Caterwauling

Here on Sia’s actual 38th birthday, I was just listening to the Acoustic Storm on Pirate Radio.

The first song after the show ended at noon was Natalie Merchant. Not my cuppa tea but I was too distracted to close out the app.

The second song, of course it was “Runaways” by The Killers.

For a moment I was back in Miami with her, rocking out at the concert.

How do I manage to hear this every year on her birthday?

I know. Of course I know.

Love you, girl.

*sending kisses heaven-ward, which is all around me*

I hope I am not sending Cocoa your way soon. But I fear I might.

Keep an eye on my little girl with the big purr, would you?

I’ll just be here painfully aware that everyone I love is dead or on their way there.

I’m tempted to look up what I called my idiot editorial assistant from years ago.

Anyway I was thinking about him today.

He was so not fit for the job. Like, his redeeming quality was that he was willing to drive to BFE without complaint.

Rather than fire him for performance, we did the kindest thing we could.

We eliminated the position.

I did so knowing that I couldn’t advertise or fill the position for a year.

I never did. At least, not till 2021. I think that was a good five years.

I don’t know if that was company policy or some broader best practice. But we said the position is being taken out of the budget. Here’s some severance. Feel free to have future employers call HR for your reference.

I thought that was beyond fair.

I think about when I was shitcanned last. They listed my failures. Nine of them.

TBH, I agreed with a few. But they compensated me generously. So, I got no beef. I can be paid to go away. Especially since I knew I stood a good chance of getting my old job back. Where I am much happier anyway.

In any event, I treated dipshit better than he deserved. Never heard a peep from him as a result.

Good.

It amazes me what I learned young that people damn near twice my age should know.

My friends and I used to marvel at “When did we become NOT the riff-raff?”

These days, I wonder, “Does anyone KNOW what value we bring? Or could, if you truly let us?”

I still wish I had been able to adjust salaries, titles and benefits for some. Exit packages for others. And parting words for one.

Live and learn. And teach, or at least try.

One of my earliest memories was learning Elvis Presley died.

I was at my great-aunt’s trailer in North Huntingdon. Not sure who all was there. Definitely my mom. Maybe my Gram. Probably my cousin, who was an Elvis stan.

It came across the TV and all the women were paralyzed by what they heard.

I was playing on the floor and was alarmed at their expressions. Aunt Lenna said Elvis died, honey.

I had no idea what she meant. But I knew this was big.

It’s what, 45 years later? And hearing that his daughter died … near my age … caused that same shock in me.

I thought Lisa Marie was a better singer. I was into her first album. Listening to it now as I type. I’d forgotten how good it was.

The thing w Lisa Marie is the thing w all of us who get sick. These hospitals and docs pick and choose who they help.

Look at the footballer who just had a heart attack. The heroics to save him.

Look at me who can’t even get a call returned unless it’s from the billing department.

I think they looked at Lisa Marie and saw a druggie. A woman who speaks slowly and has sleepy, dreamy “hangdog” eyes.

A mom whose heart was broken from losing her adult baby.

A nepo baby.

No one worth saving.

You cannot tell me anyone did anything heroic for her.

My friend lost her adult son almost a year ago. She was off-kilter before that w a rotten husband.

Then her dad, her north star, died. She was never the same after that.

All I know is her faraway eyes are filled with even more sadness.

She never touched a drug because her boy’s dad did enough for everyone. But you don’t look at her and know that.

I doubt a medical professional would bother to find out.

She moved back to the state they were all born in. To his neighborhood. To where her beloved dad’s memory is strongest.

I think about that a lot. I already know that I will crumble when my Cocoa goes. And I didn’t expect to have my mom for 15-ish years so far. I forget what life was like on my own. How do I go back to it?

Anyway, I’m thinking of bright-eyed and beautiful Priscilla.

Not the nutty nurse practitioner who can’t get the doc to call me back. Fuck that Penelope Pitstop and that whole institution.

No, my heart is with Priscilla Presley. She’s lost everyone. She is the legacy. The last piece.

One of my staffers lives in Memphis. I always wanted to go. Hoping to get there one day. Even more so now.

I wonder if my superfans are still populating their myriad accounts … now across myriad platforms … and hoping I see their odes.

I read nonsense for a living. Don’t need to do it on breaks, too.

I presume they haven’t gotten anything new to say anyway.

Good luck w all those new accounts, TuhNahKyss my pudgy pork roast ass.

Like so many travelers in the Instagram age, (White Lotus) characters drift through their adventures without any real purpose other than to reproduce the pretty scenes and special moments they’ve seen elsewhere, trying to locate themselves in endless reflections.

— NYT

Was just reading this to distract from overdue work and existential angst. Both of which have been inexorably linked throughout my existence.

I asked mom yesterday how I could get rich.

I mean, this is probably the peak of my career. I always hoped for more.

But this isn’t a world where loyalty equals longevity.

It doesn’t end in a pension. If you’re lucky, it ends in a week’s pay. If you’re really lucky, maybe two weeks’.

Someone asked recently what, if any, regrets I’d go back in time to fix. Financially, anyway.

I wish I’d bought real estate after the crash. The same shitty condos I scoffed at for $125k now go for for $525k … with the same pink tile, serpentine glass and cracked Formica. HOA fees have soared to $1k/mo. And interest rates are near 6%.

Why didn’t I? Job insecurity, as ever.

I look back and think damn, if I’d bought, I’d be set for life by now. Sure I’ve hit financial rock bottom a few times between jobs. But overall I’m doing OK.

So why don’t I buy now? I mean, other than elevated prices/rates and low inventory?

Same story — this could all end any minute. I have even less confidence than before. I’m older, way more tired, everything hurts a lot more. And I hate to admit, I’m slower than I was at everything.

So, how do I make a bunch of money … and what will I do with it?

I would be Jennifer Coolidge in White Lotus.

I want to drift from one exotic locale to another.

I want to meet fascinating people and enjoy frozen rum cocktails by every sea.

I want to see All the Sunrises and All the Sunsets.

I want some other sap to take the Advil.

At the very least, I just want fewer projects to focus on so I can make them really fucking great instead of treating everything as just another spinning plate.

And I want to own my little piece of paradise and not worry about how to pay for it when my energy or at least my ability to crank out a fuck gives out.

That is my truth, and I find beauty in it.

I remember when Lucy Van Pelt’s mask lost her made-up religion over this.

How LVP thought this was in reference to her hooz-band is beyond me.

God, I miss you so much, Sia. You’ve spent so many birthdays in heaven.

I wish we could get you back for this one.

Happy 38th, dear heart.

I will never stop missing you.

I laugh at all those memes about letting go of grudges for 2023.

Fuck that. I put a curse on a bitch and let their demons deliver it.

Like this cunt.

I stopped at the Publix at North Delray Commons right before it closed on New Year’s Eve.

I feed three cats downstairs and didn’t want to go home empty-handed. Driving past them would break my soul.

It’s these stupid little decisions, done from the heart, that can do you in.

I was behind this lady in line. Part of me wanted to buy her groceries. Another part of me remembered the arrogant bitch I gave my deli number to at Joseph’s and she pushed an old man off his feet.

I got cunt vibes from this one, too. So I minded my business.

I minded my own damn business as I backed out of my parking spot. Till this same heifer purposely drove head-on at me and screamed to back up. M

Meanwhile a tiny Jeep wedged itself into my spot. I said you caused this; fix it and back up.

She kept screaming and by this time, a crowd had gathered. I couldn’t back up without going into the street. So I threw Hillary in park and surfed Twitter.

The ppl in the Jeep told her to move. Then they asked me to move. I said she will probably block you in too if I get out of here alive.

So many bitches need a Christmas tree shoved in up their ass, ornaments and all.

Bitch is screaming that I don’t have the right of way. I said you took it away from me, you nasty bitch.

I said I will sit here all night, so figure it out.

Naturally she found a worker and he told me I was wrong. I said wrong for coming to Publix. Would love to leave if your girl wasn’t out to ruin my day.

Eventually I did back out into traffic because this cunt kept nosing her front end into mine.

Even as I backed up, she gunned for me.

She said have a blessed day. I said drop dead and mom said fuck you, bitch.

I hope her Christmas tree catches fire and she gets cancer. You always hear about people who don’t deserve it. She most definitely does.

I can’t believe I almost bought her mac and cheese and Sweet Baby Ray’s. Hope she choked on it.

I often forget that it isn’t just Lucy Van Pelt’s Halloween mask that stares at me here and all over sewshul meedya.

Retrograde has opened up a few other memory holes, it appears.

A part of me wants to remind people that they quit calling me first. And that you can only verbally abuse me (Northern asshole) or gossip about me (even more Northern asshole) once before you lose your access to me forever.

Y’all can join someone else in enjoying a shovel to the face in 2023. Or, another one.

2022 wasn’t a bad little year.

I mean, it was ridiculous in its own ways that previous years weren’t.

But I figure I had seven great days.

Six in the Keys …

One in Orlando …

Enjoyed Christmas and NYE immensely …

I’m still getting a paycheck, which bought what my kiddos know as “good foodz.”

Everyone in my little family is here.

Mom pointed out that I sang to myself a lot in December. I was happy.

I think about summer, all the beautiful times

I watched you laughin’ from the passenger’s side

And realized I loved you in the fall

I stopped singing when I got back to work after three weeks off. Stopped being as nice, too.

Jesus, the stress returned faster than the tan I acquired before this cold snap.

I need to get back to being the person I was in December. And to keep being her forever.

I’m about to rename the Cindy squirts to simply the work squirts. The less I think about her, the happier I am.

Maybe I ate too much seafood in the Keys.

Or maybe it’s nerves about returning to work after about a month away.

Could be that kickass Christmas dinner I cooked a day late, too.

In any event, when our heroine last signed into her work computer, she had five projects to finish before month-end.

Two of those projects require so many meetings and discussions and “no, don’t do it that ways” that I’ve punted the easy part — writing — to now.

It’s complicated and in my absence, people LEARNED that. So they talked about it and appear to have changed their minds about how it should be done anyway.

I guess I’ll see this mess on my performance review. If I make it that long.

I also missed a meeting with our Japan partners last week. I mean, is it really necessary to be up, dressed and on camera for 6 a.m. every Thursday? I drag all day long afterward. Heck, I was even awake for the one I missed. I just happened to be staring at the sunrise.

There were also myriad texts as follow-up to the Terrible Thing to field. I mean, I know I’m lucky to be on vacation and still employed. But Jesus, did anyone think about why I needed a vacation?

Anyway. I need to go pull the cats out of the tree. Again.

Not Cocoa. She’s my good girl.

The topper is more expensive than the tree itself, and it’s about to hit the ground.

So am I, topper. So am I.