Caterwauling

I’d say all I want for Christmas is a day off. 

But last time I said that, I got fired on Dec. 27. 

I thought today I could be “off.” I hauled ass and got all my shit done through Monday morning. 

Then one of the boys said he’s sending me three projects today. 

I’d ask Santa to give him coal. But we all like natural resources so that’s not punishment. 

Might as well start on next week’s work since I’m stuck here. 

I’m starting to see why all my relationships and friendships are short-lived. I go all-in right away. And pull out as soon as I can. 

I’ve never been a girl to settle. I don’t stay with someone because it’s Christmas or their birthday is coming up or I’m lonely and waiting for something better to come along. 

That’s how most people are in the workforce. And unfortunately I see a lot of that in relationships and marriages all around me. 

My take has always been to be free. When the right one comes along, why have baggage in the closet blocking the way of your cutest cocktail dress?

My firm belief is that you can’t pick up what you want when your arms are filled with what you don’t. 

Of course, you need a job to get another job. Maybe that’s the way to get the right relationship? To have something to compare it to that you’re willing to sacrifice for something greater?

Or would you just be like 97% of the people I know and think you can have both?

Maybe I need a freelance opportunity as my love affair. Money never disappoints. 

“Don’t want to go home to the T.V.
Don’t want to go down to some bar
You grab a blanket,
Put the top down
And go driving in your car
Though your bed’s as warm as January
On this cold December’s night.”

— Bon Jovi, “Blind Love”

What most men fail to understand is that we want a damn gift from them.

I don’t need a yacht. Although that would be nice. But, you know. Something for Christmas and birthday and perhaps other random times through the year.

You know. To prove that they are paying attention to things we say we like. And thinking about us when we’re not around. Or pretending that they give a shit when all they want is someone to listen to them and care about them and ask about them and talk about them.

Even and especially if, all the while, they’re trying to get with someone, ANYONE else who will tolerate them for 10 minutes.

What bugs me is that if another man gives you a gift, or if you buy one your damn self, these guys feel like they are off the hook.

Let me be clear. I’ve not found much use for most of the (sadly few) gifts I’ve gotten in my life. That’s why my best boys give me wine and I cherish them so. (The boys. But also the bottles of deliciousness.)

Also let me be clear. If I gotta hear about your dick, I want restitution. The gift of silence is good too.

“Welcome to another hard night
You made it through another day
Sit at the counter counting tips
Can’t count on nothing else these days.”

I did something recently I’m proud of. I took time I’d normally spend on a “going nowhere” kind of thing, and used it to breathe some life into a couple near-dead friendships.

It’s amazing how much happier I am to have made a couple of connections to people I haven’t made time for in a very long time.

I mean, I’m not up for friend of the year or anything. Gotta keep expectations low, yo. But my theme of 2016 is “Enough.”

And that means there is enough time and money and will and willpower for everything. I just have to find it.

And that means a little less reality TV and a lot less reality in general.

So the only real gift I want or need … is me, and everything I’ve given away (i.e., time) that I would benefit from more than anyone else.

But if you want to take that time, pay up. 

I haven’t felt very good for a long while. The stress, while not very high in general, has manifested in a semi-permanent case of heartburn.

I never say anything; I don’t want to hear about it from people with kids (which is every one I know these days) who love to tell me that I couldn’t POSSIBLY know what stress is.

Everyone’s got to top you, you know? Like, just come out and say my stresses — mom, apartment, money, sanity, loneliness (well the 1% of it that isn’t self-imposed), car and other random people who need to lose my number — are lesser than yours.

Of course, everyone thinks their stresses are worse than anyone else’s. But it’s easier to just put on a happy face and let everyone think all is well. Because then you don’t have to hear about their woes. And I like the silence very much.

I saw an opinion piece today about when it’s time to cut friends loose. And I had to laugh because every single bullet point describes me. In other words, I don’t pick up the phone … ask about jobs/kids/significant others/parents … reply in a timely manner unless I need something … or say hi just to say hi. Nope, not me.

Small talk has always annoyed me. Standing around parties, going 19 rounds with the same person — “Things good?” Yup. “What’s up?” Nothing. “Done anything fun lately?” Nope — makes me nuts.

Then because it’s Christmas you get the inevitable, “What are you doing with your time off?” I mean do you kick them in the nuts because they get two weeks off and you don’t, or just go mate with the bottle of wine that you swear has your name etched into it?

I am feeling old because I don’t want to drive anywhere anymore. I mean there are redneck assholes no matter where you go. But they all seem to be concentrated in Palm Beach County. And I’m sick of, say, seeing holiday lights like I did last night. And then getting tailgated by some asshole for two miles who doesn’t see the posted 25 mph signs so he is screaming and throwing the finger 22 times on a barely paved road. ‘Tis the season to despise humankind more than usual.

Calgon (or wine. Whichever), you know what to do.

Made the mistake of wearing a little pink Key West tank top and cutoffs on our coldest night of the year. 

But other than the aching bones from my front-row metal bleacher seat beside the Intracoastal Waterway, I had a great night at the Boca Raton boat parade. 

And the cops were friendly! And helpful! I felt safe and welcome. 

Amazing, that. As was this …

  
I probably shouldn’t say it. 

But that’s never stopped me before. 

Not long ago, a friend and I walked into a room. And we overpowered it. 

And I got the feeling that we are truly life forces. Where everyone else was just in a rut, a routine, a never ending circle of sameness and frustration. 

We wondered how we got so lucky not to be all of that. 

Maybe it’s external. Or maybe we just have a fire on the inside that life can’t seem to extinguish. Hard as it appears to try. 

I was at a party the other day. Half the people had no idea who I was at first. But then my big mouth gets going and I can hear people buzzing in the next room, “Goddess is here! I hear her!” And that wasn’t a bad thing, for them or me. 

All the photos of me from the past year show that I look exhausted. And I feel it. But I crave the opportunity to light up a room. And get a thousand hugs and leave people feeling a bit lighter than when I crashed their party. 

I’m not acting like God’s gift here. Plenty are annoyed that they can’t break me. I refuse to wear a bow in my hair at Christmas, for example, so I don’t hear, “Are you my present?” Because the answer is *stabstabstab.*

This week I spent some time wondering whether this girl who can’t be “gotten” by any man, well, was never really wanted by any of them in the first place. 

But I don’t think that’s entirely true. I’d just rather be alone than wish I were. 

Unfortunately it has turned out to be an either/or option, for the most part. Sure I’ve been trying to have it all. But having less than everything is ultimately nothing, don’t you agree?

Perhaps I should wish for someone who loves me as much as those who don’t really know me do. 

Of course, maybe being the girl no can have is the only thing in this world I really know how to do well. 

As Joel McHale said on “The Soup” series finale last night, “That’s what I’ve been doing for the last 11 years? I have no talent.” 

I’m with ya, brother. I’m with ya. 

It doesn’t feel like Christmas. But that won’t stop me from decorating with festive pierogies. 

  
Or ornaments from both my hometowns. 

  
Or seashells. 

  
The tree is a work in progress. I liked it better when it overlooked the Intracoastal Waterway. This corner next to my couch makes me sad. 

I’ve dreamed of Pittsburgh every night for the past two weeks. I have another Pittsburgh ornament coming in the mail, and a glittery Steelers shirt too. Yay Etsy and eBay for the only presents I will get. 

Except for the wine coming from California of course. That I will actually receive this year because it isn’t going to my house. So there’s that. 

I got a nice note from one of my former boys. So there’s that too. 

I just don’t feel like my higher power and I are on the best of terms right now. I mean I haven’t done anything stupid or evil or anything. But I haven’t attempted anything awesome either. So how can I witness a miracle when I’m not out looking for one? 

And do I even believe in them anymore?

I’ve lain awake for the past several nights, wondering how to afford healthcare now that enrollment is open again.

The cheapest quote I can find is $500 a month for a crap plan.

Where in the everloving hell am I going to come up with that?

Freelance? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I am finally getting some apartment-hunting help. And the one-bedroom option is $50 cheaper than my two-bedroom. Because, everyone wants to bunk with their mom and a cat.

I figured it out. What I need to do is quit my job and/or take a pay cut to go into a lower tax bracket. Then I can get a subsidy.

Honestly, the math actually works out.

Of course, I’d never be able to afford a better apartment. Or the one I have, for that matter.

But, it’s either that or leaving town. Or the country. Which, I am 1,000% open to …

I read “‘Born to Run’ and the Decline of the American Dream” this morning. And suddenly, my whole world made sense.

It’s that restlessness I cannot seem to cure or kill. This is why.

It’s that growing up so poor, I didn’t want to be poor forever. I didn’t want to bring a child into the world to be poor and somehow “lesser than” all the 1%-ers the Republican’ts pander do. I know what it feels like.

It’s why I will generally always be liberal. Why I believe with all my heart that we should stand together and help each other and sacrifice for the greater good.

If there’s one thing I share in common with Libertarians, it’s that government is out to rob you. Of your money, your rights, your dignity and your individuality.

And as this article showed me, the “Me Generation” wasn’t so selfish after all. They are the reason we have the rights we have today. The battles were hard-fought and ongoing. Because, Republican’ts won’t let us KEEP those rights.

We wrote an article recently and all the rich people wrote in whining that we lesser folks are always trying to take from them. And all the not-rich people wrote in saying how it’s the 1%’s fault. All of it.

My friend said how quaint that people bitch about the 1% instead of getting the idea in their head to try to become part of it. I said my plan is to marry into it. Because, I’m out of options otherwise.

But getting back to the “Born to Run” article, wow. It talked about how our ancestors when they were fresh off the boat had to settle for any job and be happy with whatever it paid. I thought of my great-grandmother who made 10 cents an hour at her peak, breaking her back cleaning houses.

Interestingly, I was looking at my family tree online and it turns out I have even more Italian than I expected. My great-grandmother married an Italian man. But I just learned her mom was Italian too.

That brings me more joy than you know. Perhaps because it explains this strange sadness I have for the old country … that I’ve never even seen.

In any event, subsequent generations of my family and maybe yours realized that while you have to work your ass off to pay The Man and never get ahead, you have escape.

Music. Weekends. Cars and motorcycles that take us as far away as the contents of our gas tanks will allow.

Well, the night’s busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back, heaven’s waiting on down the tracks.

— Bruce Springsteen, “Thunder Road”

I feel like I cannot adequately describe how I feel when I hear Springsteen now. I liked him growing up, sure. I’ll always associate one of my soulmates with “Thunder Road.”

At heart, I am a Midwesterner with the Acela route (NYC to D.C.) as my circulatory system. And apparently Italian blood coursing through it.

I don’t know what it was about the article that hit me in the feels so much. It was more that I remembered growing up in the projects, with the $15 a month rent for two bedrooms, and anywhere from five to eight of us living there.

I remember aspiring to be my then-teenage neighbor Debbie, I played with Gary and I loved spending afternoons with my great-grandmother and her friend next door, Clara. I remember Marcia’s boyfriend had a hot car and I wanted a hot car when I grew up. Mom wanted a guy with a hot car but I figured if I had my own, I wouldn’t worry about the guy or the car going away.

Goddess was a child genius, I tell you.

I felt happy and safe. But as I got older, I felt shame. We moved to better neighborhoods and I lied and said I was born in them.

And then it hit, that quiet desperation that never seems to abate. That no matter how hard you work, you won’t be in the 1% so why even keep trying.

But you always have dreams in you. They bubble up every once in a while, almost like heartburn because it’s so much easier when you forget you had them. And if you’re lucky, the feeling that you can still be special passes quickly.

It’s like how I don’t want a welcome mat or decorations outside my house. Once people know there’s happiness inside, they break in and wrestle it away from you.

It’s like how I quit aspiring to executive status. I had big jobs like that — many, actually. You take the most shit and you get fired first. Best to stay in the middle — middle management, middle class, the midpoint of mediocrity at its finest — and if they don’t see you, they can’t hurt you.

Reminds me of when the VA Hospital killed my Grampy. When he refused to open his eyes from under his bedcovers, saying, “If I can’t see them, maybe they won’t see me and can’t hurt me anymore.”

Wise words from someone who loved a good Springsteen song. After all, he embodied every last one of them.

You can hide ‘neath your covers and study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets.

I wouldn’t say I’m happy in the sadness the article (and the music) inspired. But I feel so much less alone than I felt before I read it.

For most people, the miracles never come. But if you’re really lucky, you can be happy for (or, at least, try not to notice) the ones who get everything they ever wanted. Which is probably a whole lot more than you would ever have dared aspire to.

Last year I was out of town for Winterfest. Not that I was out seeing the sights where I was, something that bugs me to this day. 

But in any event, I wanted to make it up to mom for last year being a fizzle. 

It was even more of a fizzle this year. 

I have a usual spot to park in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. We either watch from atop one bridge or below another. No walking. Easy peasy. 

This year I discovered Lauderdale cops are almost as bad as Boynton ones. Minus the thirst for rape and assault and murder. But still. Jagoffs one and all. 

The cops turned away thousands of people. Young and old, wheelchairs and strollers. 

The problem with the treasure coast is that everything along the water, whether the Intracoastal or ocean, is privately owned. 

Benihana was happy to charge you $145 to sit on a cheap folding chair for two hours. 

As for the rest of us who are used to standing on the bridge, this year we were told to go home. 

So we all wandered around to parking lots and other nooks and crannies, only to be told to leave. 

I found s little spot where we could sort of see the boats. I was just happy to be there. But mom said she loves big boats and screw everyone since she can’t see them. 

We left. I mean it really was pointless that we got there hours early for nothing. 

She’s afraid this could be her last one. And she missed it.  If that’s true, it like many things will haunt me for life. 

I started looking at apartments that face the parade route. Since that’s the only way civilians can see it. If work won’t let me move to the west coast then I’ll just settle for a ridiculous commute. 

So yesterday was a waste and now all errands get crammed into today. Yay. 

The only lights we saw.