Books, cats and midwestern charm.
Lately I’ve found myself trying to channel American Horror Story: Coven Jessica Lange. In attitude mostly. I’ve had a rough go of it lately – family drama, ugh – and to get through it all, I found myself asking what would Jessica Lange do? It turned out that getting in touch with my inner Fiona Goode (Supreme of all Supremes) helped me work through some tough spots. And I found that while I was trying to act the part of head witch, I wanted to look the part as well.
A year ago, Michael and I got married. It’s truly hard to believe we’ve taken another turn around the sun together, but I’m so thrilled that we have.
Our wedding day was pure magic, and although it’s hard to believe it’s so far in the past, it’s so much fun looking back on. We had everything we could have ever wanted: a beautiful ceremony, a polka band, my favorite cake and an evening of dancing to the very best Motown has to offer. I am so happy and so fortunate that we were able to celebrate our union in such a heartfelt, silly and wonderful way. And I count myself even luckier for having married Michael. It’s a true joy to know that I’ll have this caring, sweet man by my side for many years to come.
Here’s to more happy years and more happy polkas!
Our wedding ceremony was by all accounts beautiful. We chose music that spoke to us, readings that touched us, exchanged heartfelt vows and, with the help of our officiant, created a very personal feel. At the closing, however, there was no “I now present for the first time as husband and wife: Mr. and Mrs. Michael Stock.”
That piece of the puzzle was deliberately missing by our own device. It was left out because I chose not to become a Stock but to remain a Kaminski. This decision, out of all my supposedly radical wedding decisions, was the one that was met with the most resistance.
Stock is simpler than Kaminski. What if you have children? Don’t you want to share a name? It’s just easier to have a single family name. Wouldn’t it be nice to to be “the Stocks?” Did you think about hyphenating? Don’t you want to be married? I heard it all, but I stood my ground. Don’t tell me what to do.
And then I argued with myself. You have your father’s name don’t you? Every woman in your family took their husbands’ names. Names are just arbitrary assignations. What about your hypothetical future children? Lots of feminists take their husbands’ names. And I had to quash those arguments too – they were all just reiterations of the same garbage.
I kept Kaminski because that’s the name I want.
I want my name because I don’t feel it’s necessary to take on a new identity – even if it’s just symbolic, even if it supposedly unifies us – after marriage. I want my name because Michael was never asked if he was going to change his. I want my name because I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of updating everything from my passport to my auto insurance to my punch card at the pet store. I want my name because although I’m married to Michael, I am still part of my messy Michalek-Kowalewski-Kaminski family.
Despite being confident in my choice, writing this post is still emotional in some ways. Is Michael disappointed? Is his family offended? Am I not a good wife? And I have to fight those feelings because not taking Michael’s last name doesn’t mean I don’t love him or our familes. Not taking his name only means that I’m not buying into some outdated, patriarchal, hierarchical baloney.
And it took me years to master the cursive K. I don’t want that going to waste.
Hey, kittens! I’m back from my (incredibly long) hiatus. I assure you it’s for a good reason. See, for the past few months I’ve been working on applying to, interviewing for and starting a new job. Yay!
Now, I had been keeping my eye out for new opportunities for a while, but nothing was really materializing. I wanted to stick to writing but wasn’t sure if I wanted to stick to retail. Since this was weighing on me so heavily, I shouldn’t have been surprised when I had my cards read back in New Orleans this fall that the topic of career popped up. The reader said to me, “Nope. What you have is not for you. You’d do well in the medical field.” I love to believe in this sort of thing, but I was having a hard time with that one. The medical field? I’m not a nurse. I’m pretty sure that sounds crazy boring.
Well, December rolled around and a pal of mine emailed a job posting to me. The company he worked for was hiring a copywriter. And the company? Wouldn’t you know it, they sold medial equipment.
And here I am now with a brand new job that I’m totally digging – a totally new field, cool people and all the Cherry Coke I can drink. Cheers!
I check my horoscope on Refinery 29 at the beginning of each month. Does it mean anything? Meh. Does it help me procrastinate an extra five minutes at work? Definitely. Typically I read the post and immediately forget everything it says. But this month, good ol’ R29’s horoscope said that for Miss Pisces, December is going to be a mullet month: business in the front, party in the back. Reading that I decided that if it wasn’t written in the stars, I was still going to make that happen.
Which is why I’ve been sparse around these parts. The first week of this month I spent doing all the shopping I could. Last week I tore up the house getting it ready for new counter tops (which look amazing!), and this week I’m trying to put it all back together so when the weekend hits I’m ready to party. Cue up that Kristen Wiig gif.
Since I’ve been working away like head elf and never took the time to photograph step-by-step anything, I figured I’d just share some random snapshots of Christmas cheer. Why not? Who doesn’t like looking at cookies and teeny Tina Belcher ornaments?
I’ve still got a few loose ends to tie up for my post-Christmas extravaganza (AKA family day after Christmas party), but I’m going to shift into party mode anyway – and you should too! Happy holidays, everyone! Hope they’re merry and bright.
You know: keep it simple, stupid. I’ve decided that it’s is my holiday motto this year.
Typically I am your holiday overachiever. I’ve painted, drawn or scrapped together holiday cards. I’ve always had wrapping paper schemes complete with the perfect bows, ribbons and tags. One year I couldn’t find any labels to match my paper so I painstakingly hand painted every tag with gold paint and glitter like a crazy person. Most years I also make at least one gift for everyone on my list. In years gone by I’ve literally made every gift, again, like a crazy person.
But this year unlike days of yore, I’ve decided to cool it a bit. I ordered cards online. I have a gift wrap scheme of sorts but no bows and certainly no customized tags. I made only one gift – a small trinket for a pal and coworker. And you know what? It’s helped me to relax and enjoy the season. Instead of killing myself over origami ornaments, I get to sit by my tree and watch Christmas episodes of Bob’s Burgers. Rather than spending nights up to my elbows in glitter, I get to listen to Christmas albums on the hi-fi while stirring up kolaczki.
I recognized that the activities that once made me feel in the holiday spirit stressed me out a bit. Don’t get me wrong – I’d love to make more gifts and craft a little more, but with a full time job and lots of entertaining (plus trying to finish up the kitchen) these festive activities felt more like chores. No one should have a meltdown over sewing a Christmas skirt (although I did).
With only a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I say make the most of it in the ways that fulfill you. For me, this meant maximizing nights home with Michael, spending more time with family and making more cookies. It also meant scaling back shopping a bit, simplifying the wrapping and lessening my crafty workload. It doesn’t mean I was less busy, but it meant I just felt more balanced. In the future, I’m sure all these factors will shift around, but in the meantime I’m going to enjoy the last of this pre-Christmas season the best way I know how: eating cream cheese pillows, watching the cartoon Grinch and hanging out with my fam.
Happy holidays to you and yours. Now go take a break. 🙂
Michael and I are cat people through and through. Since we met, we’ve sunk significantly deeper into the cat mom and cat dad roles. It’s probably annoying, horrifying or endearing to those around us. At any rate, we knew one day we’d merge not only our love of cats but our feline friends themselves. And I’ll be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to that moment.
Why? Because my cat Zara – despite her beauty and her natural instinct for knowing when is precisely the right time to curl up next to me – is a cranky little beast. Everyone knows this. Everyone knows that she only likes me and my parents, will tolerate my two aunts and Michael (only recently) and will growl, hiss and flatten her ears at all other humans. It’s just how she is, and everyone accepts it and goes about their lives.
But Michael’s Mukki, dear sweet China cat sunflower, is the opposite. If Mukki was a person, he’d be your best friend. He’d invite you inside, hand you a beer and ask you to join his game of Mousetrap. He’s a chill dude, and everyone loves him.
So the idea of having Little Miss Sociopath and Mr. Personality meet was terrifying to me. Like really terrifying. And this was only exacerbated by the fact that Zara in her nine years on earth, hasn’t met another cat (outside of her littermates). So here’s a total crank that has roamed this planet for almost a decade without seeing feline life, and then one day – BAM! – there’s a creature that looks just like her (but orange) sitting in her cat bed. What. The. What. Can you see that going smoothly? I didn’t either.
So we took the advice of the Wisconsin Humane Society and dozens of episodes of My Cat from Hell and decided to introduce them nice and slow. Yeah, that’s right. After four days of swapping them in and out of bedrooms and listening to them yowl we said screw it and let them see one another. It wasn’t great. Mukki was a gentleman and ate his food as Zara hissed for five straight minutes.
Now, three months in, I am finally finally beginning to see some progress. After months of hissing every time Mukki entered the same room and growling when he climbed her scratching post, Zara is starting to chill out a bit. She is still not interesting in snuggling or sniffing or being very nice, but there are days where she’s OK with sharing the recliner with Mukki and me (of course begrudgingly if you asked her).
So we’re doing alright. I’m hoping by Christmas they’ll actually make some sort of physical contact that is not a swat or an unsolicited sniff. I’m hoping for a family Christmas card, you guys. Wish Michael, me and the kitties luck!
Have you ever gone into full-on meltdown mode over the most insignificant thing? Of course you have. We all do, especially us sensitive spirits.
This winter, I remember having an unnecessary and incredibly stupid pity party over a bottle of grape juice. After marathon shoveling, all I wanted was some leftover sparking grape juice from the holidays. I grabbed the bottle and twisted – nothing. My cold, weak hands could not grip that bottle tight enough and could not twist that foil cap. I sat on the floor of my kitchen and just let out a big gahhhhhh whyyyyyyyyy like adults do.
This happens.
And it happened this past weekend as I looked at an embroidery project. The project was an odd one from the get-go: a coworker asked if I could stitch a quote from the 1988 thriller They Live for him. Definitely uncharted territory for me. It started out fine – solid fonts, a decent layout, punchy color scheme – and then, after a few days of puttering, I hated it. I’ll admit it – I cried. I sat in the ugly recliner and cried over a satin-stitched quote from They Live. I lost my shit and said to Michael something akin to the following: “It’s boring and lame and the orange is too red and the green looks like boogers and all of it looks like Christmas.” Because he’s sweet and admittedly doesn’t know about colors or embroidery, he assured me it looked nice.
I’m not sure if that’s true, but sometimes you got to work through it.
I strive for perfection. But in this case, I had to take a step back and ask Is there such thing as perfection for this for me? And I had to think about it, and the answer is no. No, there’s not a world in which “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass and I’m all out of bubble gum” is embroidered perfectly. There’s not because this sort of thing would never dawn on me. But, to the person that dreamed it up, the person that commissioned this project, someone that asked for this to be made because he could not do it himself nor would want to, a green and red-orange stitched quote about ass kicking might be just right.
• • • • •
P.S. By happenstance, this post published the day Rowdy Roddy Piper passed away. So rest in peace, Roddy. You were a righteous dude whose memory lives on through this tiny project.
I know just a few posts ago, I was all “I’m so nervous!” and for the past few months I’ve been all “This is stressful and weird!” but married life has changed me, boys and girls.
As soon as we completed our rehearsal the night before, I felt my anxiety dissipate and a sudden peacefulness take its place. This made for such a wonderful, beautiful and special wedding day.
Friends, family and our talented photographer Bobbie of Roberta Ray Photography + Design all helped to create our perfect day. Such a fantastic way to continue our journey together, and we are all so thankful for the love and good vibes we’ve received.
More often than not you’ll hear a woman say, “Oh geez I’m turning into my mother.” Well, I find that as I’m getting older, I’m turning into my dad – in so many ridiculous ways.
When I was a kid, my dad and I spent a lot of time watching reruns of Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack and eating Laffy Taffy. Now I watch reruns of Unsolved Mysteries with Douglas Farina (far inferior) and curse Walgreens for not having grape Laffy Taffy ropes. We’d go camping, and he’d teach me how to build the perfect campfire – teepee never log cabin-style. Now, I school Michael on how to make a bonfire the same way.
But beyond these silly coincidences and love for true crime and cheap candy, I’m realizing we’re more alike than I might have thought. We’re both on the quiet side, logic-base thinkers, great at telling bad jokes and lame stories. And then it goes deeper. I find myself beating a dead horse to death in conversation or laughing in that weird way or developing the dreaded “Kaminski twang.” And that’s when I’m realizing that I’m turning into my father, which is fine by me (so long as I don’t need my hip replaced next week too).
So here’s to you, Dad. Here’s to the most generous, patient guy I know.