Caterwauling

Aboard the new Lady Delray

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

“Something, something about this place
Something ‘bout lonely nights and my lipstick on your face
Something, something about my cool Nebraska guy
Yeah something about
Baby you and I.”

— Lady Gaga, “You and I”

My head’s been a little stuck in the wayback machine these past couple of days. Perhaps because it’s not overly pleasant to keep my head in current times. What I need is to focus my thoughts on the immediate future because — scary or painful or not — it’s coming full-throttle.

I read a great blog story yesterday called Never Date a Writer, and I’m pretty sure I gave traffic a boost when I posted it on Facebook. Because, well, I think I have some people worried about that out there.

As well they should be. 😉

In the past few months, I’ve been re-engaging with my book characters, building up the character sketches I’ve carried around with me for years. And I’ve realized I’ve been too harsh on some … and not even CLOSE to exposing some others.

No malice intended. Well, except for the crazy-ass character whom I’m modeling after a psychopath I know just outside the D.C. line. The book character ain’t gonna know what hit him. 😉

But I am starting to take pleasure in taking what irks or otherwise troubles me about some folks and making my characters pay under the guise of “making them interesting.”

I’ve oft been told I’m “too nice” in the workplace. What they don’t know is what I do to torture my characters … even if the meanest thing I do is model them after some less-than-attractive traits from their human counterparts. Which can be downright cruel, in some instances.

I do have to confess that I’m really not too terrible to my characters. In fact, just yesterday, I was working on a sketch of the hero in the book series. I’ve always thought I would have met that character’s inspiration by now. But I haven’t yet experienced the all-consuming passion that I need the heroine to feel for him.

Or have I?

“Something, something about the chase
Six whole years
I’m a New York woman, born to run you down
So have my lipstick all over your face
Something, something about just knowing when it’s right.”

Just as I was wondering who I could model him after, the image was clear as day in my head. That one I met back in 1998. That one I swore to God I was going to marry someday. That one who eavesdrops on my life frequently and says hello every couple of years.

I’d said goodbye a long time ago. It took moving four hours away, but that worked wonders. 😉 Add another thousand miles to that and you’d think distance would erase the memory even better. But, alas, a well-timed song dedication sent me back to a time when just the thought of him invoked the dizzying feeling of my heart being squeezed by a scorching-hot hand.

He was in Tampa a couple years ago. Said he’d love to see me if I could make the trip. I couldn’t; it was a hellish time at the job. (Four months with only one lousy day off.)

I remember the last time I saw him. (Right before 9/11.) It was at a party I’d thrown for myself. (My place was always Party Central back in that era.)

I remember everyone leaving the party (and my BFFs Kristin and Steve pretending to leave but really going for a drink at the bar across the way. (God bless them!)

Anyway, let’s just say I remember everything. Nothing salacious or above a PG rating here, folks. Just, a proper goodbye. And that’s what makes it so sweet and so sad and so, so perfect in my mind.

There are many reasons why I don’t go back to that place, either on a mental visit or a real one. Mostly it’s that there’s nothing there for me anymore. It’s a foreign land, one that I don’t often admit to even setting foot in. (Except during football season!)

Maybe it’s because if I did go, I wouldn’t be able to leave alone again.

Perhaps where a story once ended, another would begin.

Or the outcome would be the same. And I can’t open up a wound I stitched shut with the strongest materials possible.

Either way, at least the fictional story will end exactly the way I want it to, with all the right words and our heroine being better for it.

Hell, our real-life heroine is better for being loved back.

“It’s been a long time since I came around
Been a long time but I’m back in town
This time I’m not leaving without you.”

Blazing orange sky and ocean

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

I am prone to panic.

I mean, it’s understandable now that I’ve become disenchanted and lazy. Who the hell wants to scramble for solutions at this age and energy level?

But since late 2004 and I was out of work for five solid months, I haven’t slept a good night’s sleep. I’ve always been terrified of … well, the worst. Whatever that may be. I don’t speak it aloud or even define it in my mind. Law of Attraction, yo.

A friend confessed the other day that she has the same fear. She’s had it for two years. And it’s all based on the same reason — how idiot employers think their superstars are simply disposable.

We should be the ones with the security, you know? With the knowledge base, the contacts and the reputation, we should be the FIRST ones these guys are fighting for. Not the ones to be carelessly cast aside under the auspices of, “Oh they will land on their feet somewhere else.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, THEY are the ones in over their head. They don’t know how to handle ideas that aren’t their own. So they shoot yours down and/or claim them as their own. Why is it your fault that they don’t know what they’re doing?

Speaking of “in over one’s head,” I’ve taken an uncanny interest in the Casey Anthony trial. The defense lawyer, Jose Baez, is every boss I’ve ever hated — he HAS to be the smartest guy in the room. And he will lob slights and personal insults to the people who ARE the smartest in the room.

Arpad Vass testified yesterday, bringing the nascent science of testing air to the courtroom for the first time ever. And perhaps it’s Baez’ job to attack the witnesses’ credibility, but I felt he did so even more unfairly than usual.

(Not saying he didn’t abuse Yuri Melich and, oh, Caylee’s GRANDPARENTS. He did. Seems everyone is on trial BUT the alleged murderer.)

Anyway, Vass seems to have a small speech impediment, and I felt like Baez was treating him like a special category of idiot. But if you actually listened to the guy, he was goddamn brilliant. And passionate. And confident.

Why do people have to try to bring down the Vasses of the world? My kvetch is on a bigger scale than just yesterday’s courtroom interaction. It’s the whole “Swinging Dick” theory — everyone’s gotta wield their widdle weiners and try to prove that theirs is the biggest … particularly those whose weiners you would need a microscope and a petrie dish to see.

I was always the type of supervisor who wanted smarter people on my team. I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t know everything. Nor do I plan to become proficient at a thousand things. Nor do I want to pretend that I know more than the EXPERTS. (It always killed me how many people thought they were editorial gods and goddesses after one conversation with me. Uh, I forgot more than you will ever learn.)

Anyway, the good news is that Baez has no defense and Casey is surely soon to become the fourth woman on Florida’s Death Row.

And the better news is that Vass had jokes and zingers that he lobbed right back to Baez. I am ready to start a fan club for him. 🙂

But take that with you — it’s usually crystal-clear to others who’s the brains in the operation and who’s throwing roadblocks in their path to LOOK like the smart guy.

And when your credibility and experience gets attacked and patronized, just sit back and talk above their heads. Shouldn’t be too hard because the smartest people in the room are smart enough to know that they can stand to learn something from everyone else … and they will be laughing WITH you while the mean asshole struggles to come up with his next baseless insult because it’s the ONLY TRICK HE HAS.