Caterwauling

So I had put in for vacation days for the end of this past week because I have the house to myself. It just so happened that I got really sick on Wednesday and mostly ended up using Thursday and Friday as sick days. And it was the best thing that could have happened to me, I think.

I had grand plans to book a hotel somewhere near the ocean and meet up with some friends there this afternoon. (I even bought a bathing suit and an adorable swim skirt to wear over it. Me — who neither swims nor tans, nor wants to be harpooned, for that matter.)

I also had grand plans to accomplish 40 billion other things on this brief hiatus from reality. And I did some shopping, ruined a load of laundry with a brand-new item that bled all over everything, dragged a ton of crap to the curb that I have been sick of looking at, and basically got my groove back, so to speak.

I know all the kids are calling this a staycation. I just wish I could be on it longer than just an extended weekend.

My anxiety’s been really high lately. This is the third time I’ve battled with nerves — the first was working for Her Royal Pretentiousness, which bled into my move to D.C. in 2002; the second time was when I wasn’t working and it bled into my first few months at my new job, and again now. Having had the pleasure of spending way too much time with my mother, I see that it runs in the family. I also speculate that family is a cause of jacked-up nerves.

But in these few days by myself, in my own little corner of my own little room, I’m fine. I’m gloriously fine. Other than drowning in snot, of course.

I was looking at dining room sets the other day. I have a pretty decent-sized dining room, with nothing in it but boxes. I hadn’t finished unpacking when Mom landed on my doorstep, so her boxes are all piled in front of mine, and I haven’t had it in me to go through my old stuff. Most of it is clothing and I plan to donate it to charity, and so that’s my weekend project. Operation: Empty the shit out of some of the storage tubs, plz kthxbai.

But see, this is the key to making my anxieties subside — I’ve been feeling like I simply can’t buy a dining room table — not because I can’t afford it, but because I have nowhere to put it. Read: Life is the same as it was a year ago, and it will be this way next year.

*kicks that defeating thought to the curb with the exercise bike-turned-clothes-drying-rack*

It’s weird how walking through Marlo and RoomStore helped me to execute a mental breakthrough. Because now I want to like where I am. I always figured it might as well be painful to look at because it feels painful sometimes to live in. But maybe, just maybe, if I make some progress, it might inspire more progress.

Now, if I could do something about the 6,000-pound boulder known as writer’s block, I’ll be golden. But again, I need a new computer and computer desk and even though they aren’t in the immediate cards, I can look forward to writing again on a computer that doesn’t implode every time I try to run Firefox, Word and Photoshop simultaneously.

I think I’m in the throes of an early midlife crisis, although considering that I was having a late quarter-life crisis just a few years ago, I guess I’m always a Red Cross disaster area.

I’m just really feeling like I’m not doing what I was put on this earth to do. But I don’t know what that is.

At church last week, they were saying how Jesus said, “The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

I don’t hate my life, but I don’t love it right this moment, either. Well, I DO love it right at this exact moment — I can’t remember the last time I was this relaxed and happy — but I know that’ll change soon enough.

I am starting to see the bigger picture, though — that I can’t move forward from this spot till I help others to catch up to me. I did that before and got burned, though — some people will just always be a sandbag dragging you down and keeping you from going forward to where you’re supposed to be.

So I’ve learned to rebel against people who need help. I have no patience left for them, especially if they make it clear that they are not willing to make the effort.

But I wonder, if all the people who get a glimpse of defeat welcome it into their worlds, what would they do if they tasted some success? Would they embrace it equally or run in the opposite direction? Were there times that I myself was dragged along to success when I wasn’t strong enough to reach it — or even envision it — on my own?

I think all of this is pointing me toward a greater purpose. I wasn’t meant to be a cube monkey or sole proprietor of the litterbox. Not only do I have dreams that I seem to have forgotten, but I’m starting to feel the stirrings of visions I’ve not had the ability to see.

And they all hinge on one thing.

‘Scuse me — gotta go scrub my butt. Head cold be damned — there’s a world out there that needs a-changin’. And I’m the only one who can do my part of it. …

Iz my Friday. Thus is feet up day, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

I *~*heart*~* my new Madden Girl shoes with the zipper on the black straps.

A colleague came by to see me and saw my new shoes in my hands. He said, “Wow. You bought another pair of shoes. Imagine that.”

I don’t have much of a collection under my desk (a black pair, a gray pair and some pink sparkly flip-flops) but let’s face it, a shoe fetish never dies. It only gets more costly.

TGI my Friday, as I’m off the next two days. w00t!

Apparently threatening one’s management company that you will book a hotel room and deduct it from your July rent if the a/c isn’t in proper working order by the time you arrive home is the magical combination of words that gets your shit fixed … even if it’s after the major heat wave has broken.

I’ve officially hit my capacity for stupid. Seriously. There’s a trio of people about whom I am really starting to wonder — do they actually think they are smart/useful/worth the oxygen they breathe? Between the one who’s trying to get their contract extended (HELL to the no), the one whose mind *boggles* when you ask them to do their job and who is thrilled with the job they do (even if no one else is), and the other who refuses to fix problems that you ask for help with but suddenly meets with their team and declares to the whole company, “We have identified a problem! And we have asked Goddess to fix it,” well no goddamn wonder there’s a stapler imprint in the middle of my forehead.

Oh and the insurance company I’ve told six times to change my address? Stop charging me late fees when every fucking statement is returned to you and you have to forward it to my right address again. Type it into the fucking computer! The home office did, a year or so ago. But the local office? Not so much. I can has somebody in my life with brains? Plz?

Moving on to amazingly competent people who aren’t in charge, I’ve been asked what the experience of seeing Hillary Clinton’s speech live-and-in-person was like. Other than feeling like the country is 14-karat fucked that she’s not the nominee, well, it was magical.

The love in the National Building Museum on Saturday for her was outstanding. The hope that we all had was so fragile and raw — as we all shared our stories together about why this was our candidate, you saw a lot of pain in wondering whether anyone else could fill those stylish high heels and address the things that matter to us most.

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I may never get my A/C fixed after the rip-roaring message I just left for maintenance. I left my first one before the office opened yesterday; I walked in at 10:15 p.m. to find hot cat vomit and a thermostat registering 82 degrees when I’d set it on 70.

The only saving grace is that the apartment is gloriously empty. So, really, I have no complaints!

I had that tone of voice on the phone that I want to use with the no-talent assclowns that parade across my path, although I said the polite words. Just in a way that my teeth were clenched and I was dreaming of them all dying in a fire.

I did, however, say to kindly not bother sending me my lease renewal next spring, since the don’t seem to deem the A/C blowing HOT FUCKING AIR when the heat index is at 110 as an emergency.

Am ready to go sleep at work, since it’s morgue-like cold over there. Hmm. Not a bad idea, if I say so myself. …

An extraordinary human being: Hillary, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

I went to see Hillary Clinton today in hopes of accepting her (expected) ringing endorsement of her competitor and being able to move on as gracefully as she managed to.

Not so much.

I made a friend there, as we were crammed like cattle against the third-floor balcony railing. She reminded me of Blythe Danner, so I’ll call her that.

The moment Hillary emerged onto the stage with Bill and Chelsea in tow, I started bawling. Absolutely, unbridled tears. I have so much faith in her; I feel like we could be in such good hands with her; I stand behind pretty much everything she believes in. And when Blythe mused about the possibilities, I felt nothing short of broken.

We clapped, we cried, we applauded her statements about barriers and biases about female candidates.

We cheered when she said, “There are no acceptable limits or acceptable prejudices in 21st century.”

We were overcome when she said, “To those who are disappointed that we couldn’t go all the way, it would break my heart if in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged you from pursuing yours.”

There are a thousand more things I want to say, but I’m trying to figure out how to go out tonight when all I want to do is keep crying. It’s a good cry, though. I don’t know that I have ever had my heart truly broken by a man, but this election may be my biggest heartbreak to date. I’ve got to let this all out somehow, sometime, and no time like the present.

Of course she gave her obligatory rah-rah lovefest toward Obama. Blythe wondered whether he would be at the rally (as some Hillary campaign volunteers said they heard he might come).

Blythe wondered if he’d make the V.P. nomination in front of this crowd and say it is she. I said he’d probably make it in front of his own supporters, and I assure you, NONE of them were in the National Building Museum. The cheers were about one decibel level above the boos when she gave him her endorsement.

And Blythe made a good point, that, “It would be SUCH a classy move on his part to give her the V.P. nomination in front of her supporters. That would show he really is committed to her ideals and the 18 million who support them.”

She was a dream, I tell you. It was so good to not have to defend every single statement I made. Or, it’s not even so much that I’ve had to defend my beliefs — I’ve instead had to deflect asinine comments from people who didn’t have an eighth of the passion for their candidate that I did for mine.

Blythe and I shook hands, wished each other good luck and parted ways. Both of us left with tears in our eyes. I personally cried in the bathroom for a good 10 minutes.

I walked into Urban Outfitters before going home, and there was a song playing that had the lyric “What were you doing in 1992?”

I personally was watching Hillary’s husband on a stage in the Market Square area of Pittsburgh, and I was getting totally jazzed at everything he said. Hillary and Chelsea were off to the right of the stage, just the way Chelsea and Bill were today.

My grandfather took me and my shiny new 18-year-old self and my shiny new voter registration card to vote for Bill in 1992. That day is burned in my memory — it was the first grown-up thing I ever did, and I am quite proud of it.

My grandfather would have voted for Hillary. He would have been proud of my passion — of hers, too.

So, I get all the kids being jazzed by Barack Obama, much like I was jazzed for Bill when I was 18. But all those then-18-year-olds like me count too. Hell, we’re at least donating to our candidate’s campaign with our own money.

I won’t say Barack ran a better campaign than Hillary. He just happened to run the one that got to the winning total first.

I’m not sold that voting for the “yes we can” candidate is something “yes I will” do. I may still write her in. It all depends on the VP nomination, and it sounds like he is looking at some boring old white men for the job. Yawn.

HIllary said we’ll always find her on the front lines, fighting for everything she believes in. I suppose that means she wouldn’t accept a Supreme Court nomination or anything else that might keep her from directly representing the people.

But I admit, I felt good knowing that she isn’t going anywhere. She’ll be OK. It’s just people like me who believed so vociferously in her who are going to need some time to let their hearts heal.

Blythe had said it best. Once Hillary was done speaking and the crowd was going apeshit, she said, “She is extraordinary, isn’t she?”

And I had to nod because I was too overcome with emotion to speak. “Extraordinary,” I had managed to eke out. “No other word for it.”