Caterwauling

For dating or for hiring. Just saying.

So, the quest for the perfect (or mildly talented. Whatever.) candidate continues.

On the work front, I heard from a gal who wanted to know if the position was still open and could we talk. YES! I said. You’re in mah hood, I said. Starbucks Saturday by the ocean? On me?

*crickets*

The fuck, man.

I’m putting it out there since most of you are from real cities with real work ethics. COME WORK FOR ME.

And if you’re not in my field but you understand that worshiping the Goddess is your honor and pleasure and birthright, well, COME ON DOWN.

“Drop everything now
Meet me in the pouring rain
Kiss me on the sidewalk
Take away the pain
‘Cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile.”

— Taylor Swift, “Sparks Fly”

One of my boys said to me recently that I date “interesting” people. Oh, he doesn’t know the half of it.

It’s more that I “pick up” interesting people … and cannot get rid of them.

Case in point: I met a guy I’ll call the “Man in the Boat.” He took my number and called and texted … repeatedly.

I didn’t reply. Or even listen to the voicemails he left.

I’m an asshole like that.

My commitment issues get sparked pretty much after the first meeting.

Anyway it’s been two weeks. And yet today, he texted again.

I wonder what it was about me that left SUCH a lasting impression. The interaction was brief. I mean, he even wrote, “This is Scott — do you remember me?”

Honestly I don’t. Blue eyes, I think. *shrug* I remember thinking he was attractive, but nothing is coming to mind.

Anyway, I guess this makes me a horrible person. But I need that spark.

I’ve felt that connection with too many people, too many times — even if it was faint … and even if it was misplaced or just plain inappropriate — to be utterly uninterested when I don’t.

I already feel like other women got “my man” anyway. (More than one man. But not many.)

So right now I admit I’m a little over the universe and its fun little games.

The available ones are pretty lackluster compared to that fucking spark that fails to ignite when it’s probably supposed to.

Of course, maybe the lack of it is the universe trying to tell me something, which is what I’m going with here. But as for the presence of it in all the “wrong” places, far be it from me to understand why …

Just a small suggestion to improve Facebook.

I saw an old high school friend liking something posted by one of my high school enemies. I clicked on “I don’t want to see this.” Facebook asks why.

On the dropdown menu, “She is a cunt” would have been a more-fitting option than “This is spam/annoying.”

Hop to it, k?

I saw old Whorothy flaring up on Facebook. The incoherence she spews is so not attractive. But the bitch posted some Garbage lyrics, and I found myself hating her just a smidgen less.

I realize the Ladder Theory was in play there. He simply had her homely ass higher up on it. I was better in every single way yet as long as he could whack off to that hot mess, I didn’t stand a chance.

Shame. Waste of a perfectly good white boy.

How — after vowing to yourself that Things Will Change after a milestone birthday or a new year or other life epiphany — you get sucked in to the Same Old, Same Old.

but in the aching familiarity of doom, you realize you really weren’t a slacker. You see exactly how time got away from you before, and you don’t feel so bad.

You just hope that, maybe this time, you can keep your soul afloat enough to move a little farther upstream than you managed to do the last hundred times you promised yourself that things would be great from here on out.

I don’t need to rehash the news but if you missed it, the Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen has all you need to know.

The best thing I’ve read is that it’s not that all men have been total douchelords to women, but rather that all women have endured some form of degradation, abuse or humiliation at the hands of a man.

I try not to go too deeply into my memory banks, or too specifically into detail. But yes, the latter part of that earlier statement is definitely true.

I think what’s been most-pervasive in my day is that men who are unattractive, underearners, underachievers or otherwise not exactly anybody’s dream come true have seemed to think I owed it to them to want to be with them, for the mere fact that I am not a skinny girl.

I’ve had a few even dare to say to me that I should be lucky to have any man look at me.

Some have also been fortunate enough to endure my left hook. Which, is pretty kickass, considering I’m a righty.

I wouldn’t say I am a vestal virgin by any means. But I remember some incidences throughout my long-gone youth where I settled, shall we say. Amy Schumer delivered a brilliant speech at the Ms. Gala into which you could insert my name one or three times.

That didn’t last long, though. I realized early on the power I wielded. They were LUCKY to have me. I was GIVING THEM time with me that I could have been spending alone or with someone else.

Do not DARE to even TRY to make me feel lesser than your lesser ass. That I am LUCKY to have you and you could do better but you’re slumming it with me.

KISS MAH PUDGY PORK ROAST ASS if that’s the attitude you dare to have around me.

So, yeah. Single and newly 40. And guess what? I never settled another day in my life after THAT revelation.

The thing is, there are enough people trying to make you feel stupider, slower, less “in” in all areas of your life. I rule my bed and what limited personal time I have.

And frankly it amuses me when men approach me like I should be rolling out a red carpet to have garnered their attention.

Like, really? Let me whip out my Facebook and introduce you to the high-quality guys I DID attract, thank you very much.

Anyway, no details. But memories, I haz ’em. Recent ones, too. VERY recent. I don’t need anyone to love me. But I also don’t need anyone who wants to tell/treat me they can do better.

THEN BY ALL MEANS DO SO. Because, I sure as hell will. It’s not that hard, actually.

Made it! Started the day with beach yoga, and ended it with cake and a pitcher of Bloody Marys.

Wasn’t the day I had planned in my head, but it was better than most.

Every year, I say this is the year everything changes. This year, I mean it. I set my intention during sunrise yoga to make this year count for me. Not for everyone else.

I’m probably going to piss off a lot of people this year. But chances are they have been waiting for me to claim my space anyway.

In what is going down as the worst birthday ever, the “why” is apparent. It’s that 40 is starting off just as boring as the entirety of 39 was. And, if I’m being honest, my entire 30s.

The birthday is tomorrow but the depression arrived in my beaten-up beloved Samantha, who the (hot) mechanic finally told me can no longer be fixed.

I had Grand Plans for this weekend. Trips, restaurants, sightseeing, you name it. Starting off a new decade so busy and happy, I wouldn’t notice it.

Alas, here I sit in the house with nothing to do. Since I’m not traveling, I have to do this locally. Which, fine, it’s Florida. But Mom is so sick, she’s shot down Every Road Trip Idea.

So fine, it’s mah birfday. I should fill the weekend with all the things I love to do locally, right? (That would fill an hour, but still. Dream with me.)

Nope, she knows she looks sickly and refuses to go to any of the places where she would be “seen.” Which, is all of them.

So finally I said fine, you want to go to a craft show. (I hate crafts.) She said it’s my birthday but YEAH let’s go to the craft show.

I know I am being whiny and impossible right now. I figure Mom’s been so sick, it could be the last birthday I spend with her.

And the more-evolved version of my Higher Self knows that I don’t have to have a Big Story about what I did this weekend for the people who couldn’t be arsed to even wish me a happy birthday before or on the actual day.

But still. I spent the last 10 years a slave to my job and my mom’s health. Why can’t I have one good long weekend where my beauty and youth and my very soul isn’t being stripped away by the needs of someone else?

As Mom pointed out, this turning-40 thing has opened up my eyes to a lot.

Or, rather, I’ve seen everything. But now I am so over it I might actually do something about it.

I had a nice “work birthday” today. Lunch out at my favorite French place. (Although, let’s face it, “lunch out” is celebration enough.) Gifts. Cards. That sort of thing.

I used to love birthdays. I’d spend days shopping and cooking and cleaning. My house would be filled to the brim with appetizers that I’d make. Mom would bake for days and drop off platters of goodness. And I always bought blow-up boats and filled them with ice to chill all the booze I had to offer.

My apartments and balconies were always crammed full of friends. My birthdays were AWESOME.

I got to thinking of the final party I threw in Pittsburgh. It was the day he told me the second baby was coming. That this was it. That this had to be our goodbye.

And it was weird today hearing the same news. Not delivered the same way and not the same situation. But, still. That moment of life as one knows it screeching to a halt, ending whatever possibilities were keeping said person hopeful in the interim.

I guess I will always be 27 and sitting on my front steps, holding on to him for hours because I knew I’d never see him again after that last touch ended. My friends hiding in the bushes trying not to be seen, while marveling that they’d never seen me like that. Smitten. Peaceful. Vulnerable.

My friends were there when he left. And I will always remember that.

Things at least happened on my birthdays. Anything is better than one miserable year fading into the next with no interruption whatsoever. I loved it all. Even the heartache. And that year brought plenty more.

But I remember everything about being 27. I won’t remember a damn thing about 39. That’s because nothing happened.

This year, I need to rekindle my hobby of shit-stirring. I’m a bit rusty, but I think I can do it. Now where did I pack my spoon …