The Elephant In The Room

Real change does not happen over time. Real change comes about in a heartbeat. As the Teutonic Heidi Klume says so lovingly: “One day you are in & the next day you are out…”

I don’t know how to articulate the profound changes to my life in the past 5 days. Indeed, I am legally hand-tied from saying certain things. I very rarely posted anything about my employment, never identifying the company I worked for on my little place on the Internet or on the Facebook, or even hinting at what service I provided.

Except for the very short few months when we landed in Portland in autumn of 2001, I have not been without a ‘day job” for 44 years. My last job lasted for a decade until last Thursday, just days away from my 10^thanniversary, when I was abruptly laid off.

By a series of little miracles, I am able to not panic financially. Living frugally & with some degree of cunning, I will be able to survive for the next year & possibly beyond.

I have not had more than 5 days is a row away from the job that ate my life in the last decade. Really. So immediately, I started in on serious deep decompression. I am finally giving myself that full week off that I never had, after which, I am setting out on new adventures, attempting to make money from my writing & very possibly dipping my toe back into the show biz waters.


I am giving in, at last, to being a true Portlander: raising chickens, growing some of my own food, riding a bike, starting a band, & hopefully in the summer of 2013, if there is a summer of 2013, opening my own small coffee cart/shop in beautiful, historic Downtown Kenton, my own neighborhood & the location of The Husband’s new incarnation of his popular Downtown Portland pop-up shop- Boys’ Fort.

Boys' Fort 2: Beyond Thunderdome

But for now, I am throwing myself fully into being, like my idol- Ann Romney, a Stay-At-Home-Mom: having Post Apocalyptic Bohemia looking perfect for The Husband’s return, tending the garden, getting Junior to his ballet class & Lulu to soccer practice, off to the gym then to a fitting, having martinis at 3pm & doing some volunteer work, possibly reading stories to underprivileged homosexuals.

I need to re-do my acting resume, work on a business plan, & look at equipment for my own little neighborhood spot. I am thinking a coffee shop/gloryhole named Slurp.