Caterwauling

I wasn’t going to come up to Orlando for this awesome conference. But boy am I glad I did.

There are probably 100 people in the room. I have worked with more than half of them at some point in my career. Like one of my recent Chicago trips, it’s become a family reunion.

This is why I love the field. For no other reason than the truly remarkable people I’ve encountered amidst all the shitheads.

Of course, one of the guys kept Facebooking me the whole time because he was hot for my friend. He wanted to take her out to dinner last night. She said no thanks and then this guy spent the rest of the event nagging me to reveal that he’s the one asking (I didn’t tell him I had) and then he waited for her to leave the event.

He FB’d me later to say she somehow managed to get past him because he waited for her to leave. I said glad to know that all his visiting me and catching up with me was total bullshit. Thanks a bunch.

So, other than that, not a bad show.

He shocked me when he let me know he’s separated. And then two of my guy friends I went out partying with last night
said they were getting divorced too.

I have a friend I thought of, who really should get divorced, but who seems to want to save the woman, if not the marriage. And it just annoyed me in a way that here are three men who are 100% happier that they decided to end the fighting and tension (and they all have kids too) but other people will stick with an ice queen like it’s some mission from God or punishment for breathing.

Speaking of punishment for breathing, I should probably check my inbox. Who only knows what I missed while I was busy enjoying a weekday for a marvelous change.

I left “on time” today. Nevermind the 6 a.m. start time. 🙂

I left “on time” last Monday too, for apartment-hunting purposes.

And I had a revelation the first time that holds true again.

That is, I can have a perfectly horrific day. But knowing that this portion of my day is over by 6 p.m., I can handle it a lot better.

It’s this “dragging into ‘my’ time” business that makes me a boiling pile of pus that needs to be lanced and *splort* it will put your eye out when it oozes out.

I realize now that I could have a reasonable week. Or I could haul ass up to Orlando and do back-to-back conferences in addition to the full-time-plus load.

I’m 50/50 right now. Because the uncertainty of arrival on time, the nerves of not having Internet access on command, and the general “please don’t let the place burn down and destroy my empire” prayers … not to mention bad news about the car … are enough to make me nuts.

Of course, as my friend said, suck it up and pack your shit and get the fuck on the road and do one goddamned thing for yourself.

Sure there will be chaos, he said to me. But that chaos is work-related. NOT going because I’m worried about that work chaos means the chaos will be in MY head and heart instead.

I know smart people don’t I?

I just wish I knew where the hell I would even be staying while I’m up there.

I guess now’s as good a time as any to figure that out …

Apparently anything you do to attempt to preserve your fragile emotional health can and will be used against you in a court of law.

I got my project done that was supposed to be done, just in time to hop on my other projects.

But what I’m proudest of is telling my special-needs students that class is NOT going to be in session this week. We can spitball next week. Momma’s got to lie down and rest and will call you individually to administer spankings.

I’d still trade my mother for a bottle of Klonopin, though. But when it comes to chipping away at my newfound anxiety, this is a good start.

I figured I’d try to salvage an edit the kid did on the big project that continues to haunt me.

Kid seems to think the sanctions imposed against a big, meanie of a country are meant to help its economy.

Kid also thinks people can have rising bottom trendlines. Which, in a porn I like to watch, I can see where that is conceivable.

But generally replacing “we” with the writer’s name when the writer was talking about an industry doesn’t make any sense.

I’m sure writing that (insert name) is “at an all-time high” is probably a fair statement. But the only worse thing than editing something so blatantly incorrectly is rewriting the whole article based on bad assumptions that Google could have easily busted in the first place. Or, not even Google. Reading the original text works too.

Redrum. REDRUM!!!!

Saw some butt-ugly apartments today. Which, as friends reminded me, you don’t sign a lease during retrograde. Which, trust me, we are in NO danger of that!

My anxiety is through the roof. Between home and work and mom and the ceasing of a second source of income and oh yeah typing my thoughts on this blog when people who control the clearing of my paychecks read it, I’ve been a little touchy.

I did tone down my last post. Didn’t delete it. Just rethought some word choices. I am an editor, after all. If everyone wants to say the original wording was hyperbole, sure, let’s go with that.

I left work at 4:45 on Friday. Which normal people do. I was so chicken-fried burned-out that I couldn’t function for another second. I met a friend for a drink or three and felt like I was human again.

And now at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, I have to do the big honkin’ project I couldn’t bear to do Friday. To be published by early tomorrow morning. My anxiety all day has been around “OMG have to do this” — even more so than Everything Else.

I had wanted to get up to Orlando for a couple of conferences this week. At this point I think it would take less than a straw to send this camel into traction. I think a kitty whisker is all it would take.

So I’m sticking close and lying low.

Here’s to hoping everyone LETS me stay in my fragile little corner.

“For what we do and what we lose, we are not adequately compensated.” — Victor Gantry, “State of Affairs” season 1 episode 10

While I was missing out on having a life, a person I once hired to be my protege actually surpassed the master. And will earn twice my salary this year. And do all the things I set out to do so long ago.

I can be happy for them but I cannot contain the blame I have for everyone and everything (including myself) that I continue to sacrifice my heart and soul and creativity to babysit, support others’ dreams, take external partners’ crap and die so much on the inside that the years are shortening in which the outside will eventually catch up. And everything I once had to offer will be dust right along with the rest of me.

Burst straight into tears at my regular Starbucks. Damn it. They are the only ones who know how to make a Flat White properly. Now I’ll never get one.

I’m unraveling, guys.

Stress. Pressure. Fear. Doom.

That sort of thing.

I don’t need help. I need things to STOP COMING AT ME for 10 goddamned minutes.

You know …

If I sit here till nine the fuck o’clock editing two documents for you …

And spend half the day trying to tell my boss that I didn’t say the shit you said I said …

Or at least I didn’t mean it the way you translated it …

And I’m on the phone with every department on your behalf because they will only speak to me about your issues …

AND I come in early because you require me to …

Try not to leave me a love note in my inbox telling me what a stupid laughable moron you think I am.

Love,

Someone With a Newfound Rage Problem

This. Not just for the message itself, but because I’ve been waiting my whole life to arrive home at 6 p.m. and not, say, 10 like tonight.

That’s the first goal. Then we can work on the “someone fabulous to come home to” part. Assuming I ever get out early enough to meet that person.