Caterwauling

You can take the Whore of White Oak out of White Oak, but she will always be a whore for sure …

I figure I got my first job at 16. So it’s been a quarter-century of fun and games. 

I had that moment yesterday of thinking, wow. I was born to be in charge, and I never made it past a certain point. And that saddens me. 

Now I’m not upset in a Bernie Sanders voter kind of way. I don’t expect anyone to hand anything to me and I won’t cause a riot and insult the winning team because life isn’t fair. 

But when I go to think about what my goals are, I can’t start without figuring out how to un-burn (or Bern) out. 

What’s the lube that will get me unstuck, and where will I go flying if I actually gain momentum?

I loved school when grades would set me apart from the rest. I love work when I excel and set myself apart from the rest. 

I mean, I’m stunted when it comes to normal life stuff.  When did the universe decide I had to be unremarkable across the board, and why did I slowly but surely stop fighting it?

I need a life lobotomy. 

I don’t remember my dreams very often. But I’m having a hard time shaking last night’s.

In it, everyone was telling me I was being let go. But then I went to my bosses (oddly, the current one and the previous one), and they said they had no idea what I was talking about.

Meanwhile everyone was asking a million questions about what I do, when I do it and of course how I make all that magic happen.

It was disconcerting, to say the least. I mean, yes I’d love to get some extended time off. And I admit, I have a few problems I would love for someone else to have to solve. But all I could think about is how will I support Mom?

I used to be so happy that my anxiety-sparked acid reflux calms itself down at night. Not last night, unfortunately. I’m going to have to start sleeping with Tums under my tongue if this shit keeps up.

When things get bad for my friends, I always tell them, “Every day is a good day.”

Even if some are better than others, there’s good to be found in each.

Yesterday was a dogpile. I ain’t gonna lie. Work was very busy yet non-productive. (The whole retrograde cycle has felt like that.) Ran into a lot of resistance with some folks on the payroll and off.

Had a really stressful experience at the grocery store and then a worse one trying to order dinner from the place next door.

Then I got into it with Islamic Caitlyn Jenner upstairs. I truly, truly hope his tiny terrorist ass gets to meet his 72 virgins sooner rather than later.

I’ve also been battling the scale. I was on such a roll. I knew not to talk about my progress. I knew the magic number I hit a week ago is the number of ultimate resistance for me.

Now I’m up FOUR POUNDS from it. DA FUQ??!!

I’ve never walked more. I’ve never eaten so damn many vegetables in my life. Sure, I’ve snuck in some chocolate-chip cookie cake from Publix (because Oh Mah Gah it’s so good). And wine. And Halo Tops birthday cake ice cream. Because, it’s my birthday month and therefore a long celebration.

So yeah. Four pounds. Fuq me running.

So where is the good? Well. It wasn’t an event so much as a revelation.

Everyone in my family died young and sick. They either lost their ability to walk or had an aneurysm in their brain or a spinal problem or who knows what. Every day faded into the next.

I watch the same happening with my mom. She cared for those people till they were gone. Now the torch is passed to me to watch helplessly and not be as active or happy as I want to be.

These scars run deep, by the way.

Anyway. I did something unusual. I took a moment to thank my body for working. For being a lot smaller than it has been. For being healthy and functioning. For all my limbs working and my brain firing and my skin trying to tighten up without pounds of fat to hold it up.

I mean, that’s pretty awesome.

I think it goes back to the weekend when I saw a girl at the beach who had clearly lost a ton of weight and was rocking a bikini. I thought she looked great and almost said so. But I wondered if she were self-conscious of the skin hanging all around, and thought better of it.

I don’t want that. Honestly I think most people look better fat. The “after” pictures I see on a lot of Weight Watchers profiles are downright gruesome.

I get to the point I’m at where I’m good, you know? All my clothes fit. I feel great. I have energy and I love all my cute little T-shirts just the way they are.

I’m feeling fabulous but not flabulous.

Anyway. I do want this weight area (sigh) to be the ceiling. I need for this to be my fat weight. Which means I need to get cracking on moving down, not staying put.

I’m stagnant in every other area of my life. My body, I can change, at the very least.

And I need to get better about telling my body how good it is to me. Perhaps it will keep responding in kind. After all, we are in this together, good or bad, for the long haul.

I owe it so much more than what I’ve done to it up until now. And with any luck, it will always be as forgiving as it has.

I have a friend who, when you ask how he’s doing, he says “Better than I deserve.”

When it comes to health, looking at my family and then looking at myself, I would have to say the very same thing.

Thanks, body. For everything.

I don’t know if it’s the planetary retrograde, but the phrase “a culture of ‘can’t be bothered'” is repeating in my brain like an endless feedback loop.

Part of it is because of some human “doorstop” I’ve been dealing with outside our bounds.

For the record, I just want to say that the people who coined that phrase were overselling this funky bunny.

Honestly. That one is a butt plug at best.

At least I could USE a doorstop.

Culture of can’t be bothered. I think I have my next book title.

This is one of my favorite lines from “Hope Floats.” Bernice tells Justin that they once had a skunk named after him. She obviously hates him.

I want to say that to this freaking pest I wish would just buzz the hell off. I called him Stinky Binky the other day.

Stinky Binky just informed me that X and Y are true. Well guess what, asshole. I was standing there when you received the information and I sure as hell didn’t take away any of that.

I’m going to be nice and meet with Pinhead 2.0 because it’s a favor to a friend. But there is no way in God’s green earth that I’m going to endorse your funky butt for anything.

Delusional twit. He’ll make a great Republican presidential contender someday.

I wouldn’t say I’m overwhelmed. But I am very, very whelmed this week.

Someone was saying that things had to be less-busy a few years ago. And I said no, they were 10 times busier.

Which surprised my friend, who thinks I just do an absolute shitload. Meet my new favorite person!

I admit I’m back to spinning plates again. And freebasing Tums. And racking up a hundred Starbucks points a week.

Unrelated I walked in with a gift card given to me with zero dollars on it. They know me very well there and said seriously, Goddess. Get new friends.

Also unrelated, have you seen the cute Starbucks/Disney tops on Etsy? I’m so buying one. Maybe for my birthday. Which is just around the corner. Eeek.

Where was I? Crap, I forgot.

Anyway I got to thinking about some good calls and decisions I’ve made recently. Which get me to sleep at night when I’m obsessing over everything else that isn’t getting done.

And then I get to thinking about possibly hiring again. Which, after the Kid, I’d rather light myself on fire and jump from the top of the Orlando Eye. And I am not quite yet qualified to offer an opinion on the person standing there waiting, hoping and praying for the (a?) job. But I have the same feeling I had pre-Kid … warm body is not necessarily better than nobody.

Then again, I wouldn’t BE SO BEHIND if, for a few bucks, I could be passing some bucks.

Anyway, back to Whelmed World. Whelmed World. Party Time. Excellent …

That’s what Mom calls my cat when she stinks up the place. (And I don’t think she knows what a stinky binky really is.)  

That’s also what I would call an employee who doesn’t smell like they bothered to wash their ass before invading my tiny space where the AC works four out of every seven days. 

Blessed are those who are always congested and don’t notice. 

I wonder how many people quit over being paired with Pigpens. 

My friend and I were having the “why everyone hates reviews” talk recently. He just got a raise and had to go through his annual “well you’re valuable but not all that valuable” that preceded the annual “cost of living” bump. Which, seems like that could have been doled out without all the drama. But, he figures it’s a fair exchange — a few moments of discomfort for the ability to buy an extra cup of coffee each week.

It reminds me of landlords. How even though I try to solve problems, I always have someone calling to tell me that I didn’t do it the way they would have done it. Even though I used my best judgment when surrounded with a crisis that wasn’t anyone else’s emergency.

Like, my landlord not only called to bitch me out, but he had one of his Robert Palmer girls call and lecture me on not solving my own problems. (Because my professional guy cost $150 and his not-bright brother-in-law cost $60.)

That reminds me of when, at my old place, *I* was the annoying upstairs neighbor. I mean sure I didn’t drag bodies across the floor all night and bang the sliding glass doors at every available opportunity because I was running out every five minutes to smoke cigarettes and dope like Islamic Caitlyn Jenner who lives upstairs from me now. But, fire alarms.

My one-time downstairs neighbor Lauranne ran upstairs after the smoke detector in my room was going off for an hour. The batteries were out of it and it was early morning and her baby was in hysterics. She ran into my house to find me on a ladder in my jammies, beating on the thing with a hammer.

She moved out right after that. But the point of the story is that I had called maintenance for help and no one cared. So I called the fire department. That visit cost the building $1,500. Suddenly everyone cared.

Not about me or Lauranne or her baby. But I sure got a lecture on handling things myself.

And the bottom line every time is that where everyone else wasn’t available, I did my thing. And I have a very hard time apologizing for having a working toilet or ending the very loud ringing in my ears that you could hear from six floors below. (And six feet under. Those were a BITCH.)

In any event, this is why I have phone anxiety. It’s why I have review anxiety. It’s why I have nothing but ANXIETY. I mean, it’s one thing if I were a total and complete moron trying to fumble my way through the world. But I’m educated and have a high IQ and I think I’m pretty OK when it comes to decision-making because I at least think out all the consequences.

Yet, in a world where other people get the last say on whether it’s “good enough,” I’d rather move to an island and crack coconuts with my thighs (because, I can) and never hear the thoughts of another living soul again.

It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Every time I get to my current weight, I blow it. 

On Saturday I even managed to get to my “first month in Florida” weight. My lowest in seven years. And probably the lowest in 20 years if you want to get technical. 

So Naturally today I sabotaged myself just a tad after a healthy breakfast and lunch. 

It was tasty as hell. Organic wine and organic pizza. 

But I feel like a stuffed piggy with a curly little tail. 

I guess now is the point where I start to put back on the 30 pounds I’ve gained and lost every year for the past seven years. 

But first, I have to go back for prosciutto and arugula pizza. 

And wine. Definitely more wine.