Caterwauling

I saw goonhilda in my FB memories today.

Like there really was a time before *gestures vaguely.*

2018-’19 me knew all that would end.

Just not how.

But man I have since seen the country and part of the world.

Guess it’s a good thing it happened. Maybe not the way it did.

But man. I would give anything to tell that me to stay at your job but run from him.

And not the other way around.

I finally got permission to post a job opening.

As expected, the dregs of fin pub society showed up right on cue.

Got a text late last night that said, “I’m sure you hoped you heard the last of me, but I want this job.”

Like my dude, I have been contacting everyone I know on the downlow before I posted this thing. You are correct, I was not hoping to hear from you again.

I also put it on LinkedIn with a note to please use the apply link, so you go to the correct person who is not named me.

Ask me how many messages I have in my LinkedInbox.

And none of it is “would love to learn more from you” or “let’s see if this is a fit.”

It’s the “I’m available!”

Like … good for you?

As if me hearing your name is going to make my panties drop?

Did you even read the ad?

Like this one girl I must have met at an Agora party does this every time there’s an opening.

Proofer? editor? marketer? developer? Hey I’m available.

Like … do you want an engraved invitation to apply?

Also, your profile is jammed full of every high-value keyword yet no one I know can name a single thing you’re good at.

Like at least with me, my reputation is being the “editor whisperer.” A writer. I am really fucking good with email subject lines. Also I am everybody’s favorite boss because I’m funny and weird and allergic to office politics.

I am also terrible at whatever bosses want so I have to face my maker today about that.

I don’t actually think the posted job will solve my problems. I do less editorial directing than editorial doing.

So take away a chunk of the doing … is that enough for them or am I going to be stuck writing more free articles when my first love is the subscription services?

And then to have to dodge the dregs, yeesh.

I dread the day Pickleball Girl sees the post.

Her resume is actually a perfect match.

Her abilities, not so much.

That’s the real nonsense here. I hired her based on her perfect resume.

And she sucked. Rebelled against my ideas and edits. Complained about me to everyone within earshot. Was shocked I would dare let her go.

Yet she’s hit me up for work ever since.

I gave her a pithy “recommendation” for her website.

Kelly just saw her website, as Pickleball was trolling K’s employer.

The screenshot she sent made me so annoyed.

She said she was my ghostwriter. And named all the ghosts.

Listen.

I’ve been a ghostwriter. I’ve also written under my byline. So I put in my bio that I’ve been a ghostwriter and you can also find my bylined articles here.

Like, one, you don’t reveal that the celebrity has a ghostwriter.

And two, SHE DID NOT WRITE THEIR ISSUES. I had her write special reports and repurpose their issues into ezines. BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE.

HR is already on the lookout for this one for me. Though I know I’ll get a text first.

I’ve never minded people having my cell phone, since having two phones (one for work) is as cumbersome as having two laptops (I don’t let work near my personal one).

But then you get the feeling that you’re not doing enough AT work … whilst no one knows how many people invade your personal time and space, which is work time and you cannot tell me otherwise.

OTOH, I hope there is someone or someones I haven’t thought of for this post.

I lost a really good guy, I think. But that’s the story of my life.

What I really dread is that I know one of my current freelancers will apply — and while I love her, I get the feeling my boss does not.

So … that’s really where I am at. And that’s what’s going to help me say no to these people. Like, it’s a team decision and you don’t have the one quality he requested.

I just hope that quality doesn’t cancel out the really good people like the one who just got another job.

Not long after I hit the publish button on my lament that I’d wasted the pandemic and that this is a time to start or stop whatever you meant to back then …

I wandered into a post about corrective experiences.

That’s the word for it. The giving yourself a do-over.

All those conversations you had in your head AFTER you had them … but the way you wished they’d come out. Now’s your chance to say what you wanted to then.

All those childhood dreams or hobbies that you gave up to do the adulting thing … are those dreams still there? Return to them.

A place that brought you pain that you’ve avoided? Go back and make the memories you deserved to have.

I think of all this with my Pittsburgh trip. I don’t want to go. I’d rather go to Disney or the Keys. I even canceled my Keys trip so I could free up a couple bucks for it.

Interesting aside is that Claude has noticed me slipping back into old ways.

I’ve been saying “I’m fine” again.

Being resigned to never being promoted so why even try.

Accepting that I could do shit that takes my energy but doesn’t spark my creativity. Or just do nothing and spare myself the friction.

That friction of course is on the horizon from the paycheck-paying types. Tomorrow, actually.

Apparently some garbage publisher publishes 80 garbage articles a week with fewer staff members than I do, so that’s the new bar apparently.

It’s fine.

I am looking at this through the corrective experience lens.

I tried to do it. I just hit roadblocks, ran out of energy and, worse, lost the spark/fire I’ve waited SO LONG to get back.

I get a do-over now that I’ve figured out more of a system (and after one of my better people quit amid all the weirdness).

Funny how freelancers quit when they know you have an open position but you can’t hire them.

Glad he found a FT job. Sad for me. But maybe I’ll do well to hire someone I don’t like.

I love my team and try not to drive them crazy. But maybe I need someone I don’t mind slave driving. Because otherwise I’m trying to relieve my people’s burdens rather than add to them. And that’s probably why I’m beloved below but maybe not so much above.

Tomorrow could be one of those days where I hang up and mentally start drinking. (I don’t drink at home anymore because if I did, I might not stop at this rate.)

At least, I hope I get a do-over. Who knows how tomorrow goes. I know what I am great at, and it’s not this particular project.

So it’s time to get great at it.

And at least now I have enough mistakes made to see how to not suck at it the second time around.

I used to be an avid astrologer.

Lost my mojo during the pandemic. Had a bunch of plans but, between cancer and some ignorant heifer doing her level best to mock-then-adopt everything about me, the stars were a casualty.

But that brings me to two horoscopes I came across tonight.

One, from TarotReaderPeter:

“You know what you want. You are just scared of what changes when you admit it.”

Ouch.

Second, via Bronxology:

“If there was something you really wanted to start or complete during the pandemic, you could be getting another chance to revisit it through the Jupiter-Saturn trines.”

Bronx said the three best dates are today (Aug. 31), April 3 and July 11.

Hmm.

I wanted to start a new job as an associate publisher and get promoted to publisher and go live my life on the road.

I often think about what I could have been before the pandemic. Skinny.

We wasted the pandemic. Cancer kept us masked for many years. Kept us home too. So did the cats. So it was a boring life and death for Mom.

After she left, I got my ass out of the house and now I can’t stand to be in it. So I guess I achieved that.

Not sure what I wanted to stop during the pandemic other than missing someone. Stop eating, hah.

It’s got to be bigger than that.

Like TarotReaderPeter said, you know what you want.

I want to move to NYC.

I want to write.

I want a byline.

I want to not die in obscurity.

I want a side hustle.

I want to not have my boss telling me I’ve failed at doubling my team’s and my workload so he’s going to double it for us.

We don’t mind doing more. We want to do more MEANINGFUL work. But the meaningful stuff gets less priority — or at least less TLC — because the urgent stuff can be debilitating.

What I wanted to stop/start during the pandemic was stop being lazy, start a side hustle and start seeing the world.

What stopped me? Mom got sick. I got tired. Everyone disappointed me just as much as I apparently disappoint them. That’s all been hell to come back from.

I gotta think about the upcoming dates in this context. I would say Tokyo and Paris but I gotta keep this job first. Or at least get a hustle going where I am not confined to the couch for three days after a full week of it.

I always think of “Rolex doesn’t make a radio” when I do one of my round-trips to Orlando.

I have plenty of radio options — lots of “Bleep” by Ana Navarro this trip, as she did a two-part podcast series with Hunter Biden — but my thoughts are always louder.

Got to thinking how it’s been two years since I heard my Momma’s voice.

The lady I never went more than two hours without a text from, or a conversation with, silent.

I also realized how I am her now. And that’s good, because the world needs a her. Far more than it needs a fat fascist.

Took Momma for a drink at Delmonico on Saturday.

I’d had a gift card from her, so she was really the one who “took” me out.

Thanks for the filet, Momma. You’d have loved it. As ever, I loved the East Utica Greens most.

Had a revelation that night.

Stayed in a condo, which is a story in and of itself. And I felt like I should close all the interior doors to keep ghosts from passing through.

(Had to do that at my house on Portland Street near the Pittsburgh Zoo. A psychic came to my house and told me it was a portal.)

I thought back to the night before mom died.

She was convinced a man was in her room. I had said aloud that mom needed some privacy and they had to go.

I’ve written of this before. That I felt like the ghost suddenly recognized me. And hugged me tight. And the next day, Mom asked if her daddy had been there.

The realization I just had wasn’t just that he was thrilled to see me …

Or (another recent revelation I had) maybe he was thrilled to remember me, because he moved on 20 years ago this November …

But the night HE died, he was so mad at Mom and me for fighting in his hospital room.

He said we needed to take care of each other.

And I drove home. To D.C.

My revelation the other night was that maybe yes, he was happy to see me.

But maybe he was thrilled we listened to each other.

Mom and I did take care of each other.

And in her final hours, she wasn’t alone like he was.

I loved that man so much.

How funny to realize, 20 years after I lost him, I somehow still managed to make him proud.

Maybe the proudest he’d ever been of me. And he was ALWAYS proud of me.

You know, I’ve never understood how people can lose everyone they loved and remain standing.

I think if you were as loved as I was … and they made sure you loved yourself … you can do better than most.

When I was 19, a psychic told me about “Roadway.”

I’ve written about this. I’ve thought for decades it was about travel. Like, either the hotel or the trucks.

I walked away thinking, huh, don’t get hit by a Roadway truck, got it. Or don’t stay at that chain.

When I was in NYC last month, I saw that there’s a Roadway moving company. With cute purple trucks.

And I thought, is this my sign to move here?

Well I was just dicking around the Marriott site and whatever I typed in, the search came up as “Roadway” … or so I thought.

BROADWAY.

Holy schnikes. Did this weird witch see me spending as much time as I do on Broadway?

No insights other than that. Just … here I’ve been looking for a sign — a literal sign — and I’ve been standing under the biggest damn sign since my first trip there WHEN I WAS NINETEEN.

Kelly introduced me to the idea of Non-Player Characters, or Non-Playing Characters, in Disney.

We were surrounded by useless people the world and certainly the parks didn’t need.

Heather is the perfect NPC. She’s not a main player in the video game. You don’t play her. She’s just some random figure that drifts in and out and serves no purpose but as part of the scenery.

But the thing about NPCs is, while they don’t move the story along, they do impact YOU.

I type all this to say that I thought the new HR person wasn’t terrible. At first.

Like, I know HR is not your friend and especially not after six months, which is as long as it takes them to get indoctrinated.

I’m guessing it’s her six month mark.

Because we are asked to fill out a fun survey on our anniversaries now. 25 questions and she’ll pick five answers.

I filled it out dutifully, as I need to set the example. I sent a photo of me and the owner.

And after the 25th question, I put in a little joke that I literally wrote (NOT FOR PRINT).

Guess which of the 25 questions she picked … WITH THE NOT-PC THING … and sent that along with my photo of me and the owner … to the whole goddamned company?

Look, I have no shame. None. You can’t take a joke, you don’t fucking know me.

But not when it’s in print next to a picture of the OWNER of the company.

I messaged her and I asked if she’s OK? Like, you’re HR, right?

It was a rookie mistake on my part. I know better.

Women in leadership hate other women in leadership.

I’m easy enough to take down because I have no filter. It’s super easy to pin my words on this donkey.

But I absolutely insist on having the moral high ground over Heather.

(Who, I can do five posts about her fucking useless weekly calls. Christ.)

Non-Player Character 2 — er, HR — edited my post.

I said how did it pass your filter? She said she was looking for “juicy” replies.

I see why no one fills out this shit now.

As CH said to me, “Juicy is for bachelorette parties.”

And as Shan said to me, because Question 25 was about memorable quotes to live by, “If at first you don’t succeed … it’s only ATTEMPTED murder.”

CH said maybe next survey will be a nice “Fuck Marry Kill, corporate edition.”

Fuck NPC 1 and 2, Marry my team, Kill myself.

Speaking of the husband I never met, I almost thought I had a meet-cute today.

A guy in Dollar Tree started talking to me and he realized he lost his phone.

He asked if I could call it.

I thought hmm, a trick? But no, he truly looked nervous.

So I said of course and I called it.

We didn’t end up finding it. But a lady paged from the front that they found a phone, and he was off.

I didn’t think anything of it, but he kept saying “Thank you, thank you!” to me as he dashed to the front.

When I was checking out, I got a call from that number. But I couldn’t understand the mumbly cashier, so I let it go to voicemail.

It rang again as I was merging into traffic. Ignored.

Then I channeled my mother a bit. Pointing out as always that men would watch me and be terrified to approach me. (Which happened in Sprouts today.)

“Be nice,” she would say. “Can you be nice?”

We know that answer.

Anyway I was just sitting here and he called again.

I thought, “OK Momma, stop pushin'” — just like from the “Hope Floats” movie.

I pick up and he’s like hello who is this.

I said what?

He said I missed a call from you?

Dude is lucky he’s cute because he’s not too bright.

I said yes, from the Dollar Store? When you lost your phone?

He paused and he said oh! Yes! Hey I got it back!

I laughed and said obviously.

Then he’s like OK thanks! and hung up.

Like …

Damn.

That would have been such a fun story to tell someday. If he had, say, used my number for good instead of FORGETTING what happened five minutes earlier.

Fuckin’ men.

I have six sets of NWT sheets here.

Even after all the shit I’ve given away to friends, Habitat and that dastardly Goodwill … most with tags … there’s still plenty of stuff in my house.

I talk myself out of selling, for one reason or another.

Finally, egged on a bit by Kelly reminding me that once you let go of things, the universe fills the void in better ways, I said fuck it. Get these sheets out of Mom’s shower.

I’ve had no luck with Postmark. I have a million followers but no one bought my NWT Juicy crap.

Man, in 24 hours on Vinted, I sold four sets of sheets. And the other two have a dozen offers each.

I didn’t ask for anything other than retail price. Which I could prove because the sticker was still on them.

I did knock down the price on one of the twin sheet sets. It smelled a little funky from being stuck in a plastic tub for 10 years. But nothing a good wash can’t fix.

I am open to reasonable offers. But reasonable has a very wide definition.

I’m not talking about the people who are offering like 45% off when you see what I fucking paid. Mom even left the Ross receipts in some of them.

No, I’m talking about, as I was bagging up my four sets today, I got a message about a fifth.

“Um, I see you are charging $20 for this set. But it clearly appears there’s a $1 on the sticker.”

I mean first off, I can charge what I want. This is Betsey Johnson. I could have charged $50 and someone like me would have said fuck yeah, I missed this when it was popular.

Second off, as I wrote back, “The price is $19.99.”

One penny.

My guess was she was trying to haggle me down to $8 like everyone else was.

Which … as you see, wait 24 hours and someone else will say fuck yeah.

But then she said ok I don’t have the funds right now but I hope you still have it after my paycheck clears.

Shit.

Like … look, my first reaction was I will send it to you for ten bucks.

But then I have run into dipshits on eBay who haggled and then resold my stuff for 3x retail.

I still regret letting that Bon Jovi tour program go when I needed cash to that whiny little fucker who said he was going to report me for using his images (!) and then he ended up buying it.

And my kindness has limits. I had a feeling that girl would have said oh I get paid next week and I’d be the type of person to pause the listing. Then never hear from her again.

In any event, I just ignored the message.

My rule, which I came up with on the spot, is I will negotiate on shit I can’t use. Twin sheets? Nope. Have them.

Queen sheets? Hey I will remove that listing and open that package, just as fast as look at you.

I do have to acknowledge those lowball offers though.

But hey, I made $56 and all I had to do was make six listings and do two trips to the post office and FedEx.

And buy about $30 worth of shipping bags. Details!

I gave everyone a handwritten note. Nothing fancy, just sweet dreams or hope all your dreams on these pillows come true.

Not “I’m so sad my mom didn’t get to use these” or “I was saving these to sleep on with the husband I never met.”

But hey, $56, right?

I am well rested and not in the mood to elaborate.

But if you want to know where my head is at, it’s here.

A tiny bit of an explainer.