Caterwauling

“Momma says get my ass to church
Daddy says get my ass to work
Doctor says I gotta give up on these smokes
Everybody’s got something to say
About how I gotta change my ways
But I got something to say of my own.”

Not that my momma would do anything but heap praise on me — which, I wonder why the fuck anyone else feels they are entitled to do otherwise — but, the rest of this rings true.

Everyone got something to say about how I manage myself, my life, my staff, my finances, my conduct. But I am not seeing exemplary behavior anywhere but from the woman who brought me into this world.

And the whole lot of youse combined still don’t hold a candle to her.

“There’s something about this Sunday
It’s a most peculiar gray
Strolling down the avenue
That’s known as A1A.”

I’m in this “barely leaving the house era.” Which, you would think, would mean I’m working and cleaning and being wildly productive.

Well, I’m working and cleaning but you wouldn’t know it. I’m also drinking a lot of wine and cleaning the same five things over and over again. Cat bowls, certain pieces of laundry, etc.

Not quite the life as Jose depicted it. But whatcha gonna do.

“Now I must confess
I could use some rest
I can’t run at this pace very long
Yes, it’s quite insane
I think it hurts my brain
But it cleans me out.
And then I can go on.”

I was writing my newsletter today — and editing another one — and I wrote in this Jimmy Buffett song to both.

I realized how long I’ve been going without sleep, for whatever reasons. And while I eliminated a few of those reasons, the reasons for which I eliminated them have gotten more pervasive.

I’m tired, yo.

I was so motherfucking tired yesterday that I clocked out at 1, scheduled some unscheduled PTO for the afternoon, then crawled over to the couch with a full bottle of Zin and proceeded to have the best nap of my life.

Which brought my total hours slept for Thursday up to … five.

I’m not mad. In the angry sense anyway. Patience and bits of my mind, oh yeah.

But hey, I had a ghost either pass through me or hug me last night. Which was weirdly exciting TBH.

Honestly I was just asking it for privacy and I think it gave me a very long hug.

“And the hurricane with my name, when it came
I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away
Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine
Well, me and my ghosts, we had a hell of a time”

I figured it was my grandfather. I started singing “Stuck Like Glue,” which he used to sing to me when I’d pop up to Pittsburgh to see him and Mom.

And for a tiny, tiny moment, all felt right in the world. Both when I’d surprise them with visits, and when I got my ghost hug.

And I was perfectly sober. I do my 1-2 glasses of wine at dinner now, so I can be awake at night.

I have this strange feeling — it’s comforting strange, not fucked-up strange — that everything is going to be OK.

Eventually, not for the foreseeable future. And for me, not really anyone else.

That’s comforting and disconcerting at the same time.

Not that I can explain it or even want to. But … I know the road ahead is a haute mess, but I don’t have to be one myself.

No real point to this post. I’m bored so I am going to end it now.

Fuck me up, Florida!!!

“They say my nest egg ain’t ready to hatch yet
They keep holding my feet to the fire
They call it paying the price
So that one day in life
I’ll have what I need to retire.”

Kenny didn’t play “The Life” at the Hard Rock Hollywood last month. But he did play “Knowing You” and that was even better.

In any event, I turned on No Shoes Radio this morning, and this lyric was the first thing I heard.

Funny, I had logged into my retirement account on Friday. I wanted to see if I stay at this job another 10 (yeesh) or 20 (gah) years, what would my retirement account look like.

That answer is pretty good. As long as I don’t spend a penny ever again.

I told Momma how much money I’d have after 20 years. She learn to live cheap and get out much sooner than that.

I don’t know what I would do in a world without her advice. I hope I always have a way of hearing it.

The timing is perfect. I always get into “let me apply for All The Jobs” around review time anyway.

Like, I know 2023-’24 wasn’t my most productive year work wise. But I look back at two decades’ worth of posts and remember when life was so much worse.

Like when I had to either drive her car with no brakes or my car with a dead-ish battery — and I had to get AAA to come out to the fucking sticks to jump my car three nights in a row, 40 miles from home — because I gave that company too much and didn’t give a fig about my own safety.

So to hear that, say, I am disorganized — when my ENTIRE JOB is reprioritizing all day long based on what’s happening in the markets and what my experts want to do about it, not to mention to accommodate whatever emergency arises that, according to the Eisenhower principle, is less important than urgent — and also I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in three years for reasons best left unexplained here — well.

Maybe if two-ish people didn’t find it so enjoyable to measure us not on our ability to read minds 90% of the time, but rather on the 10% we didn’t/couldn’t do it, our review scores would be a lot less strange.

Let’s just say “a 10 with a 2” isn’t just a Kenny Chesney song. It’s how I rate on helping member care/sales vs. people whose name rhyme with feather. Which … what do THEY score?!?!

I was telling my cousin today, I love my work so much. I love what’s left of my team. But even that appears to be problematic. Which, yes maybe I am more of a friend than a supervisor.

But when you have Linda fucking Blair spewing pea soup all over the place, maybe consider it’s my strategy to let people know they are loved and supported.

In any event, I always wonder if I should hit publish or do I have to wonder when Shindy or Psycho are going to make sure people who are responsible for my economic well-being (e.g., paycheck) perceive me as problematic.

Which, honestly no outside opinions have ever swayed an employer. Not for those twits’ lack of trying.

“Somewhere over Texas
I thought of my Lexus
And all the stuff I work so hard for
And all the things that I’ve gathered
From climbing that ladder
Didn’t make much sense anymore.”

Now I do think they know I am special. I don’t let anyone or anyone fail. If they do, it wasn’t for lack of trying on my part.

But, do they know HOW special?

Like, I look at Taylor Swift, who succeeds because she wants what she has, more than anyone else. Well, I wanted to succeed here, and I did.

But … is that what I should want in the future?

I mean, my little retirement account could be nothing to sniff at in a bull market. But that relies on continued contributions.

But … once I can get out of this house and this dark little kitchen where I work, something tells me it’s going to be hard to get me back into said kitchen.

And maybe that’s a metaphor for all the rights that keep getting stripped of women right now, and maybe not. Or maybe it’s a metaphor AND a reality.

In any event, I do think I get all the rope and room I need to “do me,” personally, anyway.

Life’s been hard and it’s getting harder. And everyone’s smart enough to give me all the room I need. Would I get that anywhere else … or would I get more? Or, somehow, less?

And how willing am I to find out? Right now, not really. But in a year? Ask me again.

Yesterday, I saw a man I thought, this could be a soulmate.

Note I say “a” soulmate. I don’t believe we are entitled to just one. Rather, I think there are a good dozen or so people who float in and out of our orbit. And we either don’t notice or appreciate them at the time.

Well.

I was fresh out the slammer shower, standing around waiting to pick up a food order. So was he.

He was all smiles. Like, just a genuinely pleasant person.

Good hair, good skin, good posture, good bone structure. Minding his own business. Wildly courteous to the cashier.

Like, my heart saw him and said THIS is who you deserve.

I was trying so hard to get up the nerve to simply say something about how his smile brightened up my day. But I couldn’t. So I just admired him.

I wonder if people see me like that. I’m usually in my head, singing a song or observing the world or both. Do people stop and say, wow, that girl is having fun and what a wonderful sight that is.

(I mean, I know better. If it’s at my apartment compound, they actively try to destroy that peace and joy.)

(Oh you don’t like having your peace and joy disturbed, Butterface without her bike?)

In any event, we both got our food and jumped in our cars and left. Whether he even noticed me, I would doubt because I looked like Video Killed the Instagram Star. Not memorable in a good way, for sure.

Anyway, I went out last night. Or, as Kenny Chesney says in his No Shoes Radio intro to the song, “We went OUTTT last night.”

Had a dream in the wee hours that I think was loosely based on the Hot Boy.

I dreamed that I met someone sweet and good looking. Whoever I was standing with said oh my god go talk to him. And I said, “Why on earth would someone that good look twice at me?”

OK, insecurities ahoy.

What’s good about the dream is I said, “Wait a minute. Most men turn out to be complete losers anyway. Why am I assuming that I am the loser in this scenario? I am pretty freaking amazing. And if he turns out to be a dud, at least I don’t spend my life wondering.”

I swear, if I could just be the girl in my dreams, I’d be set.

Anyway, I did introduce myself to the guy, and we had an impromptu coffee date. And it was wonderful.

I returned to my friends, as we were going to an event together after. Turns out, HE was a featured speaker at the event. And I was just so charmed that, instead of practicing his speech, he didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to meet ME.

Anyway, I am not going to be hanging around said restaurant IRL in hopes of seeing this adorable creature.

I missed my chance because I was feeling sad in general and very #curlsofinstagram (e.g., my hair looked fried/frizzy instead of in golden ringlets) in particular.

I wonder if the dream was meant to tell me, hey dumbass, you blew your opportunity to brighten someone’s day … and maybe your own.

“As I said in my letters
Now that I know better
I will never lose my baby again.”