No brag, just fact

Thursday night I was at a gathering thrown in honor of our environmental reporter, who also left the paper, and myself. I found myself talking to my buddy Branson. “So how’s retirement?” he wanted to know.

I corrected him on the “retirement” technicality, since most folks don’t retire on a nest egg that wouldn’t cover the down payment on a used car. I had to be more careful about how I answered, and here’s why. He preceded his inquiry with the story of a coworker who “retired” in January. She’d simply had enough of the grind, didn’t have anything else lined up, but suspected there was something better out there. So she took the leap. Once a week, she and Branson talk. When he asks how she’s doing, she tells him about not having to get up at the crack of dawn, about working in the garden, about keeping busy but pn her own terms, about living. “I know what you’re doing,” he tells her. “You’re trying to make me feel bad because I’m still here.” He says this, I think, half jokingly. Still, there’s that suggestion of rubbing it in.

When people ask if I’m doing OK (like I lost a kidney, not a job) I have to carefully craft a response that says “I’m doing great” without the implied “Sucker!” I’m not bragging; I just want people to know that it’s good on the outside. Yes, a steady paycheck is good. But sanity is oh-so-much better. It’s not that I’ve shirked all responsibility; I’m still a husband, still a dad. There’s still trash to be taken out and a lawn to be mowed. The former demand the ultimate in responsibility; They also offer the ultimate reward. A pretty darn good tradeoff. Conversely, the reward at The N&O had diminished significantly over the past couple of years, astoundingly so over the newspaper industry’s last few fire-sale months. I’d always envisioned myself as a newspaper man, nothing else. But when the time came, I was ready, I knew. It was time to move on and I was OK with that.

In fact, over the past three weeks I’ve discovered it was more than OK, it was critical. I don’t know where my next paycheck will come from or when I’ll see it, and yes, that obviously will be a concern in the not-too-distant future. For now, I’m savoring the fact I can now march a little more to my own drummer. As Walter Brennan’s Will Sonnett used to say, “No brag, just fact.”

The leap (since I took a voluntary buyout I feel justified in saying I leapt, rather than got laid off) has been well worth it. The free fall is exhilarating.

Bridging the gaps

I told Marcy I would put a computer on her new bike. I assumed she wanted one because I can’t live without a computer on my bike — any of my bikes (all three are equipped).

“Computer” has always seemed a bit much when describing this slightly-larger-than-postage-stamp-size gizmo that mounts on your handlebar. When I first started riding years ago, they were called odometers, which, frankly, is still their main function. Today, with advances in microprocessing, they’ve been able to add a variety of functions, from heart rate monitors to global positioning systems. But it’s still the basic odometer that I’m obsessed with because it gives me a way to quantify my rides: How far did I ride? How long did it take me? How fast did I go? Numbers that can verify my workouts (not that I need more verification than a pair of dead legs after a three-hour ride).

That’s become especially important in these days of self-employment, that quantifying thing. “Defending Your Life,” as Albert Brooks deftly portrayed it on film.

Tuesday, I wore a telltale furrowed brow and an air of preoccupation. “What is it?” my perceptive wife asked. I didn’t realize it was anything at the time, but as I thought about this vague unease that Marcy had picked up on I realized that I felt like I hadn’t been doing enough. Marcy broke out laughing.

“You ran six miles this morning, then you had a very productive meeting with people interested in sponsoring your Web site. That would be more than enough in a day for most people,” she said. Then she put the situation in perspective, a situation and perspective she understood well having been in it herself. “For years you’ve been a hamster turning this treadmill, a treadmill that never stops. You’ve had no time to slow down.” She was referring to my past life, 17 years of it, as a reporter for The News & Observer. A life I always enjoyed, but a life that had become increasingly demanding as the economy and the realities of new media were fomenting fear and creating chaos in the newspaper industry. How demanding — and demoralizing — I didn’t realize until I left three weeks ago. Until I had a full day of running, of building a business, of going on a family bike ride to a neighborhood park for a picnic dinner — and was spooked by the sanity gaps in between. Gaps of free time that didn’t exist before. Gaps that allowed me to recharge. Gaps I’m relearning how to recognize and appreciate.

That said, I’m still putting a computer on Marcy’s bike. Nothing wrong with a little quantification amid the gaps.

Coffee shop office

I like to go to the coffee shop to work. There’s two or three I frequent, my demands are simple and two: good coffee and free wifi. It’s a nice office-away-from-the-home-office because it gets you out around people, typically without the worry of being driven to distraction by them. (Unless, of course, you eavesdrop into a particularly riveting discussion of why we’re all doomed by the swine flu.)

And it’s a surprisingly cheap indulgence — provided I go alone. That’s because I drink coffee. I go to Caribou, for instance, and for $2 (tip included) I can work and caffeinate for as long as I want (free refills, go figure). But if, say, my daughter tags along after I pick her up from school, my daughter with an affinity for things cold, frothy and chocolate, suddenly we’re moving from change scrounged from my pockets to debit card territory. Suddenly, we’re approaching double digits. A daily habit that runs $10 over the course of a workweek suddenly balloons to a $70 habit (Did I mention the obligatory snack to accompany the cool, frothy, chocolately beverage?) Radically changes the financial attraction of the coffee shop office. Too many of those visits and I’ll be permanently relegated to my distant second favorite office-away-from-home-office.

The public library. More distracting people and the coffee isn't as good.

A moving Mother's Day

Is Mother’s Day about being a mom? Or being a kid?

Here’s how the mom in our household spent the day — entirely at her request.

• Playing basketball with us kids in our cul de sac court. We’ve had the hoop for at least six months; it was the first time she’d played. (Mean jumper from the top of the key, Marcelle.)
• Working with us kids in the yard. She pruned and raked while we mowed and swept.
• Playing on the spinny playground equipment at a park near the house with us. We both get woogy in the head anymore even looking at a swing, let alone the modern day versions of merry-go-rounds. She not only swung, she hung — upside down (followed by a long, internal-gyroscope-resetting rest) from crossbars.
• Going for a bike ride with us kids. This part isn’t unusual; We try to incorporate rides into our weekend routine. What was unusual, inspiring, was that Marcy was motivated to buy a new roadbike — with clipless pedals! Inspiring because clipless pedals — which essentially glue you to the bike — almost guarantee that on your first ride (and your second and third), you will forget that you are glued to the bike and upon coming to a stop you will fall over easy as Arte Johnson falling off a tricycle. Which she did, skinning her knee, scraping her elbow and ripping her (bike) seat. And complaining nary a bit.

It was a day spent moving, playing with us kids, a day she’ll likely feel for the next several. No breakfast in bed for this mom (in fact, the breakfast the kids traditionally prepare for her was taken on the back deck this year).

Part of being a great mom, she showed us, is not forgetting how to be a kid.

The real cost of cheap fun

Yesterday, I should have mentioned that another advantage of backpacking in my current economic situation is that it’s cheap fun. That said, I would have followed up with the real cost of cheap fun.

Cheap fun: On paper, this trip should have cost about $50. I already have the camping gear; my only expenses would be gas, about $25 (I drive a Civic that gets up to 40 mpg highway if I baby it) and food, about $25 (living on a diet of flat bread, peanut butter and dried bananas, and springing for prepackaged meals of freeze-dried grilled chicken breasts and mashed potatoes for dinner.

A three-day vacation for $50? Talk about cheap fun. Of course, that was on paper ... .

Real cost of cheap fun: I said I already have the camping gear. True, but any avid backpacker who does indeed have all the gear always needs more. I didn’t think I needed new rain paints; the 12-year-old pair I bought when I was 30 pounds heavier still worked OK. But REI was having its annual May sale (“Our Biggest Sale of the Year!”) and Marmot’s spiffy PreCip Full-Zip Rain Pants were marked down from $90 to just $64.99. Alan has a pair of full-zips (there’s a zipper down the length of each leg making for quick ingress and egress, crucial for when a downpour suddenly hits) and they had my size ... . It also turned out that I needed the $29.95 Black Diamond Orbit Lantern for when my tent becomes my office after a day on the trail. So, yes, I did have all the requisite gear, except for about $95 worth. (I should mention that while these may seem like extravagances for the recently self-employed, they proved to be godsends. It rained much of the time I was in Wilson Creek, the rain pants kept me dry. And because it rained the entire time I had more tent time than usual, time in a cheery, brightly lit tent suitable for taking notes and reading.

Tuesday, I hiked as much as I could in the morning, but heavy rains left many of the creek crossings impassable, and in the Wilson Creek area you don’t go too many places without crossing a creek. (Small watershed; the creeks go up fast in a heavy rain.) My stove hadn’t worked that morning, leaving me coffeeless and crabby. Eager to solve that problem, I hiked out to the car — about a mile and a half — and drove 30 miles or so to Blowing Rock and Footsloggers, a regional outfitter whom, I was pretty sure, could help me solve my stove problem. At least that was the plan.

A mile up the road, the engine light went on. Crap. The last time I was in the mountains and the engine light went on I ended up buying a new car (too long, painful and pricey a story to recount). Guessing I was low on oil, I added a quart ($3.95) and got a red-eye ($3.50 — no, it’s not related but the caffeine-addled among you are no doubt wondering how that crisis resolved). That wasn’t it. After consulting the owner’s manual — I’m a guy; Why would I do that first? — I discovered that the engine light could indicate anything from a gas cap not screwed on tightly enough to catastrophic engine failure. I opted for the former, made sure the cap was tight and drove on. By the time I got to Footsloggers, after diddling around with the car, the store was closed. I stopped and got something hot for dinner ($15) before returning to the wilds. The cascading effect of not being able to use my stove to cook dinner the next two nights meant I had to spend an extra $20 on food.

So, the real cost of my $50 cheap escape? Let’s get out the calculator here ... $137.45. Still cheap, I suppose. And certainly worth it.

But you really notice those extra pennies — 8,745, to be exact — when you aren’t sure where your next pennies are coming from.

Escaping, but reachable

Here’s a great way to take care of yourself — physically and emotionally — during times of underemployment: go backpacking. Which is what I did for the past three days, in a rugged area at the base of the Blue Ridge escarpment known as Wilson Creek.

Fellow members of the between-employment ranks may be thinking, “Are you nuts? Isolate yourself from a potential employment contact by sequestering yourself in the woods?” That probably would be nuts, but that’s not what I did. I’m in conversation with three separate parties about various opportunities (my vagueness has a certain underworld undercurrent, I know; in fact, I’m being vague because I don’t want to jinx myself). Before leaving town, I let all three know that I would be gone three or four days and likely out of touch. I would check in upon my return (which I did).

Nor was I completely out of touch, even in a rugged place such as Wilson Creek. Wilson Creek is a 13,000-acre portion of the Pisgah National Forest that was once, somehow, timbered. “Somehow” because the steep canyon walls densely carpeted with ferns, rhododendron, mountain laurel, tulip poplars, hemlocks and just about everything else that can grow in the Southern Appalachians would seem to make the region impenetrable; the area ranges from 5,920-foot Calloway Peak atop Grandfather Mountain to 1,020 feet where Wilson Creek and Johns River converge. The Ritter Lumber Co. somehow found a way and the area was actively logged into the 20th century. Today, many of the old road and rail beds used by loggers have been given over to hiking trail. Deep in these snarled canyons you are indeed isolated, a satellite telephone, maybe, but forget any providers boast of coverage anywhere. Climb the likes of Timber Ridge, however, and from such high points as Bee Mountain, reception is little problem. You can return calls as easily as you could from your living room. (Though good luck explaining the birdsong in the background.)

Physically, the trip was essential because it tamed my urge to explore — at least for a week. After hiking 35 miles in three days, some of it with a 37.4-pound pack, most of it in rain, I’m content to put up with the demands of figuring out how to make money. Again, for at least a week. Emotionally, it was a chance to drain whatever lingering issues I may have had from the layoff. It’s easy and understandable to replay the past, to wonder if things might have played out differently had you been more ... acquiescing to management. Tuesday, hiking up the north slope of Timber Ridge through a fern glade peppered with tulip poplar and hemlock, I realized I was thought free. No regrets, no worries. That wouldn’t have happened had I been sitting by the phone, waiting for it to ring.

Now, blissfully, on to the business of figuring out how to make some money.

Checking out

Our severance checks paychecks were available at 2 p.m. today. Holy cow, what a crowd in human resources! We had to squeeze into the foyer of HR, wait for our names to be called, then sign for our checks. I got three: one for severance, one for my last paycheck, one for unused vacation. An hour later I got a call from HR — they had yet another check for me. Ding! Ding! Ding!

I made a beeline for the bank. Now, to see if the checks clear ... .