Caterwauling

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.”

Yesterday’s tarot pull was a combination of The Hanged Man and The Tower.

Clearly, I need rest and I need to do it at a place with the Tower of Terror.

Today’s combo is Death plus the Three of Wands/Rods.

So, big change is coming and it’s going to propel me far away.

The 2W is kind of being at the baes of a mountain. By the time you get to the Three, you’ve figured out the general direction you should head.

Very general direction. But, say, you’ve started looking at places to live in a specific neighborhood rather than a general one.

Since our trash chute will never be fixed, I ran trash downstairs today long after the parking lot cats would know to look for me. (Heavy sigh.)

It was the first Saturday I didn’t feed. And now the second Sunday.

I think about them all the time. But I have to admit my anxiety is less, knowing I don’t HAVE to deal with people here anymore.

I stood downstairs for a moment and took it all in.

You’d never know how much evil resides here. It’s quiet and hot and the last of the snowbirds are taking their lanai furniture in today. We should lose the last two snowbirds from my floor this week.

Unfortunately, Peppermint Patty and the Let’s Go Brandon Lady will stay up here with me. And Tommy, who seems incredibly normal by comparison. And Alfred, who’s been trying to get new cabinets for seven weeks now.

Al’s workers seem like they come, drill two holes and go home. I asked if he’s getting a gourmet kitchen. He’s like no I just wanted some cabinets before I go back to New York; my god what is wrong with people down here.

Exactly. My god, what is wrong with people down here, indeed.

But, like I said, you would look around here and see nothing going on in the day. Maybe someone walking a dog, which was never allowed but the pandemic seems to erased that rule.

You’d never know that Pastor Paul kicks the ducks by the pool nightly. Or the little bastards (who grew up to be big bastards) in Building 101 take baseball bats to ducks and lizards. Or that Peppermint Patty and Cheryl scream at people for looking at ducks (just IN CASE they might be thinking of feeding them) in between going to the pool and touching each others twats underwater. (I can see a LOT from up here.) Etc.

I am not sure what the Death card represents. Maybe it’s full-on Reputation in that …

“And in the death of her reputation, she felt truly alive.”

Can’t wait to close the chapter on this place.

They say the essence of pleasure lies in its impermanence. That sounds really nice right now. REALLY nice.

The 3W card could mean promotion. Which, that would be ideal.

It also means finding a job overseas. And Death means, either find it yourself or I’m gonna MAKE you find it.

I’d rather not have (even more) fear as a motivator, thanks.

“When it’s all roses, portrait poses
Central Park Lake in tiny rowboats
What a charming Saturday
That’s when she sees the littlest leaks
Down in the floorboards
And she just knows she must bolt.”

Someone said I swear a lot.

Which I do. But they referenced it to a group chat where I said … “damn.”

Said person also said they won’t watch one of my favorite ’80s movies because there is too much sex.

You know, if I am the sum total of the five people with whom I spend the most time, it’s basically a religious nut, Heifer, and the idiots in my complex.

God or something help me please.

I texted my cousin yesterday about a non-work struggle I was having. I said promise me if this situation gets any worse, you’ll Cricket Noem me.

Speaking of inappropriate jokes, I noticed Faceypages hasn’t been showing me an ex who I pretty much consider a therapist on retainer. I pay, and I get some support or companionship in return.

He did get me through one of my friends taking their own life not long ago. That one fucked me up pretty good. So, the hourly rate was worth it on that one.

Anyway I guess FB had the good sense to digitally sever this relationship.

Not surprisingly, he was writing about a friend who took his life young. Which honestly always touched me, that this bright boy didn’t see that light.

“Nothing you love is lost. Not really. Things, people—they always go away, sooner or later. You can’t hold them, any more than you can hold moonlight. But if they’ve touched you, if they’re inside you, then they’re still yours. The only things you ever really have are the ones you hold inside your heart.” — Bruce Coville

And of course on the inappropriate front, he referred to the man’s suicide as “self-checkout.”

I wasn’t offended. In fact, it made me plot about how I can use it in a sentence to activate someone at work whose voice makes my lady balls retract.

I got to thinking a lot about self-checkout. Like, at what point do you say enough with the pain, physical and mental?

Why isn’t there an award when you realize there is no life in quality of life anymore?

No, we want to force women to have babies and we want to force sick people to hang on and die a slow death with incompetent/lax “healthcare” till we finally die of a heart attack or pulmonary embolism or aneurysm that develops as a result of the pain and/or stress.

Seriously, it’s noble to say enough. To not let doctors let you down anymore.

Yes it might hurt people around us. But they’ll get over it.

We miss our friends. And we are messed up about it. But, there are more things to fuck up and fuck us up ahead.

Plus, I can bet you that the top five people I loathe most will be more revered than ever once we can’t hear their gonad-shrinking shrieks anymore.

As for me, I doubt anyone would notice. Shit, my payroll system told me to set up a trust since I can’t be my own beneficiary.

Who TF else do I trust to make these decisions? I had Facebook Boy as my legacy contact.

But I happen to have some cash left after what I’ve spent on Eras Tour merch, who do I want to have it? Alexandria? Becca? Riley? The street cats?

I swear what keeps me alive is it is more goddamnmed complicated to die than it is to live.

Yes, I said god AND damn. In the same word, gasp!

I was outside with Belly and Magic. Just on the balcony. Looking over at where I used to feed the street kids.

Mom loves a big gray and white fluff ball of a dog here. I used to see her walking her daddy at 6 a.m. over there by the dog walk. Her name is Rosie.

Mom asked me to try to get her a pic of Rosie.

Meanwhile my kids were fascinated with a butterfly who was hanging around.

I’ve had a dragonfly show up for the past several years around dates that we associate with my Kadie. So … was the butterfly Cocoa?

As I tried to sneak pics of Rosie, Mom said this butterfly was weaving around my calves and ankles. Did I not feel it?

I really didn’t. But I was staying still so Cocoa the Butterfly would stay on the porch with us for as long as she wanted.

I wouldn’t have known about that visitation without my momma. I would have never let the kids out because Belly is always trying to run off the balcony and it’s exhausting trying to pull her back by her hind legs every damn time.

That’s one of my regrets, that I didn’t let Cocoa out because her siblings are assholes. She was SO good.

And now she can go wherever she wants, whenever.

I realize how much I’ve had to give up this year. My baby. My outside babies. All my podcasts, witchy and political, too. Trying to keep what’s left of my mental bandwidth focused on work and health and mental health.

The things I’ve had to pick up in their places have not been worth it. At all. Not one bit.

Thank you for visiting, Cokes. Momma loves you more than anything, and always will.

I woke up with that same punch in the stomach that I would always get on mornings when a lowlife neighbor (so many of them) would pick a fight with me whilst feeding cats.

I realized it was last Thursday (eight days) that Butterface on a Bike circled me like the baby shark she is.

Fugly cunt must be out there right now. DIE.

I fed them daily for three years. THREE YEARS.

I haven’t fed the kids since Saturday, when Latin Bitch Boy hosed down the cats/food because he is a FUCKING BITCH.

And TBH I don’t really trust that my fellow feeder stepped up after I resigned. She’s sweet but flakier than baklava.

But … I got a surprise last night.

I ran out to get some dinner. And when I came back at 7 p.m., I saw Meatball! And Whiskey! And Fancy! EATING!!!

“I look in people’s windows
In case you’re at their table
What if your eyes looked up and met mine
One more time?”

Lordt, I cried. They looked so happy.

They didn’t look up. Which, they used to dance and run when they’d hear my car.

Not anymore.

Meatball and me after Latin Bitch Boy took a hose to them.

I thought about all the fuckin lowlifes here who think it’s their right to harass humans and abuse (or, at least not be kind to) animals.

Like, it was hard for me to drive past them and not love on them.

But how do you actively hate on them and try to TRAP them and otherwise STOMP THROUGH THEM to send them running?

Are you really that much of a fuckhead that you cannot see a cat eating a morsel of food that they didn’t have to work for?

And they did work for it! We used to have RATS in our trash rooms. We DON’T anymore.

And frankly we should because our trash compactor bit the dust three months ago and we have to all walk our trash downstairs now and the room stinks so bad now.

Anyway.

It’s not that I would wish, say, a necrotic, fungating wound on Carl, Lauren, MJ, Connie, Frank and Butterface on a Bike.

But I would raise a big fat glass of something expensive to the universe if they suffered the way they want those babies to suffer.