Caterwauling

OK, we know I woke up early and couldn’t access my computer so I drove in. Fine.

I go to Starbucks and say “Hey I’d like to use one of my many rewards.” I plunk down a salad, ask for a turkey bacon sammich and request my java.

My bill is WAY too much, I notice as I scan my phone.

Fucker said well you didn’t tell me you wanted to use a reward.

Fuck him — I’m going back to my old Bux up the street. This is BS, the one I am closer to now.

Then they ran out of turkey bacon sammiches.

I put everything back and said nice knowin’ ya.

THEN, I’m locked in the castle by myself when Paco the Painter lets himself in.

I thought he was nice at first. Introduced himself to let me know he’s here. He’s going to be doing some more work today and tomorrow. And could I use your bathroom?

I say sure. And am immediately treated to the biggest, stinkiest SHIT any human has ever taken.

IN ANY EVENT.

Then he wanders in and starts hitting on me. He likes white girls. He likes white girls my age, which he’s guessing is between 35 and 40. I think he said something about living in Boca and preferring girls with no kids. Hell if I can tell through the accent.

Now, my Trump-supporting friends would say send him back. But I’m a reasonable person and not into voting for a nutcase. And I fucking BLAME TRUMP for showing men how AWESOME it is to be so forward and crass with women that they can just do it in their goddamn sacred space.

He asked if I am here every day. I said I need to work now. He wasn’t happy.

He also asked if I were single. I said no. He said something garbled that I translated into basically “how taken am I.” I’m like dude, not married but not looking. Got it?

And apparently he’s living with someone in Boca. I don’t know. Can’t give a shit … not in public like he did anyway. Ugh. No wonder my attraction to men seems to wane with every passing year.

Thankfully I have locks on my door so he can’t get in here. I hope.

Utter and complete horseshit.

And I’m really hungry and undercaffeinated, too.

One day we will laugh about this. That day however is not today. As I choke on paint and poop fumes.

Capping off the world’s most ridiculous week is the fact that my home computer can no longer log into my work desktop.

So at five A.M. (because that’s how badly my productivity has been dented this week), I hauled ass to the new space. With my laptop.

And the goddamned sprinklers came on and soaked me. And my laptop.

Working weekend (and therapy) here I come. Oh just kidding. Who has time for therapy?

Twice this year, I booked a stay in the Keys. Both times, had to cancel. 

Just booked the Keys for a third time. My treat for enduring this very attessful day. 

The day after the Melissa Etheridge concert, too. Go me, having a real vacation. 

I know I can’t blame an error on the fact that my computer sucks and I had to try three different ways to get something to publish because forgotten in the whirlwind was the need to update an IP address. But I’m finding that grace is incredibly hard to come by today.

The big problem with sharing a bathroom with strangers is that you just don’t always have a proper appreciation of their art. Like when one party holds their bladder all day because they are shy about peeing with people two feet away, and then when they get up the nerve (and everyone’s gone), they encounter a Jackson Poo-lock painting.

Earlier this year, I lost out on a show at the local fancy concert hall. 

I had bought tickets but had to work through the event. 

I was pissed. And I was never quite the same afterward. 

So Melissa Etheridge is coming to town. Same place. I dared to buy tickets. 

Here’s to not losing another hundred bucks and another piece of my soul. 

When the person who continually takes shortcuts and refuses to remember anything takes the shortcut that drags them under the bus that I’ve been struggling to keep from throwing them under. 

Irony is divine. 

Got some good news yesterday. Well, two sets really. 

Made some progress on something that’s been unnecessarily hard. 

And I hear an end to some uncertainty is around the corner. 

Hooray. 
I woke up at 4 am with an idea, feeling inspired for the first time in a long time. Typed furiously on my laptop till 6 am … when the laptop died. It died. It fucking died. 

My iMac is sitting dead across the room. I can barely hear callers on my iPhone. 

Gonna be an expensive project to replace all this shit. 

It’s just too bad I finally felt a shade less than crazy and it was all for nothing. 

It isn’t enough to be sick thanks in part to a very interesting dinner at Cheddar’s. 

But to be staying close to home and then having my neighbor being his usual violent self upstairs makes me feel that much worse. 

Was at the mechanic yesterday, dodging about $1,000 in needed repairs. When I found out we live in the same goddamned place.

We traded stories — mine of the guy shooting off his nuts and his dog’s too, the swamp cancer, the duck-kickers, the guy who pisses off the balcony … and his of the big gay guys who fuck hard up against his wall, the neighbor who OD’d, the guy who killed himself and maimed his girlfriend for life, and the flying 2x4s during the last storm.

We both have cop stories, the asshole who claims we don’t come to a full stop but lets everyone else fly through at 78 mph with no problems. (I got the ticket; he, being 6’7″, did not.)

We talked of getting screwed on the rent. Although I kept slightly mum that at least I get a 2BR for my near-two-grand, while he has a 1BR. Of course, he has a girlfriend to split the bills with (damn! he’s cute, too! And we KNOW how I need a mechanic in my life!), so I don’t feel too bad.

Meanwhile, my friend I had lunch with says her mortgage is $700 a month.

Granted, I’d never want to live where she does. And she’s getting screwed with her healthcare premiums for $900 a month.

Meanwhile we have zero in the way of healthcare here. So she’s basically getting healthy and isn’t housing-insecure, for the same money I spend.

Meanwhile I fret every minute of every day about losing the job, the apartment, the mom, the cat, the car. With no real way to save a freaking dime because the apartment eats my whole salary.

Welcome to South Florida, kids. Where nobody has it good.