Caterwauling

I’m exhausted. Between the physical labor Saturday, the sitting around Sunday, and the emotional havoc of my home life, I’m at my wits’ end.

Apparently the UEOEH called my cousin — my last bastion of hope — about staying with her. She refused.

Great. Apparently NOBODY wants a dependent for life. Go figure!

I’m so blue, I’m black at this point.

And surprisingly, she says she has a babysitting job tomorrow. And she didn’t ask me for any money for gas. Proving that yesterday’s text was a hoax. Or else Ms. Martyr 2010 is going to run the car on fumes.

My boss told me to buy her a plane ticket to Pittsburgh. Not my problem if nobody picks her up at the airport. And to send a moving van with her car with it. That the few grand I drop now to do this will pay off in spades for the rest of my life.

Is it wrong to block her number when I’m paying the bill? 😉

Dunce cap

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

I love this photo. As I stopped to snap this shot in St. Augustine, Fla., a guy sitting across the street asked if I knew why it was up there. When I said no, he said, “So ya don’t DRIVE up there!” Lulz!

I spent the day at the mechanic. And by “the day,” I mean THE WHOLE DAY. I’ll just say that it worked out to about $100 an hour that I parted with. But the car runs like a dream right now, so it was well-worth it.

I got a text from the UEOEH this morning, sent at 8:48 a.m. I had left the house around 7:30 and she saw me leave. It started with, “Call me when you wake up.” So I knew it couldn’t be aimed at me. Or could it?

So, she babysits every once in a while for a friend of mine. And the remainder of the text was that she didn’t have any gas in her tank so she couldn’t go to this job.

Which, as you know, is ALL MY FAULT.

She did leave me a VM yesterday. All about picking up purple Halloween lights and extension cords. I hadn’t listened to it all the way through, as I don’t have holidays up my ass anymore now that she’s here.

Hell, I showed my collection of wine, martini and margarita glasses to Lady L yesterday and she was floored at how seriously I used to take entertaining. My life ceased to exist when I started working at the Investor Ranch, but the UEOEH’s arrival put the nails in the coffin.

Anyway, months ago, the UEOEH had asked if she could decorate for Halloween. I said I didn’t care. She was overjoyed. But then she said she needed money, and I said no way. If she got a job, of course, she could decorate to her heart’s content. But when Little Miss Muffett is always sitting around with no gas in the car or food in her belly, fuck no I am not donating to the decorations cause.

So what little money the UEOEH managed to make must have gone into purple lights that are wrapped around my balcony railing. But it’s not finished and there are no extension cords. Oh well! Not my problem!

So I listened to her message all the way through, and she did ask for 10 bucks for her gas tank “in case” she got a call. I guess she either did get a call at the last minute, or else she was doing the usual passive-aggressive thing by sending the message “to” someone else but picking my number.

I don’t know. I don’t care.

After the day o’ mechanic land (I love them, BTW. It’s all good. They even invited me to have lunch on them), I decided to go shopping and see a movie. Anything not to come home.

I can’t even muster up enough energy to feel bad that she missed her job. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told my BFF that I’m “mean” … TWICE.

And I’m in the market for a good argument. But I won’t get one. So, why even bother?

I wonder if she’s just sensitive about Thanksgiving because that’s when my grandfather died four years ago. But I’ve never been what you’d call, oh, sentimental. I try to live in the present or at least just the immediate past. 🙂

And I don’t believe the dead would want us to mourn for too long. Except her. She’d probably haunt me for the rest of my life to make sure I felt properly miserable.

Like Lady L said last night, would my grandfather really have wanted this to be our lives? I remember as he lay dying, he was so worried about the way we were play-fighting. That he couldn’t leave her to me. As if she were some sort of awesome inheritance that he was bequeathing. Ugh. Please.

But I had said back then, two years is all you get … if you need it. And please don’t need it.

Aaaaaand, here we are.

I wonder if I can pay my cousin to take her. This is literally my only hope. If she were to say no, I truly don’t know what I’ll do. I just need to figure out how to ask. Any ideas for a good way to bribe her?

My beloved Lady L came over today to help me build my dining room set.

It took three hours for us to build the baker’s rack, so we gave up after that and headed out to City Pizza.

You know, back in the day we all helped each other move. Now that we’re grown-ups, we just help each other pack and/or build furniture. And holy shit, we’re still sore!

My asshole mother was here. I had just had a fight with her before Lady L arrived. She asked if she could help and, remembering yesterday’s e-mail, I said she might get tainted by my un-Christian-like-ness, so no thanks.

So she starts insulting me again. I shut her up. She said, “Oh, I see how it is. You can dish it out but you can’t take it.”

I said I can take it when it’s TRUE. And that I haven’t BEGUN to start in on her yet. So there’s the door and I strongly SUGGEST you walk through it.

So when Lady L came, the UEOEH was wandering in and out of the room. And on and off the balcony, using one of the doors in MY BEDROOM.

While I was freshening up before we headed to CityPlace, the UEOEH told Lady L TWICE how “mean” I am to her.

Uh, if you’d seen what the bitch wrote about Lady L in yesterday’s e-mail, it’s a wonder the old lady didn’t get slugged.

And furthermore, how DARE she put me down to my friend!!!

Lady L reported that the UEOEH said she misses her friends back in Pittsburgh. And that she respects how Lady L “does what she has to do” and puts herself first with her job and travels and essentially puts her own needs first.

O RLY? God forbid I ask the bitch to leave the house for a day, and I I’m selfish and MEAN.

I’m done. I’m SO done. I wish I had a sibling to ship her to. I wish SHE had a sibling I can ship her to.

I brought her home a pizza. She’s locked up in her room, probably bitching to her friends about me. I will eat the pizza, then. Fuck her.

God, I’m sorry I failed You on this one. I give up. I can’t take it anymore. I have to give this problem back to You. Her apathy and delusions are no match for me. I’m good but apparently not as good as You thought.

Still praying for a solution.

O Hai!

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

So, the UEOEH sent me the nastiest e-mail yesterday. In response to my polite request to send a postcard from the cross so I could see the view, she went CRAZY.

She told me that I have no business calling myself a Christian when I haven’t mastered basic kindness. And that she knows I only went to church because I was hot for the pastor and for that married guy I liked to sit with.

And that she only went with me because we always went to lunch afterward. She would eat just a portion of it, and then have food for the rest of the week because I don’t feed her.

Wow. Venomous, much?

For the record, Lady L and I go to church every week. She said she can attest to the fact that I am not there to slobber all over the pastor. And for the record, the guy I sat with all the time? When I Googled him and found via Facebook that he’s married with spawn, I QUIT GOING to the 11 a.m. services.

OMG, what a cunt.

I’ll spare you the rest of the vitriol she spewed toward me, but let’s just say that SHE’S the saint for living with ME.

Same cunt stole my last roll of toilet paper. I have not a square to spare, and not a roll left under the sink because, as usual, she takes and takes and takes till there’s nothing left.

True to UEOEH form, though, she offered to cook Thanksgiving dinner before she leaves because she “wants to feel included, even though (she’s) not wanted.”

As she noted snidely, “Since you don’t cook.”

She also graciously said that she will gladly go wherever I put her. In other words, once again it is on me to solve the fucking problem. I hate her SO much. Because, of course, guess who has to arrange it and pay for it?

She said that I can go back to my so-called life that basically sucks but if I think I’m missing out on something, far be it from her to keep me from it. And that I can “parade (my) derelicts through” to my heart’s content.

Keep supporting my case, bitch.

So this morning she’s being nice and asking me all sorts of stupid questions. I can’t even look at her. Because this is EXACTLY what happens. We have a blowout; her memory gets erased; and things go back to “normal.”

I’m not like her in that respect. I’m good and mad. I want change. I just don’t know how to reply to all of that.

I mean, I’m helpless here. I know she looks to me to solve all her problems. And I guess I’m looking around, too, like, “Do you people hear this shit? Halp?”

And I guess that makes me as utterly useless as she is. Sigh.

So, I sent the UEOEH an e-mail this morning. A simple paragraph, really. I said that I’m having a guest for Thanksgiving. And that she can have a ticket to Pennsylvania or Ohio if she wants it.

I also said, in no uncertain terms, that I’m over the way things are here. That she let every man in her life walk all over her with no complaint. But here I am, her daughter, crying uncle and needing out. And it’s like a joke or like I’d never spoken at all.

I get this diatribe back that other people are spending Thanksgiving with their families. And that her own flesh and blood is disowning her. And that nobody loves her and everybody hates her and she’s going to go eat worms. Blah blah self-pity-cakes.

My reply was acerbic, that I want her to take a photo from atop the cross so I can see this view that she CAN’T LET GO OF. And if it makes me a bad person to want to spent Thanksgiving the way I want, with whom I want … withOUT whom I want — and, for that matter, my life in general — then so be it.

As I drove to work this morning, I wondered whether I was going to hell for wanting a few peaceful years on earth — that I will be denied my chance to go to heaven for eternity all because I wanted to enjoy my brief stay as a mortal.

This is the shit that keeps me up at night.

I said I gave her two years. It’s four now. And no signs of improvement. That the guilt trips are no longer effective. That she can’t take me down with her. That she needs help and I don’t think she wants it. Never met anybody who resisted help more.

OK, so maybe I offended her in the first note that a friend wants to donate some of her furniture to me, and I thought it would be a lovely idea to re-do the master suite into a smaller version of my friend’s place so that she can stay here when she comes to town. Oh well!

The whole thing that’s bugged me about my stupid family is that everyone HAD to take care of everyone else. I remember when my great-uncle Joe threw my great-grandmother Anastasia out of her own house so he could live there with his obnoxious second wife. Anastasia came to live with my grandparents and mom (and cousin and her infant daughter) and me.

Yep, seven of us in a two-bedroom rowhouse in the ghetto. I ran away at every opportunity. I hated it. I shared a room with my mom and grandfather. My grandmother slept on the couch. I don’t remember the rest of the arrangement. But it was embarrassing and it sucked.

As I also told the UEOEH in my reply, she chose to live with my grandparents when they were still well. Then she got trapped when they weren’t. That’s not the life I want. She might not have chosen it but if I have the chance to choose otherwise, I want to take it. Again, does it make me a bad person?

No, really — I am asking you, O Holy Internet Pulpit. Am I the asshole in this? I’m sure in God’s eyes, I am. In the UEOEH’s eyes, I am as “mean and nasty” as it gets.

But I look at this dysfunctional mother-daughter dynamic as exactly that — we are not good for each other. This is a relationship that is dying on the vine. It’s not about money; it’s about space.

My colleague’s mom lives in Paris. She is here in Florida. She says that’s how their relationship works best — when they are on different continents. They have dinner occasionally, and go shopping now and then. Another colleague’s mom lives in India. He sees her when he’s out that way. I don’t know the relationship but I love that she’s doing her own thing and he’s here doing his.

The way the UEOEH always positions this is that I “don’t want” her. I could see me being evil if I were trying to get rid of, say, a CHILD. Momma got knocked up and it’s been a good five years, but she’s kind of over you. Please take the next train out of here, yes?

(That would be me, BTW. Hence, no kids … and not because I pinned a $50 to them and dropped them at Amtrak!)

What I had to point out to the UEOEH is that this is the millionth time I’ve said something. And the millionth that she’s pretended it never happened. So, she’s always shocked when I erupt — AGAIN.

I hate feeling this way, you know? I miss loving my mother. I miss wanting to see her. To buy her dinners and get her away from my grandparents for a day. To bring her presents. To gossip and confide and have her tell me how special I am. To look forward to her amazing cooking and unforgettable baked goods, because there was always extra love in it for me. To listen to the same stupid stories about the same stupid employers and same stupid boys. And never judge me or tell me anything other than how wrong they all are and how much better I deserve.

Yeah, that doesn’t happen anymore.

Is it all my fault? Sure. Let’s go with that.

She says I make her feel like shit and that she can’t rise up out of it. But what I can’t convey to her — and maybe it’s because I’m selfish and mean and nasty like she says — is that she weighs on me, too. I’m drugged to the goddamned gills. I spend money I don’t have on shit I don’t need so I don’t have to come home.

I remember telling Lady L that when I first arrived here, in the rehab capital of the world, I simply could not understand why there were so many people boozed or cracked out of their minds here. It’s beautiful, the pace is slow and there isn’t a care in the world. Now, I see why everyone’s got a weakness for Jack ‘n Coke, or plain old Coke. It’s boring. There isn’t a damn thing to engage your mind. And a tropical environment doesn’t solve a stressful work or home life.

Anyway, I worry about my mom. She hasn’t been the same since we lost my grandfather. She is very sensitive and misses all the dead, actually. I am a foreign being to her. I am not very emotional unless I’m angry. I do miss the dead but crying won’t bring them back. I miss my friends but I don’t call them EVERY NIGHT like she does. If I hate my job or relationship or life situation, I LEAVE IT.

Felix and Oscar, I say.

I miss my mom. God, I miss her. I want her back. I don’t know what to do with this sad sack. I just wish that telling her to get her shit together and make a life for herself would make her DO it. I pray that she meets a rich man. I pray that she wakes up and feels better. I pray that she finds the superhuman strength she needs to get out of this funk. I pray that she understands why I’m so angry. I pray that I don’t become her. I pray that God doesn’t punish me because I have to answer to Him, and my answer is, “I give up.” I pray that she’s stronger than she thinks. I pray that the magical solution comes to me and that it’s easy and quick. I pray that I don’t run out of time to fix our relationship.

God answered one of my friend’s prayers in just 10 months. Makes four years seem a bit excessive, no? 🙂

Nite nite

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

This photo got upward of 200 hits in the first hour it was up on Flickr, so why not share it with the four and a half readers of Caterwauling.com? 🙂

That’s my buddy George, snoozing away. He’s had a “ruff” couple of days, with a vet appointment yesterday and an emergency vet run today. But he’s doing OK and probably lying in that same spot at this very moment.

It was a DaDa’s night in Delray. Lady L and I have now gone probably every week for the past two months. I’m still not the mayor of it on Foursquare (although I keep trying)! But I *am* the mayor of my church, which means I am the holiest woman in Palm Beach County and must be worshiped accordingly.

Every week, we celebrate making it through however many days it took to get to our midweek escape. Some weeks, we had to convene an emergency DaDa session on a Monday. Sometimes, we even made it to a Friday or a Saturday. Mostly, though, it’s a Tuesday through Thursday event, with Wednesday most often winning the “this week sucks — we need DaDa’s NOW” award.

It’s been a long week already. I’ve been opening and closing the office for days, and despite the added hours, I’m no less behind than usual. That drives me apeshit. I’m awash in a sea of editorial (and I swear the Muck Monster’s in there somewhere) plus numbers and goals and org charts and “B” players and OMG, who the hell put me in charge?

I got some … ah … news today. It’s not bad. It’s rather good. It’s not my news, per se, so I’m not sharing it. But it will affect me in a huge way. Not right away. But it will. I just hope all the progress I’ve managed since January doesn’t just evaporate.

Anyway.

I discovered some old anger over the past few days. I have a friend with a not-so-nice boss, and it opened up a lot of old wounds for me. I remember being treated the same way. And it sucks to see people I love going through that same pain.

I also found myself picking at a scar I hadn’t thought about since my college years. It’s related to that woman who lives in my house. I forgave her for everything as it happened, of course. But I can’t forget how angry I was that she let everyone walk all over her like a doormat. I mean, they wiped their feet AND their asses on her. And she LET them.

It kills me that she let everyone in the world have their way with her. And all she did was die a little bit inside each time. So I inherited a warm corpse, essentially, both physically and emotionally.

And it pisses me off to high heaven that she let everyone else use and discard her, but that I can’t get her out of the house for 15 lousy minutes. Why did she oblige people she dated, yet she can’t do anything that would — if not endear her to me — at least not piss me off?

It’s like there’s nothing left of the person I used to know. But that, with the latest memory I’d thought I’d squelched, I wasn’t all that fond of her decisions, anyway. I remember being GLAD to live far away. That her dumb decisions weren’t my problem.

I also remember fearing the day that I WOULD inherit those problems.

I remember the friend who proposed to me, just so I could take his name and detach from this wacky family. I’m glad I didn’t marry him, but I loved him for the offer.

I wonder, had I been married before inheriting my mother, would she have fought to be on her own — would she have been too proud to move in with me, and would she have been independent so as not to ruin my life?

The single children get screwed with ailing parents (even when they’re at the ripe old age of 53. Ahem). Not that I have siblings, and nor does she, but my friends’ parents don’t bother their married children. Oh, no — it’s the single ones who have to either house the parents, or make the children come back home to live with them.

Life is full of “what ifs” — I know better than to pinpoint what I would have done differently with the gift of hindsight. I just want to think about what I will do with my master suite when I hire the Chilean miners’ rescue team to extract her from it.

I wonder if I’m not simply being forced to pay for the sins of the fathers … and the mothers … and the whole fam damily. Thanks, assholes!

But tonight I got hope that all bad situations have an endpoint. Not my living situation — I’m still a half-mile below the surface there. But if others can have their pain alleviated after a quarter of the time, that means mine has to be next. Right?

Seagate Club

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

“Now you go to work and you work all day
You smoke and bitch on your coffee break
You grab that phone, rehearse those lines
Then you call home sayin’ you gotta work tonight
You hit those bars, you buy some drinks
For the first one who looks good and thinks you’re cool
You’re closer to nowhere…”

— Jen Foster, “Closer to Nowhere”

Story of my life. The whole damn song.

The saving grace to today is that I started my adjusted meds and I feel really good.

I was thinking of paying a really good psychic to talk to my mother. I say this as my account is bouncing to the sky due to bad budgeting. 🙂 C’mon Friday payday!

Speaking of bad budgeting, my new dining room set was delivered today — in a gazillion boxes. That the FedEx guys told the UEOEH they weren’t allowed to bring inside. So her weak little ass had to drag them in. Which I had to hear about. So sorry for the inconvenience.

Aside to Lady L: Can I take you up on your offer to help me build these things? 🙂

I’m thinking it’s high time for a traditional Thanksgiving meal instead of making reservations. It’s four years ago Thanksgiving that my grandfather died — since the day I knew I was inheriting the UEOEH, although nobody could predict she’d still be all up in mah grill.

Apparently I am having a guest for the holiday. Of the male variety. Who plans to spare no amount of noise to offend said houseguest. I’m sure she’d just sit on the couch and listen. Or watch. As my friend M. noted, the woman has NO BOUNDARIES.

Oh well. As long as I can keep my job and keep making money to fund my trips, that’s all that really matters. I’ll take my happiness where I can get it, since it’s so damn compromised in other places.

“Can you explain why the only place you go is to waste?”

From the Porch at DaDa

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

So, I was taking a very important personal phone call this evening. And because you can hear everything in the apartment that I pay for, and because Miss Muffett is always parked on her pudgy-pork-roast tuffett in the master suite, I took my call outside.

I was sitting with my feet in the pool, SEVERAL floors down, and Miss Thang texted me that she could HEAR me.

GAH.

I wasn’t talking about her. But man, was I annoyed. I seriously CANNOT escape her. I was at sea level, yo — I could easily have jumped into the Intracoastal and let the Muck Monster devour me!

Like, bitch, MOVE OUT so I can make/take my calls in my space, OK?

This actually tops a story from the other night. My room is a fishbowl — it’s tiny, it’s on a corner and it has two sliding-glass doors. And Princess is always waddling from one end of the balcony to the other.

So, I was asleep, and my cat Kadie was curled up at the foot of the bed, facing north, as she likes to do. (That’s where the dock is — lovely view at night.)

Apparently the UEOEH decided to enter my room from the one sliding-glass door, kidnap Kadie, and take the cat to HER room.

WTF? I mean, really. Kadie is a loud cat when she’s disturbed. (Read: She’s quiet for/with me but goes apeshit with the UEOEH.) I’m shocked that I slept through this.

But who the hell goes into someone’s room when they’re asleep? For fuck’s sake. Isn’t it bad enough that I can’t fucking blog without her finding reasons to stand near me and pet the kitty, who’s surgically attached to my side?

Grr, I hate her so much. Go away. Go away. GO AWAY.

I just spent the past 12 hours with my favoritest person on earth. We shopped. We ate cheese. We drank mojitos, margaritas, wine and coffee. I got a book on Paris. And we had beignets.

The only thing that could ruin the day is, you guessed it, a call from the UEOEH.

I do feel bad for the woman. She left a VM saying she didn’t know where I was (!), and asking me to pick up Motrin. She sounded like she was in a type of pain that said pills would probably barely touch.

That was, hmm, eight or nine hours ago. I had left her $20 and there’s a store across the bridge. Walking distance, I say.

Naturally she scares the hell out of me, per usual, by appearing as I’m in the kitchen. With a small voice and the most-pathetic face ever, she asked if I brought her Motrin. I explained that I was nowhere near a “real” store (first it was mall-a-palooza; then it was chilling in an apartment). And I asked, rhetorically of course, “You mean you’ve been in pain all day and didn’t do anything about it?”

So she went to her room.

This is pretty typical of the passive-aggressiveness in this house. It’s all MY fault that she spent the day in pain. Because she was too ill to go out. Or she couldn’t pull it together long enough to hit Walgreens. And I’m mean and nasty because I didn’t accommodate.

Or, let’s put this into context, shall we … she doesn’t get her driver’s license, thus providing her proof of residency in Florida, so she can get HEALTH COVERAGE. Because even though I’ve given her money for the driver’s license a million times, she doesn’t feel well and really, let’s face it, I’d bet my next paycheck that it will take me taking her to the DMV to get that damn license for her.

Look, I’m not a heinous individual. I do have sympathy.

But I was also the asshole whose gangrene-infested appendix burst when I lived alone in Virginia and I drove my own damn self to the hospital and my family NEVER visited me. I had my wisdom teeth yanked and I was the bleeding, shivering mess in the CVS, waiting for my antibiotics. I was the one with the carving knife and no turkey on Thanksgiving, with the unending hopelessness of being broke/unemployed for months (and no one left to save me), and I somehow scraped my rock-bottom, suicidal ass off the floor and fought my way back to the land of the living and working.

In other words, don’t tell ME about having problems.

And this is why she expects me to not just help, but downright BABY her. Because, as she says, I’m strong and resourceful and incorrigible. That she needs someone to fight for her.

But who the fuck fought for me? I mean, really. I’m not saying anybody owed me anything; I’m just saying that it was my drive, my ambition and, quite honestly, the friends/connections I made who got me where I am. And as I’ve been telling her for years, show me some damn spunk already. She hasn’t shown spunk since 1974 when she had me.

Get your own Motrin. Get your damn license and I’ll help you fill out the paperwork for healthcare. Get a fucking job and I’ll help you move out. Get out of my personal space and I’ll invite you into it once in a while.

What scares me is that whatever’s wrong with her is fixable. And that I’ll lose her to it, only to learn that had she only done X, she would have lived a happy and healthy life.

But she’s like the hypochondriacal woman in Key West whose epitaph reads, “I told you I was sick.” Not, “I tried everything to save myself” but, instead, “It’s everyone else’s fault.” SMH.

Anyway, as usual, way to ruin another wonderful day, lady.

I have a huge pain threshold, but my boundaries are quite defined.

And that is why I have no idea why people are tap-dancing on my last nerve. Do they not realize what happens when I snap?

So I mentioned I had to ask a friend to stop contacting me. That was Monday. A Facebook message Monday, a Facebook comment Wednesday and a weird text message Friday does not constitute “not contacting” me. Grrr.

This is a person who wouldn’t apologize even if you were about to clamp his widdle wee-wee in a vise. He could have the cookie jar STUCK ON HIS HEAD, and insist that he doesn’t eat sweets.

And yet, I have nothing but apologies and “hope I haven’t disappointed you” and “your friendship is valuable to me” messages.

Yeah, he’s up to something.

Men are so transparent. This one in particular.

And he managed to blame someone else in the whole equation. Which, this is between you and me, bud. I owned up to my end of the deal. I could have blamed someone else, and I chose not to. You, on the other hand, have no right to throw anyone under the bus. Excuses are unbecoming, yo.

I am too annoyed to reply. Because that’s what I do — I tune out and give up. The end. Love, Goddess.

It’s not that I want to kill the friendship. I invested a lot of time and effort into this. And frankly, I’m not mad. Just … done. Whether for now or for good, I’m over it and out of it.

This is the longest break-up I’ve ever had with somebody I wasn’t even with!

Speaking of people who don’t realize the love is gone, I had to explain where I got the UEOEH’s name. It’s Ultra Extra Over Extended Houseguest. She started as the Houseguest. But I add an adjective for every year that she’s underfoot. Who the hell knows what I can add for 2011, but I’m hoping to ship her ass back to Pittsburgh by then.

I couldn’t sleep this morning. I mean, I went to bed early last night and I was up before dawn today. But it was nice. Kadie and I were curled up on the bed, listening to the waves lapping against the dock and enjoying the breeze now that it’s FINALLY cool enough to have the windows open.

I thought about how much I love coastal living, and yet, how much it costs. I don’t want to move inland, even though I’d get more space for less money. I already tried living inland with the UEOEH (back when she was just the OEH), and I’ve since discovered that having salt water within smelling distance helps immensely.

But now that I have a travel itinerary that includes Mexico, Baltimore, Dublin and Paris, I realize that I need money. The dollar ain’t worth shit when you’re buying euros, people.

I don’t need another job. I just need to stop stress-shopping as a way of avoiding coming home. (Oh, what a grammatical nightmare that sentence was — says she who also just corrected a romantic text sent her way!)

Anyway, I like having “international travel” on my list of stress-relievers. I just wish my list of “stressors” were shorter than my cures for them.