Caterwauling

Memo to my newly knocked-up cousin who had the audacity to call after five years just to invite me to her baby shower:

Blow me, bitch. I fucking mean it. Sure, we were inseparable as kids, but we grew up. You and your family conveniently forgot about me and mine, sequestering yourselves into your own little world and shutting us out. You called me five years ago to invite me to your bridal shower and your wedding. Mom sent gifts to your shower; I provided expensive, unique wedding gifts for you and your redneck husband. At the wedding, you didn’t see fit to even SPEAK to us, only providing us with rigatoni and fried chicken at a fucking FIRE HALL WEDDING RECEPTION (yinz Pennsylvanians know what I’m talkin’ about!). And we never even got so much as a “thank you for coming,” and god forbid, we never saw a thank-you card from your greedy ass.

So today, I find that you’re knocked up by that damn derelict with the mullet. *shudder* How dare you insist that I drive 250 miles to give you a gift for your hellspawn that my tax dollars will probably be feeding. You probably wouldn’t send a thank-you or even let me see the kid via a photo. And your mother was shocked when my mom said I would not be making the drive for you. You think I’m heartless, but guess what? My best friend has a baby, and I will spoil that child rotten as long as I have the emotional and financial means to do so. I highly doubt I will (want to) have my own, so I treat that little girl like she is mine because her mother has been a sister to me for the years during which you were so gleefully absent from the milestones in MY life.

I don’t see why we single folk are stuck buying gifts every time our family members get married or squirt out a child. And I don’t mind doing it when the recipient holds a piece of my heart that would otherwise be void if he or she weren’t in our lives. If I were the one engaged or pregnant, would you give a shit? Beyond giving a gift (and I’m no gift whore), would you really even care that I were experiencing a major life event? I think not.

Good luck. I really do wish you all the best. I just choose not to be there to celebrate with you for your events because you so clearly only want to share them with me when it involves me dumping a few hundred dollars on your cause.

I hope your child looks like you — that ugly-ass husband of yours has no business sharing his scraggly features and white trash mannerisms with another human being.

Fuck off.

Love,

Dawn

On iTunes: Faith Hill, “Cry”

After doing the world tour of clubs/hotels last night, I have a few errant thoughts I didn’t have the presence of mind to post last night:

1. It is effortless to drop more than $200 in a night and not even maintain a solid buzz. This fee does not include the drinks purchased for me nor the birthday gift — it’s all cabs, covers and cosmos. Oh, and I bought a shirt at Coyote Ugly. 😉

2. Strippers with “taint” piercings are fucking scary. How do you poop with a ring around your anus? They have to be anorexic and don’t eat enough to shit, or else that piercing would get infected. Ugh. Next.

3. When people find out that you are a vibrator peddler, they really want to talk to you. Or if they have purchased from you or your friends, they really love telling you how they have benefited from their purchases. 🙂

4. Sexuality becomes ambiguous after 11 p.m. Especially with women. At the point where you realize all the good men are taken, you start dancing with/molesting your friends. And it’s not only socially acceptable, it’s also encouraged. And admired.

5. And men really like it when chicks dig the strippers just as much as they do!

6. Spending upward of $15 on a five-block cab ride is expected. And when your cabbie gets two tickets for hauling your gang of friends to a bar, it is courteous to toss as many $20s at him as you can collectively gather.

7. Quote of the night, “Dude, couldn’t hear you — I was kissing a stripper!” Said by Shawn who had to interrupt a cell phone conversation because the stripper kissed all of us at the table. 🙂

8. Coyote Ugly is the best little redneck slice of heaven D.C. has ever seen. Nowhere else can you actually dance to AC/DC and Kid Rock and get angry when “real” dance music comes over the speakers. I can’t wait to go back!

9. Unless your spouse is cool, leave him/her at home. Andy’s new bride kept putting out his cigarettes, and not in the ashtrays, as soon as she saw him light up. This included her hiding the ashtrays from the rest of us. I was not amused.

10. Wear shit with pockets. I stuck my lighter in my bra, but some dancing and sweating later, that bitch popped out and ran away. Lighting your cigarettes all night off other people’s lit cigarettes is a real fucking pain in the ass. 🙂 But I did get a lot of cleavage compliments — had a nice hot-pink padded bra and a v-neck shirt. So I guess it was worth it!

On iTunes: Hiroshima, “Hipnotic”

Hence how I will remember Angie’s 29th birthday. 🙂

Drove on down to meet the gang at The Hotel Rouge, which, incidentally (aside to JournalCon attendees) is the sister hotel to the Helix, where we shall be meeting in two weekends. Cool place. Not much else to say other than that I found both hotels and got a great parking spot. Hurrah!

All 15 of us then cabbed it on to Coyote Ugly, where we proceeded to have the BEST time! As my first “straight bar” in D.C., well, it wasn’t so much straight — lots of women showed up to watch the women dancing.

Most of the girls in my party got up and danced on the bar. I was down on the floor when a very drunken Amy tripped and came flying down at me — her boyfriend and I managed to catch her, although she managed to knock over ALL of our drinks, which ran down my shirt and into my shoes. Yeah, all those crimson Cosmopolitans did a number on my brand-new silver shoes, but luckily, I was no dummy when choosing my outfit — I was wearing a hot-pink and black rayon number, and I cleaned up easily. In fact, every single girl in our party was in pink and black — it’s like we fucking coordinated or something. Anyway, if I thought my carpal tunnel hurt before, try catching a woman falling from midair. I should’ve let her hit her drunken ass on the floor!

I of course ended up dancing with some of the boys (and the girls!) while we were there. I was fairly intrigued by one of the servers/dancers, Jess. Mmm. Hot.

Chad came up and started dancing with me from behind — almost made me forget to pay Jess for the yummy Cosmo she was whipping up for me at the time! He told me I was the best dancer there. Um, yeah, whatever. Total charmer. 🙂

Anyway, we tried to pile into two cabs to go on to the Black Cat. And my cab — with 9 or 10 of us squashed into it, got pulled over. Four fucking squad cars came out to give our cabbie two tickets for having an overcrowded car. We sent a few people to get another cab, and the rest of us hung out for the fucking ETERNITY it took to issue the tickets. Only us, I swear.

Black Cat was a disappointment. There were supposed to be ’80s bands playing, but the sole band performing was doing like Vanilla Ice-style music. No fucking rap for us, kids. We hightailed it to the titty bar after a half hour of that crap.

I’d never been to Nexus before, but it was a fairly classy experience. My forays into Anacostia are either by accident or to head to Nation, so this was an improvement. We had several dancers come over to our table and strip for the birthday girl, and she got a good spanking from the one gal we requested, who was way cool.

Some nasty Asian chick with lots of tattoos and piercings on not only both nipples, but also on the clit AND the taint, came over and danced without us requesting her. And we gave her lots of money (well, I didn’t, but the gang did), yet she insisted that we hand her 40 ADDITIONAL dollars for giving us a “private” dance. Um, nobody ASKED her to come over. And I’m sure she got at least $100 from the table anyway. I was not impressed.

We headed on back to the Rouge a little while ago — piled again into two cabs. We told the cabbie what had happened earlier, but he said he was willing to take the risk. Just as we jumped out of the car at the hotel, a cop car came flying by with its lights on. But, luckily, it kept on going. Whew!

Some people crashed in their hotel room. I was the only one sober enough to drive home, so I hung for a little while but decided to head home. Angie’s husband Shawn is so freakin’ cool — he wanted her to have a great birthday, so he was picking up the tab left and right. I had to sneak to buy my own drinks — of course, not like I’m a raging alcoholic or anything, but still. I appreciate the gesture, and believe me, he got plenty of rounds for me.

It’s nice to have friends. Really. My own birthday turned out special because of Shan ensuring that I had candles to blow out, gifts to open and a friend who cared, but it would’ve been nice to be surrounded by friends the way Angie was. Oh well — I was glad to be one of the people included in Angie’s celebration. Many laughs and memories came out of tonight — I’m too tired to remember it all, but I made some new friends tonight and got to see Angelique (who came to one of my last parties), so I have no complaints. 🙂

On iTunes: Taylor Dayne, “Planet Love”

Got 15 hours of sleep. Just woke up, actually. That’s more shut-eye than I got during this whole week combined.

I’m just kind of sad and shaky right now. When your best friend in the whole world is leaving town, a part of your heart breaks that you know shouldn’t be breaking. You remind yourself that she’s leaving for better opportunities, more help with her infant daughter, and a chance to — for the first time in her life — create not only a happy ending, but also a pleasant journey for herself and her family.

We will probably bump into each other one more time before her flight on Monday, but we kind of left it at, “See ya next month,” because I’m aspiring to get on a plane in late August or so to visit. But I was weepy, of course. We’ve been spending every waking minute together. I have some 1,600 unread e-mails in the Caterwauling account alone, and I know some are from you guys, with words of support, encouragement and happy thoughts. And I love you all for it. One day, when life slows down just a smidge, I’ll read/respond. But thanks for thinking of me. 🙂

Yesterday, I saw Alex for the last time till next month. And who can resist this adorable little face:

Right now, I should be getting ready for a huge night on the town in honor of Angie’s 29th birthday. I have nothing to wear and no motivation to do laundry or start primping. We’ve got a roster of D.C.-area bars on the horizon to hit, and it should be great fun. However, I am not great fun. I want to go back to sleep. I have to figure out a gift (been too busy to shop) and also figure out what will fit over my fat, bloated, menstrual ass this evening.

Anyway, like I said in the title, I am almost OK. Just not quite there yet. While I will most definitely feel Shan’s absence, I know we will both fight to stay in touch as often as possible. And I signed up to become a Passion Parties consultant (read: friendly neighborhood vibrator salesperson!), so when that kit arrives, I’ll be scheduling parties and trying to earn back my initial investment as quickly as possible. And I understand that a lot of people going out tonight may be potential party hostesses. And between Angie and me, we probably own half of the products in the catalogs, so I know I can count on her to boost sales with personal endorsements!

As a reward for watching Alex for a whole week (which I did because I love my girls, not for any kind of recognition — I don’t do favors to get favors), Shan gave me the money to get my car fixed. I fought it, of course, but she left it in my purse when I was meeting with H.R. about Uncle Saturday Night’s unwanted advances. She knows I miss my family desperately — she wants me to get the car fixed and get my ass up to Pittsburgh to see my mom and grandfather ASAP. I told her that I would pay her back, and she said, “Like hell you will — it’s a gift.” So I promised to help put Alex through college. She said she has no doubt that I will write a bestselling book and filter some proceeds into a college fund, so she said she’ll take that when it happens. 🙂

Anyway, things really are looking up around here. Truly, they are. I am just having trouble getting to the point of feeling well enough to throw myself into the projects I’ve created. But the day will come. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

On iTunes: Tracy Chapman, “Telling Stories”

The new doormat inside our office building should be featured on some late-night talk show:

Oh, and I reported Uncle Saturday Night’s ass to H.R. Apparently he’s worthless in addition to being sleazy. I expect for his contract to be terminated within four weeks. Hurrah!

On iTunes: Ani DiFranco, “32 Flavors”

I finally got brave enough to check my remaining voice mails. OK, so to refresh, I sent an e-mail to Uncle Saturday night on Wednesday morning around 8 a.m. to cancel. That was followed, of course, by the e-mail I posted from him.

But …

There were also two voicemails from him — CANCELING on ME!!!

I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one — He called to cancel after 1 p.m. and the e-mail arrived at 2 p.m. One call was to cancel; the next call was to ask if I’d gotten the message that he was canceling and to say that “It would give me a really good feeling to know you got my message (so that you’re not sitting at the bar waiting).”

Maybe he’s a nice old guy. But he still creeps me the fuck out.

I am going to take Bill’s advice and just say no when he pressures me to reschedule. Not just no, but “I ain’t interested.”

It kills me — I lose so many great people in my life — for instance, today is Shan’s last day at the Veggie Patch and it finally hit me that she’s really, truly leaving the East Coast. (Read: I’ve been crying like a fucking baby. And getting my period this morning hasn’t helped!) But then other people just have to be a thorn in my ass and never fucking just go away. What little energy I still have is being expended on those who count, and I am not fussing with the likes of Uncle Saturday Night who would be lucky for me to give him a single droplet of my attention.

On iTunes: The Clarks, “Maybe”

My grandmother used to call smarmy men “Uncle Saturday Night.” I don’t know where she got the phrase, but she started using it on one of my slimeball uncles who tried to romance anything in a skirt — and the shorter the skirt and the younger the woman, the better. That old crone is in his 70s and is still picking up chicks.

Unfortunately, I usually have my own harem of Medicare candidates vying for my affections. My latest one is more persistent than most, and all I have to say is WHY does he think I would be interested in HIM?!?!

There’s this dude who does contract work for the Veggie Patch. He’s in the office sporadically at best (although NEVER would be best!) He was once the executive director (like, back when I was in Pampers), and for some reason, they keep him on as a consultant, although why, I have no idea.

Anyway, sleazemuffin has taken a shine to yours truly (and who wouldn’t?). We’ve been working together for the past two months on some random project, so he’s impressed with me because I am candid, unafraid and efficient. So impressed that he wants to get to know me better.

*twitch*

On Tuesday, he spent the day hanging around my office area. Not coming in, just wandering around. And I have a lovely corner office that is practically in Siberia — if you’re in my area, it’s either to see me or annoy me, which are often not mutually exclusive. There’s a coffee station not too far from me, and I saw his ragged ass there a few times, with his head turned in the direction of my office. I have a window that looks out into the hallway, so I could see him. Ugh. I shut my door for the better part of the day.

I also forwarded my phone into voice mail for the day, too. Nothing was overly pressing, and I’d been working offsite for a few days, so I knew the messages were piling up. And I was in no mood for anything that wasn’t able to be solved by e-mail.

Alas, though, Uncle Saturday Night stopped by around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Pulled up a chair right under my nose and thanked me for my help during the past two months. Mmm hmm, OK. Whatever. Said he owed me a beer. I joked that that sounded great. So he said he was serious — what time would I be done with work that night?

Thank the heavens, I already had dinner plans with Tiff. I politely declined, suggesting a raincheck sometime in the future.

Oh, but he was not to be deterred. He asked what time I would be done with work on Wednesday. Knowing he had a flight to catch that evening, I said probably not till 6 at the earliest, probably later. So he told me (yes, told me) to be at the bar for 5:30 so we could have time to talk. He said, “I’ll be the one sitting on a barstool in a suit and tie.”

I told Scot about the sleazy offer, and he said my response should have been, “I’ll be the one who’s not at the bar at all!”

In any event, I hemmed and hawed but finally, reluctantly, agreed. And spent the next hour thinking of how to get the fuck out of that trap.

Anyway, when sleazypants entered my office on Tuesday, he had asked, “Did you get my message?” Of course, I hadn’t, because the phone was forwarded.

I called off yesterday (Wednesday) to sit with Alex for 13 hours because Shan’s movers didn’t show up and her fucking worthless mother-in-law decided she didn’t feel like coming over to watch Alex. I’d expected this and was ready to step in unasked. Anyway, early in the a.m., I’d e-mailed Uncle Saturday Night to say, curtly, “Calling off today. Helped a friend move last night. Not up to leaving the house. Have a safe flight!”

Read: no rainchecks. No further discussion. Get out of town and harass someone your own age.

I came in today to a full mailbox. I deleted four messages from him before I finally just logged out of voice mail because I didn’t want to hear him again.

The message was on there, of course, that he had mentioned. It was a simple, “When you’re off the phone, come to my office. I need to discuss something with you.” Next call, a hangup from his extension. Then, after we’d talked, a message popped up at 3:46, whereupon he gave me his home number (and the requisite bullshit about looking forward to this. blah blah blah). Then a message popped up at 3:48 (yes, two minutes later) to give me his cell phone number, which he noted, “This is the number I rarely give out to people.”

I haven’t been brave enough to see if there are more messages, but there sure is an e-mail. Tell me if this isn’t fucking creepy — I barely know this guy!:

Dawn…

Uncle Saturday Night

Slime.

How do I get rid of this one? I would like to assume he’s harmless, but my intuition is screaming to the contrary.

On iTunes: Tara MacLean, “Jericho”

Having spent three solid days running after an adorable infant named Alex, let’s just say I know now more than ever that I am meant to be an aunt, not a mommy. Sheesh. I’m exhausted!

I practically had to force myself on Shan as her nanny for the weekend. She’s just like me in that she won’t ask for help even if she’s on the underside of a tidal wave, but she definitely appreciates help when it shows up and takes over. If you’re going to do favors for people, always do them for people like this — it’s the only time you can feel a real sense of “I really helped!” She does so much for me that I wanted to help her during her big move in any way I could. And Alex and I are pals — she is happier with me than she is with her father’s mother, and Shan’s happy that I was the one around the house all weekend and NOT her crazy-ass mother-in-law, who requires more babysitting than the actual baby in the house!

Alex was great. She’s very high-maintenance, so you have to have all eyes on her at any given time if you want to have any peace of mind. We sang songs, watched “Elmo” DVDs, played with our toes, looked in the mirror, had bottles (hers were full of formula; mine of water), danced, read books, played with toys, waved at the kitties, etc. Whew — that takes a lot of energy! But it gave Shan and John some much-needed time to pack boxes and clean out storage units and — gasp! — have a meal!

Work was good on Friday (dare I utter the words aloud, or the feeling may vanish!). Cruise Director surprised me by empowering me. My staff takes a really good feeling from the meeting, but always the cynic, I have my reservations. I’ve had too many ideas shot down and my heart broken too often to be anything other than cautiously hopeful. But I’ll rise to the occasion. I always do.

Ironically, I got a call on Friday from a company that wants to interview me for a job. I inflated my salary requirements a bit, and they still called! I’m not sure what to do — there is a real chance things can get better at work, but there’s an equal possibility that they won’t. It’s for a communications director type of position, which is what I wanted. But then again, I never expected to love what I do now, which is editorial. Oh, if Demure!TM would just fucking retire already, I know I’d want to stay where I am … and not forever, mind you, but long enough to see what kind of changes I can/will make and how much support I will get without her dragging her feet and clenching her hands around the throat of progress, as Shan likes to call it.

Anyway, off to work, although I could use another 12 hours of sleep. Damn, never worked as hard in my life as I did this weekend with the adorable 1 year old with boundless energy!

On iTunes: Jill Scott, “It’s Love”

One hour till the gang meets with Cruise Director. The meeting will either go really well or really not well. I am hoping for the former. I don’t know what to expect — I asked his assistant what I could do to prepare for the meeting, and she told me to bring “my pretty little self.” That reeks of an ambush, but I’ve been wrong before, although not very often! The thing is, I get quiet and go through meetings saying as little as possible, whereas my staff are more than happy to share their thoughts in no uncertain terms. I spout off all the time, so when it’s time to go behind a closed-door and I have no idea what is going to be discussed, I retreat to my “happy place.”

Even though my former CEO drove me to an anxiety disorder, she did have a great story that came to mind. She said how you should never fear being called into the CEO’s office. She recounted how she would be called to the principal’s office as a child, and she’d skip happily down the halls, expecting that the principal wanted to personally congratulate her on being a model student. The moral to the story was that you should be doing the best job possible and you shouldn’t have any guilt whatsoever if you’ve given your best all along. Heh. Says her. The story/moral is superb, but I went into her office WAY too many times, knowing I gave my work a 110 percent effort, but she’d still manage to rape me of my dignity and shove my tail up my ass for me,

In any event, I really did work my ass off during the past two days. Oh, no wait, the ass is still there — big as ever. *sigh* Long hours = many drive-thru trips. And I’d say one order out of six has been correct.

I’m babysitting Alex today — I’m excited about this. She’s almost 1 year old now, so she’s fun, although she can exhaust even the most energetic of people. But it will be nice to focus on someone who doesn’t induce knots in my neck or pains in my ass!

On iTunes: Lili Haydn, “Come Here”