Caterwauling

While the hoodworks kept us up all night in Braddock Beach, I was fortunate to reconnect with a long lost friend from high school between instances of peeling the cat off the ceiling. 

He stayed cute. And I might admit I got that weird wonderful feeling I did when I was a sophomore and he was a junior. Back when we worked on the school newspaper. Back before I was jaded as all hell about boys. 

(I still have his newspaper staff photo. I don’t even have mine!)

Anyway. I was reading a story he wrote about some girl who had bullied him in middle school. He ran into her at the grocery store and got up his nerve to say hello even though he was fighting everything in him to want to confront her and tell her how she hurt him. 

He wrote how he liked her then and how she publicly humiliated him. How it made him so hesitant. How many opportunities he missed because he was afraid the same thing would happen again.  

He was always sweet and kind to me. Funny what people are hiding that you would never know about if they didn’t mention it some 24 years and 11 months later. 

Anyway. I don’t think much about high school because of all the bad. But it is nice to remember some of the long-forgotten good. Also, typing with a cute boy isn’t a bad way to spend some time!

I have a ton of draft posts, since I can never really go away. (Also, I document everything.) But yeah, you never get rid of me. 

The quiet was good for me. I practiced it on social media and IRL too. 

One lesson: I never really noticed how people interrupt you when you talk. But when you say fewer words than normal, their behavior is pretty apparent. But don’t interrupt THEM, God forbid. 

Another lesson: When they aren’t stalking you and coming up with their own assessment of what’s in your head and heart (from a few hastily written words in a 35-second burst), they still subscribe to their own fantasy about you. I thought NOT giving them ammo would make them talk to me more. I was wrong. 

Another lesson: Going dark shows who your real friends are. I didn’t get a ton of emails and texts. But I got a few. And for those of you who are true friends but gave me my space, I love you too. I needed it and I need you guys too. 

A final lesson. I popped back up on social media and was happily welcomed back. By the usual suspects (love you all) and some pleasantly surprising ones. 

That got me to thinking. A lot. Because I’ve been 100% ready to go dark. From online, from where I am, from maybe life in general. All in hopes of just never having to deal with terrible people again. Two in particular. 

And I kind of got it that these twerps don’t define me. Yes they can and do poke holes in the occasional balloons of joy.  Karma never seems to catch up with them because they think they are great and apparently the universe listens. 

But I worked very hard to build all my relationships. No need to sacrifice any of them to run away from other ones. 

If I don’t force myself every day to coexist with crazy, well, I’m only giving up the things I do love that might or might not exist otherwise. 

I’ll leave it vague like that. But you get the idea. 

Anyway. Life is good right now. And I will take it. 

After all, I haven’t worn this size in seven years. If that isn’t worth celebrating on this Independence Day, then I don’t know what is. 

I’m going to make like the British half of my family and call it quits. On the web, at least. Since I’m also Irish, let’s call it an Irexit. Seems fitting.

As Sloane famously said in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” 30 years ago, “Sooner or later, everybody goes to the zoo.”

I haven’t lost my mind. In fact, I think I just made its acquaintance again.

This is me saying so long, indefinitely.

Try talking directly to a sister if you miss her. And even if you don’t. Especially if you count reading between the lines here as communicating.

Go get some sunshine. And again, seeya on the flipside.

I paid someone a compliment yesterday who did me a solid.

Said person generally drives me crazy on a good day. But ain’t no disrespect, yo, when you help me look not-stupid.

Today I am eating those words.

In any event, everywhere I look, everyone is at wits’ end. It’s almost a good thing to be off the Faceypages. If anyone asks any questions about where their heads are at, I’m blinking.

As for my head, it’s down and in the game. And hurting like a mofo.

But nothing a case or two of Lodi Estates can’t fix. And a vacation. A very very LONG vacation.

Seeya on the flipside. Be good to each other.

Last week I gave a “Goddess Gift” to someone who could use it. 

The gift is always unasked for. Always a gift, never a loan. A bright spot, I hope, during an unlucky streak. 

I want nothing back. Maybe an “ok I received it.”  But that’s enough for me. 

As I sent the gift last week, I thought well fuck. What meteor will fall out of the sky at me now?

As I duck and cover and lose my mind, I always wonder whether the universe would leave me alone if I would just pipe down and stay out of its way. I know plenty of people who have kept their jobs that way. 

Heck I wonder if I should drive like a nut and treat everyone like shit. Would I finally strike it lucky and maybe even rich?

Our zoo sucks. I reviewed it on Faceypages for its utter suckage. Now a throng of “Zoo Boos” (mom’s clever phrase) is on the attack.

Mind you, I deleted my app days ago. But I got notifications. Which prompted me to go turn them off. 

Look. I wasted money. I left depressed. I hated it. H-a-t-e-D it.  I mean, I’ve never been so impassioned about leaving a negative review but it was that bad. 

Now all these bitches are basically telling me I suck, I need to do research and I need to leave the earth. 

I laugh. Must be Trump voters. 

I won’t say I got to go to the Smithsonian zoo for free because D.C. is awesome that way. And that it was breathtaking, as opposed to overgrown and moldy and disgusting. 

I hated the lack of animals. Granted a lion murdered an employee there recently. The conditions are so deplorable, I see why. 

And I’m a writer. I say it’s my opinion. I say it’s how I felt. I don’t want anything. Well, maybe for the animals to have clean water and a less awful habitat. But shit. Why cast a pox upon me for that? 

I will pray for those animals. The real ones, not the cunty bitches who try to bully people into deleting their posts. 

Am off Facebook, after all. 

And good riddance. 

It’s the solstice today. Although I think yesterday was truly the longest day of the year. 

The strawberry moon is still out too. The moon is rimmed in pink although my iPhone actively rebels against taking good moon pics. 

My lovely little balcony. 

I had to look up an old article I wrote (back from my byline days).

They didn’t keep much on the web of mine. But there was one really good call I made in 2011 and they keep it up there. I wish they or I had posted the results. But it was my one and only trade recommendation, and a profitable one at that if anybody listened to it.

I got to thinking about how I set the style for an entire department. I wrote certain things certain ways, and they still stick to that style. No one did it before me.

It was my baby. Beautifully grotesque and kept me up most nights.

I was writing down some goals this morning. And they seemed so small in comparison to things I’ve done. Basically now I write tasks when back then I wrote visions. Impossible stuff. Cool-ass things that even I didn’t dream I could do.

I like to think I was pretty motivated. But I had someone ego pushed me hard too. Wanted me to be able to say I did a lot. Dragged me kicking and screaming at times.

I owe that person so much.  

After Braddock Beach’s finest pulled me over yesterday (and gave me a ticket for no seat belt — which I had taken off to reach across to the glove box to get my g.d. registration out) — I parked at the beach and cried for a very long time.

Well, maybe 20 minutes, till the skies opened up and I got soaked.

The sun came out as I screeched out of the lot. And it stayed out, even as the strawberry moon rose.

I went home and buried my nose in a book about plane crashes. I finished it after midnight.

Woke up about 30 times not due to the terrorist upstairs, but I kept seeing that cop’s smug face. Like, hahaha, so you didn’t think your Father’s Day could get worse you fatherless girl? Here’s an extra-special fuck you.

Honest to God, how many more signs do I need that I need to get out of here? Because I don’t think I can take anything else. I really don’t.

Awakened way too early but it was going to be a good day because I fit into shorts I’ve been hoping to fit into. 

I decided to stay positive and not think much about the biological father. No pox cast upon his house. Am lovely person. 

Then it could have gone to pot. My new Keurig decided to go and die on me. But I had already gotten one cup of coffee out of it AND the company is sending a replacement in 7 biz days to work. Hell, as long as I stay employed, this is all good news to me. 

Then I went to Starbucks only to find they’ve discontinued mom’s shaken sweet tea. And the day went to shit. 

She was upset that I wasted money on another drink. Then every lunch place was crowded. Then the heavens opened up and I had a miserable drive to our faraway favorite food place. 

I got lucky there. Excellent  parking and a prime outdoor table to enjoy the rain that stopped for just as long as it took me to pound a beer and snarf in a salad. 

Went to the beach. It rained. Didn’t get out of the car. Drove north. Mom wanted to try another beach. 

Sirens.

Goddamn Braddock Beach cop gave me a big fat fucking ticket …

For going too slow. 

That’s right. Too slow. On the goddamned A1A. 

I hate beach cops.

I have had nonstop anxiety since the last bastard said I didn’t stop at a stop sign and I did. 

He almost rear-ended me. As did the asshole before him who pulled me over claiming he smelled pot. 

I know a million gun-toting, pot-smoking people who drive too fast/slow and don’t have as many points on their license as I do. 

It’s because of the car. It’s old. It looks old. You don’t see Beamers and Benzes and Bentleys pulled over by Mayberry’s finest. 

My car is all I have from my grandfather. And it appears the only way to stop getting ticketed is to leave town or get a new car. 

That’s what I don’t get. The tickets and the points every goddamned time. It’s not like I broke any laws any time. 

I even said Jesus. I almost get wiped off the road by the people you don’t dare bother to pull over. What, you only pick on a girl you can catch and bully?

Hey I was already getting the ticket. I figured I should earn that sumbitch. I even blew through the next stop sign, in honor of the last asshole.  

I keep having the same problems over and over again. I know I need to change my reactions so I can advance to better things. (Or more advanced problems.)

But how, when you know truly awful people enjoying their Father’s Day and your good day ended before 10 am?