Closing the Circle on 42.

Well, it's the first anniversary of my little 42. blog, and I think it's a good time to close shop here.

I've got a decent number of entries for the year, and this blog is testament to the tremendous life changes I've created and/or experienced in the last year, including:

--relocating from my lifelong home of Nebraska to one of the Top 5 largest cities in the US

--quitting a job I worked at for 19 years and thought I would probably work at until I retired or they laid me off (more on that in a sec)

--realizing that I need to take control of my career, rather than assume a corporation is going to do so

--leaving immediate family as well as friends (some of whom I've had since high school) for a city where I knew no one, and finding out I can still make new friends, even in my 40s

--confirming my lifelong assumption that I truly did marry my best friend, and that we'll celebrate 20 years of this event in September 2013

--transitioning (over the last six years, though it was all part of a process) from an 1,800+ square foot house with two-car garage that we owned, to a two- bedroom apartment we rented in the downtown of an urban area (a huge transition in and of itself), to a one-bedroom apartment we rented in a major urban area, and realizing it's all for the better and what I really wanted all along but was afraid to say so

--getting rid of my car and ceasing to be a regular driver, for the first time in 28 years. It's been almost ten months since I last drove a car and I couldn't be happier!

--learning that it's not too late for a do-over, and that old (or middle-aged) dogs still can learn new tricks

--finding my voice, in more ways than one

The closing of this blog comes at a good time. I started a new job this week, as you know, and it is terrific so far (and amazing to me, if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I could do it). Also, I learned just yesterday that my former employer (parent company) has sold the life insurance subsidiary I used to work for, to a third party from the UK. As a result, many of my friends have lost/will be losing their jobs, and I am sad for them, but also happy for myself that I chose to separate from the company on my own terms.

(Not that I blame anyone who didn't handle it the way I did. It was generally a decent place to work and they made it easy to stay there. This is something all of us have seen before, on some level, and we knew/know it was/is always a possibility. I hope the company honors the severance packages it has traditionally offered in situations like this. My 20th anniversary with the company would have been in May, had I still been there, and while I would have enjoyed the Movado watch I was going to get, I promise you that I enjoy my new life outside of the company even more.There IS life after the "Hands" company, and it's good. You'll see. Best of luck to you all.)

Boycat just pee'd on the bed, which is also appropriate (or at least expected) in light of his recent circumstances. Sigh. It's always something.

But before I go, a couple more brief comments.

Keeping 42. for a year has helped me work through many issues in a way that only writing things down can do. Several years ago, Mr. 42's mom gifted us with a copy of an amazing book called Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Klauser. She had read it and talked about the "proof" of it she had experienced in her life. Mr. 42 and I both read it and began putting it to work.

The author ascribes the power of it to a more "spiritual" influence than I probably would, being an atheist (or agnostic, depending on which day you ask me), but I have always been a firm believer in the power of the written (or typed) word. Many times I have observed that I and others can speak our truth through the written word in a way that we can't articulate verbally, even to people we love and trust. Sometimes it means we speak this truth only to ourselves, but often it is only to ourselves that it needs to be spoken to. That is the lesson I took away from Write it Down. If you want to believe that putting your intentions on paper sends them out into the universe (or to God, or to the Gods and Goddesses) in such a way that they simply must happen, I'm okay with that. As I said above, depending on what day you ask me, that might be the explanation I would give, too. Other days, it seems that writing things down (or typing them, even) helps YOU as the writer to clarify what you really want. It makes you focus on something in a way that helps it transition from being a pleasant, occasional passing thought ("Wouldn't it be nice if ...") to something you have thought about, written about, clarified, confirmed and are now making plans for.

Writing it down doesn't mean it will happen right away, or in exactly the way you had planned. This is how Philadelphia happened for us. We had our sights set on Boston, and life threw us a few curveballs that meant that wasn't going to happen when we wanted. What we didn't know at that time was that things wouldn't happen in Boston at all, but having lived here in Philly for ten months now, I am positive we ended up in the place where we were meant to live. (XOXO to Boston friends. Let's get together soon!)

What took place throughout that process (and for a good six months before we even began telling people of our plans): thoughts about what we wanted in a new city and how we wanted to live when we got here. Articulated on paper. Written down, more than once, across several notebooks and in two laptops. Refined and revised and reaffirmed, constantly.

Here in Philadelphia, a full 25 months after our notes about moving and starting a new and different life in a big city first began, I am here to tell you: it works!

Thanks to everyone who has followed this blog and taken time to comment or even just "like" on FB. I plan to take a short blogging break before beginning anew somewhere else (probably in Tumblr and in a completely different frame of mind).  Cheers!--Ms. 42

My Last Day of Freedom

Today is my last (week) day of freedom. I return to work full-time on Monday, 7/15.

As excited as I am about the new job and about getting back into a regular routine, and in spite of the occasional stress of not having a full-time income since early September 2012, I'm feeling a bit sad today for the loss of my free time that will come next week.

All this past week, Mr. 42 and I have been doing fun stuff that we won't be able to do when I'm working full-time again:

Mr. 42 and a fresh pitcher of Pimms and Sunshine, National Mechanics

• Leisurely lunches at off hours that included beer
• Getting tipsy in the late afternoon before Happy Hour even starts 
• Two karaoke nights
• Our first trip to the King of Prussia Mall, which is America's largest shopping center. It ended up being a seven-hour ordeal for which we had little to show but a couple of shirts from a clearance rack. Three of those seven hours were spent on buses to get there and back. The mall was huge but just a typical mall, which means 85% of the stores are ones I'll never set foot in--clothes for kids and teens, baby goods, home furnishings and decor that are not my style, etc. Another 2% were large department stores, all of which had many of the same things. The other 13% were stores that we have here in Center City within walking distance. Neither of us see any need to revisit the KOP anytime soon. (If we can't find something here in Center City, it probably means we don't need it.)
• Boring but important errands I ran on weekday mornings and afternoons that can suck up entire weekends, like getting haircuts, going to the drugstore, grocery shopping, etc. 

Still on tap: a weekday movie matinee today; walking up to my new office in order to time the walk and see what interesting shops and restaurants are in the area; painting or crafting of some kind.

I wouldn't say I've made particularly good use of my time off. I didn't complete any major projects people always say they will do, like writing a novel. I didn't establish a regular exercise routine. My apartment is not organized from top to bottom nor free of any specks of dust. 

A series of miniature paintings I completed in June

I haven't entirely wasted that time, either. I got some arts and crafts done that were very satisfying. I did lots of writing, both here and for my freelance job. I read some great books and saw some amazing movies. I went to some concerts that were fantastic. I learned how to code in HTML, as opposed to just not goofing up the existing code. I learned basic Javascript and Prezi. I explored my new city and learned how to get around in it, on foot, by train and by bus. I have new favorite restaurants, bars and museums I will visit again and again. I met lots of people and made some new friends. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want and don't want in my life.

One of the best books I've read in a while

A Prezi I created as a demo for potential employers

To be honest, there was not as much "leisure time" in there as I expected. Hunting for a job really is a full-time job. Some online job applications take an hour or more to complete, even if you already have all your past job info, salary history and reference contact info lined up. Phone interviews and face-to-face interviews require a great deal of preparation. Plus, I still had (and will have) my part-time/freelance job, seven days a week.  

In this last month and a half, I was just getting to the point that most people probably won't see until retirement (and maybe not even then), where time itself was becoming meaningless. I was waking and sleeping when I felt like it, eating when I wanted to and giving my days only the loosest of structure. I would think a lot of time had passed and discover only 30 minutes had passed. I would think it was still early in the afternoon and discover it was somehow 4:00 PM already. I remember my late MIL could never recall what day it was, not due to dementia or absent-mindedness, but because her days had no structure after she retired and she stopped looking at the calendar. Birthdays and holidays went by and she didn't always realize it, so they were celebrated (or not) when they were remembered. I am unsure how much longer it would have taken me to get to that point, and whether or not that would be a good way to live. 

Overall, I'm calling the time between September 2012 and mid-July 2013 a brief period of semi-retirement, filled with fun and adventure and a little anxiety. It looked a lot like my own parents' retirement has looked so far. To some degree, I regret not spending that time more wisely, but I realize, too, that it was a luxury I probably won't get to enjoy again for a long time. It has definitely taught me the value of time as I go forward. 

Time to take a nap before we catch that movie. 

I Saw It In Philadelphia: Cryptic Arthouse Cinema Graffiti

Not entirely sure what this means, but it was cool nonetheless. 

Graffiti on a construction scaffold, 7th and Chestnut. 

My Little Town

Been feeling nostalgic today. The day of the week I am most likely to go nostalgia-tripping through old photos and old music or do some webstalking of old classmates is always Sunday, for some reason.

I grew up in a little town that I hated, but it's been on my mind lately.

We moved from Lincoln, NE, where I lived from infancy until age 3, to this little town for my father's career. (We almost ended up in an even smaller town, but my mother had grown up in a small town similar to the one being considered and told my father she couldn't do that to her kids. Thank you, Mom!)

I wasn't aware of how small the town was, and what that really meant, until I was ten or eleven. Places that were bigger just seemed ... bigger, but the same, like with more stuff to do, but to a kid, it was just the same kinds of stuff and more people.

My sister and I walking home from the town library

By junior high, the town and I had declared silent war on each other. I went from being unaware of my town's size to being too aware of its size, hating it for its size and wishing I was somewhere else, and expressing this outwardly with my attitude and behavior and mode of dress. (And finding a few other like-minded individuals who felt the same way.)

Which is not to say I was some kind of juvenile delinquent. I did this in a very white, middle-class way, of course. I dressed strangely and took every opportunity to assert my individual style and specify my (superior, of course) pop culture preferences. If I wasn't going to be accepted and appreciated, I wasn't going to bother trying to fit in anymore.

I was, however, always a good kid. I didn't drink or smoke in high school (not that I had many opportunities, since I never got invited to the parties). I even used my good behavior, along with being smart and getting good grades in school, as a form of rebellion, to show them they were all "beneath me," and also because it meant that someday I would have a means of getting out of there. (I recognize now that my attitude was sometimes snotty and likely had at least a little something to do with the way people treated me.)

It was probably in my blood as well. My family were considered strange in the town. My parents were intensely private, with just a small circle of friends. Until I was well into my 30s, they lived in the same old house they had bought when they were poor as church mice, my father fresh out of law school with a wife and two kids already and hardly a pot to piss in. Long after they could have afforded better, they stayed in that same old house and continued driving their same old cars. (They did eventually remodel the home and my father got a wild hair when he turned 40 and bought a flashy Cadillac.) The town was small but had its "preferred suburb" area and social clubs to which the upwardly mobile belonged, all of which my parents rejected. My parents never joined a church (or even attended any).

(Yes, I've turned out a lot like them.)

So ... what's so terrible about my hometown?

Nothing.

Main Street

It is a typical small town in a Midwestern state. Its residents are traditional and church-going, socially and politically conservative. Its community is not diverse. It is hours away from even a medium-sized city like Lincoln. It doesn't offer much for young people to do--a movie theater and cruising the main drag are the primary teen pastimes. Its teens end up drinking at house parties or out in the country, and having sex at a young age, due to lack of any better options. Older adults still see movies and drink (but in bars), plus go boating, fishing and hunting for fun. The town has developed a huge meth problem since the 1990s. Its population has declined steadily since the 1970s, as it doesn't offer many career opportunities or decent-paying jobs that would keep young people around or attract new residents.

It's neither good nor bad. I realize that now. It just wasn't what I was looking for. I don't think I knew what I was looking for, really, until I was in my 30s, but I certainly knew what I wasn't looking for: a town like my hometown.

My sister and brother-in-law and nephew still live near there. They like the small-town atmosphere and feel most comfortable there. My nephew is in college but it won't surprise me if he returns there after school, or moves to a new town that is similar in size and demographics. They obviously want something different than I want and they enjoy the pace of rural life.

I haven't actually been back there since 2005, when my father retired and a small celebration was held (and he left the next day, to join my mom in the new house they had purchased several months before, in a bigger city). During the last five years, my niece and nephew even graduated from their small rural high school that is near there, and I attended but stayed at a hotel in a bigger city a little further away, just to avoid my hometown.

And yet, now that I don't live in Nebraska anymore and probably won't visit again until there's a wedding or a funeral, I find myself looking at the hometown newspaper website more often.  I did an earlier entry about learning my high school boyfriend's dad and my old babysitter had passed away, but the obituaries are not the only section of the town's newspaper that I read. Old family friends celebrated a 54th wedding anniversary and I saw the announcement in the paper and sent a card. I occasionally recognize a classmate or one of their children in a news story, but there are many names I don't know.

I miss the crappy old drive-in/restaurant that still has customers place their order via individual telephone handsets at each table. I've been craving the jiffy burgers a "rival" drive-in used to sell, and for which I have the coveted special secret recipe.

A friend posted Facebook photos of her visit a small town that still has a drive-in movie theater, and I remembered my town had one, too, until 1980ish? My mom worked there briefly when I was a kid. I saw Superman and Star Wars there, among other films.

A new friend who is a Montessori teacher got me thinking about my old elementary school, which took advantage of an unconventional classroom layout and created an unconventional (but very successful) teaching model. (In googling to see if there were any images, I learned that it was sold to a private investor and is being developed for mixed use business/upscale housing.)

Watching Freaks and Geeks again on Netflix reminded me of my 9th grade art teacher, who looked like the guidance counselor on the show.

So ... yeah. It doesn't define who I am, but that little Nebraska town is part of me. Simon and Garfunkel already said it better than I could, so I'll let them close this entry.

The Circle of Life

I have been haunted all weekend by some sad news I received on Friday--the deaths of two people.

First off: the father of my high school boyfriend passed away. He was a photographer by trade and was also the guy who took my senior pictures. I haven't been in touch with the ex-boyfriend or his family in more than 20 years, but it's always sad to hear about the death of someone you knew. He was 68--a little on the young side nowadays, but he lived a good full life: two marriages; children, step-children and grand-children; assorted careers and fulfilling work.

The second one is the one I can't get out of my head. I doubt if any of you who read this blog knew her so I'll go ahead and include her first name--Courtney--as well as pictures and some other sad details I found.

To begin, this is a senior pic of Courtney, from 1982 or 1983.

I don't think this picture fully shows how beautiful she was, but you can see here that she was a pretty girl with creamy golden skin and a great smile. Her family lived down the block from my family back in our hometown. She was six years older than me, and had a little sister who was a year younger than me. I first met her when I was six or seven, and she soon became a favorite babysitter of me and my sister. 

Courtney was the cool babysitter who would bring her record collection with her when she came, or would sit and listen to our 45's and K-tel records with us all night and compliment our taste in music: "Oh, Tom Petty. 'Don't Do Me Like That' is my favorite song right now." She had waist-length hair in that beautiful kinky/curly 70s style and wore glittery and gauzy flowing blouses with her jeans and clogs. She taught us how to make snow ice cream. If she brought her little sister along when she babysat (which she often did), we would hold beauty pageants and make Courtney and any of her friends or boys who sometimes visited  be the pageant's judges. I remember a particular pageant that resulted in a three-way tie, so Courtney made me, my sister and her sister have a "dance-off" to "Shake Your Groove Thing" by Peaches and Herb to decide the winner. (I think her little sister won that one.)

She once babysat us during a horrible storm (maybe even a tornado?) that knocked the power out in the whole town, felled trees and peeled paint off houses and shingles off rooftops. Somehow she kept three scared little girls calm and quiet in the dark until our parents could make it home hours later. One of her methods involved the telling of ghost stories and an edited-for-kids re-telling of the plot of the movie "Halloween."

There were hints of trouble even then. Courtney would smoke my parents cigarettes (or bring her own) when she babysat. She was probably 13 or 14 at the time. I seem to remember some alcohol, too, from her parents' liquor cabinet or beers from my parents fridge, but that may not be accurate. For a short time, she was having some trouble with some kids in high school, and Courtney's mom started sending the little sister to stay at my parents' house after school, until she could pick her up after work. Courtney left town shortly after graduation, and one evening, her mom came to see my dad (a lawyer at the time) because Courtney had been arrested and was in jail out in Denver, the first of what would be a string of troubles across her lifetime. She was sent to Valley Hope (a drug and alcohol recovery center) not long after that. I saw her for the last time a few years later, and she still looked like the Courtney I remembered.

Flash forward to this.

Yes, this is Courtney. This is her mugshot from an arrest last November, in which she is alleged to have stolen enough goods to constitute a Class 3 Felony in Nebraska (this was no small theft). Since this wasn't her first arrest, she was likely looking at some prison time and/or a big fine

This week, she died "in her home," according to the obituary. I don't know what happened for sure, but I'm guessing she either killed herself, or the lifelong drug and alcohol problem led to an early death.  

It's hard for me to reconcile the pretty young woman I remember (like the first picture) with the more recent photo and news of Courtney. I don't know what prompted her early downward spiral. When she was a young teen, her parents went through a messy divorce that was very hard on the kids, but I think her difficulties were happening before that. I can see from her obituary that she must have had some good times, too--she went to business school, had children and even grandchildren and worked for her father for a short time. 

Did I mention she was only 48?

RIP, Courtney.

Random Updates. Really Random.

The Stuff We Lost In the Move

One of our missing moving boxes from the move has been found, or some of it, anyway. It DOESN'T appear to be the box with the photos, but we're waiting for a little more info. If it's the clothes and shoes, we have already replaced 'em and don't have room to store much extra, so we probably won't worry about getting it back. From what we know so far, it's a partially-full box only, which means someone probably picked through it and took whatever they wanted already.

The Job Hunt

Still hunting for a job and trying not to panic. Still have a little time, too, before I have to panic, but not much. I didn't start job hunting until the end of October, due to the move trauma and needing some time to get settled, so I've only been at it four months, but still. Ugh. My daily routine nowadays consists of going through all the job boards and LinkedIn each day to see if anything good has been posted, then going through the career sites of my "target" companies and seeing if they have anything new, or if I can find any new target companies to add to the list. I usually find two or three worth bookmarking or applying for every day, but not always. I keep hearing about how you're supposed to network, all these ridiculous bullshit guerilla job search tactics you can try (sending a package with a coffee mug AND your resume to the recruiter, etc.) and I just cringe. That is so not me. I also think how annoyed I would be as a recruiter or HR professional if people did that. Granted, HR pro's usually have a different personality and goals than I do. Maybe they truly are not annoyed by those tactics somehow. Or maybe those tactics work if you're in some creative field like Advertising, or you're in an industry that thrives on entrepreneurs, like a tech start-up. The financial services and insurance industries are notoriously conservative in many regards and I suspect they are in this one, too. I'm adding Philly contacts to LinkedIn as I can find them, but without working, I honestly haven't met that many folks here yet. My handful of karaoke friends are it, pretty much, BUT ...

Friends

... Two friends I have known for awhile just moved to Philadelphia this week. Yes!  :-)  One is an old friend from Lincoln, and the other is this person's sweetheart, whom I met for the first time in 2011. And you know the old shampoo commercial from the 1970s:  "They told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on ...?"  Umm, no details I can share yet but something like that is possibly in the works.  If nothing else, it is nice to have a few more friends here.

Coding and Networking

And in other professional developments: I have thoroughly ramped up on my HTML skills and am taking a class this weekend to learn JavaScript. I hope to make some new contacts there and meet a few other cool folks here in Philly. The coding knowledge couldn't hurt, either. I'm sure I won't know enough after that to get hired as a website developer (though I already know enough to be able to maintain some corporation's blog or update their website), but what I'm hoping is I'll learn enough to decide if I am interested in a change in career direction, and have an aptitude for it, which could prompt future educational choices, too.  I live very close to an ITT tech school if I want to get a certificate in something technical, plus there are all the other great colleges here (Drexel, Temple, Penn, etc.) if I want to pursue a Master's in something.

Complacency and You

Which brings me to another important point for everyone, but especially my friends and readers who still work where I used to work: don't get complacent.

Part of why it's taking so long for me to find a job out here is due to the high unemployment rate.  Philly, at 10.1%, is higher than the national average of 7.8%, and much higher than Nebraska's 3.7%.

Part of it, too, I have to accept responsibility for because I let myself get comfy in a job that I thought I'd probably work at for the rest of my life, and that was the wrong thing to do. We've all seen the firings and layoffs as jobs move overseas and lines of business get dropped.  There is no guarantee you'll have a job there in the future, and you don't want to wait until you get laid off to start preparing for your next job.

I didn't put much emphasis on my own development the last few years there, and I know many of you also are not doing this. I am thankful I already have a college degree, and I can't emphasize this enough: if you didn't finish your degree yet, make plans to get back in school as soon as you can, especially since the company offers tuition reimbursement. If you find yourself without a job, you'll be competing against many other people who are also looking for a job but who also have at least a Bachelor's Degree, and guess who won't make the cut? These days, employers want a Bachelor's even for non-skilled positions like being a receptionist at a dentist's office, for pete's sake! Check out a few job postings if you don't believe me.

For those of you with a degree already: step it up in other ways. Get that resume dusted off and ready to go. Build your network on LinkedIn if you haven't already. Get trained as a Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt. Start sitting in on technical meetings and learning project management. Learn Access and Brio and SAP Business Objects and any other technology you can get your hands on. Learn another branch of the business (Life, Annuities, Variable, etc.). Take any opportunity  you can get to learn something new at the company's expense, or even your own if you can afford it. (Wanna learn some programming skills? I do recommend Code Academy to start and it's absolutely free. Learn some basic HTML and you can start adding web parts to that lovely SharePoint site we used!)

Cute Cat Photos

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox. Umm ... how about some animal cuteness to lighten the mood here? Girlcat and Boycat say hello!

Thoughts on Work

This is probably better suited to a longer post, but as I'm starting to job hunt in Philly, I'm reminded of how much I wish I had chosen more wisely when it comes to a career.

(That probably would have started with choosing differently in education, too, though I'm still a believer in education for education's sake, and not just to prepare you for a job.  Most people I know don't end up working in their field of study, or else they didn't study in the field they truly wanted to because they worried they wouldn't be able to make a living at it.  It's six of one, half a dozen of the other for most of us.)

I had a double major in college.  First, Women's Studies.  Then, in my junior year, when I had to designate a minor, I chose instead to designate a second major in English.

From my Paris trip: the Women in Art exhibit at Le Centre Pompidou, 2010.  (Go, Guerilla Girls!)

They are equally valuable, or should I say, have equally little value in my workplace, for the most part.  When people I casually meet ask me about my major, I generally say it was Women's Studies.  When potential employers ask me to list my major, I generally say English.

I really don't know what I thought I wanted to do with those majors.

(No, that's not true.  I do.  I wanted to write.  I still do.

That's one of those careers that many people can't make a living at, although I am actually getting paid for my writing and editing skills on the perfume website.  It just doesn't pay enough to live on at this point.  Someday it might.  A girl can dream.)

I ended up with my current employer kind of by accident.  I had no job to go to after graduation, and took a temp job just to start earning some money in the meantime.  The job market at that time was kind of like it is now--a shortage of jobs and too many candidates, and young college grads were having a tough time of it.  I secured a temp job (and my one and only temp assignment) at an insurance company that was experiencing tremendous growth.

My starting wage:  $5.17 an hour.  But there was a chance the job would lead to a permanent position, which it did just three months later. (Then, my starting wage as a permanent employee went up to $7.17 an hour.  Who can live on that?  I sure couldn't back in 1993, and minimum wage in 2012 isn't much more than that.)

The rest, as they say, is history.  After I was there for a bit, I started wanting (or thinking I should want) more money and more responsibility.  I wanted benefits and financial security for myself and Mr. 42.  I thought I wanted a career in the industry, a house and lots of other stuff that turned out to be NOT what I really wanted, upon further reflection (over a period of 19 years).

Until a few months ago, I even thought I wanted to take my current job with me when I move.  Now that I know I can't, I'm actually glad and looking forward to a fresh start, though I'm dismayed to find the jobs I'm researching and/or getting contacted by recruiters for are . . .

. . . in the same industry as I am now.

I tell myself it's just to get established in Philly.  It won't have to be permanent if I don't like it.  I can make a change.  (I just hope I remember that in a few months/years.)