There was a thread the other day asking “are you still in touch with anyone from HS?” and the answer was no … but it got me thinking about HS, so I checked Facebook and there was B, who was another member of a group of four of us who hung out constantly my last year of HS – two guys, two girls, not couples, but a tight, tight group of friends. So I got in touch with him and we’ve been swapping emails the last couple days, getting caught up. We both admitted we’d googled each other and the other two members of The Gang – I think there was a sighting of the second guy, a few years ago, but I didn’t get in touch with him. Never been able to find anything about the other girl, figured it was a matter of a not-particularly-unusual name and the likelihood that she had married and changed her surname.
Turns out she died of something leukemialike a few years after she graduated from Stanford – i.e., about 30 years ago.
I was really knocked for a loop by this, that “the glowing Danish goddess” (as B called her in his email) was not out there … glowing. Doing her thing.
But, I had to pull it together – I had a meeting at 3 with some folks at a local paper, for whom I’ve been writing stuff on higher education for the last two years. This has been substantial amounts of work at times, and knocking out a couple of articles once a month at other times, but it’s been an ongoing relationship. They’re gearing up for a weekly series in Sept. and Oct., which we’ve already worked out an agreement for me to do. When talking to my editor over there, he had mentioned they were thinking of starting a website, might want to use some of my previous material for it (fine, no prob, it was work for hire, they own the rights), and might want me to write some addl. material for it as (sure, might be interested, would need to know more details about the specifics – timing, amounts, $$$). So, meeting set up for today at 3.
Went over to that … and the meeting wasn’t about my writing a little material for their website on a freelance basis … the meeting was about my overseeing all content for it. Like, as a full-time, permanent employee.
I have been looking for a full-time, permanent job for 2 years and 3 months.
We haven’t started talking salary or anything yet … but they’re very interested, and so am I. Keep your fingers crossed, y’all.
So, went back to work (my current FT, temporary job) and kind of poked at stuff for a while but then headed home, called my sister, told her about the job, made arrangements for the rendezvous for heading off for vacation together first thing Saturday.
Five minutes later, the phone rings, I figured it was my sister calling back … no, it was B, from my old job, who is not someone I was friendly with and who I haven’t spoken to since quitting said job four years ago. I figured she was calling to see if I could do a freelance job for them (not that that made any sense, since she’s not the person I deal with about freelancing with them, but why the hell else would she be calling?).
Nope, A died: another former coworker – good hearted guy, probably had Aspergers, could be annoying as hell because of his profound social tone-deafness, and because he couldn’t really process certain things about his job, but … very good hearted. 60ish, he had diabetes and stuff, but there’s no cause of death known yet – heart attack, maybe? His poor mother, who is also a former coworker.
So – L. is dead (for 30 years): I may be getting not only a job, but a cool job; and A. is dead (for less than 24 hours).
How was your day?
