Caterwauling

Mom keeps having dreams that I’m involved with my 10-years-younger hot mechanic. (OK, he did ask me out but I wasn’t sure what to make of it.)

I dreamed of someone I don’t think about. Who flares up ‘roid-like to project their own weaknesses onto me. But it was an educational dream, as others in said dream could explain something to me I didn’t realize on my own all these years.

I don’t think I have intimacy issues. Just haven’t met a man who’s spent 40 years working on himself and becoming a better person the way I’ve sure tried to do.

Secondarily, I do see all the deadbeats mom wasted her time with. And relatedly, having mom move in wasn’t the best thing for my social life. Her choices, and their effects, shape my life — and change my choices — even now.

But the dream showed I do have intimacy battle scars. I don’t want anyone in my space who can turn on me and try repeatedly to ruin me. I got that souvenir T-Shirt in quite a few colors, thanks.

It all makes sense as I try to fit the Parkland shooting into my head somehow.

Now, I look around the office, movie theaters, stores and open spaces — wondering who’s the likeliest to be packing and, more importantly, whose light they’d snuff out first.

And I don’t want to die or have my career at risk again because someone feels they are entitled to taking something away from me. To punish me for doing well or protecting myself or just being lucky.

I don’t know that I’m as strong as my Stoneman Douglas neighbors. Not anymore. But I’ll take lucky. May that luck continue to outlast and overpower any darkness that dares entertain heading this way.

I have a friend I quote here from time to time. Because she’s brilliant.

Her latest is stuck in my head:

“Life will throw you curveballs. But you don’t always have to swing at them.”

We’ve always been told the opposite. Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” And that man sure scored a lot of points for my beloved Penguins. Other than every Wayne I’ve ever known being a compete douche (and one more follow-up douche moment for the books), wouldn’t you want to be like this particular Wayne?

I don’t have anything profound to say after another night of listening to the neighbors gallop across my ceiling and then the cat yanking me out of bed to feed her hungry belly.

But yeah. Lots of curveballs here.

I’ve felt pretty helpless, swinging at them till my arms hurt. Today I’m going to stand still and let a few whiz by. Let someone else swing. Let someone else endure the injury today. I’m too old for this shit. And so is the screwball lobbing all these blunt objects at my head.

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 …)

I worked 80-plus hours a week for five years.

Trump still has a job and I don’t.

Whose pussy do I have to grab to get a fair shake in this stupid world?

Sia’s name came up this week.

Well not by name, per se. But I heard the name of the editor who boarded the flight out of Vancouver just moments before she collapsed. The guy who assumed she made the flight … who got a call from their publisher in the connecting city to ask where she was … who assured him that she HAD to have made the flight because she was RIGHT BEHIND HIM. Who inadvertently provided temporary relief that didn’t last long at all.

His name coming up rattled me to the core. I said editing him probably contributed to the sudden cardiac event that took her from us. And another person in the room confirmed that his raw copy was truly a sight to behold, as it somehow went live in his new gig and it was … let’s just say breathtaking.

An opportunity to work with this guy is on the table. I had to ask who his editor will be. Since, you know, I would like to survive this all somehow.

Anyway, I got to thinking about Sia. Whether we’d still even be friends. She had an opportunity to move back to Baltimore. An opportunity that they mercilessly botched and, from what I’m told, resulted in her having a lesser title and pay after they’d raised both.

If you know my industry, you don’t have any surprise left in you. A world of hurt for the good people affected, yes. But it’s been a long time since my jaw dropped about anything.

But after “Lisa VanderPump” left, I would have called her. Call her like I hadn’t been calling her because she worked for LVP’s BFF.

I didn’t want LVP to catch wind how very much I’d had it and wanted an escape route. So I didn’t tell *MY* BFF, who maybe could have helped me or at least talked me off the damn ledge when I needed it.

Just like she hid the bullshit demotion from me and I had to hear about it at her memorial.

How’s that for how fucked-up things were?

Now I can run for any hills I want. Of course, without her up in B’more, I really don’t have any incentive to make our collective dream come true of working together again. There’s no dream left to fulfill.

I’d say “funny how things turn out.” But I’m not laughing.

You’d think I’d be accustomed to missing my friend by now. Since I’ve been doing it for probably two years before she died anyway.

A girl I knew in school died yesterday.

She only started talking about the cancer a few months ago.

Went into chemo a couple months ago.

A few weeks ago, she wrote that she had finished her course of treatment and her doctor was very optimistic.

Two weeks ago, she posted requests for prayers.

A week ago, more prayer requests. This time, from the hospital.

Finally her page went quiet except from posts from friends, calling for prayers.

Then yesterday, the condolences started.

More prayers. So many prayers. For her soul. For her brand-new baby. For her three slightly, but only slightly, older children.

I do pray. Usually to say thanks. I’ve spent years asking for “things” that rarely came to pass. So, I just say thank you.

Today, I will say thank-you for my very brief but very vivid memory of Pam at age 16.

I somehow did not get put into an A.P. History class my sophomore year. No idea how or why. I got stuck in Nick Kapottas’ last-period class. It was filled with the high-school equivalent of “deplorables.”

I could tick off some of their names. And what they did to me. It was horrible. I sat in the first seat in the first row. On a good day, they talked loudly about how fat I was. On most other days, I got gum thrown in my hair.

That was the last time I took a non-A.P. class.

“K.P.” was the wrestling coach. History was not his thing. Hell, teaching was not his thing. He pretty much just tried to sell us hoagies to support the team, and left us to have study halls most days.

The nice thing was, K.P. took a shine to my mom on Parent-Teacher Day. I think they went to dinner a few times.

The nicer thing was, I never had to go to class after that. Not sure what grade I got. Or on what merit any of us could possibly have been judged.

I showed up on occasion. Not sure if K.P. ever gave us tests. I think he had to. And that’s me, all right — happy to show up for the damn test. Probably because I read the textbook in the library instead of going to class.

In any event, Pam was always nice. Never tortured me. Maybe said hello a few times. But she was watching me.

One day she came to me with a bunch of thoughts written down on paper. Said she knew I was a writer. Wondered if maybe I could write a poem for her to give someone.

I did it. She seemed pleased.

I don’t remember much about it. But one line, something about “the pavement shines like silver in the rain,” has always stuck with me. Those were her words. I remember wanting to preserve them as they were.

It was our secret, that we had worked together on that poem. I never knew who she gave it to. Or whether he liked it. Or what made her break away from those stupid people in that class to approach me.

We never really talked after that. But that was OK. I liked it that way. Having a secret ally mixed into that overflowing basket of deplorables was more comforting than I could ever convey.

I was shocked when Pam sent me a friend request on Facebook several years ago. Didn’t know that she remembered me. My heart was happy about that, in a way I can’t explain.

What I loved about her was every post was positive. She went through some shit in her life. But you’d never know it. Lots of pretty selfies with her newest ‘dos. Even when the treatments took her pretty hair, she had the cutest wigs and bandannas. A collection I covet, to be honest.

You could tell she was a loving mom, the “aunt” who helped to raise all the young people in her life, the girl with the mad hair-cutting skills who looked so pretty all the time and donated a whole lot of hair-styling genius to anyone who needed it — at no cost.

I don’t know why God takes the good ones. Pondered that all day, as I do every time someone truly kind is taken from us. Why did she have to suffer so much?

How will that baby boy know that she was my only friend in that stupid history class? Will he be kind like that to someone someday who needs it?

You sure fought hard, Pam. A warrior if I ever saw one. I didn’t know you, but I will always remember you.

Rest in peace, pretty lady. And also, fuck cancer. Seriously.

I got to talking with one of my fellow “Survivors” from the old team. I mentioned how my most-recent (short-lived) boss de-friended me on social media. We laughed for a moment. And he said,

“Doesn’t he realize how happy you were in (previous town/building) with your original, handpicked team? Does he seriously think you had anything to do with what’s happened since? You could be sitting comfy in your chair, with a Starbucks in your backyard, your hair in pigtails and wearing shorts. You didn’t ask for any of this. And you handled it pretty darn well. And guess what, you deserve your promotion!”

I thought that was interesting. Especially given that I have access to some salary information and I have a good guess how much he was making. Hint: A LOT. Meanwhile I was doing the job … for about 40% less … if my estimates are right. And 70% better, IMHO.

In any event, we’ve made more changes and I kind of am back to a smaller version of my handpicked team. So, there’s that.

I’ve also been grousing that one of those people (not one of my picks, though) is getting some special favor for some bizarre reason.

But you know what? That’s fine.

So what if I had to earn all my breaks? So what if I had to get broken in the process? So what if no one, say, threw $30 at me to replace my brand-new groceries they threw out for no reason?

Fuck ’em. I’m still here. My rent is still getting paid at the end of the month. I lived through a damn hurricane and have another Cat-5 storm heading up the same path right as I type this. There are bigger things to worry about than someone else getting a damn perk in this world.

I still miss my old life. But now I can say, I miss the GOOD parts of it. I don’t miss the bad ones anymore. Not as much as I did these past few months, anyway.

But damn I miss my fridge. Which I guess I have to pay to replace. Because again, why should I expect a perk? And that’s probably why I have been so pissed off in the first place.

I’m wondering whether my life has been reduced to a Huey Lewis and the News song lyric.

Hurricane Irma was supposed to be a Category 3 hurricane by the time it came to my hood. Then it was 5. Then 4. Now it’s back up to 5.

God doesn’t like Mar-a-Lago. Or any other Trump properties, judging by the locations this storm has hit. But why take us good-hearted Hillary voters out with his gaudy decor that the government will probably pay to restore?

Maybe he’ll come out and sell his shitty $40 hats like he did to Hurricane Harvey victims …

I don’t feel like we’ll be all right. That’s probably from Mom the Psychic saying “we’re done for” every hour.

We had a great week in Orlando. I drove us back a day early (last night) though. The hotel couldn’t extend our stay. And every other hotel that had rooms faced water slides and volcanoes and other bizarre shit. Besides, yesterday Irma was projected to whack Orlando directly.

In any event, I was just about the only car driving south as the whole state heads north to Georgia and the Carolinas and beyond. So I’m either the smart one or the dumb one. Not real sure at this point.

We have a curfew starting at 3 p.m. tomorrow in my county. Wal-Mart closed at noon today. (I was there before 7 a.m.) Publix closed at noon, as did my storage unit place. (Whose general manager’s name, I learned today, is Irma.)

There’s only gas to be found on the turnpike and the stations just off 95. You’re shit out of luck if you try anyplace else.

Got some pizza at my favorite joint tonight and a cheeseburger from McDonald’s for the cat.

It’s 7:30 p.m. now and it’s already a ghost town. Pretty sure Target is the last game in town, although the cashier at Mickey D’s said they will be open till curfew time tomorrow.

I have to say I’m impressed that just about everything else is closed. I did my preparing in Orlando. (As much as I could do without being able to buy plywood, metal shutters or a generator. Or ice. Gah my ice maker is broken and damn landlord won’t pay to fix it.)

Got a boatload of cat litter and all her favorite foods. Don’t have much hoomin food beyond lentil chips, chocolate animal crackers, wine and tea.

And the HOA has zero fucks to give about it all …

It’s Friday night and we expect this shit to hit Sunday morning through Monday at midnight. On the early side. FPL already warned us we WILL be without power, for perhaps weeks.

I worry because I’m on a middle floor. And also parked on the middle floor in our garage.

* Good: No flooding from the lake and bordering canal below. And not the top floor so no worries about my roof blowing off.

* Bad: It rains sideways in Florida. And 180 mph winds hitting a building that was constructed AFTER the last major hurricane to blow through. So, untested. And not sure the car won’t blow away or that I won’t get impaled with idiot neighbors’ unsecured furniture.

Anyway. More bad than good and I’m not done yet.

There aren’t a lot of positive scenarios in my mind out of this. I love my mom and kitty but I get stir-crazy. Also I see work piling up in my inbox (but I’m on vacation, as if THAT were a thing) and it’s making me nuts. I did try to secure my storage unit but I didn’t do a good job in the hour I had because I didn’t know it was closing. (Also, it’s 100 degrees here and there’s no a/c in that thing. Much like the state of my apartment come Sunday afternoon, no doubt.)

What if mom is right and we ARE done for? Have I done enough? Had enough fun? Seen enough of this world? I honestly would not have come back but she insisted we needed her “PAPERS.” If I’m going to die for that, I’ll cry.

She said we aren’t fighters. If this is the end, we won’t make it, she says. And I think I’ve had just enough togetherness (and working for a living. Hell, i finally got promoted. I can die happy, right?) to open the sliding glass door at peak wind velocity and throw myself into the overflowing swamp-cancer lake.

I always say an open door is an invitation. If this is it, indeed … why fight it?

But it will take a minute to get there. 

I was pondering the value of anti-harassment training when the (rumored) biggest offender isn’t even there. 

Then it hit me. Where did that rumor originate?

From the same shit-stirrer who tells everyone how “negative” I am — and everybody else is. 

That is the one who very publicly branded this person as an offender. 

So …

What if all the talk about the alleged offender being an offender is just plain wrong too?

I mean, I think the person is fine. Cordial at least. I don’t know much else. Professional as far as I can tell. 

And really, I’d trust my judgment over anyone else’s. So I’m going to make my own decision there.

Shame others don’t seem to follow my logic. 

I HAD these kinds of people in my tribe. Mediocre men destroyed that. Why does God want me to lose great people and replace them with what I’ve got now?