Caterwauling

No time to write, and nothing worth writing home about, anyway. Am surfing Expedia for hotel rooms in a mountain resort town for this weekend because plane tickets have been procured and yet a landing place has yet to be determined.

I’ve rented a car because it’s mandatory to drive far, far away from the cliched airport town. Am also wondering whether it’s smart to pack a winter coat. Not like you’ll catch my ass skiing or anything (hah), but you know, wouldn’t want to put anyone’s eye out along the way. 😉 (It’s 39 degrees there right now.)

I’m trying to find a nice hotel that won’t break the bank because I’d actually like to get some spa services done. (That mountain air is good for ya, but I’d like to get a little more pampering than that.) Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me I CAN do it.

Mini-vacation, you’re almost mine. …

So I don’t want this blog to turn into any more of an existential crisis than it already is, but it was my second week at church, and I’m not quite finding that sense of belonging that I thought would be instant and maybe even imminent.

Today’s message was on marriage and compatibility and understanding our differences and learning to find common ground. Which I guess I could apply to other relationships in my life, but right now, I’m just crabby about the concept because I feel like I’m always the one making the compromises and, frankly, I’m sick of it.

These days, I do things to avoid repercussions — avoiding an argument, dodging a multi-layer guilt trip, escaping somebody looking at me with sad eyes because I’m not the person they expect that I should be. Moreover, I am trying so hard to retain/generate things that make me happy (or would make me happy) and, yet, the feeling that what little shred of sanity I can cling to is ONLY important to me.

Perhaps the most interesting part of today’s message is that women in particular either feel like we’re “not enough” or else we’re “too much.” We’re not pretty/skinny/motivated enough some days and other days we’re too career-focused/self-involved/emotional. They said that men would rather be alone than feel inadequate, and yet women don’t seem to know how NOT to feel inadequate sometimes.

For me, I feel inadequate in this church setting. I’ve gone twice (three if you count the day I came as it was ending) and I have yet to feel any sort of connection to it. Maybe it’s that I’ve spent my life as an agnostic as well as someone who occasionally sticks her nose in a spellbook to figure out how to bring about good things, but I feel like a fraud if I call myself a Christian.

And I couldn’t be at a better church for someone like me — to say it’s not your typical hellfire-and-brimstone approach is an understatement. But I still feel lost. The friend who recommended it, well, I have yet to run into at this place, which I’m almost taking as a sign that I’m basically just going and hanging out somewhere for the sake of killing time.

And while we’ve never made plans to run into each other, I figured I’d at least connect to some side of my spirituality somewhere along the line. But I haven’t, not yet. I’m going to have to miss next week’s session, so if I know me, I probably won’t get up the motivation to go back in two weeks or so.

I feel like I’m going as an escape. That I can have 90 uninterrupted minutes of “me” time — two hours if you add the driving time. And if that’s the case, why not just go to a coffee shop instead?

There’s a mixer for the new people tonight, which I’m skipping. I didn’t plan to skip it. It is still part of my “carving out ‘me’ time” plan to get to know these people I’m sitting next to each weekend. But my time is being demanded elsewhere, and if it saves me a guilt trip or 20 to stare at them like they want me to, then I guess that’s what I have to do, to get some goddamned peace.

I thought I was ready to start my spiritual journey. I really did. But a part of me is wondering whether I’ll ever be ready, because right now I need some guidance and I thought this was the way to go about getting it, but I don’t know. Somehow, I feel more lost than ever when I look up at the sky and wonder whether anyone really is listening.

The real reason I’m annoyed at feeling like I have to miss tonight’s event is because I don’t think I’m going to find God in the sermons. I think I’ll find Him through involvement, interaction, action.

I’m about as well-adjusted as I’m going to get for the time being — but a part of me misses being involved in the non-profit sector because at least I was helping people, from time to time. I don’t get much in the way of that kind of personal satisfaction anymore. Maybe I need to blow the dust off of my fund-raising skills and do what comes naturally instead of (just) forcing myself to show up and not really singing along.

But what I have to wrestle with, when I look at it that way, is why I’m more eager to reach out and connect with perfect strangers than the ones looking right in my face for some level of compassion.

All right, who didn’t melt in their seats last night when McDreamy told Meredith that he wanted to die in her arms? That he wants to marry her and have kids with her and build a house for her but, alas, emotionally she’s still just an intern? And that he’d wait for her but if he found someone else who was as ready as he was for all those things, who only knows what’ll happen?

That reminds me of my last dating adventure, how the guy had the house, the kids, the dog. And maybe he wanted to be as free-spirited as I am. But it was all about the kids. They had to come first. And therefore, I never could. So I opted not to come (ha!) at all. 🙂

But girls by nature are supposed to be ready to settle down when the right guy comes along. Hell, most of them are ready when the WRONG one presents himself. And I don’t want to find myself 20 years from now, looking at someone and dreaming of suffocating them with a pillow — and being awake while I have that dream. *shudder*

I was driving to work today, wondering whether women of my generation were born without the nesting gene. How else can you explain how so many of us are not even just uninterested but pretty much repelled by the thought of forever? Or is it just the quality of people we’re meeting that gives us the gut instinct to let them fuck you but never love you, like Meredith is doing to McDreamy now?

I can perhaps name one or two times that maybe I was the one who wanted to settle down but the guy wasn’t having it. And by “settle down,” I mean “settle.” I am not talking house/marriage/kids/dog — I’m talking “get me off this ride because I’m experiencing motion sickness.” And it’s pretty freaking frightening when I’m the one who’s closer to where I want to be in life.

Of course, it should be known that there’s been a player in the shadows who, if he’d just come to his senses, I could settle down for. (And in this case, I do mean settle down.) Of course, what if he got that bonk over the head that made him come to his senses? Would I go all Meredith (as I’ve been told I’m as dark and twisty as she is) and say terrific, let’s go for the “48 uninterrupted hours” instead of aspiring for “the lifetime”?

BOOM.

That’s all. Leave a poor penguin alone, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Three blogs in one. Aren’t you lucky?

Things I’ve learned today:

1. When you do favors for people, they expect more favors.

Don’t do people favors. Or, charge them so that it’s less a favor than an exchange of money for services. That way, the annoying follow-up that comes to your work phone, cell phone, e-mail and Instant Messenger account all at once as they kill themselves to track you down won’t make you want to stab yourself (or them) for trying to be nice.

2. My team? Is Teh Awesome.

After spending the morning in training on how to build effective teams, I know I have a cakewalk right now in that realm. The group activities reinforced it, as I cannot fathom why some people refuse to participate. Then again, I saw that same thing in action last week — if you’re invited to an event by senior management, for god’s sake, adding to the conversation IS NOT OPTIONAL.

We did some sort of consensus-building exercise in which our plane crashed in the Amazon and we had to figure out the importance of the items we needed to take with us to find civilization, of the items we had available. My group immediately got about doing the task, and let me tell you, those were six strong personalities. But we had fun and we talked and we really “got” the consensus-building stuff.

However, I admit that I personally was somewhat of a hindrance to it, because we landed in a coconut grove and one of our available items was a pack of cigarettes, which I ranked as “very important” to take with us. While others debated the merits of the cigarettes, I was lagging behind in the coconut grove, making rum drinks and chain-smoking.

And while the discussion arose about just how important the revolver would be to our survival, I made the argument that we needed to prioritize the mosquito nets, which they didn’t feel the same about (one of the girls actually had been to the Amazon and said she barely needed a net there). So I decided I should turn the mosquito net into pantyhose. And that the revolver was getting used on anyone who wouldn’t let me have a smoke (they said a nonsmoker should control the pack).

The group consensus? That I’d be the first one they killed and ate. 🙂

At which point I said we should use the 20 boxes of matches we had available and just burn down the whole rainforest and light up a celebratory smoke and drink my rum.

Lesson learned? I’m perhaps the most-fun person to work for, but you don’t ever want to be stranded on an island with me.

3. My car insurance company is Teh Suckage.

My policy expired awhile ago. I contacted them before said expiration to ask where the fuck my new ID card and policy were. They said they would mail them. This was 20 days ago. We now have a 14-message-long e-mail chain in which I begged them to send me the policy and card via e-mail so I can download, review, print and pay. I disagree with the amount they want to charge me, and I don’t see the point of making a payment if I don’t have the policy OR the proof of coverage in-hand.

Insurance company e-mailed me the other day, “Do you want us to send you the policy via e-mail? What about the ID card?” AFTER I HAD ASKED THEM TO SEND BOTH.

So I write back today, “Since you have not MAILED me the policy/cards as-requested, please see my original e-mail to yes, please, E-MAIL me both items.”

So they write back, “You have to make that type of request over the phone.”

KILL. KILL. KILL.

Clearly Asinine Insurance Company employs the people who refused to cooperate with the task in No. 2. There were those of us who forged ahead and tried to get our team to safety, and then there were the dead weights who refused to leave the crash site that was 80 miles from civilization. I hope an alligator eats them, and I hope I was smart enough to walk away with the revolver so that they couldn’t be saved!

All right, I’m all about procrastinating right now. Which means, blogging!

So, church. I’m not jumping for joy over it right now, but since I’m known for not giving anybody or anything much of a chance before passing judgment, I’m going to take it for what it’s worth and be open to going back. I mean, a church that permits and perhaps even encourages people to wear jeans and Ravens shirts, well, can’t be all bad, right? 😉

Sunday’s sermon was on making things right. It focused more on us as being the ones who did the screwing-up, and while I do more than my fair share of that, I still didn’t walk away with how to forgive people who are 14-karat fuckups, particularly when their asininity bleeds over into my sphere.

One thing the pastor said resonated with me: “Qualifying your apology disqualifies your apology.” And I take that to heart, because I’ve received more half-assed apologies than China has rice, and I’ve probably uttered a few insincere ones in my day just to patch things up and move on already.

I’m big on moving on. The faster, the better. But what I’m finding is that those obnoxious situations tend to follow you wherever you go. And it’s time to put the kibosh on them, once and for all. And if it means that little black cloud has to burst and dump thunder, lightning and rain on me, then fine. Just get it out of your system and go agitate someone else.

The pastor asked us to reflect on when someone truly hurt us, and we were to think about what we would have wanted/needed from that person to make it right so that we could move on.

My list, in no particular order:

• 1. For the offending party to just die already. A gruesome death.
• 2. For the offending party to be tortured mercilessly. And not by me, as I am now a good Christian and all. 😉
• 3. For Karma to kick their ass around the Beltway. Seventy-two times around that 64-mile stretch.
• 4. For the offending party to lose 10 times what they took from me.
• 5. For the offending party to have someone shit on their face the next time they find themselves in the 69 position.

And everybody wonders why I need some religion in my life!

In any event, the message was to think of what the people who have hurt you could/should do to make it up to you, and do that for others you’ve hurt. And maybe even to do it for them, although I’m not ready for that. I may never be.

I’ve got a short list of three people who could move heaven and earth to make it up to me, and I still don’t know that I could change the way I look at them. I’ve searched my soul for what I could have done to elicit the level of abuse that they’ve generated. I can forgive easily, but it’s hard to come to terms with it when it’s stuff people should just know better than to do. It’s one thing to let go of the bad things that were done, but still another to come to terms with how you could have misjudged people so much.

Now with certain others, yeah, I could see where they’d want to kick my ass. But those people aren’t spiteful and hateful about it. Just as I try not to be. I only have so much energy to go around, and I’m trying to use it to better myself than to attempt to exact vengeance for a war that simply cannot truly be won.

The most interesting part of the service was when the pastor read a letter that his pastor friend in Chicago received from an 11-year-old girl whose father was an abusive alcoholic. She, in her wise-beyond-her-years vantage point, said her dad was “a red shirt in a white load of laundry.”

Wow.

Red shirt. White load of laundry.

I just threw in a red shirt with a cream-colored sweater, incidentally. And boy, is that sweater a hideous shade of pink now. And no matter how many times I wash that thing, the color will not come out.

But do I throw it away, keep trying, or simply learn to like what I ended up with?

And if that isn’t the eternal and existential question, I don’t know what is.

The last time I went to church for something other than a wedding, I wanted to stab my eyes out. I went to Easter mass with my best friend and her then-fiance (now husband). So when my friends got wind of the fact that I was contemplating going to church regularly, they declared I was either trying to impress a guy or that I had been dared (because I can never turn down a dare).

They’re half-right. It is for a guy. And that guy being God.

I attended my first service today, as I did have an automotive escapade, but nowhere near last week’s needing of a battery to make the car go. (My antenna got broken in the car wash, so it had to be replaced. I’m ready to start praying for the damn car.)

I have a lot of thoughts on today’s message, which was basically about fixing screw-ups — whether they were yours or not, because you can’t really move forward until you reach some sort of peace or truce, however uneasy it might ultimately be.

I’m not saying I agree with it. But it got me thinking, and I guess that’s what it was supposed to do. And I’m sure it’ll provide plenty of blog fodder for the upcoming week.

Something I’ve got to come to terms with, as an aside, is that there is a strip mall right next to the church, so I’ll be very light on cash if I did what I did today, which was hit every possible store. 🙂 Which brings me to yet another possible reason I may come to like this church thing after all — I get some spiritual enlightenment, and then I shop. Talk about satisfying the target audience! (Or, Tar-zhay audience. Whichever.)

“Maybe I was much too selfish
But baby you’re still on my mind
Now I’m grown and alone
And wishing I was with you tonight.”

— The Wreckers, “Tennessee”

It’s a rare, quiet Saturday night. Summer has gracefully stepped back and allowed fall to blow its draft up our skirts, chilling us to the bone and promising us something different than what we’re used to.

Mercury is also retrograding, so the universe feels a bit off-balance. And yet, it’s seemingly always off-kilter, so I tend to feel less sure when all is supposedly well.

I’ve been noticing something about myself lately, how I can’t seem to finish a project. I don’t think of it as a deficiency, but rather a recognition that my strength is barfing out ideas and letting others figure out the execution part. I’ve been sort of ass-deep in the day-to-day matters, which hasn’t given me much time or leftover creativity to really jump headlong onto paths not yet pioneered.

And therein is my strength — spelunking through the unknown. It’s less daunting than downright enthralling. It’s the whole, “OK, now I know how it works; I must maintain the velocity” where I start to wander.

I don’t finish a lot of things. Or, rather, I finish by passive-aggressive proxy. I get two dozen responses to my dating profile and then stop responding to them all. Hell, I take down the profile so I don’t have to take that next step. I also make a whole lot of friends and then I fall off the earth for myriad reasons. It’s not personal, just business. Seriously. Then I make a whole bunch of new friends because I cannot think of one thing to say to most of the old ones. I can’t pick up a phone without having three things to discuss. I’ve been that way my whole life.

I rarely dial someone just to chat. It’s similar to the trend in business in which we’re gravitating away from voicemail. It’s delayed communication. Hell, half the time, I’m not even at my desk. But an e-mail/IM gets my attention. Maybe not POSITIVE attention, because I hate that I can’t be in a meeting without someone knowing where to find me at all times, but ya know. Talkin’ ’bout my generation and all. 🙂

My past has sort of been in my head lately. Not prominently, but someone from a thousand years ago just had a milestone birthday. Not that I acknowledged it. (He wouldn’t have wanted me to, and I didn’t want to anyway.) It was one of those rare times that I was forced to change direction in mid-sprint — against my own will.

And it’s really (not) funny what it did to me — I meet people I do like, and I talk myself out of it. Immediately, if not sooner. I call it intuition and maybe even self-preservation. You can’t hurt over what probably wasn’t meant for you anyway.

But to my detriment, I can’t attach myself to anything as a result. Don’t get me wrong — I care very deeply about plenty of people, things and tasks. But I’ve also got the escape latch in my hand at all times, because if others aren’t going to invested down the road, I won’t be too hurt about it.

I wonder what life would be like if I didn’t hold myself back by default. I know exactly what’s keeping me from being an outright, smashing success in all areas of my life. But that’s the thing — I identify the problem, I have a thousand creative ways to solve it, and … I start over from a different point instead of working on solving the conundrum du jour. Commitment scares me more than anything because it means I have to work on me, and that means I’m not as perfect as I think I am. 🙂

I’m not sure what I want to do with all this information. Maybe to pick a cause and stick to it. Maybe to justify wiping the slate clean once again. Maybe to WANT to get out of this pattern because it looks terrible in black-and-white. Moreover, maybe to remind myself to finish my battles so that things from the past can stay there and stop rearing their ugly little heads at the least-opportune moments.

I like waking up and looking forward to what each day will bring. What I don’t like is ending a day with thoughts about how I wished that it had gone. But perhaps recognizing that is the first step toward feeling the sense of accomplishment that I seem to prevent myself from enjoying.

With relationships and project goals, I’ve always been a fan of the thrill of the chase. But maybe I’ve gotten it wrong all along — maybe the real thrill is being pumped up from meeting outcomes that will carry me to the next, bigger challenges.

I’ve never been a fan of coloring inside the lines, but if someone could help me to draw some dotted lines as a suggested border, I’d blow them away. But that someone, right now, has got to be me. So, I’m going to start moving in baby steps toward what I KNOW I need to be doing. Like, I need to sign up for an exercise class as opposed to getting myself to the gym “whenever.” I need that “you must be here at this time on this day” regimen.

Similarly, I’m never going to write that novel of my own accord, but I can take a course on how to write one well. And nothing bugs me more than spending money to learn something and not using that knowledge.

Goals are tough for me because I dream big. It can be just as daunting as it is energizing. I envision the endings of my books before I ever type a single word. But setting smaller goals has always annoyed me because it has meant (to me) that I have to scale down my dreams. Which isn’t necessarily true; I know that now. It’s less about thinking smaller than seeing whether the things I think I want are really, well, what I’ll want in the long run.

Some people fear failure. Me, I’m paralyzed by the prospect of success. But no more — I just started a hobby with no real goal other than to enjoy it. But if it takes off and takes me somewhere new, I’m going to fight for it and not let it end up in the heap of “could’ve beens.” Whatever will be, will be, even if I have to go against my very nature to make it so. …

The Racer, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

The Racer, which is the dueling wooden coaster at Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh. This is as close as I get to a roller coaster these days — across the water is near enough!

Oh, where do I even begin?

• I’d like to know why my iPhone selectively uploads photos. I took 12 photos this week. I know that for a fact. But only nine got uploaded. And two of the photos are all black on the computer, which, they weren’t on the phone. Usually, I hit “delete originals” when I do the upload, but today I didn’t choose that option, and it confirmed my suspicion that my memory wasn’t failing me about photos I could have SWORN that I had taken.
• I’d also like to know why my iTunes selectively acknowledges the iPhone’s presence on my Mac. I hate having to close everything down and do a restart so I can sync the fucking thing. Perhaps I need to move my 6,000-song library to my laptop (ugh) and sync from there. Either that or drag the G4 tower over to the Genius Bar.
• Roomie’s been out of town for a week. They’ve stayed where they are because, according to them, I didn’t provide return directions. Um, you found your way here to move in, yes? Did you not acquaint yourself with a map once you arrived at your destination? Seriously. It’s been a terrific week, BTW. 🙂 Best week ever!
• My best friend may be coming to a state or two south of me for Christmas. I am looking at hotel room prices in the area. That’s the thing — beachfront hotels are cheap in December … EXCEPT the week between Christmas and New Year’s, because most of them do New Year’s Eve packages. Grumble, hiss, piss, moan. And isn’t it bad enough I’m at the beach but can’t GO to it?
• Twitter, I can’t quit you, even though you won’t load in Firefox on my laptop anymore. Thank god for PocketTweets.
• So the jury’s still out whether I will go to church tomorrow (maybe I’ll hit the earlier services — fewer people to witness the apocalypse), but I have no bible. Actually, I had one, years ago, but I left it on the curb with a bunch of other books I didn’t think I’d need (like marketing books. Who knew I’d get into marketing five years later?!?!) when I left Pittsburgh.

  But never fear — I’ve got the best holy book on the planet right here: Teh Holiez Bibul (lolcat-style). From the Book of Job: “Teh Ceiling Cat giv me cheezburger, teh Ceiling Cat takded mah cheezburger awai. I stil laiks teh Ceiling Cat.”