Caterwauling

Although, of course, we are encouraged to do past fives. But the only ones I haven’t done were ones that I was boycotting for some reason or another.

We were all hooting about Princess Fatass (the queen of our organization) on his throne (if you wanna see it, e-mail me at dawn AT caterwauling dot com). Someone made a comment that it looked like what Santa Claus would sit on, and I said, “Yeah, he sat on the Easter Bunny!” This elicited much laughter and an executive decision to give him a rabbit’s foot when we are holding his outgoing ceremony (an ice cream social. *shudder*) — you know, in honor of killing the Easter Bunny with his double-wide ass. Seriously, the only reason I like this guy is because I am svelte next to him. Of course, so is a trailer with the wheels shot off, in comparison!

I have been likening my workplace to, of course, a trailer with the wheels shot off, being dragged down a highway. They say non-profits survive despite themselves — I think there is a picture of our building next to that dissertation!

Pussy Demure!TM keeps HOUNDING me to meet with her. I wanted to get an intern (she killed the same dream for me last year), but I wanted to share the intern with her because I don’t have enough full-time responsibilities to dole out. Of course, she has appeared in my office and at Smoker’s Corner no fewer than 14 times to beg me (whining, of course) to schedule a meeting with her about it. Um, no. And she’s pissed off that I asked for two comp days (even though I have worked WAY more than two extra days this month, not to mention today’s furlough!), so she wants ANOTHER meeting with me when I get back to discuss how I shouldn’t have to work under stressful deadlines. Did she miss the MEMO that I run a NEWSPAPER?!?! How the FUCK can I avoid deadlines? And it’s not even like she or anyone gets inconvenienced — I’m the asshole who works overtime, not her!

I need to start my own company. Stat. I’ve got the phone number, the P.O. Box and the inclination. All I need is a name … oh, yeah, and some clients. But it will be a sweet day when I can walk into my boss’s office, pull down my pants and have, “You suck. I quit!” emblazoned across my ass. Of course, you KNOW she’d need to meet about it!!!

No matter how hectic one’s day is going (and we’re going to press late — tomorrow on a fucking furlough day, barring no additional obstacles), it is always comforting to know that one is wearing see-through black mesh scandalous boy-shorts with a little hot pink ribbon on them. I may be cranky, but my butt cheeks are happy. 🙂

I am going to start boycotting “American Idol.” It was SUCH a fucking joke tonight!!

Last night was the best night of the competition — Barry Manilow tailored his songs to each contestants’ strengths, and their performances truly reflected how much he had worked with them. Almost everyone was incredible, save for a not-so-hot performance from George Huff, another mediocre performance from Jasmine and another stunningly dismal show from John Stevens.

So tonight, the contestants were grouped into “A” or “B” — “A” being the “Divas” group of my favorites Jennifer and Latoya, as well as Fantasia. Group “B” had the other droppings, along with Diana, whom I do like but she clearly did NOT belong with the vocally powerful girls in Group “A.” Turns out that the Divas were all in the bottom three! What the fucking hell? I was on my two phones with Angie, Shawn and Shannon, bitching up a windstorm and all of us were shrieking, “What?!?! What?!?!?”

Turns out that Jennifer was voted off. You know, I’ve voted for her from the beginning, so it hurts when someone so clearly talented — someone who managed to get better and better every damn show — outlasts red-headed dorkbutt who forgot his words TWICE during the competition and still manages to stay! (And, like Shawn noted, red-head looks absolutely bewildered that he’s “safe” every week when way-more-talented people get the boot.) Latoya was the first one who was safe, and then Fantasia was sent back to the group that will return next week.

You know, people petitioned so hard for that idiot William Hung to return to “Idol,” and that slow son of a bitch has a record deal. I think we should all start boycotting this farce of a show. The running theory is that dumbass kids are voting a million times for the people in their age group, and people like me who swing about six or 10 votes (which is still a LOT) to the most talented are getting drowned out. Look, I don’t love Fantasia, but you’d have to be tone-deaf to not admit that she can sing circles around the remaining contestants (except Latoya, who provides major competition). People need to quit voting for the people they “like” and swing the votes to the real talent.

I’m done. Fuck it. I’ll get the recaps on the news next week — I can’t sit through another disappointment of a show where John and Jasmine keep getting voted back on. I’m sure it’s all a ploy by AT&T Wireless to keep us voting and make us spend even MORE money on text messages, anyway.

I need a bloody mary. Now. Signing off. …

It’s hot. I’m overworked. Things otherwise are just strange and too bizarre to ponder in public. All I can say is that life throws ya some twists and turns that you can never prepare yourself for. And I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I intend to use it to my advantage in every way possible.

The cats have been funny in this blazing heat (oh, and the apartment complex refuses to turn on the a/c capabilities till May 15 — it’s been upward of 79 degrees for the past three days! Gaaah, I have to sleep inside my balcony door or I will swelter!). Kadi has been caterwauling up a windstorm, and Maddie’s just been retiring to the coolness of the bathtub and staying out of the way. I have been taking the girls outside, alternately, holding them and letting them enjoy the fresh air on the balcony, and they seem to like it out there.

The problem with that, though, is that they think they should always be outside with me. Kadi, especially, has been trying to bust through the screen door, trying to get at me. When she wasn’t able to do that (give her time, though — I’m sure she’ll be outside on her own soon!), she went up to the glass sliding door behind where I was sitting, took a flying leap, and went *splat* into the glass. I couldn’t help it — I lost my shit. She looked so dazed! (Not the brightest cat — remember, I call her “Short Bus” or “Shorty B.” when I want to be politically correct!) I kept tapping on the window after that, and she kept trying to swat at my hand. She went to bite my finger through the glass too. Always a riot around here. 🙂

Oh, speaking of hot pussy, guess who was gettin’ dead-stared at Wal-Mart by a hot chick? Moi, that’s who. Too bad I have a steadfast rule of no dating anyone you pick up at Wally’s because you just don’t know where they’ve been, ’cause she was kinda hot, actually. 😉 Met her at the photo counter, and she watched me walk out of the store. Damn. Anyway, just wanted to share — she isn’t the worst thing that’s tried to pick me up lately!!!

I applied for press credentials at a prestigious site, using my “editor-in-chief of a monthly magazine” information.

Their response:

Press Site usage is for legitimate members of the media ONLY.

I.E., my publication isn’t a legitimate one. LOL. I think this is fucking hysterical!Truth be told, it’s my organization that is a figment of someone’s evil imagination, but they probably knew this and rejected me accordingly. 😉

This weekend, I bought a dress for Bryan and Paul’s union ceremony on May 15. It’s not the dress, but a dress nonetheless. It’s taupe and floor-length with a tiny bit of crinoline at the bottom, but the fucker is sleeveles. Ugh. I NEVER go sleeveless! Barring wearing a T-Shirt underneath it (not likely), I have to head out and find a nice wrap or something (something like another dress, perhaps. …).

Stopped by Ross yesterday (the discount outlet place where I spend thousands of dollars/hours each year). I bought a white jeanjacket and a cute lil blue denim skirt (that I’m wearing right now!). I put them on the same hanger (’cause I’m efficient like that), and when the cashier asked if that were a two-piece outfit, I said, no, actually, they are in fact separate pieces. And what did she do but ring up the pieces as a set! I didn’t feel the need to correct her AGAIN, so I got the $15 jacket for free. This adequately made up for the aggravation of three million kids running around the store and nearly knocking me off my feet at every turn. 🙂

Mom keeps wondering if I’m ever going to have kids. I think, if I can ever get her to visit me, I will take her to Ross and tell her to ask me again if she still wonders why my answer is continually a resounding HELL no!!!

I am horrible at sticking to diets. I was doing a pseudo-Atkins kinda thang for awhile, but once I went to Kansas City, that kinda got shot in the ass. And of course, because I’ve no been longer dieting, I’ve been enjoying Chinese food and pizza and ice cream and numerous (and I mean numerous!) adult beverages.

And lo and behold, I realize that I am being very South Beach Diet-friendly by having a lovely dinner tonight of spicy bloody marys. The celery, the olives, the tomato juice, the horseradish (the vodka) … is there any more perfect food than this?!?! *gulp* Being that I’m working tonight, I needed a lil somethin’ somethin’ to take the pain away, and by golly, if I can’t not be working, at least I’ve found a way to not hate it so much.

Of course, I’ll need to do some HEAVY editing when I’m a lil less inebriated, but fuck it. Don’t really care right now!!! 😉

In any event, I need to get my ass back on a diet. One of these days. I can safely say that I gave up dieting for Lent — it’s the first time I never relapsed on something I chose to not do during this holy little time!!!

Subtitle: Not to be confused with the again-absent Friday Five.

1. Kill Bill Vol. 2 is released today (indie movie geeks rejoice worldwide). Excessive coverage of the questionable relationship between Tarantino and Uma Thurman takes over: she is billed consistently as his muse. Do you have, or have you ever had a muse? Who or what was it? What sorts of things did your muse inspire in you?

I stumble across muses from time to time. There was a period of a few years (2001-late 2003) where I had no inspiration and I wasn’t writing the way I was accustomed to. I think I have at least one now — there are certain people in my life who drive me to create, to record my thoughts, to sing and break stuff and shout and dance and write till I collapse. I have a poem to this effect, written circa December 2003, about how I recently became inspired again. But how do you thank somebody for that? Wouldn’t it sound kinda creepy and stalker-ish to tell people thanks for living inside your head?

2. Since we’re on films, have you visited the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), possibly one of the top informational websites of all time? What interesting, odd, or random fact did you learn there? What was the last thing you searched for on the site?

My trips there are hardly memorable. I usually go there to find out an actor’s name or to find out soundtrack information, although I can’t remember getting the information I wanted about a song that appeared in a movie, so fuck it. Next.

3. What do you think about Friendster? It’s been described as an alternative to making friends the traditional way, i.e., meeting them in person. Isn’t that what Dungeons and Dragons was for? Are you anybody’s Friendster? Would you ever be?

Friendster bites my balls and doesn’t deserve a link from me (much like Scott refused to link to it). I had put some thought into my answers and my photos, and I thought I would attract semi-intelligent people (at least!) who might live in my geographic area, share some interests, spark some conversation. Instead I got pick-up lines from no fewer than four gay men — one wanted me to marry his gay male friend and have an “open” marriage so as to please their families that they had a hetero marriage (but they could still fuck), one wanted to stay in this country, one wanted me to have his bay-bays, and I forget about the other. Then of course I got the guys who sent me pictures of their dicks and/or had photos posted of them in Pimp Daddy gear and had ‘hos hanging all over them. A real fuckin’ riot, I tell you. I keep meaning to pull that profile down, but in the meantime, I read the letters I get but usually don’t respond to them. Oh, and of course there was the guy who said he didn’t want a relationship but he wanted to spend four nights a week together “cuddling.” Gag. Is that the new term for, “I enjoy sunsets and walks in the park and laughing and kissing and …” ? Spare me!

4. Have you ever met a romantic interest online? Did you take it to the next level and meet them in person? How did it go? If you do not have personal experience with online dating, go ahead and tell us a juicy one a friend of yours has had (we crave sordid tales of online dating).

Anybody I ever met online, I fucked them at least once and either dropped them or got dropped. Never, ever fall for the line that they are looking for a long-term relationship. They are looking for sex. And that’s not to say that I wasn’t in it for the booty myself!!!

5. Further on the topic of romantic pairings, the personals in our favorite DC alt-weekly, The Washington City Paper, has a popular section called “I Saw You.” Here, lonely miscreants can write vague descriptions of the man or woman “that got away,” in the hopes their lost love will see themselves in the description and respond to the ad. Craft your own “I Saw You” to a romantic/love interest. And a bonus challenge: write a fictional “I Saw You” to yourself: one that would actually inspire you to respond to the mystery stalker.

I LOVE that section! I’ve always wanted to respond to one. I haven’t had the inclination to place one of those ads though — nobody ever intrigued me THAT much that I just HAD to declare my love to the City Paper readership in hopes they could make the love connection for me. Apparently, if I didn’t talk to someone, I wasn’t THAT freakin’ interested!

I would place an “I Saw You at the park, sitting on the hood of your car and scribbling furiously in a notebook/sketchbook. Our eyes met as I walked past — you smiled and pretended to continue doting on your written creation. I walked up to you, pulled you off your car, hiked up my skirt and rode you like a hooker on a mechanical bull. Then I ran, losing my Payless glass slipper as I hopped into my car and ran so as not to bring any form of reality into my fantasy. I want my fucking shoe back! Call me at 976-XXXX. Second mechanical bullride optional.”

Bonus: I might respond to this one — “I Saw You at the Apple Store. You were running your fingers along a sleek silver PowerBook, like you were caressing a long-lost lover whom you hadn’t seen in weeks. I would like to know what it would feel like to have your fingertips touching me the same way. Oh, and I have billions of dollars and will buy you that laptop when I see you!”

LOL. Can you tell I’m poor? I’d rather have the laptop than the sex (although, admittedly, it’s a coin toss at this point!).

There are no words for how today is going. If you are on my buddy list, you received a copy of the Veggie Patch president sitting on a throne with a lei around his pudgy little neck. This is, of course, in addition to the baby grand piano he wanted in his hotel room as well as the violinist. Oh, and we just had a furlough day last Friday and another one next Friday. Fun, eh?

The columns suck this month (shocker), I haven’t had a minute to write my own crap stories, some asshole gave me a column last night, which I edited between 11 p.m. and midnight. The last piece, well, idiot decided to re-write the whole article since then, so all of my edits are null. The Queen of the Underworld has made progress on the Gestapo she wants to create to oversee my work, and she had one of her cronies write a horrible e-mail about me to everyone in power. I know it was one of her cronies because he praised the column she writes for me. Oh, and she wrote half of this month’s column in Spanish and got pissy when I wrote back for some clarifications. Cunt.

I burst into tears today with my supervisor — I told her that between the CEO being on the rag all the time where I’m concerned, the power trips of the leaders (oh and yeah, Fatass President/Pride Fag wants photos of the conference ASAP to show to his boyfriend. That’s the only reason. I’ve gotten 17 e-mails forwarded to me to this effect. He doesn’t care that I have to pull together a 64-page newspaper by this time next week — scanning 500 photos is way more important to him), and just general morale issues are killing me. Specifically where CEO is concerned, his piss-fuck attitude toward me and joy of embarrassing me in public is exactly the reason why I left my last job — public humiliation wasn’t under “other duties as assigned,” last I checked.

Anyway, the throne photo went around the office a few times. I am glad people are as pissed off as I am about it — it’s the only thing that’s warming my frozen little heart this afternoon!

Subtitle: When cake makes you fertile

I have exactly 45 things to accomplish by day’s end tomorrow to get the newspaper out on time, and I don’t see it happening.

Not to mention, but to put it mildly, everyone except Finance Guy in that place is useless. He did me a really huge favor yesterday, and he restored my faith in humanity. Unfortunately, that was tempered by the cruise director and the queen of the underworld givin’ me shit today.

In good news, my ad rep is knocked up. It’s totally my fault, according to the tale she tells. (!) See, back in February ’round Mardi Gras time, the fabulous Tricia sent me a lovely King Cake, and according to tradition, the person who gets the piece of cake with the little plastic baby in it is King for a Day and that person buys the cake next year. When my ad rep got the baby, she was scared that it meant that the person who gets the baby gets knocked up, and we laughed about that. When she went home and showed the baby to her daughter, the little girl said, “Does that mean you’re having a baby?” So she called me and we laughed and laughed. Turns out she was maybe a week or two along at that point, and she announced the news to me today, completely holding me responsible for the phenomenon.

I, of course, decided that when we have cake next year, we will scan the delicacy to ensure that the plastic baby goes to the only man on staff, because I do NOT want to start a tradition of the person who gets the baby, HAS the baby!

I’m happy for her, though, because she thought she couldn’t physically have another child. Well, that cake must’ve been magic, and I wish a happy and healthy pregnancy to my buddy!