My 9th grade Intro to Algebra teacher lied to
me. I was given the impression that in my life there would be numerous
occasions when I would be required to determine exactly when the blue
train would meet the green train, both of them having left different stations
at different times and traveling toward each other at different rates of speed.
This has yet to happen to me. And it's a good thing, because I had no
idea how to figure out when the trains would cross paths, and I still
have no idea how to figure this out. If the occasion did suddenly arise,
I would have to call my friend Rick, who knows all of this stuff. (I'm trying
to figure out what could possibly happen that would cause this issue to arise;
perhaps if I were tied to the tracks, it would become a matter of some import
to me. I'm working very hard at avoiding such a situation.)
 |
| See? Working. Work, work, work. That's all I do on these trips. (Photo by Lesley Scher.) |
But all of this is just to say that life
never quite works out as we expect. I had planned to be a psychologist. I
really loved all the psychology classes I took—and also the related coursework
in sociology, anthropology… You know. All of those -ologies. But then it
turned out that psych majors had to take a statistics course. This is when I
became an English major. (But the joke was on me. When I went to graduate
school as an Education major, it turned out that I still had to take a
statistics course!)
So, here I am many years later, retired. Sort
of. It turns out that I apparently don't know how to be retired. I had the best
of intentions. I was going to fish. A lot. I bought new fishing gear, some for
freshwater fishing on lakes and rivers, and some much larger, more
intimidatingly manly gear for surfcasting. The latter I have never used. The
former I've used once, in a muddy river seemingly bereft of fish.
(Though I did catch a very nice branch, which I had planned to take home
and mount on the wall, until Lesley unplanned that for me.)
We even bought a beautiful little travel
trailer; we take it all over and love camping in the beautiful state parks in
Oregon and Washington. The private RV parks are a little pricier, but they
often have amenities that are lacking in some of the parks. (Boondocking sites—places
to park your RV for free or almost free—are often very beautiful, but generally
lack all amenities, including showers, dump stations, or bathrooms.
Since one cannot dump one's tanks at most such sites, the longest we can stay
at a boondocking site is 3-4 days; after that it's time to dump our tanks and
take a very long hot shower.) And we do take the trailer out as often as
we can. In fact, we're currently planning a 3-week trip, which means that a new
editing job will show up in my inbox exactly
6 hours before we leave.
 |
| There. See? Working. Slaving away while everyone else is out hiking, sweating, mired in the mud, being chased by bears and cougars and angry moose... Actually, you know what? Never mind. I'm good. (Photo by Lesley Scher.) |
See, even though I do a lot of camping, and
in spite of this theoretical "retirement," I'm still working. Even
when I'm "camping" I'm often working. All I need, after all, is a
cell signal. (Actual Wi-Fi is rare, but it does happen.) So, I've spent many an
hour with our trailer nestled in the beauty of a forest of pines, blue skies
overhead, the sounds of a rushing river in the background, the smell of fresh
elk poop wafting all around—and there I am, hunched over our little dinette
table, working away on my laptop, editing a book or writing an article.
In fact, I had planned to start my own little
company (doing some very secret, cybersecurity-related stuff), but every time I
get a few minutes to think about that project, in comes another editing gig.
I'd really like to have another source of income, but I'm too busy working to
figure out how to work.
 |
| And here's our cute little trailer, stopped for lunch somewhere on the road. (Photo by Lesley. Or Rod. Or possibly some passer-by, I'm not sure.) |
I can't complain, really. I mean, the money
is needed to help pay for Lesley's health insurance and to buy camping
equipment and computer gear. And possibly a fully restored 1963 Austin-Healey
3000 convertible. (I just snuck that in there to see if Lesley was actually reading
these blog entries. My plan, if she doesn’t read this, is to just buy the car
and when she says, "Where—and WHY—did you buy that car, dammit?!" I
can simply respond, "But Honey, I told you I was going to buy it!
It was right there in blog post #37!" This is a foolproof plan, I can tell
already.)
Still, I had always thought retirement would
involve more fishing.
