home sweet home

Took the cats to the vet to get their health certificates and OK to fly. They're good enough to fly, but Scooter has a bit of a heart murmur I was implored to get checked out in the next few months. Calling to make the cargo reservation tonight to fly them out Wednesday. When all is said and done, moving the cats will be the most expensive part of this excursion!

It's become very, very difficult to motivate myself to schlep into work. It's a bad situation all around and definitely not good for my health. I just have to keep reminding myself that it's just a few more weeks, and it's all behind me. Today was an early day for the cats, taking Friday off completely to finish up on moving out, and it's back to the ManHouse this weekend. Is this all really happening? It's all just a little too jarring.

Anyway. If you're curious to know where I'll be living... here's the craigslist ad for the other room. It's home!

leavin' on a jet plane

I guess, since many, many things will be leaving my possession this week for the next destination, that I can go ahead and make the formal announcement. Not that it comes as any shock to anyone.

Once Crunch formally leaves the Atlanta region, I will also. I am officially moving back to New York City.

There are still a few kinks to work out, but I think I've got most of it ready to go. My personal effects will leave my current living quarters on Friday afternoon -- everything except one bag of luggage with a week's worth of clothing to be worn in rotation. The cats will be cargo shipped up on Wednesday into the loving arms of my future roommate who has graciously offered to take them in as his own until I'm up there myself. Though I don't have a solid date for my own departure, it should be within the next three weeks. As an added bonus, I'll be eligible for unemployment and the all-important COBRA subsidy.

I must leave my current living situation by September 1, so I have decided to take up my big brother's offer to return to ManHouse until my job is done, bringing the whole Atlanta experience full circle.

I came here totally aimless, disappointed and broken down over my own failures. I stumbled into a job I wound up holding on to for four years (to the day today, actually) -- the longest I've ever stayed in one place. And while the last four months have soured me on the work experience, I've gained a great deal from my experience. I never did make much of a personal connection with this city, and several of my friends have decried its very existence for the run of bad luck I had here (a bit melodramatic if you ask me, but whatever - heart's in the right place). I emerge a bit less aimless, and in far greater control of my personal destiny. While I'm uncertain about what happens next, I know I'm making the right choices -- and in the off-chance I'm not, I know I'm much better equipped to handle it than I was before. I'm like a cat -- I always land on my feet.

Unless I get hit by a beer truck. In that case, I land on my back and top of my head.

the other shoe finally drops

It is more or less official. On Friday, documents were filed to authorize a sale of memberships to a competitor, subject to higher and better offers. Today, we were officially notified that we are slated for closure. At long last, four months after the first documented evidence appeared, we were finally leveled with and it was acknowledged.

Sales staff was let go effective immediately. Other parts of staff were initially let go as well, but that was rescinded when they realized it would violate 'business as usual' stipulations of the court. (technically, anyone can still sell membership so the sales staff is ruled unnecessary. But to completely cease a profit center or two goes too far.)

I have an exit strategy at hand, and it's one that was actually OK'd by my HR department. The duties of my job are essentially complete or can be completed by someone else already at the facility. My job, technically, can cease to exist at this time without an impact on the course of 'business as usual.' Additionally, it's a bonus for my current employer as the hours I'm spending at this point can be handed to a number of other employees who are hoping for extra hours -- and paid at a considerably lower rate. EVERYTHING is about the $$$ at this moment. So, with everyone else, including HR, on board -- all I need is the OK from my RVP and I can leave my job at the end of this week with unemployment and COBRA subsidy in hand.

EXCEPT.

My RVP can be difficult at times. She's near impossible to reach (not her fault, she's completely overburdened at the moment) and in the past I regularly fail to see the logic in her thought processes. It's not that it isn't there -- it's that she doesn't communicate any of it, so we're all just left to think she's crazy. She's aware that I've got living opportunities at hand that need to be acted on quickly (I'd mentioned them when I asked about possibility for transfers, and my direct boss brought it up too). I'm just trying to take a very negative experience and throw a little bit of positive in for all parties involved -- it's a win-win-win situation but I haven't even been able to posit it to her for consideration.

I'm glad I didn't buy a plane ticket yet, at least. But I do still have to leave my current pad by September 1, so I may have to take my brother up on a brief stay at the man-house to wrap things up. I hope it won't have to be that fragmented, but I've been all about planning ahead through the entire course of this thing... can't count anything out just yet, and have to be prepared.

a messy but valid point

Just a quick word about the health care debate by someone who will really and truly be affected by the outcome a great deal.

One of the truly terrifying things about this whole losing-job process was realizing that there was a very real possibility I would lose my insurance right when I need it the most. Worse yet, if my unemployment were to be a woefully extended period of time, re-enrolling in a group insurance plan after I finally find a new job would require me to go without treatment for a YEAR before it was covered again. (Thank GOD for the COBRA subsidy provided in TARP -- perhaps the ONLY useful and practical thing to come out of that thing!)

I am approaching a crucial point in the impending beginning of treatment. If delayed a significant period of time, my health would deteriorate rapidly. In the course of that year without treatment, an opportunistic infection could easily take up residence in my weakened state and pretty much kill me.

I know there are a lot of ideological differences on what should go how far when and how. None of the ideas on the table are particularly good yet, but this is important stuff that's being talked about right now. The "death panels" some have crowed about already exist -- populated by profit-seeking insurance accountants and executives exploiting loop holes when coverage is needed the most, like arguing your teen acne counts as a pre-exiting condition.

I'm fighting like hell to make sure all my bases are covered. I have contingency plan on top of contingency plan ready to go if it's needed. But before crowing about the evils of a universal healthcare system, consider what would very likely happen to me -- your friend, your brother, your son -- if the worst case scenario played out with things the way they are right now. And then tell me it's not worth it.

tomorrow might be the day...

A semi-lazy Sunday. Roommate left for vacation this afternoon so I have the place to myself all week this week. It'll make for a nice break. Plus, I can get lots of packing and sorting and organizing done. I have a couple of surprises for roommate, too. Some of his furniture is getting rather scuffy and scratched, so I took a trip to Home Depot after he left and bought a can of finish restorer. I've tended to the dining room furniture and it looks beeeeautiful. The dresser in my room needs a little extra love -- some of the finish has actually come off completely and there's a little patch of bare wood. The color held fast, though, interestingly enough. So another trip down to Home Depot for a teeny little thing of shellac to patch it up and it's good as new!

Of course, I have to work all week. Or do I?

Tomorrow is the lease rejection hearing. It has not been adjourned. Things are finally coming to a close, but it's still difficult to determine exactly when. It could very well be that a closure plan is presented in court tomorrow and we're done for in three days. Or it could be three weeks. Hard to know. I'm exploring my options, but at this point I think it's a very safe bet to say I'll be out of a job by the end of the month. I never thought I'd be excited about a prospect like that, but I am. I've always said that surviving is thriving. I've survived this and now it's time to move on to a new challenge... it's become stale and stagnant in Atlanta. Time to move on.

More details later. Film at eleven.

something's coming

I've kinda gotten the sense that something's about to pop here, and this morning I was assigned a full equipment inventory, due in three days.

Mind you, that's no small job. That's a MASSIVE undertaking and under normal circumstances, we're given at least a week to complete it. Nope, not this time. I think this road is finally coming to an end.

informed decision coming right up

On the level: If concerns about my continuing health were not a factor, chances are I would have left my current job three months ago. I'm only hanging in for health insurance at this point, marching to the end to have a COBRA subsidy in hand so I can start writing the next chapter of my life.

However, as delay after delay takes place, I'm fearing more and more that the opportunities I have available to me in the next three weeks will slip away... and THEN be out of a job, and stuck somewhere I can't find a new one. It almost comes down to a choice between physical health or mental state. If I can find a balance between the two, I'm launching myself at it and never looking back.

I'm happy to say I think I've found it. I've been talking to one friend who works for the Department of Labor to guide me through the puzzle of HIPAA and creditable coverage, one friend in NYC's health and mental hygiene department, and one friend who is currently covered by the NYC public health insurance program and volunteers with HIV/AIDS assistance programs.

I have more details to look into, but as I examine this further and further, it looks to be 80/20 that I will leave Atlanta by the end of August. The only thing that's kept me in place so far is the lack of options. Now that I have what appear to be viable ones -- it's time to get moving.

packing it in

I started writing an entry last night -- four different versions of it, in fact -- but couldn't adequately describe the thought processes that were bouncing around my head. A lot of back and forth with some kind of existential questions, and what's better to pursue. I think I'm landing at a couple of answers but a lot relies upon how things play out the next couple of weeks. I finally just called a friend of mine who happens to be working towards a doctorate in psychology. I more or less vomited out all the things that were bouncing around in my head, and I feel much better for it.

And today, I started working on a big project -- packing. One thing that is certain is that at the end of August I will no longer be living where I am now. Granted, I don't know the destination yet. Maybe it's across town, maybe it's across the country. But I know I'm going somewhere, and with that knowledge secure I thought perhaps it's a good time to start preparing for it. I grabbed some boxes and various tools and started getting to work.

I keep things. I emptied out my bookshelf and found all kinds of little oddities and treasures... mostly stuff that I really, really don't need anymore. Paystubs from 1998. Old notebooks with notes from various trainings at restaurants. Scribbled design ideas when I was doing websites. Slips of paper with phone numbers on it (who on earth is Rex?). And this gem:



This must be from second or third grade. It's a picture of the Capitol building in Tallahassee, Florida. I think it was supposed to be for a Springtime Tallahassee logo contest my art teacher decided to enter us into -- hence the musical notes floating oddly above the offices in a cloud of white poo. And the old Capitol building there in the foreground looks oddly phallic. But to be fair, the actual building does kind of look like a penis.

Oh...and the Robbie File. Robbie was the ex-boyfriend, now convicted felon. He got himself in deep with his schemes, and got caught shortly after I broke up with him. I played an unwitting role in his getting caught, actually. That was unfortunate, because Robbie, bitter at being dumped, decided to implicate me and since I was already in the middle of it, it made sense to the people looking into it. I didn't actually do anything I was accused of, but the outward appearances and Robbie's manipulations made it look like I had. I look back on it now and kick myself repeatedly for how stupidly I handled that -- but it was all I was equipped to do at the time. I just wanted it all to be over and done and took the first opportunity to close it out that I could. In retrospect, that was dumb, dumb, dumb. An expensive lesson.

I kept a file of things from that time. Correspondence, bits and pieces of evidence. I handed all this stuff over to investigators and lawyers trying to clear myself but no one really seemed to give that much of a damn. I still had it, nearly ten years later. I've found things much older; journals, photos, trinkets and toys... they're worth keeping. But this is one thing I think it's is time to leave behind. Gladly.