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.”

I don’t think about Toad much anymore.

But then with me turning half a hundred yesterday, I remembered turning 49 … wondering where the fuck my bf was.

He surfaced a couple days later. Not even …

“With a half-ass, “Sorry, how you been?”

Why do you do it?

Do you, just hate losin’?

Here you come again

Who could it be

It’s 3 a.m., no caller ID.”

He never was one for lying. He had been pulling double shifts at the police station for months and worrying about his dad.

And even though he was OFF FOR MY BIRTHDAY, he was out having margaritas by himself at his favorite Mexican places.

Megan Moroney is in heavy rotation here now.

Odds of him cheating, honestly, were slim. He wasn’t a great man. His winning attribute really was the fact that he preferred being alone. So, I finally let him.

In hindsight, I know the full sentence is “alone to drink.” But maybe he’s gotten better since work eased up and his dad isn’t suffering anymore.

Anyway, that’s how I rung in 49.

With expectations low, I asked the cards literally what was in them for half a hundred.

It’s … not bad.

The Emperor and I don’t have a lot of love between us. I’ve never connected with the number 4. Nor do I have much use for the ultimate patriarchal card. Even though this one is hella cute.

That said, he does represent structures. Ones I would like to burn down.

But, hey, I get it. If I want to succeed in a career, I’m no Taylor Swift. I don’t get to break the rules and write my own.

The Lenormand pull was a fascinating one: The Moon and Stars.

I showed it to Mom and she said that’s my wish for you — the moon and stars. The cards know.

I haven’t used my Pixie deck in a while. But I just charged a bunch of decks under this week’s full moon. And a couple salient points came back to me.

The Moon in Lenormand isn’t as sketchy as in tarot. It means a long-awaited wish coming true. Could be a promotion at work. Or could be a love interest/partner appearing from the shadows.

GURL. Give me the promotion ANY day of the week.

I figure I may only have 15 or 20 good years left. Maybe 25 if I beat my ancestral odds. Hook me UP with some money so I can enjoy a few of them, hey?

I don’t really know much about the Star in Lenormand anymore. If memory serves, it means not to push things. Just hang out and keep grinding. No rash decisions or moves.

Let the game come to you, if one were to quote a recently disgraced member of the fin pub community. One I could have told you 15 years ago was going to be problematic.

In any event.

This wasn’t a bad little birthday. Didn’t do anything but drink a $50 bottle of Cabernet and eat icing all day. Oh and I streamed Taylor Swift’s last Lisbon show and sobbed as “Long Live” was mashed up with “YOYOK” during the surprise set.

THAT’S MY JAM.

Publix cakes are ass and the only thing they get right is the flavor of the icing. Even if the decoration was not QUITE what I ordered.

Asking a dopey white man to give me “Taylor Swift / Lover album cover vibes but with a Speak Now lyric in purple” was always going to be a risk. But, it was good enough.

I may still set fire to the company that my friend paid big money to, to deliver a surprise gift by 3 p.m. that, a day later, I still don’t have. Fuck, I called the company myself and said refund her NOW.

So my friend ordered something else … at 10 p.m. … and that delivery guy got lost in my compound. I would say hilarity ensued but I was so frustrated and so hungry and the guy brought beer and left the price tag on the flowers.

My conclusion was that I just need to NOT “Speak Now.” And that’s the concept I need to apply to everything apparently.

Get back in the kitchen like No. 7 in Kansas City wants all us women to do. I mean, sure we can get mad at him (and we should), but face it. He’s just saying the quiet part out loud that all the Emperor figures in our lives want us to do.

Seriously, YOU WONDER WHY WE FUCKING PICK THE BEAR EVERY GODDAMNED TIME?!?!

I pick my cubby bear Cocoa every time.

This was from 2020 when we celebrated my birthday together for the first time.

I miss that baby so much.

OTD 2021.

I asked Mom to blow out my candle with me. Her wish was that we get more good days together.

Bella’s wish was to get the prettiest rose on the cake. Which she enjoyed thoroughly.

Anyway I got my wish. That’s all that matters. I will keep it to myself, though.

It’s funny. I used to be so busy or, at least, doing my best to look busy on past birthdays. This year, my bragging right is that I didn’t do much of anything. In fact, it was even more chaotic than I wanted.

But, hey, we made it to the other side. And that is really the best part.

My do-over for my birthday. A yummy peanut butter pie.

Can’t stay 30-ish forever.

What a decade it was.

I don’t know about the start of an age or just aging.

Thanks to my cousin and Eras tour buddy for the best birthday gift in the world!

I’m so depressed, I act like it’s my birthday every day
I’m so obsessed with him but he avoids me like the plague
I cry a lot but I am so productive, it’s an art
You know you’re good when you can even do it
With a broken heart

I have a lot of emotions on this day and none have to do with the calendar.

I miss my Cocoa. I am glad I have Mom and a job and one sane relative.

But life comes at you fast. Not fast enough, then too fast.

But this giant cake feels like forever. So there’s that.

When I was in school, elementary on up, I was never shy about letting a boy know when I liked him.

I always regretted it. I always got made fun of. And he was never worth the ridicule. But that was the thing. I never felt embarrassed or anything less than entitled to my thoughts.

Today I got my performance review. It was an interesting mix of 2s and 5s. Like, the extremes were mostly accurate, and kind of hilarious when you think about it.

A few things are stuck in my mind. And I will be up all night ruminating about those. But, Mom overheard me and she said you stood the hell UP for yourself. So, at least there’s that.

BUT.

While it’s fair to tell me I am way too casual (I believe I’d call it loose-lipped) with my staff, I don’t really look back with much regret.

Cringe, sure. I probably shouldn’t have, say, confessed how much I don’t like someone. Who has been a complete jerk to me publicly.

Dave always said I wear my heart on my sleeve. I wouldn’t pretend to be on board with some big fucked up changes six jobs ago. Eventually, I did get on board. I just needed to vent about it first.

(Also I got all fives for loyalty. Again.)

Anyway, maybe I won’t lose any sleep. I am loyal to me.

I say when I like the boy. And I say when I hate the girl.

I am QUITE attuned to my judgments. And they were accurate at the time I said them.

I know my lesson probably should be to just do my job and not let my guard down.

But I think my lesson is to continue to be my authentic self. I don’t apologize for liking XYZ or kissing ABC in class. (Oops!)

Nor do I cease to enjoy the Taylor Swift treadmill video when she faceplants. For reasons best left unexplained.

I’m turning 30-ish this weekend, which I am sure mINDY will celebrate wherever she is. Speaking of people I have An Opinion about. And people I got too close to.

I got too close to everyone, really. Icarus flies too close to the sun, too often. And most of these people have put the “Ick” in Icarus.

But honestly, I get close — I get what I need out of people, even if it’s not enough but it’s all they can give — and they flame out. Sucks but I don’t expect much more.

So whoever is snitching … or more likely, the AI is betraying me … whatever. I am not going to be any less me to appease anyone.

Maybe the lesson was that I should have changed the first thousand times it got me in trouble. Or maybe the lesson is to say deuces and say hey, it’s the rest of YOU and the things that MAKE ME CRAZY that need to change, eh?

I am sure nobody is viewing my blog, tweets or photos who finds me soooo pathetic.

So I can post a little ditty without them knowing or caring or responding, eh?

Sing it, Megan Moroney. Heard live at the Hard Rock Holly 5/16/24.

I bet one of his friends let my name slip again
And it sent you down a rabbit hole spinning
Now you know I sing, know my sign, know my drink
Size me up in a matter of minutes
Did you mean to double tap 
That spring break throwback from 2016 in PCB

I was going to fire up my deactivated Xitter account today out of morbid curiosity. But the 30-day reactivation window has long since closed.

Not sad about my inability to peek in on someone whose fashion sense I once described as Boy George in “The Crying Game.”

Really terrible of me to talk shit like that. I mean, what did Boy George ever do to me?

I don’t know why I was thinking of that necrotic wound. I am sure they are still seeping poison about me and making themselves the hero of a story no one cares to read.

“Trump has to be the bride at every wedding, the baby at every christening, the corpse at every funeral.”

That Xeet (Xit?) could apply to either of those festering, fungating fools.

I mean, really, what would I even see if I could see their nonsense again?

My guess is them using one of my life stories and inserting themselves in it somehow.

Or claiming that I breathlessly read every misspelled word.

Or giving HIPAA-violating, and Googlable, details about their kids.

Or bragging about things under the guise of “just providing content” that, again, nobody asked for.

Or, my favorite, ignoring or insulting people who genuinely try to engage in conversation in the comments.

Truly. You get one or two people who don’t realize this is utter fucking nonsense, and you are mad that they didn’t recognize that this was simply another soliloquy.

Anyway I haven’t thought a lot about death till Cocoa passed and something took her, like something took Kadie.

But I know someone who said five “shadow people” showed up for them. They didn’t recognize any of them. And they managed to avoid them.

What if this wretch showed up for me? You just KNOW that when I croak, I’m going to have my mom, grandparents, hopefully Sia and a few others I won’t name here, and a dozen cats. But what if I get fuCk you mINDY, scooter, psycho and more as my “five”?

Shit, I better get healthy if I want to avoid THOSE jokers.

I wish I understood the afterlife. And that at least I could get a day pass so I can decide whether that’s what I want or if I should raise some more hell so I can get sent somewhere that sounds way more fun.

Just don’t send me where those billowing Boy George frocks go to die, and I promise not to complain too much.

It’s Mother’s Day weekend.

My mind is mostly with my cousin, whose mom was diagnosed with cancer last June and she died in September. On a Friday. At 11:11 a.m. Listening to her beloved Ozzy Osbourne from her hospice setup in my cousin’s house.

The following Tuesday, my cousin birthed her first baby.

I can’t even imagine what it’s been like to be a mother without having hers to lean on.

And I really don’t know how it feels to see her first mother’s day as a new mom but also the first as a motherless daughter.

I think of my colleague who was knee-deep in her own cancer battle when her mom died unexpectedly. This was years ago.

My colleague never had kids of her own. The whole treatment saga of it all threw her into early menopause. But she’s practically co-parented her niece for the past decade. So, that absolutely counts.

She came to mind after I saw a thread on Xitter. A lady wished a very involved auntie a happy mother’s day. A week later, the kiddo’s grandmother (and auntie’s mother) found the nice lady to say thank you for acknowledging her.

I got to thinking about how someone out there made a variety of jabs at me for not being a parent; therefore, I didn’t have any right to make any observations on anyone’s parenting skills.

Sure, let’s forget I have eyes and ears and a pretty good memory. But even factoring that out, I know what it’s like to love someone or something so hard that you would do anything in your power for them.

I’m not just talking about animals.

For saying they took the time to read, what, 25 years of my blog entires in one sitting (hey, thanks!), they don’t see the private posts. The handwritten journals. The endless to-do lists. The piles of notes from conversations and visits with medical and other personnel.

And before dipshit tries to say they know what I mean, they don’t. As ever, they are talking out of their arse and would be wise to continue to just sit on it.

(The funny thing is, said individual always felt the need to “explain” things to me, via the internet. Or should I say mansplain. In any event, I don’t owe nobody dick and that’s exactly what they get.)

In any event, I feel like I get held back because of a lack of dangly bits. And I feel like I’m completely underestimated because of a lack of legal dependents.

As if the three-ring circus I run — work, home and other assorted nonsense — isn’t fuller than all their normal “full plates” combined at times.

So I guarantee, if I have an opinion about something — eyes, ears and memory aside — I have plenty of experience being good to people. And being really fucking good at taking care of MuLtIpLe people who are not named Goddess.

So, I know about which I speak when I see otherwise.

So, wish a happy mom’s day to the aunties, the cat moms, the caregivers, the babysitters, the financial supporters and/or everyone else who stepped up to give a shit when people who should have been required by law (parents, medical personnel, etc.) to provide moral, financial or compassionate care couldn’t be arsed to do so.

Don’t wish it to me, though.

“I don’t cater to all these vipers dressed in empath’s clothing.”