Caterwauling

“Leaving’s hard, trust me, it’s really bad
It’ll shake you, damn near break you, it always has
You don’t go until you’re praying to break even,
Until staying is worse than leaving.”

— Sunny Sweeney, “Staying’s Worse Than Leaving”

I prayed to keep this apartment. Now it drives me crazy again.

I prayed to keep this job somehow. They (sort of) gave it back to me. And when I approached after another fucked-up commute and saw smoke billowing out of a (nearby, damn) building, it was an “Office Space” moment. I thought, hmm, should I turn around?

Have to keep reminding myself that, yeah. Staying definitely feels worse than leaving. But no paychecks are MUCH worse than paychecks.

When you are putting your employees on the street for the holidays, pro tip: Don’t put up signs for a company blood drive. Truly. Just, don’t.

Although … the Red Cross is offering a free fleece blanket to entice us. Perfect for when we are living outside!

Of course, I would wonder about the quality of our blood. I have none left — they took everything I had to give. And considering everyone’s coping methods, yeah. Sorry Puerto Ricans and Californians in need. If we are your last hope, you’re doomed.

Sat in accident traffic on the way to work. Sat in accident traffic on the way back.

95 was foo-kayaed. Turnpike was hosed. At least on the return trip, I took a (lonnnnggg) back road. So, three hours commuting — then another hour running errands. After another day of joy and another night of NO GODDAMN SLEEP. GAWD PEOPLE; HOW MUCH MORE AM I SUPPOSED TO TAKE.

In any event, a friend and I sat and compared notes about all the kangaroo ball strokers (Flopsy and Mopsy) … the “hey, MY EYES ARE UP HERE” fools (so many more than two) … the “um, did I ASK you to stare at my ass” one … the Eric Trump lookalike who picks his nose and eats it … and all the other weirdos across the creeper spectrum we’ve encountered over the years.

Honorable mentions to the ones who stroke themselves in hopes we will swoon and find their erect nipples or thrust-out bellies sexy.

It was interesting to really sit and compare notes at the absolute ridiculousness two perfectly professional women have to endure, on top of treacherous commutes and impossible workloads and a sadly limited number of hours in a day.

What really makes us sad is all the stupid fucking white women who will elect the pedophile in Alabama tomorrow. Because it would kill them to do anything that might benefit their fellow sisters. What, the Democrat is an upstanding guy AND he believes you should have a say over your own body? NO WAY, WHITE BITCHES. WE WILL VOTE FOR THE GUY BANNED FROM THE FUCKING MALL FOR SOLICITING YOUNG GIRLS so you don’t get an IUD that’s covered by your insurance.

So, I don’t just hate white men. I hate white women. Fuck it, I hate EVERYONE WHO EVER DROVE A CAR ON 95.

So much for my zen. Better luck tomorrow.

Because a traumatic November just wasn’t enough …

The apartment I prayed to be able to keep is going to be the end of me.

Thundercunts Part IV decided to party all night. Usually it sounds like they are riding their suitcases around the hardwood floors. And stomping like they are 5 years old. That’s daily.

But generally they settle down. Generally.

Last night they were drinking and loud-talking and what sounded like letting a horse gallop from room to room. They have a big ugly dog. So he was riled up while they partied.

Finally after “Saturday Night Live” was over, I called security. Thank the baby Jesus, I got the one competent guy. He paid them a visit very quickly.

And … the night got worse.

The good news is they took the party outside for EVERYONE to enjoy their drunken whooping.

The bad news? They turned on every TV in every room to top volume. It’s 10 a.m. Sunday and they are all still blaring.

I’d figured since we don’t have any other loud neighbors, maybe they didn’t realize how thin the walls/floors are. So, courtesy knock, keep it down plz kthanksbai.

Hahahhaahaha nope.

When my job got eliminated and the landlord wanted to sell, I prayed to keep this place. I know it’s not perfect. But it’s on the water, I have covered garage parking and a great space not 50 feet from my front door, and come on who can move without a job.

Today I have my job back (sort of). And a landlord who wants me to get settled before he lists the place.

Moreover, I have regret that I prayed to keep things the same.

I mean, my real prayer was that we’d be fine. We’re fine. Ish. But not happy.

God I’m sick of not ever feeling safe, secure or happy. Or rested. Maybe if I got a good night’s sleep for once in my sad little life, I’d have the energy to make a good decision and do the work necessary to make it happen.

There’s a guy I write about here from time to time. Nicest guy ever. Also not the brightest.

I’ve probably referred to him as “soccer ball to the skull” more times than not. Dreaming out loud, sort of a modern-day Lucy to the good grief his Charlie Brown-ness creates in my life.

So, we’re all hitting the street, yes? He told me he had two great interviews. I gave him the DL on both, and when he said the one he really wanted, I immediately called my executive friend over there and raved.

Not only that, but I called a friend who knows the guy he interviewed with. And HE raved too.

Look, I did it to spread good karma. Not for any other reason. But …

I can’t help being hurt that he told everyone ELSE about getting … and accepting … an offer. An offer that I am pretty sure having two strong references helped him to get.

He’ll make more money, too. You’re welcome.

He got the offer around the same time a project I sent over got completely fucked up. Completely. His great talent is asking 1,000 questions and yet not reading/listening to most of the answers.

I’d normally have a shit fit. But hey, I get that both feet are out the door now. I say we push the rest out before I try to shoot a goal at his tonsils.

The way I think of it, I just made him someone else’s problem. Maybe he’ll excel. He’s never going to do that where he is now. Never had to. Never planned to.

My real fear? I don’t want to turn out average and checked-out like him. I’m afraid that’s my path if I don’t find a fork in the road that actually whets my appetite rather than ruins it at every turn.

Honest to God. There’s not just a small part of me that was looking forward to being unemployed. I literally cannot form a thought, I am so mentally destroyed by this whole endeavor.

Easy to be grateful. Hard to be happy. Impossible to get excited. Everything could change again. The new org chart is depressing. I mean, if i could have reconfigured the company myself, it would look a LOT different.

I need to finish this big cup of feeling sorry for myself and move on. But I don’t have the energy and this cup has bottomless refills.

“I got a feeling I, I can’t get over
Maybe all we had has always been right
Think of all the love you gain when you send it over
Think of all the wool I’ve spun to be here tonight.”

Nathaniel Rateliff, “Wasting Time”

My soul is tired.

One month ago, less a couple of days, I was told I was getting evicted from my house AND my job.

A Category 5 shitstorm washed away my plans for Thanksgiving dinner and, oh, being able to afford to move and pay for an emergency car repair that contained a comma.

Then grace found me. The landlord said stay put till you get a job. The company said stay till after Christmas … then till Jan. 5 … then till Feb. 1.

My friend Sue said buy a tree. It arrived today. So did my long-awaited shipment of PB2 chocolate peanut-butter powder. That was my Christmas. All downhill from there.

That’s OK. Every day I’ve thanked God for the same things — for Momma, for Kadie, for Stewie, for gas in Stewie’s tank, for wine for the holidays and a roof over my head during them.

Thankful to Dada for introducing me to Boneshaker, and to Crown Spirits in Fort Lauderdale for selling it.

I’ve told everyone I’m going to believe in Santa Claus this year. And I know I’ve been lucky …

Sue buried her sister-in-law. Cindy buried her aunt. Five of seven people who got walked out of the building got in their cars with no new job to go to. At least one felt like retirement is the only option at this point. Another went home to pack up to leave the state for a new opportunity.

I’ve tried to stay positive. We all have. It’s been emotionally exhausting for all of us.

Productivity is in a dead heat with morale in the limbo contest. Staying or going, doesn’t matter. Things change every day. You can find favor or lose it just as easily.

I give thanks for a safe, if not stupidly long, commute.

And then, Santa Claus came to my office today in the form of the owner’s nephew. Who took me to a meeting with the owner. Who said Santa is staying in town if you’re interested.

No, you don’t get to stay editorial director. Just keep doing all the work and assist the foo with the title. But you can get another title and another 40-hour load on top of it if you want it.

I mean, given that an offshoot of Fox News is calling me to lead their conservative, Trump-boot-licking production team, there are WORSE options.

Why me? Why save me, and why now? Because last week I said how much I loved the company … loved the work I’ve done … loved my boys … and how sad I was to see it all come to an end.

That stuck with him. You don’t let go of people like that.

Mom says I’m probably going to eat those words.

I have a lot to think about. Uncertainty is the name of the game whether I stay or go. I mean, at least getting the boot was the most amount of certainty I’ve had in a long time.

In any event, I just put up my tree and I’m parking my tired soul beside it tonight and watching “The Great Christmas Light Fight.” My tree is simple and a replacement of one I threw out in the last move. I’m just glad the lights work. (I bought the same tree last year and it didn’t light.)

So this is Christmas …

Much better …

Just happy to have a tree … a roof … a Christmas … and a happy-ish new year ahead.

It looks like my chance to leap isn’t going to look like I thought it would. I just hope this recommitment to a thousand-hour workweek doesn’t stop me from seeking … and taking … something I might love. But who can say no, really, to a very unexpected personal invitation like this one?

“I don’t need to talk about the world, all right?
I just want to sleep with a smile tonight.”

— Portugal, “Smile”

Got a good sleep, for a change. Maybe it was recovery from the 2.5 hours I got Friday and the maybe-three I got Thursday night. Maybe it was having a good Saturday too.

Today I updated my resume. The latest version hasn’t done shit for me. Maybe this one will help me find my next home faster.

A good friend from an old job reminded me that I don’t have to believe in me. Enough of them are doing that on my behalf, and I’ll be fine because of it.

Bless her. She was always a treasure. I imagine she had to have heard about this godawful situation somehow, because I haven’t been reaching out to the people I need most, lest the person who drove us into the Titanic gets into another of his screaming fits that someone else heard about the iceberg somehow.

She knew what I needed to hear, when I heard it. Because I didn’t know and God my heart swells with joy now that I do.

I wonder if I’m going to live through this after all …

Well, the latest Layoff Day was as miserable as I thought it would be.

I should be used to saying goodbye to my friends by now. But it never really gets easier.

I spent the day working on a project for some jag who should have been working on it but probably would have screwed it up. I see the previous two issues his team published and the complete lack of punctuation in the sentences. And the owner added literally 97 special requests to this process. All of which I handled and had to tap no fewer than four people to help me handle.

It all came together, thank God. And surprisingly, the only tears I shed where when my friends came to hug me and goodbye.

However, there was a wonderful rage-filled moment when the jag sent an email to all my boys with the SL: “Greetings from your new editorial director.” Fuck you, jagoff. Let the body get cold, OK? I’m still here, doing YOUR work and not my own. So thank God I still had a full (read: already reduced, and about to be reduced AGAIN) team through yesterday.

One of my boys emailed me to say, wow, holy power trip up there. Yeah, no shit. Good luck with that. No more Goddess for you when my own Layoff Day arrives.

“I might be more a man if I stopped this in its tracks
And said come on, let’s go home.
But she’s got the wheel,
And I’ve got nothing except what I have on.”

— Del Amitri, “Driving With the Brakes On”

I heard this song on Pirate Radio and thought of my earliest days with the company. Back when I was brought in before my start date to attend a copywriting class with the owner.

I met a boy that day. He was videotaping the whole ordeal. The tapes got lost somewhere. Probably because another attendee challenged the owner on something. They made that person disappear fast. The footage soon followed.

That boy asked me out at some point. And I probably dedicated a million words on this blog to the ensuing thrills and aches.

He didn’t survive a major layoff, and I did. Said relationship, whatever was left at that point, didn’t survive either. All I have left of him is a Drive-By Truckers CD and a Facebook friendship with two of his friends who live in my neighborhood.

He would love Del Amitri. Maybe he does love them. I almost wanted to send him this song but for what, really? Do I tell him I am meeting the same career fate he did? That I feel just as emasculated that my livelihood that I love now has an end date and there’s no new beginning in sight?

He’d probably say the right thing about it. The man was never at a loss for words or an intelligent observation. He’d probably look damn cute saying it. And then he’d retreat, like he was so good at.

Beat me at my own game, that one. I thought *I* was emotionally unavailable until I tried to pull him out from under the rock he loved hiding under.

“When you’re driving with the brakes on,
When you’re swimming with your boots on,
It’s hard to say you love someone
And it’s hard to say you don’t.”

Anyway. Hard to stay dead inside when so many emotion-invoking things keep happening. I look forward to returning to my status of being unavailable to jobs and heartache. But right now, I am more available than I ever wanted to be. And the fear of falling … fear of failing … is more than my cold little heart can take.

Well, to be fair, my team got shitcanned back in May. But then I moved to a NEW team, and let’s just say they’ve been thinning my new herd since August.

Then we got the word on Nov. 7 that the rest of us who hadn’t been laid off were going to be seeing the streets as soon as Dec. 1. That day is here.

The good news is, a lot of us were asked to stay for a few more weeks, another month, heck another two or three months. I am super, super blessed in that I am currently in the “will turn off the lights” category.

Unfortunately, the first real wave of departures begins today. And again, my team is first up on the cutting block.

I was asked to do a Sophie’s Choice between two people. (I mean, really, we are already down to nothing in the way of support staff.) I won’t lie — my choice was easy from a productivity and cooperation standpoint. But now that the day is here, it’s 4 a.m. and I am staring at the ceiling because, Jesus. I just had to ruin someone’s Christmas.

I mean, I know the blame isn’t on my shoulders. There’s not a single decision I made or COULD have made that could have reversed this ridiculousness.

But then there’s the guilt of outlasting the next person — the one who gave it all and then some. But, I mean, so did I. Maybe not 21 years but I gave up a whole lot of nights, weekends, (purchaseD) concert tickets, vacations and life events to keep the lights on this long.

Folks see and know that. They know they can’t reward me fully, but they can throw me a lifeline when I need it most. And you better believe I appreciate it.

It’s win-win for me. More time to job-hunt. More time to do what I love.

And that’s the thing. I love, love, love what I do. Even all the crazy characters who crossed my path and drove me to distraction sometimes. I don’t know anyone who loved their work … and the people for whom she did it … more than me.

A dear friend from Pittsburgh said, “How lucky for you that you’ve found your passion.” Indeed.

But it’s a small niche in the world. There are few roles like it anywhere else. And believe me, they are all filled and they are all filled with lesser versions of me.

How do you transition from goddess of your universe to … well … the rest of the universe?

And if by some snowball’s chance I can stay exactly where I am for longer than a minute, will I just find myself in the same situation down the road?

Or, what if I don’t find a way to make a leap now, I never will … and then after 21 years no one will want me because I haven’t achieved anything else?

It’s all so maddening. My soul is tired. If it’s even still in there somewhere.