Caterwauling

My pastor’s wife came to chat with me before services started. It’s eerie how much information this woman holds in her head about all of us, me included. The questions she thinks to ask, the things she follows up on from several weeks/months ago, the armchair psychology she can perform … it’s astounding that either she’s that brilliant or I’m that memorable. Or, both.

Anyway, she told me I looked great today. I just said thanks and she guessed pretty much every reason why. It was nice to have someone share in my little stack of joys. Hey, it’s a little stack, but it’s still a stack nonetheless!

Speaking of all things (not) joyous, I just paid my latest traffic ticket online. And not only did the form remember my information from the last three tickets in the past six months, but it also ends with this nice, friendly message:

We look forward to serving you again.

Yes, I’m aware you are thrilled at the idea of siphoning even more cash from my coffers that could have gone toward charity or, OK, alcohol, but still.

You know how you can serve me? By eating me. Jesus H. I don’t need an invitation to come back soon, mmkay? Am already a frequent guest, can’t’cha tell?

Thursday is only wearing 15 pieces of flair.

Well said, Tom. Well said.

We’re dealing with Mousegate in Cubicle Hell today. How those fat, furry little fuckers managed to squeeze their big mouse butts into everyone’s file cabinets is beyond me. They even got into our drawers and ate the foam off of our noise-canceling headphones.

Seems the rodents have a penchant for granola bars, almonds and instant oatmeal. But while they ate my maple-sugar-flavored oatmeal (good on them — I hate it anyway) and skipped my plain oatmeal, they skipped the maple at my friend’s desk and went for the apple-cinnamon.

I’m going to have to bring in latex gloves tomorrow to clean up all the mouse crap. Dude, they ruined two of my three pairs of headphones!

The little bastards peed in some folks’ file cabinets, but I think my little invaders must have found a laxative in someone’s workstation, because I’ve had birds do less damage to my windshield. Didn’t they get the memo that you’re not supposed to shit where you eat?

Today’s Gemini horoscope:

Daily Work: Of course you’re frustrated. Who wouldn’t be if they were dreaming about change but not doing anything about it? Transformation is within your reach, if you start to make an effort.

Daily Singles Love: A fiery fantasy might become a reality if you give someone who’s been pursuing you a chance. Throw caution to the wind and let your heart call the shots for a change.

Wait, what? Following my heart? Who, me?

Nevermind that I’ve had the same dream four nights in a row. Yes, four.

Anywho, I’m still rather amazed that I left work on time last night to, like, do something. Something for me. Something way overdue and too-often-overlooked in the hustle to work, work and work some more.

I guess I inflict this mental pressure on myself, that if I’m always working, then I’m securing my job and am also not otherwise getting into trouble.

But I’ve been avoiding someone … me. I’ve been avoiding my needs and desires and all the things that make me, well, me. I’ve chosen to avoid relationships 100% and only to date people who are as emotionally unavailable as they come.

And with good reason — I apparently lack the empathy gene and apparently love not having to invest any time into anyone. Actually, that’s overstating the issue — I just haven’t made the time for anything or anyone I could care about, so I always have the excuse that I don’t “have” the time … instead focusing on my career and thinking the rest will happen “when it’s meant to.” That things will “fall into place.”

Guess what? They don’t. So sometimes, you gotta force the issue. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.

I’m scared and excited and confused and don’t know what the hell to do next. But it sure beats being frustrated and stuck and hopeless.

I like the person I’ve become so far. But she ain’t done yet … far from it.

“Hello, let me introduce you to
The characters in the show
One says yes, one says no
Decide – which voice in your head you can keep alive.”

— Shinedown, “I Dare You“

Today is so fucking fired.

Too bad you can’t actually go home after firing Monday … I might have contributed to the shit-canning of this awful day, but I still put in 13 hours of workity work work.

Speaking of work, I’m stealing an idea from Nic and asking you to pretend I just told you about my day, whereupon you act shocked and appalled and I’m saying, “I know, can you imagine?” Then we make several pitchers of margaritas and pass out in a tequila-soaked haze.

I feel better already!

Just want to thank Ian Usher for putting Dido’s “Life for Rent” in my head with his Life for Sale auction.

I give him credit. I really do. Just selling everything he owns along with a shot at his job so he can jump on a train and go somewhere, anywhere but there? Sounds pretty kickass to me.

“I’ve always thought
That I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone
And live more simply
I have no idea what’s happened to that dream
‘Cause there’s really nothing left here to stop me.”

— Dido, “Life for Rent“

I wish I at least had the dream house and the furniture and all the neat stuff (spa, jetskis, car) to go with it. I would put my life up on eBay in a heartbeat.

Of course, my auction item would have to be non-refundable, as I presume the winner would spend one week at my job and with my mother and would be at their lawyer’s office, trying to find the suicide clause that would get me to forfeit their money or else they’d have to kill themselves after walking a mile in my stylish little shoes.

See, I’m no dummy — by the time my life auction would end, I would either be in witness protection or at least faking my death and living my life with a babushka on my head so no one would recognize me.

In any case, good luck to you, Ian, and I hope the future holds all the wonderful things that the present certainly doesn’t. I hope we hear about you again … good things, of course. If you should find your way to Washington, D.C., we’ll take wonderful care of ya. …

I admit, while I’d like to start pursuing religion on a scholarly level, I’m way more interested in chick lit. (A la my latest read, “Chasing Harry Winston,” which hurts to read because it’s so me and, let’s face it, it’s a book I should have written as it is my life story and all.)

Anyway, for now I’m just counting on churchgoing to give me the Cliff’s Notes guide to all things biblical, since apparently masturbation DOES cause one to go blind and I can’t find a bible that has print big enough to keep me reading it. (And yesterday I did manage to sneak in a, uh, fruitful purchase at Forbidden Fruit. Do you think Lasik can reverse the damage I’m doing to myself? Carrots aren’t helping!)

ADD: I haz it.

OK, “anyway” again, today at church we talked about how Jesus said that you should poke your eye out if it causes you to sin, as pulling a Cyclops is clearly better than burning in hell for all of eternity. *shudder* So basically, if a body part is causing you to sin, you should amputate it? How many men in the audience were covering their crotches when that topic came up today?!?!

I left my notes on the sermon in the car (and I have wet toenails, so I’m trying to remember what I wrote down). The pastor said something about that’s why rules have been created — to keep us all in line. And we shouldn’t be tempted to tell white lies or circumvent rules or do anything to disrespect things that were supposedly created for our own good.

I take issue with that. I mean, yes, people do need rules/laws/codes of ethics/etc. Some people obviously don’t know how to behave unless someone is telling them the expectations of human nature. Whatevs.

But I take issue with it being a venial sin to circumvent rules — can’t we take into account the rule-maker? I mean, I can abide by rules as well as the next person (and will rebel against ones I find dumb), but my main source of rebellion is mostly taking issue with the who and not the what.

You’ve got corporate leaders who won’t let you expense a bag of peanuts from the hotel minibar but then they’re swindling money and funneling it into offshore bank accounts. You’ve got celebrities shooting anti-drug commercials while they’re riding a ski lift to the top of their own personal cocaine stash. You’ve got executives who marry their secretaries who come up with so-called sexual harassment rules to prevent anyone else from potentially meeting their own life mate the very same way. You’ve got the most-inept people on the planet harassing you for not doing their required shit-ton of paperwork hoops that they impose to stall you from achieving great things. You’ve got legislators impregnanting anything that walks and yet they don’t want women to have freedom of choice as to what to do in those unpleasant situations.

Pfft. Hypocrisy is unbecoming, to say the least. And no significant social change has ever been made without someone standing up to the system or, at least, finding a way to quietly bypass it.

I mean, I do get the point that it’s exhausting to break rules and keep your activities on the downlow until you can prove that you’re right. But I’m willing to do those sorts of things if it means things will work out in the end.

I know the “if it feels good, do it” attitude of the ’60s and ’70s basically just ended up in a whole lot of deadly STDs in the ’80s and beyond. But I also know that “it’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission” isn’t a cliche — it should be a law.

We were each given a plastic fork and were asked to not poke out our eye but instead hold it against our closed right eyes and imagine giving up that eye for sins we’ve committed and temptations we’ve given in to. We were asked to think of something that has a hold on us, something that’s no good for us that we should give up, and take that fork up to these huge pots of dirt near where we took communion.

We were to bury our fork (i.e., sin/temptation that’s “not good” for us) in the dirt and then go cleanse ourselves with our wafers and juice. By their definition, I knew what I was “supposed” to give up. But forget it — screw all of you and your stupid rules; the bane of being born with a touch of psychic ability is that you see how things end up. And you do everything you can to “hang in there” in the interim. So no, I’m not giving that thing up.

However, I *did* have something that I’ve been battling forever. And ever. And I’ve been losing completely by choice. I’ve never blamed anyone for this *thing.* Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t thank my family for all the screwed-up bullshit they exposed me to, but I managed to turn out the complete opposite of them in most of the areas where it counted. But there’s one area that plagues me.

And that’s what I buried today.

I did it because it was right, it’s something I needed to do and it’s something I want to be free from.

I wasn’t kidding when I said 34 was going to be “my” year. I’m getting a late start, but I’m starting to realize that for God to work those much-longed-for miracles in my life, I have to do some serious housecleaning before He will be my guest.

To quote a line from “Practical Magic,” “All right, girls; let’s clean house!” And maybe — just like in the movie — what I’ve been wishing for, will have been wishing for me, too. …

… Remember, kids, if McCain is the one who gets to pick the next set of Supreme Court justices and he lives up to his promise to overturn Roe v. Wade, stupid people will continue procreating at a rapid rate.

Have you heard about the fucking moronic teen girls in the pregnancy pact? I think vacuum aspiration should be mandatory for those stupid bitches. Save the clothes hanger for beating them with it.

Some of the girls reacted to the news they were pregnant with high fives and plans for baby showers, (Principal Joseph) Sullivan said. One of the fathers “is a 24-year-old homeless guy,” Sullivan told the magazine.

Mind *boggles.*

Sidenote: Those brats had better not be getting baby showers. Just saying. We celebrate idiocy enough in this world enough, thanks.

Anyway, I know any dumb fertile asshole can become a parent, but let’s not prove the same is true of the U.S. presidency, mmkay? I still haven’t gotten into the “vote Obama” groove, but I sure as hell am steady on “for the love of God, don’t vote McCain.”

The more I think about my speeding ticket, the more annoyed I am.

The cop looked at my license and tsk-tsked at me. “You should know better,” he said.

I looked at him blankly. What, that I had five tickets on file for speeding already?

He repeated, “You live in D.C. You should KNOW better than to speed. You KNOW we’re out here trying to keep our streets safe.”

Although I was in a foul enough mood to say it, I did NOT articulate, “You should KNOW not to be a fucking douchebag when your dick is within punching distance.”

Douchebag. He should know better than to walk in front of a moving vehicle that’s going 50 mph and to patronize the driver. I assure you, if I could have found a way to “accidentally” run over his foot, I would have!

I’ve been examining pretty much everything in my head lately — kind of like a late spring cleaning on the cognitive level. Keep this, toss that, mend this other thing and it will be good as new, etc.

I read an article yesterday on Empathy Deficit Disorder and, while I’m annoyed that this is now an official syndrome, I’m not opposed to just being given a pill to make me nicer to people when I can’t muster it up on my own. 😉

So anyway, I’ve really been thinking. What would make me happy? (Other than a model’s body and a harem of men fanning me with palm leaves and feeding me truffles?) I was thinking that maybe I should take some classes to make me better at understanding the finer points of my job when this crazy little voice in the back of my head pipes up, “Take singing lessons instead!”

That was sort of surprising, since if I’m thinking about taking any type of courses, it should be something that kick-starts my stalled fiction-writing endeavors. Singing? Have you heard me sing? Talk about tone-deaf. Not to mention, I really don’t even hum to myself anymore. (Except that I was rocking some Def Leppard yesterday. Someone actually borrowed a line from “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and the earworm, it buried itself in my skull.)

And then I thought, oh what the hell — why not? Other than not wanting to learn to read music (it might replace some other very important information in my head, which I can’t come up with any examples right now but I’m sure I would if I weren’t trying to hold some other data in there for the short term) and not wanting to, oh, perform outside of my car, I have this on my “to do” list. For 2010, of course, but still. 🙂

It’s strange what that little voice says to me sometimes. I’d almost stopped believing it, though, after it’s been feeding me the same line of b.s. for a couple of years and I don’t see the thing it’s telling me to be patient about, well, materializing.

In my soul-searching, I realized the true source of my low-grade anxiety. It’s that even though I’ve basically just found God, I don’t trust Him. The relationship’s too new — I’m still at the stage where I’m making plans with others so He doesn’t think I’m sitting by the phone, waiting for Him to call. But in a way, I am. And it’s like He sees me hanging around, waiting, and He’s going out drinking with His buddies or out looking for someone else who may be skinnier or cuter or has bigger boobs or something. I dunno. 😉

I guess, religion or not, I always used to be so confident that things would fall into place “someday.” That all the mistakes and near-misses were preparing me for something bigger and better. But I’ve started fearing — perhaps irrationally, perhaps not — that time’s a-wasting. That I’ve got to really take my destiny into my own hands instead of just basically inner-tubing down the river and going wherever the current pulls me.

I mean, I know we do have to make choices and live with them regardless of whether they were the right ones. Free will is a glorious, scary thing sometimes. But I’m always wondering what exactly it is that I am supposed to be doing to take me to that next level, to open the doors I am banging my head against.

And I always have a feeling it is going to be easier than I’m making it out to be, but I’m always prepared for the worst, since I don’t know exactly what the invisible barrier is comprised of.

In any case, I felt sort of hopeful with the idea of learning how to sing. Not professionally, of course. Lord, I took enough teasing in high school — I’m quite over it, thanks much. But that weird little thought reminded me that there’s a whole fountain of creativity within me that didn’t necessarily dry up, but it has in fact been hiding under a very heavy tarp. And just the thought of breaking out of my little rut poked a hole in the plastic.

Imagine what else could burst forth if I went to examine that well a little more closely, a little more often.

Are there things that you want to do that you either think you shouldn’t or you simply possibly couldn’t juggle into your already-overloaded schedule? And are you like me, trying to figure out what has to give — or, what could give — that isn’t so fulfilling to make room for what could possibly change your life or, at least, your outlook on it?