Caterwauling

I’ve decided I want to be a meeting leader. That would be so much fun and it would be perfect for me.

I’m writing down this aspiration because things only seem to happen when I put them on paper. So, my goal isn’t so much a number as it is a weekend job that I know I would love.

And so I remember what it’s like, I’m going to bore the world to tears with what I struggle with from week to week …

Challenge no. 1: Working out in the boonies, my food choices are limited. I bring a salad and two or three snacks every day. And I stress-eat those snacks by 9:30 a.m. And I starve between lunch and when I depart the ranch around 8 p.m.

So my meeting leader said maybe I should tie those snacks to an activity — a reward for getting through something. So now, I space them out by meetings. My noms don’t last throughout the day, but I’ve gotten them to last throughout the morning.

Verdict: progress! Let’s see if I can save a Fiber One brownie till about 1 p.m. this week.

Challenge no. 2: No time for exercise.

I used to at least have a smoke or two during work hours, to get me up from my desk. And back in the day I’d at least run to our onsite cafe for a salad, but I end up missing lunch if I can’t get up from my desk before 1:30 when they close. (And the nearest sign of civilization is 15 miles away — if I can’t spare the length of a smoke break to go get a salad, how the hell am I going to pack a canteen and venture off the reservation?)

Also, summer in Florida is our winter. The only running I do is from air-conditioned office to air-conditioned car. While everyone up north is venturing outside, we are hunkering down against the elements.

Coming home late doesn’t help. Plus I have things I must do when I get home that don’t involve enjoying my life.

Weekends are errands and mom’s mobility is becoming more-limited, so our together time is mostly spent on the couch watching TV together. But she’s been a champ about cooking healthier and even cutting her own sugar intake to support me.

I am surprised and thrilled by her help. The first time I did the diet thing, she was the ultimate food pusher. And while she did give me a guilt trip that baking is the only thing she loves and now she can’t do that (I told her to give it away — I have an office full of captives), now she’s just the occasional booze pusher. And we all KNOW I can’t say no to that!

Verdict: booze! Er, I mean, something to work on.

Challenge no. 3: Veggies aren’t free.

The first time I dieted, every veggie was a point or two or three, in food-currency terms. Now they are free. Eat them to your heart’s content, the manuals say.

As I learned from a Skinny Minnie who sat next to me at the meeting this week, that’s not true and they need to be portioned out just like anything.

Ugh. Portion control is my ultimate foe.

I eat froots and veggies like they are going out of style. I eat till I’m full and I admit I don’t listen to my body when it says it’s full. Is it really, really full … or full for now and I’m gonna be hungry later so why not just stuff myself silly now? Bad Goddess. Bad.

Anyway, she said all she did was freebase veggies and she ended up gaining weight. So, I thank her for that tip — veggie intake should be as regulated as morphine dosages.

Verdict: everything is bad for you. But I’d rather OD on carrots than heroin. So, one challenge at a time.

“I would wait all my days to hear the words I need you to say
To keep me hanging on and not walking away
But you don’t say anything do you.”

— Anderson East, “Say Anything”

The wine is starting to kick in. So, yeah. You know how these sorts of things end up.

Random item No. 1: I finally called Whorothy a whore to Topo Gigio. It has been a long time since I’ve felt like myself, and I’m starting to feel her again lately. And while I don’t think I’ve held back anything from TG, frankly I realize I have nothing to lose.

I think maybe I always wondered if there were some phantom chance hanging over us. But even if that were the case, frankly he needs someone to kick him in the ass. Because if he actually thinks old whorebag is ever going to come around, he best not expect his real friends to welcome her with arms as wide open as her legs.

Anyway, he’s gone silent. Maybe he doesn’t even care what I said and he’s just busy. Or maybe this is it. I’m not even going to wax poetic here. I want more for myself and I want people in my life with the same ambition.

Random item No. 2: So I met this random interloper, not necessarily a snowbird but definitely someone who only comes to Florida for the fair weather. I had a very hot dream about him last night. Actually it was less hot than sweet — a great first and second kiss.

What was interesting about the dream was that he wanted me to meet him somewhere (it was a major city — Gawd I miss real cities). Even though I could see him in a cafe, wearing a kelly green shirt and a baseball cap (Hot.) and waiting for me (Hotter.), I grabbed my food and kept walking — I had to explore.

I didn’t go far. I felt like I was coming back to him — I just wanted to take a peek at the big wide world I’ve been missing out on. But it amuses me that, even in dreams, my independent streak is as wide as my pudgy pork roast butt.

Random item No. 3: Met a new contact in the industry and got the dirt on some of my friends. Also heard a positive thing about one or two of those who have disgusted me over the years. This parallel universe is freaking me out a bit. I’m just glad I’ve always been consistent and that my own reputation is intact. Because in this industry? No one forgets.

Random item No. 4: I get some creepy e-mails from people on dating sites. I can’t remember the last time I even responded to anybody. Freaky moment of the day: I was nomming on a whole-wheat-everything bagel and my beloved banana coffee when I saw a guy who looks exactly like somebody in one of my inboxes. He was just as creepy in person as in his photo. He was sitting alone and checking out anything with a vagina. *shudder* Validation as to why I didn’t waste my time on a reply when I can’t find the time/energy to communicate with people I genuinely love.

Random item No. 5: Down 2.5 more pounds today. Squee! Ten more pounds and I’ll be back where I was before the company reorganized in January and all this weight-gain business exploded.

Random item No. 6: I found out the business I quit unexpectedly was even-shadier than I knew. Like, they stole $10 mil from someone … on top of the shit I DID know about. Why did I ever leave D.C.?

Random item No. 7: I haven’t had a smoke in forever and a day. And I’ve been dieting. And I’ve cut my alcohol intake. And no one has gotten a foot up their ass even if they’ve deserved it. If I don’t get a goddamn award for all of this (or, a vacation day), then there is no justice in this world.

“When they said that what I wanted was a figment,
I had to turn the other cheek but I was listening,
Yeah I was listening, listening to all.

Remember what the people said,
Remember what the people said,
When it’s said and done,
Let it go.

— The Neighbourhood, “Let it Go”

I was texting with one of my boys on the drive home (for having a car whose brakes don’t work, you’d think I wouldn’t do that) and I said it was an early night for me. He’s in a different time zone and said it wasn’t an early night even by non-East-Coast standards.

Hey, I count it as early if I see sunlight for any part of the journey!

I realize I’ve carried on most of my friendships and relationships by text in the past year and a half. And not very well, mind you. I might do one or two texts in a workday. I did four today because I’m braindead and can’t manage much else.

Had a great day offsite yesterday to what I suppose I can refer to is a new satellite office. The commute was half the mileage and nearly half the time. I took 95 on the way down (21 miles) and a side street on the way home (19 miles). Please God please let us relocate!

My workload has effectively doubled. And while I can say I officially hit my capacity last Friday, I’m pleased to say that I think folks are starting to get an inkling of what it is I do. Which, I’d say 20% of my role is using my training/talents/smarts, while the remaining 80% is problem-solving and dealing with technological challenges and managing relationships/expectations.

I read an article today on stimulating one’s career libido. (Kate White! Love her!) It cautioned to take a hiatus from taking on projects that will get you promoted, and do something that will stimulate your addled widdle brain.

I think the new “satellite office” and all the Willy Wonka wonder it brings will help. I just don’t know how to give up the 80% crap that kills my will creativity in order to make room for the stimulating stuff that’s literally right in front of me.

I’ll get there. One way or another. Preferably with help from above, in all senses.

I didn’t mention the near-death experience I had Monday morning. If I died, and I think I came really close on the highway that day, I wasn’t going down without a fight. But I lived (obviously) and it occurred to me loud and clear that life’s too short to hate so much of it.

I’m going to try to release the anxiety, the exhaustion, the ennui and the “you’d look better with a baseball bat in your skull” angry moments. I’ve never been profoundly happy and don’t know how to achieve it, but forcing myself to be happy in a moment has opened me up to easier days and nights.

I’m finding my boundaries. I’m setting my own limits. And I’m rediscovering the Goddess who only needed a little bit of victory to make a big impact on her world.

I was thinking, oh yeah, I have a couple of crushes in progress too. (Which will probably play out over text eventually, I’m sure. They all do.) That always helps. But the one I’m in love with? For a change … me. And this time, I’m gonna treat this one like the royal deity she is.

Not that I check messages. But, you know, that’s kinda the point.

I went from having a great week to a tremendously stressful week to, next week, Mercury Retrograde.

(Envision yams coming out of a can like springy snakes.)

I also started watching what I eat again last week. Five years ago this Tuesday, my life was so out-of-control that I started doing the same thing — and I found incredible discipline and even joy in taking control of JUST ONE aspect of my life.

I was 34 and didn’t want to be fat at 35. And now I’m 39 and not particularly fond of being pudgy at 40.

I hate it that it’s five years later and nothing has changed but the state I live in. The state of mind, however uncomfortable it is most of the time, remains home sweet home.

With my last post, I have thousands of words and emotions I want to share about it. But the bottom line is that you either live with what’s unfair or change it. There is something in me that cannot look past the way things are, and I stress and fret and work so hard to make change.

But then every once in a while, you get a reminder that while everyone sees what you’re trying to do, you’re not going to win. Like Edward Snowden — whatever his motive for espionage, he tried to do something about it. Maybe it was to make himself famous, although I know enough spooks in Washington and how they operate to presume that whatever birthday he last celebrated had better have been a good one because his future ones are extremely limited.

I guess do you die doing what you must to survive, or die for what you believe in? And how can you make it so that it doesn’t have to feel like a choice?

Anyway, diet. I thank God that I remain employed and continue to pay to attend the meetings. I thank God for the strength to not resort to my usual stress-reliever of EATING ALL THE THINGS because I damn well deserve whatever I perceive as a reward. And I thank God that the stressful things that keep happening can come to a merciful end and that the fact that I survived a week of healthy eating and mom survived what I think may have been a heart attack yesterday means that we are one day closer to the glory and the greatness that He’s promised.

And thank you, God, for giving me more rope every time I reach the end of it. I’ll keep hanging as long as I can but I thank You that one of these days I’m going to have enough strength to crawl back up.

“Please don’t settle for just breaking through glass ceilings in a broken corporate system or in a broken political system, where so many leaders are so disconnected from their own wisdom that we are careening from one self-inflicted crisis to another. Change much more than the M to a W at the top of the corporate flow chart. Change it by going to the root of what’s wrong and redefining what we value and what we consider success.”

— Arianna Huffington, to the graduates of Smith College.

Today, I am thanking God for delivering me strength in the face of:

1. Human clocks
2. Human Outlook calendars

Reply to all: I KNOW.

Love,

Your best friend or worst nightmare

It’s past six p.m. … I’ve had six meetings today … I have six hours’ worth of work ahead of me … and I have a commitment later tonight that has nothing to do with numbers but you get the idea.

On the subject of numbers, however, I dragged my pudgy pork-roast butt back to Weight Watchers on Saturday.

Jesus. Christ.

I’ve put on a few pounds, we’ll say, since I moved here. Not as many as I originally carried, thank God. But still.

Pudgy. Pork. Roast. Ass.

Anyway, I have not had five fucking seconds to eat today, let alone count my points. But it occurs to me …

I HAVE BEEN UNDER-EATING.

I can’t lose a pound to save my life and I haven’t been able to figure out why. But let’s assume you should be consuming, say, about 28 points a day, right? It’s 6:30 p.m. and I can guarantee you I haven’t had more than 5 all day.

And then I get home after 9 p.m., say, and SHOVEL IN EVERY MORSEL I CAN FIND.

I also stay up late too, since I get so screwed out of evening time that I will stay up till 1 a.m. And get up at 5:30 a.m. to do this whole motherloving adventure all over again.

I guess what I’m saying is, undereating makes you just as fat as overeating. I’m sure the stress doesn’t help, either. But … wow.

Me … an under-eater? Who knew?

I’m sure I’ve mentioned my father was a deadbeat. And when I did meet him when I was 18, he blamed my grandmother for telling him to not even bother being in my life. And even though I wanted to forge a relationship then, he said nah — we hadn’t had one for 18 years. Why bother now?

I commend my grandmother for her foresight into what a loser he was. I see my friend’s daughter going through the same thing with her baby daddy. We were joking that he probably expects to be thrown a parade today when the man hasn’t bought so much as a diaper in the six months that his kid has been in this world. My friend said she was going to the dollar-store section of Target to get him a plastic “No. 1 Dad” trophy. lol.

Meanwhile I have friends who are going to be amazing parents, whose little blessing just hasn’t been conceived yet. But oh, how they try. I mean, scientific intervention trying at all costs. And it makes me nuts that fathers like mine and dollar-store dumbass can just create life upon command.

Speaking of dumbasses, Whorothy is all over Facebook, shitting on TG’s page about her love for A Major Sex-Symbol Actor. If I know TG, it’s making him feel like shit with all her waxing poetic about all of the actor’s attributes. And his money. She should quit acting like said actor would even look at her homely, incoherent Crypt-Keeper-looking ass. Gawd.

It’s taking everything in me to not leave a comment to instruct the Crypt Keeper to go hang out with her homely kids and baby daddy. Not only that, but to also snark that all she can do is hope and pray that Hot Actor has vision problems like all the other men in her life. (I can confirm one of them does have bad eyes; the other, we just assume.)

Since this woman turns me into a mean asshole, let me indulge …

I’ve been wanting to ask if the youngest kid is even the baby daddy’s. The adults are as nondescript (and lookalike) as wallpaper paste, and the oldest kids look like their doppelgangers. The youngest, however, looks like he might be the milkman’s kid. I wonder if he’s TG’s but I don’t have balls enough to ask.

So anyway, in the spirit of Father’s Day, happy day to the poor suckers who are attracted to the Whorothys of the world and who love their kids (biologically theirs or not) and even do their damndest to support and love the psycho gold-digging whores who all too eagerly spread their legs for anyone who would look at them.

Happy day to all those amazing men who exist to prove all the girls like me wrong — that there really are real men out there who not only own up to their spilled seed, but who love the shit out of their kids every minute of every day of their lives. And the children’s mothers, too, but that should go without saying.

Happy day to the moms and grandmothers like mine who sent the deadbeats packing so they couldn’t add a layer of drama that we kids may never have recovered from.

Happy day to the grandfathers, uncles and other men who stepped in and showed us that biology does not a dad make.

An especially happy day to my grandfather up in heaven, for loving me like his own. And, if we’re honest, maybe a little more than his own, because that’s who I came from.

And maybe above that, the happiest day of all to the man I’m meant to be with. Whether we have kids or not, or whether he comes with one pre-made, I don’t care. Thank you for saving yourself for me and thank you for the incredible adventures we’re going to have.

Because, really, all these Father’s Day and Mother’s Day holidays should be just as applicable to those of us who are pet parents or otherwise decent human beings — having a child does not a good parent make. And as long as we keep being good to each other, these holidays are just as much for us as anyone.

I had a horrible revelation yesterday. The Lord God above granted my wish to get some help — and it came via a freelancer I used to work with.

He charges double my “high” hourly rate … a fact I learned when he sent me an invoice that made me Drop. Dead.

For essentially a week’s worth of work, his invoice was more than I net for the whole month.

So I decided to figure out what my hourly rate is.

OMG BAD IDEA.

Then I figured out what my hourly rate REALLY is, based on MY average workday. Let’s say it’s A FEW hours more than eight.

OMG REALLY BAD IDEA.

I lose a thousand dollars a month, working beyond the average eight-hour day.

I was thinking, I could get a freelance job (HAH. With what time?) for $1,000 a month to make up for it. Or I could figure out how to work smarter/better/LESS.

When you put it into dollar terms, you realize just how fucked up your life is.

That’s $12,000 in hours that I lose … that I could be at the beach, writing a novel, taking walks and getting fit, or otherwise NOT being stressed and held hostage to the almighty deadline.

I couldn’t do it, mind you, if I didn’t enjoy the work. But for this guy who basically just helps me two hours a day to make MORE than I do over the same time period, well … fuck.

So, I saw daylight three nights this week. Sure, the sun doesn’t set till 8:30 p.m. but still. Don’t ruin it for me. 🙂

Actually I left reasonably on time yesterday and today. My Daily Albatross was done and put to bed before 5 today and before 3 yesterday. I wouldn’t say I have had my best days at work ever (those would be when my cute male friend still worked there and we spent every lunch hour together … and then I’d leave work at a reasonable time and go volunteer every night), but they’ve been the best this year.

They could get even better if I could make it to a doctor’s appointment or get mom to some sort of person who could find us healthcare for her. But you know. One year at a time.

So I have very good offers for vacations this year:

1. California
2. D.C.
3. Pittsburgh
4. Europe
5. New York (again and yes, please!)

I have three weeks of vacation to burn. After I lost 40 hours last year, I know I will never get paid for them.

But there’s no one to do my work. So anywhere I go, the work comes with me. And you’ve never met someone so adamant about “It is not my fucking problem for five goddamned days” than me.

As it looks, I either lose all those hours or lose big opportunities to go from flamed-out to just a little burned-out. You could toast marshmallows over my ass without even striking a match, that’s how through I am.

So, sure, I should have probably stayed later than I did this week. But they get my heart during the normal hours more when I can have evenings to myself.

Don’t worry, I won’t get used to this.

The thing about all my vacation opportunities is that I would only have to pay to get myself there. And if there’s one thing in life I have NEVER regretted, it’s boogie-ing out of town and seeing a bit more of the world.

Of course, my “hotel” money goes straight to mom — so she can eat and buy all the shit I normally have to buy for the house. So I get screwed there. But to get out of town? HERE IS A BLANK CHECK. And yes, I know I have to deposit that check because she can’t, but still. WORTH IT.

I think a lot about the job that let me go with no warning, other than being treated like shit by people who aren’t qualified to hold my toilet paper or wipe my ass. (A recurring theme if I stop to think about it.) I took my vacation time, went to happy hours with my good friend and basically played as hard as I worked. I loved that.

I just wish one could work hard and feel secure in their vocation. It’s impossible. I don’t even think it’s the economy (stupid) — I think it’s the people who are conditioned to let you work yourself into your own grave and they’ll just find someone else to do whatever you did. And while they will appreciate the nuances you brought to it, they tend to find they can easily live without it.

Of course, I’m feeling good today. Talked with an old friend in the field very briefly. Haven’t seen him in three years, but I thought of him out of the blue and I was thrilled that he remembers me fondly.

It’s good to have exchanges like those, that validate that you are something special indeed and fuck everybody who forgets it from time to time — even if that “everybody” includes you, yourself sometimes.

Thanks, friend. Thank you, God and Universe, for such a good day. I can honestly say, if someone asks how I am, “I’m blessed and highly favored.” For today, anyway, but I’ll take it as I type on my laptop on my waterfront balcony. All good in the ‘hood, and I cherish every second of it.