Caterwauling

Got to talking to a friend who lost his mom right after I did.

He’s hurting. I mean, hurting. Hurt. Ing.

And I had the disturbing revelation that I’ve somehow become OK.

Not just in comparison. But, actually learning how to function again.

I had done a lot of pre-grieving, which I don’t think helped a lot. But maybe it did.

I mean, Momma was sick for a long time. Not just since her diagnosis date (four years ago this May).

Disease grows for a long time. I remember someone saying that the cancer on X date would have looked almost exactly the same as on X date a year earlier.

Yes it accelerated fast AF in the final year. But it stands to reason that it was there a good five or 10 years, undiagnosed.

Anyway, I look back at our photos, the few I have.

She looked sick for a long time.

Always beautiful and vibrant in real life. But photos don’t really lie. This was a woman who was struggling to smile and keep up with her then-healthy daughter.

Over the past month, I’ve noticed the color coming back into my own face.

TBH I really thought losing her would kill me. Not before she died, but certainly after.

I really thought oh shit, I am not going to survive this. More times than I could count.

Now, I’m not saying nine months is enough time to grieve your life partner. Which for all intents and purposes, she was. You don’t live with someone for nearly 18 years and think otherwise.

After all, I was in line yesterday with a lady who said a piece of candy in my hand made her think of her own mom, who passed in 2016.

The lady said they used to go to the cafe at Nordstrom every week and she’d get one.

I remembered going to the Nordstrom cafe every week with someone. Wasn’t mom but definitely a relationship I mourned for a while.

Now it’s like it never even happened, except I grew a metaphorical boil on my metaphorical butt that will no doubt follow me around for life.

Damn I miss Nordstrom’s coffee.

In any event, I told the lady I just lost my mom too and have similar fond memories.

She said no one will ever love you like your mom, huh? I could see the tears in her eyes as the water sprang to mine.

I shook my head. We wished each other well as we got called to different cash registers.

So, yeah, there’s no getting over your momma.

That was such a good exchange for me. I was feeling guilty that I wasn’t sad enough.

I am still plenty sad. I am also getting moments of joy and connection, which I’d thought were lost with her.

I know momma wouldn’t want me to mourn forever. But I think she’d definitely want me to mourn for a while. And for as good a momma as she was, she definitely deserves that.

Current status

Not to be confused with Bella, my orange cat.

I went to DaDa for the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Delray yesterday.

They aren’t normally open on Saturday. So it was a treat to hear they Bruce was going to be grilling corned beef brisket and bangers outside for a few hours till they did their regular open.

I arrived and said hi to Carlos. He said, “Dawn!” and shook my hand.

I might go there A BIT.

He said pick a seat and of course I went under the banyan tree where I normally sit with my friends. “Dawn’s table!” he said.

Carlos said it’s not the normal menu; just the Irish stuff till five. I said you know I’ve had everything on your menu 20 times over. Excited to see what Bruce is up to today.

I didn’t see any of the usual servers. Tara came over and introduced herself. She is from outside the SubCulture Group, asked by her manager to lend Carlos a hand.

Not just a hand — she was the lone server for the whole restaurant.

Luckily half the outside was taken up by the Gypsy Strings Revival. Who came over to ask if I’d get a few pics of them since they’ve never had the whole band all together at once.

It was a big band. Also, one of the gents had lost his wife recently. So, this was their first time being back together as a whole.

We all got to talking about my green and gold nails. I also pointed out the purple for Mardi Gras, as I’d just spent some time in NOLA and I wanted to make sure I had nails that were also fitting for Paddy’s Day.

Well.

So at some point, they dedicated a song to the girl who just came back from Mardi Gras. Which was so sweet.

And as I was the only person who was sitting alone, when the band said they were dedicating a song to Belle, I perked up. Yes because of my cat.

The singer said someone here just lost a spouse and this is their first outing alone.

I cried. I fucking cried.

Out of nowhere, one of the men at the next table ran up and hugged me. I said thank you.

It hit me that they thought I was WIDOWED. Because I was alone.

Like no I just randomly cry all the time. But I didn’t say that.

Figured just shut my trap and keep drinking.

We did all get to talking across the table, but not about that.

Later his wife ran over and hugged me. A few times. Our Guinness espresso martinis had kicked in.

She was so so so sweet. She said, “It must be so hard going through life without your best friend.”

Now THAT I could relate to.

Momma and I would always order corned beef from Flanigan’s. But DaDa is my home (obviously) and that’s where I spent all my birthdays and, most recently, Thanksgiving. Of course I was going to go for Paddy’s.

When they all left, she hugged me one more time and said I love that you are getting out of the house. And I hope you meet a man with a BIG OLD DONG.

I said I will take a BIG OLD WALLET.

And of course, we agreed, hey, let’s hope for both!

Bruce brought out my food and we had a lovely chat.

Tara said Bruce doesn’t normally serve the tables. We were all chatting about how awesome you are and wanted to meet you.

As Kenny Chesney and many others have sang, “I Love This Bar.”

Tara took a couple breaks with me, under the banyan tree. Turns out we’re the same age and live on the same street.

Her brother’s girlfriend is a Dawn and, of course, I have my Tara from New York.

We exchanged numbers and she said she was going to order my favorite drink, the Divine Gesture, when she got off at 5.

In fact, while I liked my Guinness espresso martini and the Tito’s green Mary (which I wish I’d ordered in the opposite order.

The Mary was spicy when I was looking for sweet. But still awesome), I wasn’t sure what to do for my third drink.

Tara said hey I talked to the bartender and he said he’ll make you anything off the regular menu.

Divine Gesture, ahoy!

I hugged my new friend Tara on my way out, tipped well and stumbled down to the beach.

Other than the fools in “Drink Up, Fuckers” FOTUS shirts and the other Nazis in “Gulf of America ’25” hats, it was a fantastic day.

One of the best I’ve had not just in the past sad nine months, but maybe in the past nine years.

Deleted an email from Brooklyn Beetlejuice unread to end the day.

Sorry to say the blood moon eclipse shook that one out.

Also Kelly and I had just talked about him on Friday night, so of course his dick pointed south.

Anyway. I also told her about the (redacted) Senior Vice President I met at (redacted) last weekend.

Who looked me up (I didn’t give him my number; he put together a couple conversational clues) and wants to see me again.

So, no, BB, why would I want to talk to you when there are people who actually ask me questions and want to hear what I have to say, instead of the other way around?

Anyway, Slainte to all who don’t wear USA shit to a St. Patrick’s Day parade.

And love to Belle, who’s making the journey my Momma just made.

I haven’t felt Momma around me for a couple weeks. Maybe she’s found some peace. Maybe she’s reincarnated. Maybe she’s giving me some space to figure this all out.

And maybe, just maybe, she and Belle were doing a river dance on Dada’s cobblestones, unseen but always loved.

I’m a compulsive note-taker. So my house is littered with notepads and scraps of paper with stuff I figure I’ll need eventually.

I’m also a compulsive digital note-taker.

I finally got around to deleting notes I’d taken from my old job and from Cocoa’s doctors.

Found it interesting that, shortly after I got her in 2020, they said she had thyroid issues and kidney disease.

The docs hopped on the thyroid stuff. Though the same docs denied me a refill unless I brought her in (when corona was resurgent). And I said fuck you and your company.

The next vet I called gave me a prescription just for asking. They said bring the baby in when you can; we aren’t going to deny her something she needs.

But I forgot about all the kidney disease stuff till I saw it in black and white.

So my baby had that untreated the whole time.

I mean, the fact that I got four years with her is just crazy. If it was as bad as they said, the prognosis is really only about 35 days.

I remember telling Mom that I gave Cocoa an extra year thanks to the new vet. And Mom had said, you gave her four years. The entire four years she was yours.

Now, I get it. She was right. Maybe I loved that little girl back to life for as long as she could hold on to it.

I still regret taking on Bella and Magic, though. I figured if Cocoa was a baby and I’d have her forever, why not have three.

Now I look at these loafs — and I love them — but damn I was going to go away this weekend but I figured in the end, nah don’t leave these dopes.

I love them and will miss them when they are gone. But they are 5 and 4. And as I feel the quicksands of time are reeling me in faster than I’d like, I don’t want to miss another minute of living than I have to.

I’ve been obsessed with Ethel Cain’s “Preacher’s Daughter.” Obsessed.

She did a whole “Freezer Bride” tour that I never even heard of.

And I would never have heard of her if not for “Strangers” being in “It Ends With Us.”

I’ve been particularly haunted by “Televangelism.” It’s an instrumental track that ends very off key. I assume that’s Ethel dying and her soul going wherever it’s supposed to be.

“Televangelism” ends and “Sun-Bleached Flies” begins. And it’s such a good song on its own. It has some zingers like the line I picked for today’s subject line.

In context:

“God loves you, but not enough to save you
So, baby girl, good luck taking care of yourself.”

She’s obviously already dead at this point and reflecting on her life.

All the religion beaten into her by all the sun-bleached flies who prayed for miracles that never came.

They and their babies just sit on the windowsill “breathing in the poison of the paint” rather than escaping small-town life that revolves around church and angry men like her daddy and every man she ever dated.

She goes back in her head to a time when she was longing to leave Alabama with her first love Willoughby. How Nebraska was all they ever wanted.

“I’m still praying for that house in Nebraska
By the highway, out on the edge of town
Dancing with the windows open
I can’t let go when something’s broken
It’s all I know and it’s all I want now.”

Ethel’s life review, as I interpret it to be, feels a lot like I interpret mine will be.

“It’s all I know and it’s all I want now.”

She went on to meet more exciting (abusive) men. She met Logan and they stole and killed until he was captured. She met Isaiah, finally “a man who wasn’t angry,” yet he sold her into sex work (“Gibson Girl,” where he hurts her) and plied her with drugs and raped, beat, killed and ate her. (And potentially filmed it all.)

Willoughby doesn’t seem so boring now, eh.

I don’t think I wished away my life with Mom but maybe I did. Like I know “love’s out there, and I can’t leave it be” (from “Thoroughfare”) but I already had it.

Who’s going to keep me safe from an Isaiah? And will I be left wishing for my own version of Willoughby?

Ethel knows she’s been reduced to “a polaroid in evidence.” Which is one of the most haunting lyrics.

The most devastating lyric, I think, is from “Ptolemea”:

“There’s nothing you can do.
It’s already been done.”

That’s Isaiah or the god of the underworld or who the fuck knows, telling her not to fight. She’s been promised to him. Basically just die already and stop hiding.

I hope my mom’s passage was better than that. If there’s anyone who deserves to have a good afterlife, it’s her. Only FOTUS and his associates should go to Ptolemy.

This is clearly art. If it invokes a visceral, long-term impact, that’s art. I love the album, love the way it’s made me think, love that it can exist in FOTUS’ world where Ted Nugent counts as culture.

Consume it while thought is still legal.

One thing that’s changed since Mom left is that I don’t go to places she loved.

This is intentional. Nary a Hobby Lobby nor a Chick Fil A in my recent past or future.

I kind of forgot about Lent though.

We weren’t religious. But she really believed in having fish on Ash Wednesday and all the Fridays through Good Friday.

I had some delicious gumbo from Penelope on Ash Wednesday. Stuffed with andouille sausage. The red beans and rice had sausage too.

So meaty, Joel McHale.

It felt so strange, thinking about all that.

Last year, she wasn’t really eating around this time. Maybe she’d take two bites but then throw it up. But she definitely wanted me to run to Bud’s and get a seafood platter for us to split.

That was weird too. We always gave fish to the cats. Cocoa would eat three bowls and the others are like WTF is this shit. So basically it was me and a platter of fries and fried fish.

If you go to the right Bud’s, the fries are great.

In any event, I remember asking her why it was important to observe the no-meat rule.

She said she knew she was getting closer to the end. She didn’t feel like she had a lot of points in her favor if there were such a thing. So the least she could do is observe a basic tradition.

I didn’t have any meat today (Friday) but that was more of an “I only have salad left in the fridge” than a conscious choice. As I pick anything BUT salad all week.

By anything but salad, I also consumed an entire king cake in two days. Details. I mean, isn’t that like not eating meat?

Anyway, I hope I remember all these little things about Mom. And I hope I stop remembering all the times I questioned her about them.

There are times when I think all the grief of the last 14 months has run its course.

Like maybe the well of tears is finite. Or if I just refuse to drink liquids, my tear ducts will cease their productivity.

Then I think of what my doctor cousin warns me about perimenopause. How there will be a time when I go a whole year without a period. And that year will turn into forever.

Well, I am still on my regular 28-ish-day cycle, so nope, no peri here.

But I do read about people who go the full year without a period. And then BAM, they get one and the clock starts anew.

I think that’s what my grief is going to be like. Somewhere between this 14-ish months without Cocoa and the 3-ish months before it’s a year without Momma, I’ll be OK-ish.

Then Father’s Day is going to hit and the tear duct levy will break.

I was just sitting here thinking how I can do anything this weekend.

I mean, I probably won’t do any of it. But indulge me right now when I’m ambitious enough to have options.

I thought about grabbing a flight to (reacted) to see (redacted) Saturday. Then maybe hitting a pop-up club at (redacted) and then flying home at the crack o’ me without missing but two hours of work on Monday.

Not budget-appropriate, by any means. But, I could do it.

I talked myself out of it because I wouldn’t take a laptop and I need to do some reading this weekend.

Also I could delay the flight till Monday night and instead go to (redacted). But I’d want to stay longer than two short nights. And the price there is higher.

And if I stay longer, I need a cat sitter. And I promised myself I wouldn’t have her back till my house was in order.

Which … yeah good luck with that.

I have other options for the weekend. I could wake up at Dawn-crack and go take my friend’s final (redacted) class before she leaves for Memphis.

That’s likely my option, but here I am whining to myself that I need to locate (redacted) in my house — one stupid item — before I go. How am I more motivated to pack a whole ass duffel and matching purse than find basically a piece of pink elastic?

Last weekend, I tooled around in Boca for two days. I loved it. Ate something good each day. Window shopped. Grabbed bougie groceries. Had my Fatbit buzz at 10k steps for the first time in months.

I remember during Mom’s last couple years, we sat on the couch, ate and watched reality TV and scrolled our phones.

She often said she wished I talked to her more. Usually I was in my phone or working on my laptop. But, too, if I said something at the wrong time, she’d be afraid of losing her place and the socials refreshing on her.

I didn’t want to remain that person. But I do feel daunted by the house projects. The only time I’m alive is when I’m planning phantom trips. Then I watch from my balcony as those same flights take off.

Not complaining. Not like I’m on a Fulbright Scholarship in another country and my funds got cut off today so I’m also unable to pay for rent or to fly home or to continue my education. Thanks fuckface tRump. Not like I’m the mother of a child receiving cancer treatments but I was dragged away in handcuffs because I never got my green card but I otherwise paid taxes for 23 years. Thanks tRump. I’m also not the president of Ukraine being told I didn’t smile or say thank you or wear an ill-fitting suit by a demented Cabbage Patch Kid who wanted to fuck the couch he sat on. Thanks tRump.

Anyway. I just wanted to process how I feel like the precious lives lost — Mom and Cocoa, but everyone who’s gone too soon — deserve so much more reverence than we can ever give them.

Also, what’s so wrong about running away. Momentum begets momentum. Hard to go from 0 (couch) to 60 when there’s no gas in the tank and nary a gas station around for five miles. How do you fuel up when you’re so down?

The title is a nice way of calling someone a twat to their face.

I would rather skip the niceties since most are too dumb to pick up on subtleties.

Emily and I got drinks at Louie Bossi on Tuesday.

Today I woke up and said I need another of those spicy margs.

Hibiscus Spiced this time.

The Spiced Passion Fruit marg was better. But maybe that’s because it was to celebrate Em’s birthday with her.

But the Cinque Terre I upgraded to was better than both combined.

I picked the last open seat at the outside bar, as the inside bar reeked too much of cleaning products.

Also it’s 80 degrees in Boca Raton. I don’t sit inside.

I sat next to a guy by himself, drinking red wine and lost in thought.

Won’t lie, I was surprised when he started talking to me.

But I was really surprised that two hours went by and we were still talking.

We’re both in finance. He’s from New York. We traded stories about clients and Laguardia.

His mom is dying. And we all know that’s a topic I know intimately. So we talked about that.

The surprise date closed with him asking for my name so he could look me up on LinkedIn. And maybe we can connect on his next trip down here.

Now, for the Goonhilda at home, yes he had a ring on. Yes, he’s happily married. No, she’s not a disaster of a human being. She sounds quite amazing and he’s quite enamored.

We were just two random strangers who had a handshake and a heart-to-heart.

Why are all my best conversations with people I will probably never see again?

I had a whole post written in my head with this subject line.

But then it me’d (dawned) that my beloved song “Thoroughfare” by Ethel Cain, about Isaiah, is part of a concept album.

One that ends with Isaiah fucking CANNIBALIZING her.

And that my beloved song “Strangers” is her talking about being dead and Isaiah’s freezer bride.

And that she’s talking to her mom from the afterlife.

Gives a whole new perspective to her singing, “If I’m turning in your stomach and I’m making you feel sick” and “Mama, I’ll see you when you get here.”

I don’t know what the fuck I even had in my brain before this moment.

“Don’t talk to strangers, or you might fall in love,” indeed.