Caterwauling

I swear that the “leaders” at the Veggie Patch are pumping formaldehyde through the air ducts to keep us drugged and preserved. There is just a noxious odor that permeates the building, and I think it’s eating away at my brain cells. And let’s face it, I no longer have blood flowing through my body — it’s been replaced by coffee and beer. Mmm … beer. … At any rate, my job isn’t so bad, yet the toxic gas that’s infiltrating our offices has GOT to be the reason why I just want to die, every time I come in here every day. …

… and it wasn’t mine!

While the 18-wheeler Bud Light truck was busy loading up Bennigan’s bar (for Shan, of course! We’ll be heading over there in a few mins, actually), Shan was entranced by this sight from her window, so much that she immortalized the vision in an e-mail to Yellow Haired Bitch and several others. Shan wrote, “the phone numbeer is …” Hee hee. Priceless. 🙂

I’m still trying to become accustomed to winter in Virginia. It simply defies logic, though, how the day can start off perfectly warm and comfortable and then become colder than a corpse’s crotch by midday. Argh. I attempted to go mail my overdue vehicle and car insurance payments (not even the full amounts that are due, but somethin’ to keep the creditors quiet for now), and I froze my patoo-tay off.

Mom laid a bit of a guilt trip on me last night — I don’t call her the Kathie Lee of the Carnival Cruises of Guilt Trips for nothin’. When she called, I’d had my fill of drama and agony for the day, and she had her usual serving platter of issues filled and awaiting my consumption. I kinda rushed her off the phone, which launched the Extended-Stay option of the Guilt Trip Cruise — that I never have time for her, never have the energy for a real conversation. I’m always on my way to do something or I’m with someone or I’m too pooped to speak coherently (like today, when I accidentally told IKEA Boy about the b-day gift I have on order for him — cripes!).

She’s right, though. I have little left to give her emotionally, and I am her only friend and only outlet for the shit happening in her own life. And when I do call her, it’s usually to rage and rant and dump my emotional trauma on her. But she’s Mom — she can handle my life. I can’t. But I can’t handle hers, either, and I feel terrible about that. Some days, I can barely function, I’m so emotionally exhausted. And she doesn’t listen to me, anyway, when I try to give her advice about her problems, so I’m less inclined to want to help. Of course, like me, she just wants someone to listen, to sympathize, to empathize. And she hates it that I can give that to everyone but her. And I hate it too, because she’s the only one who’s ever been able to give me all of that and then some.

She did heap her usual ladle-ful of guilt about me moving 250 miles away, but I tend to tune out for that segment of the conversation. I did, though, say I’m happy enough here and am not interested in moving back to Pittsburgh. She snapped that I mention that during every damn conversation, and can I stop hurling that at her and hurting her with that dagger? Argh. My shoulders have tensed up, just writing this paragraph. My head feels like I’ve been sleeping on a concrete pillow.

So she told me that since I’m so busy and so involved in everybody else’s lives but hers, why can’t I drop her a note or something? Buy a card. Write in it. Act like I’m concerned. I told her I don’t write to anyone, and it would be great if we could get her one of those little e-mail machines, since that’s my main form of communication these days. She seemed open to that but sounded dejected anyway. Said my grandfather asks about me all the time. Says he prays every day that I will move back to Pittsburgh. (He prays? When the hell did THAT begin?) It’s like the guilt noose has suddenly been crafted of rosary beads. Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ.

Add to the guilt trip that she wants to know what I want for Xmas (um, an oil change for Samantha is the only thing I really need. That, and enough cash for two car payments and three student loan payments — $1,500, all told, but I know she doesn’t have that). I told her that we should really focus on my grandfather, because he’s frail and we never know when it’s going to be his last Christmas. Further, she’s running around with no winter coat — I told her to make my gift a coat for herself. So then I got the guilt trip that I am ungrateful and not helpful to her, when she’s trying to make us a little Christmas and I’m not even helping her to make it a bit easier.

Oh, I just can’t WAIT for Christmas dinner. Fuck me running.

*for those who loved last year’s “South Park” Xmas special.

“For one day we all stop burning, and the flames are not so thick

All the screaming and the torture stops as we wait for old Saint Nick

So string up the lights, and light up the trees

We’re damned for all eternity

But for just one day, all is well

It’s Christmastime in Hell!!”

Ahem.

So F/OM e-mailed me today, in response to a note I had dropped his way that mentioned my heartfelt desire to launch my own business.

He suggested we go for it together.

I was floored.

This is a GREAT thing! Despite the horrendous hell that was working at Two Strikes, he still holds me in high esteem as a worker. Granted, he knows I’m a 14K fuckup at the new job, but he knows that I need a lot more challenge and stimulation (and money!). I’ve always loved and idolized F/OM, and to have his personal endorsement of me meant so much. I sent him my ideas and thoughts about what it is that I want to do when I grow up, and I assured him that it’s a work-in-progress. Shan and I are going places in this world, and to have his encouragement and even his potential cooperation, my ego is doing pretty well today. He said with my writing ability and personal/business connections, J’s creativity, his financial sense and ability to fix toilets (allusion to all the SHIT at Two Strikes, I’m sure) and Shan’s business sense (and of course the girl’s god-given networking charm), we’re sitting on a goldmine of talent.

I just need a business name and then I can go to City Hall to get my business license. Any thoughts, folks? Media relations, promotions and parties. I need all the help I can get! It has to be short, sassy and memorable, just like lil ol’ me. 🙂

Am lookin’ forward to the weekend, even though I’m going to be scrambling to do my writing. I fear I will only be able to produce four of my five assigned stories, but given the way this month has gone (self-induced concussion, inclement weather, Frosty the Snow-Cow saying that we’ll have to live without our promised raises, and three days with no network access at the Veggie Patch), that’s fine by me. Besides, I still average six stories on any given month, and it’s Xmas, so my gift to myself is to earn my given salary. 🙂

At any rate, it’s almost Friday the 13th and IKEA Boy’s 28th Birthday!!! Saturday night brings dinner and a candlelit walking tour in Old Town. And drinking. Lots of it. Woo hoo!!! Food, fags and an alcoholic funk. What more can a gal need in this life? (Oh, yeah … SEX!!!) Well, we’ll see about that last part. Best offer (okay, okay … FIRST offer!) wins!!!!

No, the flip-flopping isn’t in reference to Frosty the Snow-Cow’s heaving bosom (our HR person at work, for those just tuning in) — I’m talking about making my webpage accessible to folks who view my profile at Classmates.com. I see no reason why I should, but then again, why shouldn’t I? Perhaps it is safe for me to say that it’s cool that people I used to know can read the profiles I so artfully crafted for that site about my high school, college, work and general life experiences. They only see the “journalist in D.C.” job title, instead of coming here to read about my third consecutive missed car payment.

Maybe I’ll keep this fabulous site on the QT for a little while longer — because I’ve gotta pitch another bitch. I cannot BELIEVE how many people are married, divorced, separated, with kids, etc. And let me put it this way — I remember these folks from second grade — I will never forget the kids who picked their noses and ate their boogers; I clearly recall the kids who sat and flatulated all day, silently but surely; I remember the dumb bitch who sucked on her red ink pen till the ink exploded in her mouth; etc. And to read that these people are REARING CHILDREN right now just fucking ASTOUNDS me!!! (oh, almost forgot ’bout the girl who screamed, “My tampon just fell out!” on the schoolbus one morning. lol)

Which leads me to wonder, when I am starting to date people, what they were like when they were kids. Did they eat paste or have head lice or scratch their asses or stink because they hated bathing? I shudder to think that the next love of my life was, well, a booger-eater. 🙂 Yet the booger-eaters from my schools are married with kids, and I’m still single. Humph. What gives?

World’s.Best.Holiday.Song.EVER!!!

“It’s coming on Christmas

They’re cutting down trees

They’re putting up reindeer

And singing songs of joy and peace

Oh I wish I had a river

I could skate away on

But it don’t snow here

It stays pretty green

I’m going to make a lot of money

Then I’m going to quit this crazy scene

I wish I had a river

I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long

I would teach my feet to fly

Oh I wish I had a river

I could skate away on

I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me

You know, he put me at ease

And he loved me so naughty

Made me weak in the knees

Oh I wish I had a river

I could skate away on

I’m so hard to handle

I’m selfish and I’m sad

Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby

That I ever had

Oh I wish I had a river

I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long

I would teach my feet to fly

Oh I wish I had a river

I could skate away on …

I made my baby say goodbye”

— Joni Mitchell, “River” —

Tiff reflects on the Beehive, and of course I have to throw in my two cents. 🙂

This makes me feel better about the network not working at work, as well as the voice mails I am not there to receive. …

Our ‘Net connection went down at work early yesterday afternoon and STILL isn’t up. Shan saw the dumbshit in MIS going home at 5:30 p.m., but alas, the problem was not and has yet to be resolved. That ain’t right. I remember when the network would go kaput at Two Strikes – CTL would stay until dawn, if that’s what it took to make the network available for his colleagues the next morning. And then he would be there at 9 a.m., when everyone else arrived, to ensure that any last-minute problems could be addressed in a timely fashion. THAT was a work ethic. Not to mention, we typically knew either why things weren’t working, or we had a ballpark estimate of when we would get our files back. Not here at the Veggie Patch. Oh, hell no. Everyone popped their Zoloft and is quite happy to be staring at the walls. I just came home so that I could try to access the server from outside the firewall, but alas, no luck. Our dependence on technology is alarming — we can’t function without it anymore.

I wonder, though, with all of Shan’s and my suspicions of being spied on by the associate executive assholes esquires (damn them and their titles!!!), whether dipshit is simply exporting all of our e-mails so that they can be scrutinized and held against us at a later time. Hmm. I killed off most of what was not work-related, as did IKEA Boy and Shan, which doesn’t mean that those e-mails are lost forever, but it will take them a little bit more time to find them in the system. Hee hee.

While the winter season here in NoVa is tropical compared to Western Pa., I still hate feeling cold. My shoulders are so tense, from trying to hold myself upright when I walk over icy snowdrifts (parking lots are sheets of ice down here – granted, I know these store owners don’t have to mobilize for snow much, but come on – I don’t want a concussion because I need to run to Wal-Mart for a tree skirt). I’m also tense when I drive, trying not to hit random ice patches at night and hoping that other drivers don’t hit them, either.

Speaking of tension, something I’ve noticed is at my last two jobs: I avoid learning who everyone is. I wasn’t always this way, but now, I cannot tell you who is whom. I looked at the phone list and realized that I can’t put a face with most of those names. I’ve been here six months, and I still can’t say, “Hi ___!” in the halls ‘cause I don’t know who they are. Nor do I care. How sad is that? I’d rather work for a start-up company (i.e., my OWN) and intimately know a handful of people instead of being able to exist without knowing who works on the other floors. Hell, Scott’s two new people have been here for two weeks, and I have yet to even run into them in the hallways (he’s the only straight man there who can remotely spark my interest, anyway). Besides, the girl looks like she needs lots of cake – I saw her from behind, and I swore I could see her ribs through her sweater. She needs CAKE!!! Lots and lots of CAKE!!!

Mmmm. Cake. … (lol – havin’ a Homer Simpson moment. …)

Had the most bizarre dream about JO (not to be confused with J-HO!) last night. Haven’t seen him in years, yet he popped into my subconscious. In the end, we were silently hugging – almost as if we were clinging to each other for dear life. In the dream (and only there), bygones were bygones. I got the impression he was sick (something serious, but I don’t know what) and that he wanted to end our childhood war. I awoke feeling peaceful but curious why he would come to me in my dream, but then again, there was a bizarre cosmic connection that held us together for many, many years.

Then I looked at a calendar about an hour ago – and realized that today is his 29th birthday. How very odd that I would dream about him on this particular morning, after all the birthdays of each other’s that we’ve missed.

Despite all the heartache between us, I do hope that he’s OK – for the past two or three years, I’ve felt like he isn’t. But I Googled him and saw that he has a great job in another state. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything … I live in a great place and am alternately bored, upset and even amused. Oh well. At any rate, I just want to say Happy Birthday, old friend … wherever you are.

Addendum

I called his work. Damn it if he didn’t answer. I apologized and said it was a wrong number. He was silent for a moment or two and said, “That’s okay. No problem.” And we hung up. I wonder if he knew it was me.

I’m not sure why I called. I certainly didn’t expect to talk to him. What would I say, after all this time? The last time we ran into each other was on a snowy streetcorner in downtown Pittsburgh, and even though I said hello to him, he acted as if I weren’t even there. But even after all the years and miles between us, I suppose I just wanted to know that he was, in fact, okay. And he is. And without him, so am I.