Caterwauling

I said give me Strength, and the tarot deck did just that for my daily pull.

This was after two very stressful spreads.

Three years ago, Mom was convinced I’d end up on my paternal grandmother’s doorstep.

I’d said I’ve been disappointed enough by that side of the family. Why give them another chance to hurt me.

Well now, as I’m an orphan and I happen to have some business in Kay’s neighborhood, I figured let’s see what tarot has to say about it.

I asked two different decks:

* How would I feel if I reached out to Kay?
* How would she receive it?
* What would a possible visit have me feeling like?

One deck was depressing. The other was downright ominous.

Now, I’m not saying that the cards told me not to reach out.

I would just need to go in with a mission — i.e., get my health history — and be absolutely fine if she didn’t respond or if she got downright hostile.

The story goes back to 1973 when I was conceived. I believe my grandparents slapped my bio dad with statutory rape charges, as Mom was literally turning 16 as I was conceived.

They got a few dollars a week for me for 18 years out of all this.

I was told that Kay and her daughter Kathy showed up the day I was born. To look through the nursery glass and see if I looked like Tom.

I guess I did. That was the last anyone saw of them till I was 18.

I’ve written at length about meeting him at court, going to dinner, talking for a good year, and then him agreeing to — and then backing out of — helping me move two heavy items to my dorm.

Two items to revisit for this conversation:

* He said my family kept him from me and probably poisoned him against me.

* He said what’s the point of being in my life after 18 years of not being in it.

In case no one has realized, I’ve held this grudge for fucking 35 years.

So what do I want of Kay? Like I said, health history. I have read her FB enough to know she’s a cancer survivor. Which means I have it on both sides of the family.

To be clear, my family never said jack about these people. They wanted me to organically figure out my feelings. Which … pretty easy when your dad tells you to fuck off.

I had no intent to come at her in anger. Just … I see you posting about your grandkids with all this love. Wondered if you’d be open to filling me in on some things.

But I wonder if it’s all lip service. Grandma of the year over there.

Plus, I remember telling mom three years ago, I am already responsible for you. (Lovingly, I hope it came out, but I know me.) I am not taking his deadbeat ass on if he needs money or a caregiver or some shit.

Like my friend CG always says, don’t push on a door that isn’t opening.

I thought of how Jimmy had to let me down one last time.

Do I need Tom & his brood to do the same before I learn this lesson?

Like I told Claude, who reasoned all this out with me when I got the Emperor card around Kay and the Devil card around a meeting …

I don’t need to come home with more baggage than I’m already bringing from the storage unit.

My family loved me well. I showed interest in the others. They did not show it back.

I’m on limited time, anyway. Would rather see people who actually liked or loved me at some point … and there’s a couple who still do.

This isn’t daddy issues. This is grandma issues. My grandma was the absolute best.

This one will never measure up. I know this without even meeting her.

And something (the tarot) tells me I’ll have an even lower opinion if I did.

Funny that this Devil card has the “I never should have danced with the devil at 19” lyric. The last time i spoke to Kay’s son, I was 19.

When you think about Taylor Swift’s bonus checks for her employees, it’s a lesson in leadership.

Every employee got $100k.

No matter what their role, she recognized they gave all they had to The Eras Tour.

And they all got the same reward.

That’s not even the mind-blowing part.

I’ve been reading up on estate planning. And why a gift at a milestone — graduation, opportunity to start a business, etc. — is more valuable than some check delivered after your death.

It’s more valuable to them because they don’t have to pay the death tax, which is 50%.

Moreover, they can do the thing when they’re young rather than not have that opportunity anymore.

We heard wonderful, heartwarming stories from Taylor’s truck drivers and dancers. They could pay their kids’ college. They could give their babies a good life. They can get a real apartment.

That’s the spirit of the gift. But I’d take it one step further.

They danced and worked their asses off for two years.

With $100k, you can live for a year without worrying about the next job.

You can really say, hey, let me devote myself to my craft and master it.

Or you can reinvent yourself without worrying where the next rent payment comes from.

If I’d been, say, 32 and gotten $100k — damn. I worked hard. I worked SO hard. But I was making $30k a year. And living in an expensive city (D.C.).

Now don’t get me wrong, I got a wonderful $10k gift from my great-Uncle Stan (and his late wife Josie) before I started college.

I spent that over time — on books, on rent, not on anything all at once.

My grandmother had said just buy a car with it. Which I thought was insane — why not let the money collect interest?

Hindsight, neither of us was right or wrong. What could I have done with the car, other than not afford school? Maybe moved, maybe went to NYC and starred on “The Real World” first season, who knows.

(I am dreaming, I know.)

In any event, Taylor said how she thinks of her dancers and singers as little kids, dreaming of a day like this.

And she thinks of them in their future careers as mentors or whatever they want to be.

I think of them a year after the tour. Rested, recharged, time to let the injuries heal, what their brain chemistry must look like.

I got a taste of that when my last job fired me and handed me two months’ pay.

Fortunately, I wasn’t unemployed for two months.

But I did take six weeks to myself.

To do nothing. Just hang out with mom and go to appointments and drink iced tea on the beach.

This is why I get Europeans now. Holidays are important. So is healthcare.

I used to respect the hustle culture here. But honestly, how many weekends and vacations are haunted by your job.

If not the work itself, by the fear they will live without you and fire you.

I mean, I’ve literally spent four hours blogging about work between Saturday and Sunday.

Maybe if I empty my damn head now, I can do the work itself.

In any event, yes I wish someone would hand me AND MY STAFF $100k each to do as we please.

I’d probably invest it. So would they.

But still. One year with nothing to worry about.

Wonder what kind of dividends that would pay — to the company, not just to us in solid stock picks.

I bet the company would benefit more than all our accounts combined.

I put on “The Eras Tour” from Vancouver in the background to do some work.

And of course I’ve been mesmerized.

Almost forgot it was August. Feels like 100 years ago that I was sneaking off to the mall to meet someone.

If you’d look at us now, you’d never know we even knew each other in a way that wasn’t collegial.

“I act like I don’t remember.
Mary acts like she don’t care.”

Anyway the first of the six-episode docuseries just started.

Taylor’s finale-night speech to her dancers and bandmates always hit hard.

But today it hit different.

Sure, all the song lyrics she wove into the speech was adorable.

But the part got me today that “a million micro-decisions got us here.”

Like, this wasn’t “pieces falling into place” a la “All Too Well.”

She called them the pieces — the “tectonic plates,” to be specific.

I forget sometimes at work that I am a tectonic plate.

That I have earned the institutional memory the hard way.

I often tell MY boss stories of the past. The things Martin probably hasn’t told him.

If I’m lucky, I get Martin stories through him, as Martin and I don’t talk much anymore.

Anyway the micro-decisions hit different today. Because that’s what got me here. That’s what gets me through every week. A million micro-decisions.

So I might not have edited shitty newsletters that should have never existed because I was told there would be “no need for editorial support” which is a bigger lie than trump promising to bring down prices.

All my stress comes from these “no editorial support” needed products.

Who’s writing them or at least sourcing the data or going through a thousand freelancers?

Like if you told me to toss out the most stressful part of my job, it’s the whole having to make my case that I deserve a managing editor when I can’t catch up enough to even hire one.

But I know it’s a productivity issue. Which is a self-protection issue.

How do you manage 22 paid products, two daily free ones, and then double the free daily content on the same number of staff? And yes I know I supervise 22 people. But only three of us read/vet/edit this stuff and make it compliant and accurate and actionable.

Anyway I need to get all the shit out of my system so I can go write this stuff.

Which … one of my 22 said to me yesterday, “Hey, you’re pretty good at this writing stuff. You should do it for a living!”

Same person (independent of Kelly) also said maybe this place was your bridge during your worst season.

Maybe there’s something else out there for me that’s more resourced.

Where I can make the million micro-decisions without being the one to EXECUTE on them.

I find it really interesting that the universe is singing this same chorus to me repeatedly and in unexpected corners.

All my tarot reader really said was it’s time for your own byline. You’ve put in your dues. You don’t need to pay anymore. You’ve paid enough.

And this is how my closest friends interpret it.

Tectonic plate, Taylor says.

Time to cause a geological event, indeed.