Caterwauling

Having a rare moment of peace, realizing:

1. I like my job.
2. I like the things that are developing at my job.
3. I have the best mom on the planet.
4. I enjoy Florida so much.
5. Driving along the beach road and smelling the salt air every morning with the sunroof open is amazing.
6. My social life is picking up.
7. I can buy a hotel room or plane ticket to anywhere, whenever I want.
7.a. And do.
8. It feels good to feel wanted.

Sure, there are about 40 layers of complication to each. But I’d like to bask in this moment where everything not only seems OK … but it actually is.

Yesterday: A date with my secret not-boyfriend. (Because, you gotta protect your alliances in this town.) And texting another of my boys most of the time. (Bad girl.)

Also yesterday: A small (very small) spark of hope on the “50 First Dates” front. I almost feel ready to make a plane reservation to get out of this town for two whole days … in two whole months. I don’t mind running the show from afar but I have issues with doing it the WHOLE TIME I’m gone.

And still also yesterday: I saw a live band and gave them a Facebook “like” during the set. Facebook showed me one other friend who likes them. I hadn’t thought of her in a while and made a mental note to give her a shout. Not two minutes later, I heard someone calling my name … and it was her! We had such a good time catching up.

I have to work this weekend because that was the only way to get out of the office at a reasonable hour. But it was worth it. So very worth it.

I have been loved by some truly amazing people.

Being habitually single isn’t so bad. I’ve been open and free to the universe’s gifts.

I’m w lucky girl indeed.

My mind was already wandering a bit when I got a text from one of my boys from the wilds of the Midwest.

I’ve never mentioned him but we’ve been friends for the past year. Actually I often called him one of my “kids” because he’s young and I ended up being a bit of a mom figure to him. (Gah.)

Which he needed and I’ll admit I wasn’t too bad at.

Anyway, now, he’s become my hero in a big way.

He identified where things were going wrong, we talked about the one and only solution, and I kicked his butt a bit to take a baby step forward. I was cheering him on all the way and willing to walk with him if he wanted.

He surprised me and took a flying leap instead. All by himself.

And today, he just sent me a photo of himself looking like a completely different person. He looks at peace. Happy. The guy I remember meeting not so long ago.

My heart swelled with this weird motherly pride he’s always inspired in me.

Today he doesn’t know it but he graduates from one of my “kids” to one of “my boys.” Which is a pretty special designation.

Today Melissa Rivers buries her mother Joan. And I’m taking this loss pretty badly.

I ache for Melissa. She and her mom were like me and mine — always together. Always up to no good. Always laughing and doing everything to survive together.

Nobody knows how much longer they will have their mom. But I know my time with mine isn’t going to be long enough.

Melissa has a great career and a son she loves. I don’t know what’ll be left of me when I have to endure Melissa’s loss. Or that I could even get a day off to deal with it.

This is why I get so sick of dicking around with stupid shit. That’s taking time away from my family. It’s denying me the opportunity to fight for her. Instead I let everything slide. Waiting for someday when I get a week or a month off, to knock on doors and make calls and do research that I’m always too busy/tired to fit in.

But yes, let’s quibble over over numbers I don’t want to be in charge of or a paragraph that nobody’s going to read. BY ALL MEANS let’s spend unpaid hours on that.

I don’t plan to blame anyone but myself. But I’m going to have a really hard time going back to the routines that are killing us both.

Gather boys and girls as I tell you about a tale of three candidates in second-round interviews, and my two personal disasters associated with each and how I will likely hire based on them.

Candidate #1: During that meeting, the hem fell out of my favorite dress.

Candidate #2: No drama whatsoever. Like, none. At all. What. So. Ever.

Candidate #3: The temporary crown popped off its post and I had to work it back into place in front of this candidate and my boss without opening my mouth lest said toof might shoot out and offend.

“Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs.” That’s all I gotta say.

And long-haired freaky people, feel free to apply. Even if I’m deep-down a fan of the clean-cut, polished and gracious types who hold my chair for me and seem amenable to goddess-worship.

Met a guy yesterday. Generally not an unusual occurrence. Nor the way it played out.

I walked to Starbucks in the morning and was walking across the bridge on my way home. He was in front of me and slowed down to talk.

We had a nice conversation (it’s a long bridge) and he was going to go to the beach at the end of the bridge, and I was going to hang a left and head home.

I said enjoy the day, and he asked if he could walk with me a little while longer.

I said no. I was thinking, “Never let them know where you live.”

He pleaded his case, “You’re so funny! I loved talking with you. I enjoy your smile and want to keep talking with you.”

Now, how sweet was that, right?

Here’s the thing.

I know I’m funny and interesting and just plain awesome when I want to be. When there’s no pressure. When there’s no reason to care either way what kind of impression I make.

But the point I really want to make is sure I may be brilliant to him, but was he to me?

Not really.

Men have the ability to chat up anyone, so he’ll find someone else.

And I expect to find someone else … one who gets me all tongue-tied and twisted because I’m so enamored and eager to impress because he’s dazzling MY brain.

It can happen. It’s gotta happen … right?

My friend at work lost her mom over the weekend.

The situation is all too familiar to when we lost my grandmother.

Gram had a stroke, the medics came, the medics LEFT and then had to be called back, and then she couldn’t walk or talk right the rest of her life.

My friend’s mom had a stroke, the medics came, the medics LEFT and had to be called back, and then she was paralyzed.

Both still sharp as tacks though. They knew what happened and they were powerless to it.

My mom took care of my grandmother for seven years before we took her to the hospital and they killed her that day.

And Kevorkian got jailed for that shit, killing people who wanted to die.

Fuck, go to McKeesport Hospital (and the VA Hospital in Oakland and Aspinwall and Hazelwood. Fucking torture chambers) and they will kill you even though you didn’t want to be kilt.

Anyway, I’m a wreck today.

I burst straight into tears when I heard about my friend’s mom. Her situation is identical to my grandmother’s — only it was three months long, not seven years.

Also, and we are all in the same boat of having a mom who is our best friend who is living in our houses for us to care for them.

I have nothing profound to say about it, here or to my friend. My friend told me to hug my mom today and every day.

You just never know when God is going to want them back. And even when you think you’re ready to let them go, you find yourself 15 years later realizing you weren’t then and you still aren’t now.

That moment when you call your mom at 6:30 p.m. to say you’re probably never going to make it home … and certainly not in time to eat the dinner she so lovingly prepared for you … and her voice is so weak as she says “Come home, little girl” and you wonder if it’s the last time you’ll ever have the chance to hear her voice … or whether you’ll be lucky enough to have this same conversation tomorrow.

One of my amazing customer service reps told me a story about a customer who called in this morning to cancel a subscription.

The man has terminal cancer. So when it comes to using our product going forward, he said, “What’s the point, really?”

My friend said, “I wish you peace.”

The man cried.

I did too, when she told me the story.

I’ve never heard a better reply to such terrible news.

Peace is what we all want, really. Although we can’t grant it to others, it is something we can gift to ourselves.

Today, I grant myself peace. And I wish you the same.