Caterwauling

… on “Cops.”

From iAttire, the iPod wifebeater!

But wait, there’s more — gutchies, too!

Spotted at the inimitable Irk’s.

Yet, I am seriously thinking Sugarland’s new song, “Want To,” is more than just a touch inspired by Mr. Jon Bon Jovi.

I was listening to it a dozen times in the car yesterday and I’ll admit, I alays thought those two had a little flirtation or maybe even a “thing” since they did some musical collaboration last year. Anyway, on the new song, there’s a lyric that makes me wonder:

“You’ve got a dream of a degree
And a shirt that smells like me.”

Now, I can name dozens of interviews with Jon during the past 20 years when he’s made the point that he’s only graduated high school — that life has been his educator. I vaguely remember a song lyric about it but I have 100-plus Bon Jovi songs in iTunes and I don’t have all day to listen to them to figure it out. 🙂

In any event, leaving behind an item spritzed with some cologne sounds like something I’d do, or ask someone to do. Meaning, someone’s gotta go and there’s otherwise no trace of them.

Or maybe it’s just the writer in me looking for underlying meanings that don’t exist. Or the writer is just looking for fodder for her new book. Whichever. Yet I can’t stop listening to that song now and wondering where Jennifer Nettles’ mind was when she penned that lyric. …

So apparently it’s been determined that I actually *have* a personality, as I had to have it assessed this week. It changed again, but not too much.

Last installment of my personal voyage, I was crowned an ENFP. Extrovert. Intuitive. Feeling. Perceiving. Whee.

I had to retake the test and came up with the Feeling being replaced with Thinking. (ha!). I usually do test as an ENTP, although it’s a little “t” because I don’t like to think. Hurts my widdle brain. 😉

I did apparently score the highest in the class in the Intuitive bit. 100%, actually, and 21 out of 22 on the Perceiving side. Having a touch of psychic ability probably doesn’t hurt matters, I’m sure!

There were two of us with off-the-charts intuitive skills. The instructor put the two of us in a group, and holy crap, were we cognitively identical. (Our only variation is that she scored as an Introvert, which is funny because I’m the one with my head up my butt most of the time.) The instructor asked us to write our names with our right hands. (Easy, breezy.) Then to do so with our left hands. And strangely enough, my buddy and I did that just as quickly too.

The instructor looks at my paper and said, “I haven’t had anybody ambidextrous in my class in six years.” I pointed to my friend and said, “She is, too.” Basically, we defeated the whole exercise about how challenging it is to step out of the side of the brain (and, thus, personality indicator) you’re accustomed to functioning in.

That’s life, though. I hate deadlines and structure and dress codes and “have tos.” My challenge to myself has always been to figure out how to test the boundaries enough to retain my individuality and feel like I did it “my way.”

My score between Thinking and Feeling was a toss-up, at 14-to-10. The instructor said it will probably move more toward the F if I go on to have kids, as it did with her, because you lose your thinking time. (Which would explain why “Grey’s Anatomy” writers are turning our beloved hardass, Miranda Bailey, into a candyass instead. Bastids!) But she did tell me I could choose which one felt right for me.

So, I opened up my little manual and read the differences. ENFPs (my former label) get stressed the hell out by structure, confrontation, conflict, solitude, routine tasks, undemanding situations, emotionally unpleasant conditions, meetings and regulation. Heh. Exactly.

But then Sabre read my latest label (ENTP) and its stress-inducing list, and she said, “Holy shit, that’s you!”

ENTPs are wigged out by too much time alone (mostly true for me), routine, long meetngs, repetitive details (I can’t believe I’m typing two lists. So true!), deadlines, structure, close supervision (amen) and … this was the clincher … “spewing of emotions by others.”

Sabre reminded me of some chick we saw at a bar, who was crying and bawling and making an ass out of herself. What I didn’t realize and that Sabre did is that I stepped somewhere outside of my mind with annoyance and wanted to clobber her. And I did, I remember now. It’s a bar. Drink, smoke and be merry. Listen to music and stay the fuck out of my space if you’re not going to illuminate it.

Or, like I told Sabre, “When I’m not the dysfunctional one in the room, there’s a problem. Those who make me look normal have to be REALLY fucked up.”

That probably explains my love/hate relationship with Meredith Grey. (Shut up, I’d watch TV for a living if I could.) When everyone was calling her “dark and twisty” on the show, I was like, oh yeah, that’s an understatement. So when I was sobbing at my desk yesterday as I said goodbye to my beloved colleague, I realized that I am, in fact, dark and twisty Meredith.

I can’t stand Mer and her problems but you know what? Give me a bout of dysentery so I can fit into her child’s size 6X jeans and I would SO be her. She makes me mad because she reminds me of me. Over-the-top emotional. Guileless. Compulsive. Driven by her heart. (And crotch, apparently. Ahem.) Rendered immobile by choice and conflict. Too busy fighting inside herself to fight for anything else.

As for me, I’m still on the fence about ENFP versus ENTP. The FP is more OCD (how’s that for alphabet soup?), forgetful, prone to depression, disorganized, impatient and sarcastic. (Me? Sarcastic? Hahahaaaaaa.) And the TP (Great. Toilet Paper. Yup, now I see this one will win!) becomes frustrated, unfocused and mouthy; makes excuses; is irritated with others’ incompetence; and is self-critical.

I guess that settles it. ENTP, it is. Incidentally, Sabre and I had complained to the instructor about the either/or nature of the test, and now that I have my scorecard in-hand, apparently NT types hate choosing between two rights and two wrongs. Ha. Which explains why, when I go to rip my mechanic a new asshole today, I will be torn between murdering him or putting my foot up his ass and kicking him across six lanes of traffic!

I am sort of annoyed because with the new and improved iTunes, I can’t (yet) strip the DRM from a song to save my widdle life. I wasn’t planning on file-sharing, just streaming it up here.

Oh well, If you like Sugarland, their new single “Want To” is my new earworm of the week. No reason for that. Well, none that I’d share, anyway! 😉

So my best friend calls to say to me, very blase-like and shit, that she just tried to feed her 1-year-old son cat food.

She didn’t mean to — she was looking at the cats and thinking that they should be fed, too. So she went and dipped her hand in what she thought was the Cheerios box and was about to dump it on the kid’s high-chair tray, only to realize just as her hand touched the plastic that it was not human food.

Sad thing is, the boy’s a little eating machine — he probably would have loved it. She reports that the cats were quite pissed off that not only does the child get all the attention in the house, but also all the food. 🙂

Sadder still, for the decade-plus that I’ve had cats myself, if it were me I’m not overly sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing. And for as preoccupied as I always seem to be, I worry that I wouldn’t have noticed my mistake within a reasonable amount of time!

Garfield and friend

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Scenes from the backseat of my car. Garfield’s buckled in ’cause I drive like a maniac and he ends up in the front seat sometimes otherwise. 😉 I got him a girlfriend last weekend, a Steelers teddy bear cheerleader. (Oh, the stories THAT can invoke. …)

Note that Big G is wearing a Washington Capitals hat. I have my loyalties — just to different cities!

Anyway, this makes me smile when I come out to my car, even though I want to torch the fucking thing sometimes. (Damn mechanics broke the coolant chamber, so the instrument panel’s all lit up no matter how much fluid I pour into it ’cause it’s always emtpy. Whee.)

It’s interesting to realize people think I’m acting out-of-character when, for once, I am being completely and totally myself.

It took being in a class where I actually got to talk and laugh and interact with the people I normally e-mail/IM to bring me out of my little shell, which I will promptly retreat back into today. I am so out-of-my element anymore — I try so hard to keep my mouth shut and my head down, but it’s so not me to not have an opinion (and a strong one) about everything (one that I cannot help but voice).

I find though that even though I’ve been reining in my veritable Tourette’s syndrome, it’s like it still emanates via body language anyway. I love how we’re trained and encouraged and rewarded to stuff a sock in it — that’s how you get ahead in life, apparently. So, when I get those rare moments when I can be over-the-top, everyone can excuse it as me being passionate. But deep down inside, I know that the real me is still alive and well and waiting for a chance to paint the town.

I’ve missed you, old girl. Hang in there for a little while longer. …

Perhaps every woman should come with a manual on “101 Ways to Not Irritate the Everloving Shit Out of Her,” but I would imagine that calling me during the season premiere of “Grey’s Anatomy” would be a freaking given to not DARE do.

To whom it concerns: If you know I’m ignoring you and you want to try to reach me during a time you know I will be available, fer crissakes, can ya at least ring the goddamned phone during a commercial break?

I mean, Meredith lost her panties! I couldn’t catch my breath from laughing. (I feel ya, sister!) Too bad it was Life screwing me that day and not McDreamy. Or any of the hot men on the show. *swoon*

No time to blawg today; all-day training, with projects bookending it. Tonight, social time!

Meanwhile, on the subject of trainings, Classic Caterwauling saves my ass with content for today.

Read my June 8, 2004, entry called “Exercise in Futility” below the fold:

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Sherri asked:

What are/were your relationship dealbreakers?

It’s a case-by-case basis. For some, it’s the fact that they’re still living and breathing.

I mean, I get frustrated because one bolts for the exits at the first sign of turbulence and I get mad at another because I’m trying to hit them on the ass with the door and they’re too dumb to start walking. I want to wallop one with no sense of humor and yet strangle one who can’t take anything seriously.

The obvious dealbreakers, of course, include a wife/live-in/steady. Kids usually put me off, especially those who might live there part- or full-time. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not that I (completely) hate other people’s offspring.

But the not-so-obvious dealbreaker, and one that’s only a recent addition, is a lack of chivalry.

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