Caterwauling

I gave up being political on this blog because I felt pressure to HAVE to listen to the other side. And I’d rather not have the discussion than sit here reading things that make me mad. And I’m not sure why they tweak me — I guess I just share so much of myself here that I would think it’s clear that I CAN justify anything I say or do, but I don’t WANT to have to provide an explanation for everything.

Sure, discourse can be fun, but you know what? My politics are mine. You’re never going to change my mind, and if you’re not able to expand it, either, then find another blog you agree with. It’s that simple.

Bottom line, I am overly logical at all times. And when I go with my gut/heart, that’s when the discussion is over. And damn it, I already know who’s getting my vote for the Democratic nomination. And I hope she will go on to be president. I’ll do my part to make it happen, damn it.

That said, I LOVE the idea of Chelsea Clinton getting a second stint as First Daughter.

My politics are private. You know I’m a tree-hugger for most issues. You also may know that I do have a fiscally conservative bone in my body — although it may belong to someone else, depending on the day. But today I say it out loud — I’m a Democrat. I can, will and DO vote Democrat. And unless the party nominee for the upcoming presidential election is a total abomination in my eyes, he or she will have my support.

Politics are important to me when seeking friends and mates. I get SO FUCKING BORED at cocktail parties where these windbags go on and ON about whatever. I listen to a point. And when I feel I’ve encountered someone less concerned about their fellow citizens than they are about their personal ideals, I’m gone.

A friend of mine said of her loving husband, the one thing she’d change about him is his politics. That they sit on opposite sides of the fence, and man, does it piss both of them off. It also irks her that their votes effectively cancel each other’s out. It makes them NOT TALK POLITICS. Which, while we’re all fans of each half of a couple having separate interests, to the point that you can’t share something so personal without it breaking out into domestic world war, well, what’s the point?

I make it clear to people that I’m a liberal, although most times, you can pretty much tell from the surface. And that’s not to say that I haven’t had some fascinating discussions from the people from the “other side.” I met a gal at a party recently, a devout Republican, who’s probably more in favor of abortion that I currently am.

I mean, I’ll fight to the death for the right for it to exist without restrictions, but personally? I’m inching into my mid-30s. I hear the tick-tock of the clock loud and clear. It’s no longer a choice for me. (Extenuating circumstances aside, of course.) Now boys, I’m not out to trap a man with it. I’m just saying you’d better wrap yourself tight (get it tailor-made, if you wish) because unless you’re a genetic nightmare (and so many of you are — I wouldn’t want to perpetuate the species with your DNA), well, I can probably think of worse things.

I guess I get mad when people don’t vote for the greater good. On the other hand, it’s what we feel strongest about that we will stand tallest for. I don’t know who’s right and I don’t debate the theoreticals anymore because I want action, I want a resolution and I want everyone to get duties assigned to them or we’re never going to get off our duffs and achieve anything. And if we’re not on the same team, I respect that very much but your agenda is yours and mine is mine, and I’d rather share my dreams, goals and ideals with someone who isn’t going to poop on them.

In a world where I’m hard-pressed to name a single female millionaire who didn’t inherit her fortune from her daddy, the WaPo article on “Salary, Gender and the Social Cost of Haggling” (via Tiff) reminds me that we will work until we fall into our graves, and we could have at least afforded to live better, if only we asked.

Although differences in starting salaries are usually modest, small differences can have big effects down the road. If a 22-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman are offered $25,000 for their first job, for example, and one of them negotiates the amount up to $30,000, then over the next 28 years, the negotiator would make $361,171 more, assuming they both got 3 percent raises each year. And this is without taking into account the fact that the negotiators don’t just get better starting pay; they also win bigger raises over the course of their careers.

The overarching messages of the article, though, is that women who negotiate more are viewed less favorably than men who demand a bump in pay. Meaning, *gasp* people won’t think we’re still NICE if we want to be paid what we view is a fair price.

One thing I’ve seen with all the dating-service surfing is that men my age tend to be in a higher income bracket. Now, of course, I don’t know what they really do for a living, and in this Internet age, they could have multiple streams of income. But when they’re younger than me and making more, well, I just hope they’re lying.

But especially after having been without a job for awhile, I tend to be more of a “What? You’re not firing me? Awesome. I’ll take whatever.” But then I also know to never ask what anyone else is making because I’d probably go nuts if someone who worked fewer hours and produced less quality stuff would get compensated better because they’re supposedly part of the swinging dicks club.

Chew on this:

Women working full time earn about 77 percent of the salaries of men working full time, (Carnegie Mellon’s Linda C.) Babcock said. That figure does not take differing professions and educational levels into account, but when those and other factors are controlled for, women who work full time and have never taken time off to have children earn about 11 percent less than men with equivalent education and experience.

Yarr.

I vaguely remember meeting her at a cocktail party or a fund-raising event. I knew I liked her for a reason.

Anyway. I only did salary negotiations once in my life. And I was labeled a pain in the ass. (I believe that was the formal title.) I was SO underpaid, even for the industry, and they pretty much earmarked me as a problem child from that moment going forward. Meanwhile, I was professional about it, did my research, dressed up for the discussions, etc. And got screwed with my panties on, thankyouverymuch. I had some amount of victory, as I did get $2,000 more than they were planning on parting with. But I walked out feeling like everyone wanted a thank-you gift, like it had come out of their personal pocketbooks.

I had an informal discussion about my salary demands going forward at a different job, and while I thought I was shooting for the moon with my initial request (given how poorly I’d been compensated till then), the joke was that, “Hey, that’s ALL she wants? OK, then!”

So girls, strap on a set and ask them for more money, just like they would have no problem asking you to come in earlier, stay later and work weekends. So what if they don’t like you? You’re not in this to make friends; you’re not in this to simply make ends (try to) meet. “They” say not to make your life all about your work, but that IS what determines what level of comfort you can afford.

It’s days like today that remind me why the feminist movement is still necessary in this country.

A friend of mine just let me know that a mutual friend has some jealousy issues when it comes to me. And it made me laugh my head off because, really. If I laid out on the line everything that’s going on here at Chez Caterwauling, a lesser person would lodge a bullet into his or her frontal lobe. (Personally, I’d rather lodge one in someone else’s, but only if I get to choose the recipient!)

And I asked, um, does that person know how hard things are for me lately? That sure, there’s glory to envy, but it comes with more than its fair share of pain, frustration and strife? That, if I think about it, the person who is looking wistfully from the outside in actually has more of what I’d consider to be my ever-elusive fairytale?

The prospect of someone wanting to grow up to be me is certainly intriguing, although it’s slightly laughable at this point in time. Because I would rather have that person’s life. In a heartbeat. Give me a “Freaky Friday” switcheroo situation and I’ll be good to go.

Don’t get me wrong — maybe I’m mistakenly thinking the grass is greener elsewhere as just an impulsive response. I’m down with that. That’s clearly what has started this discussion, no?

But to quote yet another friend, *waving a hand from top to bottom,* “All this doesn’t just come together, you know.”

I don’t sit around debating all that’s wrong with my life or that’s wrong with me, for that matter, because it’s depressing. When I start to think about all the stuff that should bother me, well, it DOES bother me. So I don’t acknowledge it. I’m a happy person on the surface and I’m pretty well-adjusted beneath it, too.

If I would sit down and chart things that are going right versus life’s little shitstorms, believe me, the teeter-totter would break under the weight of all the steaming hot poo. So I don’t approach things that way.

But it’s funny to actually have someone — if not outright begrudge — then at least envy me for one or two things that I’ve busted my ass to earn, well, have at it. But if you had them, too, you’d get the additional Santa sacks of shit that I have to carry as well.

And that’s why I never want to trade places with anyone else. Nobody’s got it good right now. Everyone’s frustrated and on the edge in my world. Personally, I’m seriously beginning to take issue with the fact that I can’t drink on the job or at least expense my wine purchases But I also have enough sense to look at my previous life and know that while I might have worked fewer hours (except those two overnights a month. I don’t miss those), I actually like who I’m working for and that counts for more than you can imagine.

Of course, as I was getting screwed over at Ross (think Marshall’s or TJ Maxx meets the immigration office), I was thinking damn, I work too hard to have to shop at shitty places like this. My life is no longer my own and I’m wondering where the days went when my decisions only impacted me.

But I also remember being a scared rabbit, so afraid that saying or doing the wrong thing would be the death of me. It was a not-so-brief period when I started my new job, after exiting my last one with as much grace as I could muster amid the unfairness of it all. Hell, now I probably couldn’t get fired if I tried. (See “asking for alcohol expense account,” above.)

I guess I’m struggling, as do many people my age, with determining what’s really important. You hear these too-surreal-to-be-true (but oh, they are) stories about someone being diagnosed with something heinous or someone escaping a terrible ordeal with nothing but their life or their child — the one they tried so many years for and love more than life itself — having some sort of issues that love alone cannot fix, and man, you feel petty and stupid in comparison for revolving your whole existence around work, around finding a significant other and/or around rebelling against the very convention/tradition that you secretly crave.

So, you can envy me all you want to, but when it comes down to who’s living the life they want and who’s living the one they’ve wandered into, totally bewildered by the labrynth that never seems to unwind itself, then apparently the grass really is greener over here. And in the meantime, I will dream of what it’s like to play hooky “just because” and not feel this constant disappointment that I haven’t done enough in a day, as I stare over into other people’s yards. …

I already hate PETA anyway, and my own cats make it very realistic for me to support cruelty to animals. Or, lest I get the hate mail that I am absolutely uninterested in, let’s just say that animals are meant to be eaten, and I know a nice Vietnamese restaurant where I’m taking my pets for dinner. (Or, for someone ELSE’S dinner!)

Last night, Maddie took a wet shit on the living room floor after I’d gotten done cleaning the place. So I scooped that up and took it through the rain to the trash.

And then you’d think her bowels were empty. But oh NO, she had more left in her. I awakened this morning not to the scent of coffee or even freshness, but more fucking SHIT. And sure enough, in approximately the same spot, was another whopping pile of poo. Piles, actually — she got it everywhere.

It’s very hard to start off the day on the right foot when your cat shat on the rug and wiped her butt on the wall.

Just got home and am enjoying the free Wi-Fi from my neighbor. (Don’t hate — I have a wireless router in its box. I’ll hook it up tomorrow!) And I see I got five e-mails from the matchmaking service within the past hour.

I don’t know if it should go in my list of dos and don’ts of online dating, but I do notice the timestamp on these. Nobody sends e-mails during the day, which is good because that means they’re employed, but these midnight Saturday strolls through the profiles makes me wonder if you’re hornly and have mistaken the site for AdultFriendFinder.com or whether you’ve honestly just discovered a few free minutes to send an e-mail.

Which is why I’m not opening them till tomorrow. ‘Cause we all see when our notes get read. Besides, only the AFF ones require an urgent response!

(Not knocking AFF. It can come in handy in a pinch. Or, for one!)

I sometimes have a hard time thinking of myself as a “catch.” Which, of course, anyone would be lucky to get a few moments of the Goddess’ time. I know that. But, you know, I see some of these guys and think damn, is that too high to aim?

And then I see some of my responders (if I can’t read past the first line because IMspeak is more coherent or that they appear to be someone I would be afraid to take to a work function, and it’s honestly like, dude, aim lower) and just wonder whether replying would be the equivalent of a mercy fuck. And my standards are already pretty low, so imagine that. LOL.

Interestingly, I have a response from a woman. And it’s one of my best prospects, go figure. And trust me, it’s higher up on my “must respond to this” list than you might expect!

I took my car down to my old mechanic in Alexandria today because I needed an oil change and because the stupid thing is making weird noises. So I go into the waiting area and stood at the desk, where the girl proceeded to ignore me. She even left and went outside to rearrange the doormat. I’m not kidding. I was livid.

I made some snarky comment to the hot guy in the Steelers T-shirt who was sitting next to me that I’ve never been ignored when I go into that place. And finally the girl said, “Well, you’re IN the computer.” Well, DUH.

At that point, I had already decided not to go back, but I went outside to talk to my mechanic about the sound. So he said he’d change the oil and take it on a road test and he’d check back with me. So 20 minutes went by and the bitch at the counter tells me, “Your total is __.”

It was the total I usually overpay for an oil change and I asked what the mechanic had to say about the noise. She looked confused and rang me up. I went outside to see my car and couldn’t find the guy who worked on it, so I left. I ran some errands (the Harris Teeter across the street sells wine. Guess where I went). The car refused to start when I picked up my delicious bottle of King Estate Pinot Gris, but as I did get her started again, I left town.

So an hour later, I hear the same fucking noise I’d complained about. ARGH. At that point, the shop was closed and I was already in D.C. again, so fuck me on that. I really need to find a local mechanic. This is the second time I’ve left that shop with more wrong than I took it in with.

But hey, at least they’re not Comcast, whom I cannot escape because they’ve got the goddamned monopoly in this region. *sigh*

So, Comcast. When I moved in the spring, my bill went up to $120 for basic cable and Internet. It was $100 before the move, and I’d made no changes to the service. So I called a month ago, telling them we need to do a deal before I go to RCN, it’s kid-brother competitor. RCN can run cable over Comcast’s wires, but admittedly, Comcast has the better Internet service. And because my job is 100% time-consuming Web-based, well, sick days become work-from-home days and now I have a shiny new laptop so I can work from home more, so I can’t settle for less than broadband.

Anyway, they said they couldn’t do anything about the price, but they could kick in a digital converter/DVR thing. Great. Sold. So the guy said they’d have to deliver it to my place, which I said wouldn’t work because I spend my life away from here. He says, “No problem. You don’t have to sign for it. They’ll just leave it for you.”

Awesome. Really, I live in a very safe, secured area. I wasn’t worried about it getting stolen. So he gives me the UPS tracking info and that was that.

So I let a week or so go by before I tracked the package. The shipping info didn’t work. So I called the idiots in India — er, customer care — and gave them my tracking number. The girl says, “Oh, that’s our internal order number. That’s not the UPS number.”

I’m like, fine, when’s the package coming?

“Oh, it was delivered early last week but it says no one was home so they couldn’t leave it.”

*headslam*

So I’m like, uh, that’s not what the previous jagoff had told me would happen. I asked if I could just come and pick it up in person, and she said of course.

Which I finally just did, a month after the fact.

I have yet to hook it up because I have to call when it’s connected. And I HATE calling there.

I lost my username/password when I moved from Virginia to D.C. because the idiots weren’t competent enough to TRANSFER my service and I had to lose my good username and get one randomly assigned. So I tried their online live help the other night, which was EVER so helpful.

I start out as number eleventy billion in the queue, and when I was second in the queue, I suddenly became third, then fourth, then second, then next. Because apparently second and next are different things. And the girl gets on and tells me that their systems won’t let her tell me my information right now. I said, um, is there a better time to check back in, as I’ve just killed an hour waiting for nothing? She said she wasn’t sure.

Anyway, I’ve had just about enough stupidity for one day. I’ll save hooking up my new wireless router and my new cable box for tomorrow. If every day has to contain misery, I’d like to spread the wealth instead of adding more shit to the already-steaming pile.

I got myself so hyped up on caffeine, ginseng and nicotine to plow through my new projects till the morning hours, and I find myself here at 3 a.m. and not even two Tylenol PM will knock me out. And every time I start counting sheep, they start talking to me, reminding me of everything I’ve got to cram into this weekend.

Forget sending me a man, God. I don’t have the time, anyway. Send me a vacation!

I haven’t had two minutes to pick my underwear out of my butt, let alone think about blogging. (How’s that for a classy opening line? Charles Dickens is rolling over in his grave.)

But I realize, all my humor comes from work since I’m there a good 70 hours a week.

I’m sort of annoyed right now because I filled up my morning and now I’ve got this huge expanse of time before my three night products roll in. And SURE, I have plenty to do to fill that time. But I’m also aware that I don’t have the energy to do the “thinking” tasks that come up in the wee hours, and I’m not one to waste my brainpower on stuff that isn’t advancing my career in the interim!

Life’s just been a series of moments, not many of which are worth a mention, although some are:

• I guess I forgot that the iPhone is a U.S. exclusive. A counterpart of mine from London ran into one of my colleagues and used his iPhone to call me. (On mine, to boot.) He was so excited, he had someone take a photo of him talking on the sleek little wonder. Heh. Cute.
• I had a laughing fit over someone saying the phrase, “It’s as useful as a Nerf vibrator.” *hahahahahaaaa* I asked how you’d go about cleaning one of those — with Febreze?
• I was having an intense round of e-mail discussions with people about something I needed from them DAILY to help me with my DAILY task. And then someone asked me, “How frequently do you publish the Daily Blah Blah Thing?” I ventured, “Annually.”
• I was watching “Age of Love” (at work. *cough*) and realized that the network I’m watching it on? Its call letters are WHAG. Ah, irony, she is a cruel mistress.
• OH! Talk about me being fucking fried. I was trying to get someone on IM yesterday for an emergency request, which he didn’t exactly acknowledge. And I wasn’t exactly surprised. So when someone else IMed to ask what the first one had said, I replied, “Oh, he’s ignoring me AS USUAL.” But I sent it to the one I was TALKING ABOUT instead! *headslam*
• Of the 17 notes I’ve gotten through my dating service, no more than TWO of these guys live within a 150-mile radius. Seriously? I mean, kudos for celebrating the wondrous beauty over here, but GAWD, unless you’re moving to D.C. in the coming weeks, I’ll pass.
• Linklove: “21 Things I Learned About Being a Guy From The Simpsons”
• More linklove: “Stop Being So Nice to Your Co-workers” — I sent this to all the girls at work because it’s true of all of us. We cave and do things ourselves when people insist on being ass-pains. The nice ones DO finish last … and usually, it’s after midnight!

What a fucking WEEK!!!! And that isn’t even the BEGINNING of what I’m not saying!