Caterwauling

There’s a saying that I want to ask someone to be a pallbearer so they can let me down one last time.

That’s Jimmy.

Jimmy is the closest thing I had to a dad.

He was born on March 20, but I didn’t know that was an asshole birthdate until I met two others born that day.

He used to say I acted more like his own child than his biological children.

I somehow also looked more like him than they did, too.

Like we were meant to be related in some way.

In any event, he and mom had a sordid history over several decades. I won’t get into it.

About a year after she died, he wrote to me to wish me happy birthday.

I went through all the insanity of should I tell him or nah.

They had a deal that they’d let each other know if they were dying. But when I asked her if she wanted me to honor that, she’d said no. So I didn’t.

I replied back to say thanks and nice to hear from you. Figured if he continued the conversation, I’d tell him.

He didn’t.

I waited for him to wish me a happy birthday this year. He did not.

I made it till about May 28 or 29 and reached out to him.

I said you normally wish me a happy birthday and I was hoping this year we could have a real conversation.

I said mom passed, and I know you guys had a deal but she wasn’t letting me tell anyone.

But now, I really want you to know.

And I know you have memories that I either don’t or I’ve forgotten about.

And it would mean the world to me to have some reminders of my mom.

Well.

Just like the pallbearer joke, leave it to Jimmy to let me down one last time.

It’s now June 30 and I ain’t heard shit.

Doesn’t mean I won’t hear from him.

But … there I was, against my own better judgment … asking for understanding and also some goddamn support from the guy who was the only father figure I have on this fucking earth.

Reminded me of the one time I asked my biological father for help, and he drove me back out of his life for good.

So, it’s clear mom picked a couple winners.

And I didn’t do any better for myself, but at least I didn’t have kids with or otherwise lose 10-20 pretty years to them.

Good thing all mom’s years were pretty ones. Shame they went to any of these fools.

I just know I let her down by even bothering.

After planning out an entire Pittsburgh trip, I see it’s the 400th anniversary of Salem.

Wonder where this witch ends up.

Honestly I just want to do it all.

I’m tired of working and I love my job.

We weren’t meant to be so stressed out, were we? To sit indoors all day and stress-eat?

Or … did I just work so hard in my youth that I ran out of energy?

Like did I give everything I had back then that I accepted that as the norm?

Now I feel guilty for going a normal speed. But I’m really not the slacker I think I am now; I’ve just decelerated to everyone else’s level?

Or, as the meme goes, I’m gonna get a “3” anyway and have no higher title/reward to aspire to, so just be happy and get things done to my own liking rather than worry what anyone else thinks?

It got me thinking in Hollywood Studios, as Kelly yelled at me for not saying what I wanted to do — that I kept guessing what SHE wanted to do.

I told her repeatedly, if I were on one of my solo trips, I would just be following the wind as I was doing WITH her.

But maybe she was on to something. I’m always trying to figure out what bosses want, rather than what I want.

Well, I figure out what will keep love notes at bay. Rather than, say, what would get me a 4.

They need to offer me a trip or something and attach some goals to it. Fun goals.

Hiring a Republican is not a fun goal.

Rounding up Republican woman and clubbing them over the head for voting away my rights?

Now that sounds motivational.

I never realized how much I cry till I hung out with K-money.

You really don’t know how much you change after you lose someone till you’re forced to act normal.

She only seemed to get annoyed once. Not after I saw a duck with two babies in Animal Kingdom and I told her Mom sends me baby duckies. (And of course I sobbed.)

But I saw baby bunnies in Magic Kingdom. And I swear I heard her say JFC enough with the sobbing at baby animals.

Like … but my grandfather used to voice a bunny named Ralph in his backyard at Castle Drive in West Mifflin. I used to call him for updates on Ralph. And Grampy would tell me the most amazing stories about him.

So … I chose to ignore whatever comment. Because, Ralph — and any bunny — is my jam.

One of the reasons I cried?

Because I had SUCH a good family. Because Kelly came from … not really parental types.

She and her brother reacted to their upbringing by rebelling. Her brother is Dad of the Year. She chose not to have children at all.

Me? I had a wonderful family. A wonderful upbringing. I would have HAD children if only I’d met someone worth having them with.

But leave it to me to fall in love twice in my 20s and never again since. Minus that “Weird Duck” weirdness in my mid-30s.

“Who’s gonna stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames
If we know the steps anyway?
We embroidered the memories of the time I was away
Stitching, “We were just kids, babe”
I said, “I don’t mind, it takes time”
I thought I was better safe than starry-eyed
I felt aglow like this
Never before and never since.”

I don’t know where I’m about to veer off with this.

I just realized at some point how — for as much as I admire K-money for so many reasons — how my heart aches that she didn’t have a wonderful family like I did.

Like, I felt loved. And safe. And invincible. Like I always had a home, even when I was on the verge of losing mine. How I always had an identity, no matter how much some job or some boy threatened to redefine or even remove it.

How she turned out so great without that amazing foundation.

And how soft she might have been with it.

It’s a shame the best people leave us first.

And how lucky — so lucky — I was to have them for as long as I did. How they loved me while they were here.

And how I’d give my left nut to have even a sliver of that kind of love for the rest of my life.

I got to telling someone the lore behind this blog.

Like that time some psycho reported this blog to his ex-employer and my soon-to-be-ex-employer.

I had called the CEO King Kumquat. Or, as they called it in “Voicemails for Isabelle,” an annoying, angry little Southeast Asian fruit.

Well, that angry little SE Asian fruit, Shan just told me, is the CEO of a garbage collection company in North Carolina now.

Yep, that sounds about right.

Garbage in, garbage out, garbage everywhere.

No matter how bad life has gotten at times, it was never any worse than working for him and old Pussy Demure.

I spend more money on food delivery than I care to admit.

Of course, I go spend $300 every Saturday on cat food, litter, furnace filters and whatever nonsense. And all I come home with is breakfast food.

So, I can forgive my absolute addiction to all things boba, matcha and mochi.

In any event, I’ve decided food delivery is like playing Santa Claus. I forget that I order, then future me is delighted that someone got me just what I wanted!

Now if only any of these drivers could work the call box outside this fortress. Just had to go out in my boo-kini and rescue the food from the front gate.

I was reading that Speidi spends like $10K on food delivery a month. And that Amber “Ambien” from Teen Mom spent like $34K a year on food delivery.

Like, I see my Mastercard with a couple hundred in the last month and I’m embarrassed. At least I got my fat ass dressed to run to Sugar Milk yesterday my damn self.

Imagine if I’d never gone to Japan and had no idea that I loved Ube, Taro, Matcha and bubble waffles.

And strawberry! For real, I was allergic to strawberries my whole life. But now I can have strawberry matcha and ice cream bars, and rather than rashes, it brings me joy.

No wonder I’m fat, god.

I’ll deal with that after I enjoy my pepperoni pizza bubble waffle from Gong Cha.

I do love the deja vu. I take it as a reminder to use this heightened sense of awareness for good.

I did get all caught up on work thanks to K-money and a night in a Marriott club lounge with nothing but my laptop, a coffee machine and all the chocolate pretzels i could eat.

And now I’m fucking behind again.

Like this cannot be life. It cannot be suffer under piles of undone tasks, get them done, enjoy three days at Disney, then come back to another fucking pile.

K-money is very nicely pushing me to go to Pittsburgh to deal with my storage unit. That we’ve paid for 20 years.

She said her guides are telling her I won’t lose weight or fix my life till I fix that first.

Her guides are usually pretty spot-on. So, I need to listen.

And honestly that’s why my head is swimming. When she said it, my mental constellations aligned. Been complaining about it for 20 years. So go fix it.

She offered to go with me. But I asked my Mom’s friend if she knows what’s in there. And she said oh honey, that thing is PACKED. You can’t just do that in a day or two.

Mom had often told me just tell the company that she died. Or quit paying. Let it go.

K-money said don’t do that. She only games the system by complaining to the manager. You aren’t going to get any good karma out of making it someone else’s problem.

That was a wakeup call.

I blurted out, “I just want to see Cocoa again. I don’t want to do anything that would keep me from getting the one thing I want.”

That was weird, now that I type it.

But it’s true. I just want to live a good life, do the right thing — or at least for the right reason — so I get t hug my baby again someday.

Naturally, I am sure that “Doing the right thing” will have to be living up in Pittsburgh for a week and either disposing of all that shit myself or loading it on a truck to go through it here.

Which, that’s all I need is more shit in my house.

If I think I’m buried under work tasks and home tasks now, that ought to be a fucking riot.

Because let’s face it.

The shit in my house is what we never got to use.

The shit in storage is going to have a million memories attached to the people who bought it — Gram and Grampy — and who assumed they’d pass it down to Mom and me.

But I’ve already paid for this storage unit for 2,190 days. Times three.

God damn no wonder I’m glitching.

A flight, a rental car, shipping costs and a hotel for a week will be a lot. But it beats paying for it for another year.

I have been having mad deja vu today.

Mad. Deja. Vu.

I mean, yes, I’ve done this same shit a million times over.

But there’s a glitch in the matrix.

There’s no scientific explanation for deja vu. Truly just that you’re glitching and thinking you’re remembering something you haven’t done yet.

I am convinced tRump either died or is about to. Like, the nonsense rolling around in my squash is very clear about that. That if he did die, he was revived. But the real thing is still coming.

I’m fresh off a week with K-money in Orlando.

Actually I left early. We were yelling at each other in Hollywood Studios — the first time we’d ever done that — and she said you know what? I’ve been with people for 10 solid days. I need the room to myself tonight.

And I said yes, I’m happy to do that to save our friendship.

I was going to grab a hotel on my own. But after I drove to Disney Springs — which I thought she was OK with — and she was like ok I’ll grab an Uber, I said let me take you to your hotel, and I’ll keep on driving.

And I did.

We’re fine. After everyone at HS thought we were a damn couple as it’s Pride Month, we Skylined to Epcot, got coffee at Cake Bake, walked through Epcot to the Monorail, changed trams at the Transportation Center, and rode to the Grand Floridian for high tea.

And it was all good. Yes even with all that travel joy.

I tell everyone I’m passive, she’s aggressive. And 95% of the time it works.

HS was that 5%. All at once.

She was pissed at me for being noncommittal about our next destination. I was tired and glitching from the 1,000 questions over five days about what I wanted to do next. I zipped back with some comment about ask the three men you keep texting with while I wander everywhere with you behind me. She yelled at me that was not true and she was sick of me trying to guess what SHE wanted to do. And I did my Gemini thing of just smiling instead of answering.

Because I really was just done. Not mad at her — it was a GREAT trip. Just, you fucking KNOW I go where the wind takes me and when I DO make a decision — like to get coffee at Cake Bake — it turned out to be training day and it took so long to order, we missed our appointment at High Tea.

Which annoyed the FUCK out of me because I asked 1,000 times if we shouldn’t just head over early so we wouldn’t miss it.

Which annoyed the FUCK out of HER because they gave our table away and we had to wait while she insisted we were well within our arrival window and they had to send a manager over. And she was mad that the manager spoke directly to me because I smile and nod and try to let them solve the problem.

She’s very much “let me get the manager.” We spoke to a dozen managers. I cannot tell you how many times I said, “Yeah but we still had a good time.” And she’s like, “Yeah we had a good time but they need to know what they did wrong.”

I guess that’s why she has a million hotel points. And we got free Starbucks out of it. I should try it sometime, truly. Though they really shouldn’t talk to me when she’s the one trying to communicate with them. That would piss me off too.

Anyway.

I see why everyone thought we were a couple.

She paid for a swanky stay at the Swan. I paid for untold amounts of sushi at Sushi Saint and Kimonos and also a Polynesian feast at Wailulu and I can’t even comprehend the rest of the receipts I just threw away. So many margaritas.

Truly I have no souvenirs. I just drank tequila at every available opportunity. To try to sleep.

Which, in five days, I didn’t. Just like I spent seven days wide the fuck awake in Japan.

But she absolutely rescued me from a work project that was KILLING me. K I L L I N G me.

So any amount of fiat I spent was WORTH IT in fucking SPADES just for getting that goddamned project out of my motherfucking hair.

I also got some therapy out of it, not always cushioned as that’s never been her style.

And she offered to come up to Pittsburgh to help me solve another long-suffering problem.

Though at this point, I said let’s call time of death on togetherness this month, and we’ll revisit that idea in August.

I don’t want to sound ungrateful. As I do know she was over being with people and I am not the slightest bit used to being with people anymore.

Shan said any normal human needs the same amount of days to recover from a trip as they spent on the trip.

And it still beats the miscommunication that plagued the Japan odyssey. Though I know we would have never screamed at each other in Scramble Square. But honestly it is a bit refreshing to just say what you’re thinking and move on from it, rather than fester for too long.

Watched “Voicemails for Isabelle” today.

So many thoughts.

Mom and I used to say, “Did you come to the party?” a lot.

I don’t remember where it originated. Maybe with Gram, when she was confined to a hospital bed in the living room.

Mom would cook and decorate (and Gram would be mad it wasn’t done her way — which I now realize, she was just pissed off that she couldn’t do it herself).

And to make sure Gram was involved, she’d ask, “Did you come to the party?”

Well, now that no one’s at my party, that party really sucks without them.

I was looking around the absolute shitshow that Mom’s bedroom has become.

I’ve donated a metric fuckload. Selling online hasn’t worked for me; I made one sale.

And yet I have A) a lot of our stuff and B) more stuff that I bought thinking it would fit but oops, still fat.

I’m not really attached to some of the stuff I kept. Like, all the ladybug stuff. All the hot peppers and flip flop stuff. The Christmas stuff.

I had a halfway original thought about it yesterday.

That it was for a life we were building together.

That it’s what she left to me, to have of her.

That’s why it’s so hard to either do something with it or get rid of it.

Like, I don’t even want all my sugar skull shit anymore — though we so painstakingly coordinated all that together — because it’s just one more thing making me crazy.

But it was also MY thing.

And if there is one thing I’ve learned in two solid years of grief …

Your interests can and do change.

I don’t have to love or eat or do (insert thing we did together) anymore.

We did it. It’s done. It’s over. The joy was in the companionship.

And I just want the stuff to bring me joy — to bring her back for a few moments. To feel like she somehow decorated my future house.

Which of course I can’t get to with all this stuff.

I just don’t want to be in an empty place someday, or wherever I’m about to die, and not have a thing that might make me feel happy because of some memory of shopping for it that it might trigger.

There’s a wonderful line in the Netflix documentary “Marty: Life Is Short.”

Steve Martin says you host a dinner party, and you find out Martin Short can’t come.

What do you do? “You cancel the party.”

Party’s over, people. Nothing to see here.

Still trying to figure out what this whole Party of One still looks like.

For real, I just want a month off to plan it.

619 was my grandfather’s favorite lottery number to play.

I don’t know why.

Orphan child here doesn’t have anyone to ask anymore.

I had a good day.

Had to talk to my boss yesterday. Had to confess how overloaded I am. To the point I haven’t worked on his beloved project.

I got the reply I wanted. Which was, “It’s probably coming time to talk about getting you some help.”

YOU THINK?!

I just haven’t wanted to work on the project. I’m braindead by the time I even have a half a second to work on it.

But it turned out to be a blessing. The project that MATTERS is in the pile with everything else.

Oh, how the tides have turned.

Anyway, I was going to work on this Juneteenth, but I decided to go shopping since I’m Disney-bounding with Kelly for the next few days.

Somehow I spent $500 and only got three frozen meals, a sushi roll, a matcha bubble waffle … and everything else was for the cats and apartment.

What’s funny is I still have Mom’s urn in my Tokyo Disney purse.

I swear on everything I know that she was with me all day.

I could hear her all through Walmart.

I laughed a lot. She “talked” me into a tank top. I could swear I heard her say “it might ring up cheaper than it’s marked” … and it did!

I don’t remember all the inside jokes, but they hadn’t occurred to me in a while.

We always said the word Beefalo instead of fatass. We said Bonga Butt when clothing made our asses look huge. There were a bunch more moments at Walmart and throughout the day at Target and Burlington where I swear she was in the dressing room with me.

I saw butterflies. I saw birdies. I saw “Mr. LizARD who lived in the YARD.”

It was just such a good day.

There was one moment where I hoisted $50 of cat litter into my cart.

I could hear her so clearly, saying, “My baby has to do everything by herself.”

After I struggled, I heard, “Struggle, struggle!” which we learned from the “Anywhere But Here” movie.

And when I got two ginormous packages of Clean Paws into my cart, I could hear her say, “My baby did it. She always does it. I wish she had help but she’s got this.”

Your baby has always had this, Momma. I just wish she were younger and in better shape because this shit is HARDER now.

I remember the lady behind me at a checkout was dressed in scrubs and buying Poise pads and a few other things. No doubt for a client.

And I thought please don’t let me get to the point where I can’t be a “Walmart Ho” like Mom used to call us.

Not long after, I parked at home and I saw an ancient lady drive in. I thought, “She is too old to drive” and I loaded up my shopping cart.

Well, I was correct. She drove that nice new car into a concrete wall in our carport.

She jumped out and asked me if I can get a man to help her.

I LOL’d.

Summer (and snowbirds gone) notwithstanding, honey, if I could just find a man, I’d keep him for myself, thanks.

She just wanted someone to back her car out of the wall and get it straight in her spot.

I did it. Took her gigantic cushion out of the seat. Had my knees in the ignition and didn’t fuck with her mirrors. But I got her car where she wanted it to be.

Didn’t need a man.

I decided it was pool-thirty. And the cutest little lizARD sat with me for a good 20 minutes. Thought it might be Cocoa, as she loved the outdoors.

Anyway, I was feeling really rotten all day but honestly it ended up being a really great day with all my little signs and creature sightings.

And not to forget Grampy …

I saw Coleman Grill fuel and remembered the amazing, amazing gift my family gave me.

A cobalt blue Coleman Grill, portable, to match my cobalt blue car.

I got so much use out of it. It went all over Virginia and Maryland with me. Loved that thing.

Wish I could have one now, but I’d get tossed out of here.

I miss grilled foods. I mean, I lease in a concrete building and I’m still not allowed to have a grill.

Anyway not me crying in Target that I had such a good family that loved me so much to buy me really amazing things with what little money they had.

Thank you, Grampy. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Cocoa. Pretty sure I had a Janna moment or two — penguins kept showing up everywhere today too in things I was looking at. Wild.

I am protected. I am loved. I had amazing people who shaped the human I became.

Maybe everyone else in the world would suck less if they’d had my family and friends.

Then I am not working this weekend.

I have to face my boss tomorrow. To say I haven’t worked on the damn Thing that goes out in his name.

In 14 months, he’s given me two ideas.

The first time we executed on his idea, he didn’t hate it. Which is as good as receiving a Nobel Peace Prize.

The second time we executed on his idea, he didn’t love it. But this time, I dropped the damn ball and didn’t even edit/publish it.

I could get canned for this one.

He hasn’t noticed in three weeks but I have to say something soon.

I was going to just write it tonight.

But you know what? Your girl is tired.

This fucking project ruined the first part of my California Adventure/Disneyland trip.

It’s ruined many an Orlando weekend.

At least it didn’t fuck up my Tokyo time. Too much.

But I am tired of this thing ruining my nights and weekends. Not by working on it. By worrying about it.

I will die on the hill that it’s my No. 1 job to remove roadblocks for my team.

I’m going to see how this one feels about removing this roadblock from me.

I know the answer. My “attitude” is well-documented.

I know I complained about not being involved in a product launch two years ago for a product I now write every week.

But I was specifically told that THIS product would require no editorial. And I’ve made no bones that it actually DOES and I am not happy about that.

I understand the need for the product. Not the comments from the boss that we have to divine most months.

I also know it would take 2-3 hours tops to figure out.

I am not excited about that. I can find anything else to do. And instead of say catching up before the final exam, I’m draining a half-empty bottle of wine.

I think about it, like what if this is the thing he fires me for.

And then I think, WORTH IT.

I hate feeling that way. And no it’s not worth being unemployed for. But if I had a staffer who had an allergic reaction to a task, I’d sure as shit LISTEN to them about how to make it suck less.

I have ideas. I just shut up about them.

Oh what the hell. If I could get canned anyway, what do I have to lose.

I am sick of hating a project more than I hate dealing with Don’t Treadmill on Me. She should be peak annoyance. And will be, come Tuesday and every Tuesday thereafter.

At least I get the satisfaction of being able to hang up on her again.

All I am asking is to hang up on this thing that I am just the only person — not the right person, apparently, as the only time I met deadlines was when I was writing it — to handle.