Caterwauling

There’s a joke that you can put four Geminis in a room with the sole task of deciding what they want to do that night. You can come back five days later and they will still be there, because each one says, “I don’t know, what do YOU want to do?

This makes me a good date for the guy who likes to plan. Hell, I don’t mind if they order for me too, so long as red wine is involved. They don’t have me asking for stuff they don’t want to do, and I get to see how romantic they are.

Seriously, when the last one would give me choices, I still couldn’t narrow it down. I’d tell him I’d gladly follow his lead. He might have thought I was a doormat but, really, I didn’t care as long as we were hanging out and having fun together.

(We always had a blast. And he always had red wine ready for me.)

(Of course, I think he judged me by the activities I did suggest and request. So, you know, I’m not overly sad that I don’t have to worry much about that anymore.)

Same thing with friends. We were to have a big birthday bash at my favorite restaurant, one I haven’t gone to in years. The restaurant decided they couldn’t accommodate us, and oddly enough it was a Gemini who made the alternate plans that turned out to be fabulous. Again, four Geminis would equal no consensus. It all works out. (I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun, stumbling from bar to bar in search, and receipt, of free birthday drinks!)

Night before, I went out with some other folks. They asked what I wanted to do. I REALLY wanted to go to the favorite restaurant, but alas, I picked an area that was convenient to all. Because, peacemaker, yo. Again, everyone was happy so I was happy. Total birthday win.

Back when I was little, my mom would try desperately to throw birthday parties for me. But being born on Memorial Day weekend meant everyone went away with their families. And I was always left feeling A) unimportant and B) like, why the hell can’t we ever go to the beach, too?

So as I grew up, I learned to celebrate alone. Oh don’t get me wrong — I threw some fabulous parties in my day. Mostly when the urban tribe was all too broke to go away and anyone would show up for free liquor and a cookout. Besides, I used to be a fabulous cook. I enjoyed all of it.

So last year everyone flaked. I mean everyone. If not for a last-minute invitation from friends who felt sorry for me to join them during their plans, well, yeah.

Maybe that’s a part of the reason I don’t make any demands. If you have plans, what does it really matter what they are?

Of course, I see the same thing playing out in all my relationships — love, home, etc. I wouldn’t say I’m a master (mistress?) at keeping the peace, because I can be an asshole when I want to be. But I feel like so little is actually my choice. Rather, my choice is allowing everybody to get what they want in hopes I will get what I want. Which is happiness.

Of course, the birthday is the one time of year I feel like it’s on my terms, whether at home or otherwise. The people who wanted me, reserved me weeks in advance. And I’m still puzzling over a couple of strange communiques over the weekend, and a lack of them coming from a certain direction.

That’s OK. I also have some big invitations from other corners of the world to come see them. I really have to ask to be able to use some of my vacation days. Not that I want to disturb the peace; after all the last job that put me out on the street was the one where I used and enjoyed the hell out of my vacation days.

Wait, what was I just saying about putting what everyone else wants before what I want? Damn it, this is how it starts … and, I hope, where it can come to an end …

At what point does one’s life become too publicly lived? I have always blogged, Tweeted and other social media’d basically as a means of therapy. To purge whatever is in my brain to open it to the next new experience or adventure. To say whatever it is that I just can’t to those who so richly deserve it (love or hate). To put out a word of encouragement and wait for its seed to manifest for myself or whomever is watching.

Right now I find myself so glad I haven’t been blogging about work, friends, life. Sure I blog, but in a roundabout dance that is designed to leave more questions than answers. And right now, in the absolute dearth of genuine relationships anywhere in my face-to-face life, is when I’m both glad to have kept my silence/distance and annoyed to absolute death that have to bottle up what I’m feeling so as not to offend people who have proven that they don’t give a shit about me.

If turning 39 has done anything for me, it’s made me realize that my life is half-over and what do I have to show for it? If these are my peak earning years, the height of my “pretty years,” the last gasp of summer before the third season starts to turn the leaves from vibrant greens to rustic reds and, eventually, drab browns … well, they leave a lot to be desired.

I don’t even know how to change all of this fukkery. And I can’t say I don’t see more ahead. I guess my parting thought for now, to everyone who needs to hear it, is if you don’t expect others to buy your b.s., why on earth do you think I would?

“Fourteen today and you went dancing
Music mixed with laughter and boys can be so immature
They made you drink a bit too much
Everything’s a blur to feel and touch
Did he really like you? Well, how can you be sure enough?

Twenty-three today and all your friends are gettin’ married
You say, they’re so scared of bein’ alone
So self-righteously you march through teachers’ college
Still so much in life you gotta get to know
Seems like everybody’s so content to move so slow

And when you think, you’ve got your life so well-controlled
It slips away
And the years, like raindrops falling from your life
Are washed away, washed away

And you’re so brilliant, you’re so gifted
So sensitive, so strong
As you hide behind your barricade of words
But no one got close enough to you to have ever heard

I met you at a party
You were drunk and full of world advice and I was gettin’ nervous
And you said, you had a child who was a genius
Then you smiled as the living room transformed into your circus

Someone whispered you were 39 today, a face so young, eyes so old
You collapsed into the corner, like some body of raw nerves
You near seduced me with your verbs as I reached out for you
You said over and over

Oh, when you think, you’ve got your life so well-controlled
It slips away
And the years, like raindrops falling from your life
Are washed away, washed away

And you’re so brilliant, you’re so gifted
So tragic and so wrong
As you hide behind your barricade of words
But you know, no one got close enough to you to have ever heard

Children come home from school
Shout and laugh with all their life
Shut them out fast before you think of the past
Turn out all of your lights

Go to bed, go to sleep, don’t think, don’t feel
As the nighttime owns a prayer
But maybe somewhere deep inside
There’s some meaning, aching to be shared

Fourteen today and you were dancing.”

— Dan Hill, “14 Today”

Didn’t sleep. Cat kept me up all night, just howling. No idea why. And I think I’m starting to get sick. At least, my head feels like it’s full of cotton, wrapped around a lead weight. So, ask me how much I’m looking forward to getting through this day!

I find myself fluctuating every day between “Holy shit, do I rock” and “Holy shit, other people are doing better work AND in less time.”

And after I had that epiphany yesterday about, when you have balance, nothing feels like a chore … well, I started itemizing my passions during the long morning commute.

(Seriously, the less time I have with my thoughts, the better. This is getting to be a dangerous habit.)

I’ve always said I wanted to write a book. Well, I’ve written bunches of them. My new goal is to publish a book I’ve written. And not one of the ones I already have. Those were just to keep me out of trouble or occupied.

But what about?

My passion really revolves around office dynamics. Well, the interpersonal dynamics of colleagues, anyway. From supervisory approaches to teambuilding to accountability to leveraging friendships into making the workdays something special. Work is not to be dreaded or tolerated. Job-hopping is not the answer. Of course, neither is staying in the wrong environment.

Anyway, I dig this stuff. And that’s why I have often dug my grave via this blog. Because I’m not the only one who notices this stuff … I just feel like I have a passion for well-taken-care-of people being happier, healthier and more-productive overall.

My fear is that, other than my sarcasm, I don’t have a unique take on it. And that’s why I’ve never sat down to outline it. I have a working title that would work with a sarcastic tone. But I don’t love it. And therefore I’ve never started writing it.

I guess I’m ready to start growing again. My latest load of tasks have given me a broader knowledge base, but I was already at the top of my game before I took them on. I need to break past that glass ceiling instead of just getting wider, kind of like my ass is from parking it at a desk chair and then in a car seat all day.

I guess no time like the present to start an outline …

You know what’s worse than my usual 40-minute commute? It taking 40 minutes to travel seven miles because the roads are flooded and the highway’s a parking lot.

Despite the wondrous start to today, I achieved a huge victory. Got the Daily Albatross Project done at 4:45 p.m. I usually don’t push the live button on that hot mess till around 8 p.m.

Yesterday morning, one of my neighbors said, “See you in 14 hours!” during our a.m. elevator ride. He’s right you know. 12-ish hours at the office and 1-ish hours on each end of it to commute, and no one ever sees me. I hadn’t realized anyone noticed.

Got home during the 7 p.m. hour tonight. Another neighbor said, “I never see you at this hour!”

Got home late last night. What I hate is that the asshole who parks facing me is always coming home at the same time … him from the bar, me from the office. And he may not be an asshole, but he’s inebriated and happy and I’m not.

Read a great article today. Well, I can’t remember the last time I read a great article, but it qualifies when I find a piece of myself in it.

“I never felt plagued and I never longed for balance. What I was doing just felt right, and I knew this level of focus and absorption was temporary.” — Inside the Stiletto Network

I long for balance. And this made it dawn on me that you really don’t need balance when you’re overjoyed with one or more areas of your life. When you’re instead ENDURING one or more areas (or all), you need balance … even if it’s like I have, moving from one glorious adventure to the next.

Oh well. Better than being in Oklahoma City, right? Albatross Project got out on time, shitty car/tires/brakes didn’t give way and the engine didn’t flood during the rain, and I’m busy working toward dreams (even if they aren’t mine, since I don’t have any right now). The blessings are bigger than the bullshit. And if that isn’t a prayer, to ensure that this state continues, then I don’t know what is.

I picked up my Powerball tickets today. I had to, after I told my friends at work to “enjoy my stuff” because I am not coming back for it.

The guys at the convenience store screwed them up. It’s a long story but here’s to hoping I got the numbers I was meant to have.

So, what else can I actually type about that won’t earn me hate mail or a disciplinary notice? Hmmm. I got a laptop. I did NOT get a MacBook Pro. Every time I have started to buy a MacBook the past few years, I’ve gotten fired, believed I was in danger of it or otherwise encountered a big expense. So as not to tempt fate, I got the world’s cheapest HP.

You get what you pay for, is all I’m saying. You forget how handy a backlit keyboard is when YOU DON’T HAVE ONE. This is my first and last Windows-based product. And Windows 8? Can bite me. There’s a reason why computers that don’t have it cost an extra hundred bucks or so more.

I’m learning to live with it, though. It’s my gift to myself, a baby step in the direction of getting out of this rut I’ve been in. I have been fluctuating between feeling trapped to being scared that the lobster trap will open and I’ll fall out before I’m ready.

Curiously, something happened after I got the computer. My fear went away. I’ve awakened every day for the past month in absolute terror. Last Saturday, I shot out of bed with a work nightmare and it turned out it was a work MEMORY.

Yet I got this stupid machine a few days ago and I feel like, well, it’s you and me, kid. We’ll be OK. I don’t know that I’ll rediscover my abandoned love for writing but at least my excuses for NOT putting thoughts on paper in a non-public place are over.

And that’s the best feeling of all — not the writing; I still have some hostility toward it right now. The best thing for me right now is knowing that, even when you can’t see when or where or how you’ll possibly be OK, you just know it’s happening.

The humans in the world may not care all that much about you unless you’re helping them, but the universe is helping you whether you can see it or not.

I have a lot of thoughts swirling through my head that I’m not ready to reveal. Although I may say, with “The Office” ending this week, I have 20 years’ worth of journals to start my own damn show. Mine could also be a comedy but I’m thinking a cartoon would be more appropros. (Some of you may remember my Veggie Patch comic strip. I cracked myself up.)

Anyway, till I get back to whatever it is I was meant to do with this life, Powerball I’m counting on you. Momma needs healthcare, I need emotional rehab and we both need a trip to Italy. I’ve got an attorney on speed-dial for when I win — now all I need is for my numbers to be called. …

Gemini horoscope:

Today, Goddess, you will ask yourself if, by controlling your emotions so tightly, you are missing out on interesting experiences, or if your defenses are high for a good reason.

I’m going to go with the latter.

I have been thinking about some people I’ve met in my life, from near and far and from long ago and a little more recently.

And how they change.

I don’t know if people just get more comfortable and show you who they really are. Or if they gain a little bit of recognition or power or backbone or what, and then suddenly they realize they CAN crush you so they might as well.

Especially if you’re, as one told me, so sweet and trusting and innocent. One thought me naive for having hope in the human race. Believe me, that’s all but gone. But I’m willing to be surprised.

That same person identified all my “weak” points (their words, not mine) and attacked them all repeatedly. I see the same happening from time to time and I wish people didn’t all go to the same school of “let’s just drive her to the insane asylum, shall we?” I’m not going to give anyone the gift of reaction, so go find someone else to pick on, please.

Then there are the people I know who are fire-happy. Like, insatiably so. And who doesn’t worry about being able to support yourself/your family? Especially in this economy?

Lower jobless claims my ass — look at your region and your field and you tell me if there’s reason for hope. There ain’t. Moving on …

You’d think they’d fire someone and satiate the need, but no. They need more. No one can ever feel safe if one of their colleagues gets the boot because it could be the start of a housecleaning mission.

And no matter how indispensable you’ve made yourself, you’re not immune. You’re never immune.

Joel Osteen talks a good game that God is the only one in control of your destiny. Tell that to your landlord after you’ve had to miss a payment because, even though you were a model employee, you got in the way of a power trip in progress.

I guess what I’m really getting at is how many times I knew someone — really knew them — and at some point the “before” version went away and someone else’s eyes and heart somehow took over. You want to think your old friend, confidante or colleague (in my case, usually all three are rolled into one) is the same person on the inside … that you can appeal to the person you used to know … but you come to find that they’re gone and someone else has taken their place.

And all bets are off.

Again, not aiming this anywhere. We’ve all had a romantic or professional or familial relationship go bad. I’m just saying that sometimes, you can actually pinpoint the exact moment that things are about to change. And there’s nothing that can make you feel more-powerless than seeing the butterfly curl up into a cocoon.

And usually, there’s nothing much more you can do but prepare for the worst or just step out of the way before they run you off and start hanging around people who didn’t know the softer, sweeter, better sides of themselves … or those who knew it but are also complicit in forgetting its existence.

I’m sorry. I still remember all the good things and I’ll be damned if my last memory of people is the one they leave me with.

Productive day. Cranked out five newsletters and two (so far) conference calls and have yet to do two more newsletters and at least two more calls before today is through.

I was crabby on Friday because I really needed to meet a friend at a certain time on Friday night, only to be severely delayed and I completely missed seeing him. He wants to try again tonight, as he was out of town this weekend and he has something of mine that I really need.

Will our intrepid heroine not miss yet another chance today? Time will tell. I’m not exactly bullish on the concept, but I’ll try.

It’s times like this that I remind myself that life is so much bigger than all this. Will the world end if these newsletters don’t get edited perfectly, brilliantly designed and tested/scheduled by some imaginary deadline that someone six generations before me decreed?

I guess I say all of this knowing that someone who was a big part of my world just had a baby yesterday. (Brilliant timing with Mother’s Day. Was that planned?) Cute kid, too. Reminds me of his dad and I never had anything but good times during the several-year friendship I had with the proud poppa.

I have other friends with child too, amid an ongoing baby boom. We had a boy baby boom here at work at this time last year; now it’s all my friends with their bouncing baby boy children (to be).

What’s funny is how hard it is to care about adults in need. But show us a sonogram and we all want to BUY ALL THE GIFTS. Because they are twee and cute and we can be part of the miracle of life without actually having to actively contribute to it.

Anyway, I’m still reeling that my friend got married, let alone is now a dad. He’s gonna be spectacular, by the way.

I guess I’m getting a twinge of nostalgia that everyone important to me from my past is going on to have massive, wonderful life events. And I ran away from it all, hoping to find my own down here. And like Charlie Brown on Halloween, all I got was a rock.

It’s a rock at the beach, don’t get me wrong. But I am wondering whether I should go back and see if some of the magic taking place far north of here can rub off on me a little bit.

Not for the kid part, per se. But for the “hold on long enough and your dreams will come true after all” part.

My turn is coming, whatever and whenever that may be. And it’s gonna be a fairy tale to end all fairy tales when it comes. And I’ll look back on this time of smiles I smile (and those do really come easily — I am overjoyed for the people I love) for other people, and look forward to them beaming when it’s time for me to have some wonderful news for a change.

Oh, I just want to vomit with all the Mother’s Day postings on Facebook. I “liked” as many photos as I could stomach before shutting down the iPad and grabbing a shower, in hopes that this would be the day I finally escape my own mother on a weekend and go grab a bagel somewhere.

Of course she made me breakfast while I was in the shower. And I’ve been yapping for four weeks about going and getting a bagel. By myself. I don’t get breakfast any other day except those that I intend to sneak out of house unaccompanied. Which is a sin, I tell you, a sin!

I know, worse problems to have, right?

Mom got gifts and a big day out yesterday. And of course she wants to know what’s on for today without actually asking or demanding. You know what I want? What I want every weekend. Peace and time at the beach. Considering all I have to do is take the elevator down to the first floor and walk a few hundred feet, you’d think I get the beach all the time. But she’s frail and can’t walk and is just a delicate little flower, so we always end up bypassing the beach so I get to drive her to Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree and Dollar General and Winn-Dixie (ugh. Worst grocery store ever) and Big Lots.

And by the time Monday rolls around (and you can assume I feel the same way about being a working stiff as anyone else in this world), it’s almost a relief. Until about 5 p.m. Monday when my patience gets tested like it does every day at that time, and any amount of calm I’d previously possessed gets a bullet put into its head.

In any event, that’s about when I realize my mom is all I’ve got. And while I want to shoot to kill everyone on Facebook who’s dragging their mom out for brunch and gets to deposit her at her home while I’ve had mine living rent-free in mine for seven years (at least she cooks and cleans. Although I’d prefer cash), she’s the only one I can talk to about all the characters and drama in the so-called life I’ve made.

So, today I say, hey thanks for not being able to keep your legs closed and getting knocked up at 16 (that was sarcastic in case anyone missed that) and thank God you had good parents who helped to take care of me even though we were dirt poor and they died penniless and sick instead of enjoying an albeit meager retirement and now I have a load of goddamned guilt that keeps me from kicking your ass out although I do derive great pleasure in my ability to share my disgust with just a simple snarky phrase.

But I do say thanks for letting me say what I have to say and keeping on keeping on. Because if I were alone in having to deal with all the bullshit in my world outside this crumbling palace of an apartment, I’d be fired or dead or on drugs or some combination thereof.

So I’ll keep trying not to scream as she sings-songs in baby talk to the cat all day and night and keeps about a thousand empty boxes in my dining room “for when we have to move” even though we’ve been here four years and I cry every time I have to lift up the iced tea and move the paper towels aside to get to the box that sits on top of the toilet paper every time I need a fresh roll.

I’ll keep going back to work every day to afford this palace so that princess can continue living in it. And I’ll be grateful for the free therapy she provides and the good comfort food she gives me to make it all better in her own little way of trying to make herself useful to me.

And that’s more than I can say about anyone else in my world. So, happy Mudder’s Day, mom. I could have done a hell of a lot worse in that department. And if I didn’t have you balancing out everyone and everything else, there’s no telling what might have become of me before now.

Someone said to me recently that the one thing they abhor more than anything is a liar.

I often wonder whether this person is dropping hints with me. But seeing as though I’ve never told a lie in my life (if anything, I am far too open about how I feel about things), I didn’t take it personally.

Now, there’s a twist. I have had a very sneaking suspicion for a very long time that said person was lying to me on several occasions. After all, people who detest some characteristic in others are usually the most-guilty of it themselves.

And at some point recently, I was handed my proof. On a silver platter with a mimosa and a vase containing a red rose and the bloody knife they found twisted in my back.

Liar liar ass on fire. No extinguisher holds enough liquid to keep said individual from being a danger to themselves and others.

(I really hate not being able to use pronouns. Yes I’m aware how stupid it all sounds.)

The only thing I hate worse than pronoun abuse is the fact that I can’t tell a soul. It reminds me of Blue Shirt, Black Pants. (I’m betting that particular entry when I mentioned said individual is still in draft mode, because it incriminates the guilty in my present-day life. Just bear with me on this one.) Basically I was the battered woman in the bathroom who emerged to smile and serve everyone tea like I wasn’t just terrorized.

I mean, I COULD tell a soul. And find a strong support group, probably. But it won’t get me anywhere. I’d rather just do my Mona Lisa smile if anyone should ask.

And they don’t.

I just now feel like I have confirmation of what I was praying wasn’t true. And I don’t know what exactly to do with that. Tell Virginia that Santa Claus rapes women he has chained in the basement of his toy factory? Or let the brat continue thinking those gifts fall out of the fucking sky and learn the hard way like I did when the gifts stop coming and the price tag to get future ones is too great for your battered soul to afford?