Caterwauling

Every year on Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, I get the dreaded memo from HR to let my staff go at 3 so they can go enjoy their holidays.

I left at 6:30 p.m. last night. Which, technically, means I got to leave two hours early myself.

I’m just pissed that I had to stare at the wall for two hours as I awaited the last project to come in. And the real kicker is that I drove to the office instead of working from home because I thought I could attend happy hour. Hah. Foiled again, Goddess. Foiled again.

I went through the same stuff at Ye Olde Workplace Establishment. My first two years there, I basically twiddled my thumbs from 4 p.m. till 6 p.m. till the eagle shit and the fun began again.

I know I could go home in the interim but I really dislike having it infringe on my personal time. I’d rather shoot that turkey in the throat and never have to look at its carcass again.

This on top of hearing that one of my problematic colleagues who bullied us for more money and threatened a million times to quit now gets a raise AND another delightful perk. And he gave me some attitude over e-mail about a project I have been chasing him for. So no, I’m not a happy camper right now.

This Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful for a better year than this ahead. I don’t want to say it can get worse but it has GOT to get better.

So this kid IMs me all the time for non-urgent stuff. And he fucking laughs at all his jokes and GOD I HATE THAT.

But he’s always asking me for shit. Like, kid, some of us are running the company. Chill the fuck out. I told you I will get to you now GO PLAY.

So he IMs to say oh hey send me something you mentioned on one of the morning conference calls. I ignore it because AM BUSY. And of course I IM his supervisor to say put your kid on a leash. And proceed to chat for 15 minutes. lol.

Asshole, am I?

I can’t hide since there are afternoon calls too. Like, can’t it fucking WAIT? And if you’d listened closely, I said it wasn’t ready anyway.

No hiding here. From anything. Least of all my own Feelings About Things.

So I spent most of today wishing I was dead. Then I went to Costco and realized, no, I wish everyone else were dead.

Here’s to normalcy again.

I actually called someone a very bad name. Out loud. And very calmly.

I think that if you (a customer) take a pallet full of things and deliberately almost run over a lady’s toes in order to shove in front of her at the self-checkout, you deserve that and so much more.

He didn’t even make eye contact when I said I would have GLADLY let him go in front of me and my two items if he was in that much of a hurry to buy 16 boxes of bottled water.

I got out of that line and into another. And thank God because ****s***** didn’t know how to use the machine. I was long gone before Mr. Personality could find his butt cheeks with both hands and professional assistance.

I wish I hadn’t used the name. But these are the people who are up your butt on the highways and who deserve a smackdown. Can’t we all just get along?

I always figured I shouldn’t have kids because I like my freedom, financial (precarious though it may be) and otherwise, way too much. And lo, God tossed my mother into my house.

I figured I’d have an adventure partner, maid, chef and friend.

While parts of that are true, I also have self-injury issues and a death wish.

I guess this is what marriage must be like. Where the sound of someone’s voice makes you dig your nails so deeply into your most-vulnerable flesh that the sound of blood pulsating in your temples is the only thing that deafens the screaming pain in your mind.

I hate the TV being on constantly. We only have one. I find myself going to sleep on the couch because I’ve tuned out the talking and whatever bullshit show is playing.

The sleep is good for me. I lost the weight I gained last week. I think it’s because I’m more well-rested.

There was a great article in The Atlantic this week about Your Brain on Poverty. Read it.

I am spiritually broke, even if I make a good living. And I think it applies, the “functioning as though you’ve lost 13 IQ points” bit.

A commenter said that’s why people think nothing of having four baby daddies — that you’re going to be broke 10 years from now so who gives a shit and of course I deserve to feel needed/wanted/like I belong now, consequences be damned.

I think I’ve gone the opposite way. I don’t have enough pleasure. Other than food of course, and I’m even depriving myself of that for the most part.

Sure just I bought a gold iPhone and a cute Nine West purse I’ve been eyeing for a long time. But the inner arguments at spending that discretionary cash were excruciating.

Of course, I spent $1,500 to fix up Mom’s car in the last month without a syllable uttered because anytime I suggest that maybe I wasn’t put on this earth to be her keeper she tells me what a martyr I am.

That was money for my December New York trip that I never scheduled. But anyway.

I look at Mom’s health and see how she went downhill at 50. So I have 10 good years left, basically. And being picked at all day by her that I’m a terrible mean horrible nasty person who can’t be nice is killing me. When all I wanted was a nice sushi lunch yesterday but she doesn’t like sushi and she really wanted this burger place 50 miles from here and so I got a chicken sandwich I came to find out cost me a whole day’s worth of Weight Watchers points.

But anyway.

No wonder she couldn’t find a good man and could only hold onto bad ones. If this is marriage, fucking kill me. Seriously.

I don’t mean that she doesn’t have redeeming qualities. She really does. And she’s greater than a kid because I couldn’t hold my job with a kid.

But I kind of like the idea that a kid, you can throw into a carseat and just GO. Go wherever you want. Stick him next to the sushi buffet and let me eat a healthy meal. Strap her into the backseat and go to the Keys for the weekend without worrying about finding a hotel with no steps and that’s private because your traveling companion is agoraphobic and can’t be seen.

But damn, stick her in a dollar store or Michael’s craft store or Wal-Mart and even though my precious, rare free time and money is fucking wasted for hours, she’s as happy as can be.

I’ve booked a hotel over Thanksgiving elsewhere in the state and she’s so excited. And she thinks we’re all best friends and shit and can’t stop asking me questions about what the trip will entail. It will entail me driving and spending money and apparently taking the cat since she won’t let the cat be alone for more than an hour.

You know what the trip will also entail? ADVIL. I’ve planned which CVS location I will stop by before I get on the turnpike. Isn’t that enough?

God, I ask and thank You for not losing my mind when I know You can make things so much worse. I thank You for helping me reclaim those needed 13 IQ points, and to ensure I don’t say anything else stupid during the recovery process because she has no problem telling me how miserable I am to be with and HOW DARE I even think she has ANYTHING to do with it.

Now to go find somewhere to feed her that she likes, my own weight loss efforts likely be damned …

I try not to talk about work here because it bores the hell out of me to read this stuff later on. But I just had a revelation and I don’t know what else to do with it. And I’m waiting for a big mailing to deliver so I GOTS TIME.

We published a piece this week with a small political injection. I know better. I get skewered at the thought of my guys being smart enough to not vote Republican. I mean, my audience can be nuts. You can say “Obama was re-elected” and I will get 200 e-mails screaming “UNSUBSCRIBE ME FROM THIS LIBERAL GARBAGE YOU SOCIALIST SONS OF BITCHES.”

My favorite is the “I pay GOOD MONEY and you send me this trash.” And I’ll access their customer records and those fuqrs ain’t paid a dime in 20 years.

Or maybe my real favorite was today when, after publishing said piece from an Awesome Editor, I got a “(worst editor on the planet EVAR) is the most-brilliant economist on earth and your guy is a TREE-HUGGING NAZI.”

I mean, it’s hard to take this seriously. I quit reading when they said my worst nightmare (who I don’t supervise anymore THANK GOD) was the shit.

What did we say? That Sarah Palin was a moron about a specific issue that affects my constituency.

Now, I deleted the word moron. I wrote a disclaimer that this article may offend so basically it’s time to shoo the kids out of the room for the “dirty parts” or else turn off the TV because it’s adults-only time.

We also said Janet Yellen replacing Ben Bernanke was a Good Thing for our constituency. And said why.

OH DID THE LETTERS FLOOD IN. Between the “you fucked-up liberals” to “Sarah Palin is a TRUE PATRIOT” to “I want my money back” and they only paid us $49 a year for a product that benefits them by that much each week, some things occurred to me.

1. “Most Brilliant Economist EVAR” is always wrong. But states everything as fact. He is never wrong. He is always right. And he will call you stupid for listening to anyone else. This cocksure motherfucker has a following Warren Jeffs would kill for.

1.a. By basically almost-apologetically saying we might hurt people’s widdle fee-fees, they saw it as weakness. And attacked accordingly.

2. It wasn’t really Palin they had a problem with. They do like her. Because she will never amount to anything. She won’t take a job from a rich white male. She gets paid to be a dipshit. And she’s got a whole lot of dipshit left in her to entertain them for life.

3. They don’t like Yellen because that lady has balls of steel and the brainpower of all the 2013 Ivy League graduates combined. She’s a threat to convention. To THEIR convention. GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN WOMAN. That’s a man’s job!

4. These are the same assholes who don’t see slavery or sexism or racism or homophobia as a problem. They fight so hard to keep the world from evolving. But they KNOW revolution is coming. Because it ALWAYS DOES. But God damn you if you aren’t as OPPOSED TO IT as they are. By saying, you know, Palin has no business talking about shit she hasn’t studied up on and that Yellen handled herself well in front of the Senate Banking Committee this week, we are by default SOCIALIST TREE-HUGGING BASTARDS WHO GET PREGNANT JUST TO KILL OUR BABIES.

5. They want someone to spoon-feed them OH LOOK AIRPLANE WHOOOOSSSHHHHHH their own thoughts back to them. I admit my niche industry a big fat detour from the straight-and-narrow journalistic path I started out on. But for fuck’s sake I saw what happened with all these moonbats kept telling us Romney was going to win the election. I read the Rasmussen Report every single day and I also read Nate Silver. Both were calling different outcomes. Rasmussen was cow-towing to the Fox News crowd. Yet nobody learned that JUST BECAUSE FOX TELLS YOU MITT WILL WIN MEANS IT’S TRUE. DUMB. ASSES. GAH.

So yes I have a responsibility to interpret facts and publish them accordingly.

But it says something that I have to put a goddamned DISCLAIMER on them lest people think we actually have a fucking brain in our heads and use it to REASON OUT what is happening.

It says more that the highest powers said no more publishing shit like that.

Which, fine. My anxiety is a force to be reckoned with anyway. I would be glad to move away from it. But the plain-vanilla bullshit I’m going to have to put in its place is actually harder to swallow when I know we can do better.

So, how was YOUR week?

Because, who wouldn’t want to read an entry with that headline?

“My pussy tastes like Pepsi-Cola
My eyes are wide like cherry pies
I gots a taste for men who’re older
It’s always been, so it’s no surprise. …

Come on baby, let’s ride
We can escape to the great sunshine
I know your wife, and she wouldn’t mind.”

— Lana Del Rey, “Cola”

I heard this song for the first time on the way to work this morning and I’m like, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?

I try not to be *too* crass. Especially since I see the type of people it attracts. But every once in a while, I rather enjoy an innuendo … as long as it’s an intelligent one.

Someone’s name has been in the air lately and it’s not a good one. He was full of disgusting comments. And it made me stop saying sexual things pretty much altogether.

And after moving on to spend too much time dating a damn choirboy, seriously, I need to find my sense of humor again.

I’m reclaiming it today.

Anyway, I was telling some colleagues how guilty I feel … like I unleashed that disgusting beast. I told him it was OK to talk to me that way. The guy was a big ol’ nerd and I’ve always had a soft spot for the “talk nerdy to me” set. I figured, they were all learning how to treat a woman on the off-chance one would talk to them. They were practicing and studying, right?

Well not this one. He learned all his charm from porn, apparently. But I didn’t mind. What I do for a living can be pretty damn boring. And I used to work with one of the biggest horn-dogs on the planet. Of course, he actually knew his way around a woman, I can tell you that firsthand.

Ahem.

Anyway, so this clown started sexually harassing one of my people. And I said to her, I need to talk to this guy. She said no, it’s OK. She can handle him.

And now to this day, I have generations of people I meet in this world who have been offended by this character. Men too. Hell, men ESPECIALLY.

I feel like I should have contained it. Not that I could have, I know that now. But it’s fun to think about whether, if you’d just cut their dick off early like they deserved, generations of *squick* could have been avoided.

Anyway, no wonder I went for choirboy. (Or Catholic Boy, as one of my girls called him. Which is appropriate given that he cancels plans with me all the time supposedly to go to church.) Of course, I figured he’d be somewhat of a tiger. Never dreamed he’d be a pussy … cat.

Nah. Just plain pussy.

I am feeling all gangsta-like, throwing that word around. Sweet release!

I realized something today. Most of these yahoos aren’t good enough for me. I spend all kinds of time thinking I’m too “whatever” — not skinny, not pretty, not smart, not whatever — for them. And today I realized in a big way I’m too vibrant/cute/funny/successful for most of THEM.

Christ, I’m never going to find anybody, am I?

“Let’s take Jesus off the dashboard
Got enough on his mind
We both know just what we’re here for
Saved too many times.”

Lana Del Rey, “Diet Mountain Dew”

So, if you’re asking out a girl repeatedly and you’re not sure what to do next, here are some tips.

• Don’t insult her (i.e., pointing out a flaw).
• Don’t ask her why she doesn’t return your calls.
• Don’t forget the 700 billion times she asked for something and you ignored it.
• Seriously, the insulting her. Just … don’t. Because she’s going to put it on Twitter and a guy she thinks the world of is going to make her feel like a million bucks. (Thanks G!)
• If you’ve just checked off everything on this list like it was an achievement, LET HER GO.

I found myself getting mad at ol’ Topo Gigio today. Like, if he wasn’t so far up Whorothy’s puckered asshole, I wouldn’t still be dealing with this dating business.

OK, maybe I would. I’ve never cheated on anyone but if I had to spend the rest of my existence second-guessing him, I wouldn’t want to limit my options.

I used to believe in multiple soulmates. Now I’m not sure I believe in any.

There was a good line in “Revenge” Sunday night, when Conrad Grayson convinced his son Daniel to marry Emily and have an affair with Sarah. I forget the exact words but he said to marry your match and don’t ever marry your paramour.

I’m not marriage-happy by any means but DAMN would I be thrilled to meet my match for a change. Not just someone who matches me, but someone who challenges me and NOT in the way that I have to find new, innovative excuses for why I didn’t answer the phone they know I tuck into my damn bra most of the time!

1. Lunch with my team.

2. One of my boys I haven’t talked to in years sending me an awesome message and calling me by his special nickname for me.

3. Dodging a meeting that got put on my calendar by moving it to tomorrow, when the meeting requester won’t be here.

It’s a long day but at least it’s a good one!

I almost didn’t go into work today.

I don’t mean working from home. I mean, not dealing at all.

The day started off with “so-and-so said you’d be taking care of X because X is here.”

I didn’t know X would be here ever and certainly not today.

Alas, it’s all taken care of now.

And I got that Thing I requested five months ago, since I had to get That Other Thing set up I figured I’d ask.

I hated the world in a huge way today. I hate it a little bit less now.

Just a little.

I’m still reeling from Thursday’s “Scandal” episode. I got home late from my own Wonderland and missed the beginning, but there was enough action to Boggle. My. Mind. in the remainder of the episode.

Anyway, speaking of mind-boggling: This.

Why Time Off is Less Important Than You Think

You know what motivates me? The pipe dream of a sweet, sweet reprieve.

You know what keeps me from taking a sweet reprieve? To not have to pay hotel/airfare to work from an exotic location. That and that horrible heart-dropping anxiety that pervades your whimsical dare to enjoy a slice of non-Wonderland-filled life.

That and the absence of an item you requested five months ago to enable someone to cover for you. An item that was was approved by higher-ups and whose absence continues to puzzle me upon repeated requests for it.

There comes a point when Goddess stops being nice. Now that not only has the vacation time been flushed but now my December getaway is now back in the “pipe dream” pile, that point has been reached.