2010: I'll Likely Look Back On It As "Character-Building"

For the past couple of years, I've kept a handwritten journal where I jot down a few lines about the most important things that happen each day.  Here's a glimpse into what I deemed important enough to write down in 2010.

January

I start the year knowing I'm about to get laid off.  I know because I work in the financial world, where disclosure is everything.  I also know my boss is angry at me because she doesn't want me to know yet.  I know that because I have a co-worker who's been keeping me in the loop while I've taken off for Christmas.  I spend most of my Christmas vacation anxious and worried...

January 4 - I'm back at work and I learn that I have two weeks or less.  I won't know when it's coming.  I just have to show up for the next two weeks knowing that any morning there could be a box on my desk...

January 8 - My new phone - my first new phone in 3.5 years - is a piece of shit and AT&T won't give me a refund or a new phone.  I refuse to pay for another one and so revert back to using my old phone.  [It'll be spring of next year before I'm eligible for my next free upgrade.]

January 11 - See The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.  Am depressed.

January 13 - Earthquake in Haiti.

January 14 - I get laid off.

January 19 - Get a library card.  Ted Kennedy's seat goes to a Republican.

January 20 - I get sick.

January 22 - I turn 28.  Despite the year so far, I'm optimistic about the days ahead.

January 25 - Go in for an oil change and walk out needing $350 worth of work on my car.

January 26 - Find out car needs additional $250 worth of work.

January 28 - Megan has her baby!  Jon. :)

February

Armed with books and internet research, I start trying to find an agent and a publisher.

February 6 - My plans to go to Las Vegas with Kara and Alex crumble when we find out that Alex might be deployed as early as March, and not late in the year as he originally thought.

February 7 - The Saints win the Super Bowl.

February 10 - Visit the unemployment office.  Unhelpful advice from multiple people in multiple states has led to me...applying incorrectly.  Unemployment lady loudly and humiliatingly announces as much in a full and cold and depressing office after hours of waiting.

February 12 - Winter Olympics start.  I lose myself for the next 2 weeks in Olympic hysteria.  Unrelated, my parents' neighbor's house burns to the ground.

February 16 - Buy a betta, bringing my pet total to...two fish.

February 20 - Betta.  Won't.  Eat.

February 21 - My teeth hurt because I'm grinding them at night.  Still can't get my book proposal right.  Keep having these awful dreams where I'm looking and looking and looking for something but I can never find it...

February 22 - Submit my book to five agencies.

February 23 - And one more.

February 24 - And two more.  I'm sick with anxiety.

February 27 - Co-worker I was laid off with calls to say she's found a job.

February 28 - Winter Olympics end.  Canada beats U.S. in nailbiter hockey game.

March

March 1 - Get my first rejection from an agent.  Scrap book cover idea on disapproval of parents.

March 5 - Betta finally fucking eats.  When I feed him goldfish food.

March 8 - Kara's birthday and 6th (!) anniversary of us seeing the Queen in Windsor.

March 10 - Corey Haim dies.

March 11 - I do my taxes and I owe the government $663.  Former employer payroll = still screwing me over.

March 14 - Spring forward.

[Spend entire week thinking Kara is coming this weekend to see little Jon.  Realize on Sunday it's next weekend.]

March 21 - House passes health care bill.  Yes.  We.  Can.

March 22 - Submit to another agency.

March 23 - Obama signs healthcare bill into law (!).  Submit to 3 more agencies.

March 24 - Two more.

March 27 - Third floor neighbor has seizure.  Come home from morning run to ambulance in the driveway...

April

April 1 - Three weeks of extensive cleaning end in the cleanest this place has been since I've moved in.  Kara arrives.

April 3 - Bunny Run (first 5k Megan and I did together; we've done it every year since 2007).  With Megan and Jon and Kara.

April 4 - Kara goes home after strange and unsettling trip.  Heath's birthday.

April 5 - Spend most of the day in Mississippi helping the parents with a burn.  Farm being used as part of an Audubon native wildflower grant.  I breathe in smoke and smother fire all day.

April 7 - Yearly gynecological exam.

April 10 - 40th anniversary of the Beatles breaking up.  Polish president dies in a plane crash.  Realization:  I've written a book about being ignored and now I'm being ignored by the people who can help me get published.  I start looking into self publishing.

April 14 - Sick.

April 15 - Kara = obsessed with boys.  Me = desperately trying to work up the courage to write about Jake again.

April 16 - Talk to iUniverse (my eventual publisher).

April 17 - PR at the YV 5k.  Finish book cover after off-handed comment from Susie leads to much-needed inspiration.  Twelve years since Linda McCartney died.

April 19 - Sign contact with iUniverse.

April 21 - Start work on www.imstalkingjake.com

April 22 - Earth Day!

April 25 - Finish ISJ! website

April 27 - Seventeen years since my first Paul McCartney concert.  Decide to go live with new website May 11.

April 28 - Kara has first date with her eventual boyfriend.  She calls me immediately afterward.  And nearly every day after that for the next six weeks.

April 20 - Cantara e-mails to say that Stephen's getting married again.  Oil rig blows up in the Gulf.

May

May 1 -  Memphis FLOODS.  9.3 inches of rain overnight.  Swimming pool at parents' house three feet under water.

May 5 - iUniverse balks at using any photographs of Jake.  I cry.

May 6 - Drive to Bloomington, Indiana, to see Kara.

May 7 - Kara has doctor's appointment, finds out she needs knee surgery.

May 10 - Drive home from Indiana.  Kara will call in the next couple of days to say her friends in Indiana asked her why I looked like I was "so freaked out."

May 11 - Every intention of starting new Jake blog but...my computer, after 2 years of faithful, uninterrupted service, DIES.  Leave computer at Apple Store, go to Best Buy, buy $300 laptop to tide me over.

May 12 - Start blog.  Get 43 hits my first day.

May 13 - Apple Store calls to tell me I've lost everything on my hard drive.  I cry.  Pick up computer from Apple and take it to local store to see what they can do.

May 14 - Local store confirms that...there is absolutely nothing wrong with my hard drive and I haven't lost anything.  Fuck you, Genius Bar.

May 15 - Journal entry reads:  "I hate to say it, but I'm sick of Jake already."

May 18 - Get my computer back.

May 20 - Manuscript goes off to editor.

May 22 - James Marsters engaged (!).

May 28 - Gary Coleman dies.  Have photo session for author pictures.  See Prince of Persia with Megan and Melissa.  We're silent as we leave the theater.  Megan finally (bravely) says, "Well, he looked really good!"

May 29 - Dennis Hopper dies.  Journal reads, "So.  Prince of Persia might not exactly be the fan magnet I was counting on..."

June

June 1 - Al and Tipper Gore split.

June 2 - Get tickets to see Paul McCartney in Nashville.

June 4 - Kara and I get into an awkward fight.  I think we're okay, but we won't talk again for most of the summer.

June 6 - Jane Velez-Mitchell of CNN Headline News interviews me over the phone for a book she's writing.  When her assistant calls to set up the interview, she doesn't specify which blog she's interested in me talking about, so I spend several minutes on Prince of Persia before she interrupts to ask about my feelings on human overpopulation.  Uhhh...oops.

June 12 - U.S. plays England in the World Cup.  Score is 1-1.

June 15 - The photographer who took THIS picture of Jake denies me permission to use it for the Civil War album cover for my book.  Stung, I'm forced to completely reconfigure the picture sequence.

June 16 - Three weeks since I submitted my manuscript to the editor.  Who was to have it back to me in two weeks.  I've already been pestering the publisher, but now I'm freaking.

June 18 - My brother cuts off the tip of his thumb at work.

June 22 - High of 100 and I lose my electricity for an hour in the heat of the day.

June 23 - John flies to London to work Hard Rock Calling.

June 24 - Find out my car needs $1200 worth of work.  Someone steals an entry from this blog and posts it under her own name at IHJ.  Still no word on my manuscript.  I'm a little fragile.

June 26 - U.S. bows out of the World Cup after crushing defeat to Ghana in overtime.

June 28 - Our family cat, Rose, dies at the age of 16.  Mom and Dad find her ripped to shreds in the backyard, having been consumed by some wild animal.  Concerned by the graphic violence of her death, they take pictures to show to Animal Control.  They suggest I don't look at them.  I don't.

July

July 1 - Find out Megan will be moving to Texas next month.

July 2 - Go to Mississippi to spend the Fourth with family.  Having an adverse reaction to a medication; side effects include panic attacks and depression.  I wish I was making this up.

July 5 - Get my manuscript back.  THE RELIEF.  Editor has only minor suggestions.  I go through the entire book, line-by-line, in one week.  John comes home from Europe.

July 7 - Get a Facebook message from a friend of Jake's telling me Jake likes my blog.  Skeptical, I respond with the written equivalent of an eye roll.

July 8 - I realize that the individual above actually pans out in terms of authenticity.  So entrenched in editing, so embarrassed by my low traffic numbers, and so unimpressed that after all this time, Jake might know who I am, I can't find the determination to care.

July 13 - Submit edited manuscript.  Having found 21 errors my editor missed, I think I'm done.

July 15 - iUniverse tells me my marketing information is "woefully inadequate" and they won't give me an Editor's Choice designation unless I come up with something better.  I pitch a fit.

July 16 - I'm Editor's Choice.  But only if I capitalize the word "internet" in my book.  I pitch another fit.

July 17 - Get into a fight with Alex, who is now in Afghanistan, over Fox News.  Before we take a break from communicating while we both regain our composure, he fills me in on Kara's summer.  Finding out he knows more about what's going on in Kara's life than I do sends me into a despondent tailspin.

July 21 - Alex calls me.  We reconcile.  iUniverse does not recant my Editor's Choice status, despite my refusal to capitalize "internet."  Book should be out in a week.  Panic attacks not getting any better.

July 26 - PAUL McCARTNEY CONCERT IN NASHVILLE.  Before leaving, I go to a doctor's appointment.  Blood is drawn and the nurse botches the job, resulting in blood quite literally shooting out of my arm, horror-movie style, and pooling in a puddle in my pants.  Doctor, nurse, and I all horribly disturbed.

July 28 - Make that next week for the book.

July 29 - My fellow tenants move out, leaving my internet situation in a precarious position.

August

It's hot.  It's so hot people are dropping dead.  In my second floor apartment, with the air conditioning full blast and all the shutters closed, it's 90 degrees inside.  The heat index hits 120 multiple days in a row.  The book isn't out and iUniverse is ignoring me.  Blog traffic is dismal.  My last remaining friend in Memphis is moving away.  My friends outside of Memphis aren't talking to me.  I have another two months on the panic-attack-inducing medication.  I have no job.  I'm lonely.  My unemployment benefits might not be extended because of political theater in Congress.  I get out of bed every morning to write a blog I can't get anyone to read to promote a book I can't get published...  I'm cracking up.

August 7 - First day of half marathon training.

August 10 - Say goodbye to Megan.  Develop muscle spasm in my back.

August 11 - Someone starts a rumor on Twitter that Jake has died.  I'm so angry I have delusions of reaching through my computer screen and strangling the perpetrator.

August 13 - Unemployment benefits extended.  Manuscript not done after all.  Start editing the book line-by-line one last time.

August 18 - Submit manuscript for the last time.  Book should be out in...one to two weeks...  (I've heard that before.)  I'm grinding my teeth at night again...

August 19 - Go to a Breakaway run and random guy I don't know spends the better part of an hour lecturing me on how shitty a salesperson I am.  Worst part is that he's not entirely wrong.  I come home exhausted.

August 27 - Book is in.  Ready to go to the printer.  Will be out in a week.  Definitely.  Maybe.  Pick up last prescription.

August 30 - Kara's supposed to call.  She doesn't.

August 31 - End of combat in Iraq.

September

September 1 - Book goes to print.  Live on iUniverse.  Should be on Amazon in 2 weeks.

September 3 - WHOA, BOOK OUT.  All that waiting and the one time I could have actually used the 2 weeks to get the promotional wheels turning.  Nearly 5 years of work and...there are people who read the whole thing in one day...

September 4 - Ten-year high school reunion.  It's weird, awkward, and everyone is fat.

September 8 - Hold a hard copy of my book in my hands for the first time.  It's surreal.

September 10 - My brother might be moving away now.  And book sales have crashed already.  One-hundred and eighty posts in four months for nothing.  No one cares.

September 14 - Really, REALLY bad muscle spasm in my back.  My whole body jerks.  I can't sleep.  I can't sit.  The pain is almost unbearable.

September 17 - Journal entry:  "I'm so depressed.  Nothing is selling.  I think I failed."

September 18 -  Complete and utter breakdown.  It's all been for nothing.

September 19 - I've cried more in the past 24 hours than I've ever cried in my life.  Mom (rightfully) tells me that blogging about Jake again has taken me "to a dark place."  Muscle spasm almost gone, but now that I'm sleeping again, my dreams are awful.  Just awful...

September 20 - Change blog.

September 23 - I wouldn't even call it a crush.  But it might turn into one if I wait long enough.  Or at least it could have...before today.  I don't have the energy to deal with this crap.

September 24 - Go to St. Louis to see some friends.  Spend the weekend drinking and winning at poker.  It's.  Awesome.

September 27 - Off medication!

September 28 - A good friend's dad dies, very unexpectedly.

October

October 1 - My brother moves to New York to go to culinary school.

October 2 - Fly to Seattle.  Spend fun weekend with friends.  Try not to think about the money I'm spending.

October 5 - Fly home.

October 6 - Dude from Fox contacts me about the Love & Other Drugs Facebook page.  For all of one week, I will feel like something is actually going right and someone might acknowledge that I'm good at what I do.  But he winds up ignoring me and the real question is why I let my hopes get up in the first place.

October 7 - Journal entry:  "Oh, look at that.  It's back to being 90 degrees in Memphis.  And oh, look at that.  My a/c is out.  And oh, look at that.  [My landlords] are in Puerto Rico until sometime next week.  And the internet is down.  And I have monster cockroaches.  FML."

October 12 - First speed workout, where the person who invited me doesn't show up, and the people who are there politely tolerate my horrifying slowness.

October 14 - Drive to Nashville.  Kara's there at an academic conference.  I want to make things right.  We haven't talked all summer and she's my best friend and I'm missing out on her life and she's missing out on mine.  But she's sick, out of breath, pulse racing...  She tells me she didn't want to come on this trip, that something is "really wrong."  She doesn't want to go to a Nashville doctor, though, and I don't know what to do.  We have lunch together and then I drive home.

October 16 - Kara dies.  Pulmonary embolism.  Probably a blood clot in her knee, from her recent surgery.

October 19 - Autopsy results.

October 21 - Drive to Kansas with Jamie and Kathryn.  Pick up Greta on the way and meet Megan there.

October 22 - Kara's funeral.  Worst day of my life.

October 23 - Drive home.

October 24 - First rain in Memphis in 90 days.

October 25 - Stevey G blows me off.

October 26 - Go out.  Get very drunk.

October 29 - Plans to attend Rhodes Homecoming fall through after a friend only now informs me that she's not coming.  Suddenly, I have no plans for the weekend.  Spend Halloween alone.  Book doesn't make it to the alumni section in the bookstore because the bookstore "can't find" my book to order it.

November 

November 1 - Polish off entire bottle of wine with my landlady.

November 2 - Three years since Jake Watch ended.  And look at me.

November 8 - Go out to dinner with a friend I haven't seen in years.  When we're done, all I want to do is call Kara and fill her in...

November 11 - Bad day.  Just...bad day.

November 12 - Breakaway Women's Night, where I have a table.  And (try to) sell my book.  I'd be hard-pressed to find a scenario in which I was more uncomfortable.

November 13 - Run alone.  In the rain.  Upside:  a double rainbow follows me for several miles.

November 16 - [Long-time, well-publicized crush] Prince William engaged to Kate Middleton.

November 18 - Midnight screening of HP7.1

November 22 - Buy new running shoes.

November 24 - Head to Illinois with the parentals for Thanksgiving.

November 28 - Home.  See Love & Other Drugs.  Get into my car when it's over and scream.  And scream.  Because I wanted so much to like it.  And I don't.

December 

December 1 - US Weekly hits us with Jake and Taylor.  I can't even.

December 2 - Megan and little Jon arrive for the half marathon.

December 4 - Wake up sick.  Run the best race OF MY LIFE anyway.

December 4 (night) - Spend the entire night sicker than hell and throwing up.

December 5 - Meg goes home to Texas.  Jamie gives birth to a little girl.  Life goes on...

December 7 - Elizabeth Edwards dies.  My grandma is horribly sick and in the hospital.

December 8 - Grandma okay.  Thirtieth anniversary of John Lennon's death.

December 14 - Christmas run.  I should not drink with these people...

December 18 - Don't Ask, Don't Tell repealed.

December 20/21 - Full lunar eclipse.  First one on the Winter Solistice since 1638.  I set my alarm and stumble outside at 2 am.  But it's cloudy so I can't see anything.

December 23 - John comes home for the first time since starting school.  I go to Mom and Dad's and just stay.  We have a wonderful Christmas together, just the four of us.

December 30 - I post this entry.

Books read in 2010:  28.5

Movies seen:  23

Miles run: ? (over 400)

It's just life, you know?  Just life.  I have big plans for changing things in 2011.  Stay tuned...  I'm not so foolish as to make any predictions about 2011 being "better," but if I have anything to say about it, it will be different.

Happy New Year, everybody!!!!!!!