Caterwauling

So this made me sad/mad/exhausted yesterday:

Bad at Their Jobs and Loving it

Seriously, people, can you kick a girl some royalties instead of kicking a girl IN THE HEAD for stealing her life?

“Low performers often end up with the easiest jobs because managers don’t ask much of them,” he said, so they’re under less stress and they’re more satisfied with their daily work lives.

Meanwhile, dedicated and conscientious workers end up staying at the office late, correcting the work of the low performers, and making sure clients or customers are satisfied. This pattern breeds frustration and disengagement in the high performers—and perhaps ultimately drives them to seek work elsewhere.

“They feel stressed and undervalued, and it starts to undermine the high performers’ confidence that the organization is a meritocracy,” said Mr. Murphy.

I’m not asking everyone to have my work ethic or commitment to, if not perfection, then at least doing the best you can with the (lack of) time and resources (leadership, support) available.

I guess I’m just mad that I have the same job I had five years ago. And I’ve somehow regressed back to that salary range. It’s OK in that I am employed and not on the streets. It’s not OK in that I don’t know how to get to my desired position (that I’ve had elsewhere), because working my ass off over the past 10 jobs hasn’t been the solution.

Maybe if I slack a little, I might not feel better but maybe it’ll help with raises and engagement. I’ve seen it happen before. It’s like being the best-possible girlfriend to a guy and he dumps you for someone else who doesn’t want him as much as you did. Of course, it’s liberating to realize you can live without him, and maybe that’s what makes you more-inclined to want to stay.

On a brighter note, my new reason to live — or at least to start the hour-long drive home from work by 9 on Wednesdays so I’m home at 10 — is Deacon, Charles Esten‘s OMG SO HOT character on “Nashville.”

And of course this week he meets a homely blonde with no personality. And calls her his “girlfriend” in the previews for next week’s episode.

Seriously, ABC. You gotta pay me some royalties for stealing my life here. But I owe you for the squees and other delightful thoughts our delicious, scruffy guitarist Deacon inspires every week for me, so we’ll call it even.

I haven’t said much about the whole gay marriage thing because, frankly, I’ve been a proud fag hag for 20-odd years and I was even a bridesmaid at a beautiful commitment ceremony several years ago. I don’t have to shout from the rooftops because I live my support every single day.

It’s not like I’ve found love. And I’m sorry to say I’m starting to lose my faith in it happening for me. So if some people who do genuinely love each other and want the piece of paper (and all the spousal benefits in the eyes of the government), it’s not like denying it to anyone else will make my own Prince Charming appear.

And here’s the thing. Maybe I need to hang out with new people (oh, wait, YES I DO), but everybody — and I mean everybody — is either cheating on their spouse, and/or cheating WITH someone else’s spouse.

Look, I’m not innocent in this game. But I try to stay out of it. Or, at least, not get sucked back IN to it. Too often, anyway.

So anyone who has an opinion on the sanctity of “traditional” marriage other than “not my business” had probably pull their dick (or strap-on) out of a hole it doesn’t belong in before they choose to voice said opinion.

Because from where I sit, the only traditional marriages I see do involve two men or two women … and a third party. And that’s why I thank God that maybe he’s spared me of being with a lying, cheating whore … or having the temptation to become one myself.

One of my friend TG’s crusty blonde hoebags likes to say people are a work in progress. I’m thinking I’m a work in regress right now.

I was just reading an article on the decline of marriage. It’s not that more babies are being born, per se, but that fewer women are getting married because the quality of the men from which we have to choose is in rapid decline. Financially anyway. And who wants to mate with/marry someone who will be more of a burden than an upgrade?

I don’t know. I never really thought about it that way. I figured, just let me find someone who loves me and I’ll be happy. Then I found that. And I thought, well, if I can find someone who loves me, then let me find someone who can support himself and therefore me … and therefore any offspring that might, well, spring.

Aaaand, that’s where it stopped.

I’m not rich. I only rent a condo in the best ZIP Code in South Florida. That doesn’t mean I have furniture, a decent car, clothes from anywhere other than Ross or Marshall’s, or the ability to take a vacation or BUY A FUCKING LAPTOP* without going into heart palpitations.

* I’ve been waiting to buy a laptop secondhand. I really need a new computer so I’ve been shopping with my tax refund. I almost bought one last night. And the last six times I’ve walked into Best Buy. I simply cannot make a purchase over $100 without worrying that it will jinx me and things will fall apart**.

** Speaking of “Things Fall Apart,” the horrible book that launched a thousand yam fits, the author died yesterday. I’d had a mini yam fit the day before, ostensibly in his honor. Yams***.

*** Did you know that there’s a Nigerian Yam Monster named Zobi? His catchphrase: “Me Eat Yams.” When this career drives me to the mother of all yam fits (it’s coming), this is my backup career.

So, financially suitable men. Look, I’m still looking for love. But I’m also turning 39 this year. If I might ever want kids (*shudder*) I’m not exactly certain I’ll meet Mr. Right in the very small window I have for fertility. I often wonder whether I should think about putting the cart before the horse.

But then I think, hey, I thought I was such a prize because no man has to inherit some other guy’s kid. Yet I keep getting messages on dating sites from men with kids. Multiple. And I think, well FUCK, I might as well have had one when I had the chance and they would damn well have to like it.

Yet, being a free agent still hasn’t made me all that attractive, eh? Even when single guys say they love it that they don’t have to deal with another man’s legacy, that isn’t enough to keep them around. (Old, crusty, homely blondes with their own lookalike offspring apparently is somehow NOT a turnoff somehow. *cough*)

Actually I think I’ve figured that particular guy out. It’s not the Whorothy of it all, but rather the having women on speed-dial IF he wants them, rather than actually having to commit to a life with any of them.

He’s fun and I would have loved him if he’d let me. But we never have to find out because he won’t let it get that far. And I think that’s what he does with all his girls.

He’s happier being single even though he’ll swear whorebag is his girlfriend. To me.

Ask any other girl he would meet, though, and I wonder if I would fall into that coveted title category instead. I’m a catch, damnit.

Hey, I can’t fault anyone for self-preservation. I probably deserve it after some of the shit I’ve pulled in my day.

No, I don’t deserve it. But I completely understand it.

I can say I’m single because I have to take care of Princess. Or that I have to work all the time. That nobody would ever put up with me because I have so many commitments and no time to have fun and frankly no fuse left at the end of the day/week to be a nice person because everybody fucking trampled on it.

Isn’t that easier than putting forth effort to find/keep someone?

I get you, TG. You’re right, we are kindred.

Anyway, the decline of marriage. It’s true — college grads want another college grad. I don’t care how cute you are — if your personals ad says “high school grad” or “some college,” your witty little letter doesn’t get a reply. When I don’t have magic or conversational compatibility as a metric, your social resume is all I’ve got.

From the article:

“Put starkly, technology makes it cheaper and easier than ever to be single. It makes marrying a financially unstable man even more risky.”

I’ve done the “poor” thing. Now I’m doing the “working-class poor” thing. I’ve all but missed my window to have kids. Is it so wrong to want a guy who can afford to take me to Paris or at least to support me if this career thing of mine stalls again?

That’s not to say I wouldn’t have sold my soul for exactly one guy in my whole history. I know “could have been” when I see it. Poverty or at least “being broke” is a fluid state when you’ve got the education, charm and smarts to change your lot in life. I would have been more than willing to wait it out together because better days are coming for us all.

Plus, I’m not a girl who’d need a ring — I can buy my own, if I could just downsize from this ridiculous rent. But … I also wouldn’t mind someone buying it for me and, for once in my life, enjoying a little symbolism, tradition and maybe even security that the next homely blonde who walks by us in a bar isn’t going to make his head snap around …

I keep starting to blog and then closing out of the window. Because, well, I want to keep a job. Even if it’s this one! 😀

Seriously, we’ve morphed beyond, “Well this kind of sucks sometimes” to “I’ve met cups of decaf that served more purpose in my life than you do.”

Today’s buzzword was “efficiency per person” in the context of it being balanced.

HAHAHAAAAAAAA.

Not judging by last night’s yam fit, it isn’t, hasn’t been and, unless Jesus Himself comes down and intervenes, may never be.

I’m walking the fine line between utter disillusionment and morbid curiosity. This is either a chance to show leadership or my cue to find an exit strategy beyond jumping off the roof and landing on the resident alligator.

Had dinner with my favorite former boss last night. He reminds me that there’s hope. I am hoping we can work together. I mean, I see very easy ways and I’m used to making those kinds of decisions. Now, to get others to see it my way. Because it could be something as easy as that, that would prevent sounding the next High Yam Alert.

I’m not certain why I have to start every post off with the song that’s in my head, but it does help to drown out the voices.

“I know this tide is always kissing my heels
Sometimes I think I’m drowning in all these things that I feel.”

— Patty Griffin, “We are Water”

So, the house I wanted that was under contingency? I got an e-mail from Trulia yesterday telling me that it was back on the market. And it was listed by a new realtor.

A sign?

I reached out and said I love this place, GIVE IT TO ME.

Talked with the realtor today. The reason it came off contingency and back onto the market is because the owner only wants people with PERFECT credit.

Which, hah.

I asked if it would help that A) a friend lives next door and B) I’ve been paying an extraordinary amount of rent to live in the best ZIP Code in Florida for the past four years?

He said I should try to apply and that it would only cost me $25 to do so.

I said I’m not going to waste his time or mine.

Damn it.

It’s not the $25. (I usually get quoted at least $100.) It’s the “if you don’t have perfect credit, you are not worthy to live here” bullshit.

It’s bad enough I have to kill myself to stay employed. And that I have to move and pay for two apartments at the same time so I can fulfill my obligations here while securing the new place with first, last and security months’ deposits. You are going to give me a headache over a POINTS SYSTEM? Bitch, please.

Even the realtor said he doesn’t have to jump through these hoops with any other place. I wish I could reward him and make this happen. I just do not see the point.

I was so excited. Fuck me. Fuck me that I ever think I’m going to have a job, life, house or man that is going to be everything I ever wanted (or even half of what’s on my list).

I know the best things are worth fighting for. But at what point do things finally ever just fall into your lap so that you can save your strength for fighting to KEEP them and not, as I always do, feel so damn weak when you do finally claw your way to victory that you can’t make it last?

Irony: Trying to hand a homeless guy a dollar at an intersection and him saying that I look like I had a worse day than him.

Yeah, that’s all I got tonight.

I was actually up part of the night wondering whether to delete my last post. I don’t like that side of me. I don’t like how one person I’ve never met (and someone I’d be so fucking nice to in person if we ever met, it would sicken even me) can rile me like that.

It’s funny how we attach certain things to people we don’t know or don’t know well. It’s easier that way, really, than to go to someone you do know very well and say what’s on your mind. Especially if you’ve said it and still feel like you haven’t been heard.

Anyway, it’s weird how this shit kicks back on me. Usually once a month. And consulting my calendar, yeah, it’s a few days from unleashing-the-floodgates territory. Like fucking clockwork, I get this weird flare-up that makes me react to actual wrongs by going off the rails about long-ago ones because I can’t do a damn thing (yet) about the situations that ARE in front of me.

Longtime readers know I cuss like there’s no tomorrow in my writings and conversation, although I’ve toned that down substantially over the past couple of years. F-bombs have always been my bullets. I never met a C-word I didn’t embrace and over-use. I got in trouble with my high-school “boyfriend” (the is-it-or-isn’t-it relationship thing started early) because we used to swear a lot. Of course, both of our families told the teacher to go fuck herself and leave us alone. 😉

Anyway, what y’all may find ironic or even funny is that I keep a paper journal. I write a paragraph or a page every single day. And here’s the funny part … I write it to God.

That kind of cuts down on the snark a little, and certainly the swearing!

The journal is just as cryptic as this, but I think if I could explain to you some of the facts, it would help from a perspective factor. And because I’ve never been one for sharing details much beyond my perception of things, well, you have to rely upon how I see the world to understand where I’m coming from.

That’s all I can give you, most of the time. I may not be able to share context, but I love that most of you trust and respect me enough to say, well, if that’s how she’s reacting, she probably has a pretty fucking good reason for feeling that way. And believe me, I love you for it more than you will ever know. 🙂

Anyway, I have a post that has been in draft mode for a while that I want to share that, well, I’m glad I didn’t. Watchers of “The Bachelor” would get it — how you find someone who loves you but you’re never the only one. And when he chooses, he never chooses you but nine times out of 10 he will wish he had. Meanwhile you feel like shit when you could have felt special.

Normally this doesn’t bother me. After all, by rights, I’ve been “on the show” about four times in my life. Still looking for that great love but I’ll die trying. In the meantime, I always have other things going on. But I don’t talk about those. I don’t know why. I honestly don’t. I guess because the ones that cause me to be profound (and slightly psychotically imbalanced) make for the best prose.

My industry has killed my love of writing. This blog is all I have left. Of course I’m going to go for what tickles and tortures my soul.

I wrote something yesterday that made me so proud and yet I can’t share a word of it. Because it was a brand-new insight into an old problem I thought I’d left behind in 2012. I closed my journal and smiled, so happy with my genius little mind. And I thanked God for that stunning moment of clarity.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that I SHOULD delete my “Imma cut a bitch” type of posts. But you know what? If any man ISN’T flattered that I would have done anything for him at one point in my life, he ain’t passionate enough for me. I’m still looking for the man who will throw me up against a wall and have his way with me and I don’t think I can suffer through anyone who would do anything less.

Sure I’m kind of a lazy fuck these days, but those of you who have seen me be “in” it, know when I’m “in” it. And there’s nothing like it from what I hear. 😉

Oh, boys, what some of you have missed out on. How you’ve done it so willingly, however, will baffle me till the day I die.

I just had a couple of days of leaving at a reasonable hour and actually DOING STUFF after work that didn’t just involve shoveling in dinner and falling asleep on the couch immediately afterward.

That ends today. For now. Again.

TG sent me a writeup from a public figure he trusts who said that today (3.13.13) is a magical day … a day to “release situations or people who no longer serve you.”

I wanted to ask him when he’s planning to offload Heidi-Hoebag, a la the Hot Mess of the Midwest. But I presume that like usual when I tell him he deserves SO MUCH BETTER THAN HE’S WILLING TO SETTLE FOR, he somehow misses that I mean her hot-mess ass.

I have never hated anyone so much, save for a psychotic ex-friend and a few thousand colleagues, as her. I hope her dumb cunt ass realizes how lucky she is. Because no matter how far in life I manage to progress, I can never seem to forget how that (perceived, of course, but still not proven otherwise) piece of shit somehow got everything I ever wanted.

No one was ever here to eat it, so I threw it away.

Oh well. I tried!

Next birthday is mine. Maybe I’ll continue the tradition of taking a couple of days off. 🙂

(Oh who am I kidding…)