Caterwauling

What a weird little day. I awoke before 6 a.m., sobbing. Which usually denotes a weekday, so I was understandably confused. I don’t know what the hell I dreamed about that made me nuts, but seriously, I thought the ritual was to cry oneself to sleep and not into waking instead!

I do remember one of my dreams. I was in Old Town Alexandria, at a wedding. My own. (Stop laughing — I dream in fiction!)

It was a breezy summer day and I was wearing white (Dear Peanut Gallery: I KNOW. Move along now.) and a bunch of us were at The Chart House, hanging out on the pier and laughing, drinking and being merry.

I’ve never eaten there, as it’s out of my price range. But I used to love to go hang out on the boardwalk and sit on the rocks of the Potomac River and watch planes descend into National Airport, so it seemed right to be there.

I saw lots of familiar faces (several of you bloggers were there, even if I’ve never seen you before, I recognized you from your profile pictures). But more importantly, I saw the groom. So, any man who meets me in the next 100 years should be forewarned that I will be peering into his face to see if there’s a match or even a passing resemblance. I don’t ever see faces in my dreams, so this was strange in and of itself.

But the real bizarro part of it all was that everyone was doing a champagne toast, and I announced that I would be leaving the workforce to be a full-time wife and mom.

*faints*

*loads gun, cocks barrel, splatters brains on wall*

So I was telling this dream to my mom today (she requires encouragement that I’m not entirely disinterested in the concept), and she swears she had a dream the same night of me with two little boys. Hahahaaaaaaa, funny! *shudder*

Talk about taking dreams and turning them into nightmares!

CHEERS!

I expect I was thinking about kids because my best friend had called when I got home and we talked for a few hours, well past 1:30 a.m. She told me how she’d handed sippy cups to her kids, ages 1 and 3. The 3-year-old sat next to the younger one, put her arm around his shoulders, clinked her sippy cup to his and said, “Cheers!”

My friend was stunned because she’s never had a drink in front of them. But before we knew the first one was even in existence, she and I had done many rounds of clinked glasses. (We clink both the top and the bottom. It’s our rule. Not sure why — we were drunk when it came about, and it stuck.)

So, I’m sure her daughter learned it in utero. In any event, we’re so proud!

It’s bad enough that I’m rolling home past 10 p.m. with a pile of work still undone, but to come home to cozy up my favorite spot on the floor (as who could afford a couch with fucked-up memories of vacation plans gone awry to recover from?) and see a big, wet shit streak on it courtesy of my elder cat just makes those long, crazy days worth it. Not.

Some days, I just get tired of having to be OK with the fact that this is how it always is and this looks to be the best it’ll be for the time being. It’s hard to dream from a shit-stained floor. Or maybe I’m not OK with it but I’m just too tired to react.

I was talking to a freelance instructor this week — an otherwise wholly unimpressive sort — about how she got her own business launched. And she said, very simply, that those who can’t stop thinking about it are never going to do anything BUT think about it. It’s the person who says, fuck it, why can’t today be the day, who’s got the best chance of making it work and just doing it already. It’s just that discipline thing that’s been my barrier, but when am I going to be motivated enough to overcome it?

I looked at her and realized that I’ve got just as much to offer, intellectually, not to mention I’d add my own brand of sparkle that would put everyone else out of business. And I wonder why not try. Seriously. Exhaustion and ennui have become a security blanket in my life. I feel OK if I’m disappointed and annoyed. I’ve learned to revel in my existential discontent. In fact, I don’t know how to function outside of it.

But I need to figure out how to reverse that and start loving being alive. A day without dysfunction, even if it’s all only in my head — can I handle it? Be encouraged enough to try a second day without wanting to tie a noose around my neck and jump off a chair? consider it a victory to achieve something more than scrubbing the cat shit out of the carpet? I s’pose there’s a first for everything!

Talk about the poison pen:

These trinkets were available to attendees of my company’s fall picnic today. There are days when I want to light myself on fire instead of coming in for the day (early morning, regular business hours, evening, night, weekend — whichever), but then there are days like today when I’m fed and too stuffed to think. As you can tell, I’m doing everything within my power from getting started on real work. …

Me: “If you squint and cross your eyes, there are actually quite a few attractive men in our building.”

A colleague and I were chatting the other day, discussing the eye candy (or paucity thereof) in our building. We probably threw out three names, tops, and agreed on exactly one of them.

If only those boys knew how we talked about them when they thought we weren’t watching them. …

I woke up with one of those headaches that feel like someone’s driving a stake through my brain. You’d think they would have been wise and aimed it a bit lower — if it had gotten my heart, we’d all be put out of my misery.

I sit by my floor-to-ceiling window every morning, doing a little bit of work that would take a lot less time were I actually not still half-asleep. And I usually watch people on the street below.

One of my neighbors reminds me of me — built like me (poor thing), dresses like me (trendy jeans and shirts — I look like a freaking Old Navy ad on weekends). And I always notice that she looks, I don’t know, thinner on the weekends. Like we all stuff our pudgy pork roast asses into dress clothes and pantyhose all week. You can just tell how uncomfortable we are. I know I personally radiate tension when I’m in shoes that would best be used as a murder weapon instead of a self-torture device.

Don’t get me wrong — I love to play dress-up as much as (or even more than) the next girl. I like heels because I look better in them. I like skirts because at the right length, they too can add height. But I, and I suspect it’s true of my neighbor, look much better when there’s cleavage of any kind (boob or toe, not butt of course!) showing. It helps when there’s a little bit of skin to break up a sea of georgette and gabardine.

I’m not suggesting walking around in pasties (oh God no) but just a little freedom to let the skin breathe wouldn’t hurt matters. I feel so puritanical lately, that if I see a glimpse of someone’s skin like at their neck I think “Scandal!” GAWD. I really need to get out more.

While I’m complaining, I hate closed-toe shoes in general — dark shoes make me look shorter than I am (5′3″ and 3/4, babyee) and if they’re flat and closed-toe, I look like a pint-sized pudge muffin. Even though I wear a lot of black, it’s rare to see me in black shoes unless they’re strappy and wildly inappropriate. The pain of walking in them is worth it if you’re going to look good doing it!

Today’s horoscope: Evaluate your surroundings. Are you where you’re supposed to be? Could some old feelings of guilt or misplaced loyalty be keeping you chained to a situation that simply doesn’t fit anymore? Be honest.

No real comments on it. Just something that’s been niggling at me today. It’s sort of freeing, really. I have my reasons for doing what I do (and not doing other things). My visions are bigger than anyone can imagine. But there is some sort of, I don’t know, obligation if you will. To people, places and things. I’ve relinquished control in a big way to Fate and the powers that be.

Sometimes I think creative people get screwed in life. Now, I profess my love for my labrynth-like mind and spurts of brilliance that compensate for those other moments that are completely devoid of brainwaves. But what I fail to be able to do is motivate myself — I expect creativity and inspiration to come in time.

Boundaries elude me and I find myself daydreaming at work and thinking about work when I’m supposedly on “my” time. And that’s fine but I feel like I’m not accomplishing much of anything in either realm. But I’ve also got to force myself sometimes to be OK with not saving the world. I make myself nervous sometimes when I finish a day no closer to any goals I might have had — lofty goals at that.

I had one of those big “what if” moments the other day. What if I abandoned all decorum and restraint and reached out and shook the world off its axis. What would have happened? Am I more afraid that everything could turn to shit and life will spiral out of control, or am I not prepared for a situation in which everyone sits back and says, “I had no idea you could rock socks that way. What else do you have up your sleeve?”

Maybe I’m just afraid that I won’t take everyone’s breath away. And I couldn’t handle that particular aftermath.

“My hero said
You can’t hold the hand
Of a rock and roll man
But what if I can
What if I can?

What if I
Look to the sky
Check out the stars
How they shine
Into your eyes
They’re just like mine
Searching the darkness
For some kind of sign

Building our life
On the dreams we string together
Like Christmas lights.”

– Nina Gordon, “Christmas Lights”

Audio for this post would be very Homer Simpson-esque.

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