How you doing?

Been a while since I’ve checked in with a progress report about life in general, cool cats.

After being sick for more than a week, which really spun my wheels in reverse, I’m still trying to find forward footing. For one thing, New York has been obstinately cold and rainy for the past week, so my goal of walking miles a day and exploring the surrounding nabes has been impossible. This weekend, it is supposed to warm up (again), reaching into the high 70s with the elusive sun actually shining. I need it. As I sit here and type—with the windows open, since I’m dumb enough to smoke—my finger joints are actually aching with cold.

But by far my biggest challenge has been sleep patterns. More often than not, I am indulging my body clock, which clicks on at midnight with gusto, keeping me wide awake until 4, 5, 6 a.m. As a result, by the time I’m conscious again, I’ve wrecked the day. On one hand, it’s a positive side effect of not having to work that I can stay up all night and follow my creative muse by the light of the moon. But accomplishing next to nothing in the daylight hours has been less of a positive. I end up couched with HGTV for hours at a time, with little motivation to exercise or fulfill the goals I set for this month off: home repairs, painting, décor projects, etc.

For that reason, I invited my dear friend Donna up from Lynchburg. As you can trace from previous posts, she’s been up to NYC twice in the past year and we rekindled our high school friendship in a quick minute. I proposed to her that while I am free 24/7, that she come up, assist me with these projects—and, in the process—help restore me to a more traditional schedule. So Donna arrives Friday and will be here through Wednesday afternoon. Gonna be good. We’ll paint, but also enjoy Central Park, go to some planned events, watch some movies, spend time with Ayhan and honestly, return me to socialization… again, a variable that I fear has been lacking. I’m not in hiding (this time), but normal life goes on for my circle of my friends and my absence over these past three or so weeks is a blip on their radar.

Emotionally, I have discovered that any anger about being laid off that was held at bay early in this process is frothing with more intensity now than at any previous point. As I’ve said all along, the nemeses are well-targeted and fortunately, not among those that I worked with face to face in New York, so there is no building resentment against Billboard or any of my contemporaries. But I was mightily fired up last Friday when I found out that editor “C” was given a leadership award after she axed 10 employees because of her inability to run the magazine she is in charge of. I need to get past that. It’s wasted emotion, and she certainly isn’t deserving of such an exertion of passion. Admittedly, I have surprised that I’ve just now reached a boiling point about “what she did to me.”


On the job front, I vowed to take the month of April off—after working for 25 years—and I have steadfastly stood by that. I fulfilled one free-lance project whose pay was gratifying, but otherwise, I just continue to read about how much the economy blows chunks and how jobs, careers and industries continue to be flushed down the terlet—publishing/writing being among the most predominant. I did finally connect with Nielsen’s career counseling service to rally with interview and resume guidance. So that’s a positive step.

Meanwhile, severance/health benes continue through June, so I am a-okay financially for the time being, but boy, I’ve pulled back on spending. I go to the grocery store and if it’s not on sales, I move down the aisle. Din-din is all about bargain shopping. It’s not a new concept to me, but I’ve pulled back leisure spending to extreme measures. All good. The one indulgence: Ayhan and I watched “Grey Gardens” on HBO this week and sort of glanced at each other, wondering if we were heading in the same unkempt direction as Big and Little Edie. We canceled our housecleaning service as soon as I was laid off and I’ll be damned, we’re bachelors at heart,
incapable of keeping the apartment clean. So we finally gave in and called in our service on Thursday. Thank god. Well worth every dime.

So that’s it. Friday is happy hour at Lunasa, my weekly rock, and I’m happy to have that. Donna is due to arrive in 12 hours. And the sun swears it’s going to shine. With a little luck, I’m going to restore some needed equilibrium to life. It’s time.