Caterwauling

“And now I finally know what it feels like
To risk everything and still survive

When you’re standing on the battlefield
And all the pain is real
That’s when you realize

That you must have done something right
Cause you never felt so alive

I’m holding out for more than I deserve
I’m hanging on to all your careless words

Maybe its time I cut the cord
Maybe I stay and take some more
I’ve become the leader of the broken hearts.”

— Papa Roach, “Leader Of The Broken Hearts”

I wrote a perfect blog entry in my head in traffic today. But alas, here I am and I got nothin’.

I heard some guys at the office talking yesterday, saying “the commute isn’t so bad” and saying if they go 75 mph the whole way, they can get here in under an hour.

Well, you CAN’T go 75 the whole way because half the trip is a 55 zone and I have the $500 speeding ticket to prove you can’t fuck with that limit.

Plus, don’t you have six thousand things you’d rather be doing with that time? Seeing your friends, exercising, hell — catching up on sleep or TV? My ass was in bed at 9:30 p.m. last night. The drive required more skill and concentration than the (flawless) publishing of six newsletters.

Anyway, I also got to thinking about boys. Because, why not, right? And I realized something big.

If they can’t get me to Paris (or Tuscany. I want Tuscany too) … if they can’t get me to a series of earth-shattering orgasms … then they don’t get me at all.

I fluctuate from time to time, thinking lackluster dates and the forgettable physical encounter that may or may not result from one of them (as let’s face it, dates don’t end in sex but apparently making out with random people in West Palm bars sometimes does) is at least an interesting way to pass the time. And then I go to the other extreme of “I’d rather be alone than wish I were.”

Ergo, Europe and mindblowing sex are my recipe for attraction. Fact.

And I don’t know if that means I’ll be alone forever or if, like always, the only way I’ll get there is if I do it my own damn self …

Things that have come out of my mouth in the last 12 hours:

“Be the man you want me to believe you can be.”

“Coffee, a muscle relaxer and some eternal sunshine.” — What I need to recover from this past weekend.

“I’m just a girl in a bar.” (Hat-tip to Meredith Grey.)

Well, actually, my version was, “I’m just a girl in a bar, and I like to leave the boys there when I go.”

“Where’s the man who lights my soul on fire? Because everyone else in the meantime is Just Not Him.”

And as Mom said:

“Dating is hard. I mean, who really gives a shit what he wants on his bread?”

“I got my red dress on tonight
Dancing in the dark in the pale moonlight
Done my hair up real big beauty queen style
High heels off, I’m feeling alive.”

— Lana Del Rey, “Summertime Sadnesss”

There’s an extraordinary remix of this song that was on my iPod all night. I feel like it’s my “functional” song.

To say yesterday was a weird day is to say Tea Party members are one cup of Cocoa Puffs short of being completely cuckoo.

I was driving to happy hour last night (amazing what you can do when you work from home and you’re right in the heart of civilization) when I saw someone I miss very much, walking dogs on the A1A. Sigh.

I didn’t stop because I was already an hour late. But he was just so patient with those mongrels, I started thinking, God, the only person I know with that kind of patience is (X). And then I realized, lo, I knew that guy.

I texted him to say hi but I got nothing back. I’d wonder what I did to piss him off but I think the real question is “how much of my crap did he take before he decided not to take it anymore.”

Otherwise it was a nice night out in what I’ll call Utopia. Every once in a while, we all get together and someone waxes poetic about the way things are going to be and those of us who are “in it” exchange glances and order refills on our wine.

My friend and I stayed out most of the night, long after everyone was gone. Just sitting on overstuffed couches on the avenue, nursing our way-past-last-call drinks and saying the things we can only say to each other when no one is within earshot.

Maybe the right song for this entry is Kenny and Dolly’s “You Can’t Make Old Friends.” You know I don’t trust too many souls out there but damn it’s good to feel safe every once in a while.

Now back to reality, and that feeling of being “out there” in the ether again. Like when someone you adore stops hugging you and you suddenly realize how chilly the air is. Or you feel the wind blowing through that hole in your heart when everyone goes home and your Utopia vanishes and you’re wondering what the hell just happened and whether you imagined it all.

So, something kind of amazing happened. In my head, anyway.

I stopped being so filled with rage.

Work-wise, anyway.

Maybe it was the team dinner last night with more out-of-towners than townies at the table. Maybe it was the chemistry, the laughter, the collaboration, the respect, the rich history (as we’ve traveled from company to company together).

Maybe it’s the fact that my people generally do leave me alone to do my thing.

Maybe it’s that, after a friend let me down, he has been killing himself to make it up to me.

Maybe it’s that I stopped eye-rolling at everyone’s big (crazy) dreams and started accepting the fact that it’s OK to dream the impossible. I don’t have to believe it, but I do have to be around to see it if it does in fact arrive.

Everything else is still a mess. But maybe this work stuff is all going to turn out OK after all. I’m in it for another day. At least …

Today was one of those rare days where we ventured into civilization and got to eat at a restaurant and see some sun.

A bunch of old colleagues are in town. Sitting at our table at the local veggie-burger joint (I do love South Florida!), I saw familiar faces of boys I used to know, running up and hugging me. I was overjoyed.

I’ve had it beyond up-to-here with certain current colleagues. People who don’t give a fucking shit about how many hours I work and how 40 of those hours are spent dicking around with their impossible processes and another 40 hours are dedicated to doing what I was hired to do.

Like, today I blew a fuse. Tears and all. I don’t know how I can ask for something a month ago that was due last Friday that was requested thanks to MULTIPLE customers writing in, and suddenly it’s all, well, we need 40 hours to do it and BOY WILL IT COST YOUR DEPARTMENT. So I sent the thing live (with my own personal workaround that customers, if they don’t love it, they at least haven’t written in to bitch about it) without fucking with these idiots, and AMAZINGLY five hours later said 40-hour project was DONE I TELL YOU DONE.

This is someone I consider a friend, by the way. Lord help me with those who don’t worship the ground I walk on.

My boss keeps wanting to talk about compensation and other things that I just don’t want to talk about. Yes I want more. But with more “stuff” comes … what? More than 75 hours a week at the office … more weekends … more years of feeling tethered when my sky-high rent and “paying every single one of my mother’s bills in addition to mine” isn’t enough of an electronic leash?

I have had enough. I don’t love this anymore. I need a break. I can’t work with mediocre people who continue to get in my way and I lose days’ worth of time chasing them down so I can do my job. Spending all that time riding THEIR asses means I’m chronically behind. And I am one anxiety attack away from a padded room. I can’t take the pressure anymore. I don’t know what’s going to be left of me but I can assure you it ain’t going to be much.

I’m thinking of seeing the Nutcracker and going to the Met while I’m in New York. And fuck everybody — I am booking that ticket and I will be DAMNED if I wait for certain departments to get their thumbs out of their butts to give my lone staff member the technology to be me for a day.

My grandmother always said that I couldn’t say “shit” even if I had a mouthful. NO MORE. SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT. I am so sick of everybody’s SHIT and I will be DAMNED if I keep tiptoeing around that fact.

I was reading a chapter out of James Altucher’s newest book and he asked us to name five people for whom we’re grateful right now. He emphasized, “Not in the past … or in the future … NOW.”

I draw a blank. I have past people and I have people whom I hope won’t totally fuck me over in the future. But right now? I’m hard-pressed. And that’s sad.

Lord, I haven’t talked to you in quite some time. But please, please show me five people for whom I should be grateful. And if there aren’t any (or enough), please reveal them to me so that I can show them my gratitude for being there when the rest of the world gets to go on with their lives while mine slips away unnoticed …

I decided last Saturday that I want to lose 10 pounds by the time I take a vacation in December. So today’s 1.8-pound loss is a Good Thing.

Of course, the lady I sat next to at the meeting today has lost 20 pounds in two months, compared to my 17 pounds in four months. And she says to me, “What are you doing wrong?”

Huh?

She wasn’t being annoying on purpose. I realize she has a good 40 pounds on me and frankly it’s easier to lose weight when you have more to lose. And she’s old. So she gets a pass. 😉

I said I don’t feel I’m doing anything wrong. I explained that when I did WW in D.C., I lived on Fiber One bars, salads and Smart Ones entrees. I had NO ENJOYMENT.

I also had NO IDEA I would leave town. I never DREAMED I wouldn’t get to eat at all my favorite restaurants again. And now here I am in pretty much the world’s worst place for food choices. (Our specialty is the fact that you can eat outdoors. What you eat is usually a disappointment.)

So yeah, I eat what I want, when I want and frankly as much or as little as I want. Whenever I go overboard, I schedule a “vegetarian-only day” to cleanse myself.

It may be slow, but it’s how I’m doing it.

I’m glad I had a good week. I usually have one good week a month so hooray, this was it. My anxiety has been over-the-top lately and that usually fucks with my weight loss.

I was actually PANTING yesterday; I was working so hard and so long. Add two messed-up cars to the mix (I was so busy, I couldn’t even make it to my appointment yesterday for Samantha) and the only thing that stresses me out more than work itself is GETTING THERE.

Alas, the deep-breathing exercises worked. As has getting up once an hour as WW recommended. Four pounds till I get to my 10% weight-loss goal. If the 70-year-old who sat behind me can do it, so can I …

The workplace can’t pay out (in full or in part) or roll over my lost 168 vacation hours because IT WOULDN’T BE FAIR to the exceptionless next to my exceptional ass. Fine.

So when I have to work the second weekend in a row to help Deadline Challenged People not fuck up my (work) life, why can’t I cry THAT’S NOT FAIR and have everyone else work the weekend too?

Befriended one of my boys from years (decades?) past on one of those social-networky thingies. I could link to all the entries from the past (yes, the blog is that old). But then that would mean I’d want to reread them. And we all know Goddess needs to keep her wits about her, especially on the first day of Retrograde.

Oh fuck it. Here’s a 2007 recap.

I had a similarly disparaging name for his then-girlfriend/now-wife along the lines of Whorothy. And the second I saw his photos, that long-forgotten name flew straight out of my mouth. (God, I am such a bitch.)

He’s still hot. Not surprisingly. Because if I have exquisite taste in anything, it’s men. His son looks just like him. His daughter looks like, well, Whorothy’s predecessor. 😉

Funny how it all fades into the background, and funny how one day you find yourself awake half the night having flashes that hadn’t occurred to you since the ’90s.

I blew my chance with him because I couldn’t just lose myself in the moment. I didn’t trust that he was in it for the longer haul and even though I am a short-term gal at heart, I was falling for this guy and really convinced that it was doomed because of A) religion and B) the fact that I wasn’t born into money or successful yet on my own.

Was I wrong? Maybe. But I don’t think so. I think the replacement offered the age and security and background that I just couldn’t.

I like to think I was someone new and young and different and exciting. Just like he was intellectual and mysterious and kind and powerful.

Anyway, not to stab at a wound that healed around the time of Y2K. But, still. I just had to take a moment to wonder whether I would have been content never leaving Pittsburgh and living the family life or whether I would have gnawed at the restraints by now and ended up where I am anyway.

The only thing that kept today from being a total experience in frustration was the fact that I got to work in civilization today and was able to pick up dinner on the ride home. Which I don’t get to do when I’m coming in from the sticks.

Today I am going to instead go for the grateful route (rather than saying exactly why someone lit my tampon on fire like it’s a stick of dynamite).

I’m grateful that I managed to get Mom’s car to the mechanic before the brake line exploded. I’m grateful that I’ll get it to the mechanic to replace all the brake lines tomorrow since they’re all shot. I’m grateful my own car has somehow lasted in the meantime and gotten me to the offices even with the engine light on and the turn signals NOT functioning. And today it sounded like the muffler came loose again. So thank you God that I can go another couple of months without adding a car payment.

I got to thinking today, I’ve made so many choices in life that got me to where I am and, yes, in the really ridiculous situations I’m in.

I don’t know that I would change any of them if I could (what with the butterfly effect and all) but I’ve gotten to feeling like I’m never going to stop paying for all those choices.

My boss said I have plenty more choices ahead of me. And I thought, geez, it really doesn’t feel like it. I’ve given up so much. It’s hard to imagine I’ll come to even more crossroads where I’ll be able to choose my way to something better.

My neighbor in the cube farm has a sign up that says, “You can’t do it all in one lifetime.” Shit, I try to do it all in one day … even when everyone is frolicking home when I want nothing more than to be able to leave with them. Maybe he’s right. But I’ve got to be able to do more in this lifetime than what’s happening here in front of me.

Lord, I look forward to the choices coming my way. I know there’s no “Right” choice ever — either choice brings consequences and that’s what you’re supposed to experience. But here’s to choosing the more-rewarding roads at every turn. For a change.

I got to thinking about my departure from Ye Olde Workplace Establishment this morning. It was another “you’re not special” situation. Like, the market crashed and my services were the best performers (and sellers) and we kept adding new services and experts and my workload basically became a bigger bubble than real estate until finally … *poof* … I fizzled out.

Even though I was plugging the holes in the ship with all my phalanges and even my nose and tongue, the fact is that when bonus time rolled around, there was nothing for Goddess. Because, like with the vacation time I lost there, too, there are no exceptions for the exceptional. Because then the exceptionless would want a piece of the action, too.

So, I lost out. And so did they.

I see they went from 30 services back in the day to about as many now as my trusty assistant editor and I fielded just between the two of us. God, we rocked. (And God, I miss her!)

I don’t feel like getting mad anymore. I hated leaving there but the point it ended up proving is not to work your (middle-management) minions to absolute death. And not to work your mid- (to now upper-ish) management self to death going forward either.

I guess we do it for the love of learning, creating, achieving … and affording shit on the weekends to cope.

Sometimes all I want is for everything to change. And then I realize I find a bizarre amount of comfort in everything being so screwed up that I wouldn’t know how to function if it weren’t.