Caterwauling

Oh, this day. Good and bad, it’s been one for the record books so far.

I did something charitable this morning, which made me VERY happy to be able to do.

I’m also planning to take some time off in December and I’ve been doing my research for the trip, which involves coordinating with a couple of people in a couple of states. This trip is going to rock and I am booking it as soon as I hear back from one more person.

Of course, then the universe decided to take a crap in my hand. I’ll spare you the gory details but I always tend to stop and have that moment of, “WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER?” when it comes to trying to be a good person, since it usually results in instantly BAD karma. But whatever. As soon as I buy that plane ticket, I have something important to look forward to.

But then again, the good karma prevails. This week, the landlady magically found a package for me that looks like it was delivered A MONTH AGO. (Oh? And grrr…)

It came from Amazon and it was a movie I’d been wanting to buy for a while. And for the past few days I have been scratching my ass, trying to figure out not just when I ordered it … but IF I ordered it.

I know I’m an impulsive (some would say compulsive) person and all. But I genuinely did not recall making this purchase. Which … stumped me but I wasn’t ambitious enough to go check my debit account.

So I finally looked at the receipt today and … it was a gift. A GIFT!

I don’t recognize the name, and there is no return address. I hope it will come to me so I can send a proper thank-you. But for now, if you are a beloved blog reader, I just want to say THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU for your kindness. *sniffle*

Seriously, I’m sorry it has taken three weeks for me to even obtain this special delivery, and another week to realize I wasn’t the buyer. But this random stroke of generosity arrived at just the right time. *mwah!*

God is good. Life is good. People are good. And I cherish you all for being good to ME.

Heading off to a movie shortly and looking forward to some good company even if it isn’t a movie I’d normally want to see. (I prefer chick flicks, what can I say?) And I realized that I have a free movie ticket that I got from donating blood, so even if the movie doesn’t agree with me, nobody had to pay for it.

So, I am mostly winning today, and documenting it for all those OTHER days so that I can remember that good things really do happen … and on a day like today, they happen all at once.

Had an unexpected bout of kindness touch me as I was driving to work.

I was running late today (as if you can call being in the car at 7:30 a.m. late) and waiting at a light when my phone rang. It was one of my current colleagues whom I’d known at my previous job.

She said she was on 95 and saw a car just like mine on the side of the road. She wondered if it were me, if I were OK and if she could give me a ride to work.

As I was at the light right before I turned onto 95 myself, obviously I was OK. But I was just so overwhelmed with love right at that moment — that someone cared so much about me to want to help, if I needed it.

It meant the world to me.

I saw her later as I was talking to one of my friends in the courtyard. I was kind of stressed out during the conversation. I saw my friend walk toward me, and I smiled at her. She smiled back and put her hand on my shoulder and kept walking.

I felt healed in some way. I really did. It dawned on me that she probably knows a lot more about me than I might believe, and that she understood me right at that moment more than anyone else in the world ever could.

When we worked together the last time around, I was convinced she didn’t like me and/or thought I was an idiot. But we had connected — I mean really connected — last Friday night, and I realized I had an ally on my side all along. We both just tend to keep a wall around ourselves in the professional environment, and we realized we think the same things and feel the same ways about things that we otherwise wouldn’t even talk about.

Anyway, it felt good to be “gotten” today. That someone out there quietly has my back. That I don’t have to stick to so-called friends when there are genuine people out there in the world who like me just fine the way I am and don’t go out of their way to drag me down to the level where they insist on living their lives.

Thank you, God. I felt Your presence today. I needed that. Bless her wonderful, wonderful heart.

Oh lord. Someone scanned in one of our middle-school yearbooks and it has appeared on our *gulp* 20-year reunion page. Crikey.

I just saw the faces of my classmates as I still remember them. And I saw one gal whom I will never forget.

We were in the same homeroom in sixth grade. Or maybe it was the same Language class. Either way, it was in Mr. Allison’s homeroom. I’ve written about him before in this space but I’m too lazy to look it up.

Anyway, I remember she started feeling sick. And the teacher knew something was up but didn’t know what to do. She clearly needed assistance to go to the nurse’s office downstairs, but he couldn’t leave our rowdy asses.

After furtively scanning the room, he looked straight at me. I felt doomed, mostly because I LIKED learning. I didn’t care so much for that “interpersonal interaction” shit that walking to the nurse with a fellow classmate required.

Anyway, guess who was nominated for the odyssey. Sigh. I asked for a hall pass. (I was SUCH a goody-goody!) He said to just go and he’d deal with it later. Hmmm.

Oh boy that was an adventure. She couldn’t walk in a straight line. I somehow had to half-drag, half-carry her down the long hallway, down three flights of stairs, and across the friggin’ foyer and another hallway downstairs.

You might have thought that there was the concept of CALLING SOMEONE to come up to the classroom or, I dunno, telling someone to meet us, eh? Not so much. I guess back in the ’80s we were still sending carrier pigeons with Post-It Notes.

OK, what nobody told me was the gal was prone to having seizures. This, I learned after the fact — after the writhing and incoherent babble and the vomit … so much vomit. Oy.

Did I mention that we were only 11 years old?

I got her there safely. I think classes might have changed by that point — it felt like forever.

She never made eye contact with me again. Or maybe I just politely avoided her at all costs. Honestly, I don’t think she remembered a single moment of it. Plus, she was shy. And I didn’t want to speak of it again — I was sure she would have been embarrassed that her secret was now known by a peer. A secret that I never shared with a soul, by the way.

I have no idea what happened to her in the coming years — I don’t think she graduated. Maybe she moved. Hell, maybe her health kept her from leaving the house at all.

And I wonder, why did teachers (and, later, employers) task me with the impossible? How the hell was I supposed to know how to handle a person who lies down in the middle of the floor multiple times, trying to have a seizure?

I would learn years later that you’re not supposed to move people, that there’s a certain way they should lie on the floor. I didn’t know any of this. I finally helped her to carefully fall to the ground and I ran toward the school office just to ask for an adult to come over and help her.

Anyway, I don’t know what to make of this memory. Perhaps that I was always given more responsibility than most. And in turn, perhaps, that the so called “mighty” among us have so much further to fall. I mean, I could have done something that seriously injured that girl. (I didn’t.) Perhaps there was no one else in the class Mr. Allison would have trusted. I don’t know. I guess I’ve just found that, in subsequent years, I always got the impossible assignments and worst POSSIBLE bosses. Why did everyone else have it — seemingly — so easy in comparison?

I’m certain that I’m making FAR more out of this than I need to. But it did set me up as sort of a volunteer for these kinds of things. I came to appreciate the challenges … particularly those that no one else would touch with a 10-foot pole.

I’m a little over the challenges these days. I’d like “easy” — I’ve watched enough people coast and make it through life just fine without anything extraordinary to report. But I know me — my brain will atrophy if I don’t use it, and soon.

In any event, I have no desire to go to my reunion. But on the other hand, it’s not about how I turned out — I’d like to see what happened with everyone else. And if the gal I wrote about today is there, nobody would be more pleased than I to see her … even if she’d never know it.

Aboard the new Lady Delray

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

“Something, something about this place
Something ‘bout lonely nights and my lipstick on your face
Something, something about my cool Nebraska guy
Yeah something about
Baby you and I.”

— Lady Gaga, “You and I”

My head’s been a little stuck in the wayback machine these past couple of days. Perhaps because it’s not overly pleasant to keep my head in current times. What I need is to focus my thoughts on the immediate future because — scary or painful or not — it’s coming full-throttle.

I read a great blog story yesterday called Never Date a Writer, and I’m pretty sure I gave traffic a boost when I posted it on Facebook. Because, well, I think I have some people worried about that out there.

As well they should be. 😉

In the past few months, I’ve been re-engaging with my book characters, building up the character sketches I’ve carried around with me for years. And I’ve realized I’ve been too harsh on some … and not even CLOSE to exposing some others.

No malice intended. Well, except for the crazy-ass character whom I’m modeling after a psychopath I know just outside the D.C. line. The book character ain’t gonna know what hit him. 😉

But I am starting to take pleasure in taking what irks or otherwise troubles me about some folks and making my characters pay under the guise of “making them interesting.”

I’ve oft been told I’m “too nice” in the workplace. What they don’t know is what I do to torture my characters … even if the meanest thing I do is model them after some less-than-attractive traits from their human counterparts. Which can be downright cruel, in some instances.

I do have to confess that I’m really not too terrible to my characters. In fact, just yesterday, I was working on a sketch of the hero in the book series. I’ve always thought I would have met that character’s inspiration by now. But I haven’t yet experienced the all-consuming passion that I need the heroine to feel for him.

Or have I?

“Something, something about the chase
Six whole years
I’m a New York woman, born to run you down
So have my lipstick all over your face
Something, something about just knowing when it’s right.”

Just as I was wondering who I could model him after, the image was clear as day in my head. That one I met back in 1998. That one I swore to God I was going to marry someday. That one who eavesdrops on my life frequently and says hello every couple of years.

I’d said goodbye a long time ago. It took moving four hours away, but that worked wonders. 😉 Add another thousand miles to that and you’d think distance would erase the memory even better. But, alas, a well-timed song dedication sent me back to a time when just the thought of him invoked the dizzying feeling of my heart being squeezed by a scorching-hot hand.

He was in Tampa a couple years ago. Said he’d love to see me if I could make the trip. I couldn’t; it was a hellish time at the job. (Four months with only one lousy day off.)

I remember the last time I saw him. (Right before 9/11.) It was at a party I’d thrown for myself. (My place was always Party Central back in that era.)

I remember everyone leaving the party (and my BFFs Kristin and Steve pretending to leave but really going for a drink at the bar across the way. (God bless them!)

Anyway, let’s just say I remember everything. Nothing salacious or above a PG rating here, folks. Just, a proper goodbye. And that’s what makes it so sweet and so sad and so, so perfect in my mind.

There are many reasons why I don’t go back to that place, either on a mental visit or a real one. Mostly it’s that there’s nothing there for me anymore. It’s a foreign land, one that I don’t often admit to even setting foot in. (Except during football season!)

Maybe it’s because if I did go, I wouldn’t be able to leave alone again.

Perhaps where a story once ended, another would begin.

Or the outcome would be the same. And I can’t open up a wound I stitched shut with the strongest materials possible.

Either way, at least the fictional story will end exactly the way I want it to, with all the right words and our heroine being better for it.

Hell, our real-life heroine is better for being loved back.

“It’s been a long time since I came around
Been a long time but I’m back in town
This time I’m not leaving without you.”

Battle of the Bulge Memorial, Orlando

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

It was by chance that I stayed in a hotel a couple of months ago in Orlando that was right across the street from a memorial dedicated to those who fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

My grandfather fought in that battle. Got wounded for life as one of the fine brave paratroopers there, but I’m so proud of him that he was part of the world’s history, and not just mine.

It’s a shame that being in the army wasn’t what did him in, but that the Veterans Hospital in Pittsburgh killed him with their neglect and shoddy care and his twunty doctor “Trang” (First name? Last name? Doctor Twat to me) took an otherwise happy and mostly healthy 80-year-old and stripped him of all dignity and sent him to an early grave.

Anyway, it’s not like y’all haven’t heard that song and dance around these parts before. But Memorial Day has been nothing but full of hurt and anger and sadness since we lost him. We used to celebrate our family and our soldiers. Now we just go to Five Guys for a cheeseburger (no grills allowed here) and wish my grandfather were still with us.

I’m preparing to go into my own battle of sorts. I need a job. I don’t WANT one, and I’ve enjoyed the past six months of not HAVING one. But alas, I am feeling too calm and too good about myself. It’s time to find the next employer to ruin all that.

But I also have a side project that doesn’t pay (yet) lined up to keep my brain in gear. Thank God. You will all know my real name one of these days (not like most of you don’t know it already!).

You know, I got so sick of the ex-employer claiming I was “Gucci” or “a splurge” or “overpaid.” (To deal with that kind of name-calling? Was not compensation enough.) And others with whom I interviewed, I was told I was “expensive.”

Well, now that my savings is depleted and my heart is equally empty, I’m glad you all have reduced me to poverty. Thanks for deciding not to pay me AT ALL because you couldn’t afford what I am WORTH. Fuck every single last one of you. Now that I’m broke again — ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

That’s it. I’m going to the mattresses. And not the one that’s calling me from the next room. Not this time, anyway.

Cool cat

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

I need to move to the Keys. Like, now. Half the price, a quarter the aggravation and 10 times the removal from society in general. What’s not to love?

Yesterday, I had a lovely memory of employment past. I had just started my new job after leaving the Crack Den of Iniquity, and I was determined to hire away all the good people from that bad place.

The hire of my first friend was 99% complete when the King of the Crack Heads threatened my friend when she turned in her resignation. Unfortunately, she’s still there, and I pray for her sanity (and everyone else’s) quite regularly.

He didn’t win, though. We never felt it was defeat, mostly because Fat Boy just scored a few thousand more bad Karma points … which will make a dent in his industrial-sized ass in due time. But if that didn’t reaffirm my decision to leave, nothing would.

But what I really remember is how much I loved my new boss. I remember she said we should strip his ass naked, duct-tape him to a chair with wheels, and send him sailing down the Avenue for all to mock.

That was the moment that solidified for me that I had made the right employment choice from my pile of offers. (Where are all those offers now, I ask. Grr.)

It was nice to have that heartwarming little memory. Because when things were good there, they really were great. And in saying that, I think I’ve finally (six months later) let go of my disappointment over how it all ended. It’s a big deal for me when I acknowledge that things had to happen the way they did. I will never really know why, but it’s part of my past and I’m OK with that.

But yeah, it may be time to move away from this area that doesn’t really hold much for me anymore. A cheaper little place situated straight on the Gulf of Mexico would mean not having to bust my ass to try to earn the month’s rent and bill money. Yeah, a return address that starts with “Key” and ends with near-removal from civilization is sounding better and better. …

ZsaZsa

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

We all know I’ve been planning to get a dog for my birthday. So, just I agreed to provide emergency dog-sitting services for five days.

We’re a little over 48 hours in and I am kind of over dogs. *hugging my cat quickly before she claws me*

I’ve got two poodles here. The boy is a joy. And then there’s little sister here, who is a shade past batshit. They’re super-cute and loving. But man, I’m tired.

I kept them here the first night, which was stupid. Kadie never left the houseguest’s closet, and these two slept with me. I awakened to the boy barfing all over me and my bed. I went into my bathroom to find they had used my rugs as pee pads. And the kitchen had shit smeared from one end to the other. The houseguests’ rugs are in tatters.

This little one pictured has a nasty cough. And I didn’t know this going into it. And after a couple of hours at the zoo, Kadie started rasping and horking. Yeah, bad news. I’ve had to sleep at the puppies’ house with them and visit them a few times a day.

Monday can’t come soon enough. 😉

The crazy part of all this? My friend said that the boy is hers to keep but the girl is available for adoption. I’m not sure why she has her, but I don’t ask questions. Anyway, since people tend to admire dogs on the Avenue, she said to get the number of anyone interested.

Drumroll…

So, the houseguest and I were out walking the four-pawed wonders on Thursday. And for some bizarre reason, I had a feeling that I wanted to walk right up to the Intracoastal Waterway. The sunset was amazing and the orange-pink colors were reflecting off the bridge so spectacularly that I kind of went, “Oooh, shiny” and started walking.

At the end of the land, under the bridge, sat two sisters who were mesmerized by little ZsaZsa here. Unbeknownst to me at the time, they were plotting to persuade me to let them play with — or, you know, adopt — the black dog.

Is that fate or what?

Apparently they had grown up with tiny black poodles like this one. And the older sister had three or four black poodles in succession — all named Pixie.

And she wants this dog. 🙂

We talked for hours. I had a lot in common with the older sister, and my mom had a lot in common with the younger sister. (The latter two are the same age.) And the elder sister has connections in my field and said she’d be happy to pull a few strings if I’m interested in making her connections mine.

Um, hell YEAH!

Anyway, this is what my old pastors used to call “God Moments.” How we all ended up in the one smoking section on the whole island … with those two staying at one of the hotels because they were meeting in the middle from the north and south to have a little visit … right on MY island and two blocks from my palace … is nothing short of a mystery. And the miracle is how our needs (job) and wants (dog) intersected.

I hope my friend was serious about adopting out the dog. Because frankly, I really want to hang out with my new friend again. 🙂 She did call me to see if I wanted to have brunch with them but I had to try to get some work done. But we have tentative plans for Tuesday before she drives home. I hope I can hand over the dog with her current mom’s blessing. 🙂

And even if it doesn’t work out that way, I think I’ve still made a great connection. She asked me if I know God, and I said indeed I do, and that’s all we said and all she needed to hear.

Perhaps I can finally answer one of my ex-pastor’s many e-mails, asking whether I’ve made “God friends” yet, in the affirmative.

In the meantime, splitting my time between two apartments is exhausting. It’s like having two families and not telling one about the others. I’ve never cheated on anyone in my life (I’ve always been upfront that this relationship wasn’t lasting the night, let alone forever), and after this, I will be HAPPY with just one. Yeesh.

In any case, to have something weird and wonderful coming out of strange and stressful? Hell yeah…

Palm Beach sunset

Originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn

Just blogging solely because I like this photo. No other reason. I mean, really, what could have POSSIBLY happened in the eight hours since I last blogged? 😉

Went out partying in my favorite area of town last night. I try to avoid that area since I left behind two jobs in a six-block proximity. But to my knowledge, those folks are out of town. And a fresh new wind blew into town in the form of a friend from the West Coast.

Damn, I had fun. Yesterday was supposedly National Wine Drinking Day. I should get a medal for how much I consumed. 😉 But god bless the goat cheese dip and fried hot dog for soaking up enough that I could get home safely.

Anyway, I had this weird dream last night. I was at a Bon Jovi concert. (I know, shocker, right?) And it felt like everybody from my past had also bought tickets and somehow got seated in my section. Argh.

It annoyed me in a way, because Bon Jovi is mine, you know? If we have a beef or a tiff or something, stay the fuck home because that’s MY happy place.

I saw who I consider to be my arch-enemy. He was with two little boys. And his boyfriend was working the ticket booth. The boys clearly looked like the boyfriend. Yet my nemesis was kind and sweet to them and promised to take them for pizza and ice cream after the concert.

In the dream, he tossed a spitball my way to get my attention. I turned into the Tasmanian Devil and can’t remember even watching the concert. For shame!

I’ve been puzzling about that dream for the past hour. I’m laying down the grudge. It’s too tiring. I’ve dragged that cross all over the country and I’m done.

But moreover, I wonder if he found his happiness. Now, for all the nasty shit he’s done to me and many of the others who were in the audience in my dream, all I have to say is that the rest of us should find our own happiness FIRST.

Ahem.

Anyhoodle, on to new (and better) friends. The gal who dropped into town last night, well, it was my first time meeting her in person. But we’ve been Facebook friends for nearly two years.

What’s ironic is that I wrote a restaurant review for her Web site last summer, and after a glorious art gallery party last night, we all ended up at the place I had reviewed for her. It was wonderful coming full circle like that, and I look forward to our in-person friendship and many more lovely adventures to come.

I always blather on this page about the challenges (mostly the mistakes) of leadership. And when people ask me about when I got interested in the subject, I have one of two answers.

Usually, I make a flippant statement that I feel I’ve been mismanaged a great deal in my career and that I don’t want to make the same mistakes with the next generation of talent. Or else I talk about working in the mental-health field and being exposed to a fascinating segment called “organizational counseling.” In other words, figuring out how to change a dysfunctional culture from the top down.

But as financial TV is commemorating the loss of the Challenger crew back in 1986, I realize that my first exposure to a good example-setter was my homeroom teacher, Mr. Allison, back at good old Francis McClure Middle School.

It was in our sixth-grade science class that we watched with hope and wonder as Christa McAuliffe stepped into the shuttle as the first teacher to venture into space. And it was merely seconds later that we saw the Challenger erupt into a ball of fire and dust. We were humbled and horrified, and we hoped that our crappy television (without cable) on its rickety cart had simply short-circuited.

We moved through the rest of the day in a haze, and soon enough it was time for homeroom the next day.

I was never a huge fan of Mr. Allison. I don’t know why. I think I had a hard time discerning his sincerity. He taught language and spelling, areas in which I excelled, and I was always overly critical of English teachers in general.

But before our daily moment of silence (do schools still do that?), he revealed to us that he had applied to be the teacher sent into space. And that if the program opened up again, he would do it in a heartbeat.

As some of my peers snickered under their breath, no doubt wishing they could have herded all of their teachers into the Challenger, I was overcome with respect for this guy, on whom I had played my share of practical jokes just to get a rise out of his mostly stoic demeanor.

Now here he was, plain as day, saying he was that eager to do something for the sake of education that he would risk everything for the chance to bring back whatever it was that Christa McAuliffe would have learned in space. And that no deadly explosion would keep him away from the chance to be a part of the next historical journey.

I never told him how much his amazing attitude affected me. Twenty-five years later, I have no idea where he is or whether he’s still teaching or even alive for that matter. But he taught me so much in that moment … that the quiet ones have dreams too … that sacrifices in the name of education know no bounds … that the most-effective teaching moments don’t happen in the classroom … that I, too, could have been convinced to go on the space shuttle if I were following someone who believed wholeheartedly in the mission.

Later that day in our English class, he asked us to write essays on how we were impacted by what happened the prior day. I remember being so thrilled that I exchanged papers with the class heartthrob (Jimmy Skalican) and that my essay brought tears to his beautiful blue eyes. (*swoon*)

Can’t tell you exactly what I wrote, but I suspect Mr. Allison’s name was somewhere in there. In any case, I came out of that tragedy with a whole new outlook on the educators with whom I spent my days, and one in particular.

Needless to say, I stopped playing pranks on the guy and quietly absorbed everything else he had to teach me. And while I forget how to diagram a sentence properly and I couldn’t define a gerund if you held a gun to my head, I count Mr. Allison as one of the best educators in a questionable public school system.

Hat-tip to you, Mr. Allison, wherever you are. Thank you for being the first person to truly help to shape the person I turned out to be.