Caterwauling

I guess since I’ve always been the poorest kid I knew, and then the poorest young adult, and then poorest adult, I’ve always been mindful of dining on others’ tabs. In other words, you can count on me to order the cheapest thing on the menu about 97% of the time.

That other 3% of the time, I have plans to pay my own way and I will eat what I damn well want.

It just annoys the hell out of me to see people consistently ordering the most expensive things on the menu. Like it’s owed to them or something.

Or is it just my “just glad to be invited — don’t ruin it” brain that is really the problem here? Should everyone feel entitled to eat what they want without fear that someone like me is keeping track and wondering what, exactly, you did to earn it?

They must be after my nonexistent money. Good luck with that!

I have some big fat fucking work messes to clean up before Monday morning. But tonight I ate and laughed and drank and rode a tour bus around Chicago. Above is the garden at Orso where friendships were born and rekindled over tiramisu and wine.

I also spent the day with old colleagues/friends, and the night with another set. And that has energized my dead-ass soul in a way that probably won’t last past Monday’s onslaught of conference calls. But, you know, give me tonight, will ya?

So I found myself in the same room with someone, and a flood of memories came back. To me, anyway.

It’s too late and I’m too lazy to find the post. But if everyone remembers the psychotic shit who made up a fake Yahoo! address with my name and then sent the link of this blog to the higher-ups at my job at the time, well, I saw one of those people today.

The weird thing was that I still to this day had never met the guy, as he was in the D.C. office and I was in the Rockville, Md., office.

And then, a friend introduced us.

Luckily he had no clue who I was, even after I said who I used to be. But I had the unmistakable rumblings of rage when I thought of that sad sack of shit who impersonated me with the intent of getting me fired.

With any luck, a tour bus has run over his ass. Or maybe the ugly has manifested itself on the outside more so than it already had, at last check.

In any event, I squashed the hatred and befriended the guy I’d never met. And he was extraordinarily cool.

Closure, after 8 years. Feels pretty damn good.

*blows kisses toward whatever concentric circle of hell the idiot occupies these days*

After four years of near-imprisonment in the state of Florida, I finally have a work trip next week.

Mom mused, “You really miss having jobs that let you travel.”

Yup.

I think someone was trying to rattle my cage recently by intimating that I don’t really excel at two particular tasks. Which, I do fine for someone who doesn’t have the time or the passion to do either.

My strength was always networking and connecting the right people and making relationships work and managing those relationships over the longer term. The aching details of projects and numbers never interested me. I just happen to be good at jumping into action the moment it is needed … whatever it may be.

Unfortunately no matter how many people I hire, there is no “me.” And I have a love/hate relationship with that fact.

Because, I love being a rockstar. But I wouldn’t mind handing off the guitar if anyone were fast/adept/skilled/motivated enough to learn a couple chords, let alone how to do a screaming solo to give a girl a night off.

I am painfully aware when people aren’t great at whatever they think their calling is. I think I may be seeing a bit of that right now. (Story for another day, if that nagging feeling is true.)

And there’s a certain comfort on my part that I’m pretty good at things that I know aren’t my calling. What if I got to do what I thought I’d be great at, and it turns out “not so much”?

Whatever. I’m just thrilled to be at the big-boy table again. Making connections. With people. Now if I can just remember how to act so I can maybe get to do it again …

I’m purposely avoiding social media and the news in general because today is, well, today.

I get conflicted because I realize how short life is, and also, how LONG life is.

Many beautiful lives were abruptly ended. Many other lives have been tested and hardened and wearied by their absence.

I think about losses I’ve faced, and losses yet to come. I also think about the joys that are supposedly left in store, amid and even after the terrible things.

I try not to think of these things. But on a day like today, you think of how big your problems seem, and how small you really are on this earth.

And yet, it’s your path to walk. It’s OK if your shit seems huge. IT IS to you. And nobody … nor time nor space nor distance … can take it away. Not even if you really wanted them to.

The other day I mentioned arriving here five years ago in a town car and thinking the office was a dump. And now I’m here again and I think it’s the GREATEST THING EVER.

Here’s another parallel.

Five years ago, I sat on this very floor in this very building, stunned that Michael Jackson had passed. And today, I am having ALL THE FEELS because Robin Williams just died.

I had posters of both on my walls as a child. MJ in his “Off the Wall” days and Robin dressed in rainbow suspenders as “Mork from Ork.”

(These were the days before I wallpapered with Jon Bon Jovi, Kip Winger and any other hairy celebrity featured in Metal Edge magazine, of course.)

Anyway, it’s just weird how I’m living life over again, in many ways. It’s like Groundhog Day. I just hope this time around, whatever it is, I finally get it right so I can move on to bigger and better things …

Today I found out that good things really do happen to good people. People who have been lied to and deceived (for reasons I may or may not agree with, if not the actions themselves). It gives me hope to just keep chugging along and maybe my miracles will come, too.

Of course, it makes me wonder whether I should be hanging around ONLY with those types of people. Maybe the root of my problems is the company I keep.

In any event, hour 45 of my captivity …

If you’re not sensing a theme here, you’re engaging in the same willful blindness that’s plaguing this universe.

Today I made my final commute to Ye Olde Alligator Farm. Here’s my favorite part of this ridiculous commute, for kicks …

I’ll stay with the same company but will have an office not surrounded by assorted wildlife. So, upon request from friends, mom sent sweets to make sure nobody forgets us …

I actually like the current office and broader cast of characters. I’m taking the hard parts with me, unfortunately. But at least I’ll be closer to home for all those early mornings and late nights.

They make you feel needed so you don't mind being used. That's what users do.

— Michèle (@Boleyngirly) July 21, 2014