I kept that info to myself for 24 hours before even telling Mark. I told my sister some days later.
Then came the second email.
I’m sorry to inform you, Misti, but two of your outside graders have failed two questions and your committee has decided to uphold that. Please immediately drop this class. You can try again next semester.
I sent an email from my phone that contained the words Fuck It. It may not have been fitting for a graduate English student, but I believe I got my point across.
I refused to let myself respond further until the weekend was over. This was a Thursday night. We were supposed to see the Lumineers in concert that night.
We didn’t make it.
And here I was again. Taken out at the knee. Wondering what was wrong with me, how much more could I take, how much more did I even want to give to an institution that clearly had either just given me a 3.75 gpa without merit, or allowed me to become a statistic of academic warfare within the system.
I cried. I was beyond shamed. I felt…void. I have already racked up many many many dollars of student loans for a degree that it appeared I wouldn’t receive, and that really for all intents and purposes…no longer needed.
My life wasn’t going to change if I had that degree. I have a job that I love, that gives me struggles and joy, that makes me work harder than I’ve worked in years for tiny teensy winning moments that, to me, are the most fulfilling.
I no longer felt like I had let people down as I did the first time failing the test. I grew enough from that experience to realize the reality of the world.
Crisis in Humanities? I’ve seen it. Face to face. It’s the 9th grade girl from Douglas High School who had a friend killed the night before she came to do Girl Scout programming at Oklahoma City University. She left that day asking me questions about how to apply for schools, amazed that it was even an option for her. She said, “maybe I’ll be an actress and a nurse.”
Maybe she will. If she makes it.
So I’d somewhat come to terms with the failure and had started to wrap my head around how to break this news. Again.
Then I got the third email. On a Saturday.
Congratulations, Misti. Your committee has decided to move forward with your oral defense. It is set for October 15th at 1:00 pm.
I looked at Mark and said, “I’m in an abusive relationship with UCO. The last time I was ever made to feel so perfectly inadequate one minute and completely worthless the next, I was in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic.”
I wrote back that I was going to need some advising on exactly what my inadequacies were, and how to approach them in a way that would help me succeed in this process.
I was advised to contact the two professors who failed the questions and get their feedback as well as scheduled office time with my advisor for prep.
Ok.
The emails to the outside professor were ignored. Until I got yet another email stating, “please don’t contact Dr. P about your exam. He doesn’t want to talk to you about it.”
*smh
at this point, we have to start laughing or digging out the voodoo doll, right?
I went today.
I had conversations with my advisor. I know that he’s working on changing this broken system, but as with any kind of change it has not been met with open arms, and there is collateral damage.
Though I may regret posting this today, as we have no idea until I actually get the diploma if it’s true or not…
I have passed my defense. I have my Master’s Degree in 20th and 21st Century Literature.
I got to tell them about my experience. I had the opportunity to lay it all out there, gaping oozing scabby sores and all.
But what I did was tell them how this degree that, on the surface seems useless, has in fact been put into use in my current reality.
No, I’m not in front of a classroom teaching Comp 1 to incoming freshman and working on my dissertation. Yes, I’m at times getting my ass chewed out by bitchy, mean girl volunteers.
But I’m using it.
Because that 9th grade girl?
I got to tell her about this book called Beloved that I read again in this class I took. I got to talk to her about how sometimes the past is the thing that has this grip on us and it feels like there is no other way to go but backwards. I got to tell her that she was her own best thing.
And I got to tell them that, too.
It may all blow up again tomorrow. Or next week. There may well be another email that begins with, “We are sorry to inform you, Misti… ”
Last week is finally in the rear view, and thankfully all survived and maybe even excelled from it. Yesterday I finished up the event and went grocery shopping, came home and grabbed a bite to eat then just crashed.
Hard.
It was that delicious, dead, heavy during the day guiltless kind of sleep. Mark woke me up because we had to be at the Frontier for family photos and some fall festing which by the way was glorious. I can’t wait to see our photos, and sitting by the fire, watching the boys play like hyenas was just perfect. It almost made up for missing the real Fall Fest…but I’m still really sad about that.
Today, I got my butt in gear and got my tax stuff ready. I’ve waited until the last 48 hours before my extension is up because frankly, I forgot about it. The new job, the move…it just escaped my mind. As I sat and went through bits and pieces of paper I thought, I won’t have to do this again. Next year, my taxes will be easy. All of these bills and paper? I don’t own that place anymore. Glorious.
Mark is finishing up the last of the repair list at Julie’s house today. There may be a thing here or there but for the most part we’re done.
I have one more big big thing on my calendar this week but by Wednesday I think it will be easy to breathe. We can focus on unpacking here, and getting truly back to living the quiet life. I’ve got green chile stew on the stove for supper tonight, it’s overcast and rain is coming. For the first time in so so so many…I’m breathing in without this big lump of anxiety.
I’ve been meditating this weekend on what a year brings, and trying to really let go of the anxious. It was one year ago this weekend that I met Mark. One year ago this weekend I was knee deep in anxious and needed that mountain music get away like no other. No one could have guessed how my life was going to change. No one could have even tried to tell me that from that weekend forward…everything would be different…I wouldn’t have believed them anyway.
One year with this relationship that has moved me right off of my center of gravity…and centered me like nothing ever has before.
I know that all of the change was necessary, and I’ve survived it for the most part, unscathed. But I’m tired. I want to be in my home, and be domestic, and gather with my friends who know me, and celebrate this life without worry and anxiety over anything more than just daily tasks.
Got home after 10pm last night after another CST meeting in Shawnee. I did get CPR trained, so that’s a plus. So tired today…and I should be giddy as it’s Friday. YAY!
I have a recruitment event tonight that all of four girls have rsvp’d for, so who knows if it will be worth it? or a big waste of resources and time. Either way I’m NOT going to be at Fall Fest on the Frontier and that’s almost too much to even imagine. I will get to see the family tomorrow, we’ll have our own Fall Fest tomorrow night after family pics and that will feel amazing.
While the week has been manic, we’ve accomplished some big things around here. The repairs are THIS CLOSE to being finished on Julie’s house. There will be some time this weekend to get at least two more big things checked off the list, one being putting our front porch back in order, and getting the fire pit in place. I need some fire in my evenings.
It’s been a breakneck week for sure. I’m glad we’ve almost survived. After I finish the last component of the event at 11am tomorrow…I’ll be free for a few hours. I hope you have some free hours too.
Minivan Momma is really doing great things with Thankful Thursday, with her daughters 1 & 2, they are incorporating activities into their countdown to Thanksgiving.
Minivan Momma has her shit together way more than I do. I’m sitting here feeling like Goldie Hawn in Overboard when she’s glazed over… just saying Bubbubbahbubbahbubbabbubbubbubbahhhh.
You know exactly what I’m talking about don’t you?
Admit it. You love that movie as much as I do. (it’s okay if you don’t. I love it enough for both of us!)
I had the realization yesterday as I was rushing to Council for the first of my 4 meetings, that I haven’t spent anytime with anyone that has known me longer than a year, in I don’t know how long. In the last few months, my only outside interaction other than volunteers and Mark, have been the women and men that I work with at Council.
I’m so thankful that we have all developed relationships that are bound together with common goals and experiences, laughter and frustrations. I always always always feel better after spending time there. My CEO is amazing. She is steadfast and supportive and when she laughs/smiles she is all in. Product Sales, the Shop, Business Services, IT, our Front Desk, Volunteer Relations, Finance, Fun(d)Development, Mar/Com,Programming…seriously. I enjoy them all. I feel better after having conversations with them. Some have been there for a really long time. They know the path I’m on, they offer advice and an open ear and a quick laugh when I need them.
I miss my friends. I miss SundayFundays and quick after work catch up sessions. I am so so thankful for the internet, because it gives me the glimpses I need to sustain. But it’s not the real thing.
I’m so thankful that my friends, those that have known me, and those that are just getting to know me, are in my life and understand that this is what life is right now. I am so thankful that when I get a minute, we will grab time and be able to pick right back up. I’m thankful for the internet, what allows me to connect with my friends near and far, and get the support as well as give it. It’s by all means not a substitute for the real thing, but I’m thankful nonetheless.
Misti Ridiculous 