Caterwauling

I guess since I’ve always been the poorest kid I knew, and then the poorest young adult, and then poorest adult, I’ve always been mindful of dining on others’ tabs. In other words, you can count on me to order the cheapest thing on the menu about 97% of the time.

That other 3% of the time, I have plans to pay my own way and I will eat what I damn well want.

It just annoys the hell out of me to see people consistently ordering the most expensive things on the menu. Like it’s owed to them or something.

Or is it just my “just glad to be invited — don’t ruin it” brain that is really the problem here? Should everyone feel entitled to eat what they want without fear that someone like me is keeping track and wondering what, exactly, you did to earn it?

It’s one of those days where life is falling apart on so many levels, the first jackass who picks a fight with me (and there were three on Friday afternoon, so consider that) is probably going to regret it. That’s because the filter is off today. Gloves are next.

I don’t talk often of my mom but the going thought these days is that, on top of the mini strokes and other funny spells, it may be cancer to boot. It’s got to be body-wide; it’s just too huge. The pain, the heat, the weakness, the sadness, the inevitability of it all.

So, no, I really don’t care about anything else right now. At all, in case anyone is wondering if there are exceptions.

I’ve lived in my apartment for five years now, and everyone knows I’ve been looking to leave for at least the past three years. Alas, overwork and exhaustion and the general Pain in the Ass of it All has let inertia continue to win.

I often think, though, why just change apartments when I can reinvent myself with a new everything. Like, a new city and state.

There are days when I can take comfort in the ridiculousness of it all. That no matter who you are and where you are, your situation is so outlandishly mind-boggling that, really, making a move is only going to result in moving from one Bizarro World to the next.

And then you talk to someone who has been rewarded with support and understanding and near-immunity and the opportunity to heal right where they’re standing, and you think, well, haven’t I earned that too?

Not in the same way everyone feels entitled to it. In the way you have lived your life, even the lazy and self-serving even say, damn, she really should be next in line for some favor.

And you wonder whether you can have so much more.

Honestly I’d trade everything for access to a great meal, a well-made cocktail and the ability to spend a day in bed without the world caving in.

And I do mean everything.

I just don’t know that it’s accessible from here.

At dinner last night, we got to talking about life and work because, well, for us they have become one and the same and the process appears irreversible in the specter of either no or cheap/unskilled labor and people who don’t learn/work/multitask as quickly or as efficiently — or with as much experience/knowledge/finesse — as we do.

Anyway, I said I have that chronic ache that I love momma so much but I’ve failed to take care of her. I’ve missed three apartment showings. I’ve never managed to make the personal phone calls I need to make to try to get her healthy.

But I’ve never missed a two-hour conference call or hour-long meeting. Whee.

My friend said something so smart, and so obvious … that I have exactly zero time for myself. How can I try to advocate for anyone’s health and comfort when mine doesn’t even make it onto my priority list?

“That wild night, Chicago
It left a mark she can’t erase.”

Melissa Etheridge, “The Wanting Of You”

Speaking of marks, one of the boys in my building noticed a few on me and asked if I was OK.

“Fine, thanks,” I said. “I just ran into something.”

“Looks to me like you ran into someone.”

Busted.

Although I’ve just broken my rule about blogging in real-time, I’m going to put the rest in the time capsule and return to my “Five-Year Embargo” content schedule.

Maybe it’s time to trot out the story about the TV star I met at a five-star Orlando resort in 2009 who pursued me all the way to D.C. …

They must be after my nonexistent money. Good luck with that!

So the new kid’s idea of updating an old article is very different from mine. Which meant I let town without my Monday newsletter planned out.

Read: Still at Square One.

I went to remote in to the system yesterday to work on the newsletter. And lo and behold, somebody shut down my computer so I could NOT REMOTE IN. I called IT and they said, sorry, we’re trying but someone messed with your system.

I have no content for tomorrow. No ads, no newsletter, no nothing. And no way to get into the damn system to build one. So I either get to improvise like hell right now or go in at like 2 a.m. because I will need that much time to get it out by 8 a.m.

“Oh for fuck’s sake” is the only appropriate reaction.

Oh well. I’m still glad I left town. Even if I have to return to the same ol’ same ol’.

I have some big fat fucking work messes to clean up before Monday morning. But tonight I ate and laughed and drank and rode a tour bus around Chicago. Above is the garden at Orso where friendships were born and rekindled over tiramisu and wine.

I also spent the day with old colleagues/friends, and the night with another set. And that has energized my dead-ass soul in a way that probably won’t last past Monday’s onslaught of conference calls. But, you know, give me tonight, will ya?

So I found myself in the same room with someone, and a flood of memories came back. To me, anyway.

It’s too late and I’m too lazy to find the post. But if everyone remembers the psychotic shit who made up a fake Yahoo! address with my name and then sent the link of this blog to the higher-ups at my job at the time, well, I saw one of those people today.

The weird thing was that I still to this day had never met the guy, as he was in the D.C. office and I was in the Rockville, Md., office.

And then, a friend introduced us.

Luckily he had no clue who I was, even after I said who I used to be. But I had the unmistakable rumblings of rage when I thought of that sad sack of shit who impersonated me with the intent of getting me fired.

With any luck, a tour bus has run over his ass. Or maybe the ugly has manifested itself on the outside more so than it already had, at last check.

In any event, I squashed the hatred and befriended the guy I’d never met. And he was extraordinarily cool.

Closure, after 8 years. Feels pretty damn good.

*blows kisses toward whatever concentric circle of hell the idiot occupies these days*

But the absolute aggravation that has gone into trying to take half a day off today, with system failures and deadlines and projects and other things that I can’t traffic on a normal day, has officially made me want to never take a day off again.

Think about that for a second.

It would at least be worth if if I had managed to get everything done before I have to leave for the airport.