Category Archives: adulting

Lots to chew on

Spring has sprung, I guess. A truly Wisconsin spring, which means a week of 80+ degrees and sunshine followed by temps plummeting to the 30s and the threat of snow in the air once more.

I ordered myself an Adirondack chair and of course it will be arriving the day of the aforementioned snow threat. We had those cheapie plastic Adirondack chairs from Target on the porch last summer, but they kept blowing away in the winds and landing like three houses down the street. I love me an Adirondack chair. Probably because I associate them with warm memories at Cedar Campus. Might need to paint mine a nice light blue…oh who am I kidding. That’s something I would talk about and research on Pinterest and then never ever do.

Two little birdies have made a nest on the spring wreath I put on our front door. The mama has laid her eggs already.

nature! right at my front door!

Work is calmer now than it has been at any point since I started last September. After the fall 2022 election, we pretty much segued right into research for the 2023 spring election, and that got a bit intense at times. If I didn’t have such wonderful coworkers, it could’ve gotten insanely stressful, but this is probably the ~healthiest~ work culture I’ve ever been a part of. Mental and physical health is prioritized in actions as well as words. People check up on each other and cover for each other. It’s just really really nice.

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I guess at some point I just gave up on writing smooth segues and resorted to these silly stars to transition my rambling, and now it feels natural to structure my posts this way.

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November through February was basically one long, wretched, inescapable household cold, for which I blame daycare entirely, and it’s been such a relief to be more consistently healthy these last few weeks. If you’ve known me for a long time, you are probably all too aware of the (foolish, unearned) pride I take in my immune system – or at least, I used to, before I had a child who attended daycare with a dozen other filthy germ-mongers three days a week. Now I get whatever Ashwin gets, just a couple days delayed usually, right after V picks it up. Terribly disappointing to realize my immune system is actually just regular, not special at all, susceptible to all the same bullshit as everyone else. I just had to have a kid so that my whole body could rearrange itself inside and out.

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I still don’t quite know the degree to which I want to write publicly about Ashwin. It’s a little easier, or cleaner, when I’m more generally waxing poetic on my motherhood thoughts. Or when I’m making wry jokes about sleep training or breast pumping or some universal early-motherhood difficulty. But now my kid is three years old, has his own personality, his own struggles and victories and schedules and opinions. It feels different. Sometimes I’d like to get down in the actual details more, of what Ashwin is currently doing or going through and by extension what I am doing and going through. (Because being his mom takes up a really large portion of my brain space!) But I don’t know if that’s fair to him. This is one of the toughest parts about writing in general for me. My experiences are my experiences and I own them. But invariably those experiences involve other people, who invariably have feelings about the experiences we shared. It’s hard to know what’s mine to do with what I please and what doesn’t entirely belong to me. You know?

I do know this: my favorite writers are the ones who get all up in those details and talk about all of it, even the unseemly things or the embarrassing things, whether the topic is marriage or kids or careers or bodies or mental health or whatever. The more intimate the better. Do those writers get into trouble with their friends and family after publication? I wonder.

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What I’m reading

A couple things! Primarily “Vagina Obscura“, a highly scientific look at half the world’s nether regions and how deeply they’ve been misunderstood/ignored/stigmatized for most of recorded history. It gets a little in the weeds sometimes for me, as a not very science-y person, but I’m sticking with it.

Also started “Dreaming in Spanish” by local Madison author/realtor/powerhouse Sara Alvarado!

What I’m watching

WELL. Let me tell you. Basically half of my coworkers are obsessed with Love is Blind, so now I am watching the current season of Love is Blind, because FOMO. Ya girl hates to feel left out! I’ve still got a few episodes to finish before the live reunion this weekend so the pressure is on. If Brett and Tiffany don’t make it, I might cry. I have zero faith in any of these other weirdos. But it’s been super fun catching beautiful glimpses of Seattle!

We also started watching Beef, which, wow. Lots going on in there, so much to chew on. Income inequality. Strained marriages. Class warfare. First generation problems. Sibling dynamics. Korean evangelical culture. Inter-Asian group dynamics. White-Asian relationships. Female friendships, male friendships. Ambition/entrepreneurial/girlboss/grind culture. Mental illness, probably, because these protagonists…

Obviously also watching and loving Succession. Barry starts again soon! It’s a rich time for prestige TV. And, I guess, trashy dating reality TV.

What I’m looking forward to

I’m taking my semi-annual solo weekend soon, this time to Chicago. My plans are basically to eat and shop and sleep.

My MIL will be coming to stay with us in May and I am always excited for her to come. A lot of people would say that sentence sarcastically, but not I! She’s the best.

How I’m adulting

New segment! I just had to share that last weekend, V and I bought a new dining room chandelier at Home Depot, and today an electrician came over and installed it, and the fact that that chandelier box didn’t just sit in a corner of my house for months on end, or in my goddamn car trunk, is something I am quite proud of.

(Chandelier is such an absurd word. What we actually bought is a very unfancy but functional and attractive light fixture. It’s metal. In my mind, chandeliers are delicate and crystal and shiny and belong in obscene palaces with Daddy Warbucks.)

(Okay but do you remember Annie, like 1982 Aileen Quinn Annie? That was my favorite movie as a kid. I had a brilliant idea last year that I would write about its 40th anniversary, to see if it holds up. Surprise! It does not! It’s crazy racist! Daddy Warbucks’s bodyguard is a turbaned Indian dude named Punjab, played by a Black man, who rarely speaks but regularly performs acts of mysterious eastern magic! It’s so much worse than I am poorly describing it! I’m pretty sure someone beat me to the “guess what, Annie doesn’t hold up super well” article while I was still in shock. Another dream dashed.)

35

It is truly a delight to be writing this from a booth in Bassett Street Brunch Club, on my birthday, drinking a mimosa and waiting on my bacon and eggs and breakfast potatoes. Small pleasures! Thank God for vaccines!!!

I had planned on doing something out of the ordinary this morning – going kayaking, by myself. I’ve never gone kayaking period. But it seemed like fun? And not THAT hard? I ended up backing out at the last minute due to trepidation over the weather and irritation with myself for scheduling at 8:30 in the goddamn morning. I was full of ambition and the best intentions when I made the reservation. But I am 35, and it’s time to face facts: I am who I am, and I am not the sort of person who will get up early unless externally forced.

I do want to try kayaking, just to prove that I’m still capable of surprising myself and doing new things. When I was younger I used to quasi-fantasize about joining the military just to shock people. Obviously I’d never do it – I would hate absolutely everything about that experience, pacifist principles aside – but I loved the idea of upending people’s perceptions of me as coddled, or high maintenance, or wimpy, or whatever it might be. I am able to admit now that I am, to one degree or another, all those things. But I am tougher than I look. And at least you can’t say I’m not self-aware. LOL, somehow, a lack of self-awareness is worse to me than any of the other unflattering adjectives.

I downloaded an app called Peanut that is basically Tinder for moms looking for mom friends. Laugh if you want, God knows I did. I’m screening out anyone under 30 and anyone with more than 2 kids. I can’t handle that kind of stress even adjacently.

hello 35

Still blonde, still blue-eyed, carrying about 50 more pounds than I’d like to be, but still trying valiantly to love myself every damn day. Trying to Mom, to Adult, to be some approximation of what 15-year-old Molly wanted to be at 35. It’s all a work in progress, all of it.

What I’m Reading:

Nerd alert: “The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket“. It’s interesting, okay?

What I’m Watching:

V and I are reliving the early 2000s by rewatching Sex and the City. Carrie is even worse now that I’m the actual age she was supposed to be in the show. Miranda is still the best. Big is still tremendously unappealing.

Also, of course, watching the Bucks and the Hawks battle it out and fervently hoping we can at last, AT LAST see Giannis in the Finals.

What I’m Listening to:

Look, I’m quite sure I’m not the only 30-something woman tooling around town in my SUV bellowing out Olivia Rodrigo these days and feeling sullen. God, it’s brutal out here indeed.

What I’m Looking Forward to:

I’M SEEING ALANIS MORISSETTE IN SEPTEMBER!!!!! Remember, I was thinking of going in June 2020 in Seattle before 2020 became what it became. Now the tour has been rescheduled and I’m going to the stop in Chicago and I am PUMPED. Dare I say, without Alanis there would be no Olivia Rodrigo. And then where would we all be?

Curveball, Part II

It was just a little over two years ago that I told y’all we were hitting the road for Seattle, and now the time has come to tell you that we’re officially coming back to Madison.

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Just like the first couple of months of my pregnancy, I haven’t blogged in awhile because I couldn’t not talk about this major but tentative thing in my life – so now that everything’s official with this move I have to spill.
If you recall, this was always the plan – spend 2 or 3 years in Seattle while V gets the experience of working for one of the biggest companies in the world, and then return. It turns out that V will still be an Amazon employee after we move, albeit under a different team, but Ashwin’s birth definitely is the reason we’re leaving after 2 years instead of 3. Had I not gotten pregnant, I think we probably would’ve stayed another year at least, because we both really love this city. Madison is home, but I firmly believe that Seattle is the most naturally beautiful city in the country. It’s not like we are the outdoorsiest of people – um, I believe I’ve called myself quite the opposite – but the mountains and the water and all the hills are so spectacular that it’s enough to make a nature lover out of anyone. I hope we’ll be back for vacations, to show Ash where he came from.
It’s just too hard – emotionally and practically – to raise a child on the other side of the country from virtually everyone you know and love. Some people do it and my hat is off to them – some people don’t have much choice. I just really need my people, now more than ever, and I’m not ashamed! Our actual moving date is still TBD, but it will be in the next month or so.
I don’t know what I’ll be doing when we get back. As in, I truly have no idea. I don’t think I am cut out to be a full-time stay at home mom indefinitely. And I want to keep writing. Those are the two things I know for sure…so I’m just trying to have faith that the right gig will come along sooner or later.

I don’t have any regrets about coming here. We both got what we wanted out of it and more. Granted I am a little sick of moving (and I’m sure my family is sick of helping me move) but this was the right thing for us: coming when we did, and leaving when we are.
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I don’t know if I can ever properly thank my mom and my MIL for everything they’ve done for us since Ash was born. Getting up at ungodly hours, hand-washing bottles over and over, cooking amazing meals…it literally overwhelms me to think about the love they have shown us. No two people on this planet better embody the fact that love is a verb.
Most of the time I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing with Ashwin. In the beginning, everything was 100% a guessing game, trial and error, throw every idea at the wall and see what sticks. Now that we have a few months of living with him under our belts, I’d say now the guessing game is the way we make maybe 65% of parenting decisions. We observe him like goddamn research scientists, tracking his every poop and bottle, trying to make sense of it and discover patterns and ways to predict future behavior – but it’s really useless because he’s constantly changing. One week he might be eating 3 ounces every 3 hours, the next week it might be 4 ounces every 2 hours. On Monday he could sleep from 10pm-5am and on Tuesday go to sleep at 9, wake up at 12, again at 3, again at 6, again at 9. And it all falls within the vast, vast spectrum of “normal”. So there’s nothing to be done but just tag along for the ride; he’s unquestionably the captain of this ship.
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Things I’m Looking Forward to Upon Moving Home:

  • Friends and family
  • Air conditioning
  • Culver’s
  • Real Italian sausage (oh yeah um…I’m not strictly speaking a vegetarian anymore) (but I still try to limit meat)
  • Actual winter
  • The farmers’ markets
  • Devil’s Lake

Things I Will Sorely Miss About Seattle:

  • Endless food delivery options
  • Mt. Rainier visible on sunny days
  • Biscuit Bitch
  • Tillamook ice cream
  • Queen Anne Avenue
  • Green Lake
  • My nail salon
  • The view of Lake Union and Eastlake from our apartment
  • The view of Lake Union and Queen Anne Hill from I-5
  • Wag walks
  • The light rail

Things I Will Not Miss About Seattle:

  • Absurdly high cost of living
  • Not being able to go for a walk around our apartment without negotiating some really seriously steep hills (undesirable in general, downright offensive with a stroller)
  • Weed smell (I don’t care one way or the other about weed! Legalize it!! But I do not personally partake and the smell is among my least favorite things in the whole world)
  • Thinking every day about the Cascadia Subduction Zone and mentally preparing for an apocalyptic quake (I’ve linked to this article before and it is very very scary and you’ve been warned)

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What I’m reading:

  • Just finished “Know My Name” by Chanel Miller, the “Emily Doe” in the Brock Turner rape case of 2015. Brave is a pathetic understatement for the way she took on this gut-wrenching journey.
  • Next up…I don’t know? Whatever’s on my Kindle? Because all my books are packed away and the library still isn’t open.

What I’m watching:

  • Well we finished the LOST rewatch, and I was rather let down by the finale this time. I still think it’s beautiful, but just not quite satisfying.
  • Last night and tonight we watched two episodes of Sherlock with the MIL. I don’t know what it is about British television that is so darn comforting. Just watching the show makes me feel like I’m in a cozy living room with a warm blanket and my cat on my lap and a bowl of popcorn and a ginger ale and snow falling outside. Literally hygge.
  • AshwinTV, aka the baby monitor, aka the live feed of my son tossing and turning in his bassinet and making me constantly think he’s about to wake up and eat, when in reality he is probably just going to fall back asleep (NOT THAT I’M COMPLAINING!)

What I’m listening to:

  • “Sonic Boom”, the podcast about how the Seattle Supersonics were taken from our fair Emerald City to…Oklahoma City back in the halcyone days of (*checks notes*) 2008. I wasn’t super aware of the background drama when it happened, so I’m loving learning all this goss now as a (not for much longer) Seattleite. The city really got screwed.

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For the most part I have no idea what our new life in Madison will be like, but I am excited to find out, and excited to be going…yes…home.

At Last

*At Last was the song our bridal party walked down to at our wedding and it also feels appropriate now!

So yeah. ICYMI…I’m gonna have a baby. I’m going to be a mom and V is going to be a dad and we’re going to be parents. You know…real adults!

Just kidding, I know far too many parents with and without their shit together to believe that parenthood makes anyone an actual grownup. “Real adults” is quite relative.

It’s a heady thing, pregnancy! And it’s why I haven’t blogged most of the summer – I had no idea how to talk about what was going on with me without mentioning THE biggest thing. So to catch you up, here’s how it’s been thus far…

Finding out: V and I both took off work on the day that we would find out if our embryo had successfully implanted. We wanted to be together for the news, whether it was good or bad. And as soon as the fertility clinic nurse called, I knew – her voice was too cheerful to be bad news.

Weeks 5-7: My main pregnancy symptoms were super painful boobs, super painful constipation, exhaustion, and nausea. During week 7 I went to Disneyland for beloved Michelle’s bachelorette party, and that was Quite. A. Day. I had a great time despite not being able to ride a lot of the cool stuff, and the sandals I wore (researched exhaustively before purchasing to ensure quality and comfort) held up, but I was BEAT by the end of the night. 

Weeks 8-10: The bad symptoms started to wane. We visited family in Fresno and brought V’s mom back to Seattle with us. She spoiled us with homemade food and I took video of her making dosas so I could potentially attempt it myself at some point. I was still very tired most of the time and took lots of naps.

Weeks 11-now: I had my first real OB appointment, after “graduating” from the fertility clinic. I had no idea how to pick an OB and obviously we haven’t lived here long enough to know very much about the local medical scene. That does make me wish we were home in Madison, where I had the same insurance company and system of care for literally my whole life and everything was familiar. But anyway, I liked my doctor, and we got to see an ultrasound where Baby’s head was discernible (and not much else). They did a bunch of blood tests (11 vials worth!), all of which have come back normal, much to our relief. After that, we finally felt ready to “go public”, even though some of our close friends and family already knew.

Cravings I have had: Nothing exotic. There’s nothing in this world that could make me crave, like, pickles – not even pregnancy. I’ve wanted Egg McMuffins (sans meat, and besides, who really wants Canadian bacon anyway, even if you do eat meat), potatoes in all their glorious forms, and this French brioche bread I found at Trader Joe’s that is just magical. So, you know, nutrition is…something we are working on. The Egg McMuffins have been funny, because while we’ve lived in Seattle we’ve eaten very, very little fast food and anyway, there’s not much on those menus that we can eat even if we wanted to. That has changed!

Things I did not know about pregnancy but do now: maternity jeans are weird-looking!! I never knew that they didn’t actually have zippers or buttons – or POCKETS! That really pisses me off. A lady needs pockets, for God’s sake. Also, pregnancy brain is a very real thing. I’ve accidentally left my phone at home when going out more times in the last few weeks than ever before in my life. Relatedly, I have gotten rather clumsy, like *nearly* tripping or knocking something over a lot, just not really looking where I’m going. I think it’s driving V crazy.

Image result for pregnancy brain meme

The amount of love we’re getting from people who are happy for us and celebrating with us is so, so appreciated and kind of cathartic, also, because everyone knows what a long struggle this has been. I’ll definitely be writing about it, but because I’ve been there, I want to tell anyone for whom this subject is painful that it is ABSOLUTELY FINE to block me, mute me, unfollow me, do whatever you need to do for as long as you need to do it. I’m going to write about my pregnancy because I write about my life and because I want to fully absorb and be able to remember how all of this felt. And I 100% understand if you don’t want to hear it. Only pretty recently have I unblocked/unmuted/re-followed a number of the new parents among my friends. Do what you need to do, chin up, I love you.

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September 4, 2019 (week 11)

Someone please tell Seattle about A/C

33 doesn’t feel any different than 32, but the celebrations were polar opposites. Last year I had one of the best birthdays of my life, partying with my friends at our old college bar and feeling pretty and loved and alive. I felt those things this year too, but it was only me and V – plus, of course, all the calls and texts and cards and posts from the wonderful people in my life. There’s nothing wrong with “only me and V” – that’s how I like to spend a good chunk of my time – it was just a stark contrast to last year’s shenanigans.

Really, the way I spent the majority of my birthday itself was pretty similar, because I am a creature of habit who has few qualms about dropping coins in the name of self-care: I took the day off, got a massage, haircut, therapy session, diner brunch. Like, a pretty fucking great day, made possible by my abundance of privileges.

A few weeks ago I read an article written by Paulette Perhach, who is a Seattle freelance writer and someone whose work I admire. It’s about the idea of a birthday check-in: taking some time on or around your birthday to step back and assess every aspect of your life. What could be better, what you’ve accomplished, what you want to do differently in the upcoming year, etc. They aren’t resolutions – I, like everyone, suck at keeping New Years resolutions – but introspection with a purpose, you could say. I have a few thoughts.

  • I want to watch more old Hollywood and more new Bollywood.
  • I want to finally open a high-yield savings account because what am I waiting for, to finally earn a whole dime of interest in our shitty 0.01% Chase account? Fuck you, Chase.
  • I want to continue to take good care of my skin but spend a less obscene amount of money doing so.
  • I want to take a friends trip. (Just watched Wine Country)

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And a few others.

  • I don’t want to stop writing, regardless of my employment situation.
  • I don’t want to compare myself to other people – friends or strangers – because 1) nothing is what it seems, 2) we’re not robots, and 3) there is a LOT to like about my life.
  • I don’t want to be glued to my phone whenever I have a spare moment.
  • I don’t want to rely so heavily on food as an emotional balm.

 

I am really enjoying my job and the women I work with. I have a lot to learn about communications, but learning about it doesn’t really feel like work, it sort of feels like a stretching of skills that I already have and watching the other women to develop the ones that I don’t. It’s a team of all women. It’s amazing.

We don’t have any trips home planned, or any trips at all save a long August weekend in Fresno and a short September weekend in Phoenix. V mentioned today that he wants to start thinking about our next “big” trip, which I am always down to daydream about, but I also think there’s a lot to see in Washington that we haven’t done yet…the San Juan Islands, Lake Chelan, Olympic National Park. Granted, those are all ~outdoorsy~ things, and we are two people with fairly low tolerance for that. It’s good to know these things about yourself.

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What I’m reading:

  • “The Farm” by Joanne Ramos. Another gift from dear Kate!

What I’m watching:

  • Well, we got two episodes in to “When They See Us” and couldn’t go on. I know. I KNOW. We need to suck it up and look the wild miscarriage of justice in the face. It’s painful on spiritual and profane levels.
  • We’re caught up on Barry, despite me being tempted to quit after season 1. It’s hard to talk about that show without spoilers, so I’ll just say it’s really funny and really odd and occasionally depressing, but Bill Hader has much more range than I’ve ever given him credit for and Henry Winkler is a goddamn treasure.
  • BIG LITTLE LIES, which I am fully prepared to rewatch with V’s mom when she visits in August.

What I’m listening to:

What I’m buying:

  • Strongly considering giving into my bougie-est desires and buying this expensive ass vanilla extract to make my chocolate chip cookies EVEN BETTER. I have an Amazon gift card, LET ME LIVE. Like so many pricey AND affordable things I end up buying, I found it on The Strategist.

 

Tell your people you love them!

20-shine-teen, let’s do this

*Big hug from me to you if you get the title reference.

What can you even say about 2018 that hasn’t already been said?

First of all, I suppose I can address a personal failing: I did not meet my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 70 books. I managed 57, which is definitely lower than most recent years. But…I kind of had some other shit going on? I’d like to say my count was lower because I read a bunch of really long, Serious Books, but that wouldn’t be true. I was just busy.

Busy doing what, Molly? YOU HAVEN’T EVEN HAD A FULL TIME JOB FOR OVER A YEAR NOW.

Well, that is correct. But I have nonetheless had a fulfilling year…

I visited France in February, Door County in May, India in July, and Seattle a couple times in July and August before the move.

I helped out Sabrina Madison for awhile in the spring, pitching in to organize the Black Women’s Leadership Conference and other Progress Center for Black Women initiatives. She is a brilliant dynamo and exactly what the city of Madison needs.

I was given the opportunity to begin contributing to BRAVA Magazine and have had three pieces published so far, with one hopefully coming soon. I framed the first story and my first check from them and it’s on the wall in our living room right in front of the chair I sit in to write.

When a bunch of dumbass Baraboo boys made international news for being dumbass racists, I was fucking mad, and wrote about it for Refinery29. As shitty as that whole situation was and is, the article is probably my proudest accomplishment of the year.

I took a few writing classes at Seattle’s Hugo House that definitely improved my skills and introduced me to a vibrant community of talented local wordsmiths.

I maintained another year of vegetarianism and welcomed V to the meatless tribe, though the credit for that really goes to his mother and not me.

I bought a *lot* of books, despite there being no more bookshelf space in our apartment, and despite my flirtation with minimalism that occurred post-move.

Yeah, I moved. I moved to the West Coast, to a city I’d vacationed in twice but didn’t really know that well, because my husband got the kind of job opportunity that you don’t turn down. Even though we’d bought a house just two years ago, and probably 85% of all the people we loved in the world were in Wisconsin or the greater Midwest, and we loved Madison…we took the chance, and I’m glad we did. If we hadn’t, I know we’d be wondering What If and kicking ourselves for being too chickenshit to make a change. Seattle is sometimes amazing and sometimes bleak, but honestly, so is Madison – so is pretty much everywhere.

I haven’t actually discussed this on Facebook or anything yet, but a month or so ago I started walking dogs with Wag. It began to seem kind of like a no-brainer: I was always going for walks, and swooning over dogs wherever we went, and Seattle literally has more dogs than children, and I wanted to earn a little money again without going back to a 9-5. It’s been…interesting! Largely positive. I love that I get to do it whenever I want to, and never when I don’t want to. I’ve met a lot of adorable puppers and some real characters among them – an elderly blind and deaf terrier named Oliver who refused to let me put on his sweater when it was pouring rain; a sorta sharpei/pug mix named Wally who puked three times and had diarrhea once on our first walk; a nervous little Maltese boy named Henry who was deathly afraid of the black tiles in his building’s lobby and required being carried over them. And I’ve found a few favorites that I try to walk whenever they show up on the app.

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As it’s been over a year now since losing my job, I have begun to get slightly more comfortable with the idea that I do not have to have a 9-5 full time job to be a Worthwhile and/or Normal Person. There are lots of ways to live life. I’m not saying I’ll never have one again – I really hope I do, if only for my retirement’s sake, Jesus – but I’m working through all my ~feelings~ surrounding being pretty much the only non-parent I know that doesn’t have full time employment.

Ah yes, the non-parent thing. Infertility has remained an unwelcome presence in our lives. My body thus far stubbornly refuses to get pregnant naturally or…technologically. I don’t remember how many cycles of IUI we did in 2018, but we are taking a different path in 2019. As much as I wanted to avoid it, our best option at this point appears to be in vitro fertilization, which we will probably begin in the spring. More on that to come later, surely.

Let’s talk about 2019. I have goals.

  1. Take a solo trip, or trips. I sort of have one planned – AWP in Portland in March – but V is joining me there after the conference is over so I’m not sure it totally counts. Regardless, I’m going to do that and I’d like to plan another.
  2. Begin and maintain a yoga practice. Maybe just once a week, but regularly.
  3. Buy less stuff.
  4. Eat less dairy and less sugar. Notice I said “eat less” not “eliminate”…I’m just not ready to do that and I don’t want to set myself up for failure. But I don’t think my body appreciates my very very frequent consumption of those two things, and it has been letting me know via new bouts of cystic acne and digestive pain! I don’t know how I’m going to measure this, exactly. I already track my meals and stuff with the Fitbit app, but it’s not really set up for anything but a basic food diary. Suggestions welcomed.
  5. Pitch at least one piece every month.
  6. Go somewhere warm and sunny in the spring when Seattle Bleakness reaches its grayest apex.

A lot of people are annoyingly too cool for the ritual of setting goals at the beginning of a calendar year – as if it is somehow news to those of us who participate that January 1st is entirely arbitrary and calendars are arbitrary and time is meaningless. It’s as good a time as any to set new goals. I enjoy it, and I like seeing other people do it too.

Home for the Holidays

Gas stations where I’d fill up for 99 cents a gallon on our endless slow country drives, soundtracked by Dashboard Confessional and Alanis Morissette

Playgrounds and parks where I’d go to make out and swap secrets and talk for hours with boys

The strip club on the highway, which we’d pass sometimes on the bus coming or going for baseball or football games and the boys would all pound on the windows and holler (I was a manager)

The historic theater where I danced with enthusiastic mediocrity in a recital every June for over a decade

The 2 year college where I spent 1 troublesome year licking my wounds over not getting into the only 4 year college I cared about

The apartment I lived in that 1 troublesome year, less than a mile from the house I grew up in, where I began a subscription to Newsweek and Us Weekly just to get some real mail, where we drank apple cider out of champagne glasses just because, and where the rent was $600

The nail salon where I got my first and last French tip manicure, to be a bridesmaid at the shotgun wedding of a church friend

My old dentist’s office with the most gorgeous view of the bluffs

The funeral home that not too many years ago held the visitation for my first love’s sister, who taught me how to throw up my meals but also how to give fewer fucks

The cemetery where literally no one I know is buried but for which my old church is named

That church that I was born into, where I was baptized at 11, and stopped attending at 16, and left for good at 22 without an ounce of regret

The house I grew up in, which looks exactly the same now but for a different, blander color paint on the garage doors and an incongruous and lonesome white wicker rocking chair on the icy basement patio

Our old neighbors, whose kid in my grade was inexplicably more popular than me, and who hosted a party in middle school to which I wasn’t invited but my two best friends were and to which I expected them to decline attendance in solidarity with me, but they did not

The high school, of course the high school, where I had my first real kiss and failed algebra and hung out by my locker every morning with my friends and scored rather averagely on the ACT

The Dairy Queen that is now a Mexican restaurant; the K-Mart that became a Sears that became nothing at all for a long time and then finally became a U-Haul; the Wal-Mart that became a Slumberland when the Wal-Mart Supercenter opened up a couple miles south; the liquor store where I once used my fake ID that became a Burger King that became a Kwik Trip

The house of the kid I babysat one summer, who grew up to be a juvenile delinquent and eventually an actual criminal (albeit guilty mainly of drug-related offenses, but it can’t have helped that I let him graffiti the driveway one boring Tuesday) (and by “let” I mean I was busy reading or something and it just kinda happened)

*****

I’ve got nothing more profound to say than I just have a lot of memories here, and I’m very fortunate that the vast majority of them are good, or at least aren’t awful, and that’s something a lot of people can’t say. Sorry for the emo nostalgia.

I’ll write the Nagappala Book Awards tomorrow or Monday. Don’t think I forgot.

Curveball…

I have news.

You know how I’ve been unemployed for like…kind of awhile now?

A couple months ago I was feeling angry and bitter about it and I told V that maybe I would have better luck finding a job somewhere else; maybe Madison is too small, maybe my reputation has been maligned so much that nobody here will hire me. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself exactly, just trying to look at the situation realistically. So V, being the supportive partner that he is, started looking elsewhere for a job of his own. Over the last two months he’s had a lot of semi-stressful interviews with a lot of different companies kind of all over the place. Then Amazon invited him for an in-person interview in Seattle a couple weeks ago; we went. They offered him a pretty sweet job and he took it and…we are moving to Seattle.

seattle-state-map
holy shit

Still having trouble recognizing that as reality, even just typing it: we are moving.

Anyone who knows me knows I love Madison and I love Wisconsin – like hello, what did I name my blog? It’s part of my identity. And I love my family and my friends almost to the point of pathology. So while this might’ve been a no-brainer opportunity for some people, it wasn’t for me. We have such roots here with my family and our friends. We have this lovely home. When we bought it two years ago, moving to another city was nowhere on our radar. We both had good jobs that we more or less enjoyed. But a lot has changed. I don’t have a job, or prospects of a job, and six months of that has worn pretty thin. Much as it pains me to say, a lady can only take so many walks.

So as I’ve told everyone that I’ve discussed this with so far, I’m a huge mixed bag of emotions. Happy, excited, proud, scared, anxious, sad, apprehensive, curious. Honestly sometimes the negative emotions have been stomping their way to the forefront more often than I’d like. In that spirit of combating that, here’s a little list of things I am looking forward to:

  • not shoveling snow
  • not having a Cold War with my neighbor over our lawn
  • being able to go to Elliott Bay Book Company ANYTIME I WANT
    • sooo many awesome lady writers from Seattle: Ijeoma Oluo, Lindy West, Jill Filipovic, Carrie Brownstein! (I’m not going to link them all to Goodreads because I’m lazy but you should read all their shit)
  • better shopping in general
  • more racial diversity (which I know Seattle is not exactly known for, but it’s certainly more diverse than here…#perspective)
  • those gorgeous views

Another time I’ll make a list of things I’m anxious about. Won’t that be fun! I can guarantee it will be highly detailed and really pathetic.

The thing is, everyone else has already done this. My parents did this (Missouri and Michigan). My closest friends did this (all over the country and all over the damn world). Hell, my brother did this (Florida). It’s usually when people are in their 20s, I guess, that they venture out to wherever they fancy. I didn’t. I don’t know exactly why I didn’t. If you’d asked me when I was 16 what the next decade of my life would hold, I certainly wouldn’t have said “only leaving Wisconsin for vacations”. I mean at 16 I had no concept of things like tuition or literally anything and thought I was going to go east for college at Sarah Lawrence (because Julia Stiles wanted to go there so bad in 10 Things I Hate About You and she was everything to me). But what I’m trying to say is, I didn’t do it then, so if I don’t now…when will I? When I’m like…retired? Silly, everyone knows millennials don’t get to retire.

It’ll be an absolutely bananas next couple of months. Definitely gonna lose my shit more than once. For sure. But I’m gonna make it.

Growing

Whew, shit has been busy.

Last week I helped out at the Black Women’s Leadership Conference, hosted by the visionary Sabrina Madison.

On Saturday I celebrated my beloved Christina’s graduation from her PhD program in Connecticut.

IMG-4268

These sisters are very, very special to me. In high school they let me into their family and I got the little sister I’d always wanted in Christina.  She is a brilliant, creative, extraordinarily kind, and sweet woman of whom I am just so proud. I’m sad that she’s moving back east soon, but such is the life of an academic, and I want her to thrive no matter where she happens to be.

And again/still, I have some other cool things happening that I want to talk about but can’t yet (not a pregnancy).

I did a bit of gardening today. As I explained on Facebook, “gardening” for me basically meant ripping up weeds and cleaning up a couple of piles of leaves that we neglected to rake last fall. There was one spot in particular where a lot of leaves had settled in for the winter and really made themselves at home. I cleaned that all up and now we have to reseed that part of the lawn.

I don’t know a damn thing about plants. I mean I really really don’t. I ran into my old botany professor at Christina’s graduation party, and God bless that woman for giving me a C back then, because God knows I probably did not deserve it. I can’t identify anything. When my brother came to build the mudroom closet for us a couple weekends ago, my sister-in-law kindly walked around the house with V and me and told us what each plant we had was (and what was just weeds). She even helped us pick out some pretty perennials at Home Depot, almost none of which I can recall by name now. Violas? Yarrows? *shrug emoji* This isn’t going to be like, a huge new hobby of mine, but I am trying to put a little more time and effort into the yard this year.

Now that the warmth appears to be here to stay, shit just keeps getting busier. This weekend V and I are finally going to visit Door County and hopefully take some pretty hikes and enjoy the scenery. Next weekend we will be celebrating the golden birthday of my beloved friends’ beloved daughter. The weekend after that we will be back up north, this time further, to have a big ol’ family gathering at my sister-in-law’s cabin. Then, following that, we are throwing a party for my parents’ 40th anniversary. Whew. It’s all good stuff, really fun stuff, but kind of exhausting when you think of it all at once.

These past six months have been difficult at times, mentally more than anything, because I keep having to remind myself that being un(der)employed doesn’t inherently mean anything negative about me as a person. It’s all in my own head.

Not really related to that, but also on the mental health subject – literally every day, I have to remind myself that I am a grown ass woman who can make her own valid choices without deference given to impressing, placating, or accommodating anyone else.

What I’m reading:

  • Um, actually, nothing book-wise. I finished Asymmetry, and liked it but didn’t love it. On deck are Sunburn, by Laura Lippman and possibly a rereading of Virgin by Hanne Blank.
  • This NYT article would be very interesting for any fans of Arrested Development. Reading their reckoning of the allegations against Jeffrey Tambor is…illuminating. Jason Bateman really goes to bat for Tambor in a big way.

What I’m fuming about:

  • The NFL’s shameful new national anthem policy. The league’s relationship with the military, explained well here; the owner of the Jets had an encouraging response (though why he didn’t vote against the policy, instead of abstaining, is a mystery); appropriately scorching take by The Root

What I’m watching:

  • Deadpool, last night. If you liked the first one you are sure to enjoy the second. If you didn’t, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to stay away. But I enjoyed it. I like my superheroes self-aware and sweary (but I also like Captain America, so…the opposite too)
  • I gave up on Westworld. #sorrynotsorry

Always blogging at 10:30pm…

I’m not always good at being grateful.

I could blame American capitalism, I guess, at least in part, for always wanting *more*. Over the weekend my brother, as you may have seen on the ol’ Facebook, came over and constructed a bench/storage area for my previously terribly underperforming front closet. It’s something I’ve wanted since we bought the house two years ago. He did an amazing job. I bought him lunch and gave him all the Mountain Dew he could drink.

closet makeover.png

Then later that night, I was idly browsing one of my favorite apps, Realtor dot com. As V has applied for different jobs in different cities, I’ve used it to check out what the housing market is like in those places – whether we’d have to rent or could feasibly buy and what the neighborhoods are like, et cetera. I get very, very, very ahead of myself. So that evening I was looking around the city of Seattle, which is one that we’ve thought about a lot. Obviously Seattle real estate is just bananas, orders of magnitude out of anything V and I could afford. But I looked nonetheless.

And I truly had to stop and sit myself down, like, MOLLY. What are you doing. You are a 31 year old underemployed recovering bureaucrat, to crib from the bio you give when you pitch your writing. You are not supposed to have a picturesque Seattle Craftsman bungalow with built-in storage for days and elegant fireplaces (plural) and a claw foot tub and a Viking range and gleaming, tasteful white everything and a view of the mountains. This is not a Nancy Meyers movie. You are not Meryl Streep. Chill the fuck out and take a giant step back and look around you and be thankful, for God’s sake.

It’s very easy to achieve something or acquire something and immediately turn your focus to the next achievement or object of your desire. In some ways that’s not all bad, it’s good to strive, it’s good to have goals. Complacency is definitely not rewarded in this society. But I don’t think I take enough time to just appreciate what I already have achieved and/or acquired. My brother generously gave his time and skill to make a lovely improvement to the house that V and I already love, regardless of its imperfections. I have a home. I have family and friends who love me. I’m in a weird life space right now but I’m starting to embrace it. I’m writing (exciting things are happening that I can’t yet tell you about). I’m doing a small part to help improve outcomes for black women and girls in Wisconsin. I’m losing weight and feeling good in my body – no small feat for me. I’m meeting new people and learning new things every day, which is certainly more than I can say for any of my previous 9-to-5’s. Would it be nice to have more money? Yes. But I’m good for right now.

What I’m reading:

What I’m listening to:

What I’m watching:

  • Westworld (despite not loving how dumb it makes me feel sometimes)
  • Silicon Valley
  • The Americans (holy shit)
  • Queen Sugar (one day I’m Team Charlie, then I’m Team Nova, but I am never ever Team Remy)

What I’m eating:

  • More of those fudgy brownies I talked about before. Guys. There just are no words. I mean it. You’re not living right if you’re not eating these bad boys. (Tasty’s recipe) The recipe only makes a 9×9 pan (which I’ve done, but I’ve also used an 8×8 to increase the fudgy factor EVEN MORE) which means they will be gone like instantly, but fortunately they don’t require any bizarre ingredients and are easy to make literally any time you crave them.