Caterwauling

I don’t miss my high school friends. But for 10 minutes today, I missed the way we would snark and plan to leave town and never look back.

Last night was our class reunion. It took 10 minutes to go through all the posts and photos. And about 30 minutes to unroll my eyes from the top of my head at the comments.

I didn’t really know anyone, so I’m happy I didn’t move heaven and earth to attend.

My town didn’t have a high school, so we had to go to the next town over. It was clear only two people from my side of the tracks were there. And they were the organizers.

I couldn’t tell you, even with name tags, who those other people were. Other than “I’s leakin’, Miss Kirby!” I forgot about that till now. Wish I could un-remember.

The two organizers teach first grade and university. So that explains how they managed to deal with all the inane questions and comments, before AND after the event.

I was particularly, ah, surprised that a friend of mine who didn’t go is commenting on every single post. Like, we all knew we had zero intention of going. The “oh sorry I couldn’t make it” on every post wasn’t necessary. Nor was the cool shit they were supposedly doing during it.

What else annoyed me. Oh yeah the “we had to leave early to get up early.” (The event ended at 8.) The “my kids had sports and dance” excuse. The “I’m going to a wedding; can we have another event tomorrow.” The “I can’t attend on Saturdays in October but any other month works.” And a few other random, “Can we move the event and/or plan other events around the same time.”

Watching the reunion was better than attending it!

Anyway, it looks like the girls pulled off a nice party. Which is what I wanted for them. Maybe if they have 20 years to recover from this one, they’ll feel like planning the 50th. Lord knows none of the rest of us would.

One comment from the reunion chat made it really all worthwhile for me.

A gal I am friends with IRL said oh looks so nice. Hope everyone had a wonderful time.

Two girls said we missed you. My friend said, “I missed you two.”

In other words, not a soul else.

And this is why we are friends!

At least, two or three people said what a lovely party, everyone looks great and glad yinz had fun. Not surprisingly, they are all Democrats. I liked their posts. That was it.

As for my day, I hit a farmer’s market nearby for some apple cider donuts, hit five Ross stores in Broward, and avoided people all over who wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire. No regrets here.

Mom and I were talking about someone I’ll call Udder Butter.

How, for as much as this ghoulish POS hates me, there is no one under the sun who checks in on me more. Maybe I should be grateful to have a not-so-secret admirer?

In any event, I went for the third-or-is-it-fourth test for something today. Was literally providing supervision from the inside of an MRI tube.

Which UB puts down, working hard and finishing a job. But she puts down everyone and everything. So, personal responsibility and pride in my work and in my team will clearly elude her.

She wouldn’t know what it’s like to have someone whose house is underwater across the state and WANT to alleviate some worry from them.

This is someone who tells colleagues she can’t pick up food from a restaurant she waddles past at the mall because it’s against her religion. I wish I could be a fly on those walls.

Enough about that twit. It took all these damn tests for me to be told, hey, you’re good. See ya in six months.

I still don’t know how ol’ Udder Butter was thinking of me when people were pulling on her teats. Truly, I was just trying to breathe.

But hey, at least if I dropped dead, UB would be the first one to notice my absence.

Grutesque as usual gotta have an opinion on everything.

Here’s mine.

This garbage human being wrote that I wished they were dead.

Hate to tell ya but you don’t matter to me enough to care either way. I’m not wasting my wishes on lowlifes.

I don’t give assholes what they want.

This horse’s ass ain’t getting any reaction from me other than oh, you still diddle your Skittle when you think of me?

Adorbs!

I hired a rock star recently.

They just gave me their resignation.

I of course said thank you for all you did in your short time here. Because they did more in two months than I probably did in the 1.5 years I went to the other job.

They have an opportunity to “make twice the salary doing half the work.”

And that fucking hurt.

Because when I was thinking about coming back here, I told mah boo at the time that the cons were being stuck in Palm Beach and that I’d be exhausted till I died.

Well, both things are true NOW. But the first doesn’t have to be. Which means maybe I can hold space that the second doesn’t have to happen.

I read a good piece on healing from burnout last week. Speaking of holding space.

The author said you don’t heal from burnout in a weekend or a week or two. It takes months to unfuck your mind. And it starts with holding space for the possibility that things can change.

Even if they can’t change, or can’t change anytime soon, you will never get unstuck until your mind, ego and subconsciousness believe and accept that you can heal.

I often say this to someone ol’ Grutesque calls my “unemployed relative,” as if G isn’t living off husband and inheritance. Koff.

I say that whatever you speak into existence is what you get. She says things like “we’re going to get hit” in the car (I mean, have you seen Florida drivers? It’s within the realm of possibility at all times) and I’m like how about say “we’ll get home safely and without delay.”

So I get it. But I also sometimes struggle with believing I’ll be the exception.

The person who quit, I hired them to help me and a superstar who himself has made it clear that he does NOT need this job or stress. He values quality of life these days.

My boss recently said we need to have a conversation about my career goals.

We haven’t had the conversation. But my gut reaction was simply, “I want to make more money, work fewer than 70 hours for it, and be able to get the fuck away from my computer without things cascading into my early morning, nights and weekends.”

The trouble of course is I loved it. And I do love it. But I’d rather spend two weeks in (insert wherever; wouldn’t want G to go there. I’m not jealous of a thing that beast does, but I also know they don’t have an aspiration in their head unless I put it there) than sit in this dump where the elevator has been down all weekend while I drag hurricane supplies up the fuckin stairs.

Maybe G can change, too. Although you couldn’t pay me enough to believe that.

However, let’s dream, based on what I read (paraphrased) …

My intuition will lead me to the Next Right Step.

I am open to healing. Otherwise my subconscious/ego mind will shut down change.

I have all aspects of my consciousness aligned with my goals.

I’m saying this to myself as I go park myself in my dark kitchen with the blinds closed even though the back of my house looks at the Intracoastal. I go face the piles of work that are undone despite starting my days at 6 a.m. and working most weekends. I say this as a storm heads this way and I have two days of appointments, including a redo on a test that came back inconclusive. And if the roads aren’t washed out, as we’re only about 20 feet above sea level, the elevator may or may not work anyway.

All right, got that out of my system.

I’ll get the work done and enjoy it all.

It will be done well.

I might even get praise for it.

I’ll replace this employee with someone just as good.

The storm will pass without incident.

The test redo will be fine.

And if it isn’t fine, I’ll deal with it.

Maybe then I’ll gather me roses while me may.

I read this delight from time to time when I need a laugh.

Awhile back, this Boo-Boo Cow (who is always crying about something) went for a mammogram. And they had no sooner rolled up their udders before they started shitposting about me.

I hauled ass for eight-ish hours Friday before hightailing it out to a 4:15 mammogram appointment of my own. (Second attempt — long story there.)

Or I WOULD have, but oh hello who got stuck in the elevator?

In any event, I did manage to make it there at 5. The staff very nicely did not say a word about working late on a Friday.

After being yanked and contorted and smushed and exposed to radiation, can’t say I thought about anything other than, “Oh thank God I don’t need a bra with this dress” and “Oh, yay, I DID bring my deodorant.”

In fact, it’s about 30 hours later and I finally remembered Boo-Boo. And that lone thought was, “Hope she isn’t ruining yet another vacation tweeting about me.”

I could peek, but I’m sure whatever awaits me is more uncomfortable than having to reassure the radiologist 37 times that I’m not pregnant after reassuring the gynecologist that yes I have periods and no you can’t know anything about them because, Dobbs.

If there’s a theme to this day, it’s “How can you work at a communications company and have no communication skills?” With myriad people ON MY LEVEL and directly beneath who come to mind.

Mom said she has no idea where I find the patience to explain, re-explain, correct and re-RE-explain the same shit to the same people, over and over and over again.

I said you see how I have no patience left afterward — they take it alllllll.

I wouldn’t say it was a bad day. But I will say this glass of wine did absolutely NOTHING to help me become any less tightly wound.

The deadline to pay for another event to skip is today.

Despite myriad messages from the organizers, it’s still a hard pass.

Travel and lodging and making arrangements here at home notwithstanding, I considered going for a second.

I was going to donate, like I did to the last event. It’s not fair Sharon and Beth have to foot the bill for this thing.

Then I watched the comments under every call to pay. Sharon could not have made it any easier — here’s our PayPal link; if you prefer Venmo or some other method, DM me.

There are these two sisters I didn’t know who post under every post from an organizer. Dipshit 1 always posts, “I DON’T HAVE PAYPAL. WHAT DO I DOOOOOOOO.” Dipshit 2 always posts, “I’M BRINGING MY HUSBAND BUT WE HAVE TO PAY CASH AT THE DOOR BECAUSE WE HAVE TO SAVE UP.”

It’s $30.

I was almost moved to pay for their tickets so I don’t have to fucking hear from them again. But then I realized it’s cheaper to leave the chat.

They also post that they don’t know how DMs work. And they say they never get the messages Sharon sends to them. LIKE BITCHES, DM HER YOU DUMB FUCKS I CANNOT EVEN GAAAHHHHHH.

The guest list continues to get weirder. I’m half tempted to go to Pittsburgh anyway and not tell anyone. Or invite the organizers to enjoy a celebratory cocktail afterward.

In other weird developments, Evel sent me a friend request.

Like, bitch, no.

It was never going to come from me. I rarely send friend requests. Especially not to folx who claim I do.

I wonder if she’s genuinely ready to bury the hatchet. Or if she’s just curious what I’m up to. Or if she’s trying to stir up shit.

My guess is No. 3.

Mom offers a fourth option — she actually forgets or doesn’t know how deep my disgust runs.

Either way, I rejected that shit on sight.

After I checked her out, of course.

Did I say the nuts go into the healing arts? She works in an emergency room.

If I could figure out which one, I’d tell everyone not to go there.

Or maybe she found her calling. Don’t know, don’t care.

Stay out of my present and I’ll stay out of yours.

Good life advice in general, right there.

HIIIIII!

Someone said mermaids aren’t real but Mom said that person isn’t magical enough to see them.

So, if you aren’t magical and you’re seeing me here, it’s because I’m here to help you believe in something other than your own smug superiority.

Actually I’m not here for those types. But I do miss my mini-megaphone. And it it bothers you that I am still alive and happy, well, bless your on-borrowed-time heart.

Sharon and Beth are planning our 30-year reunion. As they did for the 20th and 10th.

The three of us met in Miss Ashenbaugh’s class. Room 1 at White Oak School, in 1979.

I’d love to see them. And they said they’d love to see me when I posed a thought on Faceypages that I’d be thrilled to see half of the people who RSVP’d.

The other half went tRumper or plain old sucked as human beings. I still remember how I felt because of them. And I’m vocal enough to say you still appear to be an oxygen thief.

Several other people have messaged me, publicly and privately, to say the same thing. They have a friend or two they would love to reconnect with. But they want to avoid more people than they wish to see.

I saw some twit who used to pick fights with me on Facebook who says he’ll be there. He’s probably still mad that I called him a trumper. Then don’t fucking act like one and defend Kyle Rittenhouse, you freak.

I also spy she who will always be known as “Evel.” Her dad owned one of the local funeral homes till he died and Eve’s brother took charge. I felt sorry for the girl who lost her dad. We shared all our secrets. And she shared all mine — with some embellishments — to anyone who’d listen.

That included my friend group, which I’d introduced her to. And they all ended up shutting me out and planning a trip to Cancun together.

Eve being Eve, she hit the ceiling when my former bestie decided to reach out to me to finally end the war.

She backed out of the trip and they told me to come.

But unlike them, just because I lived in the rich ZIP code didn’t mean I could afford Cancun.

They didn’t need to know that. Or that I was very deeply hurt that we were too poor for, what, $300, after I had busted my ass to graduate 13th in my class.

But oh how delicious it was to say nah. I’m no replacement for Eve. It was always the other way around.

Eve wanted to be a psychiatrist. Figures, the nuts always go into the healing arts. Last I looked, she worked at Petsmart. And I haven’t looked in years, so who knows.

I know I wouldn’t see anyone else from that group. Last reunion, the girls contacted me to see where they all were since they are ghosts online. I had no clue and I’m happier that way.

If they did happen to show, well, I wouldn’t talk to them much anyway. I’d probably only talk to Beth and Sharon and the five other people I’m actually still friends with.

Even one who messaged me kind of rubs me wrong. We always sat together in class, thanks to the alphabet. Now he’s expressed interest in moving to Florida and finding love. I doubt that it’s with me but still, I can’t figure out why he’d tell me this.

The rest, would be cool to say hi to. I don’t see the people who always had something shitty to say about my clothes (which were cute, fuck you) and threw gum in my hair (oh look at all you bald fuckers now). I’d like to think that they are better people now. But I don’t have my hopes up.

Heck, I’d like to think that I’m a better person now. But it’s entirely possible I’d get a comeuppance there, too.

It might be that I don’t remember most of these people, but one of them could very well have a story about me, one that keeps THEM from wanting to attend.

That person should be Eve. But fuck her. She’s yet another victim-player who thinks that playing mind games and holding your reaction against you and lying to people about how that moment came to be is fun. And I don’t need to leave Florida to experience that.