The Parkway is one of my favorite places in the world. So simple, so beautiful- in a world of double-tandem semi-trucks and seventy miles per hour speed limits, the Parkway is a haven, a refuge. My parents don’t call me their “little ridge-runner” for no reason.

I regretted my route once; when I found myself behind a car with Iowa plates on a steep decent with more than a few descending decreasing radius curves- a fancy engineering term for a bitch of a curve. A descending radius curve is where the road changes elevation in the curve- you’re not just turning, you’re also going downhill. A decreasing radius curve is where the turn gets harder as you go through it.  So, of course, a declining decreasing radius curve is one that combines a drop in elevation with a tightening of the curve once you’re in it.

What makes these curves so treacherous? The grade of the decent causes your car to accelerate, which makes you want to hit your brakes to slow back down, but that makes it almost impossible to steer into the apex of the curve. You pick up speed when it is the last thing you need.

After you’ve driven in the mountains for awhile, you get the hang of these nasty little curves. You learn to start into them slower than you would a level turn. The car sets itself a line as you start the curve and pick up speed, and your job is to interfere as little as possible with that natural line, steering only as much as necessary, and only braking very lightly just before the apex if absolutely necessary.

People from Iowa are perhaps not familiar with this technique. So they fight the line. They ride their brakes or hit their brakes hard in the apex, which makes steering much harder. I feel for them- they’re scared, they’re getting a lesson in vehicle physics that isn’t had in Iowa, they are white-knuckled and full of fear. (Not to mention that they’re melting their brake pads and running the risk of losing braking power altogether). It’s frustrating and irritating for me to ride behind them; they ruin my line when they fight their own, but I’m irritated while they are scared for their lives.

I wish I could tell them not to fight the line. To slow down a little more coming in, if they’re nervous, but once the curve starts, take your foot off the pedals and just steer. Fighting the line is actually more dangerous.

I’ve been stressed, scared, frustrated, angry and unsure of myself. The life I dream of is on the horizon, and the life I once cherished is ending slowly but surely, like the passing of mileposts. I cannot see what the road looks like from where I’m at to where I’m surely headed, and that element of uncertainty is what makes me crazy. I drive myself crazy trying to plan and plot and scheme and prepare for every possible outcome or pitfall or obstacle, drafting plans A through ZZ in a attempt to find some security in life-changing situations that are well beyond my control.

I’ve been fighting the line. I’ve been braking and freaking out and over-steering like a flatlander. I’m making things much, much harder than they have to be, and more dangerous too, in the sense that my health and emotional stability have suffered, are suffering, and that means that I’m not bringing my best self to anything I’m involved in.

Time to take my foot off the brake, loosen my grip on the wheel and trust the road.

“Feel the wind
And set yourself the bolder course
Keep your heart
As open as a shrine
You’ll sail the perfect line..”

-bob seger “in your time”

Small Business Resolution: The invoice comes into the payables clerk, who matches it to the packing slip and purchase order, identifies it as an inventory purchase and enters the invoice in the accounting system to be paid without the sales tax. When she cuts the check, she encloses a copy of the certificate. The supplier reverses the sales tax charge and marks our account or the particular items as exempt for future orders.

The Corporate Resolution: The invoice comes to the payables clerk in Mexico, who matches it using the three way system described above. She doesn’t pay the sales tax, but she doesn’t provide an exempt certificate. The supplier gets a short check and calls the buyer to resolve the situation. The buyer doesn’t have an exemption certificate, so she asks the Accounting Manager (yours truly) for a copy of it. Except I don’t have it either, because I don’t really run the department. I only do the month and year end closing and reconcile balance sheet accounts. So I ask the senior accountants in Chicago (who I’ve worked with on sales tax issues before) for the certificate or who else to ask. They respond that they don’t have it either, and forward my request to the payables clerk. She responds that she doesn’t have it, that it is the buyer’s responsibility to provide it to the supplier.

I point out the futility of this exercise, but by this time, we’re in the midst of the month-end closing, so we’re all too busy meeting deadlines to fix it.

By this time, my manager the controller gets involved. He asks me for the information I have about the issue, and I forward the emails to a coworker in our Arizona office so she can put everything together for him. He schedules a conference call. The tax department is involved and aware of the issue now, but they refuse to provide the certificate until my manager identifies the items that we’re purchasing. My manager forwards this request to me, but again, I don’t have that information. So, I request it from the buyer who asked me for the certificate.

*********************************************************

I don’t know how this little fairy tale ends yet. I only know that since we got swallowed by the Borg, it now takes at least seven people, a dozen emails, one conference call and three months to send a sales tax exemption certificate.

Maybe that’s why they offer such stellar mental health coverage…

That doesn’t prevent me from being surprised and scared when I realize I’m getting my ass kicked.

Everything is okay in the larger sense. I know where I’m going, and I know how to get there. This is just the part of the trip that always fucks me up. Like night time construction. The road is all bumpy, the lanes shift, traffic moves too fast for comfort but too slow for my taste. The bright lights that make work safer for the crews blind me, so that I navigate the mess half blind, heart racing, white-knuckled at ten and two, praying for smooth open road up ahead.

My frustration with the uncertainty at work boiled over yesterday. I had a very frank and frantic discussion with a Human Resources executive, and he was kind and concerned and helpful- as he always is- but he doesn’t have the key to my chains. If it is rattling around in his pocket, he still has to pretend that all that clinking is spare change.

I called the doctor’s office and told the PA about Friday’s incident. As I predicted, I got my lecture on skipping meals. In a more unpredictable move, she wrote me a prescription for a blood sugar meter, asked me if I was still living alone, and directed me to give instructions to my friends and coworkers should they find me unconscious. Which reminded me yet again that despite the kindness of strangers, despite my overwhelming number of blessings in the form of loving friends, I am no one’s responsibility. If some how, some way, I should have another episode like Friday’s while I’m home alone, I could die. And just when I was chiding myself for being overly dramatic, the pharmacist who very sweetly took the time to show me how to use the meter, said just that. This is very serious, you need to pay close attention to your body, to your meals, to your test results when you are home alone. Because you could die. Which I still think is awfully melodramatic.

The third person to remind me how much sugar is in alcohol got the defensiveness and fear in the form of anger that the first two helped build. These people are worried about me, they’re worried about me getting sick if I drink. I’m worried about me too, it’s just that I’m more worried about going completely fucking insane if I don’t do something to calm my frayed nerves. Sadly, it is my doctor’s concern that I not rely too heavily on anxiety meds when I’m anxious that leads me down the path of least resistance. Still. I hardly think that a few drinks a few times a week constitutes a lecture or any concern, and as far as the sugar? I’m being very careful to eat at least a little something every four hours, per the PA’s instructions. And if I normally enjoy a few drinks, don’t I need to understand how that affects my blood sugar?

The last straw, the very last straw yesterday was the mail. I stayed late at the bar, both because I was enjoying myself and because I have to be able to drive myself home safely and legally, because I can’t just not go home. Because there isn’t anyone to drive me home. I pulled up to my mailbox in the wee hours of the morning and pulled out a postcard with a picture of a beautiful German Shepherd on the front. Adicus is due for his rabies booster. The dam broke, and I sat at the mailbox,  in the opposing lane of traffic in a small break between switchbacks, laid my head on my steering wheel and let my wracking sobs pierce the cool night air.

In one small part of my life, someone else took the wheel yesterday. I turned over the file, put all the information in their hands, and they decided for me, and I let them. The relief washed over me. All the wondering and pondering and doubting and guessing- gone. In one instant. It isn’t that I’m relieved of owning the decision- you are never relieved of ownership- but the removal of power was better than heroin.

I am okay. I will be okay. I know where I’m going. I know how to get there. I know that if I concentrate, I can navigate this current construction zone.

In the same breath, though, I am beyond exhausted. I’m tired of driving. I passed the sign yesterday that says “no more rest stops for 75 miles”, and my limbs felt like lead and my eyes hurt and I could only put the windows down and turn the radio up loud and trust in my own ability to push ahead.

I wonder if I will ever stop missing that sweet loving dog, who, in his own dog way, protected me and looked out for me, who always came to me at the height of my desperation and laid his chin on my thigh with a deep whiny sigh and let my tears wet his fur while he nuzzled me in an attempt to comfort me. I’m here, I know you hurt, I love you, I see you and I hurt, I want to help.

I wonder if I will ever stop feeling cheated for being on my own. I wonder if I will ever find anyone that I can develop enough mutual trust and love with to let them take over when I’m so tired I can’t see straight. I wonder if I’ll ever again have someone to drive me home.

Who’s gonna tell you when
It’s too late
Who’s gonna tell you things
Aren’t so great
You can’t go on
Thinking nothing’s wrong
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight

You can’t go on
Thinking nothing’s wrong
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight
“drive” – the cars

I am of the firm belief that you can’t have one without the other.

Things don’t just fall into your lap. You have to know what to ask for.

Sometimes you ask for things and you never get them. You may make every effort possible, but things just don’t come together.

Every once in awhile, though, you ask for something and it comes forth like manna from heaven.

All of a sudden, you get more than you asked for.

You tell your Daddy that you think you might be joining the pink slip club before the leaves turn, and when you tell him that no, you are not working on your resume, you’re working on a business plan, he gets all proud and excited and thinks it’s perfect.

You tell your friends that you’re tired of working for The Man, and if this Man lets you down, you’re going to blaze your own trail, and they encourage you. They put their support behind you, and they bring opportunity to your table on a silver platter.

Suddenly, everywhere you turn there’s a chance to add a piece to the puzzle.

All because you asked. For the right thing. At the right time. The Universe returns your request with “approved” stamped all over it in big green letters.

At this point, I will be disappointed if that pink slip isn’t as sure of a thing as we all seem to think it is.

Actually if things continue to build momentum at the current rate, it won’t even matter whether or not I receive my freedom or retrieve it forcibly.

Providence. I has it.

A conversation with my Mom (who has nearly reached her pre-chemo insanity levels, if you were wondering) this weekend revolved around my cousin’s reaction to my sister’s impending arrival in my home.

“I heard the girls are moving in together.”

“Yes, they are… <blah, blah, I will spare you because this would probably add 200 words to my post length>”

“Good luck with that.”

I think Mom brought it up because she couldn’t decide whether or not to be offended.

I wasn’t. In the first few months we dated, the wasbund once found it necessary to break up one of our sister fights; pulling me off of her as we both screamed and cried and I beat the tar shit out of her with a tube sock filled with tangerines. In my own defense, I cannot even publish what she said to me to earn that beating. You know if even I won’t put it out there, she got what she deserved.

Anyway. I can’t remember the last time I saw my cousin, but I believe she’s been married twice since then, so since she doesn’t really know either of us as adults, it’s hard to get my feathers ruffled.

What did I take away from this conversation, other than a splitting headache and the urge to cram my Mom in a shoebox and ship her to some third world country?

I think maybe “good luck with that” is the snottiest phrase ever. I know that I employ it frequently when I’m being snarky.

This has been the summer of inescapable wretched mind numbing madness causing heat. The things I’m sure of aren’t happening fast enough, and the uncertainties I’m facing are probably all going to resolve in the same two week span. As a result, I’m crabby.

It’s too hot to eat, too hot to sleep, and there is too much to think about.

So since I feel all crabby and snotty, I figured I’d tell some people “good luck with that“.

Thinking that women with any reasonable amount of self esteem and relationship experience will tolerate your douchebag antics?

Good luck with that.

Screwing with me in terms of my most basic requirements for well being?

Good luck with that.

Acting like you’re kind of a big deal when the only thing you’ve really got is a grandiose sense of self-importance?

Good luck with that.

Continually marrying men even though you know you’re more frigid than a case of Popsicles in a deep freeze?

Good luck with that.

Trying to bully me into solving a problem for you that creates a problem for me?

Good luck with that.

Keeping me in the dark as to your intentions so as to keep me motivated?

Good luck with that.

Bratting the hell out for no good reason and thinking you’re going to escape the requisite calling out I will undoubtedly deliver at the first opportunity?

Good luck with that.

Attempting to capture my attention with the lamest excuse for charm I’ve seen in the past year?

Good luck with that.

Underestimating either of my father’s daughters individually, or unthinkably, both of them united in a common agenda with said father’s backing?

Good luck with that!

We are waiting for destiny. For a collective destiny that breaks into a million pieces of individual fate. For one answer that asks a billion questions. The dread, the waiting- it is as horrible and painful as the answer could be. Worse, because all of the possibilities paralyze us until we know.

We all must make our own way, and we offer each other support and protection from the intrusion of our loved ones, who all think they understand, who all think they know what we will need to do, where we should go, how to pick up the pieces. We also know that focusing on survival, while crucial, minimizes our loss. Our sorrow and pain. We understand that asking those questions is akin to inquiring about funeral arrangements before offering condolences.

If this road ends, I know which turn to make. I sit at the intersection, waiting. Shielding my eyes from the sun, trying to see as far down both paths as I can. Trying and failing to stay neutral, to prepare myself equally for either journey, using the endless details of both roads as a worry stone for my troubled mind.

I’m waiting. Waiting to know whether I should hold on tighter or let go completely. The strain of such an uncertain pose is difficult but not impossible. I try to hide the struggle beneath an opaque veil of dark humor; calm, casual, resigned. Sometimes when the light is just right, that veil is translucent and you can see through it.

What you’re looking at is my heart, soul and mind- my very will- trembling under the weight of uncertainty, approaching failure.

Just like everyone else that waits with me.

A family of the undead, an army of zombies united by our battle scars. The blood, sweat, tears and laughter we’ve shared. Bonded by an agony so intimate that the lines between the individual and the collective blend and blur until they are almost unrecognizable. Both despite and because of the possibility that our story has thirty different endings.

We’re waiting to find out.

I’ve long since been relieved of those duties, or anything pertaining to them, but these people are like Pavlov’s dogs, and every time they have some stupid question (how do I change my withholding? IT’S CALLED A W4. HOW DO YOU OPERATE HERE IN ADULT LAND? SHOULD I FOLLOW YOU TO THE BATHROOM AND WIPE YOUR ASS FOR YOU TOO), they come arunnin’ to the Finance department.

Normally, the venerable B is seated prettily at her desk, right outside my office like a devoted sentry. She’s nicer, and better at acting like she likes people, so they usually whine to her about their boring, silly problems instead of bothering me.

She’s out today, and in a horribly inconvenient juxtaposition, one of my least favorite people in the office is suffering a personal crisis of catastrophic proportion.

My reasons for not liking the guy are several:

- I once claimed a pretty Christmas cookie tin with a note that said “Catherine wants this tin”, which when said five times fast still doesn’t sound like “Catherine wants this freakazoid”, but that’s what he thought it meant when he cornered me in the break room to ask me why I didn’t just tell him how I felt.

- He has a cackle that resounds through our entire office. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and not in a good way.

- He usually cackles as he makes his way through the cube farm, telling everyone who will listen the same lame joke, so that by the time he gets to Marketing (one row south of us in Finance), I could fucking tell it FOR HIM.

- He used to punch me in the arm when we passed each other in the hall. Like I was a teenage boy or something.

- He’s just creepy, and he tells all of us how pretty we are all the time. Which should be a compliment that makes me happy, but whenever he does it, I just imagine him cuddling up to the company directory with a jar of Vaseline. ~shudders~

Anyway. Rumor has it that his marriage ended today. Which is very sad and unfortunate, and I never like to hear of a marriage failing, though it is my understanding that they were merely perpetually engaged (for tax reasons? alimony? child support?), which is slightly less romantic. However. My point is that I am by no means belittling the significance of his crisis.

I still don’t fucking like him, though. So when he came all red-rimmed eyes and wobbly chin to ask me about changing his direct deposit, I answered his question without inquiring further. His disappointment was apparent in the way he sulked off with his figurative (or maybe literal, it wouldn’t surprise me) tail between his legs. It was also apparent when he came back to my office ANOTHER FOUR TIMES to sniffle and ask the same questions.

Hey, asshat? Did I fall sobbing into your arms when my own marriage ended? Natch. I did not. Did I like you yesterday? No, I did not. Do I like you today? No, I do not. Chances for tomorrow? Not lookin’ good. I know you must have a support system back there in Nerdtown (these guys are so undesirable that I refuse to call them geeks, because, well, geeks are guys you might consider dating, and these are bald-mullet-virgins), so go boo-hoo at them.

I don’t fucking like you, and no amount of personal tragedy is going to override my distaste.

I will give you some advice, though…

That pointy weirdo creeper goatee is not going to help you with the ladies when you get back out on the market.

Just sayin.

On a personal level, I hate that you had to be put in the position of finding a job in this economy in order for me to get what I wanted and needed.

I didn’t have anything to do with the decision, as much as I might like to believe otherwise.

Still, isn’t it interesting that I’m still here and you are not? Funny how that worked out.

On a professional level, I will freely admit that you taught me a great deal. You forced me to be the calm voice in our interaction, and that was a talent I had not cultivated before being exposed to your blind panic and reflexive biting. There is no doubt that you were an excellent exercise in character development.

I wish you all the luck in the world in finding a new place to hang your hat. Good luck and godspeed.

I have made myself vulnerable, and I have been ridiculed. People have made bold statements of loyalty, of intention and affection. I chose to believe them. I chose to let their words and their past actions set my expectations for those relationships and their future behavior. In so doing, I chose to let them ridicule me; I allowed them space in my mind and heart, I gave them the power to humiliate, confuse and reject me. The consequences were crushing, to put it mildly.

In the warmth of the desert sun, in the safety of an no man’s land where I play the role of an extra and not a lead or supporting actress, I searched my soul for a solution. For some way to mitigate the pain and shame of being fooled and rejected without losing the light, love and joy of knowing, trusting and caring for my fellow human beings.

Turns out, there is none. Turns out that taking people at face value, that believing what they say, and trusting in their words is the risk we take in loving, or even entertaining the idea of love. It just so happens that you have to let someone in far enough to turn you into a monster of expectation, even if they are going to turn around and refuse to feed the monster they created without your prompting. To add insult to injury, they will hardly ever have the courage to entertain a mature discussion about the change in their intentions or affections; they will almost always leave you with a hungry monster and a painful mystery.

Some have advised me to trust less, to love less, to lower my expectations of people. Human nature certainly supports this course of action- we are all both good and evil, and we often hurt each other whether we intend to or  not, and we seldom have the courage to handle emotional situations with an ounce of grace, compassion and maturity. I have certainly created and neglected a few monsters of my own. There is wisdom in having lower expectations, in charging a higher price for real estate in my heart and mind.

That just isn’t who I am, though. Never has been. After all the heartache, after all the humiliation and wondering and waiting and hoping and crying and wishing for a simple explanation- thirty years worth- I find myself in the very same place. Heart wide open, with great expectations.

I’m sitting here, at my desk in the visitor’s cube in our sister office. Looking at the pretty purple flowers my friend surprised me with this morning. Giggling and lunching with the girls I went out with last night. Remembering the people I met on this trip, enjoying the people I know and love more and more with every visit. Missing a dear friend who recently left the desert for his true homeland. Looking forward to my morning flight from Atlanta to Asheville, to watching the Appalachians rise from the Piedmont and catching my first glimpse of home. Fielding instant messages, emails, calls and texts from the people I know I can truly count on in this world. Marveling at the contrast between people who make grand statements that almost always disappoint and the people who show their affection in beautiful tiny ways- with english muffins and pretty purple flowers, by making a phone call to see if I got home okay and simply saying “I care about you, you’re a great girl, you deserve a lot”.

It’s not a bad place to be, on the whole.

And yes, I do deserve a lot. Because I am a great girl. So maybe, just maybe, if I keep my heart wide open, I shall have it someday.

You’re of the opinion that I don’t know my place. I won’t deny that, but I’m amused that you see it that way when I’ve spared you the bulk of it. If only you knew…

I don’t know my place. I’m outspoken and I establish relationships with key people, and I can and will use those ties to my advantage each and every time I go to battle.

Maybe you haven’t noticed this yet, but I don’t enter into a battle if I’m not pretty damn sure I can capture the flag. Maybe you also missed the memo on bad things happening to people who try to make trouble for me to distract from their own weaknesses and failings.

I have suffered you for this long, and I will continue to suffer you for as long as it suits me to do so. Just know this: you may think that because your little box is over mine on the org chart that you have the upper hand, and maybe in a small way that is true, but I am using that very assumption to destroy you. You aren’t even going to see it coming, until you’re flat on your ass and seeing stars.

It didn’t have to be this way. You could have played nice. You could have played fair. You could have earned my respect, and I would have moved heaven and earth to make us both look good. You made this decision, not me, and you’re about to see exactly what a poor decision it was.

Which begs the question- could it be, perhaps, that you didn’t know my place?

Bring.  It.

no love and certainly no kisses,

one hell of a wolf in a sweet little lamb costume.