Caterwauling

“I got a feeling I, I can’t get over
Maybe all we had has always been right
Think of all the love you gain when you send it over
Think of all the wool I’ve spun to be here tonight.”

Nathaniel Rateliff, “Wasting Time”

My soul is tired.

One month ago, less a couple of days, I was told I was getting evicted from my house AND my job.

A Category 5 shitstorm washed away my plans for Thanksgiving dinner and, oh, being able to afford to move and pay for an emergency car repair that contained a comma.

Then grace found me. The landlord said stay put till you get a job. The company said stay till after Christmas … then till Jan. 5 … then till Feb. 1.

My friend Sue said buy a tree. It arrived today. So did my long-awaited shipment of PB2 chocolate peanut-butter powder. That was my Christmas. All downhill from there.

That’s OK. Every day I’ve thanked God for the same things — for Momma, for Kadie, for Stewie, for gas in Stewie’s tank, for wine for the holidays and a roof over my head during them.

Thankful to Dada for introducing me to Boneshaker, and to Crown Spirits in Fort Lauderdale for selling it.

I’ve told everyone I’m going to believe in Santa Claus this year. And I know I’ve been lucky …

Sue buried her sister-in-law. Cindy buried her aunt. Five of seven people who got walked out of the building got in their cars with no new job to go to. At least one felt like retirement is the only option at this point. Another went home to pack up to leave the state for a new opportunity.

I’ve tried to stay positive. We all have. It’s been emotionally exhausting for all of us.

Productivity is in a dead heat with morale in the limbo contest. Staying or going, doesn’t matter. Things change every day. You can find favor or lose it just as easily.

I give thanks for a safe, if not stupidly long, commute.

And then, Santa Claus came to my office today in the form of the owner’s nephew. Who took me to a meeting with the owner. Who said Santa is staying in town if you’re interested.

No, you don’t get to stay editorial director. Just keep doing all the work and assist the foo with the title. But you can get another title and another 40-hour load on top of it if you want it.

I mean, given that an offshoot of Fox News is calling me to lead their conservative, Trump-boot-licking production team, there are WORSE options.

Why me? Why save me, and why now? Because last week I said how much I loved the company … loved the work I’ve done … loved my boys … and how sad I was to see it all come to an end.

That stuck with him. You don’t let go of people like that.

Mom says I’m probably going to eat those words.

I have a lot to think about. Uncertainty is the name of the game whether I stay or go. I mean, at least getting the boot was the most amount of certainty I’ve had in a long time.

In any event, I just put up my tree and I’m parking my tired soul beside it tonight and watching “The Great Christmas Light Fight.” My tree is simple and a replacement of one I threw out in the last move. I’m just glad the lights work. (I bought the same tree last year and it didn’t light.)

So this is Christmas …

Much better …

Just happy to have a tree … a roof … a Christmas … and a happy-ish new year ahead.

It looks like my chance to leap isn’t going to look like I thought it would. I just hope this recommitment to a thousand-hour workweek doesn’t stop me from seeking … and taking … something I might love. But who can say no, really, to a very unexpected personal invitation like this one?

“I don’t need to talk about the world, all right?
I just want to sleep with a smile tonight.”

— Portugal, “Smile”

Got a good sleep, for a change. Maybe it was recovery from the 2.5 hours I got Friday and the maybe-three I got Thursday night. Maybe it was having a good Saturday too.

Today I updated my resume. The latest version hasn’t done shit for me. Maybe this one will help me find my next home faster.

A good friend from an old job reminded me that I don’t have to believe in me. Enough of them are doing that on my behalf, and I’ll be fine because of it.

Bless her. She was always a treasure. I imagine she had to have heard about this godawful situation somehow, because I haven’t been reaching out to the people I need most, lest the person who drove us into the Titanic gets into another of his screaming fits that someone else heard about the iceberg somehow.

She knew what I needed to hear, when I heard it. Because I didn’t know and God my heart swells with joy now that I do.

I wonder if I’m going to live through this after all …

Well, the latest Layoff Day was as miserable as I thought it would be.

I should be used to saying goodbye to my friends by now. But it never really gets easier.

I spent the day working on a project for some jag who should have been working on it but probably would have screwed it up. I see the previous two issues his team published and the complete lack of punctuation in the sentences. And the owner added literally 97 special requests to this process. All of which I handled and had to tap no fewer than four people to help me handle.

It all came together, thank God. And surprisingly, the only tears I shed where when my friends came to hug me and goodbye.

However, there was a wonderful rage-filled moment when the jag sent an email to all my boys with the SL: “Greetings from your new editorial director.” Fuck you, jagoff. Let the body get cold, OK? I’m still here, doing YOUR work and not my own. So thank God I still had a full (read: already reduced, and about to be reduced AGAIN) team through yesterday.

One of my boys emailed me to say, wow, holy power trip up there. Yeah, no shit. Good luck with that. No more Goddess for you when my own Layoff Day arrives.

“I might be more a man if I stopped this in its tracks
And said come on, let’s go home.
But she’s got the wheel,
And I’ve got nothing except what I have on.”

— Del Amitri, “Driving With the Brakes On”

I heard this song on Pirate Radio and thought of my earliest days with the company. Back when I was brought in before my start date to attend a copywriting class with the owner.

I met a boy that day. He was videotaping the whole ordeal. The tapes got lost somewhere. Probably because another attendee challenged the owner on something. They made that person disappear fast. The footage soon followed.

That boy asked me out at some point. And I probably dedicated a million words on this blog to the ensuing thrills and aches.

He didn’t survive a major layoff, and I did. Said relationship, whatever was left at that point, didn’t survive either. All I have left of him is a Drive-By Truckers CD and a Facebook friendship with two of his friends who live in my neighborhood.

He would love Del Amitri. Maybe he does love them. I almost wanted to send him this song but for what, really? Do I tell him I am meeting the same career fate he did? That I feel just as emasculated that my livelihood that I love now has an end date and there’s no new beginning in sight?

He’d probably say the right thing about it. The man was never at a loss for words or an intelligent observation. He’d probably look damn cute saying it. And then he’d retreat, like he was so good at.

Beat me at my own game, that one. I thought *I* was emotionally unavailable until I tried to pull him out from under the rock he loved hiding under.

“When you’re driving with the brakes on,
When you’re swimming with your boots on,
It’s hard to say you love someone
And it’s hard to say you don’t.”

Anyway. Hard to stay dead inside when so many emotion-invoking things keep happening. I look forward to returning to my status of being unavailable to jobs and heartache. But right now, I am more available than I ever wanted to be. And the fear of falling … fear of failing … is more than my cold little heart can take.

Well, to be fair, my team got shitcanned back in May. But then I moved to a NEW team, and let’s just say they’ve been thinning my new herd since August.

Then we got the word on Nov. 7 that the rest of us who hadn’t been laid off were going to be seeing the streets as soon as Dec. 1. That day is here.

The good news is, a lot of us were asked to stay for a few more weeks, another month, heck another two or three months. I am super, super blessed in that I am currently in the “will turn off the lights” category.

Unfortunately, the first real wave of departures begins today. And again, my team is first up on the cutting block.

I was asked to do a Sophie’s Choice between two people. (I mean, really, we are already down to nothing in the way of support staff.) I won’t lie — my choice was easy from a productivity and cooperation standpoint. But now that the day is here, it’s 4 a.m. and I am staring at the ceiling because, Jesus. I just had to ruin someone’s Christmas.

I mean, I know the blame isn’t on my shoulders. There’s not a single decision I made or COULD have made that could have reversed this ridiculousness.

But then there’s the guilt of outlasting the next person — the one who gave it all and then some. But, I mean, so did I. Maybe not 21 years but I gave up a whole lot of nights, weekends, (purchaseD) concert tickets, vacations and life events to keep the lights on this long.

Folks see and know that. They know they can’t reward me fully, but they can throw me a lifeline when I need it most. And you better believe I appreciate it.

It’s win-win for me. More time to job-hunt. More time to do what I love.

And that’s the thing. I love, love, love what I do. Even all the crazy characters who crossed my path and drove me to distraction sometimes. I don’t know anyone who loved their work … and the people for whom she did it … more than me.

A dear friend from Pittsburgh said, “How lucky for you that you’ve found your passion.” Indeed.

But it’s a small niche in the world. There are few roles like it anywhere else. And believe me, they are all filled and they are all filled with lesser versions of me.

How do you transition from goddess of your universe to … well … the rest of the universe?

And if by some snowball’s chance I can stay exactly where I am for longer than a minute, will I just find myself in the same situation down the road?

Or, what if I don’t find a way to make a leap now, I never will … and then after 21 years no one will want me because I haven’t achieved anything else?

It’s all so maddening. My soul is tired. If it’s even still in there somewhere.

I’m guessing my mind weighs 1.6 pounds. Because that’s what the scale at Weight Watchers says I’ve shed since last week.

Normally I stay the same. I do gain a few ounces here and there, or lose an ounce or two. So, for Thanksgiving week — and two vats of Mom’s wonderful stuffing balls — to come and go and still lose weight, dude. I’m pretty overjoyed.

We got to talking at our meeting about planning for the holidays. Not just Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or Christmas or Kwanzaa or whatever holidays those tiki torch Nazis celebrate or condemn. But what about the days leading up to it, and the recovery days afterward?

I do talk at meetings. (I waxed poetic about how I REGRET NOTHING after eating my weight in stuffing balls, while others boo-hooed that they drank too much wine or whatever. DUDE. Suck it up and move the hell on. I promise. You’ll lose those extra pounds when you’re meant to.)

But I was silent on the subject when Leslie asked what events we have to face this season.

Everyone else was yapping about office parties. Meanwhile my head was screaming MUST BE NICE TO HAVE A JOB AT CHRISTMAS. Or a company that hadn’t downsized so freaking much in the past few years that you know NOT to count on any kind of raise, bonus or holiday gift even though YOU BUSTED YOUR BUNNY ALL YEAR.

Ahem.

In any event, you know what events I have this year, other than not stress-eating every time someone else walks out the door for good? Happy hours and going-away lunches. Not company-sponsored of course. But drowning sorrows as another one bites the dust. Self included.

I always wished I were one of those people who lost weight from stress. Hoo boy, not me. Give me ALL THE LENTIL CHIPS. And I have three bags sitting two feet from me right now … and a half-empty one in front of me that I WILL polish off because GODDAMN IT my attention span is short these days and this, at least, I can finish.

If I can make it through this, I can make it through anything. But Jesus Christ, I love my job/field so much and yet EVERYONE ELSE has offers and interviews. Why don’t I? Is the universe just saving the best for last? Or does everyone expect that, because I know everyone and everything in the field, I’ll be fine and don’t need any help?

I know it can be — and has been — worse. I also know that believing in Santa Claus has kept me going this long. I’ve had some pretty good luck along the way too.

I just hope what’s left of my Christmas spirit … and it’s not even December yet … can sustain me for a lot longer. And that it can pay the bills and then some. And that I at least go dead inside if I must, so I can’t eat my feeling because I won’t have any of those anymore.

I manage to piss off two people today.

One by saying I don’t talk to my ex-BFF anymore because she voted for Trump. (Which, that was just the final straw. And there was a whole box of straws.) I am guessing the one person who recoiled voted for the asshole.

Another by saying anyone who watches Fox News is a Trump-loving nitwit and that’s the main source of fake news in this world. I know this person is a Trump lover and so is his wife. And one day, I hope she can tell me in very small words someday why women who don’t work hate Hillary so much.

In any event, there may be a third person I hurt somehow and I didn’t mean to if it was in fact my stupid ass fault.

There’s a lot of shit going on right now. Obviously the work is drying up and we’ll all be out panhandling soon enough. But there’s a lot more that I am keeping to myself. Like, my friends who got the boot a lot sooner are dying for the gossip, yet I don’t reach out and touch anyone about it. And I dodge when they do inquire.

I was even telling a friend today, I hear news and retreat to my corner. Then I watch my phone and wait for the texts to roll in. Someone gets fired, give it two hours till an old friend knows and lets ME know. The assets get sold, I guarantee one of my West Coast friends will know before someone down the hall can walk to my desk to fill me in.

There’s another friend I don’t gossip with. At all. But in conversation, I earnestly said hey you might be able to get something useful out of this event, if the stars align. Sit tight and wait.

I trust said person will behave. But I’m not sure if they did here. Because everyone stopped bailing water out of the boat and started rearranging their deck chairs about this particular topic. Because, of all the information spreading around the continent like wildfire, THIS is what concerns them.

The problem is someone got in trouble over it. I don’t *think* it’s my “fault,” as if something so dumb should be assigned any fault. But either way, no matter whose flap was yapping, folks really need to find their zen.

In any event, politics was the theme of the day. If I had the choice to eliminate the kind that runs our country or the kind that ruins our workplace first, I honestly don’t know which I’d pick. I hate me some Trump (obvs) but damn. This stupid shit is less pervasive but so much more personal.

Anyway. Tomorrow I’m not speaking to anyone. I feel like I regret it every single time. I only try to help all parties (and it would in fact help all parties), and it only ends up in a flaming ball of poo.

Now that the unemployment line is staring me in the face, everyone either responds with:

A) OMG what are you going to do?!!?!?!?! #panic

B) Great. You were too smart for that place / it was killing you anyway. Now you can do what you really want to do. Dream big!

I’m not sure which reaction bugs me more. Probably the first one, as it forces ME into a role of trying to comfort THEM and assure them no, I’m not going to drive Stewie into the Intracoastal and meet a watery end. Don’t make me reassure you when I’m the one who’s spinning out. Give ME some hope that the job market really isn’t abysmal, eh?

A friend who used to work with me a lonnnngggg time ago reached out on one of the social media thingies and said she always wondered why I stayed. Too smart for all that, she said. I laughed. I said I stayed because we had amazing people like you hidden in the ranks. It was easy to be a leader when you had people who actually cared about your, and the company’s, success.

I can’t find a job like mine anywhere on the planet. The company that’s supposed to be hiring all of us, well, isn’t. And that was my best bet.

I don’t want to be unemployed. But I don’t want to lose my title or pay, either. That’s why I stayed. Seniority, yo. You get really good at your craft in a niche industry. What happens when you have such specialized skills that they just don’t translate directly anywhere else?

Basically I achieved my dream. So when folks tell me to dream big, well. I set that bar and I met it already.

Look, I’ve been worried about losing this job for six years. I figured it would be my longest-running boss to toss me. He never seemed to “take” to me. And I wasn’t planning to stay anyway. Just wanted to leave for the right thing.

God knows I’ve had offers. Just didn’t hear the right one over the years. Now I’m left to wonder do I go crawling back … or do I dream something up that is completely different — and could completely suck in its own special way?

How do you dream when that’s your mindset? (A little help here, please …)

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. … Matthew 6:1-34

I had a friend who threw a couple of ugly-looking plates of food at the homeless on Thanksgiving. Plates made by his wife who couldn’t cook anything pretty to save her life. A wife he complained about every minute of every day. One he had no problem cheating on.

We aren’t friends anymore. I suspect a lot of those stories about her were lies anyway. In any event, I’m not concerned about them. But I am so glad I do not have to hear about the fucking four plates of ugly-looking food that he bravely walks outside and delivers to the first four people he sees on the streets.

The first time he told me he liked to give out Thanksgiving meals to the homeless, I was charmed.

Wasn’t sure why he told me, though. As I don’t really tell anyone when the spirit moves me to do a good deed. Although I did tell him about a good deed I did around that time. You know, to bond over being raised right.

But this one, man. He wrote blog posts about it. Odes to himself. Not a word about the wife slaving away in the kitchen to make that ugly-looking stuffing and dry turkey and canned cranberry. But reams of poetry and social media posts and photos of the ugly meals.

I mean, yeah, it’s noble. Like I said, I was charmed. Mom makes me pretty meals but we only cook enough for the two of us and the cat. And the cat ends up eating off OUR plates, so there are no leftovers. I mean, you can only make a half-pound tray of ham and a half-pound tray of turkey from Honeybaked only go so far.

And most of the homeless in my town are junkies fresh off a heroin high because they probably live in one of those fake recovery houses that only wants their insurance money. But still. Even if I did do something nice for a human (I prefer ducks, squirrels, cats and turtles, and pretty much anything with a beak), have you heard about it here? Nope. And you never will.

In any event, I used to try to say to this person, hey, I like to keep my charitable whims private. (Hint.) Or, gee, that’s really special and something that can make you feel good inside about because it’s your little secret. (HINT.) Or if you want to go all biblical and shit, the giving it reward enough.

Yeah. Whatever.

In any event, today I am thankful for not hearing that annual pat on the back for something he probably hasn’t even done in a couple of years.

One of my favorite movies from my younger years, “Sweet November,” was on HBO last night.

It’s still hard to watch Keanu Reeves. He’s too jerky to be believable as the leading man/love interest. But like Trump, he has a job and I don’t. Which makes me loathe them more.

But it was one of those things I needed to see when I saw it. A dying girl who takes life one month at a time. He was her November. And she walked away in December, leaving him with a broken heart and beautiful memories.

It made me think back to all my Novembers. The best was six years ago when I landed the job that’s now ending. After 11 months of barely getting by with freelance work, I knew this wasn’t a dream job. But it sure saved my life. And I gave till it hurts in return to show my gratitude.

The worst November was when we lost my grandfather. Thanksgiving 2006. It was one thing if old age got him. But the VA killed him and there’s nothing we could do about it.

The second-worst November was the first time I was jobless. 2004, I think. I couldn’t afford the gas to go to Pittsburgh to see my family. Seriously mapped out ways kill myself. My Calico kitty saved me just by refusing to leave my side.

Third-worst November is clearly when assclown tRumpy somehow was elected by the Russians and 74,000 stupid fucking Americans last year. I might even say that was the worst November ever because it fucking ruined the country and not just my year. Lost a lot of friends over it. Losing tax breaks and a whole lot of other shit. Losing my shit still. And that fucker is at his gaudy beach estate down the street so I’ve also lost the ability to drive around town. Fuck him. Die. Just die.

Then there’s this November. Which should hands-down win “worst November ever.” I mean, your landlord tells you to move out … you lose your job because you work for people who can’t manage a company or hire competent help … your car shits the bed in the middle of one of America’s busiest freeways … you pick up a virus you just cannot shake … your cat’s sick and your mom’s sicker … and yet the orange fuckface up the street, no matter how much he taunts North Korea, still can’t get them to drop a nuke and end it all.

But … it’s not the worst.

Apparently my decision to believe in Santa isn’t the funniest thing ever.

• My landlord said, look. Get your life together. Find your next job. I’ll worry about selling the condo next year. Breathe. Oh and hey, I may know someone who’s hiring.

• My tow-truck driver saved my life. SAVED. MY. LIFE. My mechanic took quick and excellent care of me. And I have a no-limit credit card so I can deal with the money part later.

• My company owner said please stay till year-end.

• And I wouldn’t say I have a job prospect by any means. But I met a really cool dude who knows people. Who knows people who like me. Maybe there’s a love connection, maybe there isn’t. But there is the hope.

Look. Things ain’t perfect. Or anywhere close. But compared to electing Trump, losing my grandfather and sharpening a knife I wasn’t using because I couldn’t afford food, this November is almost sweet here too.

As if it weren’t bad enough that we are selling assets to my old company and I am working with people I left behind anywhere from 7 to 10 years ago …

Now I get to dazzle other people who are lucky enough to have jobs. Reminds me of when I was interviewing begging for this job. Looking around and trying super-hard to not recognize that I could outshine any of them, if only anyone would give me a chance.

I got some good news yesterday. The owner personally asked me to stay on an extra month. So I am very happy and relieved to have two more paychecks than I planned.

(I mean, I planned on being employed for as long as I wanted to be. So this is just meeting my expectations for 2017. But still. Consider that expectation bar on the ground, or perhaps in a ditch, for next year.)

The owner also asked me to make a Sophie’s Choice and pick just one helper. The answer was easy. But I feel sad anyway.

And not only did my newest boss (the guy who promoted me) get walked out of the building yesterday, but I ran into my immediately previous boss at a cocktail reception.

Jesus Christ. The guy who unfriended me when they put him on the curb. In the flesh.

I spent the evening avoiding him. But he came up to me at the end and we made peace.

Seeing him killed me. The man’s been out of a job four months and counting. FOUR MONTHS. From the same role I am wrapping up. Am I in for another 11-month stretch without a job like the last time?

To be fair, he wasn’t a fit for the role and he knew it. I love to manage. I love the day-to-day. I hate writing because this field has killed my love of it, where he still holds on to that love.

We could have been a good team if we had been in each other’s roles.

Seeing him jobless and hearing that another colleague I liked is also still on the unemployment line killed me

And none of this really felt real till 30 of us were standing around the (mercifully) open bar at a cocktail reception. Some of us clamored for the attention of the basically three people who didn’t have an opening per se but who were humoring someone important and meeting with us orphans. Most of our employees huddled together, watching the rest of us with wide eyes.

I told the HR director at the hosting company (an old friend of mine, although not sure how much that helps me) it was like the Puppy Bowl. I walk well on a leash and I love car rides and going to the park. Pick me, yes?

The good news is, I knew the hosts and it was good to catch up. (And I hope they took my dinner suggestion — they would love me.) I tried to introduce my folks and say a nice thing or two. As if my reference could make a difference.

I couldn’t sleep after that. I mean, the wine (very good pinot noir. Go, Marriott) knocked me out for two hours. But Kadie had me up at 3 a.m. yesterday. so I consider that as appending Sunday night’s fitful slumber.

I dreamed that Mom was healthy and happy and out of pain. We were out doing something fun in the sun and I said, momma, you’re keeping up with me! She said yes, honey, isn’t it wonderful?

I went to pay for something in the dream and realized holy shit, I do not have a job and zero prospects for one.

That’ll get ya out of bed at 1:12 a.m. Just sayin’.

My agreement to stay is also a devil’s deal. I can’t leave if I get a good offer. Or a bad offer. Or any offer, really.

What I’m hoping is that the universe will work the way it always does, and I’ll get 10 offers because I can’t walk out when I’m ready.

The owner says he knows I’m going to get multiple offers. Don’t take the first offer, Goddess, he told me yesterday. Make them compete for you.

I just hope the money comes. Offers have always been fairly easy to come by. Offers that keep you above the poverty level, not so much.

And looking around at people who gave 10, 20, even almost 30 years — thinking this was where they’d gain seniority and maybe retire from — just makes me sad that there are so many of us with the same wish.

Sadder still that this probably isn’t the last layoff we’ll ever endure, if we can even get through this one in the first place.