My last day on KC Live was six months ago today. I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around how fast time flies.
After I finished things up (on Independence Day, no less), I booked one solid month of furious travel so I wouldn’t mope around. Tahoe! Orlando! Sacramento! And a slew of other towns that end in “O”! It remains the highlight of my year. (It was also one solid month of even furious-er drinking … uh, the lowlight of my year.)
Then began the flurry of looking for gainful new employment. Would I stay in TV? Would I stay in KC? I applied for nearly thirty jobs online … each more mindless and menial than the last. My computer sensed I was filling out another trivial application and would auto-populate the entire form in .02 seconds. I could fulfill the Missouri Department of Unemployment’s job-seeking requirements in less than four minutes flat. That left a lot of time for other things … uh, like sobriety and yoga.
Mind you, I got certified to teach yoga in 2001. I stopped practicing in 2008. In my head, I thought getting back in to it would be easy. “Muscle memory,” I deduced. My body revolted. It creaked and snapped like kindling. After my first yoga class reentry, I spent the next two days making old man grunts getting up off the couch. By the end of the summer, however, I was faithfully going 3-4 times a week and was, once again, bendy like a straw. Plus, I forgot how much yoga kept me grounded, at a time when I was flighty and neurotic.
I visited my folks relentlessly, spending weeks upon weeks up in Central Iowa. Pro, you can’t recapture all that quality time, the flower planting, the steak grilling, the grocery shopping and the list goes on and on. Con, I was forced to sleep in my childhood bed — which has the same lumbar support as sheet metal. Meanwhile, I learned to appreciate eating dinner at 4:30pm, going to bed at 8:30 and finding sneaky ways to turn the TV off Fox News.
Periodically, I’d get e-mails wondering what the hell had happened to me. I’d politely explain I had a nice little two-year run on the show and was no longer a part of it. As with the general public, some folks were livid, some had twenty more questions and some took it personally.
My favorite e-mail was from a woman who apparently made it her lot in life to watch me on TV. In her last bit of correspondence, the subject line read “Bye-Bye, Mr. American Pie”. And while I didn’t respond (mainly because her three-page manifesto was both rambling and delusional), I did find it to be a perfect blog title.
I’ve been working at my new gig for nearly three months, a wildly creative company called VPR. The job requires lots of travel, which was the one thing I agonizingly missed about my TV gig. The folks there are some of the single most pleasant people I’ve ever met … everyone working for the common good of the company. It’s a good fit, one I started three months ago to the day.
2015 has a lot of potential. And because I’m a forward-momentum kind of guy, I’m really looking forward to what’s in store. Life is a series of adventures and anniversaries … and I’m about to create some new memories and relish in some old ones. My New Year’s Resolution, you ask? Take more time to appreciate the little things in life with my beloved friends and wholly embrace every new city I visit.
Game on.
Hey! Thanks for this column. Also, thanks for not including that nasty interchange I had with that really dull guy on KCL.
MIKE
like a cat, always landing on your feet! Good luck in your new endeavor
just love you sir!!! What a doll you are! So jealous of your travel… Thanks for letting us along your journey!