Caterwauling

But …

If I have not replied to an email that I find incredibly demeaning …

To follow up a comment that someone went out of their way to repeat five times because I had to pretend I didn’t hear them, for their own safety, because I found THAT incredibly demeaning …

Assume that I was doing my level best to not hop through the monitor and deliver a punch in the face.

I was special once. I get that I no longer am. Which I said in reply since I couldn’t just keep on keeping my head down to stay out of trouble.

I also said I know I need to learn my place because it isn’t as high as it once was.

And that was satisfactory enough.

At least, it got me the space I needed to get back so desperately.

But just when I think I can’t die more inside, there goes another piece.

No, I’m not knocked up or anywhere close. But I did have a dream that I met a guy three or four years younger than me, and he wanted to have one kid and to do so right away. I said fine (!) as long as I didn’t have to go back to work. This from the girl who lived for her job. Go figure.

I’ve decided I’m on alt-maternity leave. Only now I have to wear a dress and drive 25 miles each way in rush-hour traffic to mind the farm. I’m sleep-deprived (thanks neighbors) and caffeine deprived (who the fuck can function without a Starbucks literally in their backyard?) and am redefining what daily productivity means.

Someone knock me up, please. But only if you’re rich and can take care of me …

I don’t dream much. But tonight’s will stick with me for a long time to come.

I was given a choice at work between the recently departed boss and the current one. You can have either, they said.

I said, neither, in the dream.

As the choice was repeated (because I’m feeling unheard these days), the recently departed one was somehow messing with my hair. Something he’d never do and frankly the thing I loved most about him is I got to do all my volumes of work in peace.

And for the record, no one touches my hair, speaks of it or even acknowledges it. Unless they want to meet an untimely end.

That part of the dream was particularly weird because it’s the current one who keeps an eye on what we’re wearing. (My getting sent home must have opened that up.) And even said the thing I had in my hair on Friday was reminiscent of the ’60s.

What did I say about my hair?

I picked the first one.

Jesus had B.C. and A.D.

I have “Back before I wanted to kill myself, every moment of every day” and “now.”

I got quoted back to myself today. And not in a good way.

Someone told someone else that I allegedly said something in a conversation. Which, I did have things to say. But not what I heard back. And boy did it get around.

Granted, I don’t really filter myself well. So yeah, I can see where it’s plausible that I might have said something like I heard back.

But for fuck’s sake, if you are going to put my livelihood in jeopardy, please quote me accurately.

Now to figure out if it was the person who overheard, or the one who broadcast it through the lands, who got the words wrong. And wonder why glass houses don’t seem to deter anyone.

When I worked from home on Fridays, I felt weekends were just long enough. I’d snap my laptop shut at 7 pm (after staring at 7 am and having no breaks) and start my weekend immediately. 

And work didn’t even feel like work. It was busy and challenging. But I loved it. 

Momma needs a three day weekend. Or six. Whichever. 

The fun of being among old friends again is catching up on old times.

The ones that were good, anyway.

The friends and the times.

Then, there are the rest.

A good friend asked how so-and-so is doing. “Do you still talk to him?”

Funny she should ask.

His name is in the air from time to time. He and Mom often talked on Facebook. All my exes friend her. It’s interesting how they wait till they are exes. And how they like her far more than me.

I don’t want to hear about him. I loved the shit out of him, for some bizarre reason that I still to this day cannot figure out. Today, though, I do not give a fuck who he’s talking to or what he’s saying or if he’s even still in Florida. Honest to God, do. Not. Care.

My birthday is always an interesting time. He went from the first to post, to the one to post most times on my day, to pretending I’m dead.

But the friends he introduced to? Always on top of it. Always have nice things to say. More than just the “happy birthday” no caps/no punctuation/no emojis that you get from the people you haven’t seen in 25 years.

I last saw him on one of HIS birthdays. The friends and I took him to brunch. Rather, I took him to brunch and either he invited them or they crashed. Either way, I was not happy then but I fell in love with them big-time after that first meeting.

I don’t fall in love like that. I really don’t. Rarely with friends. Even less frequently with men.

I hear the love songs in my playlist and I’m like who WAS that girl who bought those MP3s? I just don’t relate.

In any event, he’s still hung up on the ho he dated in college. The skanky bitch with three kids in college, supposedly with the husband she’s had since college.

One of those kids (the oldest) looks eerily like my guy. I mean, eerily like him. Ho.

He was on my mind because Mom wanted to eat at a restaurant ON HIS STREET. Of all the goddamn places in Palm Beach, that’s where she picks.

I thought I saw his car. But I know his plate by heart even now, and know it wasn’t him.

I didn’t get any kind of emotion other than OH GAWD get me out of here. I hope he’s well. But I wish he knew that I am fucking dead inside to the opposite gender for many many reasons, and he’s one of them.

So do I still talk to him? My answer was a simple, “Fuck no.”

She said yeah. He was nice, good-looking and yet a strange one. She remembered our big, fancy dates … and then his general weirdness after each. Shame, really.

Indeed.

I lied about the two good days in one rotten month-ish.

Rather, didn’t mean to imply they were both weekdays.

Birthday yes. And Saturday after birthday.

A candid photo from each …

The rest of those days are cordially invited to go fuck themselves.

Especially yesterday.

Two good days out of 32.

They have one thing in common — the absence of something.

The new dress code policy is that you will not be paid if you are sent home.

Where did I put those wildly offensive dress shorts …