• Kicked it off in Chicago with my great pal Sandy Bressner at some bar. Most vivid memory: Seeing Chicago's finest dressed to the hilt in SWAT gear. They look bored. The world was supposed to end, y'all.
• I get into grad school. Even though according to my GRE score, I might be mildly retarded.
• Sitting at my apartment complex pool one sunny July afternoon, I see my downstairs neighbor and take note of his big guns and broad chest. Well helloooo there neighbor!
• I quit my newspaper job, move to Clifton, start grad school, begin dating the 'neighbor.'
• In grad school they require me to teach. Students. Hahahahaha!!!!
• Summer 2001, I get my piece of paper (I believe they call it a master's) and marry the neighbor under a full moon. Move to O'Bryonville.
• 9-11. I cry at work.
• Daniel Pearl is kidnapped. I take this personally.
• January 2002, I'm diagnosed with cancer. (So that explains the horrendous back pain!)
• I think if Daniel Pearl lives, then I'll live too.
• Daniel Pearl dies.
• I realize I make bad decisions when it comes to random connections that are totally unrelated to me. Further example: 'If I make this shot into the wastebasket, I'll live to be 70.' Shit.
• I 'survive' in spite of myself.
• I take a job writing press releases. Nearly die of boredom. Move to Mt. Healthy.
• Journalism keeps making eyes at me, I try to look away but get sucked back in. The Enquirer hires me in the spring of '03 as a feature writer.
• I meet some of the best friends I've ever had there.
• Fall/Winter of '04-'05 - I turn 30, my brother dies, I get divorced, I move to Mt. Lookout, I start this blog.
• Decide I hate my teeth, start sleeping with a retainer to straighten out them again. This marks the beginning of me being absolutely irresistible at night.
• Determine I want to move to another newspaper. Denver? Phoenix? I go to Phoenix for a visit, decide it's a boring cesspool.
• '06-'07 - Realize newspapers are circling the drain, decide to go to law school, start studying for the LSAT.
• While eating lunch with Julie and Kari and bitching about our futures in journalism, Kari tells me about a job posting at Children's. I apply, move to Hyde Park, continue to study for the LSAT.
• I get an interview at Children's, get dressed down during said interview by my now Boss Man... and then he hires me.
• Thank god I didn't end up in law school, move to another apartment in Hyde Park.
• Spring of '09 - Boss Man taps me for a different job at Children's, this one with more drama and intrigue... I now sit next to a mini-fridge and a microwave. (You can have it all.)
• Michael Jackson moon walks out of my life... and everyone else's.
• Realize under the full moon of 2010 New Years Eve that a) I don't want to move anymore, but know I will b) note to the universe that I won't be mad if the next decade is marked by fewer personal traumas and c) raise my glass to life's rich pageant and the next ten years.
Huzzah!
Btw, I'm happy to report that the lovely woman sitting next to me in the "then" photo is still a good friend and an avid reader of this blog. How's that.
5 comments:
Loved you then, love you now. It's amazing the triumphs, defeats and challenges ten years will bring a person's way. For better or worse we deal with them. I waited to cry at home on 9/11, then cried for days it seemed. I also vividly remember bawling my eyes out at a Fairfield bowling alley shortly after learning of your cancer diagnosis. Why did I cry? I should have known you'd kick its ass.
Aww sweetie, you cried at a bowling alley? That's so sad. It's such a drag to cry, but to cry around all that awful carpeting makes everything seem even... sadder.
You're awesome.
I have a picture of us ringing in 2000 framed on my bookcase. I love it. :)
and oh yeah. I cried in the parking lot of a park district rec center before having to go in for an assignment after you told me about the Big C. I love you, G!
Bressner, you know I've been loving you forever!
Btw, thanks for hanging out with me this summer in that burned out warehouse/bar in the shadiest part of Cincinnati. Sorry I almost got you involved in that crack deal.
Next time, Chicago!
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