Unless the boss of me or the buyer gets hit by the bus, the sale of the company will be complete on July 29. I should be out of here by August 20.
While I knew it was coming, none of us knew when, because things like this usually take years. I was not enjoying the state of flux.
I knew a few weeks ago that there was a buyer on the hook, and we’ve been waiting to see how it would play out. When I got to work yesterday, shit got real.
I was unnaturally calm all day long, and was expecting a full freakout at about 4 this morning, but it never came. Instead I woke up with a migraine, which I guess is even better.
I’m not sure I’d recognize a full freakout anyway, since I’ve never had one.
I’ve been positioning myself for this since I knew the company was going on the market, so it’s not devastating, but it is, as I mentioned before, weird to be suddenly untethered.
I do not know what I’m going to do now. I do not know where I’m going to work. I do not even really know what I really want to do.
I have been so very fortunate that friends have leapt forward to help, asking for my resumé and ushering it along, giving me excellent references, coaching me in what to do and how to do it. The last time I was looking for a job, I typed my resumé on a typewriter and faxed it in a copy carrier.
The refinance of the house went well and cut my mortgage considerably.
My brother has been here taking my bathroom apart and putting it back together, having discovered that the joist under the tub was about a millimeter from having me bathe in the crawl space, and tending to other things at my house that need tending. And just being altogether wonderful.
In the middle of it, we got to spend a good bit of time with my cousin Lynn as we planned her parents’ 50th anniversary party, and there is nothing – NOTHING – like your childhood pal.
Today I checked into how much health insurance costs if I have to go it alone, and I can, indeed, afford it. I’ll need it, because if you’re a migraineur, you take a lot of pills. Tomorrow is my Botox for Migraines shot, so I’ll be good for that for another three months.
There are just lots of details to tend to.
Everyone has been so wonderful to me (especially Cameron, who will tell you that he’s done nothing), and once again, I’m driven to say that I am the luckiest person in the world. If there’s even one person who’s luckier than I am, I want to shake that person’s hand.
Tom Petty is the conduit for all true knowledge in the universe.
Last night I spent the night at Daddy and Maryellen’s, and my little niece, Kara, wanted to spend the night.
I said, “If you spend the night, you’re going to have to sleep with me, and I talk in my sleep.”
She said she talks in her sleep too.
Then daddy said, “If you spend the night here, you’re going to have to sleep with me and Maryellen, and I’m going to put my teeth on the pillow beside you to bite you if you don’t be quiet.”
My brother is here and we were up at the tile store all the way in Dunwoody, which we crawled through traffic to get to.
I happened to mention that it was free doughnut day, because we like doughnuts and hey, free doughnuts!
But he didn’t seem moved about it, so I dropped it.
We went to dinner and we’re back home now.
So I was sitting in my pre-casket and he was sitting on the couch and I said, “Now I want my free doughnut.”
And here is what he said, “I thought you were lying about the free doughnuts.”
Now why the hell would I lie about free doughnuts?
I had three friends several years ago and things went sourish.
Actually, it was just one of them that went sour, but she took the other ones with her, and, well, you know how things are.
Every now and again, I wonder what the tipping point was because we were good friends, or at least (as it turns out) good acquaintances – normal friend things: grilling out at each others’ houses, movies, dinner, that sort of thing.
A week or so ago, I was sitting at the red light at the corner of Piedmont and Monroe, watching the people at the gas station there, coming in and out of the little store, and it all became clear to me.
The day it all went south, we had had a tennis match. It was hotter than the hammered-down hinges of Hell, and we’d been out there from 10 until 4, and we’d all had three-set matches. We were planning to go directly to IKEA afterwards.
On the way there, we stopped at that gas station, and sour girl said, “does anybody want anything from in there?”
I piped up from the back seat and said, “Yes. I’d like a Three Musketeers and a Coke in a can, please, and whatever anybody else wants,” and handed over a twenty.
I remember distinctly that this caused some consternation, because she said, “Seriously? You want something?” and I said, “Well, you asked, and I’m hot and thirsty and a little low.”
She went in and got it, but she was pissy about it.
So I guess it was a courtesy offer and I was supposed to have the courtesy to decline. But I am not a mindreader, despite the fact that I have brown hair and brown eyes.
And anyway, I did not know it was bad manners to take someone up on an offer.
I do not understand courtesy offers and courtesy invitations, though I am aware that people make them all the time. As far as I can tell the people you don’t want to say yes always do.
Now that I’ve figured it all out, I’m right tickled with myself.
I have no idea who this woman is, but you should read this post.
On Monday, someone set off some bombs at the Boston Marathon.
Now it is Friday, and thanks to the wonders of modern telecommunications, I and 300 million of my best friends are all watching together as the Boston PD, the Massachusetts State Police, the FBI, SWAT, and various other agencies are on the verge of arresting who we hope is the second suspect in that bombing.
A man is hiding in a boat in a backyard. He’s in there and he’s alive. Scott Pelley just asked (more or less), “We’ve been watching this for about an hour now. Is it safe to say if this were nothing, we wouldn’t still be here?”
The first time I remember this happening – this overwhelming feeling of we are all in this together apart – was back in 1990, during the Persian Gulf War, which we all called Desert Storm.
I remember that I was sitting on the floor in my closet, sorting my shoes, talking on the phone with my friend Michael, and we both had televisions on and heard, simultaneously, George Bush proclaim, “The liberation of Kuwait has begun.”
And just like that, everything was different. He came over and we sat and watched the war on television like it was a baseball game. Everybody did, every day.
Of course, we didn’t have the internet then, so we didn’t know what our friends across town were thinking, let alone people around the world.
Now we do know, and it’s overwhelming, coming at me all day, every day. The grief is unspeakable, the horror unimaginable.
Things move so quickly now that as soon as suspects were named, there was a statement from their father, in Chechnya.
Boston was shut down in a matter of seconds because social media allows that.
And then the old-fashioned door-to-door search began.
I and people all over the place are watching on television and computers and iPads and phones what’s going on.
Earlier today, police asked that people stop tweeting their locations, because the remaining suspect might be using the information to elude them. We take in information faster than we can regurgitate it, it seems.
Now we are all transfixed on a Google Maps image of a boat with a cover on it in Watertown, me and all my friends.
We are all in this together apart.
The thing about knowing that you’re not going to have a job is knowing that you’re not going to have a job.
One day. Not today, or tomorrow, or next week, but, you know, one day.
It’s kinda like circling the airport for hours and hours and hours, waiting to be cleared for landing – you know you’re going to be, eventually, but meanwhile, the little light is on that says you have to stay in your seat and you’re a little panicky about maybe having to go to the bathroom.
I’ve been doing some things to prepare for my upcoming vocational dislocation – sensible, practical things, like working on refinancing the house so my monthly note will be considerably lower, getting a homeowner’s warranty because the refrigerator is making a noise that doesn’t sound good at all.
I’ve also been working on my resumé. I have friends who have looked at it and told me things like, “that sounds old-fashioned,” and “couldn’t you find a better way to say this?”
The last time I put my resumé out, there was no internet. Not available to the general public, anyway. I had to type it up on one of the very first Macs and print it out on paper and fax it to people, and then follow it with a “hard copy” in the US Mail, along with a nice cover letter.
This time, because of the internet, I know people all over the place and am able to seek advice and gather information I would never have had access to before. It’s a lot less lonely than it could have been. I’m terribly fortunate to have so many people to call on.
The boss of me has put the company on the market.
It might be a few weeks or it might be several months, but soon I’m going to be loose in the world, untethered for the first time in my whole life.
I’ve been tied to deadlines of the work variety since I was 14.
I am, of course, scared to death. I have bills to pay and obligations to meet.
I am also crazily excited. Publishing, as I know it, doesn’t really exist any more, so I can’t go home again.
I started tending to some grown folks’ bidness today, getting my affairs in order to make the transition as easy as possible, and that felt good and right.
So. There you go. It’s all out in the open and we can talk about it.
According to Chinese Tradition, today is the birthday of all dogs.
Happy birthday, puppy!
Just like a Slattery 