Caterwauling

Rum Bar

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

So, I went to church last night after, oh, six months or so. I needed it, although the post-church zen officially wore off within 20 minutes. 😉

I go to one of those megachurch-type places like Joel Osteen preaches from. In fact, in my church’s TV commercials (!), we have Joel Osteen personally endorsing us. It’s rather hilarious because our pastors bash him (indirectly, of course) and you can feel the tension between Joel and our guy in that miserable 15 seconds that they appear on-air together.

I go to an offshoot of the megachurch. Same brand, different pastor. He’s usually the reason why I come and go. He’s either fantastic or grubbing for money. Luckily, yesterday he was in a good mood. 🙂 He was just pleased that we braved the TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR to come out last night.

Every once in a while, the pastor gets on a kick about sacrificial giving. Which is kind of bullshit at my campus, because it caters to students and young professionals. The other branches of the megachurch attract the mega MILLIONS that keeps my little branch afloat.

Anyway, although we spent the bulk of our time reviewing Psalm 23 and how us bad little sheep are God’s personal favorites, the pastor did throw in a mention about sacrificial giving.

And the revelation I took home from services was that God is a Democrat!

Think about it — for some reason, everyone scoffs at the wealthy folk who donate a chunk of money. But nobody cares because it doesn’t cause any hardship. (Um, hello, who do you think is funding your international mission trips??!!)

But we all love the woman who gave her last two coins because she gave everything she had.

Well, I gave up covered parking during a tropical storm so I could park for free (blocks away!) and donate the exorbitant parking garage fee to the offering. Does that count? 😉

Anyway, my takeaway from all this is the sacrifice part. Because sometimes I feel like I’ve made more than my share for a very simple life without a whole lot of room to give up EVEN MORE.

But instead of focusing on what I don’t have — or no longer have — I’m going to do what the pastor said and leave the door open for miracles. Instead of begrudging my newfound inability to work my ass off, realize that it’s a commandment to take time to relax and commune with God. And accept that something good will come when I make room to receive it.

I will always worry, of course, about everything. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it.

I took on a rent commensurate with the salary I once commanded. So that makes me nuts. But I also don’t have a car payment, so that helps. And not having colleagues means no more meals, birthdays, showers and buying shit from their kids, so that is a benefit I never dreamed I’d enjoy so much. 🙂 Well, I DO miss the nice people because I loved them. But it did hurt to spend money on someone’s Christmas gift only to be fired the DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.

Ahem.

Life ain’t all bad. In fact, it’s kind of awesome when I allow myself to go out and live it. I just need to do more of that. Of course, don’t we all?

I’ve never had a problem with the separation of church and state because each is so fluid that the wingnuts of one (church) could have entirely too much effect on what should be evolving yet dependable (state). But these days, I wouldn’t be opposed to a little bit of the former bringing some heart and help to the latter.

I just found a Christian Left group on Facebook that pointed me to a Salon article: Are the American people obsolete? And the answer is yes. The wealthy have long predicted the end of Social Security. And their wish will be granted with the bonus of losing Medicare. The Bush tax cuts funded many a month-long exotic vacation for the whole clan, provided the full-cash purchase of thousands of second or third mansions, and afforded the meager salaries of undocumented or overseas labor.

I don’t begrudge because I don’t have. I’m sure you will hear me bitching at tax time since I make so little that I can’t save any of it, but as a lower-middle-class person, I will be paying a disproportionate percentage of the pathetic excuse for “income” that I have. But I know I have to pay it because I don’t want to be sharing a cell with Casey Anthony. I know — I HOPE — that my tax dollars will feed the hungry and keep running homes for adults with mental and physical disabilities. I just don’t see why anyone else gets to opt out because they can afford to pay off politicians — WHY NOT PAY YOUR FUCKING TAXES?!?!

Plus, I spent enough years in non-profits to know that the bulk of people don’t donate willingly — you HAVE to mandate it through taxes because otherwise the unfortunate many will not otherwise be able to achieve even something halfway resembling a life without the money afforded the fortunate few whose ideas/skills/abilities may or may not warrant the extraordinary compensation.

Anyway, my Web surfing this morning also landed me at The Christian Left Blog. And I’m ashamed to admit my faith has been shaken a bit lately. (See above.)

Don’t get me wrong — I’ve been seeing some good guys finally winning, but not enough, unfortunately. And I’m tired of struggling, too. I see why people give up. I’m ready to. I have one last shot at making it, and so help me if I blow it. I don’t think I will. But fear isn’t even motivating me anymore, and THAT scares me.

If you’re a lovable Leftie (and not in the handwriting sense) like me, you may appreciate this entry: Let us all be broken together.

I dare ask the same thing they do:

“Where is the Christlike love? It is a very lonely time for us. We need to get together in spirit and encourage one another that the love and sacrificial motives of Christianity are still alive. That cheap grace will not reign. That Christ still wants us to reconcile and work for social justice. That sometimes, a lot of times, we can use government and social institutions to help those who are hurting precisely because the love of Christ overcomes the cold bureaucracy that Conservatives seem to be so paranoid about.”

Maybe the liberal Christians are the future of the country. I just don’t see the conservative crackpots stepping aside — especially when they can buy their own earthly salvation. But when we all get to Heaven’s gate, the rest of us who managed to hang on to our spiritual currency will cut to the front of the line. And I’m sure we will all be nice enough to share it with the people who didn’t give a fuck about us in this world, just because that’s who we are and will always be.

There’s been a bit of a baby boom in my circle of friends of late. And, as I just learned, Satan’s sidekick is quietly baking her own demon spawn as well.

Alas, once again it boils down to the fact that so many WONDERFUL people cannot have children and, yet, those who even God has to admit were a mistake are hatching their own versions of dipshit devils.

I know they can’t POSSIBLY be happy — she really is, bar none, one of the most excruciating individuals I’ve ever encountered. I highly doubt motherhood will soften her — I’m sure the child’s cloven hooves will scratch her coochie on the way out and make her even less tolerable.

Seriously, I need to go pray or something. I cannot believe how easily I resort to grade-school insults when it comes to certain people. I have to say something nice. But, what?

There’s a therapist out there who will have a job for life.

There you have it. She’s helping the employment data. (For a change…)

I think I offended the fine people over at SecretRegrets.com yesterday. They have some awesome secrets (mixed with regret, natch), but the self-righteous shithead they published yesterday made me angry.

I’ll spare the details — blah blah woman sleeping with otherwise-taken man with a kid blah blah this one gets knocked up too blah blah — but I wrote that I don’t think we the public should really be encouraging or condoning abominable behavior when it affects other people (i.e., child conceived in ridiculous situation).

I got a message back to give the site another try. My issue is that I’m seeing secrets but there ain’t a hint of regret. I almost felt like baby mama was bragging that she got knocked up by the lover she can’t have. No, you got knocked up by a selfish douchebag and you’re no better than him.

And I told them I’m not a prude or a hypocrite or, worse, a Republican. 😉 But damn, nobody should be making this person feel GOOD about her poor choices!

I know what it’s like to want someone you can’t have. But the one time I did meet that person, he was smart enough to be the strong one. I had nothing to lose. He did. He set the boundaries. And despite my wily attempts to corrode them, he maintained them.

So, sure, my morality can remain intact. For once. 😉 But I feel like we’ve jumped the shark from seeing what happens in people’s personal lives to applauding them and leaving comments in support of them.

The comment that got me on that post above was, “Me, too.” Oy vey. *headdesk*

I admit I tend to hide from the world. I get out there, make some friends, date and ultimately decide I can’t stand people and then I retreat to my little shell. People take WORK. They take TIME. Some of them are worth it. Many aren’t. I’m becoming the girl who lets the last one ruin it for the next one.

I love humanity and all of its flawed glory. I study it and a part of me wants to help everyone I meet. But I’ve also encountered my share of people who embrace their shortcomings and parade them with pride. They don’t even need outside validation, but hoo boy, they’re on fire when they elicit it.

And that’s the problem — when people beg for attention and just one person doesn’t condemn them, they think their collision course with life is all fun and games till someone loses an eye. Just as long as it isn’t theirs. Then the party keeps going till everyone’s lying dead on the battlefield and no one is left to play with them anymore.

I don’t know why this bothered me so much. You know there’s a problem when *I* become the moral majority. Shit, I might as well pre-write my own regret that I didn’t vote for Obama in 2012 if I keep THIS shit up! 🙂

Oh lord. Someone scanned in one of our middle-school yearbooks and it has appeared on our *gulp* 20-year reunion page. Crikey.

I just saw the faces of my classmates as I still remember them. And I saw one gal whom I will never forget.

We were in the same homeroom in sixth grade. Or maybe it was the same Language class. Either way, it was in Mr. Allison’s homeroom. I’ve written about him before in this space but I’m too lazy to look it up.

Anyway, I remember she started feeling sick. And the teacher knew something was up but didn’t know what to do. She clearly needed assistance to go to the nurse’s office downstairs, but he couldn’t leave our rowdy asses.

After furtively scanning the room, he looked straight at me. I felt doomed, mostly because I LIKED learning. I didn’t care so much for that “interpersonal interaction” shit that walking to the nurse with a fellow classmate required.

Anyway, guess who was nominated for the odyssey. Sigh. I asked for a hall pass. (I was SUCH a goody-goody!) He said to just go and he’d deal with it later. Hmmm.

Oh boy that was an adventure. She couldn’t walk in a straight line. I somehow had to half-drag, half-carry her down the long hallway, down three flights of stairs, and across the friggin’ foyer and another hallway downstairs.

You might have thought that there was the concept of CALLING SOMEONE to come up to the classroom or, I dunno, telling someone to meet us, eh? Not so much. I guess back in the ’80s we were still sending carrier pigeons with Post-It Notes.

OK, what nobody told me was the gal was prone to having seizures. This, I learned after the fact — after the writhing and incoherent babble and the vomit … so much vomit. Oy.

Did I mention that we were only 11 years old?

I got her there safely. I think classes might have changed by that point — it felt like forever.

She never made eye contact with me again. Or maybe I just politely avoided her at all costs. Honestly, I don’t think she remembered a single moment of it. Plus, she was shy. And I didn’t want to speak of it again — I was sure she would have been embarrassed that her secret was now known by a peer. A secret that I never shared with a soul, by the way.

I have no idea what happened to her in the coming years — I don’t think she graduated. Maybe she moved. Hell, maybe her health kept her from leaving the house at all.

And I wonder, why did teachers (and, later, employers) task me with the impossible? How the hell was I supposed to know how to handle a person who lies down in the middle of the floor multiple times, trying to have a seizure?

I would learn years later that you’re not supposed to move people, that there’s a certain way they should lie on the floor. I didn’t know any of this. I finally helped her to carefully fall to the ground and I ran toward the school office just to ask for an adult to come over and help her.

Anyway, I don’t know what to make of this memory. Perhaps that I was always given more responsibility than most. And in turn, perhaps, that the so called “mighty” among us have so much further to fall. I mean, I could have done something that seriously injured that girl. (I didn’t.) Perhaps there was no one else in the class Mr. Allison would have trusted. I don’t know. I guess I’ve just found that, in subsequent years, I always got the impossible assignments and worst POSSIBLE bosses. Why did everyone else have it — seemingly — so easy in comparison?

I’m certain that I’m making FAR more out of this than I need to. But it did set me up as sort of a volunteer for these kinds of things. I came to appreciate the challenges … particularly those that no one else would touch with a 10-foot pole.

I’m a little over the challenges these days. I’d like “easy” — I’ve watched enough people coast and make it through life just fine without anything extraordinary to report. But I know me — my brain will atrophy if I don’t use it, and soon.

In any event, I have no desire to go to my reunion. But on the other hand, it’s not about how I turned out — I’d like to see what happened with everyone else. And if the gal I wrote about today is there, nobody would be more pleased than I to see her … even if she’d never know it.

Yeah. Father’s Day. The day I have to hold my hair back while I puke as I read poetic romantic tomes from all the married women in my Facebook feed as they swoon over their darling handsome husbands who also happen to be the world’s most brilliant fathers.

I have one friend who is, I think, the best example of a father there is. And I posted on his page simply to say that he is the father I wish I myself had had. He’s got a tough story but anyone else who thinks they’ve had it tough has NO idea what it’s like.

His little girl has turned out magnificent. If I could have a daughter, I want her to be exactly as beautiful and well-mannered and spirited.

I’d say I want a man like him, but he’s a Republican. 😉 And, yes, even that cancels out “gainfully and profitably employed”!

I also sent out a general Father’s Day wish: Happy Fathers Day to those who love, rear, support, live with, and nurture their progeny day to day. And to those who stepped up and did it for the useless and clueless types like my own father.

And with that, I never realized what a traditionalist I have been at heart. I have never been in what I’d call a fully functional relationship. Ergo, I’ve never had the thought cross my mind that:

A) wedding bells were a possibility, and

B) there’d ever be employees of the pint-size variety added to the merging and incorporating of assets and lives.

I realize I so vehemently hate the idea of an every-other-weekend, -week, -holiday, -summer, -year, -decade, etc. dad that I’ve never picked or stayed with a mate with deadbeat potential. Or, if there were some element of that in the baggage, then I made up my mind to not be in it for the long term.

Don’t get me wrong — I haven’t been kind to the guys I’ve dated whose kids lived with them. (Sorry R.A. I owe you so many apologies. Especially after you introduced me to them. Although you did spring them on me WAY too early. *sigh*)

In retrospect, though, while I wasn’t ready to inherit three kids without knowing how I felt about the guy, I have to give him props for taking that on with a smile. Because if I had a kid of my own, I would never want it to know that its father was *somewhere* out there … living a life that had little bearing on his.

It is a day like today that I miss my grandfather more than usual … he stepped up when he didn’t have to and loved me enough for a daddy and a grandfather. And so much more.

I know that no one gets into a relationship, and certainly not an engagement or a marriage, with a vision of it ending. And for a while, I prepared myself to be a single parent — whether the relationship never happened or whether it did and I had to take on the responsibility after someone (I admit, I figured inevitably) would hit the bricks.

But I got to thinking about it today, and I thought, why can’t I be a “see ya on the weekends” mom? I know, the “being a food source for an infant” thing would make that impossible. But beyond disgusting diapers, the “taking a shit on my freedom” thing is what I’ve always worried about most.

Not that I’m living the dream life these days, but so help me if I get that ticket to Europe, I reserve the right to take it and NEVER COME BACK. Teeny tiny squishy cute little thing can come but momma’s got to get her wine on. But it could work if I didn’t have to do it full-time.

I’m saying this *kind* of tongue-in-cheek. But if men can choose whether or not to be a father or a daddy or whatever they want to call it depending on the involvement in the kid’s life, why can’t women? (Because both can’t be a disappointment — there’s only room for one. See what not having a father did to me?)

Why would I have to be the one to work all day and feed/change/comfort/burp a munchkin all night? (Don’t you people know how easily bored I get?) Why do “fathers” get the option of either not being around, or not being around as full-time as possible?

Anyway, I was talking to a friend recently who met her dream guy, and she’s heading to the altar soon enough and is already contemplating kids. And it really made my heart hurt that I have given up on all of that. Even though another of our friends has three kids and I am quickly reminded of how AWESOME it is to be kid-free, I feel like I don’t have a choice anymore. The cards have been dealt; it doesn’t mean I have to KEEP this hand, but I don’t want to be an “old” parent either. And, oh yeah, there’s still that issue of finding the man and all!

Of course, I still want Europe. And wine. Lots of wine. And I still think I want to adopt. Of course, I will keep holding out for that intercontinental wealthy businessman who sweeps me away and takes me on a whirlwind worldwide romance. Traditional family stuff be damned. 😉

My mom was just talking to one of my grandfather’s brothers today. Even though the only one worth a damn in that family was my grandfather, Mom still tried to be nice and keep in touch with one of those bozos. And we are reminded of what idiots still walk this earth while the good ones are gone. Truly, there is NO need to perpetuate this gene pool. NONE WHATSOEVER.

I Googled my own father/source of sperm today. I can’t find him online. And that’s fine with me. Mom gave me his middle name today, and it occurred to me that I’m 37 years old and I don’t even know my father’s full name. Wow.

Mom said this is probably the one day of the year that he thinks of me. And I don’t think he does. I think he’s probably selfish and into himself and doesn’t even think of me as even existing.

And that’s OK. He can stay out there in the ether. What, would we be Facebook friends now? After a lifetime of nothing? Please. Keep it. Dating is enough of an adventure in people who aren’t around when you need them — a girl’s daddy should be there for everything. He may not be a failure as a human being, but he comes up very short in the man department. And he seems uninterested in changing that status.

I doubt he’d get on a plane and come to Florida (unless I paid for it). But I don’t know. Maybe he does miss me. Maybe he regrets being the “asshole yardstick” when it comes to everyone I meet. (He can’t NOT know that he’s set the bar pretty damn low in my life.)

My mom may drive me nuts but she was there through 100% of it, good or bad and right or wrong. Even if she impacts me in a lot of ways that aren’t so awesome right now, she’s all I have, family-wise.

Like I said, this day is for those who don’t talk or brag about it and just DO it, and for those who stepped up for those who didn’t. So, happy Father’s Day to her too. That, and thanks…

Today’s reading:

Can Your Boss Micromanage You to Death?

Let me introduce you to some folks. 😉

Best graf from this:

“It’s difficult not to become bitter in this type of situation. The problems don’t go away. Your performance level may drop, causing your boss to become even more unpleasant and more demanding and more prone to micro-managing.”

My response to that:

“That exact thing happened to me. I got tired of tap-dancing around the bullets aimed at my feet and just decided to try to go with the flow. Oh boy did that backfire. Never, ever walk away feeling like things would have turned out differently, if only you would have retained your own backbone/integrity/ethic.”

In other words, if you don’t trust me then fine, show me why I need to have your thumb on my forehead. I’m very in favor of having a mentor. I am always open to that. But every idea I come up with CANNOT be for shit. And if I do work into the night, why the hell CAN’T I stroll in around noon the next day? I quit working at night because I figured, well, I have to be in for crack o’dawn meetings and I’m expected to be awake for those. Might as well rest up.

And yes, I blame myself for thinking I could do it all with a smile. I have just seen people damn near executed for standing their ground on what’s right for them.

I always figure, pander for a year or so and then show them your track record. Of course, most of them figure that their micromanaging ways are what caused any success to which you can lay claim; ergo it must continue into perpetuity. But every once in a while, you run into someone reasonable who figures that you MUST have a brain in your head (they hired you, after all) and hop to it, little bunny. Do it your way.

And that’s why we hang in there … sometimes too long … but in the ONE OUT OF FIVE TIMES it has happened, it was oh so worth it.

I think it’s on record that some 70% of people leave their bosses, not their jobs. Even when I got my ass handed to me the day after Christmas, I was sad to leave the job but not necessarily *all* the people.

And at the job before it, I was so happy to leave the partners (well, one or two in particular) behind. And so on. And so on.

I don’t think we’re necessarily programmed to despise authority. I give everyone respect even after they’ve stopped deserving it. (Note that this is NOT an infinite time period, though.) But when people just hurt you and do everything in their power to take away YOUR power, that’s when it’s time to put yourself in a position where they cannot hurt you anymore. Because, clearly, they WILL as long as you allow it.

I got to thinking about how I have allowed so much in my glory days. Fuck, I allow these freelance yahoos to tap-dance on my financial security, too. It’s a different kind of abuse, but it’s still abuse.

What got my goat was being let go from a job and basically being told, “You’ll be fine. You know everybody. You’ll find something else.”

That’s like being broken up with. You’ll find someone else. Now let me go cornhole MY someone else. Buh-bye.

But relationships don’t pay the bills. Jobs do. It is the highest form of cruelty to remove a paycheck from someone — it’s like premeditated murder, how you know it and you PLAN it and you dance when they go. You’ve killed all their hopes and dreams and ability to sleep at night because they were waiting for not just the next paycheck, but the next couple DOZEN of them.

And for the record, yes I do know everybody. Yes I will find something else. But that doesn’t make any of those roles RIGHT for me. Not that the last role was right for me … in the end, anyway.

Forget premeditated murder — it’s downright spiritual manslaughter to hire people under false pretenses and then try to make them feel like THEY are the idiots for no longer fitting in the mold that was created for them … a mold that gets smashed and set ablaze and expectations are suddenly ambiguous and as ever-changing as the seasons we used to have before global warming set in.

I really need to pray on what I want next. It ain’t that and it ain’t this. And the definition of insanity is knowing the outcome and doing it all again anyway. It’s time for sanity to prevail once and for all. But … how?

Name that price!

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

I thought this photo from the local Shell station (although all of them have this same strategy) was appropriate for today. What does gas cost right now? Pull up and get your surprise!

OPEC isn’t increasing reserves, but the U.S. isn’t increasing jobs, either. Whatever will the price be? If we don’t tell you what the cash price is, you can’t bitch when you’re charged more for using your debit card!

Anyway, speaking of scary surprises and drained debit cards, I am having SEVERE trust issues right now. I have been fighting to get paid at several places. My reserves are gone. I was already taking a pay cut everywhere, but I never agreed to ZERO.

And that’s not even the worst of it. If you can believe that.

I am at a point now where I am honestly expecting someone to be telling me something horrible, and the person about whom the tirade was launched would probably be on mute on another line. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

I ain’t saying shit. I learned my lesson about being plaintive and truthful and sincere. No fucking way am I ever going to do THAT again. Why, to have my ass handed to me once more? No thanks — it’s gotten too big over the past six months to lift with two hands.

I keep putting my “Law of Attraction”-type skills to shame by worrying and wondering. Want begets want. Poverty begets poverty. I was better off when I had some savings and an even bigger mental bank account full of hope.

It will all turn out OK. It has to. There are simply no two ways about it. There are far too many great things in the works. I just cannot help wondering “what if” time (read: rent money) runs out before things start to go my way again?

Happy Umbrella

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

Leave it to me to talk about penis enough to somehow invoke someone who was altogether too eager to introduce me to his.

Dude, the only thing worse than penis is OLD penis. Just saying.

I spent the day yesterday in Port St. Lucie at a friend’s house. Her neighbor came over. He was nice and really funny — has the same voice as Billy Crystal and the same sense of humor as “Harry” in “When Harry Met Sally.”

He left for a while and I decided to pack up and go around 7:30. He had called my friend and said that I should drop by to say goodbye on my way out. As they live two doors down from each other, I couldn’t “forget.” Damn.

So when I got there, the house was GLEAMING and he was all dressed up and had taken a cologne bath. For lil ol’ me, I guess.

I basically said goodbye (um, what else was there to discuss?) and he said he was going to kiss me. So, um, OK. I turned my cheek to him and he kissed it. And kissed it again. And went in for the mouth.

I pursed my lips, shook my head and said, “Don’t think so.”

How friggin’ weird was that? And creepy.

I left right away. I smelled like his cologne till I took a shower today. It wasn’t bad — it’s just that there was SO MUCH of it.

Did I mention that he has a DAUGHTER my age?!?!

*squick*

It reminded me of a recent scandal in my field where a hot young thing was sleeping with a slimy old wrinkled thing. And then I thought about Hugh Hefner and all the girls 70 years his junior who are happy to play “hide the chinchilla.” And, ew.

I am having a difficult enough time with 30-year-old cock, thanks. Any more rings around those tree trunks and I might have to gargle with bleach, ya know? Might need to add some Clorox to the ol’ Visine bottle, too. *retch*

I hate that. It isn’t even flattering to basically be pounced upon after spending an hour with someone. This isn’t the ’90s (or ’00s) and these ain’t the dance clubs I used to frequent. Shit, I was trying to figure out how to hook up my MOM with this guy. FUCK.

I need another shower now. *huz*