Caterwauling

Warning: this one’s gonna be all over the damn place. Peruse at your own risk!

SOTU
The Shrub of the Union is on every channel tonight. I think those of us without cable who have no shows we WANT to watch, particularly if we voted for the better candidate (i.e., Kerry), should get a free movie ticket instead (I’ll take one for the “Wedding Date,” thanks!). Luckily, “Jack & Bobby” has moved to Wednesday, and it will be on in the same time slot. It’s a viable option, of course, because tonight’s theme is fictional presidential rhetoric and all. 😉

‘Coffee Talk’
The I-270 Spur — is it a spur or is it a thorn? Because I root for thorn … as in, thorn in my ass, which I sit on way too much. However, my backside is sufficiently padded, which does come in handy when you sit on the spur for an hour like I did last night. We’re talking a mile-long stretch of road, BTW. In any event, I had a spectacularly good commute tonight, as Cool Boss booted me out early and I sailed home in less than 40 minutes.

But this 8B exit off 395-N, now that’s priceless. Twice I’ve accidentally gone across Memorial Bridge into D.C., and I’ve gone the wrong way on the GW once. Yet, despite the perennial screw-ups, I’ve never gotten to my destination faster! Perhaps tomorrow I will not fuck up. But, then again, this is me we’re discussing, y’know?

Swan dive
Do you ever get nuts by association? I mean, commute-wise. We kind of hit a small snarl on the GW under the Key Bridge tonight because we were all rubbernecking. On the other side (closest to the river), there were cop cars and ambulances and a big fire truck because someone had gone up and over the embankment and a red four-door car was teetering toward the river. The hood was up and looked crunched, and I wondered if they had hit someone into going over into the frigid Potomac. *shudder* I know I way exceed the 40- to 50-mph speed limit, flying around those dangerous bends like I don’t notice the thousand-foot drops, and it creeped me the fuck out enough that I stayed below 70 mph and rubbed my crystal (my worry stone of choice) for the rest of the drive home. Ugh.

Nuts in general
My perfectionist ways are probably going to be the death of me, if my poor driving doesn’t beat it to the punch. 😉 I am a walking dichotomy, though, of “things must be just so” versus “how do these thoughts come out of my head unfiltered?” I promised myself that, at the Dream Job (to borrow a phrase from the lovely Helen, I’d not reveal too much of myself so as not to let the masses know that I can be a raving lunatic sometimes. But, alas, I am so comfortable and snug and happy in my long-deserved phenomenal environment that I just find the oddest things popping out at the most random moments. For instance, I overheard myself saying out loud yesterday that I’d lost my faith in myself. YOU DON’T SAY THINGS LIKE THAT, DAWN! People tend to realize you’re psycho and not give you promotions and good assignments and stuff like that. Must learn to zip lip, although I understand I was hired just as much on “organizational fit” (e.g., personality) as experience and capability. Oh, the thoughts that run through my head when I’m overly caffeinated. 🙂

Fear
On the other hand, I’ve earned my right to lose my faith in myself. Not that I enjoy operating at a deficiency, but it is what has been wrong with me for a long time, truth be told. I was telling someone that I’ve lost my spark — I’ve stopped putting myself “out there.” I quit wanting to be noticed, in exchange for rationing my energy to just keep me hanging on, albeit barely. I forget what it’s like to light up a room or to feel like I’ve mattered. I miss being able to shine. I know I wasn’t meant to crawl in a corner and go unnoticed, but it’s going to take some time before I have my confidence back.

Because I was dangerously close to the “end of the world” — my world, anyway — any movement that is not in the opposite direction seems like a setback.

I know I’m going to screw up again and again till my life is right (and, considering that it never really was, I have no point of comparison). But, when one area of your life is uncertain, you need to have other areas that are going well or, at least, bearably. And, when you’re feeling scared because you’re not fluent in the one domain that you have, well, it’s difficult to feel like your footing is secure and that a stiff breeze won’t knock you straight back to that edge and, this time, blow you over it.

Fear on top of fear
Thanks to those of you who have been asking about my grandfather. The diagnoses have been one after the other. Suffice it to say, Veteran’s Hospitals in Pittsburgh SUCK and it took him finally going to a real hospital to find out that, on top of everything else, it looks like he’s got cancer, too. It’s surreal right now for all of us, especially since he told my mom not to tell me, so I can’t even ask him any questions. He told mom that I’ve had way too many burdens recently, so please don’t bother me with his condition.

I know, people get old and get sickly and such. But when you have two members in your family and that’s it, well, you tend to want them around as much as possible. And, you try to forget the guilt that sweeps you up into its greedy arms when you remember how far away you live from them and how infrequently you see them. 🙁 There’s no way the doctors will treat him at his age (79 this month). But this is a result of negligence — he asked for these tests for the past 15 years and the VA told him he was fine without even looking at him. I hope his PCP rots in hell.

Cuffed
On a lighter note, I awakened in the middle of the night to find myself handcuffed. No, I wasn’t fortunate enough to have someone sneak in and chain me to the headboard (not for lack of dreaming about it!). But, I had bracelets on each wrist, and I sleep face-down with my hands under the pillows. Somehow, my cuff bracelet on my right wrist latched onto the continuous bracelet on my left, and I woke up because I couldn’t move. Damn. And here I was hoping I’d attracted a kinky burglar or something! 😀

In any event
I know I promised myself I’d never A)blog at work or B)blog about work, but I am going to break resolution B long enough to say that I’d felt *right* since the first phone interview and continue to believe I’m in the path where I belong. I keep beating myself up because I am just not really grasping the content as quickly as I would like, but I have to remember that I bring my own unique and finely honed set of skills into the picture, and that’s a hell of a solid foundation upon which to build. And, the added bonus is that I am actually getting trained. Yes, trained! Imagine — getting coaching and encouragement. I’m pretty pleased. I still can’t figure out why the universe spent the latter half of 2004 torturing me, but alas, the life jacket has arrived and has the potential to carry me pretty far. w00t!

So long from the Inner Bitch
In closing, I wanted to leave you with an Inner Bitch story. OK, so last night, I was freaking out because I so very much wanted to get on the Beltway — I could see it but just traffic was just not moving. I started swearing and screaming and flailing my arms, and let it be known that it’s not like I have kids to pick up or soccer events to attend or, hell, sausages to hide or anything else that requires me being somewhere at a particular time. Anyway, a guy in a black truck next to me for practically the whole hour had a good old time laughing at me and watching me lose my shit (heh — he should’ve seen me when I got on 395-S and that bitch was backed up, too!). In any event, it’s not like the Inner Bitch did anything other than provide a fireworks show right where 270 dumps onto 495, but I think she got the vitriol out of her system, because I’ve been rather pleasant to be around ever since!

On iTunes: Green Day, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005 at 7:05 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.