Caterwauling

Teh kyoot, I haz it, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Maddie’s gotten some fan mail at this address since we stopped updating “I Crap in a Box.” The fact is, she never actually crapped in a box till recently, so the irony was gone. 😉 So, I wanted to give an update to the many friends she’s made throughout the years.

Maddie thanks her adoring public for inquiring about her absence. She’s been good up until recently, when a combination of me being fed up with her daily poop rampages (particularly when my bed was a victim) and a passing concern that, hey, she’s kinda gotten skinny led me to cart both fur muffins to the vet.

A passing suggestion from the vet to do a geriatric workup for her led to an ongoing series of visits and labwork and, in a month, I’m going to have to suck it up and send her into surgery. Le sigh.

I’m OK with the surgery, as I’ve already parted with hundreds of dollars on her care so what’s another grand? Thank you, Dubya, for that stimulus check. I believe my veterinarian’s parent company is publicly traded so let’s act like I bought stock and drove up the Dow with it.

Maddie is not liking this traveling thing, not one bit. She detests the car but on the last trip, I let her hang out with me in the front seat and I unzipped her carrier so she could be free, and she didn’t howl as much as usual. I, however, need to vacuum ’cause the fur flew everywhere.

They say she has a 94% chance of being fine after the surgery. I like those odds.

She’s been my best friend for a long time now, 12 years, and has seen many friends and tomcats come and go in my life and she’s outlasted, well, 94% of them.

Speaking of old friends, she wants to wish a happy birthday to her Unca Chris in Pittsburgh, since the whole “Sixteen Candles” birthday epidemic in our world is a little too much to bear and we don’t want people to feel anything less than special on their special day!

Anyway, Miss Molly is as cheerful and sweet and loving as always. She’s dropped more than eight pounds in a very short time frame, which I’d attributed to Kadie running her ragged because Kadie is playful and likes to roughhouse a lot.

So, all I can do is continue treating her like the little princess she is and hoping that when all is said and done, Maddie and I will have another dozen years to hang out together.

I never dreamed the day would come when I’d find someone who made Incoherent Twit (click here for a tip-of-the-iceberg explanation) look like a genius.

Grab those sweaters and blankies, kids. I’m stunned to report that Talitha is smarter than someone!

I CRUSH your head!

more graph humor and song chart memes

Saw this story in my Twitter feed and didn’t realize it was an Onion article because, well, it’s either going to be my autobiography title or my epitaph!

Report: Women Increasingly Choosing Dead-End Careers Over Dead-End Relationships

“Every year, millions of educated females discover that they can be just as underappreciated and ignored in the workplace as they can while doting on loutish and inattentive boyfriends.”

Full story online here.

Left work early (before 7!) tonight. Why, I have no idea. *le sigh*

Am salivating over some Smuttynose Hanami Ale, which I sampled last night and it was downright divine.

The Stella Artois was tasty, too, although I wouldn’t have switched to it unless the nummy Smuttynose ran out and then I experienced the taste-bud shock of the Yuengling chaser. (I remember when I thought that was high-class beer. That’s what I get for growing up on Coors Light and other assorted mistakes in the Iron City. Barf.)

Am seriously contemplating tearing into the Delirium Nocturnum in the fridge, although it’s already too hot to sleep — that’s all I need is to have booze in my system. Then again, maybe if I drink it all, I won’t wake up tomorrow at all. Sounds win-win to me! 😉

“What a day to visit Seattle
What a day for San Francisco
What a day, holy Toldeo
What a day to get in the air and go.

What a day to give up smoking
What a day to absorb
What a day to welcome a baby
And to begin breathing.”

— Greg Laswell, “What a Day“

I’ve been playing this song on heavy rotation lately. Perhaps because I’ve been meaning to put together an itinerary that includes both Seattle and San Francisco. Perhaps also because the melody is very soothing on my exquisitely frazzled nerves.

And maybe it’s just having one of those birthdays yesterday in which I had to stab the snooze button of the now-faintly ticking biological clock with a butcher knife, but I got to hold a tiny, beautiful baby today — a seven-week-old little girl with the world’s bluest eyes — and all I have to say is damn.

I don’t know what I was put on this earth for — but it’s got to be FAR more than this — and maybe it’s that. Eventually, that is.

I’d like to not have to put the cart before the horse. And I’d be happy with a well-hung stallion if I had to choose one or the other. 😉 Although I’m still shooting to have both!

The reason this birthday has been so hard for me is that it’s exactly like the last one. Same dilemmas and fears. Same stupid feelings about the same stupid things and maybe even the same stupid people, if I may be so bold. 😉 Same friends, more or less, although the same inability to see very much of them. (Although I got to see some of them — and meet even more — today. So, huzzah!)

Bottom line: Same cozy spot between a rock and a hard place. The only thing different, it seems, is where I spend my daytime hours.

And I know fundamentally that’s not true. Well, it’s all true but it’s not the end of the story. By far. I mean, I’ve been going to church for several months and I will consider baptism if they don’t have to drown me like a river rat. (Supposedly my grandmother baptized me as a wee lass, but I think the symbolism of doing it now would confirm all that I’ve been working toward.)

And anyone who knows me, knows I abhor ritual and inertia and “same old, same old.” I feel suffocated. I feel like my skin is too small for my body and I just want to rip it off and shoot high into the sky like a really expensive fireworks display.

I struggle between the advice I often get to simply “give it up to God” and my own instinct, which is to just DO something already — even if it’s wrong. And hoo boy, has it been wrong on many occasions. But it’s been right, too. I’m no dummy — I know exactly what I want. But while I won’t start singing the lyrics to “Unanswered Prayers,” there is something to be said for a greater force knowing better than you what is best for you.

You just wonder what He’s smoking in the interim, sometimes, though!

I hate to end on a pithy note of “I’m going to be OK.” But I already am OK. And I will continue to be. And someday, I’ll be better than OK. I think my turning-34 freakout yesterday was attributed to one of those, “Holy shit, is this as good as it gets?” moments. Because let’s face it, that’s wholly unacceptable, to not go up from here.

But I will. It’s all good. Most of it is out of my hands. And I am not planning to fuck up what IS under my control.

“Bring on the evening hours,” I cry
“Bring on the evidence of my life”
“Bring on the evening hours,” I cry
“Bring on the evidence of my life.”

Caaakkkee, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

The One Republic song “Stop and Stare” started off my morning, and it’s accordingly been a rough day emotionally for me in that, yep, I find myself clinging for dear life to that 18-34 demographic. And if I’m moving into a new checkbox in 364 days, well then what will I have to show for it?

I’ve oft declared this to be my “Best Year Ever,” sight unseen. Today I was ass-deep in bullshit and realized I’m tired of declaring that this will be the year that’s bullshit-free. Whatever. There will always be mountains of manure to surmount — I just have to change my attitude from, “Why isn’t all the crap resolved/over yet?” to, “Patience, Grasshopper.”

And I am not a patient grasshopper anymore. I think so many people have worn me down and beaten it out of me, I want resolution now, now, now. And the pastor who spoke today at church pointed out that resolution comes in God’s time, not yours. So suck it up and deal. 😉

He noted that we make big mistakes when we’re trying to resolve things that we ourselves, as mere mortals, are not able to resolve. He talked about Abraham and Sarah, to whom God had promised a child, and they got tired of waiting and went about it the wrong way by having him impregnate a servant.

The message was that it didn’t happen the way God intended it to happen, so it was a mighty (almighty?) clusterfuck. But God’s promise was ultimately fulfilled, even though He was a bit ticked that they lost the faith.

I have kept the faith for several years on several matters. And I see where they were coming from, that maybe I heard the promises incorrectly. Maybe it’s not a dream in my heart but instead a virus. Doubts sometimes creep in to think that I would ever be a good enough fiction writer — maybe that was silly of me and being a desk monkey is really my destiny after all.

And that’s why this birthday was hard. To spend it in ways I didn’t really enjoy spending it. To be reminded that, hey, you’re one year closer to the grave in case you might want to start doing the things you keep shuffling down the priority list.

But luckily, I had a chance to break free (at last!), even if just for a couple of hours. I communed with nature, stared at some water, took a walk and climbed a jungle gym. And went to Starbucks, where I enjoyed an iced skinny mocha and did not a God damned thing but stare at people.

I felt restored. For now, anyway. But even though I don’t know where I’m going from here, at least I know it isn’t backward.

And today, I needed to be reminded of that. I just feel that everyone, everywhere is suffocating my ability to get fresh air because they’re afraid what I will do if I realize the leash really isn’t tethered to anything that I can’t break.

It’s a year for testing boundaries, for running as far as I can and not being choked if I get too far away.

Best Year Ever. Mark my words. It starts today.

In the midst of what I’m pretty certain is one of my worst days in recent history, I saw this on Sabre’s site and I’m slightly vindicated.

Fuck that shit, indeed.

It’s been so long since I logged into WordPress from home that I actually forgot both the URL and my password. Has it been THAT long since I’ve had anything to say, or is it just that time and I are at odds?

I’ve started a million posts in my mind, most of which are about dreaming of fitting someone with an anti-bark collar so I can ZAP them every time they act simple, cop an attitude, laugh at their own jokes, act superior, prance like a drunken gazelle, use baby talk and otherwise aggravate the fuck out of/disrespect people I love.

Well, that was the nicest way I’ve been able to say that!

Anywho, I keep trying to repeat to myself that you can’t change the way things are; however, you can choose the way you react. And I’m going to get carpal tunnel from all of my reactions to things that waste entirely too many minutes of my day and hours of my week, so that’s the first thing on my list to address. Of course, I have nine to-do lists on my desk, so it may be awhile till I get to THAT particular set of tasks!

Yeesh. Hey, it’s my (non-)party this weekend, and I’ll bitch if I want to!

On a way-more pleasant note, I witnessed one of my peeps having a real breakthrough this week, in aspiring to better themselves and really getting excited about a new scheme. I loved it. I felt like I was bearing witness to a life-changing moment for them.

I adore epiphanies, even if they aren’t mine. It was inspiring, in a way that I remember how I used to feel when I was cooking up a project. I don’t do much of that anymore — my big dream is to figure out whose sink I’m going to crap in first. So I guess I have to do it vicariously right now. (The dreaming, not the crapping!)

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m up to something. I have all the details in mind. I just keep losing patches of free time that I specifically freed up for these purposes. But I have to keep reminding myself that, in 10 years, what I’m thinking about will matter and the current poop landmine that my feet seem to be stuck in will have long since faded from memory. I hope, anyway.