it's over

i had my last air shift tonight. if you were listening, i deeply apologize for that last on-air break. while i soldiered through the bulk of the three hour shift with only the occasional emotional bobble, that last talk set was largely incoherent. i was trying not to sob, trying to keep my voice from wavering, and completely failing at both.

trying to look at it objectively, i have to wonder what it is, exactly, that makes me so emotional about leaving this job. frankly, the computer-y side of my job i say good riddance to. i've lost my joy for that stuff and am more than happy to hand it off to someone else. the air work, though... that's what gets me.

if i can find a way to say this without sounding egotistical, i think i cried tonight because i know i'm good at what i do, and i know that i touch people's hearts while i do it. i get very loving feedback, and walking away from that is sad and scary. i cry for that reason.

but i also cry because i know it's going to take a long time to build that up again. in fact, i'll be lucky to build it up to the same level at all. being at this place for 9 years... well that's a hell of a lot of accumulated good will. when i arrive in portland i'll be starting at ground zero.

though it's curious to note that a large number of listeners have contacted me, asking what time i'll be on the air in portland, and for the station's URL. so maybe i'll arrive with a bit of a head-start after all.

teary

i've been announcing my departure on-air since monday, and the flood of listener response has been overwhelming. phone calls, emails... numbering in the hundreds. this is far more emotional than i could have expected.

during my on-air spiel, i sometimes mention that i'm going to be a total mess on friday, my last shift. i expect to have a box of tissues in the studio, and will probably sob into the mic. unprofessional, i know... but after 9 years at this place, it's not easy to leave.

so i'm more than a little anxious about The Last Day On Air. there are other Last Things that are throwing me for a loop, too. today, for instance, was my last appointment with my very cute dermatologist. he listens to the station, feels like a friend, and was saddened to learn i was leaving. i got teary in the exam room as he said a fond farewell!

i'm a mess.

and i haven't yet received the repair request from the buyers' inspection of the house. i'll bet that comes tomorrow, too. emotional overload!

free will astrology

from this week's free will astrology:

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Welcome to Part Two of your outlook for the second half of 2007, Pisces. We're checking up on how you're progressing with the long-term tasks you were assigned six months ago. I hope by now you realize that this is your Year of Getting Your Career in Gear. It may or may not be a time when you'll climb to the top of the heap and score fresh privileges and new clout. But it's definitely a time when you can move closer to making a living from doing what you love.

hella emotional day

i've had a slew of doctor appointments lately. the last appointment with my gyn, the last with my dermatologist... and yesterday was the last (though only the 2nd) appointment with my stroke specialist.

remember that TIA thing i had last november?? yeah, i barely do, either. but at my appointment yesterday my doctor gave me the test results from the 19 vials of blood he drew last time (the first time) i saw him.

**drum roll, please!**

i have an elevated anticardiolipin level, and an elevated beta 2 glycoprotein level. the other 17 vials of blood resulted in relatively average readings. those two abnormal readings, though, indicate that i'm at a somewhat higher risk for blood clots than the general population.

the funny thing is that he STILL can't say that my episode of aphasia in november was a TIA (perhaps the result of a clot) or simply just a "complicated migraine". he's leaning towards a diagnosis of migraine, though i have to be honest... putting a label on what happened concerns me less than just making sure it doesn't happen again.

so to ensure i stay in good health, he says there are things i need to do:

- no smoking
- no hormone replacement therapy @ menopause
- no birth control pills or any form of hormonal birth control
- stay hydrated
- take an aspirin a day
- when on long flights, get up and walk around. i'm at a slightly higher risk for blood clots in the legs.

and that's it. he says there's really no need for me to seek out a stroke doctor in portland. having my primary care doctor aware of the problem will be fine, unless i have another episode.

so, that was a stressful way to start the day. then i went to work and wrote out a script announcing my departure. i hadn't said anything on-air to this point, and i knew that i needed to start doing that. after i told the listeners i'd be leaving (i almost cried), i got a whole slew of emails and phone calls telling me how much i'd be missed. that was an emotional roller coaster, those three hours on-air yesterday. and i have to do it again today, and every day through the end of the week.

hella fun weekend

saturday was the yard sale, but before i start talking about that i should mention that the two days leading up to the event were a blast, too. mary came over thursday night and helped me hang signs. she drove; i hopped out of the car with a staple gun. aside from my left foot almost getting permanently stuck in a gooey, muddy 3-foot hole it went smoothly and really well. it would have taken twice as long if i had to do that by myself. then on friday night jenny came over, and again with mary's help we priced the items i wanted to sell and had some yummy pizza. jenny was a brilliant marketer, putting into a ziploc a bunch of small toys and calling it "bag of fun - $2!" i sold several bags of fun. she also helped me price an old 35mm camera by calling a friend of hers who knows a thing or two about photography. i had a lot of good help and that eased my stress about the yard sale itself.

pinky (and mary -- again!) came over saturday morning and helped me run the event itself. i cannot believe how smoothly the whole thing went. not only did i sell most everything i needed to (still looking for a buyer for a brand-new, still-in-the-box above-ground pool, though) but i felt at times like it was social hour in my driveway. there seemed to be a constant stream of familiar faces, old friends and chatty neighbors. honestly, other than the fact that i was on my feet for 6 hours straight, the yard sale was FUN. and profitable, which always helps with the fun.

that night i went to carrboro and had dinner with my friend rick. we walked all around town, exploring familiar bars and new storefronts and just had a great evening.

charo joined me at my radio show on sunday, and though we were both sad over the fact that this might have been our last time together on-air, we still managed to have a ball. in fact, charo wanted to "channel" ethel merman, which resulted in one of the funniest videos i've ever shot. (16MB mpg) i've watched this thing about 4 dozen times in the last 24 hours and i am still laughing.

then, as if the weekend could get any better, pinky threw me a lovely going-away party. good food (ice cream sandwich cake!!), good friends, good laughs. i had a marvelous time, drank too much, and had a hard time falling asleep because of i couldn't stop smiling, thinking about the night.

two things happened today

1) i found myself overcome by a huge wave of sadness, thinking about leaving this place behind. i cried my eyes out, big heaving sobs, for the better part of 15 minutes. then i pulled myself together and moved on.

2) i started arranging for my utilities to be turned on in portland, and while i was on the phone with comcast i decided to try one of their bundled packages. for $99/month i 'll get standard cable, high-speed internet, and digital phone service. that's a lot of money, but not much more than we pay here in NC for just cable + internet.

i wasn't actually planning on getting residential phone service in portland, thinking i could probably just live with my cell phone alone. the thing that changed my mind, though, and the biggest selling feature, was the fact that digital phone comes with free unlimited long distance.

so i'll be calling you people FREQUENTLY. ha HA!

my new phone number, effective hopefully july 21, will be: 503-477-6149. my current cell number will remain in effect for a few months, too, probably.

let's not forget about the yard sale

yes yes. don't forget.

yard sale.
saturday june 23.

do come...
take some of my stuff and give me some money.

*shudder*

here's something the inspector discovered while he was in the attic:

a dead snake.

a really weirdly-located dead snake.

just to get you oriented the brick is my chimney. we're looking up towards the roof. the snake is draped over a beam of my roof, between the beam and the roof. the snake is just hanging there, not touching anything but the beam. and the roof.

if i were on CSI i wouldn't know how to begin to solve this case. first of all, how does a snake get in the attic at all? snakes can't climb stairs! secondly, how did it get itself between the roof & the beam? did it leap off the chimney? finally, what the hell? did he get his head into that very small gap, realize the rest of his body wouldn't fit, then found himself unable to back out? i mean, he's just HANGING THERE!

many kudos to ray, who came to my rescue and got the snake down. it was completely dessicated and stinky. it kind of crackled when ray pulled him down.

i hope this is the worst thing the inspector found. the report will be delivered to carolyn today.

the house inspector is here! the house inspector is here!

lisa asked me last night whether i was nervous to have the house inspected.

"no," i said. "wait... yes. i mean, no. well, yeah, a little, i guess. but not really."

i've done a lot of work on this house and feel confident that it is in MUCH better shape than the way i found it. and i know of nothing wrong with the house, so i feel confident in that regard.

but having an inspector crawl all over the place looking for flaws... well, he'll probably find something, right? so i'm a little nervous about what he might discover.

i just told carolyn that if she were a stranger, i probably wouldn't be anxious at all. but given that she's a friend, i really want to make sure that everyone is happy.

meet my new car

2003 mazda protege5
39,000 miles

cute, isn't it?

my mom has a good friend who goes to car auctions & he found this for me. it's a really good deal, and though it's not exactly the car i was thinking i would end up with, it gets good consumer reviews and seems like it will really serve me well.

the only problem is that it's in new mexico right now, and i won't see it until i arrive in portland... one month from now.

i'm going to be donating my current car to charity before i leave, and will have this mazda meet me in portland in july.

yard sale prep

a week from today i'm planning on having a yard sale. (that's saturday, june 23.)

i'm going through each room in the house and trying to evaluate each item i see. is that thing worth the cost of transporting it across the country? or could i get $10 for that at a yard sale?

since the moving company charges by the pound, i'm trying to be pretty aggressive. books i haven't opened in years go straight into the yard sale pile. i have a huge collection of VHS tapes that i haven't watched in ages... into the sale pile.

already i've made a couple of passes through the living room. on the first pass a lot of decorating books made the "move to oregon" pile. then on the second pass i thought, "hell, i can get most of that information from HGTV," and i moved them into the sale pile.

it's weird looking at my life this way.

stuff-less

just got off the phone with my movers (north american van lines).

they're going to load up my stuff on monday, july 9.

i fly to portland on tuesday, july 17, after closing on my house the 16th.

based on the van lines' load date they can give me a range of delivery dates: july 18-23.

that's, like, potentially 2 weeks i'll be without my stuff. best case scenario is just 8 days being stuff-less.

address

and here's my new address, effective july 17:

2124 NE 12th Ave
Portland, OR 97212

air

oh yeah... i forgot to mention that while i was in portland this weekend i found out from my new boss what my air shift will be.

i'll be on-air 9am-1pm weekdays. i'll also be producing some other programming behind-the-scenes. but 9am-1pm is the glamorous stuff.

flying the friendly skies

i thought i was being smart by taking the red-eye home from portland. the flight was scheduled to leave at 10:45pm monday, and with a short connection in philly i'd be at RDU by 9am. i could drive right to work and be there in time for the staff meeting.

no such luck.

the first flight was delayed by 45 minutes, which meant i missed my connection. i'm sitting in philly now (coffee in hand, feeling totally oogy about the red-eye experience) waiting for the next flight to RDU, which will arrive around 11am. i will have missed the staff meeting, plus an interview for my prospective replacement at work. i'm just blowing off the whole day now, and going home to sleep.

pretty dumb. i won't do that again.

though i sat next to a really amazing guy on the plane. i rarely like to talk to the people i sit next to (especially when i'm desperately wanting to sleep) but this guy --frank was his name-- was a young 42, dark & attractive, and radiated positive energy. he practices tibetan buddhism and we had a nice long conversation about the laws of attraction, getting what is "owed" you in life, and mindfulness. as i type it, these things sound like a pretty new-agey discussion, but it was quite down-to-earth and fun. (before your mind starts going down that road, he's got 3 children from a previous marriage and is now in a committed relationship with another woman. he's automatically not my type. :)

but as we deplaned he said, "maybe we'll see each other again" and i said, "that would be really great." no numbers exchanged, but he knows where i work, and i know generally where he lives. if it happens, it happens. at the very least it was the best thing about my US AIR experience.

found a place!

i'm in portland, and it's been a nutso weekend. i've gotten lost about 5 times (and i NEVER get lost). i've looked at many apartments... duplexes and complexes, new and run-down, sterile and charming. i feel like i've been bombarded with a lot of information at once (new areas of town, crazy rent, new people) and i feel thankful i've had a comfortable place to stay. kurt & amy have been great hosts, and their son milo is a hoot. plus, they're feeding me well.

anyway, the apartment hunt. it's not going to be a problem finding a place to live. the tough part has been weighing whether i want a newish place that's clean and small or an older place that's more rickety but has lots of character. nothing compares to my house in durham (which has the best of everything) but i think i've found a place i can live with. (these photos are of a neighboring apartment in the same complex; there are some differences between what you see here and what i'm getting.)

anyway, it's a 2-bedroom, townhouse-style place in a REALLY great area of town. and close enough to work that i can walk. there's a giant mall nearby, and lots of funky bars, restaurant and shops, too. location, location, location... that's the biggest selling point. the unit is kinda run-down, but it has lots of charm. it's big enough to accommodate guests (hint, hint!), but the kitchen is totally weird. the cats will love all the windows. it seems like a quiet, nice place to live. i need to get over the kitchen, though.

here's some video of the apartment:

apartment hunt

i've quit my job. my house is under contract. the next step is to find an apartment in portland.

i'm flying to PDX on saturday at the butt-crack of dawn. i'll be there through monday night. hopefully i'll return having signed a lease on the best damn apartment in town.

i've been watching craigslist like a hawk. i also tracked down the websites of 6 or 7 different rental agencies. and i feel fortunate to have found a guy who blogs about apartment vacancies in one of the areas of town i'm interested in. i've done a lot of research. i know where i want to look, and i know (pretty much) what's available.

as prepared as i feel i am, i'm a nervous wreck. i'm the kind of person who cannot live in a box of white walls. my mood is hugely affected by my surroundings, and i know that i need to find a lovely place in order to maintain some level of sanity. i mean, let's face it... i'll be leaving a comfortable town full of friends and a house that i feel interconnected with. a part of me feels that living in an apartment that's not-quite-right will feel like even more of a sacrifice than i'm already making. i don't want feel doomed before i'm able to give portland a fighting chance.

hoo, boy. yeah, i'm putting a lot of pressure on myself. i'll be glad when this weekend is over and i can put my maps away for a while and worry about something else.

and another thing!!

i KNOW it's rainy in portland! i know this! i live on planet earth, ok? i've heard this kind of thing about the pacific northwest!

i do not need you telling me how "GLOOMY" portland is!

argh!

(ps: i'm not talking to you. i'm talking to someone else.)

one moody bitch

stress does funny things to a person.

some mornings i wake up and i'm all gung-ho and excited about the adventure to come. then 15 minutes later i'll be griping about something and close to tears. an hour later i'm joking and singing to myself.

if i could predict the moods that would be one thing, but they seem to just come out of nowhere.

ugh, i'm exhausted.

bbq

i'm starting to realize there are certain things here in north carolina that are going to be absolutely, positively impossible to find out west.

north carolina-style barbeque, for one. i had some for dinner last night and thought to myself, "shit! this may be one of the last times i ever eat this!" and that was a sad moment, indeed.

i'll miss locopops, too, of course. but at least portland has voodoo doughnut and saint cupcake. not exactly the same, i'll grant you, but close.

house showings

while the house has been on the market several prospective buyers have walked through here. carolyn, of course, was the first but there have been 3 or 4 others. all of these showings have been arranged through a centralized service. buyers' agents call the service, the service schedules a time, then the service calls me to tell me of the appointment. (that call is seen as a courtesy, and it essentially is code for, "please leave the house so an agent can show it.")

last night, my agent submitted the final offer to carolyn's agent and the house went under contract. i guess at this point we should have called the centralized showing service to tell them that, because not one hour later i noticed i had voicemail on my cell phone... it was the showing service, telling me an agent would be showing the house that night. in about a half-hour.

i was still at work. i called ray and told him (he was cooking dinner and doing laundry), then i called my agent to ask if it was kosher to keep showing the house even though it was under contract. he said it was... that i could always accept "backup offers" in case something blows up with carolyn's contract. so instead of telling the service to cancel this showing, i just let it happen.

one of the neatest things about this service is that it offers the buyers' agent an opportunity to leave feedback about what their client thought of your house. an agent who showed the house last week left this feedback:

"I loved it but the house and yard were too big for this elderly buyer. Thank you for allowing me to show it."

in the last week, some people loved the house, some people really didn't like it at all.

what's funny is that the visitor last night --the one who came after the house went under contract-- said this:

"Cute house - client is considering - will let you know if there is further interest. Thanks."

under contract!

my house is under contract!

carolyn & i worked out an agreeable deal (well, carolyn's agent & my agent did... it's not like carolyn & i talked to each other) and it looks like the house is now off the market.

closing date will be july 16th. i'll probably head to portland on july 17th.

scheduling

i've got about 6 weeks here. maybe less.

there are several going-away parties planned, but i know i won't have the opportunity to have any in-depth conversations at those events. it would be really nice to have some smaller, more intimate get-togethers before i leave.

several people have approached me with invitations like, "give me a call before you go so we can have dinner or something." and i've got to say that sort of offer isn't cutting it right now. i need specifics. suggest a date, an activity. make it happen. my schedule is filling up and i've had 15 "give me a call" invitations that i don't have the time to nail down. i'm trying to sell my house, quit my job, pack my stuff, find a place to live, get utilities turned on... and 18,000 other time-consuming tasks. it would help greatly if i didn't also have to add to my to-do list, "make sure to remember to call XXX before leaving town." i would love to see you, but i need you to do some of the legwork for me right now.

man, i woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

phone

my home phone number is being disconnected on june 15. if you try to call that number after june 15, you'll likely get one of those recordings telling you that the number has changed. whatever number the recording tells you to "make a note of" will be ray's new phone number.

in other words, you should start calling me on my cell phone. forget you ever knew my home phone number.

woosh

a co-worker just stopped by the studio to tell me she was leaving for the day.

she: "this is going to start getting spooky as the month goes on."
me: "spooky?"
she: "well, saying goodbye is going to start to have more meaning."
me: *smile*
she: "i just hope you're on vacation when the big tsunami hits the west coast and everything gets washed away... if you're on vacation you won't be hurt, and then you can come back here and work for us."
me: ".....that's.... sweet...?"

the house

i put the house on the market last week, and on friday i got an offer. i knew the offer was coming... it was submitted by my friend, carolyn. (when a mutual friend of ours first told her i was leaving town, apparently carolyn's face fell and she said, "oh, how sad... wait, is her house for sale???")

i want carolyn to have the house, and she clearly wants to buy it. the negotiations are weird, though, because it's our agents who are communicating, and we haven't talked to each other about it at all. it's just pieces of paper flying back and forth between real estate offices, when i really just want to call her up directly and say, "carolyn, what the hell... let's just work this out ourselves and save a couple of trees."

not likely to happen, though. :)

here i go

for several months i felt like i didn't have anything to write about. nothing of substance, anyway. blogging became a drag... i really started thinking of it as a time-waster. even reading blogs took a tumble down my priority list. i fell out of touch with a lot of you. sorry about that.

well, hi. now i'm back. surprise!

it's not that i've changed my mind. i'd still rather work a good crossword puzzle than spend time blogging. but now i feel it necessary to document my life. because a big change is coming.

today i quit my job. i'll be leaving, at the end of the month, the most satisfying job i've ever had. (not that every day has been blissfully fulfilling --often it has actually been downright torturous-- but in the grand scheme of things this position has made a greater impact on my life than any that has come before it.) and i resigned.

i resigned because i have a new job. one that i'm really excited about. one that will most certainly magnify my job-joy to even greater levels. and this job is on the other side of the country, in portland.

xta N or. that's me, in oregon.

so i'm beginning a new blog... one that will hopefully document the forging of my new path, and all the chigger bites and stumbles along the way.

yeah, i'm pretty sure there are going to be a lot of stumbles. this move is going to challenging in many, many ways. and here's an example: ray is staying behind. i'm going to oregon alone. i know maybe 4 or 5 people (in addition to my soon-to-be co-workers), and though knowing anyone is helpful, it's still basically 'starting over'.

this is terrifying. but this is an adventure. i'm scared shitless, but still hopeful... and looking forward to a new chapter in my life.