Caterwauling

Google says it’s Maria Montessori’s 142nd birthday today. Made me remember one of my twunts, who was a devout atheist (as was her husband) until they couldn’t afford the tuition at her kids’ chi-chi private school anymore. Then suddenly they became the BEST CATHOLICS EVER and enrolled their kids at the MUCH-cheaper Montessori school in their neighborhood.

This is the same lovely person who still owes me like three grand in freelance fees that I’ll never see. (And she WONDERS why we’re not friends anymore.)

But yeah, what a GREAT Catholic that one is. I guess she thinks she can buy her way into heaven … and at a discount, no less.

Anyway, cheers to you, Maria Montessori. Hope your method saves those innocent children from their parents.

Severe burnout. Network errors. Pile of to-dos bigger than my ass is wide. Oh the humanity.

So I’ve successfully avoided (without even trying, really. Phone’s on and nobody’s using it) he who has now become the world’s least-reliable friend. Until today, that is.

I mean, I’ve avoided him, not that he’s become reliable!

It was pleasant enough of an exchange. I was head-scratching over the truthiness of part of it, but as it doesn’t affect my life, I let it go. Really, if that’s what gets you to sleep at night, you enjoy that.

As for me, I’ll be adding “liar” to the list of WHY I NEED TO WAVE A SAGE WAND AROUND MY LIFE. If I don’t bitchslap him with it first.

My feeling is that he wants me to maintain a certain perception of him, and the fact is, it’s gone. Why try to string me along? Not interested. Don’t flatter yourself. EVER. AGAIN.

You might as well tell me the truth. If you keep making plans with me and breaking them, stop it with the damn excuses because I already know not to rely on you anymore. And if you’re going to lie about other, unrelated dumb shit, Jesus. Get right with God — quit bothering me!!!

And frankly, there are two bigger truths to all of this. Maybe three. One is confirmed, one is obvious and one just makes sense. All will be revealed later. But let me say that I have certain other types of friends who rate higher on the reliability scale, and that’s not saying much.

So today brought an “Oh hey this event is happening and I thought of you.” Me: “Oh that’s nice of you to think of me.” In my head, I debated whether to go to it … ALONE.

Then I get a, “Well, if I’m not catering to Raggedy Ass all weekend, I’ll call you and we can go.”

Hah.

I said, “So, do you ever do anything YOU want to do on the weekends?”

He said no.

I said something sarcastic about oh yeah I’ll go ahead and wait for THAT call. But the sarcasm I think was missed. “OK great, I’ll let you know!” he said.

ZOMG.

Seriously.

This isn’t funny. This isn’t fun. It was flattering for four seconds that he thought of something so very ME and wanted to take me TO it.

And that’s about as long as it lasted.

If he’s on dumbass pills, I won’t be able to tell when they wear off because he’s acting like he’s on a permanent high.

Thunder. Lightning. Torrential downpours. And a tornado.

Not a few of my favorite things, mind you, but the last 24 hours on the eastern edge of Tropical Storm Isaac.

I’ll be working all damn night on a project that was conceived Thursday but I was too frickin’ busy on seventy thousand other things to be able to start it till today. Seriously, people. I love that y’all count on me but if I do manage to pull this off, I am officially changing my name to Miracle Worker.

Stayed in the house today. Which was a stroke of genius since everything was open till midday. I miss following the federal government’s openings and closures. We need an OPM-like group down here that looks at a fucking map and can see that, hmm, old people driving plus 8 to 12 inches of rainwater, plus oh hey could that be a tornado too? equals STAY THE FUCK HOME, PEOPLE.

What this pseudo-hurricane party has taught me is 1. wine made from carambola probably tastes like my cat’s tongue after washing her ass (which explains why she DOESN’T) — consider the parallel between the star fruit and the puckered star-shaped asshole on a kitty, 2. personals sites suck and apparently there’s no one in my chi-chi town who has the (not overly ambitious, I promise) education and income I desire them to have, 3. just because you are captive in the house with a lot of food doesn’t mean you have to consume it all (oops) and 4. DAMN I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO BE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH A HOT MAN.

Could be worse. Could be married to some dumbass who was sweet till I married him and then I realized what a hot mess he was. Gotta give thanks to God for showing you earlier rather than later what you’re getting into.

Anyway, just to jump in the wayback machine for a minute, torrential downpours remind me of parking at the Metro station, meeting a gentleman friend there, riding into D.C. and dashing from museum to museum in the rain, laughing and kissing and shivering in remote, darkened corners of the hallowed halls of the Smithsonians we loved most.

He loved me more. I knew that. I was so resistant, and with good reason. But the passion, damn. Never would have guessed.

THAT is what I want to feel again. Hiding in the basement of the Hirshhorn, watching a black-and-white flick in a darkened room, my head on his shoulder and an absolute inability to concentrate on anything but the butterflies in knowing that all I had to do was look at him and be swept away by how he was looking at me … waiting to kiss me for when I was ready.

How could I come in and create such feelings in someone else? And when will I be able to do it again … this time with a forever or at least a more-appropriate-for-where-I-am-in-my-life someone … someone who makes me feel the same way I did in those precious, stolen moments on the Mall?

Tropical Storm Isaac is hitting town. The lightning storms of the past couple of nights have been beautiful, and it was lovely hearing the torrential downpour all last night.

I think that’s about the worst of it for us. *knock on wood* — no wood so *knocking on head*

So for the past three weekends, a certain person has dangled a certain event in front of me that “we should go” to. I never had high hopes because, well, I know this person.

But I’m also not an asshole and frankly I would not mind spending some time with him. We have nothing but fun when we spend time together, but he makes sure to limit that.

(I seriously hate most of my Florida friends right now. Seriously.)

Besides, should we both finally admit that this entanglement has more than run its course, I want my last memories of him to be better than the ones currently in my head.

And I’m perfectly willing to let him make things better (or, at least, less worse). If he’s like most of the men I’ve known, he’ll come back around in three to five years to say that he was a dumbass to let me go the way he did. That would be the difference between me having a friendly conversation with him someday or me pretending my car is a bowling ball and he’s the pin!

(Of course, he’s told me before that he hates when people are nice to him. And it really bugs him when motorists stop to let him cross the street. So I’m only too happy to NOT stop for him!)

So, said event will never happen. Here’s why …

Week #1, I forget what the excuse was.

Week #2, it was, “Well, we should go next weekend because of this special thing they’re doing.” That note was sent to me the day of said plans.

Week #3 is today. I avoided the issue until yesterday morning, when I sent what I thought was a cute message to see where his widdle head was at.

As I blogged yesterday, I had his excuse ready. I figured his Raggedy Ass ex (so named for her latest red dye job that she called his stupid ass over to come see and he did. Lord) needed to have a bikini wax supervised — hell, I was even going to say, “Are we on or does Raggedy Ass need someone to heat the wax?”

But I really do try to be classy. I don’t know why.

No wonder this didn’t work out — he didn’t even know me. But I digress.

Anyway, Raggedy Ass has a roommate, whom he lets borrow his very sexy car. And he’s always there at their house, it seems — usually fixing shit and running errands for Raggedy Ass and getting drunk and supposedly passing out on the couch.

Which, I really don’t give a fuck anymore and prefer to focus my annoyance on dead-behind-the-eyes Whorothy out in the cornfields that are as scorched as her old-lady cooch.

As my friend Silver Blue noted, at least you know how many men the Titanic went down with — who only knows how many this bitch is fucking.

But wevs, right? Not my problem.

I tend to hate women more than men because we should all KNOW better and try to, if not help each other out, then not act like assholes.

I of course have more class than the two of them combined, and it occurred to me long ago that he just doesn’t feel like he deserves someone youthful and vibrant and funny and successful who doesn’t look like she’s been rode hard and put away wet.

But you know. If he prefers the alcohol-destroyed skin of old girl Whorothy and the bong-wrinkled parentheses around Raggedy Ass’ mouth, hey. YOU ENJOY THAT.

So anyway. I actually do like being his friend. Not to convert him back or anything — but because if you get him away from those crazy bitches, he is a sensitive and caring soul who is as easy as the eyes as he’s been hard on the heart.

I really had thought God had brought me the love of my life with this one. But I see now that He’s simply just making sure that I REALLY appreciate the right one when it comes.

I just don’t get why we can’t actually be friends when, frankly, that’s all that’s there and I don’t demand a fucking thing out of him while those two bitches (both exes who WON’T GO THE FUCK AWAY) boss him around.

Leaves me to wonder whether I’ll ever put my heart out there for someone again, if this is the thanks I get.

Anyway, today’s event. He apparently needs to help Raggedy Ass and her roommate to hurricane-proof her house. Weekend No. 3 that he’s dropped our plans (that were his idea) to go cater to her Raggedy Ass.

He just texted* with an excuse that didn’t make sense. He has more excuses than Whorothy and Raggedy Ass have wrinkles. Not that I expected anything more from him, but still. *double-barreled salute*

*I actually checked my phone 30 seconds before he texted because I felt like he was texting me. I don’t understand this psychic connection we have and frankly I wonder if that’s why I’ve found so many chances to give.

In the meantime, I’ll be trying so hard not to text him back to have fun BATTENING DOWN THE SNATCHES!!!

Hour 55 of my captivity.

It still doesn’t feel like work. But next to the “law of diminishing returns” on Wikipedia, I’m pretty sure you could put a photo of my tired eyes and no written explanation would be needed.

I’m giving somebody one last chance to — well, not impress me — NOT piss me off.

I was hell-bent on hatred (and contemplating just how wrong it would be to engage in some healthy “hate sex” to take out my frustrations, and I really don’t care with whom at this point as long as it HAPPENS). But then somebunny had to go and be really fuckin’ nice to me and hinder my hurt just a little bit.

“Why you wanna
Show up in a old t-shirt that I love
Why you gotta tell me that I’m looking good
Don’t know what
You were thinkin’
You were doing
Moving in for a hug
Like you don’t know I’m coming undone
Why you gotta
Why you wanna
Make me keep wanting you?”

— Jana Kramer, “Why Ya Wanna”

Although I’m sure said individual will probably find a new and improved excuse. (Again, continuing the theme of being unavailable for what THEY want to do.) I already have the lame excuse ready to hand said person since I can’t imagine they have any left.

Either way, I will be doing said activity this weekend … and if it’s alone, I can certainly think of worse things.

What was I just saying about go-nowhere friendships? I found out that the friend who has been making and canceling plans every weekend and pushing them out one week (for the past three weeks) continues to spend that time returning to the ex who bosses him around and makes him do shit for her.

You know, I was 100% in this for the friendship but, honey, that ain’t the kind of screwing I’m looking for. If you can’t possibly find time to hang out/go to lunch/do fun things WHEN YOU ASK ME but instead cater to her every fucking whim, lose my number. *deleting yours*

“If you don’t get drunk on my kiss
If you think you can do better than this
Then I guess we’re done
Let’s not drag this on
Consider me gone.
Consider me a memory.
Consider me the past.
Consider me a smile in an old photograph
Someone who used to make you laugh.”

— Reba McEntire, “Consider me Gone”

If that boy didn’t have an awesome head of hair, look 10 years younger than he really is and drive a hot sports car, I would NEVER have put up with his shit as long as I did.

It’s really fucked-up when two people actually do love (er, strongly like) each other … AT THE SAME TIME, for a change … and can’t get it to work.

I stopped holding on a long time ago. But I do muse that if he were losing his hair, looked his age and drove a boring car, I wouldn’t have looked twice, let alone hung on for that 1% chance that something would trigger correctly in his brain and make him continue to ACT on all those feelings toward me.

At least I can say I got a hot guy for a while. 😀 And judging by what came before me, he TOTALLY upgraded. Like I saw on FB recently, “Every bitch before me was a mistake and every bitch after me is a downgrade!”

Read a good article on CBS about overcoming obstacles and one graf provided quite the a-ha moment for me:

“(Y)ou can only regain your balance by realizing you’ve lost it and recognizing that you need to achieve some perspective and objectivity. You get that by shutting up, asking questions, and listening to what your stakeholders say. Then you stop what you’re doing, become silent, and listen to what your inner voice says. If you can do those three things, you’ve got a chance of regaining your balance and overcoming your obstacles.”

These days, I constantly fluctuate between “my life is awesome and it’s all thanks to God” (because it is) and “wow, how did I fuck things up so spectacularly and how do I even begin to fix it?”

Perhaps if I spent half as much time on my vocation as I do on my relationships and a handful of truly go-nowhere friendships, I’d be pretty fuckin’ productive.

I try to be gentle with myself — that I am God’s special creation, that I try my best, that I care, that I make the best decisions with the best information available at the time, that I have my act together more than many others, etc.

And then I get caught up in the “many others” — Desiderata tells us not to make comparisons because there will always be greater or lesser than ourselves. So while I feel like I’m giving more (and in most cases, I AM), I also feel like I have to GET more from some and to LEARN more from the rest.

Basically I am OK at what I do, whether work or relation-/friendship wise. Nothing to write home about. But at this point, do I work on getting better at what I have or do I dare to wonder whether excelling with what/who is in front of me will fulfill me in the end?

I read another great article in Self magazine today, particularly a survey about women and money. And I found myself in the 19% who are perennially terrified of losing a job and becoming homeless. (Their words, not mine. But it fits.)

The article said what you’re really afraid of is being alone. And the cure was to take inventory of all your friends and family who would take you in, should the worst happen.

*looks around* Yeah, I don’t see myself losing that fear anytime soon. My industry is a mess and I can’t get most of my friends to meet me at an agreed time and place, let alone say to them, “Hey, Mom and I need a place to stay.”

I know everyone’s scared. It ain’t just me. I know of people who try for years to get pregnant and then lose their jobs when the pee stick comes out with a plus sign. I know people who marry their Prince Charming and then realize the fucker’s an alcoholic, usually after they’ve distanced themselves from family and friends.

Shit, we’re all lucky we don’t end up in a swamp or tossed off a boat somewhere, with the lovable (at first) lunatics some of us seem to attract.

I guess what I’m saying is that I know the only person I can rely upon is myself. And lately, I have lost my balance and wouldn’t feel 100% confident in trusting myself to make a great decision about anything.

The initial article I quoted said that balance comes from doing ALL these things in tandem: work, play, learn, exercise, nourish, chill out.

When your chill-out time is stressful and work is your only “nourish” time, that’s not balance. But it’s been the formula that has kept me alive all this time. I don’t know any other way to survive.

Funny how when things were at their worst, I didn’t worry this much. Now that they really are pretty great, more or less, I worry that the usual ebb-and-flow is about to ebb and it all goes to shit. Of course, that’s what the universe does — it kicks your ass and lifts you up and cycles back again when you start to feel like you’ve regained your balance.

Maybe the second article holds the key to my sanity. I need to meet a (good) man. One who can distract as well as provide, if need be.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing (I think) an OK job of channeling my old Goddess self. So what if I’m scared; I’m still pretty awesome. God will provide. Only good lies before me. The stronger I am, the less rattled I’ll be when I hit the next speed bump.

And to quote some silly slogan I saw recently, “Treat (a girl) like a game and she’ll show you how it’s played,” it’s game-on mode, world. My best still hasn’t come out of me, and I’m gonna be damn selective about who benefits from it.

Maybe then, too, I’ll finally feel like I can take a vacation or buy a car or fall in love without waiting for the rug to be yanked out under me like always seems to happen. Because I will know I can live through it, just like I always have. And maybe, just maybe, things WON’T come crashing down for a change.

Perhaps that’s why I have to keep trying … to live to see that day that things come together instead of coming unglued. …

Friendly reminder: The more you try to hurt me, the more good-karma points I earn.

Some folks might want to check their own balances, because my points are racking up like a skee-ball game at Chuck E. Cheese and I’m pretty sure others’ surpluses are hurtling toward federal-sized deficits.

“You always hated the way I live
You never wanted the things I had to give
But still there’s something that keeps you holding on
Leavin’ me is something only you can do
I’ll never be the one to say we’re through
But if you play the game
I’m gonna play the fool.”

— Grace Potter, “Keepsake”

I died sometime last month. I don’t remember exactly when the aching stopped and the void opened up. But the girl who always told the universe that highs and lows were fine because anything beat nothingness, well, didn’t have an ounce of “care” left in her.

And then I believe it was last Saturday when my heart grew straight back into my chest. I felt it reattach. That’s because I met a nice man. Nothing has developed there other than some friendly e-mail banter.

The exchanges have been safe, neutral, noncommittal. But there was enough of a *ping* in my mind to make a Facebook post along the lines of, “And suddenly, everything changes.”

I’m starting to feel again. And although that moment of feeling alive again may never be replicated with that same person, the fact of the matter is that I realized in a BIG way that there are other men out there … other men who listen to me and make me laugh and think.

The world, it spins madly on. And baby, you can COUNT MY ASS IN for the ride.

As for my darling, darling readers, you know the deal. You’ll get an outline of the details in six to 12 months. But you get my moral to the story right now, which is this.

I died once. But no one can kill me twice. I’ve already been to hell and back, and I assure you that there is NO need to stamp THAT passport twice.

Now for those of you who know me, you know that my mother has never made a good relationship choice. (Otherwise, she’d be with someone good instead of living with me for the last six years.)

My whole life, she dragged me into all her fucked-up relationships and I, in turn, chose to have NO relationships because of how hideously she allowed herself to be treated. I mean, I’m 38 and my longest relationships were like three and six months, respectively.

(Seriously, can’t remember much about them. But I know my heart wasn’t there either time. Y’all can thank her for that. But really, I saw no future with either. One, I kicked out of bed and told him to never call me again as I LISTEN when you guys talk in your sleep. With the other, well, a girl only has so many mercy fucks in her, you know?)

Anyway, yeah. Mom’s fucked-up relationships with emotionally withholding, cheating, alcoholic and otherwise dysfunctional pieces of shit made me hold everyone at arm’s length.

To the point that when I did contact a beloved ex last month to ask some questions about my own potential dysfunctions, he said (not as a character flaw, though) that I never loved anybody. Or never showed it anyway. So, maybe that I was losing my shit over someone, this might have been something real, yes?

Let’s digress before this cat runs out of lives, shall we?

The point is, I wasn’t me in this last “thing.” I was Mom. She was the one who convinced me seven ways to Sunday to forgive this, overlook that, show this emotion here, make this better, do this cute thing, say that cute thing and otherwise hang in there till things unfolded in their own time.

So my first real interest, well, I wasn’t the one “in it.” Well, I WAS … I mean, he’s cute and funny and smart and sweet and adorably awkward, and he really did ignite my soul back in those early days. But mostly, I was my mother — the person I swore up and down for nearly 40 years from whom I’d never take a whisper of relationship advice.

So, not only is my soul breathing and FEELING again, but the soul of the Goddess of Years Past has reinvaded her mortal body. The girl who put an exclamation point at the end back on Feb. 13 was all me. But the girl who later changed it to an ellipsis had her mother’s optimistic soul sharing space with her hard-ass one.

It was weird, rooting for a happy ending. Thinking that far ahead. Admittedly being secretly pleased that he had a good last name that, should I ever have to contemplate that sort of thing, I’d be OK taking it.

Now, look, I admit this “hey, a boy I like!” shit caught me more off-guard than anyone. And I left my usual Goddess skepticism in the dust.

But when I asked the universe, “OK, he’s too perfect — what’s wrong with him?” AND HOO BOY DID I GET MY ANSWER, I was OK with saying, welp, maybe next time.

I can’t really say much more than that for right now without having to explain a lot that I can’t put into words just yet. What I can say is that, at some point, Mom even looked at me and said, “Yeah, you need to run as far away as you can from this.”

The woman who never met a psychotic, cheating prick she wouldn’t date for WAY too long … told me to hit the bricks. Behold the magnitude of that for just a moment.

Usually I act like the mother and she the daughter. But with that, our roles righted themselves for just a brief, shining moment.

I’ve been trying to keep the peace. (Not with her. That’s what I should instead be spending my energy on.) But it’s been a lot more difficult to do. So I continue to thank God that things are the way they are, and they aren’t the way they were, and that they’ll never get to where they could have been.

Looking forward to when I can let you all in on this one. But I still have a LOT of processing to do, and unanswered questions to ask in due time. In the meantime, I thank you for loving me and finding me extraordinary in a way that he no longer does. Or maybe I was too extraordinary, all things considered. Not that I have felt that way in a long time where that one is concerned.

And, my beloveds, should anyone have the audacity to not find us extraordinary … should they prefer ordinary or subpar or “good enough” to the magic that we offer … as Momma said, “Run!” Because it’s not you … IT’S THEM!!!