Caterwauling

You know, if everyone else can throw tantrums and threaten to go on strike and it all becomes my problem, then why can’t I return the favor?

I quit … until I get back from Starbucks, anyway.

This is one of those days I hate being considered a manager of anything.

If you’re making my life difficult, you’re taking away activities I should be participating in that help bring in money or keep it in the bank.

And you’re just delaying me from my next task. And keeping me at my desk later. And frankly just making me cranky and angry and resentful overall and therefore NOT PRODUCTIVE ENOUGH.

I have HR chasing me to do a review for a new employee (this is not the situation making me nuts). I completely FAIL to understand why it is not a one-question survey, and that is “Did Employee keep the body count below 1?” If yes, good review. Let’s do it again soon.

At least, that should be what MY review looks like …

It blows my mind to have to keep hiring people to do the job I want to do because I’m so busy doing everything else.

I don’t think I’m any good at any of the others. And as far as I can tell, most if not all would agree with that statement.

When one of your people gets their maxi pad stuck wrong-side-up because a project was completed in six minutes and not FOUR … and you have to spend a third of your day listening to their complaints and you have to interrupt 12 other salaried people’s days to find out WHAT HAPPENED to those precious two minutes …

And your Mom has a new TIA stroke every two days …

And you spend no time with her anyway because you’re chronically behind and not as on top of things that pay the bills as you need to be so you devote lots of time to those because at least you can somewhat control them …

And your vacation is about to expire unused again …

It’s probably fair to ask everyone to adjust their expectations.

Or more likely I’ll readjust mine. Since that seem to be the only thing I excel at.

Spent the weekend in the car driving to and from Key West. I could say I spent the weekend *in* Key West at the extraordinarily expensive resort that marked up its prices for Labor Day weekend. But a six-hour commute south and an eight-hour commute north (generally 3.5 hours each way) constitutes having spent more time in the car than out of it.

That’s OK. It’s been a few years. The Blonde Giraffe that had shut down before my last trip reopened in Tavernier, so I got a slice of the tartest, awesomest key lime pie ever.

And Sloppy Joe’s never fails to provide the world’s best frozen mango mojitos. And where else would I willingly part with 10 bucks for a Sloppy Joe sammich? (Considering I rarely even eat meat?)

Most of the other meals were a fizzle. But the guy at the front desk of my resort took a shine to me and I ended up with 10 — yes 10 — just-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies as I was constantly coming and going. Best part of the trip, hands-down.

Speaking of men I met in Key West … I need to delete some numbers from my phone.

Here’s my problem. And it extends way farther north than the southernmost point of the U.S.

I’m sick of, just because I give men the time of day (and that ain’t much), they feel they get to talk to me. To believe they could have me. To try in their sad little way to get me. To think I’d want to give up my freedom for whatever “life” they feel like giving me.

Case in point. I was waiting for my egg-and-cheese on Cuban bread at the Cuban Coffee Queen this morning. A guy named Pete, who was shall we say not exactly my type, decided he loved it that I was dancing around to the Cuban music, killing time.

I get picked up an awful lot while I’m dancing to the beat of my own little bass line.

Mom says it’s my “Gypsy Soul.” (Hattip to Van Morrison, I’m sure.) They see me being alive and free and maybe they think they can be a part of it … but they all end up just ruining it.

I can’t talk to a guy without hearing how dimwitted he is. I can’t flirt with a guy without getting a text that he’s thinking of me while he’s whacking off. I can’t just dance in one spot without people thinking they can touch me or invade my space.

And for what, really? Do these guys see a free soul like mine and deliberately say:

• “I’m going to break her spirit”?
• “I’m going to tear her down so she never wants to leave the house again”?
• “I’m going to destroy all that is beautiful and light within her soul so that no man will ever find her attractive again”?
• “I know she doesn’t want me but I will force myself into her life, brain, phone, nightmares till she decides to never dance again and she becomes as miserable on the inside as everyone else in the world”?

Seriously, guys. Let me know.

No, wait, forget it. Just LET ME GO.

And lest you all label me whatever you choose to label me for saying “not my type,” most don’t even care what that is. Which is a certain manner of dress. A certain manner of speaking. A certain carriage about oneself.

A certain way of solving more problems than one’s presence creates.

And a certain sense of Goddess-worship that includes respecting her wishes, her boundaries and her desires — even and especially if they have zero part in them.

But people just don’t get it. They don’t want to. And I’m tired of pretending that’s OK.