Caterwauling

Oh, Jimi Hendrix would not be proud of that entry title.

I’ve decided to have my mail forwarded to my perch atop the clock tower. And all I want for Christmas is more ammo.

What can I say about this past week except that it is ovah? The most brilliant thing that came out of my mouth, after someone pissed me RIGHT the fuck off, was “If she were a rapper, her name would be T-Wat.”

I even attempted to pay said person some (albeit undeserved) thanks. Said individual took great pride in NOT doing the favor and making someone else, who had better things to do, do it.

But before we think Goddess ain’t happy, behold the Best Morning Ever. (Not to be confused with the show “Best Week Ever,” at least, not before its pre-sucking days.) I had the house to myself for the first time in 14 months. Fourteen months!

What did I do? I danced, I sang, I cooked, I hung out in my scandalous gutchies and I left my bedroom door open. Like a grown-up!

Am all dressed up and ready to go out now. Don’t want the memory of when I was happy (ah, more than 14 months ago) to be sullied any further.

But at least I remember. And it’s why I will never, ever give up hope of getting back to that feeling again.

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. …

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. …

The cat shat on my lap(top), originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Yeah, I think Dell is a piece of shit, too.

Actually it’s just kitty vomit. The rhyme simply didn’t work as “the cat horked the fucking plant she’s been secretly chowing down on all over my nice eggshell-colored duvet that she previously DID shat upon merely a month ago and I’m goddamned sick of washing this thing because she cannot control her bodily functions.”

At least the electricity had come back on moments earlier so I could wash the fucking thing!

Someone mentioned the other day that there are only “X” days left till Christmas, and that number was in the single-digits, and a part of me went, “When the hell did it become Christmas?”

(I really need to stop using “hell” and “damn” in sentences that have to do with church, Christmas, God or Jesus.)

It doesn’t feel like Christmas. Last year after my grandfather died on Thanksgiving, it sure as hell wasn’t Christmas. (There I go again.)

This year, I put up my artificial spiral tree in a fit. I was angry and needed to take out some aggression. I took the tree out of its box for the first time in five years (I’ve moved three times without ever opening that damn box) and fluffed all the branches in the space of an hour.

That was three weeks ago. And do you THINK I’ve managed to stick a strand of lights (or four) or an ornament on it? Nope. Not a one.

It’s been a busy season, but not the type with shopping and hustling and bustling. I gave up on writing Christmas cards four years ago. Don’t get me wrong — I BUY cards every year; I just never get around to saying hello to people because I never have stamps and, quite frankly, we’re all transient. Everybody moves a lot.

I struggled a couple of years ago with sending a card to friends who have a daughter with a terminal illness. Even today, I presume she might be gone but that kid had a way of hanging in there. I hope she’s still with us, but you can’t write a card to R and J “and family” if you don’t know what has happened. But you can’t leave off the “and family” or else other people would think you rude. So, fuck it — too much thought is required for writing cards.

Last year I sent some of my friends a text message to wish them a Merry Christmas, and we learned that I call people so infrequently, most of them didn’t know who the hell I was and they, in fact, texted me back to either ask who the hell I was OR they called me by someone else’s name that they know in my area code because it couldn’t POSSIBLY be me.

There was only one good Christmas in my world, two years ago. My mom and grandfather had just moved into a cute little house; I was doing well and went trucking up to Pittsburgh bearing better gifts than we’ve been able to give. And that was it. That was the first and only real Christmas in a real house with a real dining room table and a real reason to look forward to getting up on Christmas day.

I’m not saying the holiday is about gifts. My expenses have gone up, and gifts are the last thing on my mind. I did go out looking for a nativity set, though — I figured that since I’m actually not running screaming from this going-to-church thing, maybe I’d approach the holiday differently this year. I haven’t found a nativity set I like — I figure the right one will find me. Hopefully at 75% off on an after-Christmas deal!

D.C. is bizarre and it contributes to the lack of Christmasy feelings. I drove down to see the National Christmas Tree but you can’t see it from a car and the closest parking spot was in, oh, Rosslyn. And it was raining. So yeah, that didn’t go as planned.

I live in apartment/condo hell. Meaning, nobody has houses around here. There are some townhouses, sure, but that’s about it. You don’t see people decorating around here. I attribute it to the lack of “real” houses (i.e., no trees/hedges) and the fact that you have about 40 billion belief systems represented here. Other than the occasional wreath on a door or a lighted tree in a window, the only way you’ll see neighborhoods decorated is if you watch the holiday specials on HGTV.

I don’t know. It seems like last year I had a sad little Christmas, and this year it’s sort of an indifferent one. My best friend’s grandma died this week, so she’s having that same shroud over her that I carried last year. But at least she can deal with her grief and go about her life. I’m glad that one of us can, anyway.

And, seriously, Dan Fogelberg died. Talk about the ultimate kick in the ass during the holiday season. He wrote the only “(Same Old) Auld Lang Syne” that anyone knows the lyrics to. *sigh*

I can’t wait for 2008. This year has GOT to go. Most people are counting down the days till Christmas — I’m counting down till the day after New Year’s. I have an offer to go out New Year’s Eve and would love to take advantage of it, but there’s a “but” in there somewhere. Oh well. I guess anywhere that I will be drinking (preferably A LOT), it’ll be a good holiday.