In October 1990, I walked out on my job in NYC for good. But I didn't move back home. I moved to Brookline, MA; into an apartment with two roommates I'd met through a newspaper ad. For a year, I struggled on a cashier's part time wages at Stop & Shop. I could barely pay the rent and I could barely afford my groceries. I had to eat the same thing for dinner all week. I took a second job on two occasions, one as a bank teller (BSB) and for the summer, as a secretary in a computer store, Microtech Systems. For some reason, I have never been able to handle working two jobs before becoming physically sick and giving vent to -- yes -- temper tantrums. (I would like to pause here and say: "Before you check out the splinter in someone else's eye -- WHY DON'T YOU REMOVE THE PLANK IN YOUR OWN?) In other words....Why don't you step outside that lens, my friend? And capsize, with all the lies, that YOU'VE been living in???... * * * :) My mind and body have never been able to handle two jobs, although I have often tried -- without success -- to do just that.
After struggling for a year in Brookline, and although I had made many friends at S&S who did not want to see me go -- I left Brookline. And then, I moved back home to Montville, CT; with my parents in October 1991. My parents eventually convinced me that I would be able to collect unemployment as Stop & Shop in Waterford had reduced my wages during the transfer. I suffered extreme burn-out, physically and emotionally, from living and working in two cities, 1987-1991. I was unemployed for almost a whole year (1991-92). I did take adult ed classes at Montville High, my alma mater, in Basic Auto Repair (my father's idea) and Oil Painting (following my mother's latent passion) in 1992.
Foxwoods Casino, which began as a bingo hall on an Indian reservation in July 1986, opened as a full resort destination casino in Ledyard, CT in 1992.
In the Spring of 1992, I also became a Reporter for "The Resident" newspaper in Pawcatuck, CT. (Check out some old issues for my byline!)
It was in the Fall of 1992 that, after sending out countless resumes and cover letters to any and all businesses in the area, and some, out of the area -- that I registered with Kelly Temporaries of New London. My first assignment was as a Bank Teller in my hometown (F&M) for almost a year. When my temp assignment ended in Spring 1993, I took a trip to Mesa, Arizona to visit my roommate I had in Queens who had also moved "back home" to write for a local newspaper. THE SINGLE MOM OF CACTUS COUNTY is my tale of this next adventure. UP NEXT, right here, on "Fool's Gold," a "novella."
