Caterwauling

There’s this guy who has asked me out anywhere between weekly and monthly for the past two years.

Ugh.

I generally fake my death/make excuses/say yes and pray for natural disasters. And I’ve been pretty lucky because Mother Nature has saved my ass pretty much every time.

So he gets me today and says, “No running from me anymore.”

I say, “Shit.”

Now, clearly he knows I’m not into him. He adds, “You can’t hide.”

“Apparently,” I say.

So he says we should go out Friday. Way too quickly, I say, “OK.” After all, the weather is about to get bad. *Crossing Fingers*

It’s only an hour later when I am complaining about “UF” (my girlfriend’s and my nickname for him. And it ain’t “University of Florida”) when she says, “Dude, you know Friday is Valentine’s Day, right?”

Fuck me up the ass with a chainsaw.

I was thinking, go out with him. Be myself. Drive him away like I do with guys I adore and would actually like to hang out with.

Now that he knows I’m free on V.D., he knows I’m not spoken for. (Never mind that someone else has a loose grip on my heart. Because, well, I save that shit for my written diary that nobody gets to read.)

Someone whose hands I still feel on the small of my back even though I won’t be feeling them this Friday …

Someone who knows this blog exists but hasn’t found it yet. But I hope he’s trying. Because, for some strange reason, I want to tell him absolutely everything and then some because it would please me to no end to make him laugh and make a funny joke about it all …

Funny how UF thinks he can wear me down and make me love him. And it’s not that my heart can’t be gotten. I’m just not willing to give it away unless I’m a thousand percent OK with its new home. For now, it’s happier right in my chest where it belongs.

Remember I said I had to guess what my boss would wear today?

Well, my day went to hell before 6 a.m. and I was stuck in the editing position until about 9-ish … i.e., I didn’t have time to leave the house and do my hideous 45-minute commute. (Darn …)

So my boss called me about something and I said, hey, weird question. What color are you wearing?

And … my prediction was spot-on.

I should have published it here. But I have it in my notebook, dated. So I’m good.

I’d picked blue at first. Mostly because, I’ve seen him in different shades and patterns of blue. Then the still, small voice said green shirt and brown pants. So I wrote green/brown.

I didn’t tell him what I’d written. So when he said green shirt and brown pants, I told him he has a psychic on his staff.

As he said, he owns about 300 blue shirts and 3 green, so the odds were pretty much against him picking what I saw.

So now, this makes me wonder about all those work dreams I have where things are being kept from me. I often dream that he and another colleague are hanging out without telling me.

Which is fine, I guess, because couples do “couple things” and women are generally threatened by single women even when we are looking elsewhere for our kicks. (Like, toward SINGLE MEN.)

But I wonder if this simple color validation confirms the reason why I feel left out in general, and NOT the favorite on other days, which is what always spurs those dreams.

But alas, I don’t believe in playing favorites unless I’m the favorite, so I try to not let it bother me. Because, I love me and that’s all that matters. And bully for everyone else who just isn’t as evolved.

And damn I love this whole “trusting my intuition and it being right” thing. It opens up a scary new world, but it also reveals a power that sets me apart even more.

If I’m right, I’m going to turn out OK after all … And that was what the my psychic reading revealed to me in the end.

My friend gave me some weird messages but in answer to my question, “What steps do I need to take to be fully happy?” she said, “You’re almost there.”

Almost there. Can’t ask for much more than that. And thank you, God, for that.

I always figured I’m an empath, or clairsentient as the psychic circle seems to know it, and I had an opportunity to tap into it yesterday at a class run by a brand-new friend.

Holy hell.

We took turns being the “Sender” and “Receiver” of information. I found that no one could read me. There could be a variety of reasons for that — we are all novices, I have a lot of competing thoughts, and I’m “hearing” what the person 10 feet away is thinking.

But I did really, really well reading others.

One exercise, the sender was to think of a fruit. I looked at the girl and guessed “red grapefruit.” She said, “red grape.” So, not 100% accurate, but pretty damn close, eh?

Another exercise is to picture what color your boss will wear Monday. I wrote it down. Now to make sure to run into him on Monday to find out!

I did my best reading sitting next to a gal instead of sitting opposite her. That’s the empath in me — I don’t need to see their faces to know what’s in their heart.

That’s where my spidey senses begin and end. The heart. I spend too much time in my head and I have to listen with my heart instead of my actual and metaphorical ears. So, that’s my homework — to see with my third eye and quit thinking so much.

I also received a reading from the professional running the class. Which, I’m still processing. I didn’t hear what I wanted, but I got what I needed.

I’ll post more when I make sense of it all. But I will say this. I cleared my mind and was open to any message. And it’s pretty interesting what Spirit had to say …

Every once in a while, your heart gets ahead of itself.

“They” say there’s no easier way to make a decision than to flip a coin. Suddenly you know what your heart wants.

Then there are times when you didn’t even KNOW you wanted something till it dawned on you that you can’t have it. Not right now, anyway. Maybe not ever.

I didn’t know I wanted you. Not till it occurred to me that, once again, what I want seems to be of absolutely no consequence to the universe.

I’m so tired of forcing myself to live without hope to avoid moments like these. Good thing I was smart enough not to bother coming alive this time around. Even though I was planning to figure out how I could.

We had the quarterly company-wide Meeting of Deception, as I like to call it. The one where they allude to X under ideal circumstances and then ideal circumstances DON’T happen, and you kick yourself for having a ray of hope about X.

Usually it’s about bonuses or other stuff that you learn to steel your spine and prepare for the inevitable, “Remember we said IF?”

Well, yesterday brought a pleasant surprise that, yes, there will be a couple extra bucks left over. So, hooray! Deception averted.

But now there’s the “moving offices” thing they’ve been talking about for years. Last meeting, we heard “by June, we will move away from the cows and chickens and alligators and pigs and bring you closer to civilization since EVERYBODY HAS AN HOUR-LONG COMMUTE NOW.”

Now June has morphed into “October.”

My lease is up next month. I haven’t given notice yet. I’ve been looking at apartments about 15 miles south of here. And it’s one thing to commute for 45 miles each way for two months. It’s another to do it for the rest of the year.

Ergo, I’m going to stick with my 30 and the broken-down building … where the maintenance man not only steals my packages, but he’s now stealing air conditioners and refrigerators and selling THOSE off the back of his taco truck.

I guess deception may not be the right word. But I don’t know a better word for the audible crack in one’s heart as another “thing” doesn’t work out the way you dared to hope it might.

Spent the weekend in Orlando. I went to a conference I used to work at every year. Now I drive instead of fly, I stay at offsite hotels instead of at the resort, I wear flip-flops instead of heels but the rest is the same — I show up to talk to customers and presenters and get the reminder that what I do actually matters.

I’ve spent the last year killing myself in a job I like but I don’t always love … doing things that don’t exactly build my resume but do keep the company in business … and sometimes feeling either like the most-special person on earth or else like the cleaning lady while other people seem to get the glory.

Everyone makes fun of me for still giving a crap about this conference. But everyone’s also very interested in what I learned and who I met.

I know the conference neither takes hard work nor offers the debauchery of yesteryear to offset it. But it still means something to me. I walked away with some great knowledge and a really good contact. I also walked away remembering that people really do read every word I write and it matters, what I have to say. (Even if it’s mostly written under others’ names.)

More importantly, I recognized that my talent has always been not just editing, but making connections … putting the right people in touch with each other, being able to sense the quality people/content from the b.s., and basically knowing and doing what’s right for the subscriber.

So right now I’m in a role where I have influence but I don’t make the decisions. And it’s a role I am comfortable in. It’s not a stopping point, by any means, especially not since I was once a decision-maker and I want to be one again.

But, you know. It’s just another reminder that I can either grow where I am, or find someplace else to grow. But whichever I pick (or is picked for me. Gulp.), the fact is, I’m not happy unless I’m growing. And I’m happy to be reminded of when I used to shine, because that’s my ticket to shining again.

1. Work isn’t supposed to be hard.

Challenging, yes. But being bone-dry exhausted every day from stuff that frankly takes up way too much time and doesn’t sharpen anything resembling a marketable skill set isn’t indicative of growth.

2. One shouldn’t feel guilty for doing what one was hired for.

I make no secret that I am a journalist masquerading as the chief bottle washer, cook, maid and fluffer. Today I had a massive editing project. And I hate the feeling of utter guilt that I was doing something I love — that I spent my whole life training for — instead of doing something hard. (See Item 1.)

As we get older, many of us lose that feeling that “things will turn out OK.” We’ve seen the other side of “OK.” We know everything happens for the best but that doesn’t stop it from stinging like a motherfucker.

I have lots of friends trying for babies, buying houses, buying cars, etc. And I guess I’ve been in my field too long and been tossed out on the street too often despite being the hardest-working asshole on the Eastern seaboard. But I keep my car I bought in 2001 and it kills me daily to afford my rent in a chi-chi ZIP code.

I was saying to a friend whose spouse wants more kids but magic isn’t happening yet this time around, I never felt the pull to be a mother. And that must make me an oddity.

Don’t get me wrong. Last guy I really had some feelings for, I figured we’d march down the marriage and kids route. I’m pushing 40 and he’s pushing 50. I figure, waiting isn’t the option it was when we were all 23.

So, if I was gonna hang in there with this moving-at-a-glacial-pace entanglement, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to say, hey, I wouldn’t be upset with this sort of outcome.

I guess that’s ring-chasing to a man. But Christ, this is someone who told me he wanted at least two kids and even though I’m in no fucking rush, I thought I’d put it out there.

I figured it was faith.

There was no water in THAT pool when I took the leap.

Oh well.

Faith is something I’ve struglged with forever. I never felt the “pull” to have kids because I’ve never met anybody I felt overwhelmingly bullish about procreating with.

That and I grew up poor, with five generations crammed in the two-bedroom rowhouse where I was born in a bad part of town. I never wanted to do that to my kids.

And I always thought I’d be more valuable to a man if I stayed kid-free. I’m thinking “not so much.”

If I got knocked up now, I’d have to quit my job and find another. There’s no way I could handle it all. Even if I could leave at 5, that’s an hour commute and if I had to cook and put the squirt to bed by 7, I’d see her for like 15 whole minutes.

I often think I’m so clever, that I’m free to travel and do what I want to do. But the truth is, while I crave the jet-setter life, if I’m stuck in this area and with a full-time-plus job and with responsibilities out the wazoo, then maybe I wouldn’t hate having a little structure … a little something to “work for” … if you will.

Maybe that’s it. People don’t necessarily have faith that it’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to. But that if we’re stuck in this life, we should do it our way … however we define it.

But I look at one friend struggling with infertility and you can’t help but root for her. She knows what she wants. She tries EVERY avenue. At EVERY expense. After EVERY heartache-filled loss.

You root for her because it’s what she wants. She has put it into the universe that she WILL be a mother, damn it.

People don’t root for me because what do I want? I want safety and security and a feeling of achievment. Big deal. I want a cute apartment and a car that doesn’t need repairs every three weeks. Whoopee.

What if I put it out into the world that I want the world’s best relationship under the sun? A true partner? One I can build a life with and travel internationally with and maybe even (ring-chasing alert) marry?

What if I wanted a kid? Would the universe finally cheer for me and … more importantly … would it support my dream just for “putting it out there”?

But what if I said I want to be CEO of a company and own the highest-tech penthouse in all the lands where I could entertain my staff to reward them for how hard they work for me? What would the universe say then?

I guess it would tell me to believe in it and work toward it and it will come. And to have a little faith. OK, a LOT of faith.

The hard work part is easy. It’s the believing that trips me up every time.

This day had just as many great things about it as utterly forgettable moments. I guess that’s what the universe calls balance.

I worked all day on the Monday holiday to finish a very important project. But instead of having a parade thrown in my honor (hyperbole, for those of you who don’t know me. The best way to honor me is to leave me alone, at least for a couple of days), I get the guilt trip about four other projects (in addition to my daily load) that I didn’t finish.

My rule is, daily load wins. Every time. Those are my rocks in the jar. These side projects are sand and water, baby. And until the pressure fuses the sand and water into solid rock, I can’t say I can find more extra hours in a day to beat my head against them.

But I did hear somebody at the top of the food chain likes me very much, and that’s nice. It made me cry, that’s how much I needed to hear it.

Funny you have to hear it through a third party or else you won’t hear it at all. Of course, when everyone else is planning houses and adding amenities to them and trips and other shit it feels like you’ll never have no matter how hard you work for it, I guess being loved doesn’t pay as well as being feared but at least it’s something.

Ever receive your W-2 and remember that you …

1. Took 12 lunch hours total all year
2. Lost four full weeks of vacation
3. Never left before 8 p.m.
4. Worked pretty much every holiday
5. Killed yourself so that you could take two days off and arrived at the airport 48 minutes before your 6:25 a.m. flight because you were WORKING until 6 a.m.
6. Don’t make enough to make any of that worthwhile?

Yeah. That.

Remember, hard work means taking less home.