Caterwauling

When Michele and I went to New Orleans right before The Plague, my friend T was supposed to meet us there.

Meanwhile her friend Jim not only met us there but took us all around the city for two days. Bought us our first hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s. Took us across the river to a bar we’d have never found on our own. Took us to a gay bar he (total married straight dude) loved.

Like, some dude I never even met was kinder to me than a guy who had a crush on me.

(Presented to me by my friend Brenda, who introduced us. Also the way he reminded me of yodel-Leahey-hoo with his scared rabbit actions, I would never have guessed.)

Also yodel-Leahey-hoo accidentally texted me the other day. I didn’t even bother to reply because he pissed me off the last time Kim got us into a three-way text. Don’t ask. Jesus don’t ask. It is not worth it.

Anyway, when I went back to NOLA last year to see Taylor Swift, I told no one.

I mean, I bought the tickets in December 2023 for an October 2024 event. Mom was functional when I bought them but went downhill fast a few months later. I didn’t even know if I would get to NOLA if she would have been here.

Also, I am a big believer in do great things and tell no one.

Also also, there was no fucking way in hail that I was going to let T know I’d be in his hood again. That mother fucker blew every chance he had of keeping me in his life.

Anyway, when I made my first post from the NOLA airport, I got an instant response —

“You should have told me you were coming! I would have made plans to meet you!”

I put a big fat laughter emoji on that one.

It’s three months later and I realized I hadn’t seen any posts from him.

He unfriended me.

Hah.

Loser.

Was it the laughter emoji? You had no problems with me being in NOLA alone the first time.

Jim happened to save the day and frankly the entire trip.

I was happily alone the last trip. Then there were all the Swifties I met along the way. And I am still texting with some of them. Even tonight, in fact!

Kelly and I always say we are THOSE people or THAT girl.

But really we are just matching energy.

Toodaloo, T.

One of my boys is Going Through It.

I could use all caps and it still wouldn’t be enough. I mean, THROUGH IT.

He really wants to take the high road, and I know he will.

So from a very good place, he put up an Instagram video.

I was in the middle of arguing with Howler, so I figured at least scroll Insta to relieve the tension headache that was building.

So I saw this video shortly after it was posted.

I texted, “Um, Homie? Take that down.”

He said you have a bad feeling, Homie?

I said well, my opinion and $5.25 will get you a vanilla latte. A small one.

But, I spend time on the low road. My profile says I am a low-road Democrat FFS.

So I say this as “the big sister you never wanted,” but I too cannot control my mouth. And I never seem to stop being surprised when consequences walk in.

Please enjoy my gift of hindsight and protect yourself before unintended consequences find you.

He took it down.

I told him I know his heart is in the right place. But I know the low road types. And the only time they aim high is when they have a chance to knock down someone on top.

I also reminded him he’s literally got 13 miles left in a 13.1 mile marathon. You have bigger trials ahead. Save your energy for the higher-stakes ones.

I appreciated that he listened to me and found my advice valuable. I hope it turns out to be correct.

More people need to do that. Like Howler, for starters.

I blast No Shoes Radio or Coffeehouse from Mom’s room at all times.

I had wanted to wake up and start an entry with this Taylor Swift lyric:

“Been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night
But now I see daylight
I only see daylight.”

But I heard Sammy and thought, there’s my title.

I fell behind and I’ve got to run just to get back to where I was.

My wheels have been turning in wet cement.

I mean, they always were. Don’t anyone ever blame my mom. She should have sought more treatments and more doctors and more appointments.

She always said this job will throw you out like the last one. Don’t fuck this up on my accounht.

With the turning of the clock to 2025, and the grief of there being a year without her in it, something has changed within me.

“I’ve just had a vision
Almost like a prophecy
I know it’s sounds truly crazy
And true, the vision’s hazy
But I swear someday I’ll be
Flying so high (defying gravity).”

I wrote last about how all my new friends probably think I’m this fancy traveling Swiftie.

Well, there are also people (like my new boss who everyone is always scared of) who don’t remember me being a workaholic with big ideas and dreams.

He knows someone in total maintenance mode.

And again, don’t blame mom. We had a way here.

The owner would always call me to brainstorm about new projects. I had to be sharp, and I was. Because it was my chance to contribute ideas and raise objections.

But otherwise, my big crazy ideas were mine to sit on till the right time to mention them again.

Anyway, all Wicked-like, I finally finally remembered who I was.

The girl with big crazy dreams and ideas who never had an outlet for them.

I haven’t had any big crazy dreams or ideas for a long time.

But I finally realized yesterday, wait, I want those again.

I think the new boss would be receptive to them. Maybe if I had/shared them, my team wouldn’t be so nervous all the time.

Not even had/shared, but implemented them. Which is a whole cultural shift I haven’t embraced yet. Like … wait, I have to effect change after years of not?

The new boss had put me on the spot about coming up with big dreams and charting my own path.

As ever, he gave me no boundaries or expectations, but you know he has them and isn’t communicating them.

I get it now, like I finally get “You Said Something.”

The first thought I had is what if I catch up and then outgrow everything in six months, like I’ve done before?

Well. What if I do, indeed.

If I outgrow my clothes, I stuff myself into them until I shrink enough to fit back into them.

But what if it’s life where I should be buying a bigger size … and rocking it?

I was introduced to this concept in terms of investments.

Oversimplified, it’s where one is on par with the other. Like, if you want to buy a crypto ETF, you can trade BITW or BITB. (Or one of many others that are, or are currently coming, online. Give me a SOL one any day. And I hate ETFs.)

As someone who’s a bit more than a crypto neophyte, it’s not that simple to say they are pari-passu. But I’m in blog mode, not analyst mode, so don’t construct anything I say as investment advice.

After all, if I knew fuck-all of anything about how to get rich off the markets, you’d never see my pudgy pork roast ass again.

In any event, I’ve met a lot of new people recently. Not at or through work. Unless you count the Agora invasion.

When I say I’m Agora-phobic, it’s not all people but specific people who used to work there.

What I have met are Swifties. Manhattanites. Feminists. Like, getting the fuck out of the maga microcosm that Palm Beach has become is good for the soul.

I’ve sent some of my Swiftie friends pics from Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village.

From Electric Lady Studios in the West Village.

From Key West.

And stories to match.

I get nothing but love and support about my travels.

One made a nice and well-intentioned comment about my shopping bags. Like I look totally like a New Yorker with my beautiful printed bags.

And I thought … these people have no idea about me.

I don’t mean in a bad way. I just mean, I was going to say oh that’s just one bag I acquired.

And the other bag is holding my gutchies because I am not paying for the hotel, so I couldn’t drop my shit off.

I didn’t say that. They are happy for me and … guess what?

I am happy for me, too!

Also I do say I work in finance. Almost like an apology sometimes, that my life is actually pretty good if you don’t know everyone I love is dead.

Am I rich? No. Am I close? Also no. Do I have enough if I need it? Ask me after I get out of the car dealership.

Do I still have a full belly and joys in life that only money can buy? With gratitude, I can say yes I do.

I kind of like being someone that anyone can admire or aspire to.

I think they talk about me as their worldly friend Goddess.

Someone who was sweet to them when she — they later learned — was in the throes of grief.

Someone who does fun things and includes them in it with photos and souvenirs.

Someone who deserves the joys because she’s nice and also because “She looks like she’s been through it.”

“Are we only biding time ’til I lose your attention
And someone else lights up the room?
People love an ingénue.”

Yes there is a Taylor Swift song for everything.

In any event, it’s not that I am in love with whatever image I hope people might have of me.

On the other hand, I am no longer quick to qualify it.

Sure I’ll always enjoy a compliment and say “I got it at Ross!” if that’s in fact true.

But nothing wrong with saying, yes, thank you, I do love Hotel Indigo because it’s worth the price tag for the toiletries alone.

My adopted nieces call me their cool Aunt Dawn.

And honestly, if I give people a little hope that a little girl from the projects could grow up and have some fabulous things and experiences between heartbreaks …

And that they absolutely can too (and should before FOTUS throws a burqua over us all) …

Then really, that would make me as fabulous as my people make me feel by celebrating and not begrudging me.

In any event, I live for those moments when I equate feeling fabulous with being fabulous.

I was a big PJ Harvey fan back in the Lilith Fair era. Huge fan.

That said, I was always so frustrated by “You Said Something.”

Heard the song on my way to the car dealership this morning.

It’s been probably 30 years and I remembered why I didn’t get it.

I get it now.

“I am doing nothing wrong
Riding in your car
Your radio playing
We sing up to the eighth floor
A rooftop, in Manhattan
One in the morning
When you said something
That I’ve never forgotten
When you said something
That was really important.”

My main frustration was WHAT DID THEY SAY TO HER.

On a base level, I got that artists have to keep music universal enough that anyone can identify with it.

This morning, on a higher level, I finally got it …

We aren’t supposed to know.

I got to thinking about the small handful of super fans I have.

I am under no illusion with at least three of them that they aren’t here for the Taylor Swift song references.

They want clues. They want to see themselves.

They are thrilled with any sort of allusion that feeds THEIR illusion that they are rooted by even just one shrub in the labyrinth of my mind.

If I type “When your Brooklyn broke my skin and bones,” someone probably starts rubbing one out. “Alone time,” did he call it?

I remember six years ago posting, “Do the girls back home touch you like I do?” And hearing thirdhand that one of my fans had a meltdown, thinking it was about her man.

Gurl. No.

Actually it wasn’t about Toad, either. But it’s a good memory and I feel like posting it.

I miss Toadlet. Before he showed his true colors, anyway. Which were beige on his best day and shithead on the rest.

Like someone else I know. Who is here searching or hints about details she missed.

I mean, maybe she beat all the details out of someone. But she knows I have a very good memory.

So she must think I still hold some info that’s in the ether.

We will never know, will we?!

In any event, I’m not going to elaborate on what I thought PJ Harvey meant then or what I believe now.

20-year-old me and 30-ish-year-old me have two wildly different eyeglass prescriptions. I imagine PJ did, too.

As for me, only one had rose-colored lenses.

And it isn’t the one who is about to spend $1,000 at the dealership.

One strange parallel is that both of those mes ALSO just returned from Manhattan.

I was at a rooftop bar in lower Manhattan. And on the top floor of a lower Manhattan hotel.

“We lean against railings
Describing the colours
And the smells of our homelands
Acting like lovers
How did we get here?
To this point of living?
I held my breath
And you said something.”

I just hope I always remember.

Even if for no other purpose than to run the other way next time I hear it.

I got to thinking how most people think about their weight and size daily.

Probably more than that.

Fat, thin, whatever.

We scream at ourselves silently about what we eat, and how much of it.

Well, after we’ve stuffed ourselves with warm, fatty deliciousness. 10 minutes of joy, a few times a day. I mean, that’s as close to nirvana as most of us will ever get.

When the thing we should be focusing on is being light of spirit.

They say you lose seven pounds when you die. That’s the weight of the soul.

Granted, on the eve of democracy’s death in broad daylight, the weight of my soul is equivalent to what my digital scale spat out this morning.

Seems funny to worry about the Triple Peanut Butter ice cream I got from Cherry Smash that I enjoyed for breakfast today.

Once these fuckers rob us of our life savings and freedom to spend it, I’ll wish I could get these pre-Auschwitz 2.0 days back.

Because they will be gone and one day, too, so will we.

Let’s see. FOTUS was the one who raised a stink about TikTok during his first vladministration.

The Biden administration carried that stupid torch.

Now TikTok is banned on the eve of FOTUS’ second coronation.

I’m sure he and Felonious Musk will find a solution to yet another problem of their own making.

Not sure which of the magalomaniac tech founders who’ve donated millions to this abomination will take over the Tickety Tocks.

But once again, the bread-and-circuses set will celebrate.

And the rest of us will all just be rats in a cage. Literally.

My people seem nervous.

I promise, I have given them no reason to be.

They are feeling a sort of way, and I love them because they are good at anticipating (and being ready to fix) problems.

I remember after a big layoff, I got a call from above. “WHAT ARE YOU TELLING YOUR PEOPLE.”

Um, what?

Partly it was that I was candid about that and previous layoffs.

The bigger part — that they were talking amongst themselves and with people who had just been laid off — was a thousand percent out of my control.

The biggest part was that I had three immediate quits afterward. Two to avoid a similar fate (in their minds; this never came from me), one because she was struggling with the doubled load.

I still try to be candid. Less so than before, though. I gotta look out for me more than ever now.

So, I withdraw when I’m in my head.

They figured this out.

One said to me they were especially nervous because their investments aren’t doing well.

Like, if something happens, they don’t have the cushion to fall back on that they’d hoped to amass.

That just about broke me. Half because they feel that way. Half because “I” have the same low-key worry.

I pretend to act dumb about math and money. And sometimes I do things like spending five grand to see The Eras Tour … four times.

I don’t regret it. I would have regretted NOT doing it.

Also, I used a combo of cash and credit, and I paid off that credit as soon as I could.

But I am also pretty smart about money. My mom became the family caregiver, yes, but she turned out to be a phenomenal saver and accountant.

And among the compliments she showered on me, was that I was very good at that myself.

Anyway, hearing concerns about sad broker accounts hit me hard.

After all, Little Miss Speculative Risk Lover over here bought a bunch of quantum stocks and saw those drop 50% last Wednesday. In one day. Fuckin ouch.

So I sold off my DOGE and a couple cryptos to get liquid again.

Yes I should have kept DOGE for FOTUS’ inauguration. But I was getting nervy and I wanted my profits banked while I wait for quantum to crawl all Mr. Hankey-like out of the shitter.

Look, we don’t live in a fair world. Continuous employment is not guaranteed unless you’re Howler, probably. Being able to get a new job at the same/better salary, within a year, is a pipe dream.

Fascism and the adjudicated rapist rattling stocks on an hourly basis is really the only guarantee.

Also your house could get sold out from under you or engulfed in a wildfire.

And all the cash and jewelry you stuck in a fire box in your freezer could get washed out to sea in a hurricane.

And your mom could die and your favorite cat could die and all your friends could die (and have) and then you’re also broke and unemployed and your family heirlooms are gone and you can’t even find a steak knife to slit your wrists with.

Anyway.

When my person expressed fears, I showed her my tarot card of the day in response.

The Four of Swords.

I said, “If we feel a certain way, this card reminds us there are still options available to us to save our own day.”

She too is a reader. And she loved that response. She said she will meditate on that card as soon as we hang up.

I wish we all lived in a world where we didn’t have health care and 401(k)s and brokerage accounts and general well-being connected to something that can end at any moment, for whatever reason.

I also wish we could all just wander off into the woods and be able to find food, shelter and sanity whenever we wished.

And I really wish that, once you’ve had enough catastrophic losses in your life, you didn’t always still have to worry about the next one.

It’s been nine months since I fed my street kitties.

I think of them every day.

I don’t leave the house in case I run into them. Says the girl who used to take regular walks and had a somewhat normal weight because of it.

They don’t come out anymore. Not often. They know they are unloved.

They know someone who loved them very much, doesn’t anymore. And I can only imagine how that scarred them.

I do see them from time to time. Usually the one I called Kadie who was named Whiskers. Saw Meatball once or twice. Maybe saw Fancy once.

Haven’t seen Poppins or Amelia or Smalls or anyone, really. They know this place is evil. The are good at hiding.

But I know they live here. That they deserve food and love and a warm place to sleep.

It’s little comfort, but it dawned on me the other day that the person who loves and cares for them most — Rita — was unable to get the HOA to leave us alone. To set up a safe zone. To chastise these asshole residents for abusing us and the cats.

Not blaming Rita. Not her fault we live among fuckface tRumpers.

But I did get sick of not being allowed to use bowls. To throw food on the ground. To be forced to feed cats by the pet walk where all the dogs piss and shit themselves. Where those same dogs go fucking apeshit because nobody fucking trains them.

I mean, it’s not the cats’ fault. But I try to assuage the overwhelming guilt with knowing I no longer have to go out at 5 a.m. or midnight. That I would happily buy those heated cat houses but no one would let me. That I’d leave water bowls without having residents threaten to kidnap the cats behind my back.

I still hope Carl, Latin Bitch Boy and Butterface on a Bike die. Violently, preferably. And slowly, even better.

But if the cats can move on or at least enjoy their nothing in peace, maybe that’s better than struggling to get some slop thrown at them on the cold and stinky concrete.

If I were in charge, man, things could be so different. But I’m not. And I have to accept that things could only change if I actually cared enough to be. And clearly, I don’t.

I always say I am the champion of waiting.

You can put a gift under my tree or mail me a birthday box a month in advance. I am that person who can leave it alone till the right moment.

That way I have time to build anticipation and the joyful reaction the giver no doubt desires.

It’s low-stakes though. I have the item(s) in hand. I can afford to wait.

I come from a family of shoppers.

Not shallow shopaholics, as someone shouted from the troll holes she dug on the interwebs.

Rather, people who are thoughtful gift-givers. My grandmother, despite us barely having a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of, was always thinking of everyone else.

Especially me. Giving me pretty things brought her joy.

But hearing from distant cousins now with wonderful stories of Aunt Rose shows that she was beloved across the family. And not even for gifts, but for her time and wit and her phenomenal back-scratches.

Mom and I shopped together all the time. At our peak, we hit seven Ross Dress for Less stores in a day. We didn’t buy a ton — usually we saw something in a small at one store and and XL at another store and so we’d set off to find the perfectly fitting large.

And we’d try new restaurants and be able to sleep well after our adventures.

We did that in different FL beach towns too. Of course we’d see the beach and the attractions. And I’d always buy a pink souvenir tank top somewhere that Cindy would make fun of.

But those are souvenirs of my time with my mom. So before you flap your yapper, know that I have an array of sentimental items that make me smile.

I usually don’t think of mean people. But I saw a pic of a happy person they know. And he looked stressed. No wonder, if Meanie Cottontrini snapped the photo.

Anyway, my theme this year is delayed gratification. It’s Jan. 17 and I’m already twitchy.

But that’s the point. I can do hard things. I have done hard things. I can do hard things again.

Kanye reminds me of someone.

And Taylor reminds me of me.

Speaking of Jan. 17, it’s the birthday of two people I know on the other side of the veil.

I have a mug that Sia brought me back from Germany on my altar.

And I have a photo of Janna and me leaning up against it.

Posed them w the blanket that Cocoa and Momma both died in.

“Me and my ghosts, we had a hell of a time.”

I dreamed about Janna two nights ago, and mom last night. Haven’t dreamed of Sia in a minute but I think of her often.

I have a new travel partner now. Two of them. I miss my spicy Capricorns (and Virgo, Momma!), but my Pisces and Cancer girlies are fun, too.

Taylor’s lyric, “There wouldn’t be this if there hadn’t been you,” comes to mind.

Sending love to my birthday girls in the great beyond. And to the ones who showed up — really showed up — for me at my lowest and alone-est.

Gratification in the friend department was a long time coming. (“It’s been a long time coming. BIG REPUTATION. And they said Speak Now-ow!”)

I’m just grateful it finally came.

Here’s to me getting the good luck that was denied to my departed family and friends. I am ready to receive it when it comes.