Caterwauling

Speeding ticket: $40
Cell phone bill: $400
Late-arriving car insurance bill: $340
Monday being a planned vacation day but now full of meetings: yarr

Knowing I’m getting the fuck out of Dodge tomorrow
and have a Jacuzzi suite in the mountains for two nights?: Priceless

No sense in blogging when Sarah Buxton’s “That Kind of Day” sums it up just fine.

“Stayed out about two hours too late,
An’ now it’s hard gettin’ out of this bed.
Man, my boyfriend was a pain in the butt last night,
Now he’s an ache in my head.
Stubbed my toe on the dresser an’ I guess,
It’s too late to shower an’ do my hair.

Yeah, throw a ball cap on;
Hell, half the day is gone.
And nothin’ else could go wrong, whoa, oh.
Fifty bucks is all I got:
When times are tough, it’s time to shop,
An’ my credit card’ll buy a lot, whoa, oh.
What’s another bill to pay?
It’s that kind of day.
Hey, hey, hey, yeah.

Got 26 messages on my voicemail,
An’ I’ve only called my best friend back.
An’ I told her: “When it comes to my life these days,
“I’m somewhere between a cry an’ a laugh.”
She said my Mom just called her,
An’ said I look like I’ve gained five pounds.

Ho, oh, slip into my fat jeans.
Overdose on mint ice-cream.
Treat the day just like a dream, whoa, oh.
Hope I see someone I know,
An’ I’ll smile an’ put on a show,
Say I got somewhere to go, whoa, oh.
Everyone’s got something to say:
It’s that kind of day.

Standin’ still on the interstate,
An’ I swear some old lady,
Just flipped me the bird.
(Did she just flip me the bird?)

It’s gotta go up from here.
Today is gonna disappear,
An’ nothin’s gonna interfere, whoa, oh.
Gonna buy myself some flowers,
An’ then spend a couple a-hours,
Talkin’ to my Higher Power
Ask Him why life’s this way.
(Ask Him why.)
Yeah, I’m gonna ask Him why my life’s this way,
(Why’s my life this way?)
There’s just no tellin’ what He’s gonna say.
Oh, it’s just that kind of day.”

Do you ever wonder about whatever it is you’re waiting for — whether it’s the biggest test of your faith or the (next) biggest waste of your time?

“Sky fell down and pulled us in
Stole away my oxygen
And left me standin’ breathless there with you
The ocean wrapped around the sun
The smell of June — the taste of your tongue
Was all I’d ever need

But you - you keep on waiting
For the sun to come around
And you — you keep on waiting
For something better — better off to come around.”

– Sister Hazel, “Come Around”

A near-perfect, dreamless slumber was hideously interrupted by the stench of cat ass. Maddie apparently thought it a terrific idea to throw up on one side of my bed and then go to the other side — right in front of the fan that blows at my bed — and take a hot, steaming dump at 5:45 a.m. *barf*

T-minus three days till I step on a plane and get the fuck away from that nut house for a while. I might even get on the return flight, although at this point? We don’t know. …

Man, I seriously have nothing to say. Wow. Revel in the silence, people.

I booked my hotel for the weekend. Jacuzzi suite, kids. I may never leave it and the rental car will be a waste of $120.

Actually, I have to vacate the glorious room on Monday as I have a quickie work commitment while I’m out where the deer and the antelopes play, so I downgraded my room for the last few days of my trip. Can’t go charging that one back to the company, although a girl can dream.

It’s been a rocky month. Man, I don’t know how I’ve made it this far without charges being brought against me for the mere images of homicides I could have committed. All I have to say is this, as it applies pretty much across the board: If you promise to not talk to me, can I get that in writing? Pretty please?!?!

In other boring news, I’d like to know how my insurance company cannot manage to send my policy/ID cards to my new address (and I’ve been here six months) BUT the idiots are sending my deceased grandfather’s bills to my address. Apparently anyone with my last name EXCEPT me can get a bill here!

I wish I only had to pay the $100 that his monthly bill is — shit, they’re telling me that mine is $160 a month — and that was the cheapest quote I could find! (Fucking D.C.)

Work is actually manageable, which means I’m either slacking off or forgetting about something huge. Actually, it’s more a testament to the fact that I hired really well. How did I used to do all of this stuff by myself? And why do I feel guilty now when I can leave at 6 p.m.? *sigh*

In any event, if I can just get this week’s project pulled out of my butt off, I will be a happy girl. Otherwise, next week’s work trip will be a waste of thousands of dollars in manpower and equipment. No pressure, of course.

Excellent, I’ve just put myself to sleep. And probably you, too. In that case, Zzzzzzzzzzz …

No time to write, and nothing worth writing home about, anyway. Am surfing Expedia for hotel rooms in a mountain resort town for this weekend because plane tickets have been procured and yet a landing place has yet to be determined.

I’ve rented a car because it’s mandatory to drive far, far away from the cliched airport town. Am also wondering whether it’s smart to pack a winter coat. Not like you’ll catch my ass skiing or anything (hah), but you know, wouldn’t want to put anyone’s eye out along the way. (It’s 39 degrees there right now.)

I’m trying to find a nice hotel that won’t break the bank because I’d actually like to get some spa services done. (That mountain air is good for ya, but I’d like to get a little more pampering than that.) Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me I CAN do it.

Mini-vacation, you’re almost mine. …

So I don’t want this blog to turn into any more of an existential crisis than it already is, but it was my second week at church, and I’m not quite finding that sense of belonging that I thought would be instant and maybe even imminent.

Today’s message was on marriage and compatibility and understanding our differences and learning to find common ground. Which I guess I could apply to other relationships in my life, but right now, I’m just crabby about the concept because I feel like I’m always the one making the compromises and, frankly, I’m sick of it.

These days, I do things to avoid repercussions — avoiding an argument, dodging a multi-layer guilt trip, escaping somebody looking at me with sad eyes because I’m not the person they expect that I should be. Moreover, I am trying so hard to retain/generate things that make me happy (or would make me happy) and, yet, the feeling that what little shred of sanity I can cling to is ONLY important to me.

Perhaps the most interesting part of today’s message is that women in particular either feel like we’re “not enough” or else we’re “too much.” We’re not pretty/skinny/motivated enough some days and other days we’re too career-focused/self-involved/emotional. They said that men would rather be alone than feel inadequate, and yet women don’t seem to know how NOT to feel inadequate sometimes.

For me, I feel inadequate in this church setting. I’ve gone twice (three if you count the day I came as it was ending) and I have yet to feel any sort of connection to it. Maybe it’s that I’ve spent my life as an agnostic as well as someone who occasionally sticks her nose in a spellbook to figure out how to bring about good things, but I feel like a fraud if I call myself a Christian.

And I couldn’t be at a better church for someone like me — to say it’s not your typical hellfire-and-brimstone approach is an understatement. But I still feel lost. The friend who recommended it, well, I have yet to run into at this place, which I’m almost taking as a sign that I’m basically just going and hanging out somewhere for the sake of killing time.

And while we’ve never made plans to run into each other, I figured I’d at least connect to some side of my spirituality somewhere along the line. But I haven’t, not yet. I’m going to have to miss next week’s session, so if I know me, I probably won’t get up the motivation to go back in two weeks or so.

I feel like I’m going as an escape. That I can have 90 uninterrupted minutes of “me” time — two hours if you add the driving time. And if that’s the case, why not just go to a coffee shop instead?

There’s a mixer for the new people tonight, which I’m skipping. I didn’t plan to skip it. It is still part of my “carving out ‘me’ time” plan to get to know these people I’m sitting next to each weekend. But my time is being demanded elsewhere, and if it saves me a guilt trip or 20 to stare at them like they want me to, then I guess that’s what I have to do, to get some goddamned peace.

I thought I was ready to start my spiritual journey. I really did. But a part of me is wondering whether I’ll ever be ready, because right now I need some guidance and I thought this was the way to go about getting it, but I don’t know. Somehow, I feel more lost than ever when I look up at the sky and wonder whether anyone really is listening.

The real reason I’m annoyed at feeling like I have to miss tonight’s event is because I don’t think I’m going to find God in the sermons. I think I’ll find Him through involvement, interaction, action.

I’m about as well-adjusted as I’m going to get for the time being — but a part of me misses being involved in the non-profit sector because at least I was helping people, from time to time. I don’t get much in the way of that kind of personal satisfaction anymore. Maybe I need to blow the dust off of my fund-raising skills and do what comes naturally instead of (just) forcing myself to show up and not really singing along.

But what I have to wrestle with, when I look at it that way, is why I’m more eager to reach out and connect with perfect strangers than the ones looking right in my face for some level of compassion.