School days, school days.

Though I always hated The First Day of School, I adored Back To School (BTS) Shopping.
And I'm actually not talking about clothes.

I went to a Catholic school for grades 1-8, so until the summer before ninth grade, copious amounts of clothing sales meant nothing to me.
{Among many other things I blame on my going to Catholic school, my penchant for shopping definitely takes the cake because once I got the taste of it before going into freshman year, I never looked back.}

I'm talking about something much, much deeper than that.
I'm talking ... notebooks.

... pens.
... highlighters.
... Trapper Keepers.

... folders.
And the piece de resistance ... loose-leaf paper.
{Oh God, how I loved loose-leaf paper.}

Nothing to me - someone who's been writing (sometimes pure drivel) since I was 10 - is more enticing than loose-leaf paper or a fresh notebook.
I loved the smell of it, the feel of it, the promise of it.
The ideas that would unfurl between those light blue lines - how powerful is that? Knowing my words - even if they were chem notes I sure as hell wouldn't understand or algebra I haven't used once in the near 15 years since I graduated - would fill up those lines.
Mind. Blowing. Exclamation point!

Even today, I get giddy when I go into an office supply store, or down the BTS aisle of [insert local discount mart here]. I could stay there for hours picking out the perfect notebooks and smelling all the paper surrounding me.
{The pens have always, always been blue PaperMate pens. And only blue PaperMate pens.}

And how about the promise of a new school year?
The year you'll make the honor roll, the cheerleading squad, snag the cute bad boy?
Oh it's always so rife with possibility.

Which is exactly why I've been thinking about BTS time a lot lately, and decided to make my own BTS promises this school year, even though I:
1. Do not go to school.
2. Do not work in a school.
3. Do not have children I am preparing to send off to school.

This is my Back To School list:

- I will learn to cook. Once and for all. Without dramatics. Maybe whilst wearing my pearls. And with a martini within reach.
- I will grow my nails. And upkeep them, instead of biting them or picking at them.
- I will clean more often in the nooks and crannies of the fabulous apartment I adore, instead of taking the easy way out.
- I will wear a fabulous dress to the office at least once a week. Maybe accessorized with the pearls.
- I will freelance.
- I will learn to meditate.
- I will get back into jogging. Once and for all.
- I will revel in the fact that I am single, even if I get lonely sometimes. Good things - great things - come to those who wait. Ever so patiently.

Fin.

Om ...

I continually run at a highly agitated state.

My mind is constantly churning with so much work stuff, life stuff, stuff stuff that it's hard for me to turn it off - even when I make a conscious effort to do so.

I cannot control everything - and I know that - yet I still try to be the be-all and end-all because I try not to half-ass anything I do. It's just not my nature.

From this moment on, I vow to myself and my chronic insomnia that I will become a duck. That I will let things roll off me like beads of water run right off that waterfowl's back (a duck IS waterfowl, right?).

I will think of these gorgeous Tahitian pictures that I dream to some day see for myself and just be.

I am what I am.
I do what I can.
I am only myself, I am no one else.

{Wow. That sounds too deep to be just me. Must be working already!}

Ramblings on ... about love.*

At least once a year, I ensconce myself within the fabulously glitzy world of "Sex and the City."

It's that time of year, as I have been smack-dab in the middle of 2009's visit for the last couple weeks. Like "Bridget Jones' Diary," it's something I turn to when I need some reaffirmations about my life which is indubitably less fabulous than my favorite foursome.

I identify with all four of the characters.

Like Carrie, I, too, write for a newspaper, have too many shoes (though not expensive or ridiculously sexy as hers, but I get by) and shit luck with men. I can be narcissistic.

I am sometimes bitchy and cynical like Miranda and so used to being the strong one and taking care of myself that it's hard to let someone else in.

I have my days where I am sometimes brazen enough, or feel thin enough from a particularly good workout that I think I am as slinky and sexy as Samantha, who says and does exactly what she feels.

And at the end of the day, despite all the bitchy narcissistic cynicism I sometimes pander to, like Charlotte, I let myself be hopeful and optimistic about love.

That it's out there.
That I'll find it one day if I just stay steadfast.
I'll hold that hand.
I'll have that arm around me.
I'll have those sweet things whispered in my ear.
I'll be loved for all the things I love when I look in the mirror - not in the narcissistic way that'll drown me, dear heavens no because there's a lot I hate still when I look in the mirror - but what I see behind my Guinness-colored eyes.

"The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well that's just fabulous."
~~ Carrie Bradshaw on "Sex and the City"

Strength. An ability to love. An ability to laugh. An ability to enjoy life.
An ability to know myself. And like - even love sometimes - myself, just as I am.

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love."
~~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I love my parents. I love my brother and "sister." I love my friends. I love my job. I love AIM toothpaste. I love mint ChapStick. I love blue PaperMate pens. I love my bedroom. I love music. I love food.

I love seeing people in love because it makes me hopeful.
Maybe I love enough. Maybe I've loved enough to last a lifetime.
Or maybe I just haven't loved the right person yet.

Yeah. I love that thought the best.

*The writer does apologize for the deep thoughts and heavy romanticism. She's been inundated with engagements and weddings in the world around her.

What else is a single gal to do when she can't afford Jimmy Choos?

You say "child-less." I say "child-free."

"It is dangerous to confuse children with angels."
~~~~ David Fyfe

It's a well-known fact that I am not the most patient person in the world.
It may also be widely known that I can, in fact, err on the side of - gasp - bitchy.

But what might come as a surprise, especially considering I am a single woman who is past the age of 30, is that I am not a fan of children.

At all.

Sure, I've had good friends and coworkers who've had children and I've enjoyed watching those children grow up, but being a mom just isn't for me.

I often wonder, as I did this evening as I wandered through Target, how parents do it.
{Back story: Every single time I shop at Target I am surrounded by children screaming bloody murder. I don't know what the store does to them, especially since I am always pretty happy to be shopping there myself, but it's bloodcurdlingly ridiculous.}

"A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic."
~~~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It was so horribly noisy on today's trip I almost wish I had a Xanax to take.
It got me to thinking.
What would I do if I were a parent?
Does that inner anger I felt today go away when it's your own kid?
I'd like to think that I sure as hell wouldn't let my kids carry on the way I've been appalled to see time and time again.

I've been told that the pixie version of Nikki threw a tantrum or two, but it was something Mommalah never tolerated for longer than a minute.
Granted, I grew up in the days you were allowed to spank kids - which you should still be allowed to do, given the jerk kids I've seen in my day - but my parents took my brother and I out to fancy dinners and we never, ever misbehaved.
Not out of fear, mind you, but out of respect.
{But there is a story where Mommalah infamously dropped trou on my brother right in the middle of the Wyoming Valley Mall back when there used to be fountains. She sat herself right on the side of one and let him have it for being bold. He he. Never mind that there was one instance the dropped trou offender was me. That's moot.}

That's how we were raised. To be humans. To behave in public. To speak when spoken to. And that's carried over into both of our adult lives.

When I was 14, my parents got me my beloved dog, Zakk. A boisterous and bold yellow Lab who could have used a few spankings himself.

He saved me from myself. He taught me how to love and care for something other than myself at a very crucial point in my development, and that too carried over into my adulthood.

I nurtured and cared for Zakk until the day he died 14 years after we got him, exactly half of my life at that point, and I've nurtured and cared for sick parents, boyfriends and friends, so it's not that I am a cold-hearted bitch - which I suppose is debatable depending on our relationship.

I admit I've heard that "tick-tock, tick-tock" bellow maybe once or twice - and even have had names picked out since I was 10 like any good girl - but it goes away right quick. And to be quite frank, I never imagined I would love a kid as much as I loved my Zakk. He was my kid and his death devastated my family and I.

Every time I see a parent with a bad child, or hear an "Ethan, no. ETHAN. Ethan NO!" or similar, I cringe. Would I be able to hold back the scream I, an innocently-shopping bystander, want to let out at that kid that's not mine?

Or would I be the one cooing "Shh" and looking around smugly like my child was made out of gold? I shudder to think.

I raise a toast to myself - and anyone else who doesn't really feel like they're missing out.
Yet.

"If a child annoys you, quiet him by brushing his hair. If this doesn't work, use the other side of the brush on the other end of the child."
~~~~ Anonymous

"Le Penseur."

I have been feeling very introspective lately.

Which is really hard to juggle with my exhausting schedule right now, but I'm trying to balance it.

I feel like I am on the cusp of something big within myself.
{The not knowing what that is exactly kind of makes me anxious, but I'm doing my best to roll with it.}


{As I was reading the Wikipedia entry on Rodin, who sculpted "The Thinker," (or "Le Penseur" if you like to pretend you are fluent in French as I sometimes do), I found myself sitting with hand under chin and realized that position really does help you think better. Internal struggles never felt so comfortable! Who knew?!}

I say "hoagie," you say "hero" - let's just say you're wrong!

I am appalled that the word "hoagie" in my previous post came up as an misspelled word when I spell checked.

It got me to thinking about when I worked in telecommunications and dealt with a lot of different internal-company people from across the country: New York, Boston, San Fran, L.A. and D.C. and how differently we called things.

For instance:
- Some of those people call my "hoagie" a "hero." Or a "grinder." Or a "sub."
(Other names across the country: Poor or Po' boy. Wedge. Zeppelin - the latter IS pretty awesome, actually.)

- Some call my "wimpies" "Sloppy Joes." Or "Manwich" - even if it didn't come out of a can!
(Other names across the country: Yip Yips. Slushburgers.)


- In my lovely state of Pennsylvania, we call them "liquor stores" or, if you're prim and proper as I sometimes pretend to be, "state stores." Massachusetts people call them "package stores."
(While in Springfield, Mass., on business, I actually saw for myself the sign that said "Package Store" above the door. Insanity!)
(Other names across the country: ABC Store.)


What do you call these things, wherever you are?

Probably right, maybe wrong.

Had a most thought-provoking night thus far.
Whiling away the evening on my porch with "The Fountainhead," my skull-covered journal and my orange haiku/tanka notebook, I watched my neighbor and landlord working in their yards - and realized some things about myself.

And, when I came in and looked at the mail sitting on my desk - a cable bill and a booklet entitled "Bridal Bells" from a local jeweler - I realized some more things as I leafed through the blue book with shiny diamonds and sweet little sayings like:

"The icing to this perfect day"

and

"Sometimes love begins with a glance"

- I'll probably never be someone who relishes the feel of my hands digging in cold, fresh dirt, no matter how much I adore the scent of freshly-churned earth.


- I'll probably never feel the cold metal of a one-carat emerald-cut bauble I won't settle for less for.


- I'll probably never understand how people have a home they take care of themselves because they own it. (Clearly the words of a perpetual renter who can just call her landlord she affectionately calls "Mr. Roper.") (Plus, sometimes they feed me. Pizza. And sometimes ice cream cake.)


- I'll probably never be a really good singer. (This has already been proven true.)


- I'll probably never dance in my newly cleaned and spacious attic like I say I want to, despite taking ballerina lessons when I was 5ish, and clearly being a star Sugar Plum. (Nor will I ever be as graceful.)


- I'll probably never not paint my nails like a 5-year old.


- I'll probably never get tired of savoring a nicely chilled glass of bourbon whilst in complete and utter solitude in the midst of the noises of my neighborhood.


- I'll probably ... but maybe I'm wrong.

Man in red hat walking.

Every day you walk
(while I can barely Air Climb)
You struggle each step,
and seem like the kindest man
as you keep smiling, despite.

On my constitutional this evening, I passed him.
He was going the same way through the neighborhood, as always with his cloth grocery bags dangling from his metal crutches.

I've seen him a million times.
Walking to the grocery store, back up the sizable steep hill to wherever he lives with his parcels.
Even though you can tell he sometimes has a hard time of it, there he is. In his red hat, walking.

I once worked a part time job on his walking route, and he passed as I was wiping the window.
We made eye contact, and he smiled a heartbreakingly sweet smile, and I smiled and waved, and then he was out of eye shot.

I'd seen him before, of course, and he always reminded me a little of Mario from "Super Mario Brothers."

Tonight was the first time our walking paths intertwined.

"Good evening," I said as I passed, as I say to everyone I pass.
"Good evening," he responded, smiling.

I asked him how he was and he answered "Good," and asked how I was.

I had so many things I wanted to say to him, to ask him.
What his name was. Where he lives so I could know just how far he walks. About his life. What he buys at the grocery store. What his day-to-day operations are.

Instead, I replied, "Good," with a smile of my own, and our paths uncrossed.

Sane person of a solitary nature.

"She talked to herself often, a habit of sane persons of a solitary nature."
~~ Truman Capote

Once, when I was a young Nikki, my father walked past my bedroom and heard the chattering of many voices.

He asked Mom if I had friends over and she shook her head, to which he then inquired who the hell was in my room with me, concerned about his precious youngest child.

“It’s just her playing with her Barbies,” Mom answered, proud that her daughter was so brilliantly imaginative and creative.*

Puzzled, my dad peeked in on me, and sure enough there I was happy as a clam in my imagination. I always gave my toys different voices as I played, and I could sit there for hours concocting story lines for them.

I guess you could say that I was talking to myself - something I still do, which I realized the other morning as I blabbered on about the strawberries I was cutting for my cereal.

{Blogger's clarification: I live alone. And I love - live even - to talk.}

I've always been able to entertain myself, be it lose myself in a book, my journal or just my imagination.

Is that weird? I'd like to think not - well maybe just a little. But I guess all creative people are a bit daft ...

*This is by no means an assumption ... my darling mother has admitted such on several occasions ... and not all of them were at my insisting at gunpoint.

Edna, or fashion-forward?

I am wearing a hot pink sweater with teal earrings.
I love the way they play off each other, but am I like your colorblind great Aunt Edna?

Don't think I've ever written the word 'fount' before.

I don't know if it is because I've been addicted to working out every day or what, but I have been a fount of happy energy this week.

It's borderline annoying actually.
I can't imagine what it's like for other people ...

... Wait. Yes I can.
I bet it's adorable. And all sorts of fabulous.
Just like moi. ;D

Following my stars.

Two of my several horoscope e-mails are dead on today.

Exhibit A:
Gemini
If you were offered the opportunity to take off on a trip around the world, where you would see wonderful palaces and experience a timeless love affair, would you take it? The total freedom would tempt you, without a doubt. But would it make you entirely happy, dear Gemini? Have you considered the possibility that you can create an environment right here at home that gives you that same sense of freedom?

Exhibit B:
Daily Tarot Reading
There is too much soul-searching going on today for your own good, dear Nikki. The Lovers lead you to cast doubt on everything. If you're single, you're not at all sure that it's an enviable state to be in, and if you're in a couple, you ask yourself if this is really for you. And even worst, the High Priestess does not encourage you to have an open discussion about it. Instead, your lips are sealed and your questions buried inside you - it's no wonder that you feel somewhat under the weather... At work, you're not functioning at full power today. Whatever you're trying to do, the High Priestess and the Hermit slow you down and encourage you to take a break from your relentless onward course. Why? So that you can move forward all the more quickly tomorrow! You need to think hard about your approach and reflect on your working methods and relationships. Don't worry - in the long run you'll gain from this slowing of the pace...

I don't want to read every Gemini I come across, it just happens. I don't really believe in it, but I think it's interesting when some things just align ... along with the stars, as they say.


Let's talk about Exhibit A, shall we?
I know that leaving ala that train like a vagabond (see two nights ago blog) won't change anything unless I myself change deep, deep inside. I'd just be the same Nikki, just different surroundings.

Exhibit B
I feel like I am exploding internally with all I have going on inside my head, heart. I've been wanting to expunge it, but don't have the correct words to say, so I've been bottling it up. I tend to run at a highly agitated state most of the time and the sore throat and chest/cough I am battling is making me vulnerable. This is not Nikki, no, no, no.

I'm such a textbook Gemini it's sickening.
I can't help but wonder if people are real full-blown Gems, it isn't just just a non-scientific/kinder way of saying "Bi-polar.?"
Bite your tongue - wait, that would mean bite my tongue.
No, let's not do that.

Hope your stars align just so today!

Last words.

My quote of the day e-mail included this nugget today:
"Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored."
~~ George Saunders, last words

Gasp. That's just grand.
(PS - The short story writer isn't still alive and kicking, which is even more grand!)

Another last word morsel I've always been fond of is
"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
~~ Pancho Villa (1923)


But getting Saunders' "last words" made me delve into morbidity for a moment.
What would my tombstone (God forbid) say?
1. For one think, it would definitely have pepperoni on it.
2. Nothing, because I fully intend to be cremated.
3. Hopefully the memorial stone would have something quippy like the quote from writer/historian Hilaire Belloc:
"When I am dead I hope it may be said: 'His sins were scarlet but his books were read.'"

Or perhaps something along the lines of what my favorite poet said before cashing in:

"I've had eighteen straight whiskies, I think that's the record ..."
~~ Dylan Thomas (1953)

Either way, I'm not ready to have my words be ... final. I haven't even gotten them all down yet!

I'm nearly 32, but I don't even know who the hell I am yet. I know that what I do is, in some capacity, what I am on this planet for, but there much more I want to, and need to, do. Novels. Poetry. More writing, more, more, more!

As I read more of the fantastic last words at http://www.corsinet.com/braincandy/dying.html , there was some romanticism, even at death's door, and I'm a sucker for romanticism.

Such as:
"I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you."
~~ President James K. Polk to his wife (1849)

Or:
"Oh, I am not going to die, am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy."
~~ Charlotte Bronte to her husband (1855)


I fell in love with the sweetest blog this evening and it made me feel kind of bad about how much romanticism isn't in my life. Which is a bit ironic, considering how much I love love and all its trappings.

Even that diminutive jerk* Napoleon had romance as the Reaper waited sickle poised for him when he said "Josephine..." before up and dying (1821.)

Bah. That, and all the morbid thoughts, are enough to keep this unfinished writer up tonight. At least I'll be able to keep trying to be quippy ...

"I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis."
~~ Humphrey Bogart (1957)


* Nikki M. Mascali didn't know Monsieur Bonaparte personally, of course, but whilst researching for this blog, she kept picturing the Napoleon character in "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" hogging all the water slides at Waterloo.

New Year, same resolutions.

What is it about New Year's Day that is so inspiring?

Is it the clean slate spread out before us?
Is it the fizzy champers, the midnight kiss, the bleet of a noisemaker?
Is it the joy - relief even - we get that we've been blessed to have another year at our disposal?

I don't know what it is, but I know that this day every single year, I make my list ... oh, you know you've got your old standards, just as I do:

- Lose weight.
- Exercise more.
- Save money (this year in particular, this one seems lots more important than the others, non?).

But this year, I'd also like to add:

- Cuss less. (A lot less. More like a lady, less like a sailor.)
- Take less of the good things in my life for granted.
- Write extra-curricularly more, like this blog. Freelance. Journal. Haiku. Just be inspired more to unleash my blue PaperMate pen outside of work.
- Be happier. (This has gotten easier in the last year. I've been able to let go of a lot of my anxiety about things I can't change, work, etc, etc. Quelle refreshing!)

2008 was a wonderful year for me. I'm looking forward to getting to know 2009 and whatever it will bring - and whoever I will be come this time next year.

Who would you like to be?

Loaded question.

From the moment I joined MySpace, I was addicted to surveys.
The addiction came naturally: I'm a nosy, inquisitive kinda girl, so I love reading other people's answers, and, likewise, love having people read mine.

I was so frequent a surveyor, that a coworker - who we will call "Tiffany" for shits and giggles - did nothing short of an intervention, so, as one of my 2007 resolutions, I resolved to keep surveys to a minimum.

Proudly, I have kept that vow now for nearly two years.
I still do some here and there, just to keep my public interested (JOKE!), so now it's an occasion when I post one, and not some eye-roll inducing occurrence.

Of course, when I see one posted from one of my favorite fellow survey junkies, I can't help reading it and I cannot tell a lie: I sometimes copy a survey, fill it completely out and then delete it without posting. This way, the addiction gets fed and I don't make anyone sick of me.

Tonight was one of those nights, and one question in particular stuck out.
"What would your one wish be?"
My immediately reply was what it always is: Unlimited wishes.

Of course, that struck me as something so completely selfish, but I refuse to change my answer.

- I'd wish that my upcoming Christmas present Uggs will miraculously find their way to my feet before my trip into the tundra that might be New York City tomorrow.
- I'd wish that my credit card would somehow pay itself off.
- I'd wish that the monster cover story I'm working on and mapping out in my head could telepathically be translated to the computer without typing.
- And I'd sure as hell wish that I was Heidi Klum's identical twin sister.

And then I'd wish that narcissistic wishes like that would be negated by the wishes I already have, and the ones that I pray for, such as:
- "I wish Mom and Dad would feel better."
- I'd wish that all my loved ones, like my brother, could have their own dreams come true.
- I'd wish that God wouldn't let kids get sick, hurt or worse.
- I'd wish that our world wasn't so far gone in regards to ignorance, strife and the mayhem that gets closer every day.

I'd wish a lot of things I guess, but mostly, I'd wish that, if all my wishes came true, I'd stick to paying them forward.

And then I'd wish to come up with a better term than "pay it forward" because the saying really just rubs me the wrong way.