Caterwauling

Self-care was the theme of 2024 for me.

Since that mainly manifested in swiping right (or down, as it were), my credit card issuers have stopped asking, “Were you the one who made this purchase?”

They know, yes, yes it was.

So, 2025 is a year for restraint.

I heard about the no-buy challenge and I thought, now this I can do.

Well it’s Day 8 and the only thing I’ve done is buy groceries and a manicure.

Here’s hoping the banks start texting, “Where are you and what have you done with our swipe fees?”

Kelly and I made a pact after we saw the Christmas markets in New York. We decided we will see Christmas markets in Europe.

Preferably we will find men to fund this trip. But still, we gotta get ourselves liquid for this adventure.

This detox hopefully means regulating my dopamine.

That hopefully results in reducing my carbon footprint.

THE YES LIST

One pair of good boots.
Fitness expenses.
Experiences.
Budget travel.
Signature pieces. (skulls, sparkle, Betsey Johnson)
Donations (charity, political).
Gifts for others.
Nails.
Good food — e.g., no cheaping out/wasting $ on crap.
Cleaning lady (one of these days).
Making store exchanges — using store credit means it’s OK to spend a little more since I’m not fully paying cash.

THE NO LIST

“Little treats.”
Clothes.
Makeup.
Lipstick/lip gloss.
Home decor.
Denim.
Coffee.
Wine. (at least until I drink my stash.)
Technology.
Any company that supports tRump.
Doom spending.

EXCEPTIONS

Vacations = all bets are off.
If something vital breaks (computer, phone).
Walmart (and only online) is the only place that has my kids’ litter.

For saying my storied career at the Veggie Patch ended so poorly, I became and stayed social media friends (and, in two cases, actual friends) with people from the Club Medicated playset.

I learned through the socials that Frosty died of breast cancer not too long ago.

The friend I learned that through, had two strokes this week. Which I learned from her daughter.

I didn’t think 50 was the age you started to hear about all the big health crises. But it’s clear the Boomers are bowing out younger and younger.

The one who had the strokes will be OK, at least per the post. I know from my own Gram having a stroke that there was no recovering.

Of course, her medics LEFT THE SCENE after examining her. And different ones came back.

Which was how we met Jimmy.

We had such lawsuits on our hands with every death. I could be rich right now instead of fielding one person’s remarks about the “new life” I have in front of me now and what I am going to do with it.

New life, huh. Sounds sexier than “Going to NYC or otherwise crying on the couch.”

Actually I’ve been doing good I’m on some new shit. Been saying yes instead of no. Thought I saw you at The Bus Stop but didn’t though.

It would’ve been fun
If you would’ve been The 1.

My original Veggie Patch friend was equally squicked out by “your new life.” She said ain’t nobody who has the power to derail that life needs to know about it.

I think there is an intent to help me get to it … if I’m ready or worthy. But she’s right. What if me saying what I really want to do with my life is just inviting more delays to it?

I mean, I think of Sia and me planning to go to Paris and I got fired that Christmas. Dare I put Paris back on my wishlist, only for it to be yanked away again 15 years later?

Not that the dream is dead; I’ve just been too afraid to dream it again.

So if I put something else on my list instead, maybe that’s something else to lose out on. Why have the same heartbreak twice.

Plus, maybe I’ll care a lot less if that also ends up on the pile of dreams half-dreamt.

New life, maybe. New things keeping me from believing in it, definitely.

Now, if I were to pull up my big Goddess panties, I would say with utmost confidence that those old things and people need to fight to stay in my new life.

Because there may be something better I was too afraid to go for in The Life Before.

Looking at Mom, Frosty, Jacky, Sia and so many others, it’s clear “the greatest loves of all time are over now.”

And I don’t want to waste what’s left of MY time NOT looking for “the 1” … whatever that will be.

“You throw your head back laughing like a little kid
I think it’s strange that you think I’m funny ’cause
He never did.”

I made myself a Swiftmas playlist last year. Never realized how many songs refer to the holidays, winter, falling snow, etc.

I was fortunate to sit in the “falling snow” of white confetti at the Miami Eras Tour during “All too Well.” It even got into my little purse. People sell that shit on eBay and Etsy for big bucks. I should know as I just paid $10 for two packs of “Karma” confetti. Whether it’s actually from my show or not, who knows but I have a craft project that depends on it.

“Begin Again” was also a fine song for this new year that began on a Wednesday. Also she wrote that song in Paris, which I aspire to see by Dec. 31.

Anyway that song gets me because it reminds me how my Mike/”Red” era started. Which I’ve tried to forget. Mike, anyway. I love the Red era, and always will.

I asked my friend CJ to call yesterday. He did. And I got that “Begin Again” vibe.

I specifically had a career-related topic to noodle over. But, as ever, our entire conversation was one distraction after another.

In a good way, I mean. Thinking up new things to talk about. Not like rude friends I’ve had over the years who let their kids scream into the phone. (Fucking Tina and that brat Ingrid.)

As we were hanging up, he said I feel like you had more to ponder and we didn’t get to it.

I said, no, I’m OK. I have a lot of thinking still to do.

And honestly, it was just nice to have someone to talk out loud with.

I said I used to have my Momma here. She’d tell me (redacted) sucks and (redacted) has no business doing (redacted) and you’re a goddess and you’re so much more magical than anyone will ever know. So go shine like you always do.

And in the absolute absence of that for the past six months and, now, the rest of my life, it’s nice to have a friend.

(INTHAF is also an adorable Tay song from “Lover.”)

In any event, he said tell you what, do your thinking. Text me your top three questions you come up with over the weekend. And I’ll try to give you some of that direction it sounds like you still need.

I mean, maybe this is how men are supposed to be. Shit, maybe this is how friends in general are supposed to be.

Anyway. I said to my boss on Thursday that I have no one looking out for me anymore without my Momma. And with CJ, I articulated how I also don’t have anyone to listen to and love me like her.

It’s not that it feels good to say it out loud or type it for posterity. But it feels helpful to put it into words just how great my loss — and how big my sadness — really is.

I mean, it still sucks that there is nothing or no one that can even begin to be all — or any — of that for me.

But, hey. A moment of connection when I needed it will go a long way.

I still have an impossible task ahead of me, and it’s ruining my sleep and now my weekend.

And even though he wouldn’t say this or that sucks, he did say you’ve got this.

I don’t know if I got this. But it was nice to hear that again.

“We walk down the block to my car
And I almost brought him up
But you start to talk about the movies
That your family watches every single Christmas
And I wanna talk about that
For the first time, what’s past is past.”

Boss was asking how my 2024 was.

Obviously I lost Mom and Cocoa. And I went from worrying all the time to eating to fill the void.

I said I was stressed out and he said over what. I realized I should probably stop talking. I also realized I really wasn’t stressed. Just empty.

I did say I got to meet a Kennedy. I pointed out “Not the whale juice one. A good one.”

For a moment, I teleported back in time. To being in New York in my best dress, fearless. To everyone thinking I was funny and sweet and treating me like an esteemed guest.

I did say it was so fun to be up there, talking to important people and them thinking I’m not the riff-raff.

I said I know I haven’t been the riff-raff for some time. But still. To be in the presence of a KENNEDY — a good one, Kerry — WOW.

Hindsight being what it is, I hope that registers as I am cool and funny and appreciated and employable.

Like, I know I could volunteer for the charity any old day. But if I wanted or needed a job, is that door open too?

I won’t answer that. I just wish they’d wonder. More importantly, not tell me to pursue it.

I did say that’s what I love most. Being OUT. Being social. Dressing up. Going to jury duty and cornering the energy analyst to ask how he values stocks. Learning and sharing information. Communicating. Being out of the house and with cool people.

Makes me wonder what I’m fighting for, if not that.

I don’t have bad days at work. But I have the occasional weird hour.

I got an email from my pal, chastising me for daring to edit.

Let me be clear. Edit is in my title.

I wrote about this before, of this one giving me something to run that I wrote before. And then some other entity made a bad edit to it.

Well, I made what I thought was a good edit to it (saying where they are based, which was incidentally useful to the next part of the story).

Anyway, today I got a big fat tsk tsk for adding where they are based as they are not actually based there.

OK.

And a big “stop editing their shit.” My words of course.

I said well ok fine but remember that creative/incorrect edit they made that YOU caught?

And I said I’ll remove it on the website.

Email comes back an hour later, “I don’t see it on the website.”

*blink*

I hopefully won’t think about this ever again after I hit publish. But at a time when I’m getting my own performance evaluated, it’s really really hard to keep these hard discussions focused on me when there’s that.

Well, the first New Year’s.

Honestly the first anything, really, without Momma.

I mean, I’ve had six and a half months of firsts. First day without her, first night without her, first week/month/season, etc.

Her first birthday not on the planet was pretty awful. That’s why I spent it in Orlando. And the day was still sucky AF, though I met Matt the next day and that ended up in me seeing New York for Christmas.

First Halloween sucked because she used to decorate the house so spectacularly. But even that kind of fizzled out bit by bit over the past couple years.

First Thanksgiving sucked but honestly I forget most of it. I know I went to DaDa, my happy place. But that time of year was always the anniversary of losing Grampy. And before that, it was celebrating, then mourning, his wedding anniversary. So, never my favorite time.

Christmas was HARD. I was kind of thinking I was OK but, nope.

At least I got back to Orlando, and much better weather, for Christmas.

Once again, I cried my way around the world, as I’d done in September, but this time without the rain to mask it.

So here I am at New Year’s. And honestly feeling a bit less worse than I expected.

There’s still the whole, “How on earth is there a year Mom and Cocoa weren’t alive in?! HOW??!!!”

But I did end up getting some pork and kraut. She’d normally want hot dogs, but I went with chicken sausage. And she’d normally prepare 10 sides to provide color and variety. I went with blackeyed peas and tossed the pork in to flavor them.

And none of Momma’s mashed potatoes, which were magical. So was her kraut. Mine was just OK. Just “arright,” as her mom would have said.

I didn’t take a pic of my plate. She would have been proud of me for trying, but she’d definitely say that monochromatic mess looks like a Cindy or a Kelly (not MY Kelly) special. Boring/bland/beige for the first and just plain weird for the second.

I wonder if Kelly (again not mine) is still making goofy cakes and shit. I miss peeking in on that social media. We definitely did the Statler & Waldorf thing, mom and me.

That’s what I’m missing most. Not the good food, though mine was definitely “arright” to her “holy shit, yum.” It’s the having some wine and cackling like two bitches.

She always called us two bitches. I think that might have originated with my grandmother over something arright. But I don’t really remember.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say it was my favorite holiday. But it wasn’t my worst, either. For that, I am grateful.

I saw on the bulletin board downstairs that Cheryl’s husband died at Christmas.

I looked at his photo — with a big old invite to his services on whatever day — and said sorry your wife is such a bitch.

She’s the one who screamed at me off the balcony for feeding ducks and threatened to fine me.

Still waiting. Have some balls, bitch.

Cheryl’s also the one who plays stink finger in the pool with Peppermint Patty, who has started trying to talk to me now that I put up a rainbow flag to counter the MAGA flag on the other side of me.

Anyway, I thought about all this stupid fanfare for Ron. Who I didn’t know and never cared to. Who I am sure is no loss, if he’s related to that wretch.

Made me think it’s high time to write an obituary for Momma. Someone who ACTUALLLY deserves to be celebrated.

I got to thinking about my Aunt Marion, who my cousin Elaine loved. I looked up Marion’s obituary and read it with new eyes.

“Survived by her loving husband Harry.” “Loved being a homemaker.” “Loved her nickname Penny.”

Where to start?

Penny … a short version of our shared maiden name? Nobody called any of us that. Lie.

Loved being a homemaker … you mean how Harry demanded she be a slave to him? Also she had some injuries I ALWAYS questioned. LIE.

Loving husband Harry … who sexually harassed Mom and Elaine? One of the uncles my Mom and Gram told me never hug and feel free to sit in your room while he visits?! HAHAHA FUCK THAT SHIT, NO LOVNG HUSBAND HERE.

That’s how I imagine writing Harry’s obit. It’s how I imagine writing Ron’s.

(Ironically, Ron is another name of another uncle of mine, though his obit would be more like FAKE FUCKING CHRISTIAN WHO JUDGES EVERYONE BUT HIMSELF who also somehow married well.)

In any event, since I have nothing nice to say about Cheryl’s husband, all I can really say is stay dead and take that bitch with you at your earliest possible convenience.

I never said new year/new me. I love me. In fact, I’m taking me up to a damn 11 or 12 in 2025.

Dawn: More extreme and unhinged than 2024. Fucking deal with it.

I’d say eat me, Cheryl, but she probably would.

“Please don’t
Ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I
Would recognize anywhere.”

Happy New Year’s Day to everyone who didn’t vote away my right to credit cards, bank accounts, property ownership and the Social Security that I have already paid FAR MORE into than most of the voters ever will.

The rest can fuck alllllllll the way off. Go into your fucking holes and die in pain like my mother had to.

Speaking of going into a hole, it’s a Hermit year for the collective. 2025 adds up to 9.

If I add in my month and day of birth, I get 12, the Hanged Man as my personal card of the year.

I could reduce that further to 3. But that would make 2026 my Emperor year. Unfortunately President Musk ascends this year, so I don’t need to extend that shit.

My friend CJ got the Hanged Man card and it spooked him. I said it’s a good card unless your reader used the Thoth deck.

He sent a pic … of the Hanged Man in the Thoth deck. Yeesh. No wonder he won’t look at it otherwise.

I mainly use decks from Tarot Collectibles, and he’s reimagined Rider-Waite very lovingly and positively. Like, one of the Hanged Man cards has butterfly wings. Another has bat wings. And the colors are psychedelic and/or, depending on the deck, sparkly.

And we know how I love pink and sparkly anything!

It’s Italian tradition to wear red underwear on New Year’s Eve if you want to attract love.

Fuck that shit. I wore green to attract money.

When I sat down to write my vision for this year, I focused more on manifesting discipline than companionship. So, the Emperor’s main quality.

I didn’t even bother with my usual list of things I want in a place to live. In true Hanged Man style, I just want to chill and see what comes to me.

I also decided to do a No-Buy 2025. I have a page full of things I can/can’t buy.

Even right now, I’m twitchy because I didn’t buy pork and sauerkraut for New Year’s Day for good luck.

But, I had both last year and my baby died 25 days later. Will not eating the lobster sushi I bought for today make me luckier? Keep that 15 bucks, girlie and enjoy that $19 sushi as intended.

And that bottle of Mom’s favorite champagne, too, obviously.

I did promise myself that. All traditions are out the fucking window without Momma.

But I promised myself to always toast her with “Bug Juice,” the original name of the sparkling wine she loved most.

Hold on to the memories
They will hold on to you
I will hold on to you.

I really hit the jackpot living with her. Which I didn’t really realize for most of the 17 years I had her.

I know two people who are pursuing legal action against people they lived with. My one friend bought a house with a deadbeat who won’t help her sell it. She’s paying half the mortgage, rent, all the utilities at her new place, PLUS Florida just ordered her to pay half HIS utilities. Even though he’s trashed their house to the point no one will buy it.

Man did I get lucky “just” having my mom instead of someone to suffer through boring ass sex but a proper financial fucking from.

Yeah, definitely not in a rush to put myself out there for that kind of shit outcome.

As for me, Taylor Swift said something profound during one of her rain shows.

As she prepared to play her first surprise song of the night, she said, “My life finally makes sense.”

That’s what I want more than anything. For my life to make sense.

I know that’s a big “resolution” for New Year’s Day. But I picked a couple areas where sense needs to return. And I think it’s quite manageable and even possible.

Though I still think I need some kraut anyway. Don’t wanna forget how Momma used to make it. Which was goooooood.

Happy 2025, Momma and Cocoa, wherever you are. You’re coming with me, wherever it takes me. And I hope it’s quite far.

Despite losing my mom and my cat this year, I’m not inclined to wish away 2024.

After all, we have President Musk on his way in. And I’m sure Melania will do to what’s left of Jimmy Carter’s solar panels (that fuckface Ronald Reagan didn’t) what she did to Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden.

I’m not quite ready to turn in my beach town tank tops for a burqua.

But speaking of First Lady Elonia, I gotta give him credit for destroying Jack Dorsey’s Twitter, of which I was a member since 2007.

I mean, I got rid of my original account so fuckin Cindy would stop goddamn following me.

Which bit me in the ass this year because I wanted to see my friend Leanne’s account but I can’t access it.

Why? Because when she died, she had a private account — and only my original account could have seen it.

I am really sad because her final tweet was perfection. But naturally Cindy had to ruin me getting a screenshot of it too.

As if I didn’t have enough reasons to rue Rosemary’s Baby’s birth, god.

In any event, speaking of the devil (though I’ve mentioned a few so far), I am quite glad that not only have I fully defected from Xitter, save for one account where I save all my screenshots of the nuttiest nut who ever nutted …

But I am not even tempted to read her play-by-play commentary on my life because I couldn’t find it if I tried.

I mean, I probably could find it if I tried. I am a Very Good Researcher(TM) and all.

I am just not trying because I lost enough brain cells doing that already, and for what?

At least that shitshow (for me) stopped running in 2024. Something positive about this year.

Another weird positive revolves around Howler Monkey.

That one must watch everything I do online too.

I tried to slip one of my staff an issue at the last possible minute on Friday.

Well, that joy was watching and immediately tracked an edit.

I got the email that she was in my file and I was like GAH, WHAT.

Another of my staff had said maybe this ball of joy is my lesson. That her existence is meant to teach me something.

After all my staff got the same email that this cherub was in my document (that I had tagged THEM in, not her), one of my people called me.

Person (I like) said you know what, did it ever occur to you that this one knows you’re special … and they hitch to your wagon?

I said I am willing to entertain that.

What I did not say is either cherub is just so enthralled by me that she wants to share my light of greatness. Or that by changing a comma (or whatever — I didn’t look), they can say they helped me shine?

What I also didn’t say is how come there is a typo in the live version of everything this one “edits”? Jesus FUCK I am tired of this shit.

I don’t know. I don’t really think too hard on it. I can’t. Otherwise I’d go back to feeling wounded after they sliced me down to size.

Maybe my friend here has a point. I am amazing. Maybe they do recognize the goddess before them.

Maybe my confidence and dearth of fucks drives them nuts. Or maybe they are inspired by it and want to get as close to this awesomeness as they can.

Like that other ghoul.

Really, what is the purpose of stalking me around the internet if not to watch me shine?

If only Teams would die like Twitter, then I could somewhat look forward to the incoming year.

At least 2024 had my mom and my baby in it. The new one has no such redeeming qualities.

I used to go to NYC at Christmas.

Would fly up to Philly to stay with Renee and Terry.

Renee and I would take the train to Grand Central to meet Uncle Bobby.

He’d take us around town and buy us a nice lunch someplace.

I also got to go to the city with her and Terry and her parents. They made reservations at Carmine’s every year.

That’s her dad in the background of the first pic. At the Bux where they spelled my name “Don” and I’m shocked since they called me “DoRn.”

When Renee decided to unfriend me in real life and on Facebook, I mailed a super expensive baby gift that I’d been planning to take to her. And that was the end of it.

I did get to NYC on my way to Vermont. And again on my way to Pittsburgh. But other than spending a lot of time at Newark, Laguardia and JFK, I wouldn’t say it was an actual NYC trip.

This year, I had an invite from Matt to come to a charity gala on Wall Street, my imagined second home.

And I surprised myself more than anyone by saying what is money, really? The Fed will print more and I’ll make more.

As luck would have it, I arrived the morning the insurance CEO got shot. I also got there for the Rockefeller tree lighting.

“Let’s gather round the Big Tree

All you strangers who know me.”

The Backstreet Boys were the headliner. I think it was 2007 that Taylor Swift headlined, but I was too cold to care what was playing over the sound of my teeth chattering.

That’s because it was NYC’s coldest night AND first snowfall. Which reminded me of “All Too Well,” so, same thing.

“And in the city’s barren cold

I still remember the first fall of snow

How it glistened as it fell

I remember it all too well.”

The next night was the NYSE tree lighting. Which I missed because I had gotten a ticket to “The Notebook” at the Schoenfeld.

Which I stumbled out of, sobbing because the play was SO GOOD … and stumbled right into Junior’s Cheesecake.

The last time I was at the Times Square location, I was eating brunch and Bobby Flay’s people came to have me sign a release.

Bobby was going to be filming there that morning. So, in case I was captured devouring my eggs, they needed my consent.

Which of course I gave.

I never did see that episode, so who knows if they ever captured me or not.

Mom and I went to Junior’s a lot when it opened in Boca Raton. She loved cherry cheesecake from there. Kadie loved it, too.

Kadie used to always “ask” for cheesecake and whipped cream. Waity Kadie. Very patient, before she devoured it.

Junior’s didn’t make it through the pandemic down in Boca. So I absolutely walked my fat ass in there and bought a giant piece of pumpkin cheesecake.

And like my baby, I devoured it after I paid my $40 cab fare back to Stone Street.

I have a lot more to write about my December. But I’m emotionally fraught and shot.

I may never get around to it. Plus I just got back from Christmas at Magic Kingdom and Epcot.

I did the Festival of the Holidays and the Holiday Cookie Stroll, eating cookies around the world.

And drinking around the world.

So much drinking. Had a few of these.

Drinking and riding was more fun with Matt, Tera and Rachel.

But how wonderful it was to get to see them again in NYC.

Tera:

Tara and the guy who wouldn’t leave her alone:

I didn’t get a pic of Mike, but that’s a story for a rainy day. He paid like eight grand for a happy hour in the silent auction. Let’s just say he liked me and I am invited.

Anyway.

This would all be so harder if I were poor. Or didn’t have three credit cards to earn rewards on.

Either way, if I had no way of affording to get off the couch, I would have been “Somewhere in Time”-d by now.

What I will say about the past six months since I lost my mom is this …

I’ve blown every dime and cried every tear.

That was me crying/freezing on the street post-Notebook. At least Oscar Wilde (the bar and the statue) made me smile.

Did I get us into a private event at one of Taylor Swift’s favorite bars?

You bet I fucking did.

I also had a better Christmas than I envisioned or deserved.

I may never walk Cornelia Street again. But …

I can still see it all (in my head)
Back and forth from New York (sneaking in your bed)
I once believed love would be (burning red)
But it’s golden
Like daylight

I wouldn’t say there’s anything resembling daylight in my life. At least, not unless it’s in the sense that night always comes.

When I got home yesterday, I saw my neighbor I was kinda sorta not really with who was mad I didn’t tell him Mom passed. Which I didn’t even confirm.

I treated Kelly to pumpkin spice hot cocoa at Max Brenner. Which Uncle Bobby had taken Renee and me to. Cheers, Uncle Bobby! Quality human. Unlike everyone else.

Like Tommy (what is it with these Italians who keep the “y” at their age?!), who stuck his nose in the air and said a flippant, “Hi.”

I was actually like, “Hiii!” like I saw a part of my past I remembered fondly.

Then I remembered I hated him because he was rude to my mom and Cocoa. And, well, fuck that.

My cousin gave me my Cocoapotamus for Christmas.

I was telling Kelly, who was in NYC with me and also Disney, everything else now seems so “mid.”

The people, the events, the food the Christmas lights in NYC were all so big and bright and fun and delicious and memorable.

And now to come back to FL where everyone and everything is half the size and people/places have about a third of the class … fuckin’ MID.

Sand tree? Meh. Kravis Center? Enh. Food? Fugheddabout it.

She pointed out we aren’t terribly rich or cultured and even we aren’t impressed with this place. Imagine if we were one, the other or both.

And so, it’s our New Year’s intention to elevate further.

We’ll just have to endure a lot more mid while we save up for more things that are actually spectacular.

Like France and not just the France Pavilion. Though that was pretty awesome too.