I Love a Good Story

I met my fiancé Pat, in Marketing class my sophomore year of college. By met I mean I have a blurry, probably pain killer induced (don’t worry I broke my collar bone so I needed it) vision of hair poking through the holes of a disgusting Celtics jersey. I had no idea who Pat was, but I guess he had noticed me.

After going through a whole class together, Pat waited till that summer to get drunk in the afternoon, and be driven to a local grocery store. His friends told him he should probably wait in the car. From that car Pat yelled, “Hey Maddy, Marketing!”

I told my friend to go inside without me but to come back out soon. We talked and I could tell we obviously had had class together but I couldn’t remember his name or anything else about him, he wasn’t wearing his Celtics jersey. He was hilarious and sweet but when he asked for my number I though No Way.

I gave him a fake number. I’m an awful girl. Girls don’t do this, just be honest, or get the guy’s number instead, that way if you change your mind the ball is in your court. I was a bitch. Not only did I give him a fake number, I gave him a rejection hotline number.

Thankfully, he lost it. This happens a lot.

2 months latter we met at a laundry mat. He was not drunk and banished to the parking lot by his friends, but he was sweet and funny and wanted to send me some stories he had written. I just kept thinking, why isn’t he mad at me? He should be pissed. Did he not call me? Why didn’t he call the fake number?

My interest was piqued. Also it was borderline entrapment to meet at a laundry mat. Here I am thinking what a clean, dependable sort of man, when that was the only time that summer Pat had gone to a laundry mat. He continues to be dependable but cleanly, not so much.

We exchanged numbers again and this time he memorized mine, which is good because by the next week he had lost his phone and would call me from pay phones. I told you this happens a lot.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe I’m engaged.

A Journey

I have been thinking a lot about what I want. What do I want my future to look like.

The only way I can sum it up is that I want to live a fully sustainable existence of mind, body and soul.

Not too much to ask, right?

I want to live in a place with enough land and inspiration to sustain the growth of a family for (and this I have no control over as I am sure my kids will want the exact opposite) generations.

I want to make what I eat. I want to be healthy because I know what I am putting in my body, because I grew it not because it has a natural or organic label on it that costs me a premium.

I want to sleep with a fulfilled soul, because I eat good food, work till I am tired, and make decisions based on the needs of my family and land and animals.

I think as much as you own your home, your land, your pets and your livestock, they also own you. They rely on you and you on them, I think that is the most beautiful and rewarding relationship.

I don't think about sustainability like most of my contemporaries. I don't want to build a house out of fully biodegradable products that will have to be replaced in 5 years. I am attracted to the houses that were built to last beyond the families that built them. The brick structures that could use more insulation but are as structurally sound as they individual products that make them up.

I don't want to toss toxic sludge in the water I drink. Instead of leaving no imprint on the land I call my own, the land that owns me, why not leave it better than I found it? If I could.

So today I live in an apartment with a small backyard and a garden plot with my boyfriend of 4 years, our wonderful roommate and a huge lab mutt named Dubs. I weigh 220 pounds and work in a local restaurant.

I want 7 kids, 1 milk cow, 3 pigs, goats, rabbits, chickens, 5 dogs and enough food to never need to go to the supermarket. I want a life guided by the needs of my belly and my soul.

I start today.

Be The Change

So, I graduated. I mean I walked in the ceremony, the actual graduating happened months ago. My parents came up with my 5 pound “sister” Daphne (she is a Chihuahua in case anyone was seriously worried about her weight). It was wonderful; we hung out at a cabin on Mallets bay and I woke up in awe of my surroundings, every morning.
I don’t feel much different. I am still in the same job, the same apartment, with the same guy. I am happy but I feel a tug to change something up. I love my apartment and my boyfriend for that matter, so I guess the job is the only thing that I could change. I love my job too, but I know I could do better, I could do more, and get paid more.

Or maybe I just feel like I have to use my degree, but that’s not true so long as I am happy, right? I got a degree more because I knew to be taken seriously I needed one. I knew I could design a degree that looked just as real 2 years into my 4-year program. What kept me here was seeing my mother, who is talented and smart and has 30 years of job experience; struggle to get into interviews because she never finished college. I don’t think the system is good or right, but it is, and I won’t become a victim.

Perhaps I just need to find a way to use design, a friend needs help making a website, or a local festival needs some poster designs. These types of projects are so exciting and they mean something to me.

Or maybe to create change in my life I should just get another pet, despite the turmoil that would put my relationship in. I did say I wanted a change.

Work has been going great, stressful, but great. I am on my feet for 3/4 of the 8 hours I work, and although most of the dogs are gorgeous, sweet hearts, the owners don't often match their dogs. I adore the people I work with, they are hardworking and insane, and any lull in the hectic work will find us all in the front office, often taking about dogs as if they were 5 year olds. The biggest difference between them, is you can swear around the dogs and they won't go home and tell their parents what you said.

I have been working for a week and a half now and I just received my first paycheck. It feels so good to be solvent, of coarse all that money is going directly to rent and car insurance, but at least the money is there.

I am so grateful for this job, that someone thought it would be beneficial for them to hire me. To pay them back, I work my ass off. I may as well, since I am stuck at my work for 8 hours a day anyway. What makes this place so nice, is that most of the other employes work their asses off too. I have found this isn't always true of every job.

I have come upon a glitch. I am still looking for graphic design work, and I have been contact by 2 separate places that want to interview me. I am so excited and anxious, but I know I can sell myself. I have never not gotten a job I interviewed for, not that I wont, but I have a good track record. The issue is that I have to take off work from my current job, to interview for these new ones, but i don't want to let my current job down. How do you go about interviewing for 1 job and still do well by the job you already have.

Luckily for me, according to one of my superiors, most people don't give 2 weeks notice at the daycare. Mostly, she said, they just get fed up and leave. The least I can do is give my 2 weeks notice and help them train a new employee.

I'm just glad to have money in the bank again, and I can't wait till the day, when I am not living paycheck to paycheck.

Things Happen in Circles

I am becoming more and more sure that life happens in circles. It is no wonder that so many ancient cultures use circles in their designs and artwork, like the circles etched into the stone in front of Newgrange.

This week I had a feeling. This would be the week that I would get a job.

Yesterday I gave up on waiting for graphic design jobs to get back to me so I went to a local coffee shop called Speeder and Earls, because I had seen an add on craigslist that they were looking for barista's. So I drove down there and put in my application and then I walked across the parking lot to Great Harvest and put in an application there as well. I walked to Drink, a local bar and applied for a bar-back position there. I had made a list of things to do that day including bringing up boxes from the basement, doing laundry, and finding a William Stafford poem to read for a poetry reading / celebration at Champlain.

The poem really settled me, brought me back down to earth.

Once in the 40s

We were alone one night on a long
road in Montana. This was in winter, a big
night, far to the stars. We had hitched,
my wife and I, and left our ride at
a crossing to go on. Tired and cold -- but
brave -- we trudged along. This, we said,
was our life, watched over, allowed to go
where we wanted. We said we'd come back some time
when we got rich. We'd leave the others and find
a night like this, whatever we had to give,
and no matter how far, to be so happy again.

I finished my entire list, a good day is a day where most of the things on my list get done. I can always tell how crazy my day will be by what sort of things are on my list. If things like feeding my dog, or brushing my teeth, or on one really crazy day the phrase "take time to have fun," then I am going to have a stressful day.

I have been feeling very untethered, and not in a free spirit / I can fly kind of way, but in a I have to clean and be constantly doing things so that I can't stop and think and float away further.

After reading the Stafford's poem and applying to those jobs I looked online and 3 new graphic design jobs had been posted online.

The best part of this week, is that my feeling was right. I got a call today that from a Doggie Day Care place in Burlington that they want me to start tomorrow. So tomorrow at 6:30 I start work, and I am so excited.