Caterwauling

We were going to figure out how to stay friends.

*shrug*

It is said that we are the average of the five people with whom we spend the most time. So, surround ourselves wisely.

In The Days of Old, that would have been Mom, my boss, and My Boys^TM.

I don’t call the new guys My Boys. I like them just fine. I like them even more when someone from The Days of Old texts about one of the boys. We joke that I dropped them off at foster care to let someone else raise them.

For a while there, one did inspire me to be healthier, more social, more open, more free, more vocal, more me. I needed that. I took that with me when I left.

Who inspires me now? Someone else I hired, believe it or not. Has so many interests. Has boundaries. Is so smart. You don’t know how amazing they are till you take the time to get to know them, like I had the pleasure of doing.

I’ve had ordinary people put me down because I don’t care for small talk. But that’s the thing. I want to hear about big dreams and big loves and big achievements.

I want to make more deeply intoxicating soul connections. Feel the heat from unexpected sparks of light and life.

I want to know what is possible, when we dare.

Show me your extraordinary, and I’ll show you mine.

I had that once. I’ll have it again. Bigger and better this time.

With that, maybe I’m my own biggest inspiration.

There’s an email in my inbox that I will never read.

That’s because I can guarantee my last email wasn’t read. Or, at least, received.

Two different things.

Everyone gets the final say, this way.

1. Videos that autoplay. Related: Commercials that are too loud. Either way, I’m super sensitive to noise. And I can’t focus with multiple audio stimuli.

2. Chicago style. Hate it. New company uses it. If it’s the worst thing about the job, I still win. But still. HATE.

3. Hey. It is not a greeting. Hay is for horses. (And grass is for people.)

Bonus one for the times: I have always hated people who take their extended family to the grocery store. Now that my idiot governor has reopened the state, shopping for ingredients for quarantine cuisine has gotten even more dangerous. Dumb little fucks (and not so little) running around in masks like this is a game. A thousand people in Target on Saturday. I don’t like people within six feet of me on a GOOD day. If I want to get pushed around, I’ll go log into my fake social media account on the laptop I don’t use and drop an anti-Trump bomb. Same ick factor, without the cooties. Jesus, people. Are you so starved for touch and attention that I somehow seem like a reliable source?

Someone once claimed that l am anti-LGBTQIA and anti-people who seek mental health treatment (or should).

I considered the source. Which should have been the end of it.

But I got to typing about it with my “sister” and she gave me the perspective no one else has, or could have.

So I guess this post is a two-fer.

Hard to write when you have a souper-slooth reading and providing a blow-by-blow to literally no one.

But then you realize you have a fan club, and it’s easy to shine on.

Day 1 of the 30-day writing challenge is to list 10 things I love.

Just 10?

1.a. My sweet ballerina Bella who does backflips when she sees me.

1.b. My little stinkerbell Cocoa who waddles to me as fast as her short little legs will take her.

Funny, neither even cares that much about the food I bring. They just want scritches and human touch.

1.c. My Shawnee, who only wants food. And all of it. But that’s OK. He’s not used to a loving touch and he doesn’t know how to react.

1.d. Then there’s Kadie and Morris who are mean to everybody but each other. But oh, how they purr and dance and rub against each other and share food!

1.e. Bernie and the two other gray-and-black tabbies. I’ve had to train each where to sit so I can feed them without all the others eating their foodz.

1.f. Kenya, tiny little Kenya, who will ignore your big duckie ass if you try to push him out of his bowl. He’s got the tiniest balls I’ve ever seen, and yet the biggest metaphorical ones.

1.g. Cal, Magic, Baby Magic and all the others who stop by for a bite but for some reason freak out when I try to GIVE them one.

Funny enough, they all have food they love and food they hate. So now I bring five or six different flavors a night. And if you’re a wuss (BERNIE) and let some other cat get your bowl, you’re stuck with what is left or nothing at all.

2. My momma. Need I write more? Best cook. Best friend. Best any label I can conjure up.

3. My old job. The owner not only treated me like a daughter, but calls me one. I will always wonder “what if” I stayed. But being the prodigal daughter, I have a home should I ever wish to go back.

And that is what gives me wings to enjoy …

4. My new job. Honest to god, we are doing such cool things. It’s hard not being everyone’s boss and go-to psychic healer, nurse, guru, teacher, and library of fun facts and figures anymore. But I’ll get there.

We are doing something super cool this week, and I’ve been doing something else super cool for the last three weeks. Something my old boss wishes he’d done with me.

That’s validating. And it’s nice to have friends who are family-like.

5. My sister. Not by blood. But still. State lines and craziness separate us. Her daughter is a perfect mix of the two of us, oddly enough. Who needs men, really?

6. My supernatural studies. Tarot, intuition, crystals, oils, spells, candles, herbs, intentions and books. My coven. The sun. The moon. The long line of witches I’ve descended from. This all keeps me centered and grounded.

7. My apartment. Lots of good memories and meals fill these walls. Not the most ideal place to work, with too much light at the south end and none at the north, where I spend all my time. But I have four walls and the bills are paid in full.

8. My car. It wasn’t the one I would have chosen for myself, so it took me a while to consider it “mine.” But it’s taken me wonderful places, and a lot of them. Thousands of podcast hours and conversations are in the fabric. It’s the one thing in this world that’s mine, all mine. Well, except for the part the bank still owns. But I hack away at that debt like I should have done with my student loans.

9. My spirit. I always see the good in people, to the point of missing a lot of the rest. I smile with my whole soul. I love with my whole heart. I work with all my passion. And I play like I’ll never have the chance again. When I say my nightly prayers, I acknowledge that I might not wake up, but I sure hope that I do because there’s more life to live and I can’t wait to greet it.

10. My mind. I can usually get out of any jam. I can dazzle just about anyone with my memory, my stories, my ability to think five steps ahead. My favorite is when people think I missed something or didn’t anticipate it or, gasp, I didn’t see it in the cards. Sure, I move so fast I miss things. But sometimes I see the oncoming freight train and run right at it anyway. Do it for the story, I say. And boy, do I have those.

11. My body. I’m healthy and strong and flexible and resilient. It gets me where I’m going, and it has all the memory of where we’ve been.

Ok so more than 10. Not a bad problem to have.

I look forward to an asshole-free heaven or afterlife. My guides assure me I won’t run into the freak shows. Still, this ending is haunting me …

Really makes you think about who you pair up with on this mortal plane. At least we get the “till death do us part” escape clause. To have to upload with them too? Hard p…

Halsey makes a better mermaid than I ever will.

But my meme game is on fleek.

With quarantine, most people won’t get to spend Mother’s Day with their mom.

Some people I know are probably thanking their lucky stars. They probably don’t even want to bang out an obligatory Zoom call.

That’s not the kind of people in my circle.

My friends are wishing they could hug their moms. Here or in heaven.

I am so lucky that not only do I get to spend mom’s day with my mom, but that’s how I get to spend every day.

There was some time early on when I had enough with all the togetherness. When I lost my patience all too easily, not knowing she was hiding a lot of illnesses under her sweet demeanor.

Today I don’t take her for granted.

I buy her whatever she wants (mostly decorations. And flip-flops. And flip-flop decorations). Take her everywhere with me. Run every errand to make sure she’s not in a store with these Cootie people. Feed every animal under the sun with her and indulge her special recipe bird seed that requires four different stores to concoct.

I always fear that we won’t have infinite chances for do-overs. So I want to do anything, everything I can for her, whenever I can.

So I asked what I could do for her this Mother’s Day.

She said she wanted a sparkling bathroom. That’s it.

So that’s what I did. Left her a Mother’s Day card in there — I really am not a card person but I know it’s important to her — and she cried with joy over the room and the words.

I’ve always gotten along well with other people’ moms. More so than the people I went over to the house to visit.

There are a lot of cool moms out there. But never once in my life did I ever say, I wish my mom was like this or that one.

I was always happiest with the one I picked.

Still true.

It’s been a weird half-year, after a half-great, half-awful 2019. Mom is the reason I am still here, still sane, still smiling, still thriving. I owe her more than ever right now, not that she would ever think that.

I hope I get more chances to be good to her. A lot more.

When I say my prayers at night, she’s always at the top of the list. I thank the heavens that I’ve had her this long. I ask for her health to be better. I wish to be able to give her an even better life.

You know what she prays? She thanks me for giving her better than she ever thought she would deserve.

She’s sleeping right now in her clean room right now. And I’m hoping that, no matter how cruel the world is to me like it has been to her, that I follow in her footsteps and never lose my softness or sweetness.

That will really be my biggest and best tribute to her.

That and feeding every animal who will sit still that I ever come across.

I guess my own Mother’s Day gift is becoming my mom. And I am quite OK with that.

Keep lying and projecting.

And reading and re-reading.

I don’t care what you and your people think of me.

I only cared about one. And you can have him, hunny bunny.

I’d say karma will come around but maybe it already has.

Why tempt it further?