Caterwauling

I’m declaring this day fired as of 8:32 a.m. Eastern.

Went to my favorite bagel place and remembered why I don’t eat the egg-whites-and-cheese-on-multigrain — because the egg slipped out and onto my white shirt. American cheese stain not FTW. I’m leaving it for now because it will look worse if I treat it.

I’d gotten coffee, which is usually all I get on my daily run. (Not a fan of the coffee at work.) Well, the parking garage is filthy on a good day, and it was apparently a great day. I was trudging up the steps with my coffee when *BAM*, I went ass over teakettle on the stairs.

The coffee splattered on my beige pants, but oddly, it was only four or five drops. I kept that cup and its contents intact, god damn it.

I wish I could say the same for my pants and, worse, my skin. My left knee is torn up and my right tibia/fibula/whatthefuckevah is gonna bruise more colofully than the Fourth of July sky.

If I go home mysteriously around noon, it will be because I realized I should return to bed and that I never really should have gotten out of it in the first place.

Storm’s brewing

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

Well, a girl finally gets a day off and how does she spend it? Eight hours went straight down the toilet today at the mechanic’s. We’ll just call it the “$1,200 oil change.”

I knew my brakes were shot — it rains like a mofo down here in SoFla (not quite SoBe where I am) and I knew when some asshole cut me off and the water was up to my door handle and I BARELY stopped in time, I figured I might just have a problem.

I suppose when one’s foot goes through the floor a la Fred Flinstone, it’s a wonderful moment of brake FAIL. (Which is a recurring theme — airplanes, cars, whatev.)

I was almost done after seven hours in the shop until they took the car off the risers and the thing burst into a cloud of heavy smoke when they hit the gas pedal. That was fun. I saw it firsthand. Apparently some important wire was missing, oh, the MIDDLE OF IT. Synapses firing, blah blah blah. I don’t remember what the guy said. All I heard was, “Another $50 and another 45 minutes.” *thunk*

But don’t get me started on why the a/c suddenly sounds like a faulty jet plane. Because, you know, a girl can only take so much in one day. I should have spent the day working but, hmm, why would a place where people are captive for hours at a time have Wi-Fi?

Silly me, thinking I’d get anything done. Of course, I had also planned on seeing a movie today. And having lunch. Yeah, not so much on either front when you don’t have a CAR available. How I wished I had someone to pick me up and drop me off … who I’d want to spend time with, of course. 😉

In other failure news, I ordered a Fail Whale shirt from Zazzle. Nothing like truth in advertising. And BOY was it appropriate to wear today.

I knew the shirt cost about a million times more to buy than to make. And my assumption was proven true when I walked around for a while with my purse on my shoulder and, when I put it down, I saw the fabric on the shoulder had bunched up and soldered itself together. I tried to give it a fast tug and, oops, it created a huge hole in the fabric.

Not only shirt FAIL, but also FailWhale FAIL!

After the beach was evacuated for lightning

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

You know, I had about eleventy billion loads of laundry to do today. Which was made impossible by the fact that, during the last month-plus, I’ve only been home to sleep and shower. So today it was further made impossible by the fact that there was no detergent with which to do my laundry.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had someone who lived in your abode and took care of these things and replaced shit after it was used up? Oh, wait. …

So I ran to Boutique Tar-zhay to get detergent. And while I was out and dressed for absolute crap (my weekend uniform is a tank top and shorts. And since today IS my weekend, there you have it), I headed to the shore.

I put my two hours’ worth of change into the meter, parked my ass on a lounger, Tweeted that I was on the beach and … six minutes after my arrival, thunder cracked and some sort of air-raid siren went off. Yes, the beach was being evacuated.

Meanwhile it was about 90-odd degrees and super-sunny and the sand felt like it were on fire. (TheFuckingWeather.com assured me “IT’S FUCKING HOT.”) I walked up to the water with my camera — having fully planned to walk along it for an hour or so — and some douche in an ATV nearly ran me over and shouted at me that the water was closed.

He got a double-barreled salute out of me. Hey, I’m a grown woman and if I want to get hit by lightning and float away in the ocean and wind up in Africa or something, SO BE IT. And did I LOOK like I was there to swim? Bah.

So there went my day off. Six whopping minutes at the beach and eleventy billion loads of laundry that are in progress.

I hung out on Ocean Avenue for a while, mostly just to recoup some of what I’d fed the parking meter. I finally gave up and, I tell ya, as soon as I pulled away, the thunder cracked and the skies opened up.

Four minutes later when I got home, the sun came out again and it was like nothing had ever happened. Until an hour later when the next monsoon hit and flooded my bedroom and balcony. That was almost as fun as losing power.

Gotta love South Florida in the summertime, I hear. The only thing that would save this day is an early bedtime, which would work if my sheets and duvet cover weren’t in the dryer. …

I find that when I have a lot to say and no other way of expressing it, I post a lot of music. Forgive me — it’s better than listening to my whining. It’s for your own good! 🙂

“And the river seems dreamlike
In the daytime
And someone keeps thinking
In my sleep

Of fast
Running rivers
Of choice and chance
And time stops here
And it seems as if time
Stops here on the delta
While they dance
While they dance …”

— “Delta,” Crosby, Stills & Nash

I wasted the evening in a neighboring beach town because I didn’t feel like coming home. I never come straight home anymore. I usually go park my butt on the sand, or else I hoof around in the shallow end of the ocean for a while to get some exercise.

I seriously have a bad case of flat white-girl booty so I’m trying to replace the fat with muscle there. So far I keep replacing the fat WITH fat, but leave me alone in my illusion, mmmkay?

I hear that there’s an intimate gathering of my old Ranch peeps tonight as they prepare to unleash another brilliant mind into the wild unknown. I seriously, seriously would have booked a plane ticket, had I known in advance.

It would have surely beat the alternative, which I can only describe as so much ear-fucking, a girl needs a morning-after pill to rid herself of the parasite. (Not from any of MY people, of course. And not even the OEH. It’s a long story. But then again, aren’t they all?)

Anyway, I spent time in the next beach town over, and I just dragged myself home to find the OEH is not home. Sweet! She usually has the sixth sense that I’m home and manages to arrive within 30 seconds of me, so I won’t get too happy. But I am no dummy and know to count my blessings as I get them.

I was marveling with a friend today that the improved financial situation on my part means I can actually go to the store! When I need something! And buy it! I’m not doing anything wild here, just actually getting shit I’ve been saving up for, for years … without saving up!

I mean, to think that I could actually have booked a plane ticket and rented a car without batting (too much) of an eye? I’ve NEVER had that feeling before. (Of course, I’d have had to sweet-talk Goddess Sabre into letting me crash on her comfy blue microfiber couch; I’m not rich, bitches!)

I’m also spending inordinate amounts of time at the mall, trying to find clothes that fit. Which is weird and hard but terribly exciting for me, as I am trying things on with shape! and color! and not in the biggest size I can find!

I’ve never been one to spend much money on clothing so I’m just picking up the basics on sale till I hit my dream size, whatever that is and WHENEVER it happens. I’m not rushing it anymore, although I should since I’m not getting any younger.

But meh, time is different in Florida. In D.C., life was just rush-rush-rush — it was all about getting from point A to B to C without getting killed on the highways in between. Here, not so much. Beach time is mandatory. Spending time indoors seems wasteful when that giant orb! In the sky! That I’ve never seen before! is shining.

Nature beckons, you know? It begs you to admire it. It looks different every day, if you observe it often enough. I take the same photos every time I go to the beach and they all look different to me. I don’t want to miss out on life anymore.

I don’t have any real regrets (except giving up my beloved apartment in D.C. to get a 2BR in the ‘burbs so I could house the Over-Extended Houseguest. I didn’t resent it at the time because it’s what I HAD to do. I resent it now because I truly thought it wouldn’t turn out this way). But they’ve all led me here.

Starting a new job makes you come to terms with your old ones. I don’t have much to say about the last one other than that I loved it but it was also time to go. Recently, I typed with another friend who escaped before me, and we marvel at how we have LIVES now. Which we couldn’t back then. And now we appreciate our wings more than anyone else we know.

I was specifically thinking about two jobs ago, the Veggie Patch. How every new idea had to be protected with a bulletproof vest, because it wouldn’t live through people shooting it down. Categorical refusal of anything innovative. Cripes. And yet, that place refuses to fall. I wish they could see me now, in Idea Land. After the 6 billion ideas I gave them on my embarrassing salary, the universe is paying me back in full and then some. *thbbbppptttt*

And that’s how I look at it. Sweat equity in one place is what gets you ahead in another place. All those years of shitty jobs and shitty friends simply prepare you for bigger and better opportunities and individuals.

Don’t get me wrong — I’ve had great folks enter my life along the way and I’ll cherish them forever. But for all those years of having to deal with this or that dumbfuck, I’ve been handed five magnificent others to balance out each one who did me wrong.

So, even though I’m not nice to the OEH (but not mean enough to change the locks right now. Which I’ve thought about. Hard), I figure that my sweat (or tears in this scenario) will garner me someone to live with whom I love and can’t wait to see when I come home.

It seems far away from now, since I clearly have to resolve THIS shit first. But the universe has given me more miracles than I ever dreamed possible. And I get a feeling that the good times haven’t truly even BEGUN to roll just yet. …

Was just wondering whether, if you wish hard enough for someone to call, that they actually would. And that concludes Chapter One of “Goddess’ Guide to Passive-Aggressiveness.” 🙂

“There’s a place on your mouth
That I was born to kiss
And a place there beside you
That doesn’t exist.”

— Tara MacLean, “Over and Out”

Speaking of passive-aggressive, sent the Over-Extended Houseguest a nastygram yesterday. It was wrong on my part to say, “Here are my plans for Easter if you want to tag along.” And then follow it up with three paragraphs’ worth of “this is why I’m angry.” The response was a simple, “Have a nice day.” And boy did that piss me off more.

I’m not saying my approach was flawless. But I said if not getting a job or leaving the house is being caused by a bigger issue, I need to know that. Because right now I’m seeing things for what they are and not understanding why things have to be this way. And that’s what makes me resentful and loath to comply with any of the mounting requests to play chauffeur, babysitter or whatever the hell else seems to be expected of me.

I also noted that I have roommate possibilities. Not that I want a roommate. I really don’t. But a temporary houseguest who is willing to pay till something better comes along? I shouldn’t have to give that up; it should be my right to be able to offer it as an option.

Have a nice day. *thbbbppppttttt*

I will thank you very much. Reminds me of someone who I always ask how they’re doing and they tell me in great detail that answer. And then the conversation stops. One of these days, I’m going to interject with an, “I’m SUPER, thanks for asking!”

Anyway, am just sitting here at the ‘puter, wearing my prescription sunglasses, since the sun is always in my eyes in the a.m. here, no matter how tightly I try to close the vertical blinds. Am also wasting time before geriatric Weight Watchers meeting — I didn’t manage to get out to the meeting I wanted this week (Thursday). It was a pretty intense week, so I headed to the shore that night to freeze my ass off have some time to myself.

It actually worked out well because one of my beloveds in D.C. gave me a call, and we had a marathon gossip session. I like it that my friends look toward me as an influence, although I probably shouldn’t be proud that the “shameless hussy” part of the story is the only thing that sticks. Oh well. 🙂 Like I told my friend, it’s all about having a story to tell. Even if you actually can’t tell a soul the details of what and whom and everything in between!

To go to WW, or not to go? I know there ain’t gonna be good news on the scale front, that’s for sure. O HAI cupcake for dinner last night. It was my favorite — chocolate icing on white batter. (I’m sure there’s a metaphor or a joke in there somewhere.)

I was also just lamenting the fact that I don’t get to do my Saturday morning runs to Balducci’s anymore, since those are only based in D.C. and N.Y. *cry* Florida has nothing resembling it.

I don’t know what I’m going to do for my birthday next month — I ALWAYS buy myself a small strawberry cake from Balducci’s. (Methinks it’s a cupcake year instead, unless some nice person wants to visit during Memorial Day weekend and bring me one. …) :9

Got turned down for the dream condo. A combination of the owner not being receptive to my glorious credit plus the fact that he says he may have a buyer. So yeah, let’s go with the route that I should be glad that he doesn’t take me and then turn around and sell the place in three months. Fine. Whatever.

Just tired of feeling like the scum of the earth when I could earn a third as much but, with perfect credit, be welcomed with open arms anywhere I apply.

Everyone keeps telling me to be positive, and good things will come. But I was positive all day, you know? Well, at least until the call came at 4:28 p.m.

Like all the relationships that failed to launch, I figure it fell through for a reason. But I’m tired of comforting myself with the “I guess it wasn’t meant to be” line. I mean, I’m OK with the heartbreak if I can just have the euphoria, too. When is it my turn to want to dance around because I’m just bursting with fruit flavor? Why does the bottom always have to fall out from under Every. Single. Dream?

Like my realtor said, my job is just to get down there right now. Once I’m there, even in a place I don’t love, I can escape the pressure of needing to find a place immediately. I can focus on working hard, saving money, and un-screwing up my credit. And THEN I can get my dream place.

She said she’ll get me a place on the water then. Hell, it’ll be on the water and 10 times nicer than the condo with which I fell in love. I’ll get my lifestyle, my inspiration, my beauty, my dream. I’ll get it all when it’s time to have it.

In the meantime, I’ll keep listening to all those chipper people who assure me (and reassure me) that said glorious time in my life will, in fact, come.

And universe, if you’re listening? Since I can’t have my dream apartment, can you send me that great love that I’ve all but given up on in the pursuit of everything else?

There’s a scene at the end of the movie “Say Anything” in which Ione Skye’s character is on a plane with John Cusack (*sa-woon!*) and she’s basically not going to be fine until she hears the ding of the seatbelt sign. Once she hears it, you know they’re going to be OK.

Then you hear the ding and the movie ends, and we assume they lived happily ever after. Or at least that they made it to London or wherever they were heading.

That’s basically where I’m at right now. The “I can’t take another goddamned thing please seatbelt button ding before I hurt someone” place.

I’m caught in the undertow of a Suck Cyclone and I KNOW it’s going to be sunshine and puppies and roses after all is said and done. It’s just that the suck is so immense, I don’t know what will be left of me when I get to where I’m going.

Just had a record three doctor’s appointments in an hour. Yay having everything in the same building. The initial round of results led to more bloodwork. I apparently have Things Wrong that I wasn’t aware of. So, I’m assuming they’re fixable with medicine and time. I’m just pissed that it took three co-pays (so far) to get to this point.

Anyway, I’m shocked that my blood pressure is normal. I’m wondering if all the not-good stuff that’s happening is signaling that I should stay put and deal with here. But it’s too far gone to turn back now, and even though I’m so very miserably sad to be leaving the only family I’ve really ever known, I’m also aware that my propensity to burst into tears on a moment’s notice is just the grieving process. A slow death before a fast move, if you will.

Let this be a lesson to me to not wrap my whole life around one group of people. To some extent, sure. But my attachment to my work family is absolutely unhealthy. (Just take a look at my test results.) And it’s why I’m so sad to be leaving — it’s like, but what else is there? Where do I take comfort when I’m giving up my security blanket and it’s all I have?

Yes, I am painfully aware of how pitiful this all sounds. Which is why I’m leaving — to find out who I am. To explore new worlds and claim a place of my own. To find functional relationships with people whose paycheck doesn’t bear the same company name, although to bond with those who do, as well.

Here’s to hoping that sun and sand is just what the doctor ordered. I mean, when your realtor is calling you at 7 a.m. to coax you off the ledge after the panic e-mails you sent her between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., you know you need a change of scenery.

I have a stack of new prescriptions and more to come. I’ll fit in just fine with all the blue-hairs at whatever new pharmacy I adopt. See, I’ll be making new friends already!

There once was a very sad post here about money and not having enough, and definitely not enough for my upcoming life adventure.

Instead of going postal in public, I’m going to just go pray on it or something. Or else I’m entirely too capable of making some very rash decisions and fucking up the whole works.

So, I am going to use this moment for good, even if it kills me. Since I’m congested and can’t just go blow off my aggression with a cigarette. 🙂

Anyway. …

May this be the last time in my life where I feel like absolute crap over something so freaking PETTY AND STUPID as money. Or the lack thereof. And all the panic attacks that ensue. Don’t forget the insomnia!

I was in a restaurant this weekend, absolutely having dry heaves over something on the menu. I don’t even remember what it was. It was “poor-people food.” You know what I mean — the crap our families fed us to keep us alive. The meals you had two or three times a week because the ingredients were cheap and plentiful. The shit you’d just DIE if your family served if you had a friend over for dinner.

For us, it was “shit on the shingles.” Ground meat in gravy over elbow macaroni. *shudder* For variation, throw in some stewed tomatoes and, voila — beefaroni. *barfaroni*

Ooh, and “city chicken.” *omg, no. just, no* It smelled vile. Was it pork? I dunno, it was just fake chicken fried up in a pan. “Shitty chicken,” I learned to call it.

I can’t eat any of that crap today. Of course, I have all but stopped eating meat, save for special occasions, of which there is an alarming lack.

For one of my friends, her “poor-people food” was chicken and rice. To this day, you cannot present her with the combination — no matter how artfully or expensively prepared — without her going into the wayback machine.

For others, it’s spaghetti. (I came from an Italian grandmother — I didn’t exactly have a problem with the spaghetti because the homemade sauce rocked.)

What was your poor-people food? Or what other triggers do you have of a long-ago (or recent) past that throw you into a tailspin?

I was out recently and smelled someone wearing Bijou perfume. Someone gave it to me as a gift when I began my five-month non-employment journey. I cannot STAND the smell of it to this day. Reminds me of applying for thousands of jobs for which I never got a call. Reminds me of being hungry and having NOTHING to eat. Reminds me of being lonely and trapped in the house and not having a hope in the world.

All right, see, this isn’t going in the right direction. Sure, I want to hear about what your “yuck” triggers are. But tell me about your good ones too. Like when you find yourself in a viciously bad mood like the one I’m in and what you use for a pick-me-up. (O HAI obvious hint!) 🙂

So let us take a break from our regularly scheduled navel-gazing — OK, so I’m lying, as things are definitely interesting around here — to head-scratch and to, fine, navel-gaze.

Someone from my way-distant past popped up on Facebook this week. And I keep seeing his shining face in the “People You Know” tool. I’m a half-step away from blocking him so I don’t have to see him. Because I? Am not going to be the one to friend him. But I don’t think I’d deny the request if he sent it first.

I don’t think I’m having a sentimental moment. I mean, he’s the reason why my weapon of choice in friendships and relationships that are going nowhere is silence. Don’t wanna deal with it anymore? Then walk away. Ingenious.

Of course, that’s assuming people get the hint. And don’t try to “get you” for having better things to do with your time.

*cough*

Anyway, I wish I could just see what he’s up to. And to feel that, even though we’ll NEVER get back to being as close as we were, we’re not sworn enemies, either. It’s hard when someone you loved and respected gives up on you. I had to give up on someone, and I know all the ridiculous levels of retaliation basically boiled down to that. It just gets to a point where you can’t re-friend someone who’s done their level best to destroy you. The end.

But I didn’t destroy this one. The friendship, sure, I neglected. But I thought I was growing and trying new things and meeting new people. I didn’t feel I deserved the outright disapproval when it came to one person in particular. (See: “someone who’s done their level best to destroy you.”)

He saw it coming. He predicted it. He had to walk away. I’d thought HE was the crazy one at the time. And as has held true in most of my relationships, I was the one who turned out to be dead-wrong.

Anyway, not only do I want to see how he turned out, but I also want him to know that I’m OK, too. That no one, and especially not THAT one, could break-a my stride.

I also need for him to know that perhaps walking away from me might have been the stupidest thing he’s ever done, but it was just one more heartbreak over which I triumphed.

I’m at the point where we could be Facebook friends. Not real friends. There’s no love left. No anger, either. Just, nothing. OK, so I dream about him once in a while. This is the first time he’s actually surfaced after I thought about him.

In any event, I’m giving him another week till he learns the awesome privacy settings and starts blocking me on F-book. And that’s fine. I ain’t mad about that.

But I also cannot wait until all of our mutual friends start sending him my name as a friend suggestion. 😉 I know I will never hear about it, but I would bet my ass that it will happen. Repeatedly.

I just hope no one suggests to me that I be the one to make the add. It’s hard enough not clicking on “Add As Friend” without any prompting.

We were inseparable, once upon a time. Long ago and far away. And the divide is too wide to even think about bridging, mostly because even if I went to meet him halfway, I don’t think he’d be on the other side.

I do hope he’s happy. I have always silently been rooting for him. And despite the gulf between us, I believe he’s wished me the same. I just wish there were some way to let him know that the door might be chain-locked right now, but it’s still always open. …

Sand lion

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

Yesterday, I cleaned the snow off the car at 7 a.m. I re-emerged after 8 a.m. only to find my work was all for nothing. Cleaned it off again.

Had to run to the post office. Well, “run” is overstating the issue, as it was more like “skidded.” I was pulling out of my apartment complex and as I went down the hill that would put me on the interstate, I braked. But then they started popping and stopped working, so whee I went for a spin. The good news was that the normally insane stretch of road was unnaturally quiet at that moment.

I spent five, maybe 10 minutes inside the post office, where the whore charged me 42 cents to mail a postcard. (Of course, all my vacation postcards bear a D.C. postmark — why do you ask?) I asked why and she said it’s “oversized.” I said, “What other size is there?” *smack* A friend later in the day said he thought I was going to go postal, and I made everyone crack up when I said, “Let me tell you something about THOSE whores. …” 🙂

Anyway, I had to clean off my car AGAIN at the post office.

I got to work, where of course the car sat in the same spot for more than eight hours. I tell ya, I envied those who get to go to lunch, because at least they didn’t come out to two inches of packed snow when they left for the night. Yeesh.

I went out, as I am apt to do on Tuesdays, but I had given up on my “Tuesdays with Goddess” nights since I inherited this exhausting new project that is easy (for me. Not for a rational, normal human being, no doubt) but it’s rather time-consuming. But alas, I was told that I needed to surrender my computer to the IT gods because, as they put it, “You never stop working.” Apparently the fix I need takes an hour and that everyone else in the building, save for another workaholic friend, had already been serviced.

I busted my booty to get done at what I would determine a reasonable hour. But alas, the ‘puter update got moved to today. The only thing that kept me from going postal was that, even though I was about to gnaw off my own arm from the stress, I finally made it to my Tuesday night “thing” after several weeks away.

So after my “thing,” during which the fucking sleet started, guess who was chipping ice off her windows? And all night as I slept, I kept hearing the ding of text messages from AlertDC about all the street and school closings.

I can’t bring myself to look at my car, since there will be one more ice sculpture in progress. I feel like Edward Scissorhands when he was carving the block of ice and making it “snow” over the town.

That’s why I’m posting the photo of the sand lion I saw at the beach. Apparently there’s a guy who gets up at the crack o’ moi each day and does these very elaborate masterpieces. Just for fun.

Here’s a shot of the lion, a rhino and the tip of a tail all the way at the bottom of the shot. Neat stuff.

All right, enough whining. For all intents and purposes, Mother Nature’s tampon being full of TNT aside, it’s been a good week. Kicking ass, taking names, playing project whack-a-mole. People who are not normally the type I would describe as “cooperative” are downright helpful. Mountains have become molehills, to some degree.

Can has Mercury in Retrograde? Can has! And for once, I’m not complaining about it!