Caterwauling

Palm Beach sunset

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

Just blogging solely because I like this photo. No other reason. I mean, really, what could have POSSIBLY happened in the eight hours since I last blogged?

Went out partying in my favorite area of town last night. I try to avoid that area since I left behind two jobs in a six-block proximity. But to my knowledge, those folks are out of town. And a fresh new wind blew into town in the form of a friend from the West Coast.

Damn, I had fun. Yesterday was supposedly National Wine Drinking Day. I should get a medal for how much I consumed. But god bless the goat cheese dip and fried hot dog for soaking up enough that I could get home safely.

Anyway, I had this weird dream last night. I was at a Bon Jovi concert. (I know, shocker, right?) And it felt like everybody from my past had also bought tickets and somehow got seated in my section. Argh.

It annoyed me in a way, because Bon Jovi is mine, you know? If we have a beef or a tiff or something, stay the fuck home because that’s MY happy place.

I saw who I consider to be my arch-enemy. He was with two little boys. And his boyfriend was working the ticket booth. The boys clearly looked like the boyfriend. Yet my nemesis was kind and sweet to them and promised to take them for pizza and ice cream after the concert.

In the dream, he tossed a spitball my way to get my attention. I turned into the Tasmanian Devil and can’t remember even watching the concert. For shame!

I’ve been puzzling about that dream for the past hour. I’m laying down the grudge. It’s too tiring. I’ve dragged that cross all over the country and I’m done.

But moreover, I wonder if he found his happiness. Now, for all the nasty shit he’s done to me and many of the others who were in the audience in my dream, all I have to say is that the rest of us should find our own happiness FIRST.

Ahem.

Anyhoodle, on to new (and better) friends. The gal who dropped into town last night, well, it was my first time meeting her in person. But we’ve been Facebook friends for nearly two years.

What’s ironic is that I wrote a restaurant review for her Web site last summer, and after a glorious art gallery party last night, we all ended up at the place I had reviewed for her. It was wonderful coming full circle like that, and I look forward to our in-person friendship and many more lovely adventures to come.

I always blather on this page about the challenges (mostly the mistakes) of leadership. And when people ask me about when I got interested in the subject, I have one of two answers.

Usually, I make a flippant statement that I feel I’ve been mismanaged a great deal in my career and that I don’t want to make the same mistakes with the next generation of talent. Or else I talk about working in the mental-health field and being exposed to a fascinating segment called “organizational counseling.” In other words, figuring out how to change a dysfunctional culture from the top down.

But as financial TV is commemorating the loss of the Challenger crew back in 1986, I realize that my first exposure to a good example-setter was my homeroom teacher, Mr. Allison, back at good old Francis McClure Middle School.

It was in our sixth-grade science class that we watched with hope and wonder as Christa McAuliffe stepped into the shuttle as the first teacher to venture into space. And it was merely seconds later that we saw the Challenger erupt into a ball of fire and dust. We were humbled and horrified, and we hoped that our crappy television (without cable) on its rickety cart had simply short-circuited.

We moved through the rest of the day in a haze, and soon enough it was time for homeroom the next day.

I was never a huge fan of Mr. Allison. I don’t know why. I think I had a hard time discerning his sincerity. He taught language and spelling, areas in which I excelled, and I was always overly critical of English teachers in general.

But before our daily moment of silence (do schools still do that?), he revealed to us that he had applied to be the teacher sent into space. And that if the program opened up again, he would do it in a heartbeat.

As some of my peers snickered under their breath, no doubt wishing they could have herded all of their teachers into the Challenger, I was overcome with respect for this guy, on whom I had played my share of practical jokes just to get a rise out of his mostly stoic demeanor.

Now here he was, plain as day, saying he was that eager to do something for the sake of education that he would risk everything for the chance to bring back whatever it was that Christa McAuliffe would have learned in space. And that no deadly explosion would keep him away from the chance to be a part of the next historical journey.

I never told him how much his amazing attitude affected me. Twenty-five years later, I have no idea where he is or whether he’s still teaching or even alive for that matter. But he taught me so much in that moment … that the quiet ones have dreams too … that sacrifices in the name of education know no bounds … that the most-effective teaching moments don’t happen in the classroom … that I, too, could have been convinced to go on the space shuttle if I were following someone who believed wholeheartedly in the mission.

Later that day in our English class, he asked us to write essays on how we were impacted by what happened the prior day. I remember being so thrilled that I exchanged papers with the class heartthrob (Jimmy Skalican) and that my essay brought tears to his beautiful blue eyes. (*swoon*)

Can’t tell you exactly what I wrote, but I suspect Mr. Allison’s name was somewhere in there. In any case, I came out of that tragedy with a whole new outlook on the educators with whom I spent my days, and one in particular.

Needless to say, I stopped playing pranks on the guy and quietly absorbed everything else he had to teach me. And while I forget how to diagram a sentence properly and I couldn’t define a gerund if you held a gun to my head, I count Mr. Allison as one of the best educators in a questionable public school system.

Hat-tip to you, Mr. Allison, wherever you are. Thank you for being the first person to truly help to shape the person I turned out to be.

Five days and four nights away from home = bliss.

Being home again = meh.

I left all my crap at Lady L’s. I meant to keep George at the office with me till lunchtime, then go clean really fast and then let him greet her.

But I was out walking him near the office circa lunchtime. I actually was near the Den of Iniquity with a steaming bag of dog poop, debating about what to do with said bag of poop plus some unresolved venom toward its majority owner and also the president of that joke of a lifetime. (Two different idiots, whom I differentiate by drug of choice.)

Anyway, I decided not to set it on fire and drop it off, since neither one actually shows up unless it’s to terrorize, belittle and otherwise offend the senses (in the olfactory sense) of the good employees. Besides, I like the restaurants downstairs and really don’t want the building to be (rightfully) condemned because of the physical AND mental health hazards upstairs.

So, I stopped to give a snowbird directions, and Lady L happened to pull up on the corner where we stood. George was so happy! I lifted him up to the window to see his momma, and he jumped for absolute joy. She picked up some sammiches and we ate in my office with our little furbag.

Today, I also had a guest in from Philly and another from Baltimore. Which meant there was Amarone and carbohydrates in it for me. And it was just a lovely day all around.

So being home sucks ass. Mostly because I just want to jump the fuck out of my skin and go to bed. But it’s good to be with my kitty again. I’ve missed her. I was going to let her keep the UEOEH company if she ever moved out. But that’s no fair to Kadie. She’s mine and I adore her. I just wish I still felt the same about her Grandma.

I do see a couple of pans of pasta in the fridge. Tiny pans — I didn’t give her THAT much money. But how fucked-up that she makes food and doesn’t eat a single bite of it. Freak.

Oh well. Gonna go play with my kitty. (Get yer mind outta the gutter.) I left my favorite vibrator in my suitcase, anyway, so Kadie’s the only cat in town tonight. Lucky her!

Apologies if you already saw it on Facebook, but I rather enjoyed this roundup of my top status updates for 2009.

Two days to go before this year gets hog-tied and roasted over an open pit with an apple in his mouth.

But wow, it’s amazing to measure just how much I saw/did/overcame/enjoyed. …