Caterwauling

There was a question in yesterday’s Reader Poll Monday that’s still bothering me, about whether one would rather be known worldwide as a racist or a child molestor.

It bugged me because I remember some guy I dated years ago. Nice guy. Really. But he just didn’t *do* it for me. I miss our friendship sometimes, although even that might have been a matter of convenience and circumstance as well.

Anyway, he was convinced that I wasn’t into him because of his race. He told me as much. Man, did that bother me. And I think he said it to get under my skin, because I admit, I thought about it.

For a minute, anyway.

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Reader Poll Monday rides again:

Would you rather:

1. Watch a porno with your parents OR starring your parents?
I’ll take door No. 1. My mom had some damn good porn that she stashed very uncreatively in my bedroom when I was a teen, given that the only VCR in the house was in my room. Nice work, Mom. 🙂

Her friend’s husband is a bit of a porn fiend so he’d copy tapes for her. I enjoyed watching them by myself and I’m sure now that I’m older, I wouldn’t be squicked the fuck out by watching them with her. Not completely, anyway. Besides, when I went off to college, she and the asshole o’ the month broke my damn bed, and I’m just glad I didn’t have to witness it!

2. Lick the handle on a public restroom toilet OR eat a wad of toilet paper from the stall floor?
I’m certain I’ve licked worse.

3. Be MC Hammer OR Vanilla Ice?
Oh good lord. Seriously? Seriously? MC Hammer. He’s got an iota more street cred than Ice. But not much more.

4. Be able to fly OR read people’s minds?
See, I’d go with mindreading, which I’m sort of good at anyway. BUT the caveat is that I don’t want to know what some of them are thinking. And my heart would break if I’d predicted otherwise if I’d mindread and it turns out they really despise me.

Of course, if certain people would read my mind, all they’d see is a double-fingered victory salute. Not that it would take a fricking psychic to know what I think of them!

5. Have whatever you want for one year then die OR be paralyzed for life?
“I’d rather have five minutes of wonderful, than a lifetime of nothing special.” Ah, Shelby.

6. Have a permanent smile OR a permanent blank stare?
I sort of rotate between the two. Give me the smile. It just pisses ’em off.

7. Be burned alive OR drown?
Drown. Leaves a better corpse.

8. Be known worldwide as a racist OR a child molestor?
Sweet everlovin’ Jesus. Seriously? Oh, wait, did that line already. Ahem. I like my boys fully grown, thanks, and I don’t care what flavor they come in. I gotta say, I’ve been called a LOT of names in my life, but never either of those. Everything else pales in comparison. *shudder* It’s a wishy-washy answer, but I can’t do it.

9. Eat three pounds of hair OR drink a gallon of shampoo?
Shampoo, I guess. Easier to choke down.

10. Be god OR the devil?
The devil, baybee. I’ve got the sick, sadistic sense of humor to make it an enjoyable odyssey. Besides, more than a few people need a piping-hot pitchfork in their asses, and I’d like to be the one to poke ’em hard.

Updated to mention that I added a Baltimore album to Flickr.

“I need a phone call
I need a plane ride
I need a sunburn
I need a raincoat”

— Counting Crows, “Raining in Baltimore”

Well, it’s not exactly raining in Baltimore, given the scorching sunburn I got there yesterday, but the song comes to mind because I needed that burn. I haven’t seen shit of the sun this summer. I don’t see the sun anymore, period. Another season has gone down the toilet. My fire-engine red skin is my only evidence that summer even came this year. The pool’s about to close and I haven’t been there once. Gah.

The pain feels good, ironically enough. The part that sucks the worst is that it’s a farmer’s tan, as I was wearing a T-shirt I’d picked up in Vegas with cropped sleeves. Luckily my makeup has an SPF of 15 and my face was spared, which was nice as I hung out in the Inner Harbor, watching the sailboats go by.

The thing with me is that I need to be around water. Can’t swim worth a shit, but maybe that’s my draw to it. Despite the magnitude of any body of water, it brings tranquility to me from my comfortable stance at the edge of it. I like being at the Inner Harbor — I like that there are no barriers around it. I like that weird twinge of fear about that yet triumph that I can hang out at the edge and feel like I’ve accomplished something simply by not falling in. 😉

And I wonder, now that I’ve typed all that, why things like pain and fear are such friends to me. Why the status quo makes me more nervous than potential repercussions from a wrong move. Why I have to constantly be earning battle scars, just to prove I’m alive. Why I don’t want to be noticed for these things but right now they’re all I’ve got.

“These train conversations are passing me by
And I dont have nothing to say
You get what you pay for
But I just had no intention of living this way”

I actually had plans yesterday, but anyone who knows me, knows that I need to wriggle out from beneath expectations whenever possible. I hate when people know where to find me. Sometimes it’s because I know they know where to find me but that doesn’t exactly send them running to my side. Other times, it’s because I hate letting people be comfortable, thinking I’ll be here and waiting for when they’re ready to come to me.

It’s rebellion. I don’t know what the hell is happening to me lately, but I am so sick of being a “good” girl — of always doing the “right” thing. I never had a real phase of teenage rebellion. I never needed it. I’ve always tried to be easygoing and pleasing, mostly because I found I could get away with a hell of a lot more (with others’ blessing) if I just presented well in the first place.

I think the biggest act of rebellion I ever did was job-blogging from the Veggie Patch. I always knew that stupid site would be found, but I didn’t care. I quit when they found it — I never gave them a chance to confront me (thank you, SiteMeter). I always figured they wouldn’t have fired me but, rather, tortured me emotionally even more. And I didn’t want them to be able to justify their (continued) shitty treatment of me.

The weirdest part was that the nastier they were to me, the harder I worked. Maybe they knew something after all, that negative reinforcement creates positive behavior. (With the caveat of it being on the surface, in this instance.) Now I work with people who are good to me and who have my back and who I actually look forward to seeing every day, and I love it. But the passion to overachieve seems like it’s been ebbing away. And I wonder if it’s because the torture element doesn’t exist. (Well. … 😉 Heh.)

I think I’ve spent my past lives killing myself to impress people to the point of being so beaten down that I questioned it if I didn’t happen to be hurting at any given time. I’m accustomed to nothing being manageable. When it is, I worry. I create drama so that the universe doesn’t create it for me. When I catch myself in a moment — simply enjoying life or at least not hating it — I don’t feel vital. I don’t feel right.

So, I screw off, screw around and maybe even screw UP. Maybe it’s the caretaker in me who always has to be fixing something, I make myself into an improvement project at every turn. Just a project that I don’t prioritize because I’m too busy making a mess of everything else. Thus, I can truly say I don’t have time for such self-improvement items as eating better, fitness, housecleaning, etc. because the drama queen has sooooo many other things she needs to fix first. And with that list ever-growing, I can make all the excuses I need to keep from ever feeling truly comfortable.

“Theres things I remember and things I forget
I miss you I guess that I should
Three thousand five hundred miles away
But what would you change if you could?”

I know this entry seems to allude otherwise, but I am a happy person. I find happiness wherever I can, usually in moments here and there to keep me going and looking forward to newer and better ones. But my chaos is catching up to me. I am motivated so differently than “normal” people, and I realize it takes pressure or crisis to get me to respond. I drag my feet until a deadline passes before I can get moving. If I don’t find challenge in a situation, I create my own. And in that, I get my rebellion. And I still (usually) manage to shine, because I am full of enough shit that I can talk my way out of anything.

I don’t do well with boundaries, as I spend so much time fighting against them that nothing productive comes out of me. On the other hand, I’ve spent my whole life making decisions for myself and that doesn’t always make them the right ones by default, but I don’t know any other ways and thus I default to habit.

Take exercise. I hate it. I avoid it. It sucks. Thought alone should burn calories; I’d be a goddamned model. But when I drag my ass into a gym or a class, you cannot pull me off the machines. I ache and I turn four shades of red and, but hot damn, I feel alive. Because when I want to do something, I give it all of me. And then I can’t walk the next day or maybe I just can’t free up another three-hour block of time and thus years will go by until I manage to find the motivation/time to do it again. I don’t do anything in moderation, even the healthy stuff.

“This circus is falling down on its knees
The big top is crumbling down
It’s raining in Baltimore 50 miles east
Where you should be, no one’s around”

I wonder what it is in my genetic makeup that makes me fight against the things I need most. I want so much to be happy, healthy, successful, needed, loved. But at the first sign of any of it, I panic. And bolt in the opposite direction. I’ve had doses of each, although not necessarily concurrently. Am I afraid the world’s going to end if I have it all?

If so, then where the hell’s my inner rebel to say let the damn world end, but I’m not gonna let it if it does come to that? More importantly, when am I going to admit that I can’t save it (or, for that matter, myself) all alone? But is there anyone *that* magnanimous out there, and are they as full of doubt about themselves as I can be sometimes and do they just need someone to believe in them as well?

I won’t repeat what a fustercluck it was to get my f’ing car inspected/registered in good old D.C., but the price tag was what got my goat, even more than how we have a fucking DMV that does nothing for you and you’re the asshole doing all the legwork.

So I roll in today and unstuff my overflowing mailbox (it’s been awhile), only to find a notice that I have to either get emissions done on my car (!) (for which I already paid $300 a month ago) or submit my receipt for it. Uh, there’s a copy on file at the DMV, assholes. If you know I live here, and you know my car is registered here, how the FUCK would I have gotten it registered without getting the goddamned emissions test done?!!?? That’s why it took so long to become legal!

Yeah, and their big stamp, “Return in five days”? Kiss my marshmallow cloud of an ass. I ain’t jumpin’ to do your job for you. In fact, I’m going to claim “senior citizen exemption.” I swear, don’t justify your job on my time — you’ve got the computers and the power to look up my ass and see what I had for dinner; I’m sure the local gubmint can at the very least run the fucking VIN number before they generate these insidious requests for me to waste even MORE time.

Bite me.

I have to laugh. I was prattling at length about something work-related and my esteemed colleague looked at me and said, “Wow. You’re really smart!” And was all, “Oh my god, that all just came out of my mouth?”

It’s been a horribly unproductive (counterproductive, even) week, but at least maybe I won’t get fired because at least I understand what’s going on. 😉

I’ve been feeling sort of like, as my grandmother used to say, as useless as tits on a bull. That’s SUGAR tits to you, thankyouverymuch Mr. Gibson!

I don’t know if this week is cursed, but motherfuck. I’ve been busy. I just haven’t been productive. I mean, I have literally ended each day at the exact point where I started it. I am so glad my team never really asks for a time analysis — as long as nothing’s broken, they know we’re keeping it together. It just astounds me how much WORK it takes to make it look like nothing is going on. Jeez!

*kicks this week*

“Jesus, (Goddess) — you have more than enough scandalous underwear. It’s time to create some SCANDAL!” — Mom

Via my best friend, a conversation with her daughter, age 3:

Friend: If anybody ever tries to hurt you or get at you, you just tell me, and I’ll make sure they don’t bother you anymore.
Alex: OK.
Friend: OK, now if somebody scares you — if the boogeyman bothers you, what will you do?
Alex: Get Mommy.
Friend: Excellent. And what will Mommy do?
Alex: Piss them off!

(I swear, you can’t make this stuff up.)

I’d had a mental post all ready to go about fools and freaks (hat tip to Sabre), but I don’t have four hours to write. 😉

So instead, I’ll honor a special little girl who turned 3 years old today, my niece Alex. Here she is with the caterpillar book that I’d bought for NICU bonding sessions. She was two full months early and was at 4.6 pounds in this photo. Her veins had shut down and the NICU nurses had to shave her head and hook up her IVs that way. Which, she promptly ripped out, the brat. 😉

Whenever I want to get all pity-partyish about my own widdle life, I remember this kid’s entry into this world. I remember her mom, my best friend, borrowing money from her parents so she could run out and buy a video camera because the doctors told her that Alex likely wouldn’t live through her second night on this earth. I remember the horrible pregnancy and the almost-relief that at least when Alex was born, my friend could feel better physically, even though she was dying emotionally, watching this baby fight every minute of her life to stay alive.

Alex spent the whole first year of her life on monitors and medicines. I can count on about 12 hands how many overnights were spent in the emergency room because of her breathing or heartbeat or chronic pain that came from having nodes and needles taped to her fragile skin at all times.

And today, she’s 3. It’s been that long since I drove maniacally to GW Hospital to get to see her the afternoon she was born. I wasn’t able to hold her for months — with the stress and the mental exhaustion and the 24/7 care, my friend sort of dropped out of sight for awhile. We are both alike in that if things are going REALLY terribly, we fade from view. It worried and it scared me when she’d go silent, but I understood.

Actually, I take that back. I’d just had surgery a month after Alex was born and was fairly suicidal about it. When I woke up in the recovery room, Alex was on my chest and my friend was at my side. Both of us were hooked up to IVs and monitors, and it was just a moment I won’t forget. I figured if she could get through all her crap, I could get through mine.

Alex doesn’t like anybody other than her mom and maybe even her dad holding her. But she took to me instantly. (Per Sabre, all babies do. And I suspect she might be on to something with that.) I always joked that she heard my voice throughout the pregnancy as her mom and I made big plans for her and for ourselves. That had to be it. Alex is my girl, plain and simple. I would have given her my heart if it would have helped her to get better. And believe me, she holds onto that heart tightly. When she wasn’t flipping us all off, of course.

She never wants to go to sleep. It’s always an ordeal. (Yes, I am the reason for every piece of denim that child owns. Denim rules!) We theorize that she doesn’t want to miss a minute of life. And while we don’t blame her, I hope that when I have a kid, it enjoys taking naps. Because I know I would if I had the chance!

And today, she’s a happy, healthy and completely energetic kid. No complications, no nothing that the doctors had forecast. She’s even got an adorable little brother. So, happy birthday, Princess — don’t grow up too much between now and October when I get out there to see you!

I learned something about myself today, and it’s that the more emotional I get, the more productive I am. I went from buoyant, happy goddess today to boo/hiss/snarl/scratch bitch in a heartbeat. (Yes, there was a reason. Several of them.) And it’s weird how motivated this gets me. When I’m annoyed, I want to pound the keyboard. (And pound back a beer, but decorum, people.)

Now, I know we all have nervous/stressed out energy bursts, but this revelation explains a lot about me. I look back at my past and realize that I can attribute most of my achievements to duress. That feeling of “I don’t know what else to do, so I might as well do something positive with my energy” works wonders. It really does.

A lot of people (who clearly don’t know me well) think I’m quiet and even passive. And good, because that’s what I want them to think. But make me mad, and I start to do things. Not vengeful or unconstructive or even destructive things — I make fucking fondue out of government cheese.

I’ve often been told to just not care so much. To not let the little things get under my skin and ruin my day. But that’s not me. I’m cool in crisis moments, so let me have my meltdown moments over the frustrating shit that’s tiny and yet that I cannot control. They’re the reason why I get anything done at all.

Sometimes it seems that forces are purposely trying their damndest to keep you from accomplishing anything at all. Justifying their existence, I suppose. And it takes me getting into my zone of “I don’t hear you. I don’t see you. La la la la la la laaaaaaa” for me to rise above it all and do my own thing and win something that shouldnt have been an issue in the first place. I win by feeling like I accomplished something. I feel defeated when I have nothing to show for my efforts.

That’s why I blog, people. It’s a victory every time I hit that “publish” button. At the end of the day, even if it’s all I have to show that I did something, anything that day, damn it, I’ll take it.

Via Amy, (Ms. Marmot, if you’re nasty. And you know you are!), personalized greetings from Samuel L. Jackson have been cracking my shit up all morning.

Click here for Snakes on a (Mothafuckin’) Plane: interactive edition!