Caterwauling

Today would have been Sia’s 32nd birthday.

She’s been on my mind all day. She’s never far from my mind, really.

Facebook Memories has her thanking me profusely for whatever I did for this birthday many years ago. In a way, it’s like she never really left. But then when you go to call …

I’ve reached out to her mom and sister. They don’t reach back. I figure I was close with her while they weren’t, and vice versa. We could fill in some blanks for each other.

But that’s how it works. Blanks don’t get filled. You don’t get to say goodbye and doors get slammed in your face, if you even get a door in the first place. (Which most don’t.)

I like to think the universe hates a void and works to fill it. A pet dies, you get another. A job ends, someone else who was dying to hire you finally gets the chance. A relationship ends, something better comes along. Right?

Not in my experience. You can be single for 40 years. No one to step in for friends who died or voted for Trump. (Same thing, really.) There’s no replacing a parent or a sibling who’s gone. And judging by how many people are sleeping on the streets because who the fuck can afford two grand for a studio down here, jobs don’t magically appear because you want one.

I tried to think of the best way to honor Sia today, since she’s gone and I’ve never had a friend like that before or since. And perhaps never will again.

Working 24 hours straight sounds about right.

But I went the other direction and left right before 6. Pile of unfinished work be damned.

This after an IM at 4:30:

White-on-white: I can’t finish that today. Almost quitting time.

Me: (I worked all weekend and only had yesterday off and I’m STILL behind and you won’t stay 15 extra minutes?)

Sia would have had a few choice words for the situation. I don’t care either way, honestly. I’ll regret leaving on-time-for-me tomorrow. Maybe. Or maybe I’ll be white-on-white and be perfectly fine feeding my mom at a reasonable hour and watching “This is Us” together like we love to do on Tuesdays.

Miss you, Sia. You were the only one out there just like me. With the disease to please. It took you. And I want to beat its ass for that. 

Love you, girl. So, so much love, today and forever. Knock Trump’s wig off for me, OK? I’ll know it’s you …

Mom got up to make me breakfast, which she tries to do no matter how bad she is feeling. And that ranges from god-fucking-awful to holy-fuck-make-the-pain-stop. On a good day.

Nevertheless, I get beautiful omelettes every day. Different ones. Usually vegetarian, per my request. And the occasional breakfast sandwich, corned-beef hash, basted egg paired with turkey or Canadian bacon, or “egg in the hole” sprinkled with bacon bits. Which, she says, aren’t real meat so that’s vegetarian.

Today, knowing it’s a working weekend, she got up to make breakfast. But I said nah, I get extra points at Starbucks if I get breakfasts this weekend. Let me grab us something.

I ordered her a tea, which I always do. But today I gave the barista her name instead of mine.

Mom gratefully accepted her tea. And she read the name on the cup and burst into tears.

“It’s my name!” she cried.

We were at Epcot about a year ago and I don’t even know why I got her name on the cup. She had a similar reaction.

She can’t buy me anything, and it kills her.

She hates being dependent on me. She will go without food and say she’s fine and that she doesn’t need anything. Even though, come on, everyone needs food.

We fight about that a lot. “Save your money,” she pleads.

I’d rather save my momma, I tell her.

It’s a moment like this where you know that you did something right in this life. Even if it was as small as telling the barista your name is Princess instead of Goddess. (Her daddy always called her Princess. Or Punkin, although sometimes I got that one too. But she was AWAYS Princess.)

Also, no I didn’t use either of those nicknames, but you get the idea. Names are very important in this little family.

I haven’t gotten much done at work yet. But I did break down and finally sign up for Obamacare. You know, the ones the fuckwits on Capitol Hill are currently eviscerating, decimating and destroying for the poor folks like us.

I finally decided to suck it up and figure out how to pull $700 a month out of my ass. Which, goodbye storage units and lunches and Starbucks. I’d rather save my momma, as I said.

Everyone knows I hate that cocksucking piece of shit and his merry band of deplorables. And now I hate Congress even worse than before, too. I was hoping maybe I didn’t have to become destitute to afford care for my mom.

That was my one hope out of the Orange Oppressor — that he might have, amid all his lies and other assorted bullshit, actually planned to improve the system.

I shouldn’t say it but I’ve been really sick myself lately. I mean, really really not well. And I haven’t been using my own insurance because why should I when mom doesn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I’ve been socking cash away and hoping that she’d be ok for a little while if something happened to me. (She wouldn’t. She’d be Debbie Reynolds. Trust me.)

In any event, I digressed way too much. But think about it. A woman who is so grateful to have her name on something, anything in this world — wouldn’t this world want to have her well and IN IT and participating fully in it?

Next time you sit your stupid ass home and not vote, or vote for a stupid ass, think of Robin. Please.

A lot of people bitched about Meryl Streep’s commentary at the Golden Globes, where she tried to drive the point home about empathy.

I thought it was wonderful. But then again, I voted for humanity. Back when I believed in it.

On the night President Obama said farewell from Chicago, Mom and I stayed tuned in to the news. And first story up, we saw the mug shot of our maintenance guy at the Palm Beach Projects we left two years ago.

We knew him as Mitchell, the Americanized version of his name. Nice guy, was very handsome and had a light in his eyes when I met him in 2009.

In those early days, he was decent at his job. It was clear they didn’t pay him well, treat him right or give him the resources to do his job. But he, like me, was the only one doing the job, lack of resources notwithstanding. So we could relate on a lot of levels.

He and mom were close at first. But then we started hearing of cars being broken into, and stories of people who let him in their units when they weren’t home, and things going missing. And everyone said it was Evil Landlady 1 and him in on the con. Either way, we retreated from both because of it.

I remember a day a few years ago when he went missing for four days. Lord knows I could never get anything fixed after a while. He got into a habit of telling folks he had fixed something, and he’d never so much as knocked on the door while Mom waited beside it all day. I saw him and asked where he’d been. He said his son had gotten into some legal trouble, and he was there to bail him out.

But when I read the police reports I never looked up before this week, HE was the one picked up on a misdemeanor back then. Not his son.

And it saddened me that it was his son who turned him in this time.

It’s a nutty story. I saw his mug on TV because he was picked up for Grand Theft Auto … and then walked out of the interview room, grabbed a bicycle and disappeared. So our Mayberry PD — er, Palm Beach PD — went on a massive manhunt.

I’m not kidding. Ground search, air search, K-9s crawling Chilean Avenue. Our shitty local paper that kisses Trump’s ass with both sets of its lips put out all kinds of sensational headlines about an escaped prisoner! Wanted! For a SLEW of Felonies!

The truth as I can tell is that an old neighbor of ours was out of town. “Mitchell” is being listed as homeless in every report I have read. Which means he is no longer with his beautiful wife and boys. Which breaks my heart.

What really breaks my heart is that shitball of an apartment building not paying him enough to live anywhere. And not maybe throwing him a studio for a little while because of his loyalty.

As the story goes, an old neighbor of ours was traveling and told “Mitchell” that he could crash there till he returned. Nice guy, truly. One of my favorite neighbors. I love that he’d do that for him.

But … “Mitchell” took his new Mercedes … and never returned it.

My neighbor was like me, always with old-ass cars. That he treated himself, I was happy to hear. He deserved it.

Mom said it didn’t seem like him to call the cops on “Mitchell” since they were friends. But I would imagine going a week without your car after traveling would probably suck.

And if “Mitchell” was in fact homeless, my guess is he’d not have a phone where you could call him and get your car back.

In any event, he was seen panhandling at Hypoluxo and 95. His kid turned him in. I’m unclear on the series of events because the Palm Beach Post is a propaganda machine these days, but it sounded like he had the car parked at Popeye’s. (Worst Popeye’s ever. I love their food but Jesus, horrible area.)

Now this part of the report I can see happening. When he was picked up the second time, he offered to get the car from Popeye’s and drive it to the precinct. Mayberry PD said no. I mean, I get that because, obviously. But I wondered if “Mitchell” somehow didn’t want R. to incur the expense of getting his car out of the pound, where it was towed.

Homeless.

Please bear with me on this.

“Mitchell” and I are the same age. Less than a year apart. I was a resident of the fucking Town of Palm Beach (less than a mile south of Mar-a-Lago). 

Think about that. Pretty privileged. Yes supporting mom and drowning in debt and working my ass off. But damn lucky. 

I’ve always had good jobs and even when I was “destitute,” I had friends who threw me projects so I could afford to feed my mom.

This guy has nobody. And judging from the whopping bond they set, ain’t nobody going to see him for a long, long time.

Homeless.

On one of the Post’s many breathless Facebook posts about “Mitchell,” the comments ranged from, “Green card?” to “Good” and everything in between. Fucking Trump voters. Mom looked each of them up and every goddamned one of them had Twitler as a profile pic. I knew that without looking.

I commented too, that it was sad it was such a witch hunt for a guy down on his luck.

That’s the thing.

Homeless.

43.

Had a family.

Had a job.

Couldn’t afford a home.

Had nothing.

Look, I get that he did some shit lately. Got it. Heard ya. Loud and clear. We all fuck up. We all usually get second, third and eighty-fifth chances.

I have no doubt this is a guy who just was trying to get by who made a really dumb decision to screw over his friend.

I actually logged in to the system to donate to his commissary account. I haven’t funded it yet — seriously, the terms and conditions are CRAZY, not to mention the service fee.

I put the old address as my current address. I got a nasty-pop up, that if this isn’t your address we will FIND YOU because we investigate EVERYONE who wants to donate to a prisoner.

Jesus Christ.

The system is rigged. Orange Hitler got that shit right. But it’s rigged against giving anyone a leg up who isn’t a billionaire. That I can’t even throw $20 at an old friend so he can eat a fucking candy bar while he rots in jail and nobody looks for him, without signing MY privacy away? Christ, like these Mayberry PD assholes don’t pull ME over every five fucking minutes and ticket me because I’m a girl who won’t fight them.

That was something interesting. The cops PULLED HIM OVER in the Mercedes before R. reported it missing. And they let him go. Didn’t ask for a license or anything.

Was probably the same shithead who said he smelled pot coming from my car. REALLY NOW??!?

I voted against pot, asshole. Fuck you.

Anyway. Empathy.

I can’t stop thinking about this guy. That could be me. One wrong turn … one comment that has been held in too long being aimed like a missile at a target that would erupt upon impact … one fucking wrong decision and I could be him. Alone. Forgotten. If you ain’t deplorable, then you’re deportable. (Also, he’s a citizen, YOU FUCK.)

I’m including him in my prayers now. Every night I thank God for another day. I thank God for another day with my mom. I thank God for another day with my kitty. I thank God for another day with a paycheck. I thank God that there is only one thing I don’t like about my work, and I ask for the strength to not let it get me down.

And now, I pray for “Mitchell” and ask that he get his eighty-fifth chance … and that he makes something of it.

I just don’t see that light in his eyes anymore. And that may mean he’s beyond hope. So I have to have it for him. And I do.

I’ll make that donation. Nobody should be forgotten. I don’t know if it will help to know he has a friend on the outside. But it’s completely out of my own empathetic character to not try.

As part of my New Years resolutions to keep up with my industry kardashians, if you will, I’ve been the lucky recipient of a lot of gossip. 

Really shocking how many people up and quit. It’s epidemic, really. 

More shocking is who gets shown the door. I’d say more talented people than me, but mine is still there somewhere. 

But being the person who works hard quietly and makes the snappiest comebacks among friends (and hands people ideas with zero credit needed) isn’t really working for anyone but me. 

In any event, one friend said their dream is to retire from their current company. 

And I was like, huh? People my age think that way?

I guess I was too fresh off of hearing about seven different people who were hired by one company, got rolled into another division there, hated it and applied at three others, even called my company for an interview, and then got rolled into yet another division. 

Basically hoping to retire from the company you’re in is about as fantastical as the idea that we will be able to retire at all. 

I didn’t say all that. My friend is a dedicated worker bee like me, and we have that shared panic after seeing great people get axed and lazy mofos getting “axed” to accept more pay and perks.  

All in all we know we are lucky, but we also know Fairy tales don’t always have happy endings. Even though we still think  they could turn out magical, if you just believe. 
Well, just as long as you can drink away our reality that the world’s biggest shithead just got confirmed by congress to run the free world into the ground.

So really, will we even be alive when we are 67? I’m thinking Jessica Alba will be the only one left on the scorched earth, reprising her “Dark Angel” role. (Or Shaliene Woodley in the “Allegiant” series, for yinz youngns, although who would want to hang around Chicago, I ask you?)

There isn’t enough alcohol in Total Wine to soothe me. But it won’t stop me from finding just how much it might take. 

On this day last year, I decided that 2016 would be the year of “enough.”

I defined it materialistically in my head. That what I had was enough. Enough clothes, enough income, enough friends.

I see now where that went horribly wrong.

By year-end 2016, I’d had enough, all right — enough of the users, abusers and insults and wasted time. Enough inane conversations and not enough time to get things done. Not even great things — just daily things. That I’d had more than enough of.

So I thought I’d come into 2017 with “plenty” as my mantra. I have plenty. I will always have plenty. Blessings are plentiful.

But I wonder if that doesn’t throw me into another dumpster fire of a year like the one that just mercifully ended a few hours ago.

Of course, if Trump really does become president (gah, ugh, hork, vomit), we’re fucked. Illiterate, ill-spoken, ill-tempered and small-dicked fool.

And I’ve already had PLENTY ENOUGH of his shit.

Need to think about this one a bit. This next four years is already going to be a goddamned nightmare. 

Need to figure out where to get some joy where I can. And right now, I don’t see where it will come from.

Other than from fellow Democrats and the internet …

Between deplorables trying to Twitter-troll me and some Pantsuit Nation babes telling me I’m not “of color” enough to be outraged at Trump … and Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds dying within 24 hours of each other … 2016 is officially deplorable enough to earn a Cabinet position. 

Irony: My Pantsuit Nation shirt arrived today. It’s too big. Maybe it’s a sign. Who knows.

I hate the world today. 

Facebook memories reminded me a few days ago that Sia and I were eating dinner at Dada that night.

Big day for us. Big celebration of being the most amazing team ever, at my favorite restaurant that she quickly adopted as hers too. My Christmas gift to her, that feast. 

Facebook memories reminded me today that it’s the day I got shitcanned from my last full-time job.

I blame the job and the cunt in charge for ruining my friendship with Sia.

Sia tried. She really did. But I was so deflated. I was supposed to be a role model. I was supposed to have my shit together. I was supposed to lead us to greatness.

Instead she got crushed under the massive workload and ultimately worked herself into an early grave at age 31.

I wasn’t afraid I’d walk in to a pink slip today. (Perhaps more afraid that I wouldn’t? Just kidding. I know who’s reading this. Got to enjoy some humor where I can get it these days.)

Getting let go was one of those life-changing events that wasn’t really good for my nerves, my career or my friendships. It didn’t make me stronger. If anything, it gave me more anxiety than I already had.

It needed to happen. I can say that now. I still won’t send the bitch a thank-you card, as she was expecting when she said I would thank her someday.

It’s not like I will get that time … or that seniority … or that spark … or my friend … back.

The things you lose in exchange for the ability to funnel all your money into ever-rising rents, I tell you.

Didn’t sleep well in the Keys. Mom fell on the first day and she was already in chronic pain. So basically now it’s even more excruciating. And while it was a good vacation, it wasn’t the restful escape we needed.  

But oh how she tried to keep up with me as I drove and parked her everywhere instead of just walking this tiny town. I love that woman bunches. 

Had the worst dream on my last night. It stems back to when we saw the orange clownfish’s buggy whip at PBI …

I dreamed I was set to perform in a play in a prestigious venue. Momma was backstage to cheer me on. Then I looked out the window and saw this idiot backing his dumb plane into a parking spot. 

I was furious and left the building. Momma, slow as she is now, followed me across the street. 

Someone ran to find us and say that Trump commanded my return. I said I command his resignation.  God I hate him. 

I did decide to go back because I didn’t want to let down my team. (Kind Of like going back to work after a vacation.)

Momma was so so tired. She followed me for a few steps and had to sit down. 

Here’s the hard part …

“I’ve gone as far as I can go with you,” she said. “You’ll be on your own from here. I’ll always love and support you from where I am.”

I died. I cried in my dream and I woke up in hysterics. 

This is my life. Hating Trump for being alive and being fearful that my mom is dying. How I wish they could trade places. The world would be so much better off with her in charge. Or, at least, in this world at all. And healthy. Lord please make her healthy …

Some people, you’d want to follow over a cliff if they asked you to. 

The rest will lead you to that cliff and push you over. 

You meet far, far fewer of the first kind. 

Coming back to work after five working days (10 full days, thank you Labor Day) away is like letting a mental patient back into society.

Sure, I was up and dressed and at my perch on time. I had my to-do list ready with seven things but with certain plans to knock out three of them.

And then, “oh hey we’re launching a project tomorrow” was said to someone else. And that matters to me. (So glad I heard it.) That’s because I have a couple parts in it that I haven’t done because I didn’t know when it was launching. And my part in it is pretty timely.

While it was no big deal, and I banged the bulk of it out by 1 p.m., I feel … fragile. Like, whoa. Needed just a little warning there. Don’t disturb the crazy person yet.

(Now to do those other three big things …)

I mean, I’m glad no one asked me about it last week. Facebook Memories reminds me quite clearly that I was working during several holidays past. But it’s very weird how completely off it threw me.

And I felt my quelled anxiety bubble to the surface again. Which is weird because this is no big deal and I could do this in my sleep. Truly.

But this was a big day. Of the last 10 days, I wore makeup once. Fixed my hair exactly zero times. Wore nothing but shorts and halters and Coppertone dry oil with SPF 12. Today? Makeup, hair, outfit, and brain usage. No sliding into it!

Actually I’m pretty lucky. It’s a more creative environment. No need for suits and “stupid shoes” (my name for things that pinch and make you bleed). If you want to get up and walk around, you get up and walk around. Hungry? Undercaffeinated? Fix it at your earliest convenience. Etc.

It made me think of quite a few high achievers I knew who went off-course, shall we say. I never quite knew how to address them after that. Didn’t want to be the reason they got knocked off the wagon or regressed.

So I took a little walk. Couldn’t be a long one, but better than nothing. Grabbed my worry stone and started rubbing. Took this little brain break to bang out this incoherence. And now, back to it for as long as my body can handle.

Interesting how my brain is just fine. Alive, alert, ready and even hungry. But my body? In near-rebellion mode. And I have no idea how to get them back into sync …