Caterwauling

All anyone wants is to be heard.

I’ve been away from the blogosphere during my time of tumult and turmoil (I know the words are synonyms, but it represents how everything happens en masse), so it’s taken me awhile to plow through everyone’s feeds. And via the always-empathetic and -insightful Lachlan, I learned about 300 letters to God being sent up shit creek. Literally.

“Letters to God end up in ocean, unread”

“The letters — about 300 in all, sent to a New Jersey minister — ended up dumped in the (Atlantic) ocean, most of them unopened.

“The minister died two years ago at 79. How the letters, some dating to 1973, wound up bobbing in the surf is a mystery. …

“Many were written by anguished spouses, children or widows, pouring out their hearts to God, asking for help with relatives who were using drugs, gambling or cheating on them. One man wrote from prison, saying he was innocent and wanted to be back home with his family. A woman wrote that her boyfriend was now closing the door to her daughter’s bedroom each night when it used to stay open, and wondered why. …”

Now, I personally would have sent them to PostSecret, but then again, I’m not an asshole. Why do I point that out? Because the guy who found the secrets is gonna sell ’em on eBay. Class-ay.

Around every corner is an opportunity to do the “right” thing. Even if you repeatedly blow past these moral speedtraps, if you will, some of them just reach out and bonk you over the head. I don’t know what the right thing to do with the letters would be — we’re not God; we can’t answer them. Goodness knows we’ve all got a few thoughts of our own that we’d love to have acknowledged in some way.

But I wonder whatever happened to the people who wrote them. (The story says half of the notes are not salvageable due to water damage, so we’ll never know who they are or what they requested prayer for.) Did they go on to heal from the particular trouble they’d sought guidance on? Did they think someone was listening?

IS someone actually listening?!?!

I’d like to go on the theory that it doesn’t take some man of the cloth to be a conduit to spiritual guidance. I’d like to think that “mind over matter” isn’t just some hippie hogwash — “love one another” and all that jazz, and the world will be fine. “Golden Rule,” blah blah blah we shall overcome our dilemmas and dramas.

Some people play air guitar — I’m sitting here thinking in “air quotes”!

The good (we hope) minister took the burden of these unopened secrets to his grave, and I wonder if he got some sort of karmic comeuppance for that. In any event, whomever set sail to the bag o’ secrets (as it seems to have been done recently and Dude’s been dead for two years) has an interesting story to tell.

Did they intend to set the secrets free? Most of the letters were unopened — was it the mysterious third party who read a few and wanted to keep these confidences sacred in some way? Or were they hoping someone would find these unbottled messages and do something about them?

I hope everyone who wrote saw their suffering abate. I hope everyone’s mental loads throughout the world can be alleviated in some way, if we’re going to go the humanitarian route here. In the grand scheme of things, I’m sure this was no big deal, but to sell these secrets is a horrid, wretched way of tempting Karma.

Of course, in my experience, the worse things get and the uglier the things that happen are, I always, always get a silver lining of some sort. ALWAYS. Karma may be a bitch, but I can cite many instances in which she’s played fair and rewarded me commensurately. Retribution isn’t mine to mete out, for She holds the scorecard in a game to which only She knows the rules. But I trust Her.

Which leaves me to conclude that if our letter-writers didn’t get the grace they were looking for, I believe the fates must have smiled on them in some way and brought them some sort of resolution or good luck next time around.

And in that, the world is turning as it should be, and will continue to do so.

Captain O

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Anyone who went to school in Pittsburgh probably knows Captain O, the face of The O (restaurant) in Oakland. In my day (and it wasn’t that long ago!) you could get $4 large pizzas that were not much more than cardboard with cheese, but when you were broke, nothing tasted better.

(Incidentally, Captain O reminds me of “Captain Condom,” about whom we saw movies in ninth-grade health classes.)

Anyway, I was never a fan of the hot dogs, but I used to think the burgers were out of this world. That is, until the D.C.-based Five Guys opened up right next door to The O in November ’05. 😉

The real reason to trek to The O was for the fries, as a “small” order was enough to feed four people. Crispy, greasy and bountiful — three of the six food groups of the average college student. (The other three being caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol.)

The joy for those of yinz who spent half your adolescence there as well was the vat o’ hot Cheez Wiz that you could order as a side. (It’s now $1.50 — they know how to make their money! I swear it used to cost a third of that.) And now, they’ve introduced gravy and Ranch dressing (*slobber*) as well.

I’d so kill for a fry right now. …

“But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears.”

Mom asked me to pray tonight. Here goes. …

Dear God,

I know we haven’t been on speaking terms for very long, really it’s only been since you helped me to find a job after that wretched period of my life. That you were there for me when I came back to you, hey, we’re cool.

You do remember that it was July 4, 1999, that I stopped having faith in you. The day you took my grandmother away — the day that fucked-up excuse of a hospital killed her.

I didn’t believe you could let one human being suffer so much. That you could stand by and let her get such shoddy, inexcusable care and let Satan of Silver Spring^TM continue walking this earth unscathed. I hoped that you welcomed my Gram with open arms, and then I turned and walked away.

So here we are with my grandfather — the man who raised me as his daughter, the only man who has never broken my heart — being tortured and abused and punished for some vendetta his so-called medical care staff has with the world. And where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?!?!

God is not in the hallways of the VA Medical Center on University Drive. There’s plenty of MRSA and VRSA and tuberculosis (gee thanks), but no sign of you.

(Incidentally, what the F? VA hospitals screening for staph — OK, I can overlook the fact that it seems to praise the Pittsburgh VA, but let me explain something. They aren’t fucking geniuses for colonizing the MRSA patients. You know where they’re located? IN THE PRIVATE ROOMS RIGHT OFF THE FUCKING ELEVATORS. Where people with weakened immune systems and visitors alike have to pass through. Let’s clap for stupidity.)

Have you seen their Web site? I am sure as the Almighty that you have a decent broadband connection. How can you let them get away wth saying “VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System – Nobody knows veterans like we do”? More like that nobody disgraces, disrespects or causes the death of veterans quite like them.

My grandfather is so proud of serving his country — he was a World War II hero. There was recently a special on The History Channel about his particular plattoon. The man has always been a god to me and to everyone who’s known him.

So when these ASSHOLES have signs around saying “Veterans First,” I must ask you first to whom? I want my tax dollars back if all I’m going to witness/hear are stories of their neverending series of screw-ups. I don’t want him to be someone’s afterthought — I don’t want to lose him to their ineptitude and I don’t think he has to suffer the consequences of it if he even DOES manage to hang in there.

I had taken my grandfather past a display case with fatigues, a canteen and all kinds of medals. And my proud, proud papa looked at all of it and said to me, “What for?” Meaning, why the fuck would anyone in their right fucking mind serve their country just to come back to be grateful simply to be alive. Was it worth it to sustain lifelong injuries and see horrors that they’re too proud to share but not strong enough to forget/overcome?

And you people WONDER why I’m against war?!?!

Mom is convinced he’s not coming back from this. He’s regressing, he’s fading, he’s ready to call it a day.

And all he did today, in moments of lucidity? Was ask where I was.

*sob*

God, I don’t ask you about my 13-hour workdays like today. I love my team and my work enough that they’re good hours. I try not to bug you with little, inconsequential requests. Yes, I oftentimes shout in your direction, “Why are you TORMENTING me?!?!” but I say it with love. Usually. 😉

I know there are people with worse problems than me, but I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for that wonderful man who’s done nothing but serve You and everyone around him to have his life back. This wasn’t a long, drawn-out, progressive illness. This is a series of 14-karat fuckups on the part of the people to whom we’re supposed to be entrusting his health that made him decline overnight. THEY should suffer. THEY can’t even give him something for the pain. THEY won’t even talk to me when I call because I’m not next-of-kin YET I can tell them more than their stupid asses know about anything.

In plain English, why in Your name is his precious, precious life entrusted to people who couldn’t find their own asses in a paper bag, and with both hands?

The next person, incidentally, who tells me that everything happens for a reason is going to get a Nine West shoe-induced tracheotomy. Is this Your plan? I should think you’d have higher standards for Your servants — are you going to let them get away with this?

It’s not my grandfather’s time to go and CERTAINLY not under these conditions. He should be at home in his bed in his pretty house surrounded by Mom and me and maybe even those obnoxious brothers of his who treat him about as well as the VA doctors but for some reason my grandfather loves them anyway.

I don’t know why the most vile, hateful creatures on earth will live forever and the best people either get fucked-up care (case in point) or no care (Mom).

God, I know I have no business demanding of you an explanation for the way things are. It’s Your plan, so they keep telling me. And frankly? I don’t WANT to know your plan. But what I DO want from you is your grace when it comes to my grandfather. Keep him alive for me. I’ve got so many things to tell him — so many things still left to do with him. He’s got so much to teach me and share with me and make me know that it exists.

We’ve had a good 32 years together. All I want is 20 more. He’s a young 80 — or, he was.

If you see this man, send him back where he belongs … with Mom and me.

In Your son’s name, Amen.

Love, Goddess

I had one of those marathon, obnoxious errand-running days yesterday, but I stopped to have breakfast at Einstein’s. And as I sat in the back corner of the restaurant, enjoying my panini and coffee, a family with a toddler plopped down next to me.

I winced, hoping the kid would stay quiet and not disturb my peace.

But I was wrong. He was absolutely darling. It was his mother who had no concept of an “inside voice.” Gah. *smack* Of course, the second I left, bigmouth left too.

I usually go to coffeehouses to write. Well, at least I used to — I never have the time anymore and certainly not the energy. But I go now to do mandatory daydreaming. I’m not one of those people who has to sit there with a newspaper or book to pretend like I’m OK with being alone. I really AM fine with having not a goddamned thing to do but people-watch.

It’s like the world going by is a conversation in and of itself, and I’m participating just by listening to it and not missing otherwise-insignificant moments. I watched a woman with a Virginia plate drop off her teenage daughter with a man with a Pennsylvania plate, no doubt switching custody in a public place, and I wondered what it was like for the “happily ever after” fairy tale to burst for them and yet I applauded them for finding a way to keep the family together in one way or another, even if it meant meeting halfway regularly.

And this is why I get annoyed with people who can’t shut their damn yappers for five fucking seconds. Because they miss everything and they force the rest of us to pay attention to them (or, at least, to concentrate really hard on NOT listening to them). Her husband looked like he’d tuned her out, so I was the only one who seemed to be aware of of her neverending litany of bitch, bitch, bitching.

This is why I tend to stop talking in mid-sentence sometimes. When I evaluate whether the rest of my thought really needs to be articulated (and it usually doesn’t), hey, I’m a conservationist — let’s stop verbal air pollution and give the dreamers the space and the silence we need to be inspired by moments we’d otherwise never to be able to be part of, if not for being on the periphery.

I went to the local party. And had an amazing time.

I had a few high-school moments, which I won’t go into. (What strange memories can wash back over you 15 years later when you’d thought you’d never feel that way again.) It was nothing anyone said or did — I just retreated very far into my head once or twice and it was familiar, supposedly forgotten, territory. Bizarre.

Minus my “Inner Goddess” moments on the deck (where I saw a shooting star!), there were a multitude of magnificent moments, wherein the girls and I were discussing “conference crushes” that nearly everyone had developed while we were out of town. (Well, I’m not implying that I had anything to add to the discussion. …) 😉

Anyway, I’ve also been on a big Stevie Nicks kick, and unexpectedly, our humble hostess turns out to be a fabulous singer/guitarist and she started singin’ some Stevie. A sign that I was definitely in the right place.

As if I needed more proof that I picked the right party …

So …

… I met a boy.

Heh.

Well, he made sure to give me his business card, which probably means he’s really trying to sell me something and not necessarily indicate that he’d enjoyed our conversations. Because, really, isn’t that always the way? Or maybe he’s gay and just wants to give me a makeover or something. And let me tell you, I wouldn’t turn one down!

Actually, I’m pretty sure there could be a real business opportunity at hand here, so that’s what I’m expecting — a further discussion.

In all, I wish I could have gone to the psychic at the far-off party, but why wait for some strange person to tell me when I’m going to start having good things happen to me when I can, instead, HAVE good things happen to me?

Strange and wonderful the flood of good people the universe has recently washed ashore in my life, bringing incredibly dynamic souls who were previously on the periphery into my heart with deft, almost-imperceptible force.

I’m worth it, as my girlfriend reminded me on the phone tonight during a quick call between glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon. And as she posited, I need to make sure everyone else is equally worthy of me. …

This tidbit was e-mailed my way today, and it gave me pause:

“If you can’t get someone out of your head I think they are supposed to be there.”

All I know is that I can’t stop thinking about what a powerful statement that is and the imagery it evoked for me. Particularly, the mental sledgehammer I wield when something near-impossible pops into said little brain.

And then you wonder if this is the one thing you can talk yourself out of that maybe you shouldn’t.

The amount of time we lose while we’re not loving is mind-boggling. …

So I get a lovely care package from Mom with a card telling me how sick my grandfather has gotten. I call her the Kathie Lee of the Carnival Cruise Lines for guilt trips for a reason!

And it’s one of those times when I can feel in my bones that I am going to regret not spending any time with my family.

Seems the combination of aneurysm, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and whatever the hell else is leading to renal failure. But he goes to the VA Hospital, which means they think he’s fine and so they send him home.

I can’t even joke that I wish I could lose 10 pounds a week like he has been. (Although the thought has crossed my mind.)

My family’s good about me being absentee at best, although the subtle “He’ll hang in there if he knows you’re coming up to see him” from Mom gets me every time.

I know I’m going to regret all the hours spent at work and not with my family. I am going to regret not finding a way to get a laptop so I can work from there because there is no one to delegate to. And I hate even driving up on a Saturday to come back Sunday; that four hours each way is really not worth the aggravation. Besides, all those errands that don’t get done during the week have to get done on weekends. If I bother — usually I don’t even get to it. (Bills? Don’t they pay themselves? My regular work isn’t going to do itself while I’m away on business doing — gasp — more work?)

I know, I know — I have more excuses than China has rice. I live and die by avoidance. I’m like my cats — I’m hiding under the rug and because I can’t see you, I think you can’t see me. Never mind that my big fat furry tail is sticking out and flapping in the breeze. 😉

Losing my grandfather means an ocean of self-guilt, sure, but also inheriting Mom. That means either moving back to Pittsburgh or finding a new apartment here to accommodate us. Which means searching for a money tree because I’m barely taking care of myself and GAWD I hope to find a permanent man before that happens.

Ever notice that it seems like men live with their parents but women take in their parents? No? Just me? I’m not saying that men don’t take their parents in or that parents don’t take in their daughters; just saying it’s a double-edged perception sword.

I can’t handle these things. Not right now. I’m not sure when. I have to be forced to face reality.

All I was planning to do today was feel sorry for myself that I was supposed to start my vacation tomorrow . Hahaaaaa. Fuck. Holy personally incurred airline fees and headaches to make myself available at work. But alas, it seems trivial now.

I wish I could ditch everything and go be with my family right now. Funny how when you’re young, you can’t get away from them quickly enough but when you’re older, you just want to escape the rest of your 14-karat fuckup of a life to go back to them. …

I knew my elder cat took an out-of-the-(litter)box dump somewhere before I rolled home last night, but where, I still have no idea. I’ve combed the house and even hosed down the carpets and floor cushions with pet stain stuff, but this morning I’m sitting here at the computer, wanting to kill myself because of the eau de cat ass.

Considering that I have no furniture, it shouldn’t be this hard to find kitty chunks. I did dig a bunch out of Maddie’s ass crack (*sigh*) but I’m guessing she wiped her ass on something fabric.

Here’s to hoping my cats jump off the balcony (again) before I buy furniture. This time, I won’t go looking for them!

UPDATE

Gawd damn it. I just went to pick up a menu I’d left by the door (tonight’ll be a late one, so I was thinking of picking up a pizza on the way home). And not only did Maddie shit on the carpet there, but she’d pulled the menu over it! She covered up the crime.

I’m mad as hell, of course (Maddie’s one more shit away from going to a Vietnamese restauarant), but how can you hate a cat who’s that fucking smart?

Today’s horoscope: Evaluate your surroundings. Are you where you’re supposed to be? Could some old feelings of guilt or misplaced loyalty be keeping you chained to a situation that simply doesn’t fit anymore? Be honest.

No real comments on it. Just something that’s been niggling at me today. It’s sort of freeing, really. I have my reasons for doing what I do (and not doing other things). My visions are bigger than anyone can imagine. But there is some sort of, I don’t know, obligation if you will. To people, places and things. I’ve relinquished control in a big way to Fate and the powers that be.

Sometimes I think creative people get screwed in life. Now, I profess my love for my labrynth-like mind and spurts of brilliance that compensate for those other moments that are completely devoid of brainwaves. But what I fail to be able to do is motivate myself — I expect creativity and inspiration to come in time.

Boundaries elude me and I find myself daydreaming at work and thinking about work when I’m supposedly on “my” time. And that’s fine but I feel like I’m not accomplishing much of anything in either realm. But I’ve also got to force myself sometimes to be OK with not saving the world. I make myself nervous sometimes when I finish a day no closer to any goals I might have had — lofty goals at that.

I had one of those big “what if” moments the other day. What if I abandoned all decorum and restraint and reached out and shook the world off its axis. What would have happened? Am I more afraid that everything could turn to shit and life will spiral out of control, or am I not prepared for a situation in which everyone sits back and says, “I had no idea you could rock socks that way. What else do you have up your sleeve?”

Maybe I’m just afraid that I won’t take everyone’s breath away. And I couldn’t handle that particular aftermath.

“My hero said
You can’t hold the hand
Of a rock and roll man
But what if I can
What if I can?

What if I
Look to the sky
Check out the stars
How they shine
Into your eyes
They’re just like mine
Searching the darkness
For some kind of sign

Building our life
On the dreams we string together
Like Christmas lights.”

— Nina Gordon, “Christmas Lights”

Short but sweet. Fewer questions but longer answers. And in case ya’ll didn’t notice, I like to ramble!

1. Comparing your life as it currently is to the way it was a year or two or five ago, are you more content? If so, why? If not, why?

My life has changed a lot, but not at all, in some respects. I’m still a workaholic who can’t prioritize a personal relationship to save my life. Maybe I just haven’t met the right person. I don’t think any of the past ones were, so I’m not looking back or anything. But yeah, there’s that definite void of a true tag-team partner in this crazy odyssey. I’ve just wised up and gotten past the “bad boys” and am now looking for better-quality people.

It’s strange insofar as the person I am. I feel like I’ve become more comfortable with who I am, but I’ve learned to hide her more efficiently. I think, to some degree, I’ve always worn my heart on my proverbial little sleeve, but I think that shirt went through the dry cleaner’s one too many times and that heart has sort of gone into hiding. I’m more anxious than I was years ago. I used to have this grand worldview that everything would work out in the end. And while, I know, I’m far from “The End,” I can’t help but wonder if this is intermission and if so, did I waste that time not working toward any solid goals? Because I didn’t expect to be so tired and even disenchanted at such a young age.

But that’s the thing. I’m disenchanted, of course, with lots of things. And not to complain about work, but it doesn’t afford me enough time to pursue non-work interests. So I have a very hard time defining my identity as something other than what it is in relation to my role there. (OK, here. I’m writing it at work because it’s 7 p.m. and I ain’t near done yet but I found a hole in my schedule wherein I can do some personal thinking.)

What I’ve found, to cope, is to have what I call built-in downtime. We don’t really hang out and do happy hours and stuff, but we do really enjoy each other on the team and if we can swing a few minutes to talk, we love it. So basically yeah, I goof off for a few minutes here and there during the day. It’s nice and it’s great for trust-building. But if I ruled the world, it’d be done in a bar instead. Which was what I did years ago.

So, am I more content? Not at all. I’m more restless. I know my life will unfold the way it is meant to, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing time away sometimes in that I want to get to the “good part” faster.

2. What do you hope the next year will bring? Do you expect things to more or less stay the same? Or do you see big changes? How do you feel about that?

If I didn’t have the hope that life would be better next year, I wouldn’t be here. Not to intimate in the least that I am suicidal, but I can absolutely see how someone would get to the point where they’re ready to end it all. Once you lose faith that there’s got to be something bigger and better out there, you don’t have anything left.

That said, realistically I see myself in the exact same place — job, apartment, rut — next year. But do I want to be? Oh hell no. I want to work less and play more. I want to be in love — really, truly, head-over-heels addicted to someone who’s equally enamored of me because they’d be nuts to let me get away. I want to rush home to either see that person or to enjoy the fact my apartment will have finally been unpacked/decorated/furnished. I want to call my friends and suggest going out because I haven’t been so supernaturally drained from work that I actually have something left to give to them at the end of the day or week.

I’m telling the universe that I want everything it has to offer. I’m tired of thinking that the things “everyone else” has are not meant for me. I want those “normal” things, too. I am capable of so much more than I’m doing and giving. And the right people will finally wise up and figure out how to tap into that potential and benefit from it. I’m not purposely holding out on anybody — all they have to do is ask.

3. What would your ideal life situation be? Do you feel that it’s within your grasp, or merely a pipe dream?

A perfect segue. I am very relational in nature. Big pictures are the only pictures I can deal with. Details bore me and routine frustrates me. Which is why I flit from job to job, and person to person, with ease. I interview each, exhaustively, and move on to the next day’s story.

But I’m tired of that. I want to get to know someone or something really, ridiculously well. I crave comfort. I hate having a meltdown and not knowing who, if anyone, to call. I hate having my car acting up and not feeling like there’s anyone I can contact for a ride if I needed one. I’ve gotten rid of the people who feel like I owe them my firstborn if they do me a menial favor, but that doesn’t leave many others. I’m fine with that, most days. But other days I wake up and go, yeah, I really wish I could just have a hug right now. A real one.

Here’s my pipe dream. I don’t sleep much in general, and never around anyone else. And I think y’all would be surprised how absolutely uninterested I’ve been in *that* not just lately, but for a long time now. Not to say that I’m not a sexual being. I am. TRUST ME on this. But I’ve done the emotionally detached thing for way too long. And I’m through. I want to care that this person is here in the morning. I want to not be plotting my getaway excuses in mid-thrust. I want to know that if I fall asleep, I haven’t “lost” the game. That’s a level of vulnerability I haven’t achieved yet. Maybe I never will. But I hope to. And I will probably fight it kicking and screaming, but that’s half the fun, I suppose!

I want a reason to go home at night. I want a reason to stay in a particular city. I want to be able to use my ridiculous overabundance of nurturing skills to give someone else everything it is that I also want for myself.

4. Ask me something.

At what point in your life do you think you would look at it and go, “Yeah, this is what I’ve been working my way toward”? What will you have achieved that you can say, “I did good, damn it”?