Caterwauling

Insomnia has struck. And this song keeps running through my head. And this song.

I’m cold, I’m hot, I’m obsessing about all that I’m not. And I’m watching “Pretty in Pink,” which is just depressing the wits out of me. I wish I could just call in sick tomorrow — I just want to pull the covers over my head and not come out till I’m good and ready. But that might not be until next year. 😉 I want to write poetry again; I haven’t been inspired in so long. But what will inspire me? I want to paint, to create, to mold, to shape. But for once in my life, I’d like to not give up or break whatever it is that I’ve made.

I swear my clock is mocking me. It knows that I won’t hear it go off in a few hours. I sleep best in the mid-morning hours, but my work schedule doesn’t permit that. Perhaps a drink is in order. Or Nyquil. Or suffocation by pillow. 🙂 Such irony that my name means daybreak, but I’m really a night owl.

“Day breaking on the boulevard

Feel the sun warming up your secondhand heart

Light swimming right across your face

And you think

Maybe someday

Yeah, maybe someday.”

I’m blogging offline again. No sense sharing this nonsense with my readers. Hope y’all are sleeping well tonight — ’cause I’m thinking of just giving up and getting some sleep tomorrow night instead.

Much as I like to think I’m courageous and invincible, there are times when I have to tuck my tail between my legs and admit that I am a big ole sissy sometimes … particularly when it comes to heights coupled with carnival rides.

Dave and I went to the Fairfax County Fair today, which was a blast. But then when it came time to get on the rides, I crumbled into a screaming little girl, particularly on this contraption that raised us up, threw us on our sides, and then the car we were in started twirling to boot. Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ! I was surprised my blackened lungs could permit such yelps of terror to escape my being so loudly and with such passion. I probably broke the poor lad’s eardrums!

Dave was wonderful about it, though, and he humored me during my bout of insanity. I swear, I was convinced that either I was going to fly out of the ride or that the safety bar would release itself and we’d go catapulting over the courthouse. It’s not even the heights or the speed of the ride that really got me — it was coming thisclose to feeling like I was going to literally bump heads with the ride operator. One would think that spending every summer of my life at Kennywood would have cured me of any fear of being on rides, but I suppose that theory is shot. 🙂 (Of course, one year ago, Kennywood was hit by a microburst that killed a woman, so I am fine with my sissy-girl fears.)

To make matters worse, the song that was playing whilst on the ride was Britney Spears, “Don’t Let Me Be the Last to Know.” How scary can a ride be?!?!

At any rate, as Dave mentions on his site, I declared that my favorite ride was the chocolate banana. With nuts. Damn, that was good! And they even had a large papier-maiche chocolate banana (with nuts, natch!) located conveniently in a truck bed, which I wanted to climb up and straddle. Now that’s MY kind of amusement!!!

Although I had to pry my fingers off the safety bar when the ride was done, I wasn’t sick. It was rather exhilarating, actually, despite the fact that my body didn’t stop vibrating for a good 10 minutes afterward. But when have I EVER complained about good vibrations? 😉

I was uber-hungover this morning. Didn’t sleep much, as I had fitful nightmares that kept startling me. But my hangover cure worked beautifully — two parts grease (enter a Chez Mickey’s breakfast here) and one part hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-ya (many, many shots of hazlenut schnapps in my cruddy Chez Mickey coffee) and I was good to go by the time we went to the festival.

I bought a souvenir from the shindig — a sterling silver ring with a hibiscus flower on it. Every time I look at it, I laugh and am happy that, other than my mild hysterical fit, it was a good day at the fair.

Shawn took me out for coffee, carrot cake and complaining tonight. Now I’m going to go blog offline about that. 🙂 All in all, a good ending to a good day.

Weekends are just too damn short, ain’t they?

Subtitle: Ow, my head, part 2

Fun, fun night. Michael showed up, as did The Billy, whom I met for the first time. And of course, what night would be complete without Kirby, Topsi and Jynx? 🙂

I had arrived at the soiree with wine, munchies and a Dawn-snit that quickly washed away with wine, shots and raspberry vodka. We drank and ate ourselves silly. And smoked. Oh god, seven smokers in one room, each lighting up at the same time, cigarette after cigarette. My cheeks are rosy and my lungs are black. And I took a Diet Coke with a shot of raspberry vodka on the road, which was most helpful as I fought with the gas pump on the way home (as my dear Samantha Jones was running with the needle falling below the big “E.”) Crown really needs to do something about those friggin’ pumps — even I can’t work the fucking things in fewer than three tries.

Shawn and I sat around B.S.ing on the deck as I sobered up after everyone left. Life was good tonight — good friends, good conversations, good movie, good bonding time. I let go of a lot of things that have been eating away at my tired little brain, and I realized again how lucky I am to have this incredible circle of friends.

I made contact with my buddies Chris and Leslie and Susan (separately) this weekend, and of course Shan. Life is good. Tomorrow’s hangover will be anything BUT; however, I’m feelin’ damn good right now. County fair with Dave tomorrow; I promise, I’ll be awake — just not alert! 😉

Must.Change.Litterbox.When.I.Get.Up. Good lord, can that cat poop!!!

Sweet dreams, y’all. …

It’s either the massive amount of thinking I just spent the last hour doing, or it’s the repeated banging of my noggin off blunt objects.

Great weekend so far. Busy, busy. Now I’m scrubbing my butt and otherwise getting ready to spend an evening at Shawn’s with Scott, Bryan and Paul, as well as whoever else shows up. Just a bunch of swingin’ single girls, drooling over Pierce Brosnan in “Die Another Day”!

I think I’ve made a new friend, and I finally was bold enough to ask for us to meet in person. I’m waiting breathlessly for an answer. Here’s to hoping my schedule doesn’t get too messed up b/c of work to preclude this meeting from happening. I’ve been postponing this meeting forever, and finally, I realized it was time. When someone intriguing shows an interest in you, you need to run with it or you may just lose your chance. I’m not losing my chances anymore — I’m not happy when I *could* have done something and I didn’t. No more *coulds,* friends. I’m getting old, and I’m going to milk every last bit of excitement and amusement out of this life that I can.

Like you even had to fucking ASK!!!

You Are “Fuck“!

What Swear Word Are You?

More Great Quizzes from Quiz Diva

This shit is never going to end. Misspellings maintained from Asshat’s e-mail:

Ms (Goddess Dawn, spelled correctly this time),

As a colleague I would think that you would avoid the pitfalls of a defensive response to a well intentioned attempt on my part to simply point out some serious defeciences in your article. The fact that there was a typo in your name seems trivial but I  appologize for pressing the wrong key. I think you are saying that I should be thankful that you took the time to read my comments given my criticism of your article. Well thank you. Now let me inform you that given your unprofessional response to my comments, my wife and I and our many colleagues who were anticipating an informed response from you will be sure to drop our subscriptins to (Veggie Patch Gazette) and (The Veggie Patch) as a serious read.

I took it to my supervisor. She understands why I did it — I hate being bullied by assholes. Hopefully I will not get into further trouble. I wrote back to the fucker to tell him I meant no harm and that a professional and I would be in touch with him to discuss the professional concerns he raised.

Is it Friday yet? LOL

Update 2

When asshat responded, he only included two sentences of my e-mail. So when I forwarded the mess to my boss, I had to also re-send her what I originally wrote. Demure didn’t flip — she realized I handled it the best way I could manage, and she told me to simply turn it over to someone else to deal with the professional inquiry that was buried among the hate mail. So now I can have a good weekend without this eating away at me.

Remember that asshole who ruined my day yesterday? I responded to him, and I’m sure Dipshit will send it ’round the planet to show what a bitch I am:

Mr. (Asshat),

Sincerely,

Dawn

Update

Asshat did make some good points, after it took me a fucking hour to EDIT the goddamned letter. He pointed out that I didn’t clarify something, which is true, but what he’s got to understand is that, while he’s the practicing professional in our field, I am the practicing journalist who hates his misspellings and grammatical flubs as much as he hates the fact that I referred to “credentialing” as “licensure.” So we’re even. Nyah. Fucker.

This one’s gonna hurt.

1. How many times have you truly been in love?

In the truest sense of being “in love,” I’d say never. But I’ve had strong, strong feelings for certain people, and I’m fairly certain that those feelings were reciprocated, only with much less passion that I possessed. But then again, maybe they were just as scared as I was.

2. What was/is so great about the person you love(d) the most?

The funny thing about the passage of time is that you tend to forget all that was wrong during what was then the present, so when you look back, you have to be careful of not getting whiplash — most of the hurt has gone away, and times past seem so much more ideal than they were at the time. And because I always get a song in my head when I write, the tune of the moment is Vertical Horizon’s “Grey Sky Morning”.

But to answer the question, I fall in love with hearts — I truly don’t care what is on the outside. And of the three people who are on my mind as I answer these questions, each one was funny and caring and dynamic.

3. What qualities should a significant other have?

I’ve gotta go back to the kind heart thing. And an IQ over a certain number wouldn’t hurt, either. 😉 It would take a strong person to put up with me, so I need someone who’s attentive and caring, yet who knows that I need my space, and a lot of it. Trust is such an issue for me, and it takes me a long time to develop it, so I need someone who is emotionally and physically expressive, or I will be wondering what s/he is doing behind my back.

4. Have you ever broken someone’s heart?

As I’ve been told, yes. Quite a few times, actually. I didn’t mean to, but in one case that’s fresh in my mind, I didn’t know what else to do, and yes, my heart aches because of the way things had to be.

5. If there was one thing you could teach people about love, what would it be?

I don’t know a fucking thing about love. I fear it isn’t meant to be in my life, as far as a significant other. (I’m almost 30 — bear with me.) I don’t regret loving those whom I’ve loved, but I wish I would have been bolder, stronger, more confident — because I would have held on for dear life and shown them how much they really meant to me. One was a single straight guy, one was a woman and one was a married man. That just goes to show that your heart is blind when it comes to finding its match, so I s’pose my advice is to do what the little voices tell you to do. 😉

This Friendster thing is kinda cool — I’ve gotten lots of testimonails from my posse of male admirers. And thanks to Chris for this gem: “Dawn is sweet, warm, smart, a great kisser, and has a heart too big to measure.”

Damn, way to make a girl feel good! (And he’s a pretty damn good kisser himself.) 😉

… of dear departed journalist Jayson Blair.

It’s about friggin’ time his editors got canned. (OK, so they resigned, but humor me, please — it’s been a bad editorial day for me at my own piss-poor production of a newspaper!)

Christ, my readers kick my ass for printing the truth — this trio should’ve been put to death for confirming the public’s widely held belief that journalism is the lowest form of humanity. Protecting a brotha’ isn’t just cause for allowing plagiarism and just plain bad journalism.