Caterwauling

I remember when staying out all night on a Sunday meant finding a “buck a bottle” beer special and an accompanying “wing night” deal. Last night, I got home late because I went to a church meeting.

I finally decided to accept an invitation to talk with the church elders about my spiritual journey. There were other folks there, too, and let me tell you, I was praying for the strength to NOT go slam them over the head with a Bible because all they did was talk-talk-talk about everyone at the church they just left (in a nice way) and yap-yap-yap about everybody they knew in common with our lead pastor. I was silently moving my complaint bracelet from wrist to wrist, because the thoughts were very un-Christian-like. 🙂

It’s funny how the elders knew me but no one could put a name with the face. The pastor’s wife had seen me bring in the wrapped Christmas gift for the toy drive yesterday (she had complimented my mad wrapping skillz) and the pastor himself had actually tapped me on the shoulder after the service. I told him later, “When you did that, I knew that, damn, I had to come to tonight’s meeting!”

They were sort of fascinated by me, because everyone else in the room was all holy rollin’ all their lives and there I was, smiling and joking nodding along and yet still sort of distrustful of the whole deal. And I made a comment about my dear friend Tiff who encouraged me to get my “heathen ass to church” and they loved that. Of course, they asked how I heard about them and I mentioned the source of the referral, and that’s probably why they liked me — always helps to know someone they adore!

The pastor figured out that it’s not that I distrust religion, but church itself. Which is a thousand percent true, although I probably shouldn’t have admitted that I have my skeptical moments with some elements of the sermons, too. And I said I continually question my own motivation for seeking out a formal religious setting in the first place — I go there for peace of mind, for escape, for a chance to be around happy, faithful people whom I assume are wonderful, upstanding citizens. But whether or not those are the “right” reasons, I still keep showing up, figuring I’ll find whatever it is I’m supposed to be looking for eventually.

I basically go to get the hell away from myself and expectations I can never seem to meet — and I like the whole “none of us is perfect” approach that they take, that if we had achieved the final rung on our spiritual climb, then none of us would need church in our lives.

A lot of the attendees of our little group last night were sort of saying that they were looking for a church and they didn’t know whether this was the right one for them. It’s funny — of all the things I’m grappling with, this is the one thing I never doubted for a moment. That, if I’m going to do this, this is where I want to be doing it.

They say we all have “next steps” to take. For me, they handed me a book and said to just keep on coming till the spirit moves me to get more involved. Because you know, just coming to church is only part of how you should be serving the Lord. That is, you need to be making a difference in the community, whether your own or the greater global community. But we all agreed I have decades of damage (distrust, indifference, disbelief) to undo, so I get a pass till I come to some sort of internal peace that I’m ready to turn my life over to Christ.

And that’s a lot to ask. I think it’ll happen — I’m just sort of like, whoa, this is HUGE. Far bigger than anything I can wrap my little head around. But then again, as the pastor said, if something existential/spiritual can be solved by us mere mortals, then that would make it, well, NOT supernatural, yes? I guess I just don’t want to blindly walk into something I don’t understand, but on the other hand, isn’t that what “taking it on faith” is all about?

I wish sometimes to have a schedule of which pastor will be speaking at church, because I would probably opt to skip certain sermons. Today would have been one of them.

Don’t get me wrong — I dig the lessons. I like the atmosphere. I even think the guy’s a good speaker. But the only time we start hearing about hellfire and brimstone is when this one gets his hands on the microphone, and it always manages to turn me off more than it manages to scare me.

Today we talked about lying and all its various forms, such as breaking promises, insincere flattery, withholding the truth (or half-assing it) for whatever reason, exaggeration, etc. I’m certainly guilty of all of the above. I want to be authentic, but I’m also not going to make somebody cry when I can use the opportunity to make them, if not feel better, then at least not let them dwell on stuff.

Besides, doesn’t everyone in this world need a little more encouragement? Positive reinforcement works wonders. Believe me — I’ve been at the receiving end of enough “constructive criticism” and guilt trips to know.

Part of today’s lesson is that lying is not conducive to your spiritual journey. They used a Bible quote about taking off your old self (i.e., your heathen ass) and becoming someone God would approve of. The analogy was “like taking off your Wal-Mart clothes and going shopping at Hollister.” And that irritated me for some reason. I like the occasional item I pick up from Wal-Mart. Hollister isn’t my style or my budget.

It reminded me of an old job full of people to whom I would NEVER look for inspiration or advice, and yet they felt the need to convey to me that I needed some sort of makeover. Yeah, like any of them had room to talk. And hey, you want me to be different — feel FREE to pay for it. *kick*

Where was I? Grr. Anyway. Basically everyone who even tells so much as a white lie to spare someone’s feelings is destined to burn in hell, and yet, even if you don’t say a word when you supposedly should, you’ll be in the pit of burning sulfur with them. So, essentially, all of us in middle management know where WE’RE ending up!!!

You know, I tell the truth at home all the damn time. And all it gets me is aggravation. I’m well-aware of the repercussions of saying EXACTLY what runs through your mind not only the second it appears, but also how much FUN it is when you bottle it up and something else sets off a torrent of “oh and BY THE WAYs.”

One last thing that got stuck in my craw was the reading of one of the Proverbs, that “Give me neither poverty nor riches; but give me only my daily bread.” That conflicts mightily with the Law of Attraction. That’s why when you get on a suck streak, things continue sucking because you’re attracting the status quo because you can’t see far enough beyond it.

I think others’ little black clouds have impacted me too much over the years. I think I’m happy. I want to be happy. Fuck it, I want to be happier. I want to be so fucking happy that you can whack me with a pinata stick and a whole shitload of sunshine and rainbows comes out.

But therein lies the eternal challenge — keeping all eyes on the sunshine and being able to look beyond those little dark clouds. Not just peeking at the sun — fixating on it full-force and not even acknowledging what’s blocking your full-on view of it. Feeling the warmth even when you can’t see that giant yellow orb. Envisioning it shining on you even in the black of night.

I guess I’ve gotten into a suck streak for the past few weeks. Per the law of vibrational energy, I’ve attracted it and continue to attract it. At this point, all I want for Christmas is a strong hopeful vibe. Just one good — nay, fucking AMAZING — thing to happen so that it will generate more of the same.

In any case, one thing I TOTALLY agreed with in the service was that we need to get rid of the liars and the soul-suckers and the assholes in our lives — that we need to pursue relationships only with authentic people. And sweet Jesus and holy mother of God, I sing hallelujah to that one. Attracting great people usually attracts MORE great people who are leading good lives and that goodness can rub off. So, if anyone out there is having a success streak, would you let me rub you (heh — I really didn’t mean it THAT way) for good luck of my own?

I might has well have just gone “out” out yesterday, for all the money I ended up spending.

Fuck you, Montgomery County “Safe Speed,” for the ticket and the late fee. You’ll get it even later now. I’d like to issue you a cordial invitation to eat me. 😉

Speaking of things that make my crotch twitch, I went to Toys R Us to get a gift for a kid who has the misfortune to be under the care of Human Services. And what a clusterfuck that turned out to be. Not just the rude people in the toy store who bang into you with their carts and can’t control their children’s screaming (why take the fruit of your loins, for whom you are shopping for Christmas, into the toy store? Leave them home. Or at least, leave them in the car. Or in front of one), but have you ever tried shopping for a kid you don’t know?

I mean, I had all kinds of educational sugar plums dancing through my head — LeapFrog and the like. But these sorts of things count on the gift recipient being in a house with a TV or a computer. And you can’t count on that. Hell, it’s not even like you can buy them a DVD of whatever popular kids’ movies there are out there because they may not have a DVD player, either.

One thing I knew going into this, you don’t want to give toys that have a lot of parts to them. Like the awesome kits with cars or dinosaurs or robots that have 20 billion tiny bits that a kid can choke on, but more importantly, if this kid is getting moved a lot between foster homes and/or between foster parents and birthparents, then you really need to focus on one bigger thing that they can take and it will sort of be one of their “constant” items as they leave old homes behind.

That said, I went with a big remote-control truck. And I bought the batteries, too. Because it’s rude to give a kid (or a woman) a product that requires lots of batteries but they can’t play with it until someone runs to the store. Have you ever turned on a toy and had no functioning batteries in the house? Gah. My grandmother always used to talk about women who “rode the bathtub rim.” Shit, I can see where that might be an option in a moment of desperation!

What I find odd about this toy drive was that we’re expected to wrap our gifts, but we can’t put a gift tag on it. Which is bizarre because when I was in human services, you didn’t want people wrapping things because you didn’t want to give little Timmy what you THOUGHT was a Magic 8-Ball and then find out that it was a delicious 8-ball of CRACK that his mom certainly enjoyed. 😉

But even though you can’t put a gift tag on it, you’re supposed to indicate who the gift is for. The hell? I bought red sparkly paper with glittery presents on it — no place to write on that. Besides, the only marker I have is RED.

Anyway, against my better judgment, I went shopping for me afterward. And I found a suitcase that matches a weekender bag and a laptop bag that I already have. I was so flippin’ annoyed, because I have been looking for this particular suitcase for more than a year. And yesterday, I found it. Yarr.

Of course I bought it. Food for the next week? Fuck it — I’m going away in February and I will be able to use my new suitcase!

And you KNOW if I didn’t buy it when I saw it (and it WAS the only one on the shelf), I’d be regretting it. So yay, I finally have a matching set of luggage again, and one that’s NOT black, because it’s nice to know I won’t be fighting with people that, “No, that really IS my bag — who the hell else has hot pink tags and purple ribbons all over their stuff?”

I was just sitting here wishing I could sit on Santa’s lap (facing him or not facing him. Whichever) and ask for the panini grill I’ve been coveting and the “Great Grilled Cheese” book that would accompany it beautifully.

In any case, because it isn’t the season of treating myself, I’ll shelve that purchase till a quarter after never (besides, when the F am I home to cook?). But I just because I can’t cook doesn’t mean I don’t know how to order great meals. Here’s some of the great food I got in Vegas a coupla weeks ago that I remembered to Memorex with my camera phone. Nom nom nom. …

Strip Steak — If you’re hungry and you really didn’t need that rent money, you HAVE to go to Strip Steak. The side dishes alone are enough to make the trip worthwhile, and we had plenty of bleu cheese scalloped potatoes, lobster mashed potatoes, truffled mac and cheese, and duck-fat fries.

Oh, where was I? Yeah. The photo is of my delicious appetizer of lobster grilled cheese and creamy tomato soup. You can see why I want a panini press — I just wish I had lobster to throw between the bread I don’t have, either. 😉

The Web site says “Average Check Per Person: $110.” Hah! That’s apparently for skinny people. Allocate about double that, especially if you want a yummy, yummy steak. And you know you do!

Circo — Veal tenderloin with grilled fennel, accompanied by a glass (or five) of Amarone chianti. Appetizer was lots of raw seafood and dessert was something decadent, if memory serves. But then again, every restaurant tends to forget my dessert, so I’ve typically learned to stop ordering it. I can take a hint!

Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill — Lamb porterhouse chops, although the real delight of the meal was the roasted pumpkin soup with the cinnamon crema and pomegranates.

All this sure makes anything I might have for dinner tonight look ghetto and depressing. Oh well — just makes me appreciate the finer things when I can have them!

Perhaps it would be somewhere with food, because there sure as hell ain’t any in the house and I’m not about to get dressed to go spend money I don’t have.

Today’s the 7th. Payday’s the 15th. I have just enough to get through UNLESS you count the Christmas gift I have to buy before Sunday and, oh, unless you top off the speeding ticket I didn’t pay with the LATE FEE that practically doubled the fine. *headdesk*

I have two offers to go out tomorrow, but as I will not go out without a buck in my pocket, I’ll be making myself scarce. Meh. It’s always good to have a lil mystery — being cash-flow-negative isn’t exactly the sexiest reason for canceling, so we’ll just say something came up. Being poor takes care of being coy without even trying!

So I have a higher phone bill to pay for minutes I don’t use, and I’m paying for digital cable that’s on a TV I don’t use, either, because it’s a room I no longer want to be in. I’m not real sure how so much joy got piled into my stockings at one time, but my stockings are getting runs in them and there’s no cashish to replace ’em.

I’m trying hard to hold onto my joy. But I have no idea where to start looking for more to take the place of what has come and gone.

I have two bottles of wine. Good stuff, too. I think that’s where I’ll be finding my holiday spirit this year. Just hope I can make it last. …

Well, I managed to stay awake through “Grey’s Anatomy” last night, although I’m admittedly bored by the Izzie/George “romance” storyline.

Looks like they’re going to end it, though — at the conclusion of the show, they had a discussion about how it’s not a question of chemistry but instead one of timing.

And once the screams in my head quieted down about “WHAT chemistry?” because, well, ew, I thought, wow, boy does that explain a lot in my own life.

In any event, when I did fall asleep, I had a dream in which there was a whole roomful of people with whom I had chemistry but something was wrong with the timing. It was like a reunion party with that particular cast of characters — “Goddess’ ghosts of Christmas past.”

I’ll admit, “poor timing” often translated into “worked together at the time” or “somebody was somebody’s ex and the other was their friend and you KNOW you’re not allowed to date friends’ exes.”

Which, for the record, I am NOT a fan of leaving chemistry in the dust for such petty reasons, because all those friends and jobs are LONG gone. But, you know. You do what seems right at the time and leave it up to the universe to decide whether to rekindle it.

But what you don’t remember is that the universe is busy and forgets about you. I can just hear it telling me, “Well, I GAVE you all those chances — you want more when you didn’t try to make any of those work? Ungrateful brat.”

And it really fucking sucks when the “right thing to do” is to give up what you wanted, when all you were really doing was hoping one of you would grow a set and commit to sticking around and figuring it out. I hope they don’t think they were as easy to walk away from as it might have seemed. Likewise, I hope I wasn’t that easy to leave, either.

They said at church a couple of weeks ago basically how God gets angry when you lose faith and take your concerns to others and not Him. What was the quote, “He is displeased when you run to the phone and not to the throne.” But I have been asking for His help. I’ve had the same four items on my list for two decades, give or take some modifications. What if those things are never meant to be? Then what should I be asking for?

And am I missing opportunities in the meantime? I need someone to bop me over the head sometimes. Or kick me in the ass. Or both.

Chemistry is such a tricky thing. You feel it when it happens. You feel it when the other person isn’t in the same state or country. And even when it’s supposedly gone, you feel its hot fingers grip your heart when you merely think of that other person’s name.

And squelching it is about as easy as battling a California wildfire. Sometimes I think I deserve an award from Smokey Bear for (at least, on the surface) winning the battle. But when it all comes down to it, why am I always fighting against and never fighting for anything?

I’m stealing Tiff’s idea to post this but damn it, it’s not the holiday season till I see the Eat & Park Christmas star commercial.

I’ll be the one in the corner, dabbing a tissue at her running mascara. Don’t mind me over here. *sniffle*

The D.C. metro region had its first snowfall yesterday. *hairball*

Just two weeks ago, I was gazing out my office window and marveling at all the pretty colors of the leaves that were still on the trees. Yesterday? Those leaves had a layer of white powdery shit on them. Odd to see snow before the leaves have died off.

Anyway, it took two attempts to get to work. I cleaned off the cars, headed to the Interstate, and sat. I turned around at the first opportunity, parked it and did some work. Within a half-hour, I walked outside and the cars were even more covered in snow than they were the first time. *headslam*

I would like to extend a special middle finger or two to the state of Maryland for the drivers it chooses to license. It’s either “ride our breaks for 10 miles because something wet is coming out of the sky” or “I’m way more important than you; let me wipe you off the road and make the scaredy-cat drivers even MORE nervous.”

I’m somewhere in the middle, hence why I think THAT finger is appropriate to wave at everyone. 🙂

The other thing I hate about winter, outside of Maryland, is the fact that my house is cold. I took this place because the windows looked so sturdy. They ain’t. So I come home, go to my bedroom and get under my deliciously warm IKEA comforter that is supposed to be the warmest blanket you can buy there. Although I need a new duvet cover and sheets to match, I’m currently in 400-TC so my bed is comfy-cozy.

Anyway, the problem is that I turn on the TV and promptly fall asleep the second I get warm. Which means I’ve missed all kinds of good TV this week. Then again, the programs that knocked me out the soonest have been “October Road” and “Private Practice.” So, is it the bed that lulls me into a coma, or shitty shows?

Either way, those are two shows whose writers can STAY on strike!!!

Sleep hasn’t been coming so easily lately. Not certain why — lawd knows I’m friggin’ exhausted.

Yesterday was an emotionally draining day. I’ve never been able to attend an off-site work function, and damn it, I was going to change that yesterday. I am the first one to tell people that no one will value their time unless they do it first, but it’s been challenging to practice what I’ve preached because that means reversing the course of the floods, in some cases.

Me being able to make a 12:30 luncheon was contingent upon three people hitting deadline. Not being early, mind you. Being ON TIME.

One hit deadline. One phoned it in (read: half-assed it and I couldn’t use it anyway and had to do something dramatically different). One forgot about me till 1:30 when we made special arrangements that I’d do the work after I came back from the party. Remember, all I wanted for Christmas was a lunch hour. Nobody ever went ahead and asked that I would get to go home when everybody else did!

Anyway, what impressed me wasn’t the magnificence of Maggiano’s food or the fact that the world won’t end if I actually see daylight, but that several VIPs across the company actually CARED that I made it. That there is such a wonderful circle of people who are looking out for me and who were rooting for me to orchestrate an escape. That yeah, I was over an hour late, but that they were thrilled to see me anyway.

You guys have no idea how happy that makes me, and how guilty I feel after going all “Milton Waddams” all morning because my cheese keeps getting moved and I wasn’t going to get a piece of cake and why don’t they just move my desk into the middle of a river, blah blah blah. 🙂

But I see that maybe I don’t deserve to go to these events because I just start being a bitch in my head. We’re known for giving away lots of prizes. I’ve never won any. I probably never will. I always see the same people winning them and don’t really think much of it.

What gets me though is knowing how much my team busts its ass and how everyone’s logging 70-hour weeks and how none of us ever gets that little special recognition. Now, I don’t want to begrudge the winners, because I was genuinely happy and clapped heartily for some of them, but I will admit that I found my wine glass or coffee spoon utterly FASCINATING when I see people winning just by luck of the draw when the REAL luck is just getting to work with them. *barf*

Someone was very rude to me on the phone yesterday till I mentioned that I had a V.P. sitting in my office, awaiting their answer on speakerphone. I hope that it was noted how their tone changed into a fucking sing-song once I name-dropped. And to see that person getting a prize was challenging, to say the least.

Someone made an innocent comment that they didn’t think upper-echelon staff should be eligible for the prizes. You know what, one of my VPs got a prize and the senior VP in my department could take home all 30 of the prizes and I still would have clapped my little heart out. I’d rather use gifts as a REWARD as opposed to a PURE CHANCE thing.

What can I say? I’m a socialist. Gifts for everybody! 😉

I don’t know. I guess I just want my people to get more than extra projects thrown at them as a reward for their competence and congeniality … that I am rooting for them the way so many people are rooting for me.

But I don’t want to knock it — my great reward was time … MY TIME … and getting to use some of it the way I wanted to.

Don’t worry — I won’t get accustomed to the feeling because I have no idea when the next time will be that I get to do what I want, when I want. But for those of you who wonder why I have an absolute inability to make/stick to plans? It’s because if I see a window to not be committed to anybody/anything, I always try to take it … even if it’s just for a few moments.

Am combating severe exhaustion/ennui right now. Have already had lunch (at 11:30 a.m.! And not 4 p.m. when I usually remember to eat!) so I’m feeling like I’m in the wrong time zone or something. But I’m making great strides on my projects — most of those strides being backward — so I think I deserve a medal for lunch not being a liquid one!

Have spent the morning working and meeting and pontificating, most of which feels like it was to no avail. 🙂 I am trying to not be in the office for a portion of the day tomorrow, and I’ve gotten some confirmation that folks will help me try to do that, but I’ll believe it when I see it. We’re having a “thank-you luncheon,” and since I have missed absolutely every perk in the past three months and most of them in the past three years, I would like to be present to be thanked.

And, we thank with food. So hey, can ya blame me? 😉

I was going to blog about yesterday’s church lesson, but meh. I’m guilty of all of it, and I know it. They were talking about how gossiping is terrible — how it hurts the person doing the talking just as much as the one being talked about. Damn it. I can’t argue with anything, so no brilliant blog posts came of yesterday’s lecture. Pfft. What’s the point if I’m going to agree with what I was told — who wants to hear about that?!?!