It also gives me super crazy dreams.

My dreams have always been very vivid, and have never made much sense (when held to the standards, of say, viable fiction or the waking world), but this is getting… ridiculous.

Thursday night, I had a dream that I woke up and there was a cheetah in my living room. It had baby kitten cheetahs. My house cats were carrying baby cheetahs around in their mouths. I was the only one who was bewildered- they were all “yeah, we have a cheetah now, and it has babies. get with it, already.” I fed the house cats, and the cheetah wandered into the kitchen and started head-butting me in the thigh, so I pulled a steak out of the fridge (I don’t generally *keep* steak on hand, but I had one in my dream), and hand-fed her. She rubbed her big cat cheetah muzzle against my hand, and I was worried about what might happen if she served up a love bite, the way the house cats do when they’re being snuzzled on. Before I could find out, I woke up.

Last night? Last night takes the cake.

My Dad stole a baby for me.

I was in bed, fast asleep, when my Dad let himself into my house. He put a baby in my bed, and I tried to question him, and he said we would discuss it when he’d had some sleep. I moved some pillows around, moved to the middle of the bed, and went back to sleep. Holding a baby.

When we woke up in the morning, I asked Daddy if he had anything to feed the baby, and he jumped up.

“Yeah, I stole the diaper bag too. I know about babies. There’s some formula in there.”

“Okay, Dad? Why did you steal me a baby?”

“You said that I couldn’t give you babies, but I figured out how. It’s gonna be great- the Mom looks a lot like you.”

“But, Dad, what I said was that you can’t be the only man I need because I would like to have a family someday. Someday, Dad, with a husband. What the hell am I going to do with a baby? Do you know how hard it’s going to be to raise a baby on my own? And this is going to make dating awkward, to say the very least…”

“Well, you can’t return a stolen baby.”

“Dad, how am I going to afford this kid? Babies need stuff. Tons and tons of stuff, and I have to work, and I can’t take a baby to work.”

“I’ll give you some money, but you can’t return a stolen baby.”

Then I realized the the formula he was talking about had been premixed and sat out in the car all night, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t good anymore. My father then suggested that if I tried hard enough to nurse the baby that “nature would take its course”.

I woke up in a cold sweat.

Part of me wants to stop drinking the tea, and the other part can’t wait to find out what weirdo dream it will give me next.

** there is not even the slightest possibility that I am pregnant. this was suggested to me by a coworker, who now sports a bruise on his shin. **

Truthfully, I do not share everything. There are details, facets, situations, realities that I do not reveal in this public space. A girl has to keep some secrets, especially when she’s dating, working for a corporation, and facing the very real possibility of building a business clientele.

Why, then, do I choose to share things others would keep private?

I could tell you that my parents prized honesty above nearly all else. To the extent that my punishments were doubled for lying about my transgressions. I could tell you that sharing helps me to let go, that in telling you these stories I am better able to put them in perspective. I could say that I’m kind of an attention-whore. I might tell you that one of my favorite quotes is: “A story untold could be the one that kills you.” - Pat Conroy. All of those things would be true.

They are all secondary to the biggest truth.

I need to be seen and heard, that I might be understood.

I need to reclaim the pride I have in who I am, what I’ve seen, and where I come from.

If I hide these things from you, from the world, I also hide them from myself.

My three o’ clock in the morning voices tell me that these stories, these hurts, these shames are the reason I will never be truly loved. They whisper that these stories are proof of my unworthiness, of my brokenness, of my failure. They remind me that the people who love and appreciate me do so because they don’t know yet- they haven’t seen me as I am. They convince me that these stories are my fault, my doing, the result of being defective somehow.

So I lay there in the twilight, in the dark darkness and let them torture me. I believe them. I cry and gasp and let myself become convinced that no one could ever love me properly if they really knew me. I take the blame and the shame as my blankets- warm and comforting with their familiar weight. I believe their story, those awful voices, and I cry myself to sleep.

I wake up with puffy red rimmed eyes and an overwhelming urge to construct an insurmountable wall between myself and the world around me. To insulate myself from more disappointment, rejection, pain and sorrow.

There is, for me,  only one way to survive that, to avoid falling down a rabbit hole of anxiety, depression and paranoia.

I have to hold that story up to the light. I have to write it out, write it down, release it to the scrutiny of theme and sensation and narrative. I have to give it to you, to myself, to the collective. Shame can’t survive the light. It dissolves, it melts away. As soon as I hit publish, the shame is gone.

Then you read it, and you comment, you email me, you tweet me, you send me messages on Facebook. You empathize, sympathize, encourage, confess. I kill the shame, and then you fill that space with love, insight, solidarity, support and encouragement.

When I get a little disclosure remorse, which does happen from time to time, I only have to think of one of the emails I’ve received from complete strangers who take a moment out of their own busy and complicated lives to share their feelings, their reactions, their own stories. It mattered to them, and that is worth whatever disadvantage being so open brings.

Thanks for helping me set my secrets free.

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…

So I packed my favorite stuffed animals and sweaters into my Strawberry Shortcake suitcase, strapped on my roller skates and broke the news to my Mom….

…who promptly fixed me a sandwich, patted me on the ass and wished me good luck.

I don’t remember how long I stayed away. I remember finding a place to eat my sandwich and throwing myself a pity party.

Apparently, I go through this every twenty four years.

I’m planning an escape. Just for a few days.

Twenty four years later, I have a much nicer suitcase and a car in lieu of roller skates.

Also, there will be no pity party. Just some general hiding out, picture-taking and writing and maybe some wine drinking. Also, air conditioning.

Anyone wanna make me a sandwich and pat me on the ass? 

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

Remember the Nature of All Cats

You know how a cat acts like it wants to be petted, and just when you’re really starting to enjoy running your hand down her back she turns around and bites you? Don’t let it get to that point. If I never wonder where you are, or why you aren’t around to pet me, I will bite you. It’s just too much, a weird kind of sensory overload. Don’t disappear, but on the other hand, if I never have to wonder where you are? I’m probably not thinking about you at all when we’re not in the middle of a conversation, and that’s bad news bears.

Hold On Loosely

Here’s the thing. I am expecting you to set the tone and pace of our interaction, and my transmission does not have a reverse gear. So don’t let your mouth write checks that your heart won’t cash. If you want things to be light and casual, then keep them that way. If you take things into “serious” territory, you better be damn well ready for it. Getting too serious too quickly will just leave me thinking “this has nowhere to go but downhill”. That probably isn’t what you’re going for. So take it slow, because there’s no going back. Unless you mean “back into the dating pool“.

Show No Fear

I can smell weakness, and I’m more likely to forgive body odor. Seriously. Everyone has bad days, doubts, challenges, flaws that they’re sensitive and self conscious about, and I’m ready and willing to support you in your weak moments. Any longer than a moment, and I start wondering if I’m the stronger of the pair. That isn’t what I’m looking for. I can’t make you love and believe in yourself, and if you don’t love and believe in yourself you are not capable of loving and believing in me. Plus it kills any and all sexual desire I may have ever had for you if you are always wringing your hands about something. You are a man, so fucking act like one, already.

Tease Gently

Pigtail-pulling is cool. Being just a little adversarial and aggressive will earn you high marks with me, because I’m complicated like that. Just know that when you hit a nerve and you hurt my feelings, it isn’t flirting anymore. It’s you being a giant asshat, and I’m likely to return your serve with a critique of my own. You weren’t trying to be mean (probably), but I will be trying to be mean. So just be careful. (No, I won’t be sorry when you accidentally hurt my feelings and my retort sends you back into therapy. Should have known better, buddy.)

You’re in Charge

I’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Don’t ask me to make all the decisions. Don’t even ask me to make half of the decisions. If we’re going to dinner, and I have to decide where to go, I will choose to stay home, wear yoga pants and eat cereal for dinner. That’s a private show you won’t be invited to. If I’m craving something, I will let you know. Asking me to pick the place before I know you well puts me in the awkward position of reconciling my own expensive taste with an educated guess about your budget and tolerance of my expensive taste. Plus I don’t know what you like. Asking me once I do know you well is just irritating. I’m not good at making small decisions like this, and I care much, much more about my dinner company than what is on my plate. Choice are good. As in, “chinese or mexican?”. I can handle choices.

One of the Best Dates I Ever Had

He picked me up on time. We chatted on our way to the restaurant, I think he told me where we were headed as he drove. I offered to help with the dinner bill*, he flatly refused. We walked down the street to the bar and had a few drinks over a lively conversation. When he dropped me off, he followed me in without asking or hesitating. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, he took it. Later, he helped me find my earring and let himself out.**

* I only offered to help with the bill because I could expense my dinner. So, I wasn’t even paying. The company would have. You ask me out, you’re paying, and I don’t care if it’s Subway sandwiches on a blanket in the park, but you’re paying. Why? Because you don’t have to shave your legs (and other things), get your eyebrows waxed, or buy bras. That’s why. I’ll cook you dinner and give you good presents and reward your generosity, but you’re paying the first few times and if you so much as glance at me when the check comes, it will be the last time we eat together.

**I don’t sleep with people on the first few dates.  Sorry. Catch me when I’m sitting at a hotel bar, or when I already decided a long time ago that if the opportunity presented itself I wouldn’t hesitate. I’m just not that kind of girl. On a date, anyway.

I could not have been more wrong.

On Wednesday night I stole a few moments alone in the garden. The scent of jasmine was heavy in the warm night air, the sky was clear and the stars were surprising bright. It was an incredible night, and I cried, because I knew that I enjoyed it less without someone to hold my hand. I’ve struggled with that overriding feeling that something is missing in those quiet moments. The feeling that I’m waiting for someone seems so shameful and pathetic and flies in the face of what many people expect from a strong and independent woman.

The truth is, though, that I’ve had someone to hold my hand for the entirety of my adult life, and the ache that fills that space is undeniable. I decided then and there to stop hating myself for it and just accept that love is incredibly important to me and I’m struggling in learning how to live without it.

Thursday night I met face to face with people I’ve known and loved through a computer screen for years. The experience mirrored one of those huge family reunions where you run into someone, explain who your parents are, and find out that they knew you as a baby.

Later that night, I was struck with an urge to do something that was completely out of character for me just a few years ago. I was ill prepared for the opportunity, enough so that it was just not a good idea whatsoever. It was disappointing, but I accepted that sometimes following my heart in the moment is not always what is best for me. I resolved, figuratively and literally, to start keeping some panties in my purse so that I can seize opportunity without showing my ass.

On Friday, I fell in love. I fell in love with myself again. My skin felt like a comfortable place to be for the first time in a month. I fell in love with the world again, the collective, that innate understanding that no one person or thing is a large enough vessel for all the love and passion I have to give. My heart finally understood what my mind had been trying to say all along- that what I’m missing is a small slice of an otherwise rich and delicious pie.

Saturday’s photo scavenger hunt was an absolute blast, and I truly enjoyed running with the pack and taking the grand prize. Victory was sweet, but I also realized that while being a part of a team is an awesome and necessary thing sometimes, I will always hold myself to an individual standard.

After the race, R and I grabbed a drink at one of the bars in our hotel. It was there that I got a good hard look at a couple that love each other enough to do whatever it takes. Regardless of time, distance or outside obligation, they wake up every morning committed to being there for each other. I found my faith in love again in the way they looked at each other, and the affection and admiration that was a visible current of energy between them.

Later that night, I found myself walking through that same garden holding someone’s hand. He was sweet, charming and handsome. I will never see him again, and that’s okay.  I realized as we watched the flamingos sleep that what I want for myself isn’t just a hand to hold. If it were, I would and could have it- it isn’t hard to find someone to hold your hand in this life.

Twelve hours later, I finally found myself on an airplane. I also found myself in a lively discussion about trust, love, marriage and money. We agreed on almost all points of discussion. He admitted that he is somewhat ambivalent about having children- he’s seen the way that his brother’s life has changed, and it intimidates him.  Then he admitted that if he found the right girl, he knew he would want to settle down. He knew he would want to make a family with her. That he was really just waiting for the girl he couldn’t imagine not marrying and having a family with.

That, my darlings, is what I want. A mutual inspiration and connection that defies fear and doubt, that compels both people to wake up every morning and love each other more. That missing piece of the pie needs to be as rich and delicious as the rest of it is.

Remembering that on the deepest level imaginable was exactly what I needed, because ironically, it allowed me to let go and shift my attention to the rest of the pie.

Which is, after all, very rich and delicious.

I will be entirely too busy laying by the pool during the day and causing trouble at night to post here.

Last night, while I was packing, I tried to remember the last time I had a real vacation. A going somewhere just because not seeing family not camping not a long distance date not a business trip longer than a long weekend vacation.  I believe it was the beach trip of 2007.

Not only is this my first vacation in three years, and not only am I traveling with a bestie, but I am unbelievably over the moon heart aflutter excited to be meeting some absolutely fabulous faces whose hearts I already know.

This trip could not come at a better time. I need an escape. I need a distraction. I need a new point of travel reference that doesn’t include a big ol’ mystery that still haunts me at three in the morning. I need to not be a waswife, an employee, a homeowner, a excrazyfacesomethingorother, I need to not be Catherine for a little while. I need to spend a few days being a verybadcat.

Can you think of a better place to accomplish all of those things?

I can’t.

(many thanks to the illustrious B, who is so mired in sandal-searching, housekey-keeping, kitteh-foster-mom’ing and airport shuttling that she will probably be the happiest bestie of the three of us when our plane takes off…)

“well I don’t know, but I’ve been told
you never slow down, you never grow old
I’m tired of screwin’ up, tired of going down
tired of myself, tired of this town…”

-tom petty “mary jane’s last dance“

I took the damn thing one more time to see if I could get an answer, and lo and behold, this test gives you percentages. My percentages were 52% Judging and 48% Perceiving. (Interestingly, my Thinking percentage was 55% and my Feeling percentage was 45%, and I would have thought that margin would have been the thinnest one.) It’s rather strange to be on the dividing line between the two extremes of rigid and flexible. As odd as it sounds, I need a careful balance between order and chaos. I like openness and flexibility, but I can’t really embrace it without a solid framework of order.

For instance, I don’t do well with schedules and itineraries on trips, vacations and weekends, but the preparation for trips and vacations requires at least six pages of notebook paper and I always clean the house to within an inch of its life before I leave. I have to know that I have everything I need, I have to know that I’m coming home to a clean and orderly home. Once I have those things ordered I can welcome the flexibility and chaos in my free time. Or something like that.

I found this incredibly interesting…

The first sentence of the INTJ description: “As an INTJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. Your secondary mode is external, where you deal with things rationally and logically.”

The first sentence of the INTP description: As an INTP, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you deal with things rationally and logically. Your secondary mode is external, where you take things in primarily via your intuition.”

No wonder I get so damn conflicted! It must all depend on my mood.

My Mom almost ended up with a nose full of Diet Coke when I told her I was an introvert. Right up until the part when I explained that it isn’t about how outgoing you are, it’s all about what recharges your batteries. Being fabulous in public is exhausting ya’ll, and a girl needs some down time to make sense of it all. Which is probably why I’m sitting at home on a Saturday night with a bottle of Grey Goose instead of out on the town. I’m saving all of my fabulous for Vegas.

She was also shocked to hear that I’m a thinker and not a feeler, to which I responded: “Oh, come on- I follow my heart when I absolutely have to. If I did it any more often, I would be twice as crazy as I already am, and I would get into twice as much trouble.” Then I got angry with her for agreeing with me a little too easily.

I once described my decision making process for someone: “it’s almost always the same song: my gut can go either way, but my brain tells me to slow the fuck down before i crash, and my heart says go, go like the wind, and my wallet says “feed me”. i usually go with my heart unless my gut gets in the way, but i pretend that i’m slowing down to placate my brain. done. next?”

The thing about logic versus intuition, though, is that using one method exclusively is just too damn limiting. So much can influence our intuition- we see what we want to see, we find what we seek- but the sole use of logic would deny me those incredible experiences that life is really made of.

At least that’s how this INTJ/P sees it.

These questions were posed to me, and I think the flippant answer to the first question is that love is a damn tournament.

The answer to the second question is a little more complicated, and I think it lends itself to the deeper answer on the former question. If love is a chess game, what is checkmate? If love is a game at all, then are there winners and losers? Does the idea of lovers as chess opponents not set the worst tone from the beginning; a competitive and adversarial one?

In that sense, love is most certainly not a game.

There are some valuable parallels. Games require the skill of strategy and a good bit of luck. Loving, the act of loving, is a strategy in and of itself. In the simplest form, when you act on your love, you are using strategy. How do I express my feelings? In a way that is comfortable for me? In the manner I most enjoy showing love? In a way that I think will garner the most powerful reaction? Conflict resolution is also a strategic endeavor.  What am I willing to compromise on? How far will that get me?

You could, of course, decide not to think and analyze and ponder and run solely on instinct and intuition. The funny thing about running your love life on instinct is that your failures give you a lot of time to critique your game. Not to mention that if you make your moves based on instinct, that itself is a strategy.

People are drawn to strategy in love. They are playing with their hearts, and when you lose it hurts, and so they grasp for something that engages their logic. This is how women become Rules Girls, and men resort to Game and The System. It’s an easy sell, mostly because the principals of each strategy have a lot of merit. They play off of the basics of human nature. We treasure something more when it is scarce, we place a higher value on that which is harder to obtain. The human mating dance is still driven by evolution, at its subconscious and basic level, and so many of the concepts of these logical strategies are very useful and will oftentimes bring their desired results.

The desired result being a favorable reaction from the other person and a sense of control for the person utilizing the strategy.

So much of our words and actions in love are driven by emotion. Practically anything that gives us pause and forces us to take a more mindful approach serves an important purpose- a widening of perspective beyond our own hearts.

The problem, though, with The Rules and The System and Game is that they take it too far. A hard and fast following of the principals of any one strategy discounts that which is the essence of love- that irrational drive and raw emotion. They also discount the fact that the other person is playing a game without a copy of the rule book; their reactions to your strategy don’t have that crucial knowledge behind them. Misunderstandings abound when you don’t realize the difference between someone who is being a Challenge and someone who is changing their mind and heart, or just being a dick.

So, yes. Love is a game. There is no checkmate, because in the game of love the whole point is to set the other player up with a winning move, not a losing one. The reason for that subtle difference is that you’re playing a high stakes game that you can only really win if the other player wins too. In love, if you get to checkmate, you’ve actually lost right along with the other person.

Just sayin.