Caterwauling

Cue the usual barrage of posts about resolutions and aspirations and fuzzy-wuzzy feel-good posts about how awesome the new year will be.

Instead, as the door is about to hit 2012 on the ass, I want to dump the toxins out of my heart and to start tomorrow with as close to a clean slate as I can get without starting a new job, throwing my mother into the Intracoastal, driving both my crap cars into the ocean and beating the shit out of the guy who broke my heart and the whore for whom he broke it.

So, to the best of my ability, today I am leaving behind:

1. Men who drive sexy black Mustangs.

2. Men who need to rescue, wait for or otherwise fix a woman. Unless that woman is me. In which case, rescue/await/fix away!

3. Men who do anything but make me feel like a goddess.

4. Men for whom I feel sorry for one reason or another. I’m tired of being passed over for bitches with issues.

5. Expand that to friends in general for whom I feel sorry because I’m the only real thing they have. They sure as hell haven’t proven to be there for me in my darkest hours.

6. Anyone who decides to kick me while I’m down. You’re not making me stronger — you’re making me angrier.

7. Anyone who drags me down when I’m trying to pull them up. *Trying not to look in my overextended houseguest’s direction.*

8. Anything I love, I guess, food-wise. Face it, I’m an addict. It’s the only thing that didn’t let me down this year. Or any year, for that matter. But like everything/everyone I loved in 2012, it wasn’t good for me.

9. Cigarettes. I’m proud of this one since I didn’t actually resolve to quit this year but I did anyway. Go, me!

10. Fear. I am scared to death of being jobless/homeless. I hate this fear. It has kept me bound to everything that makes me crazy. I’d rather die than be as afraid as I really am right now. I don’t know how to let it go because it’s not like I have anyone or anything that can help me if it all goes to shit again. It’s as if I believe that things will only go right if I’m emotionally overwrought — life has proven to kick me the second I find happiness. So, I want to get brave in 2013 and try being happy and see what happens.

* People who get welfare and WIC and healthcare without having health problems or green cards. And having said people holding up the line at Wal-Mart today, befuddling the cashier while playing on their shiny new iPhone 5s with the bejeweled cases.

* Meanwhile I’m working two jobs for the price of one and hyperventilating at every goddamned turn because I CAN’T HANDLE THE PRESSURE and, oh, my mom is practically on her deathbed but can’t get healthcare because she can’t prove that she DOESN’T have a bank account. Even though she DOESN’T. Discuss.

* My new vacation shine? Worn off. Worn the fuck off. Please somebody marry me and shower me with plane tickets to anywhere but here.

* Seriously, I want my three months’ maternity leave. Do I have to have a kid? Really? Because I’m ready to get knocked up so I can get some rest already.

* I forgot how much my commute sucked. At least when I was in a moving vehicle for 45 minutes at a time up north, I was crossing state lines and heading somewhere good. I killed yet another frog on my way out yesterday. Second in as many months. How the hell do they even FIND that place?

* Going out tonight with two gals from work. I’m excited to see people from “out there” on my side of 95.

* Cracking up that I posted a pic on Facebook with the punchline: “Shut your whore mouth, S******” and a bunch of my friends liked it. Only one got the joke, but I love you all for liking it and not knowing why. (It’s Whorothy’s name! Whore and S****** are synonymous!)

* I seriously need angry drunken hate sex. Seriously. I don’t want to know their name … I definitely don’t want to know the first thing about them and their lives … and I don’t want to feel obligated to hang around and make small talk. I hate small talk. Fuck me and let me be free. Any takers?

* If this month at work doesn’t kill me, nothing will. Not even my commute.

* “Town Whore” is my new favorite phrase. I will never get tired of calling someone that name. Just because I don’t want the dumbass who told me he’d prefer to be with her than me, doesn’t mean I don’t get violently angry that karma can’t get to her house as fast as old-lady skin apparently has.

* He has consistent taste in women. One looks like she’s had her face bashed in by a baseball bat. The other one is mouthy and could benefit from being hit with a baseball bat.

* I was just thinking about three pet-sitting disasters ago. I still have the key to that person’s house. I think she’s since moved. Hell if I know. Hmm. Oh well.

* Been missing my Maddie. She was older and sickly, but fleas and the medicine and the shaving said fleas out of her fur had to be what accelerated her demise. I saw fleas the other day (not on Kadie thank God — I don’t think she would live through it again) and I don’t think I’ve stopped itching since. Or crying.

* Had a couple blasts from the past reappear in Mom’s and my lives, respectively. Everyone remembers me as being snarky. And I’m tired of being sweet (or dying trying). Maybe I’ll be happier if I can tell people the fuck off (and TO fuck off) again without worrying what they’d think of me.

* I have a note on my phone at work that says, “The choice is mine.” I forgot about it till a colleague read it over my shoulder today. I have to remember that — I don’t have to say yes to everything. I don’t have to say yes to anything out of a misguided sense of guilt or obligation, especially if I didn’t have the full story when I committed. No more being “volunteered” either. I’ll probably always continue to pick yes because that’s just me. But it won’t kill me to say no a little more … and I can prove it because I’m still here!

Just concluded a “world tour” of New York City, parts of Jersey, Philly and various town names ending in “Beach” here in Florida.

Got to see some wonderful people while I was up north. This was the year I decided my vacation would be spent at dining-room tables instead of running around like a nut. And although we spent more time on trains and in my rental car than on solid ground, we were rushing toward big meals with people with even-bigger hearts.

Plus, I got to see NYC at Christmas. I always used to go in Februaries for a trade show. It was nice to see every inch of the city covered in Christmas lights. (I probably have 165 pics of the tree at Rockefeller Center alone!)

It was a quiet Christmas here in the land of 75- to 84-degree Decembers. Mom and I feasted on seven-ish fishes on Christmas Eve and ate Christmas Day lasagne by our starfish-themed tree. We went briefly to the beach yesterday — our only remaining tradition, really — and I tried a new church for candlelight services. Meh. I’ll stick with avoiding my mega-church instead of going to these clustery wonderlands that can’t get their acts together … even if there were some good-looking men to ogle while I wasn’t paying attention!

Topo Gigio is with his beloved Whorothy for the holidays. Which, don’t even get me started on that. 🙂 He sent me a gift (a good one!) to my workplace, which was nice of him, although he also returned a card to me that I’d given him back in the spring after he told me all about his adoration for the town whore.

Anyway, we’re on a friendly texting basis, so I’m going to be nice and not share all the glorious insults my girlfriend and I came up with about her when we were planning our stint as roommates in hell. 🙂 All I have to say is that, after he texted me that he loved my NYC pics on Facey-pages and was jealous of my time there, my response to my girlfriend was, “I need to get him a T-Shirt that says, ‘My friend went to NYC and all I got was this crusty old-lady cooch’!”

I’ll take hell as long as I don’t have to deal with Pennsylvania weather again!!! 🙂

More to come. I just really missed typing. Hope everyone had a holiday that was as wonderful as mine!

In strange news, it appears Topo Gigio and I have finally become friends.

I think it has finally dawned on him that while I don’t agree with him settling for the hottest of the world’s hot messes, I’m perfectly willing to support it as I continue my quest for Something More.

He’s been going through Some Stuff and I think he’s surprised just how much I’ve got his back. He’s a private one — even told me that I was his last “new friend” (apparently I was either THAT AWESOME or simply ruined him for life) that he’s made.

Yet, he’s keeping this stuff to himself otherwise.

To which, I say, if he wants to make her the center of his life, clearly he should want her to know about these latest developments. But alas, he doesn’t want to inconvenience her for his own comfort and need.

I don’t know. If she were so awesome, I’d imagine she’d want to know and to be with him. I mean, if something happened to him and I didn’t know (as just his friend), I’d be out of my mind with every emotion you can possibly name, and about six more on top of it.

Maybe she’s self-centered that way. Or maybe she really WOULD want to be here for him, if only he’d let her. I said if it’s her intention to be with you, let her be there for you. And if she chooses otherwise, then you’d know.

Perhaps that’s what he’s afraid of?

Sure he tries to keep things from me and certainly plays the chipper sage instead of just being real when I need for him to be real with me. But the latest drama has changed things practically overnight.

What’s funny is I thought it might make me change my feelings of friendship back to where they were before. But it hasn’t.

Sure, I wanted the love story. Didn’t happen. And I would have been OK with the “finding comfort in each other till something better came along” bit.

Alas, he’s not that kind of guy. And I respect the hell out of that.

I just don’t agree with what his choices have done to him in the meantime. And if he isn’t re-evaluating everything about his life and chances missed right now, given the circumstances, then I don’t know what would.

But if anybody out there understands it, I do.

Life’s all about compromise, I get that. But it oftentimes feels like we’re giving up — or at least delaying — things that would mean the world to us and not getting anything in return. It’s not that we outright want others to destroy their own well-being to give us an eye for an eye. But compromise isn’t “one person doing all the hurting” — it’s “two people finding a happy middle ground through finding a concession or two apiece.”

I guess, in this scenario, I see one person NOT hurting or giving anything up. Someone being nothing more than the donkey to which he pins his tail of hopes and dreams. And I don’t know whether he’s a hero for protecting her or whether he’s just the guy who keeps playing the game till he takes off the blindfold he’s so eagerly stapled to his face.

I came to a revelation a few days ago, that 2012 was the year where everything simply happened to me. I didn’t choose any of it — and I didn’t fight for what I did want.

My goal for 2013 is as simple as the note I’ve taped to my work phone: “The choice is mine.”

In other words, there will be choices. And there will be GOOD choices. None of this passively accepting whatever comes or feeling forced to pick between underwhelming outcomes.

I’m fighting for me this year.

I was put to the test this week, when I was courted for a new employment opportunity. One I was hoping would come through, but one I was perhaps a little relieved when it DIDN’T originally come through because, well, our heroine doesn’t have the spunk she once did.

And a cosmic series of events led to a battle — of others both wanting me.

CHOICE, I HAZ IT.

I didn’t have much time to decide and frankly, there wasn’t a lot to ponder. A girl’s heart knows what it wants. (And this girl’s heart, of late, has been pretty insulated from wanting anything other than either anonymity or simply a way out.)

I asked for a sign, of course, and got one when I heard from old colleagues from my favorite, close-knit team. Almost as if on command, they surfaced and made me feel very happy and nostalgic.

I feel like I will get that dream team again. Sure, there may be a turd coming into our little punchbowl down the road. (Sigh.) But right now it’s a little snowglobe filled with possibilities that I haven’t had in years.

My problem with every job I’ve taken since 2009 is that I’ve walked out with a very similar skill set to the one I walked in with. I’m always teaching and helping and making others grow. I’ve been fortunate to have had a terrific early career in which I achieved or, at the very least, observed. In subsequent roles, I’ve merely implemented.

But no one has fought over me in a long time, and I went with the one who really made it a point to fight FOR me.

We could all fall on our faces by this time next year. I mean, this is a HUGE risk. Or maybe, just maybe, we could pull off the miracle I haven’t lost faith in finding. I just needed someone to build the vehicle. And now, all I need to do is hop into the front seat and help make this thing go.

2012 was definitely the year that wasn’t. 2013, from the looks of it, is the year that will.

And maybe, just maybe, I can slip out of my detached (because my heart has been beaten until it was near-dead over the past decade) character and be myself again.

Success is of course building a million-dollar business in year one. But personal success is feeling so safe to me myself in every situation that success in life, love and work can’t help but follow. I mean, good things have happened to the shell of myself. Only great things can come when greatness really truly seems to be a realistic destination for a change.

Thanks for believing in me, B. …

I don’t quite know how to sum up today other than an emotional disaster zone.

I have a PILE of work that was due at COB. Which didn’t happen. And my nerves are SHOT and I’m watching the Sandy relief concert and collapsing into a goo puddle at Jon Bon Jovi and drinking wine. And guess what? I don’t want to undo the edge that the wine has FINALLY taken off to go back to work … which CAUSED THAT EDGE.

I have friends who are going through Some Shit. The good-health fairy seems to be avoiding the East Coast for some reason. I’m burning a candle right now for one of my boys. Hoping it clears the toxins out of his mind as much as his body, but my magic probably isn’t QUITE that powerful.

Anyway, if y’all have a prayer to spare, we can use ’em down here.

In other news, I have a new job offer. It’s a total fluke and it’s got as much a chance of NOT working out as actually potentially working out. I’m afraid it will burn the bridge on which I’m standing, and I’m also afraid it will NOT be my dream job for the startup phase.

And I lived through the startup phase of a friend’s company. It was torture. And I never did get paid what I was owed. So this is a big leap of faith for me. I told my potential new boss (who is also an old boss) that I don’t have any miracles left in me — I’ve fallen flat on my face so much that I can’t afford to go splat one more time. We’re pushing 40. I have a mother to support. Don’t fuck this up if I do this with you.

I asked for the night to sleep on it. But we know my answer. I want to soar. I want to be extraordinary. If I’m going to sweat and toil and suffer, I want to build something special. To be able to say, “Why yes, I BUILT THAT.”

Rather, WE built that.

And I think we’ll build something amazing.

Because I can’t afford for it to go any other way.

Fighting a stomachache thanks to a pile of urgent deadlines and another two and a half days in which to meet them. Afterward, I am on a 10-day vacation out of this joint … and that means blog posts o’plenty now since I can’t focus!

So anyway. Dreams. Been having lots of them lately.

I quit dreaming back when I was taking psychotropics regularly. Now that I’m clean, save for the occasional pill from 2010 that I keep in my desk for things like corporate re-orgs (*pop*), I am back to dreaming. It’s usually in big, bold colors and emotions and psychological imprints. I don’t always remember them, but my dreams from the last two nights have been sticking with me.

Nothing I want to share in the way of details that I want to keep to myself. But I had an interesting dream last night that is still disturbing me on some level.

I dreamed that Topo Gigio and I were fooling around in his bed. *fans self* And the Whore flew in from her dinky little town and burst right on in. And he left me mid-act to go kiss her hello.

I remember being ready to rip her straw-yellow hair out strand by strand. And then I saw how happy he was that she was there. It was probably the only thing that kept me from attacking her on sight — that he seemed happy.

That was sort of news to me, even in my slumber. I thought I was dead inside on that front. And I think I still am — but WOW did my temper flare up for a second there.

In any event, I found myself going throughout the rest of the dream with a little girl who apparently was conceived from that episode. And I thought, wow, that’s how it all could have happened. He would have left me for her anyway — better done sooner rather than later, right? Without leaving any lasting damage, preferably.

I texted him today to see whether I’d had a premonition and that she, in fact, was gassing up her broom and heading to town. He avoided the question and changed the subject.

I mean, I don’t *care* if she does still exist and if she’s around. If he’s happy, let him be happy. He just never seems bursting-with-fruit-flavor happy and, lately, I’ve never seen him LESS happy. He tries to pull off happy for me, but you all know you can’t lie to me and you shouldn’t even try.

I’d say the plot thickens, but I’m so far removed that I’m shocked any of this even danced through my brain.

Two words you don’t want to hear on a Friday at 4 p.m.: “Company-wide meeting.”

Things you don’t want to deal with on a Monday: Your work life already changing.

The last re-org I went through, I lasted six months before taking the first offer that came along. But now that I’ve worked everywhere, there’s nowhere to go.

And I’m not saying any of this will end badly. In fact, I have a lot to be excited about. (That’s what they tell me, anyway.)

I’ve been asking God to shake up my snow globe. Just a little, not a lot. I think I got my wish. And the mushroom just lost a layer between herself and the top, so I’m going to try to enjoy the little bit of dark while I still have it.

Time to rise to my next level of incompetence. I should have asked Santa for coal — at least it’s worth something on the open market!

I hate to admit the Goddess is getting old, but our 20-year high-school reunion took place over Thanksgiving. Oh, my lands — two decades already?

I bought a ticket but didn’t go. Never planned to, really. Besides, I’ll be in another part of Pennsylvania later this month, so doing the Pittsburgh thing wasn’t ever really on my Christmas wish list.

Lately as I examine my life and wonder where on earth to go from here (and how to get there), I recall a girl I knew in high school who influenced my life, but probably not in a good way. And no, I don’t mean the bad kids who got me drinking and smoking when I was 11. 🙂

The girl who was supposed to graduate in the No. 2 spot was a perfectionist, to say the least. When the rest of us were taking honors classes, she stayed far away — lest she mess up her perfect-100% GPA. I did find that the “weighted” classes both helped and hurt me — I had a couple of 106% grades, and then there was that software-writing class I took through the local Penn State branch that I totally bombed.

Either way, I did what I wanted and I’m glad I tried it all.

This gal, I remember she used to break out in hives when we were taking tests, standardized or otherwise. She would rub her neck raw.

She didn’t get that No. 2 spot, which I think killed a very big part of her spirit. But she went off to some Big Ten school and that was that.

I heard she lost it and had to go into psychiatric treatment for a while. I last saw her working at the local amusement park. She may still be there, for all we know.

Sad really. Big, brilliant mind. Just got in her own way, I guess.

The takeaway for me was to just go out and do what I wanted to do. Not to kill myself studying. To go out with friends and let loose. To do my level best NOT to turn into a basket case.

Don’t get me wrong — I worked my ass off when I needed to. But I really don’t remember the small stuff that I blew off. Yet … I always wonder. I should have been a Fortune 500 CEO by now instead of a middle-management mushroom who hides in the dark.

I used to rail against people who worked their eight hours, took their lunch breaks, took their vacations and attended to their kids while I shouldered the load and lost out on time with my family or even by myself. Fuck them, I thought — I’m going to kick ass and put them out of a job.

These days, after being put out of a job ANYWAY two years ago this month, I don’t care so much about the “leave at 5” crowd. When I stay late, it’s because I need the quiet time. But at 8 p.m., I stand up and go — to hell with what’s unfinished.

But when Taco Tuesday rolled up like it did last week, I pulled out the Fuck-it Bucket and went. (What’s another two hours tacked on to the end of the workday, anyway?)

And when someone like my old publisher rolls through town and wants to go out for drinks (as happened Wednesday) and one of my boys asks me out to dinner before I was to head off to a Christmas party (as happened Friday), well, to all a good night. My staff/colleagues teased me about having a half-day as I jetted out at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Friday, well, I was brushing my teeth at 5 and trying to not look like a hot mess before meeting the cute boy for my eye-candy appetizer at 5:15.

Anyway, I have the gal in high school to thank for that. I just didn’t realize it until recently. All work and no play makes Goddess a very dull deity indeed. And besides, I have more than my share of 8 p.m. or later weeknight departures to have earned it.

And guess what? The world didn’t end with all the work that was undone. I mean, I’m paying for it now and in a big way. But the memories make it all worthwhile.