Day one of the Great Adventure (or: Of being unemployed)

Yesterday was my last day at the Chatham Record. I knew I'd be sad. What I didn't know was how busy I'd be. Final stories, for instance. My last story was a touching one - about a local church that raised funds to send a young man and his family home to Mexico after the man nearly drowned in Jordan Lake several weeks ago, suffering severe brain damage. I spent some of the morning of my last day talking to the pastor of the church that had raised over $3,000 for the family. He invited me into his home, and I thought about what a wonderful job being a reporter is, getting to talk to all these amazing people. My second to last story was about a new handicap ramp in town.

I also had to clean off my desk for my coworker, who will be taking my place in Pittsboro. Photos, notes, story ideas, business cards. Some I threw away, wondering why the hell I'd posted it on my bulletin board in the first place, but most I kept.

I ran up and down the main street in town, saying goodbye to friends, and made stops at local offices where'd I'd spent a lot of my time to tell everyone I hoped I'd run into them again soon.

Josephine, the woman I've shared an office with for the last three years, took my to lunch. Afterwards we hugged a few times and said how much we'd miss one another. On my drive over to Siler City one last time, to say goodbye to the rest of the crew, I felt sweaty and hurried and realized I hadn't even had time to think all day and suddenly I felt very, oppressively sad - not that anything was wrong, really, just realizing in one huge moment how much I'd miss everyone - and had to try and stop myself from having a major breakdown, which I was pretty sure would necessitate pulling over on the side of the road. Luckily, once at the news office I felt better, and said goodbye to my friend and boss, Randall, and the rest of my coworkers without losing it. In fact, most of the paper got done early and we were able to spend a little while purely messing around, joking and laughing hysterically.

It's not like I'm never going to see these people again, but working there has meant a lot to me. It's not all something I can get down in words, at least not yet.

You can see some pictures of Chatham County and my experience working at the newspaper here.

The other emotion that I felt when I had time to think yesterday was, of course, excitement. We're headed to Maine!

J and I went out for drinks and dinner to celebrate my last day but also my upcoming trip. We had amazing food and had interesting conversations and observed those around us. We ate at one of our favorite places. The lights were low and the conversations loud. Two tables down we watched an older couple, the woman appeared to be asleep, slumped against the bench. We noted that everyone seemed to have glasses of prosecco, a new item on the menu, and said that, obviously, we'd started that trend when we served it instead of champagne at our wedding. J whispered to me urgently at one point that Mac McCaughan, of the bands Superchunk and Portastatic, and co-founder of Merge Records, was sitting at a table nearby, talking to a friend. He then got really nervous, as he always does when he sees someone he sort of knows, or someone who is perhaps somewhat famous, especially if it's a musical artist he respects. He starts talking loudly about something else all the while shooting me glances that tell me if I go over there and talk to That Person and in any way embarass him, well, there will be hell to pay.

After the crowd subsided and we were one of the only tables left in the place, J and I went home. I fell asleep quickly, exhausted, and now it is Wednesday morning, and time to go. Despite the fact that, yes, I'm travelling to a house in Maine with my best friend and a band, three dogs and God knows who else, I promise frequent updates on what's going on. I mean, now that I'm not working I suppose I'd better keep some sort of schedule that involves some semblance of responsibility, as well as practicing and bettering my skills as a writer. Or maybe rock star. Blueberry farmer. I don't know. These next few weeks, I'm sure, will be full of self-discovery. I'm looking forward to telling you all about it.

A lesson in tolerance

This morning I was driving J to work and we were listening to perfectly nice music and having a perfectly nice conversation when he started in on one of his hacking fits, in which he coughs so loud and hard that I ask him if he'd like me to drive him to the hospital. It's a mock-serious question. I'm saying to him, "Listen, do you want me to drive you to the hospital? Because that cough is really intense and sounds serious," but also, "Justin. The ridiculous fashion in which you are coughing, that I believe to be a little bit over the top because there is no way in hell you need to make that much noise, makes me feel like I should do something equally ridiculous, like ask if you need emergency services."

When he coughs like this it's because he "has something in his throat" he tells me, and he, therefore, "needs to get it out," and this requires that, after the violent, hacking, forced cough, he must follow up with a series of grunts and "ahem AHEM AHEM AHEM AHEMS" in order to clear his throat further. "It's still in there!" he explains, when I look at him, exasperated, my sympathy clearly gone, and I just need him to stop making those noises, please, God, please stop.

The funny thing about this habit is that my father does the same thing, in different ways - that is, play-up his natural bodily reflexes, sneezing, coughing, clearing his throat. How I remember the many times my family would be sitting in a restaurant when my father would sit up straight in his chair, raise up his hands, palms facing outwards as if to silence the room, and sneeze so loudly and violently that patrons at other tables had to turn see what had just happened. This, apparently, not being enough attention drawn to the simple act of sneezing, my father would then yell something to make sure people knew that that, man, that had been a big one! "Wow!" or "Woah!" he'd shout, or sometimes "Jesus Christ!" with a major emphasis on that first syllable, like "Jeeeeeee - sus Christ!"

Needless to say, this was fun for Vin and I as teenagers. We'd hide behind our menus, looking at our mother, imploringly, as if to ask, "Really? Him? Was this your best option?" Meanwhile the waiter stood by, patiently, a smile playing at the edge of his lips as my father happily announced, again, in case people didn't hear, that that was a big sneeze, his eyes watering, his handkerchief out.

The handkerchief, one of my father's must-haves-at-all-times, always placed in his back pants pocket, was, in my opinion, at odds with his loud sneezing and coughing habit. He had a penchant for manners, my father, and to this day, if I chew with my mouth open or sniffle too loudly when I've got a cold, I stop, quickly, remembering the hundreds, thousands of times he'd tell me, "Cara, that's disgusting." I learned, finally, what is and is not acceptable. It took growing up and observing other people to realize that not only were my father's standards high, they were marked by a sort of obsession. Just a year or so ago I was at a pizza place with my parents, was getting over a cold, and in a moment of panic reached for one of the napkins - that are, I've been taught, strictly for use related to eating (the wiping of hands and mouth) - and placed one to my dripping nostril to stop a stream from landing on the table. There was an immediate uproar from my father's side of the table, "CARA! WHAT ARE YOU...JESUS CHRIST! THAT'S DISGUSTING!"  

I'm just not sure how much more "disgusting" my slight wiping of the nose with a dinner napkin is than his brilliant display of sneezes and coughs, and the continual carrying around of a dirty, cloth handkercheif.

Car trips were marked by deep, guttural throat clearings, much like my husband displayed this morning. "EHHHHHHHHH. EEEEHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGG." My brother and I would sit, mouths agape, wondering how my mother had become immune to this constant noise. Surely a person didn't need to work so hard at getting his throat cleared or scratched or whatever he was doing. But apparently he did, and on it would go. If we were lucky, a sneeze. In Chinese restaurants my father would self-inflict, adding hot mustard to his dish, taking a bite, and then assuming the typical palms-up gesture as though he were about to make a speech. His eyes would water, he'd swallow, and announce, "Jesus! That's HOT!" Is it? Is it hot, Dad? We couldn't tell because you weren't DRAWING ENOUGH ATTENTION TO THAT FACT.

So this morning I told J that I couldn't believed I'd married right back into the madness I sought so hard to flee in my youth. I've married someone who feels the need to clear their throat and cough loudly and harshly enough that I sometimes want to pull over the car and ask that he maybe get out until he is finished. He still claims, over and over, that he just needs to "get it out" the "it" mysterious because I'm pretty sure I've never had anything of that magnitude stuck in my throat. And luckily for now it's just this. But who knows how long it will be before he adopts other habits. Maybe one day I'll sit, quiet and poised like my mother, my eyes closed, pretending to nap. Maybe one day I won't even hear it anymore and at that point I'll realize an even truer definition of love and acceptance.