Caterwauling

I have zero idea how I have smart friends voting for Trump. 

At least I can explain the lazy people from school (and mom’s. Wow they cray up there)  who never amounted to much and had three husbands and 10 kids and expect to be taken care of. Clearly they don’t realize us Trump Twos will be deported so he doesn’t have to look at us. 

Everyone wants to attack the media for being too liberal. Which, here in this final stretch where no one cares about Trump’s Russia ties and the FBI obviously throwing the race his way, hell yes. I am glad the media is saying “Jesus Christ you illiterate fucks — don’t vote for him.”

I hate that the emails are still an issue. I hate that hate speech and nasty tweets are preferable to thought and strategy and agonizing over every decision, as those emails prove again and again. 

I never thought of myself as the literati. Unlike most Trump voters I know, I studied hard and worked hard and sacrificed everything to get a little success. I don’t get a handout. I don’t expect one. And I don’t go name-calling the other candidate because I actually can make a reasonable argument without looking like a petulant child. 

I wish one of my smart friends whose sensibilities have short-circuited can talk intelligently why they think a misogynistic, violence-inciting failure of a businessman and morally bankrupt human being should be the face of my America. 

This is not the year to “fix” centuries of politics. This is the year to make sure we aren’t shipping the gays off to concentration camps and allowing even more of a rape culture than we already have. 

I’m not sure though whether I fear that fool in charge or a revolt among the illiterati if he doesn’t. 

That’s not my America. I have every seriously been contemplating Cuba as a less-ridiculous regime to live under. Ponder that for a moment. 

Anyway. The good (or at least better) guys still have a chance to win. 

Let’s make America Clinton Again on Tuesday, people. 

15 years since that tragic Tuesday morning. I have nothing new to say. But judging by Facebook, everybody else does. 

Never forget, they say. As if. So, social media blackout today. 

Of course if you think about it, today’s high schoolers either weren’t born yet or were too little to understand. Your average freshman was still gestating at this point. 

God. Can you remember life before 9/11? It’s like the BC/AD line of modern times. 

For me, this marks 15 years since I bought my first car, tossed my Calico kitty in the backseat, left town and never looked back. I didn’t know where life would lead, as long as it was anywhere else. 

Funny how I never really lost that feeling, no matter where I ended up. 

I was an executive. I left to become a journalist. Figured I was a hard worker and would reclaim that title in no time. 

Lol. 

I’m healthier now, physically. Not sure if I’ll ever be as spiritually light as I was in my 20s. But I’m not getting drunk and scarfing down pizza and diner food to fill the hours. 

Like today, I put on my bathing suit top and took a walk rather than nursing my pre-911 hangovers with vodka. 

I even fit into a new pair of shorts I got yesterday for eight bucks. 

I still hope I’ll amount to something professionally. But I don’t mind having time to get a tan, either. 

Here’s to another 15 years of being ok. 

Yesterday was a total washout. Tropical Depression 9 drenched us. 

Had a clusterfuck-y brunch at Keke’s. It’s pretty bad when the cook quits, the kids in the back are (incorrectly) reading from manuals on how to make sandwiches and omelets, and the two waitresses are reminding customers every two minutes that they close at 2:30. 

Hey, if I didn’t have to send two meals back twice each, and ask for my missing side dishes three times, I would not have been there for a full hour. 

Maybe tell your patrons that it’s gonna be a bad day and to stay at your own peril?

Today is set to be another drencher. So I’m gonna follow the advice I gave all the other Keke’s patrons and go have brunch at FirstWatch. 

I keep watching the weather and prices in the Keys. The overextended houseguest keeps talking me out of it. She also keeps bugging me to feed her ducks.

I am so sick of the daily “Ducks of our Lives” updates and the asshole neighbors who sic their dogs on them. Whatever work-related anxiety that has abated this week has been fully replaced by hysteria about hurt duckies. 

As they say, wherever you go, there you are. As is everyone you take along with you. 

I could write about my day here. Or I can let everyone know I want to spend two weeks in my hometown. Like, soon. 

And I’m not spending a comma on hotel rooms to be holed up in them, tethered to my laptop. 

Now to set about affording this odyssey, which involves moving the rest of mom’s shit down here …

I’ve written and abandoned a thousand posts in the last month. 

There’s so much to say. So many things I’ve learned. And I want to be jealous with my time. With my thoughts. With my wisdom. 

I never used to be that way and I hope it’s just a phase. Because if there’s that small chance someone will identify or use that info they learn to treat someone else better, it’s worth it. 

But at the point they will treat me worse for it, well. Time to get a little jealous with what I have to offer. At least for now. 

I will say this. Since I got my first job in 1990 at age 16, I’ve believed in giving everything to it. And making friends and family less than secondary. 

Here’s the thing. I’ve had so many lousy friends and useless family members and screwy relationships that it didn’t matter. 

And I learned to be an absent friend too. To the bad ones and unfortunately the good ones too. It’s a hard habit to break. 

The thing is though, you need relationships. You can’t treat them as a distraction from what gives you the cash to afford to enjoy or otherwise take care of them. 

In any event, I’m gaining a new appreciation for people again. Doesn’t mean I’ll be named friend of the year anytime soon. Also doesn’t mean I’ll become a better person overnight. But you know. I’m one step closer. And that’s got to count for something. 

Rather than listing everything that went wrong today, I’m going to count my blessings. 

I got to take mom out to dinner, which I’ve done exactly three times on a weeknight since I moved here seven years ago. 

The Greek food was very good. I also had an awesome experience at Starbucks. And then I took mom shopping and got her the cutest set of bed sheets that she loves. 

Unfortunately, she feels bad that other things were going kaplooey in grand fashion. And she said she will say no if I ever dare leave the office before X hour again. 

I’m like no. I can’t martyr myself and you can’t do it for me. Things went wrong under my watchful eye. I fixed them to the best of my ability. There is little else to say. 

That’s what I do, you know. Try to re-prove my worth by exchanging even more precious free time. Prove what to whom, though? 

Tomorrow won’t be fun. But there will be a day after it. And a day after that. Like I tell everyone, we get a whole new set of opportunities every day to leave this one behind us. 

One of my religious friends who keeps having major tragedies happen often writes, “God is great. Every day.”

I find her to be the inspiring one. Not necessarily God. Although I think that’s the point. He inspires us through others who can and do walk in His footsteps.

In any event, I have a list of complaints a mile long today, dealing with the inept landlord at work. (Like I don’t get enough of THAT at home.)

I also have a list of dreams a mile long of things I want to achieve when the office isn’t hotter than Satan’s asshole.

But the whole “every day” thing struck me. It’s not just a Monday to dread, nor a day that puts a foot up the weekend’s ass all Red Foreman-style.

(It’s an asshole-themed day, for the observant among yinz.)

Look. I ate my veggies today. Did a good deed. Did my job. (Am still doing it.) Didn’t react with anything other than grace, no matter what got under my skin last night and today. (And believe me, there’s a whole layer waiting for me to acknowledge it, whether with wine or words.)

I’m choosing to kick ass. Preferably someone else’s. But a metaphorical one will do for now.

Everybody knows me at my local Starbucks. The morning crew, especially: the two Joshes, Shawn (female, since I don’t know any males who are that sweet or sane), Mary, Linda and the guy who won’t ever wear a name tag.

Shawn always greets me first. By name. Every time.

I never use anyone’s names. Chalk that up to working at Kaufmann’s through college and being required to call customers by name. It freaked most of them out.

[And I might or might not have borrowed Melissa’s name tag when we weren’t on the same shift, to conceal my own identity from time to time.]

Today Shawn called out “Hi Goddess!” even though she was on another register and Mary was helping me today.

And I said, “Hi Shawn!” back — but I totally stumbled saying her name.

Could be because that name is associated with people on par with Donald Trump’s heroes. (Saddam Hussein being the latest he’s lauding.) But it’s more that I don’t WANT people to know how much attention I pay.

It’s a theme through my life. I don’t want them to know what’s in my head. I don’t miss a trick. I really don’t. And if I do, I’m not telling. 🙂

I just wonder why, at age 42 now, I still can’t admit that I know exactly who you are and what’s going on and make you feel special, rather than just trying to fade into the crowd.

It also sort of bums me out that I can be treated like a rock star at Starbucks, but not by my shithead landlord and whichever bitch is sucking him off today, or anywhere else for that matter where I do think I outshine most.

But that’s an issue for another day, I suppose.

Anyway, I need to get better about showing how fabulous I am, rather than praying nobody calls on me during meetings or in line at my favorite coffee joint.

I have a ton of draft posts, since I can never really go away. (Also, I document everything.) But yeah, you never get rid of me. 

The quiet was good for me. I practiced it on social media and IRL too. 

One lesson: I never really noticed how people interrupt you when you talk. But when you say fewer words than normal, their behavior is pretty apparent. But don’t interrupt THEM, God forbid. 

Another lesson: When they aren’t stalking you and coming up with their own assessment of what’s in your head and heart (from a few hastily written words in a 35-second burst), they still subscribe to their own fantasy about you. I thought NOT giving them ammo would make them talk to me more. I was wrong. 

Another lesson: Going dark shows who your real friends are. I didn’t get a ton of emails and texts. But I got a few. And for those of you who are true friends but gave me my space, I love you too. I needed it and I need you guys too. 

A final lesson. I popped back up on social media and was happily welcomed back. By the usual suspects (love you all) and some pleasantly surprising ones. 

That got me to thinking. A lot. Because I’ve been 100% ready to go dark. From online, from where I am, from maybe life in general. All in hopes of just never having to deal with terrible people again. Two in particular. 

And I kind of got it that these twerps don’t define me. Yes they can and do poke holes in the occasional balloons of joy.  Karma never seems to catch up with them because they think they are great and apparently the universe listens. 

But I worked very hard to build all my relationships. No need to sacrifice any of them to run away from other ones. 

If I don’t force myself every day to coexist with crazy, well, I’m only giving up the things I do love that might or might not exist otherwise. 

I’ll leave it vague like that. But you get the idea. 

Anyway. Life is good right now. And I will take it. 

After all, I haven’t worn this size in seven years. If that isn’t worth celebrating on this Independence Day, then I don’t know what is. 

I had to look up an old article I wrote (back from my byline days).

They didn’t keep much on the web of mine. But there was one really good call I made in 2011 and they keep it up there. I wish they or I had posted the results. But it was my one and only trade recommendation, and a profitable one at that if anybody listened to it.

I got to thinking about how I set the style for an entire department. I wrote certain things certain ways, and they still stick to that style. No one did it before me.

It was my baby. Beautifully grotesque and kept me up most nights.

I was writing down some goals this morning. And they seemed so small in comparison to things I’ve done. Basically now I write tasks when back then I wrote visions. Impossible stuff. Cool-ass things that even I didn’t dream I could do.

I like to think I was pretty motivated. But I had someone ego pushed me hard too. Wanted me to be able to say I did a lot. Dragged me kicking and screaming at times.

I owe that person so much.