Caterwauling

I’m at my destination and having a blast.

It kills me that it took me till the last weekend of December to have a damn vacation day. But I love it and now I want to find a rich man so I don’t have to work 70 hours a week like it was what I was put on earth to do.

I am hanging out with my adopted family and I think they love me more than one of their daughters with the same name. And I am happy to take her place. 🙂

Everyone felt bad that I couldn’t make it up here earlier this month for the annual pilgrimage to Carmine’s. So the suggestion is out there that I should come up here for my 40th birthday in May and they will take me to dinner there.

Which, Awesome! Except the part about turning 40. Since, I’ll be doing that a few dozen times. But the first time should be special, right?

I was just stalking Whorothy because her name is always in the air when I’m hanging out with this friend I’m visiting. She has been posting some photos that, well, look exactly like her. Which is a shame. But anyway.

So one gal in the photo was making a comment about looking unattractive. (She really isn’t.) Whorothy comments to say, “Everyone thinks you and I look alike!”

I almost threw up my yummy sushi dinner and cannoli carrot cake I had for dessert. I imagine the other girl did too.

Honey, it is NOT a compliment to tell someone she looks like you. I’ll bet we hear of some suburban mom driving her minivan off a cliff tomorrow. You mark my words.

I was telling my friend about another of my boys who needs to be filed under the “Hint, Cannot Take” label. Here’s the deal. If you have to annoy me with, “You need to learn how to communicate/write back/call back/etc.” then I have two replies:

1. Consider that if you have to bully me into replying, well, you shouldn’t.

2. Do you think it makes you boyfriend material? Like, I will just fall head the fuck over heels with someone who feels the need to order me around or make snide passive-aggressive comments now? What the fuck would you be like later?

I met a nice guy here. Seems perfectly lovely. But A) I’m not in the mood for love and B) he doesn’t meet any of my “dream guy” criteria.

That’s right boys. I have a checklist. Always have, always will. And I’m not apologizing for it.

You want someone with Barbie proportions and an insatiable appetite for sucking cock, then it’s A-OK that I have my “I’m not wasting time with douchebags and dumbasses” fortress around my wish list.

My friend’s husband is one of the best people I’ve ever met. And I know my friend has done a hell of a job training him. 😉 But he’s also fairly awesome without any assistance. So when I DO find someone, he’s coming up here for boot camp to have my friends refine any edges he may still have.

This is what life should be like. Filled with fun and family and love and support and laughs. Don’t get me wrong — they have their “stuff.” And I know I am bringing some comic relief at a time it is needed most.

But I see people who work hard, play hard and love hard, and that’s what I want. That’s what life should be like. Mine is OK but this … this is what I’ve never seen before to know to emulate.

And I love being part of it.

Can’t wait to celebrate my birthday with this crew! I just wish my mom could be part of it.

So today was to be my first vacation day of the year.

I’m starting Hour 8 and it’s barely past 2 p.m.

I’ll be (working from home) this Christmas. And from Pennsylvania, apparently, too. Squee.

My whole department aspired to take today off. And my instant messenger is a sea of “idle” and “out of office” messages except from my crew. So, I can’t complain too much. I guess.

I’m just ready to ram a Festivus pole in a few directions of those who didn’t miss a lunch hour or a chance to leave early or a minute of vacation even though they knew I was counting on them for something.

I get how some people “get theirs.” They want a bonus and a reward and a raise, but they don’t put forth enough effort for it. And they whine that they are so unfortunate and they deserved so much more.

Meanwhile some of us go without taking care of ourselves for the benefit of the greater good.

I tried really fucking hard this year so I have zero sympathy for everyone who didn’t.

Congratulations to those who “got theirs.” Mine is still coming and it will be a hundred times better. And I’m going to enjoy it more than any of the others ever could.

I dragged my heathen ass back to church for Christmas Eve. It was … powerful.

Mom and I do brunch on Sundays now. And while it works (no more fighting over where we can both eat in heavenly peace), I miss God. Especially since I don’t much seek Him out other than when I’m having a panic attack in the car. Which, admittedly, is often.

Pastor John left my church about a year and a half ago. I was glad. I used to love him but he got on some weird kick that started creeping me out and he never came back from it. Like, over-the-top beating us over the head with his view of the world.

He went back to Texas (good riddance) and another guy took over temporarily. I liked the temporary guy, but I knew his time was limited till they hired the new pastor. And I admit I didn’t like the new pastor when he took over.

Well WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES.

I love the new pastor. LOVE.

He spoke to my heart. There was no one else in the room last night as he told me how Christ didn’t just come to save the world — He came to save ME. He knew I’d be in that room, in that life, in that skin, in that situation at that very moment. He knew I’d need Him and He’d be there for me.

Well, the pastor told ALL of us that. But, it is all about me, isn’t it?

He spoke of “dark souls” — how he’s ceased to be perfect since he took about his fifth breath of life and how he’s not going to be perfect.

And for the dark souls like him, God isn’t waiting till we catch up on our work to-do list or get a relationship right or untangle our finances to love us.

So, basically don’t wait to love yourself, either. That’s the message. You will have perfect, eternal life one day with your king. For now, do your best and love one another and just be good.

That, I can handle.

I felt like Pastor John started inserting himself between God and me. I’m sure that wasn’t the case but that’s how I felt. Last night, I felt like the new guy let me shake God’s hand and politely stepped aside to let us connect again.

I’m not sure where I go in my faith journey here. I asked for “faith friends,” as my old pastor from Maryland always wishes I’d find. I think that’s the best resolution I can make for next year.

In addition to washing off my makeup nightly and flirting more (with the right people, let’s be clear), of course …

My dark soul is suddenly bursting with light this Christmas Day …

As I read somewhere else, the baby came in a dirty manger to young and confused parents. You don’t stop miracles or plan for them to arrive in perfect time. They just come, whenever and wherever and at any time and under any circumstance.

I’m ready to receive my miracles now. I guess I always was. But now I know …

Well I’ve slept eight hours over the past four nights. That’s CUMULATIVE.

Thanks steriods!

I think the meds are working, thank God. Although it’s been a bitch to get through these last few days, running on even-emptier.

At work I have someone who likes to visit all the time. Which is fine I guess, but I get hugely upset that this person is A) paid more and B) recently complaining about being so bored as to be supposedly counting ceiling tiles.

When I am very clear that my schedule is JAMMED and every interruption means I have to stay LATER and work ON THE HOLIDAY — even more so than I already planned to.

And don’t get me STARTED on how their dicking around for six months on something for me has directly resulted in me losing four weeks of vacation AND that’s the reason I might not be able to fully enjoy my meager weekend getaway coming up.

And now I’ve come to find something else I’ve been ASSURED has been done for six months has NOT. And may never get done at this rate.

Keep counting ceiling tiles. *scream*

Said person asked me, “Well, can’t so-and-so do that for you so you can go out for a drink?” No.

“Why?” Well if I had been able to start training them six months ago, this wouldn’t be an issue — I’ve only had two weeks to train.

“Well can’t Marketing do it?” Why would I have Marketing trained to do Editorial work (even though I do some Marketing work)?

“You need a drink.” And you’re contributing to that state of mind. And furthermore, I am on a dangerous combination of drugs and I probably shouldn’t be drinking coffee and getting behind the wheel.

I know everyone reads this blog and pretends not to. Fine, let’s go with that. I’m shouting into the void here. And maybe I am. But I am so TIRED of having to pray to my God every day to just help me get through it.

My token Gemini trait of “you cease to exist to me” is in high gear. Folks need to stop haunting me. It’s not that I am incapable of letting my guard down; it’s that everyone keeps giving me reasons not to.

Next year will be better. This year, however, is ending exactly as it began — hoping that my reward is coming and that it will be worth every ounce of grace I’ve had to muster so that grace can finally, mercifully be shown toward me from more-important people than the mere mortals in my path.

Things I dislike:

1. Men who work in the vicinity of X ZIP Code and/or in my industry. Or both.
2. Who are Leos
3. Born in the ’60s
4. And who look like the asshole who stole all of mom’s stuff and dropped her on my doorstep seven years ago in a state of hysterics.

Things I dislike more:

1. When they like me

Don’t get me wrong. A girl likes attention and all. But … when your skin is designed to retract when faced with the four things that ruin me on their own, let alone in perfect formation … well, yeah. No.

I remember when ol’ Topo Gigio told me he’d rather wait around for the next 11 years for some married whorebag than to actually spend time being present and having fun with me.

(He’s lurking around her neighborhood now, hoping to see her for five minutes — all flash, dash and no cash, renting expensive cars and pretending he’s a hot shot. It would be laughable if I didn’t know he hasn’t eaten a good meal in months and refuses to let a gorgeous Gemini female friend pay for dinner.)

Anyway, I remember how he always had imaginary plans/got sick/just said no at every suggestion of “hey want to go have a beer later.” (But when I would follow up on outings/health/killing ants on my birthday night, he had no recollection of telling the lie.)

But then he would send me nice gifts in the mail or buy me dinner whenever HE wanted to hang. And then would go radio-silent at just the thought of indulging anything I wanted to do.

And I find myself in the same situation. Not able to commit to five minutes in a public place. Only responding when stalked, basically.

I guess stalked is the wrong word but I’m not one to show my face when I don’t want to. So, you come up with a better word and I will use it.

The thing is, we all need friends. That was always Mom’s thing with Topo Gigio. He’s a lonely soul, with lots of demons you can tell, no matter how much he tries to hide them. So be kind.

(She may have just been speaking of herself. Or maybe that’s why she identified with him so much.)

I dunno. Now that the cold shoulder (and every other body part. Jesus) has been shown to me so distinctively, I have the routine down pat to pay it forward.

Of course, I always did.

I hate it that I have to pass it off as “gee I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I can’t get close to anybody.” I can. In the right situation. Maybe.

I just don’t get the “wearing me down” bit here, though. Familiarity breeds contempt in my world, not affection.

Want me to want you? Make me come and find you.

It’s not you, it’s me. But why do I feel bad anyway when clearly TG never did?

Anyway, Topo Gigio couldn’t do the friend thing even though I pretty much lost interest the moment I failed to see any beauty in Whorothy or his having wasted four years waiting for her and having another 11 more till the last kid graduates. RED FLAG, PEOPLE.

But you know, I get the whole, “Bitch back off and this is me telling you nicely” aspect of it all.

The thing I found with TG is that he doesn’t want anybody. I’d wager that he’s not all that interested in Clown Car Cooch, either. She’s a convenient excuse for his inexcusable weirdness and trough full of Lion’s Pride that keeps him at an entire football field’s distance from anyone who dares to love him.

I don’t know. I went from believing in soulmates to NOT believing in soulmates to now just thinking, if there isn’t a spark then it’s not meant to be and so, if there IS a spark someday, somewhere, that’s soulmate potential, right?

Sparks. Can has?

When Mom — who took care of my great-grandmother, great-aunt, grandmother and grandfather till each died — got to the end of her rope and declared, “I can’t take this anymore” about each of them, they passed. Quickly and unexpectedly and very painfully for them.

And for her because she to this day carries a guilt complex about a chain of events that start in 1987.

After an absolutely miserable day that had two high points I can’t even think about because I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE, she said fine. Now she’ll die.

I know she’s in excruciating pain. I do. But she won’t sit home. I have to drag her around town and drop her off and pick her up at the doors and do the running around in the stores and today, I didn’t have it in me.

I’ve been up since 3 a.m. thanks to one of my medications. But I ran out of steam somewhere around 2 p.m. in Wal-Mart. She has a terrible memory now and she didn’t bring a list so it was ALL THE CIRCLES, running around like a twit every time she thought of something.

I finally said goddamn it, woman. There’s $100 worth of shit in the basket and I told you Ill be out of town and I’ve begged you to get enough food to last. But if we can’t get out of the sewing aisle when you don’t sew and the car aisle when you don’t drive anymore … I am very sick and need to leave.

So I get a, “Oh WAAAH it’s all about you.”

Well, yes, yes it is. My money, my time, my day off and MY HEALTH. We already know no one at any job I’ve ever worked wants me to take time to care about my own health, let alone hers.

And I have to do a whole lot of things for her, and most of those things have to get to crisis proportions for me to deal with them. And if I put myself AFTER her on the to-do list … yes, actually, it’s all fucking about me.

I can’t really say though, “You try not knowing what’s wrong with you.” Because she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her but it’s a LOT. So she ALWAYS WINS the health problem battle. She wins the pain and fatigue battle. She wins every goddamned battle.

And then she spent the rest of the day cornering me, blaming me for this and asking me why I hate her for that.

Her new thing is to ask me why I get nasty every time I’m about to leave town. Which, I NEVER leave town. And two, GOD HAS BLESSED ME WITH A FIVE-DAY REPRIEVE FROM YOU. Maybe I’m mentally on vacation already and you keep TALKING TALKING TALKING!!!!!!!!!

This will be one of those posts I pull down when she eventually goes over to the other side. But today, when faced with a fuzzy diagnosis that could either be an inconvenience or a life-threatening issue, it scares me to say which way I wish the coin would toss.

And in that case, I don’t think I’d be sad if it was quick.

Of course, as she said to me earlier, “Can you give it up with the ‘poor me’ shit?”

You first …

GOD I HATE VIRGOS.

I just realized that the skirt I threw on this morning was a size smaller than I thought it was.

That’s not a bad thing … it FIT. And fit well.

Damn I have cute clothes in the next size down …

Perhaps my favorite blog post name, since it’s the fourth time I’ve used it.

It’s been a week of highs and lows and little in-between.

Yesterday we had a holiday party at the Alligator Ranch. I pitched a fit that it was a two-hour catered sit-down affair with RAFFLES, good God. On a Friday, my busiest day. Also that work was dismissed afterward and YEAH RIGHT.

Once again I had happy hour plans that I missed by 3 hours, same as Thanksgiving. But my boss gave me an awesome Christmas gift and I came home to put up my ghetto lighted palm tree (since, time to do the real tree was non-existent this year).

Plus those raffles paid off — I have never won a damn thing in my life and I got a nice Amex gift card in the exact amount I paid for that ghetto lighted palm tree. So, win-win.

Today I opted not to weigh in but I did go to my meeting. It would have gone one of two ways:

1. I hit my 10% goal and would be nervous about eating ANYTHING this coming week because I’d have to maintain at least that weight.

2. I wouldn’t hit said goal and, well, I would feel compelled to eat ALL THE THINGS as a result.

So, let’s say we’ll find out in two weeks when I’m back in town, eh?

I went to the local Urgent Care clinic to address a Problem I noticed about a month ago.

But I did what I always do: ignored it. Then tried home remedies. Then tried to get doctor’s appointments with specialists on weekends.

(The home-remedy route has a better chance of working than finding a specialist with Saturday hours.)

So I am a medical oddity. (Shocker, I know.) We don’t know what’s wrong with me. Basically I have a week’s worth of antibiotics and steroids and if those don’t make a dent, then we panic.

And by panic, I mean bloodwork and specialists. I heard the word “biopsy” and almost fell over dead on the spot till I realized, nothing can kill me. Without me, who else would God have to laugh at?

Things are tough at home. I admit to contributing to all that is wrong. I also admit that if she’s right and she’s slipping away and this could be the end, I don’t know that I wouldn’t breathe a sign of relief.

In a way of course. I would miss her cooking. God I’d miss her cooking. The cleaning too. And the sage advice and psychic insights. 🙂 But I see what it’s costing to treat a stupid silly condition WITH GOOD INSURANCE — it’s no wonder she’s feeling too far gone to even start now.

That’s our America, though. In 1984 I wrote to President Reagan and told him he was single-handedly destroying my world. And now that I REALLY understand what he was doing, holy shit. I hope that letter is framed somewhere in the Oval. I really do. That whole sinister cabal of those stealing from the poor and redistributing to their Cayman Islands accounts. Fuck them all.

Anyway, here’s to making it to Friday, when my plane takes the fuck off and I can come back a few days later with food from Trader Joe’s and a T-shirt from Manhattan and a lovely post-Christmas Christmas dinner in Philly in mah belleh. And to all the wine I’ll consume the moment I get home, to recover.

Here’s to the meds working. Because … yeah. Just because.

Remember my Post-It note with that phrase on it?

Yesterday I could have been at Carmine’s with my adopted family. Last night: Lean Cuisine.

(We ended up having our Xmas dinner on Tuesday, which was in fact lovely. So I’m not bitter. I was in Florida in holiday attire and NO COAT. So, win.)

And sea bass and pumpkin risotto and prosciutto and Amarone? Total win.

“I’m going, I’m gone even though I know it’s wrong
He’s a Saturday night and Sunday morning rolled into one
With a dirty smile that could shame the sun.”

— Nina Gordon, “Kiss Me Till It Bleeds”

I have a Post-It Note on my desk right now that says: “Don’t be a Whiny Asshole.”

That’s because I should be in New York right now. Wednesday is the dinner date at Carmine’s that I can’t make it to. Everyone else will be there.

But I will be at another dinner, also fine Italian, so that’s good too.

I had a glimpse of happy today. It was just a glimpse. It was mostly because I was rocking out in the car to songs I didn’t remember loading into my iPhone.

I felt surprised and delighted and looking forward to the next awesome song. And it occurred to me that it’s been a long time since I wasn’t SCARED TO DEATH of what horrors the next moment might possibly bring.

I also heard from two of my boys of yesteryear. Well, five, all told, over the past few days. Which, GODDESS, OBVIOUSLY.

And it hit me like a ton of bricks what my new year’s resolution should be: TO FLIRT MORE.

I have been in such a miserable funk for a while. I stopped flirting. I’ll fuck you or I’ll freeze you out. No middle ground. And I haven’t been in much of a flirty mood lately.

That’s why I was surprised by the two I heard from. One I fucked; one I froze out. So I dared to flirt with one of them. Time to thaw the ground and warm up a long-forgotten skill set.

It wasn’t my finest work and I’m sure it went from aloof to over-the-top in two minutes flat.

But, you know. Practice.

Also, happy to have an achievable and desirable goal.