Caterwauling

On this latest round of re(re)joining Weight Watchers, when they asked me about “my why,” I struggled.

I mean, I’ve had enough “whys” than China has rice. I just had to look up my last round. Which is kind of cool, really. Because I can cross a lot of those things off the list.

Problem was, I needed that list a couple weeks ago. Because I was totally caught on the spot.

The very first time I joined WW in 2008, it was after a photo shoot at my company. They wanted my face on the website that I had spent a year building.

I felt cute that day. Couldn’t wait to see my face listed as an expert on a website I loved.

Holy shit. I could not believe how fat I was.

I can’t even find that photo online anymore. And thank God for that. I know I have a similar photo from Las Vegas at my storage unit that is equally hideous. But either way, it was a wake-up call.

Here we are nine years later, and my company sent me to our studio to take a photo for our website. This after my last boss didn’t want me to have an online presence at all. Or the title he kept promising me for five years. But whatever. I got the title … now for the bio.

And … holy shit. No I am not putting THAT new pic up either.

I mean, the good news is that I was about 252 pounds in the first instance, and around 165 in the second. So I am OVERJOYED to be the “me” of today.

But at 5-foot-3 (and shrinking, it seems. I was 5-foot-4 just two years ago), I have a tiny frame, it seems.

I have a brand-new office now. The second-best one in the building, it seems.

And even though I miss my office that I was forced to abandon in May (I just went there today. My heart still breaks and nothing is going to keep that from happening every time I think about the place I loved), there’s one wonderful perk.

That is, people keep coming in and saying, “OMG you’re such a tiny person for this big office!”

Heck, I even fit under my desk. With plenty of room to spare.

And no one can see me over my monitors, either. Which has its perks. (That is, it gives me time to DIVE UNDER THAT DESK.)

I like being called tiny. (That’s not “my why.” But it’s a good one!) I like FEELING tiny. Comparatively speaking, of course. I know I ain’t *actually* tiny.

But when I looked up the “my why” post of last year, it feels familiar.

A thousand years ago, I just wanted to open a laptop on a plane. (Seats have gotten so much smaller, it’s a goal AGAIN.)

I want to zip up my calf boots without blowing out the zipper or having calf-sized muffin top.

Etcetera.

I still want to live longer/healthier than my family.

But this year, I have another “why.”

I’ve spent the last 10 years taking care of mom. Whether or not the fact that my social life is in flames is correlation or causation isn’t important here.

(I’m sure I still would have worked myself to death and found other excuses about my single-ness and aversion to “friends.”) Because everything is expensive, money-wise. And no price is greater than wasted time.

In any event, I need to stay youngish and healthy-ish because I lost 10 years. I mean, they’ve been great and fun and all. But I lost out on big vacations. Never got to Europe. Never got out of Florida this last near-decade, really.

Which is fine because people die to come HERE. So we explore it as best we can. But to be fair, we explore it as best SHE can.

And right now I’m feeling like if I don’t get to do the things I want now, what if I won’t GET to … just like when she finally could live her life, her health went to shit?

I am sure I’m not saying it correctly. It’s not that I haven’t been happy. I just know that a day is going to come when I can do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want to.

And I want to be healthy enough to enjoy every last second of it.

I’d also like to say hello to a hot guy when I’m walking on the beach and not have him reel in abject horror that I am talking to him.

That was never really a “why” that I consciously recognized. But, you know, I do feel like I deserve someone great. I just need them to LOOK BACK AT ME when I see them.

So I don’t have a number I’m working toward unless it’s a phone number, a wedding date and a move-in date to a beach house with a boat parked outside that comes with a hot man attached. One who wants me to be around for a long, long time so we can see the world together.

And I want to grant that wish.

Special thanks to the jerks who threw out my groceries because I have no time for lunch again today.

Extra special thanks to the employee who must hate me who passive aggressively takes his lunch later and later every day … knowing I don’t go till he returns from his often hour plus jaunts.

I don’t say a word because he takes care of a sick person every day. But I have calls and meetings and projects that start before I can leave. And someone HAS to cover the inbox at all times.

I got sick of my last boss taking his 90 minutes and leaving me here to starve. Now I can leave when I want. I just don’t want to miss anything. At least it annoys me less when it’s my choice. But I wish I had that salad, sammich and brand new tub of hummus that those fuckers tossed yesterday.

I didn’t eat till 8 pm last night. Looks like I’m in for a repeat of that today.

I need to make better decisions about setting my Legacy contact.

My social media site is not for name-calling when you’ve already made valid points. Those points get negated real fast when friends start sniping at each other and I have to delete shit after a particularly ugly comment. I hope the other person didn’t see it. The only one who can call people names is me, darn it. And even that’s only reserved for Pumpkinfuhrer and variations thereof.

So you can’t wear dress shorts.

You can’t leave your blinds open overnight.

You can’t leave groceries and the sammich your momma made you with her hurting little hands in the fridge if your name isn’t on them.

And good people are shown the door but certain others have job security for life.

And all these roads lead to exactly ONE place.

Seriously. Messing with a fat girl’s food means the fangs are bared and looking for an ass to chew out.

That time when the office people threw out all your brand-new groceries that you needed because you have no time to take lunch before the holiday weekend …

Because you didn’t put your name on it last night instead of THIS MORNING when they said the fridge would be cleaned out …

And you HAD a fridge of your own but it’s been taken hostage somewhere else in the building and no one will GIVE IT TO YOU …

And everyone is like well you were warned to put your name on your lunch like you have to stitch it in your underpants like a 5-year-old going off to camp …

And you just have to just be “overjoyed to be employed” as I say to everyone every single day. Because, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Mmm, cookies …

Goodbye, sandwich from mom, container of fruit, brand-new tub of hummus, and more carrots and broccoli than you can shake a Trader Joe’s at.

Caught my immediate ex-boss looking at my ProfeshunalSite profile on Friday.

I purposely did not update my profile with my new title (his old one) yet.

I wanted him to change his first. (He did on Friday.) Nothing worse than leaving a place NOT on your own terms. Well, other than having your replacement break the news that it happened at all.

I mentioned it to Mom and she reminded me how we never told anyone when we lived at the ocean for seven years. Like we didn’t want anyone to be jealous of how lucky we were.

I thought about that for a good, long time. She’s right. I never said that I lived a block away from Pumpkinfuhrer.

I mean, his gaudy beach house cost bajillions and I was in a rented condo with a series of six Evil Landladies and a maintenance guy who was in jail for stealing people’s shit (and a Mercedes, in the end).

But still, now when I say to people “Oh yeah, Nazi-sympathizing Dipshit and I were neighbors,” they don’t actually believe me. Which is fine. Honestly, I didn’t want them to come visit or want to stay with me anyway.

But I see what she means. I told my old friend W. that I got a promotion. And my BFF knew. But no one else outside the company (other than Mom, natch) knows about it.

It’s an interesting experiment, to see how long it takes for the news to spread. But I trust the three in-the-know to NOT spread it.

And it’s weird to see the dynamic within the company. Other than the people who made it a point to congratulate me, it’s been eerily silent.

I moved into my new office Friday afternoon. Maybe that will make it official. (It’s a pretty sweet office, too.)

But now I’m starting to wonder whether I’m worthy. I mean, they told me specifically to not work my 70-hour weeks that got me here. “Don’t burn out on us,” I was told. But … now that I finally have the title and pay I was striving for … I don’t want to check out like all my predecessors. (Yes, ALL of them.)

I actually WANT to work and do good things, better things … to BE better.

BUT … I gots a sick mom and kitty and I really DON’T want to burn the hell out again. I was crispy before my department imploded over Easter weekend. And I can tell you right now, all the bonus steps and personalities and authorities have sandpaper potential on my psyche.

Note I said potential. I can handle it. I can handle anything. But I worry. And maybe that’s why I haven’t told too many folks about how things are actually going in my favor.

I do honestly believe the universe wants me to be happy. But I do always have my eye out for that meteor coming my way. Like, what’s it gonna take away since it just gave me something?

In any event, I really don’t think I have to work too much harder — it sounded like the promotion was to catch me up to where I’ve been functioning anyway. I mean, I came in and took over … and the previous guy faded away. But you know me. I want to be better.

Lord, please help me be better, without sacrificing the free time I’ve worked so very hard to earn. Because that’s been better than any bump in pay. (Especially since I still can’t afford to move, and that’s what I want more than anything in this world.)

Can I really have it all? Does it really just take believing it to make it so?

Have I actually, honestly, really and truly suffered enough?

Major props to Dreamhost for resisting that piece of shit dangling from Pennsylvania Avenue and not providing info about folks who planned to protest the stupid fuck’s latest vanity rally in THE CAMPAIGN THAT NEVER ENDS.

Sorry you have to deal with this DDoS shit that has been fucking up our nation, one day and election at a time. It’s a clear message from President Putin what we’re in for if we don’t behave in a fashion Mother Russia prefers.

Hard to find things to smile about in this fucked-up world. But like they teach you at Weight Watchers, happier people lose more weight. Today they asked us to list three things that made us happy. (And as my cool new leader said, it doesn’t have to be on par with splitting the atom.)

Going to a meeting made me happy today. Losing the same pound and a half that I’ve been losing and gaining for the past three months was a win too. And being a Dreamhost customer definitely rounds out today’s trio.

The question I have asked myself every day since the first time I turned down that other job offer is back again today.

How did I throw away a chance to get away from all these thousand-step processes that don’t let me do what I do best? Twice?!

No wonder my last boss hid in his office all day and said no to every request. He didn’t want to waste his time.

Problem was, he didn’t do anything at all, to my knowledge.

I need to find a happy medium between doing a ton of unnecessary crap because of unnecessary systems, with folks who simply cannot remember all the steps, and actually actively liking this experience.

With great power comes … a whole lot of assholes not giving a shit about hiding their assholitry anymore.

Mom sent me this meme about “secret haters” …

She said, “Sound familiar?”

Yes. That’s the annoying bridge of the annoying pop song that is my life.

It’s not just that not a single person invited me to do anything to celebrate my little victory. I do have dinner with some of the girls soon. But for the most part, it’s been Pariah Central:

“Oh wow, something nice happened for you? *radio silence*”

Or, “Wait, you aren’t violently unhappy right at this particular moment in time? Well, fuck you then. We’ll all just go talk to everyone else who isn’t you.”

And of course, “Well you must be making more money. Go entertain yourself, or ya know, pay if you want me around.”

In the immortal words of Cee-Lo: “Fuck you. And, fuck her too.”

Amended to add: “And him too.”

Then there is the rest. The taking advantage in other ways.

Assuming the new boss is an old friend and therefore special privileges can be taken without fucking asking.

Or the absolutely fucking railroading the authority they said they were so glad for me to get.

The patronizing.

And the not actually giving the title the authority that I’ve ALWAYS carried anyway because the lesser title in my immediately previous life carried as much clout as the new one.

Now I wonder too if the people who rooted for this really just wanted someone to blame. Not today. But, you know, eventually.

I also see clearly that when the time comes (again) to play Budget Chicken, I have a big fat role in that cockfight.

The first two — Special Privileges and Fucking Railroading — don’t realize Large Marge is actually, officially and FINALLY in charge.

And that her grace has boundaries.

Oh, and that nobody objects to a smaller payroll.

Later, haters.