theSmudge.com

My “year in cities” thing is still going strong (here are links for 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015). This is basically just a list of cities in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2023. An * denotes those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. I didn’t count nights spent in airplanes.

1. Happy Valley, OR*
2. Christchurch, NZ*
3. Nelson, NZ
4. Westport, NZ
5. Franz Josef, NZ
6. Queenstown, NZ
7. Oamaru, NZ
8. Lake Tekapo, NZ
9. Auckland, NZ
10. Tokyo, Japan
11. Moses Lake, WA
12. Beaverton, OR*
13. Eugene, OR
14. Newberg, OR*
15. Burlington, VT
16. Millbury, MA
17. Rochester, NY*
18. Carson, WA
19. Jacksonville, OR
20. Brookings, OR
21. Bandon, OR
22. Hebo, OR
23. Seaside, OR
24. Marblemount, WA
25. Squamish, BC
26. Nashville, TN
27. Portland, OR
28. Olney, OR
29. Hammond, OR
30. Leavenworth, WA
31. Salmon Arm, BC
32. Golden, BC
33. Abbotsford, BC
34. Berlin, Germany
35. Krakow, Poland
36. Prague, Czech Republic
37. Eureka, CA
38. Huntsville, AL
39. Memphis, TN
40. Sheffield, AL

And here are the flights I took this year. These do not count layovers.

1. Portland, OR to Auckland, NZ  (February)
2. Christchurch, NZ to Auckland, NZ (February)
3. Auckland, NZ to Tokyo (March)
4. Tokyo to Portland, OR (March)
5. Portland, OR to Boston, MA (May)
6. Boston, MA to Rochester, NY (May)
7. Rochester, NY to Portland, OR (June)
8. Portland, OR to Nashville, TN (August)
9. Nashville, TN to Portland, OR (August)
10. Portland, OR to Berlin, Germany (September)
11. Berlin, Germany to Krakow, Poland (September)
12. Krakow, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic (September)
13. Prague, Czech Republic to Portland, OR (October)
14. Portland, OR to Rochester, NY (December)
15. Rochester, NY to Huntsville, AL (December)
16. Huntsville, AL to Portland, OR (December)

My “year in cities” thing is still going strong (here are links for 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015). This is basically just a list of cities in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2022. An * denotes those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. I didn’t count nights spent in airplanes.

1. Happy Valley, OR*
2. New York City, NY*
3. Rochester, NY*
4. Frankfurt, Germany
5. Munich, Germany
6. Zurich, Switzerland
7. Barcelona, Spain
8. Millbury, MA*
9. Kingfield, ME
10. Beaverton, OR
11. Central Point, OR
12. Bend, OR
13. Coeur d’Alene, ID
14. Missoula, MT
15. Finley Point, MT
16. Portland, OR
17. Pacific City, OR
18. Hammond, OR
19. Ilwaco, WA
20. Weed, CA
21. Mt. Shasta, CA
22. Idleyld Park, OR
23. Crescent, OR
24. Squamish, BC (Canada)*
25. Pemberton, BC (Canada)
26. Whistler, BC (Canada)
27. Eureka, CA
28. Westlake, OR
29. Washington D.C.
30. Portland, ME

And here are the flights I took this year. These do not count layovers.

1. Portland, OR to New Jersey, NJ (January)
2. Rochester, NY to Portland, OR (February)
3. Portland, OR to Frankfurt, Germany (March)
4. Zurich, Switzerland to Barcelona, Spain (March)
5. Barcelona, Spain to Portland, OR (March)
6. Portland, OR to Rochester, NY (May)
7. Rochester, NY to Boston, MA (May)
8. Boston, MA to Portland, OR (May)
9. Portland, OR to Rochester, NY (September)
10. Newark, NJ to Portland, OR (October)
11. Portland, OR to Washington D.C. (October)
12. Boston, MA to Portland, OR (November)

The “year in cities” thing has become enough of a pattern that I did it again (here are links for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015). This is basically just a list of cities in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021. An * denotes those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. I didn’t count nights spent in airplanes.

1. Happy Valley, OR*
2. Lake Forest, IL
3. Chicago, IL*
4. Las Vegas, NV
5. Bandon, OR
6. Seaside, OR
7. Rochester, NY*
8. Louisville, KY
9. New York, NY*
10. Athens, Greece*
11. Chania, Greece (Crete)
12. Kankakee, IL*
13. Oglesby, IL
14. Lincoln City, OR
15. Wasco, OR
16. Enterprise, OR
17. Bend, OR
18. Eugene, OR
19. Westlake, OR
20. Eureka, CA
21. Danville, CA
22. San Simeon, CA
23. Long Beach, CA
24. Mecca, CA
25. Joshua Tree, CA
26. Peoria, AZ
27. Flagstaff, AZ
28. Cedar City, UT
29. Riverdale, UT
30. Glenns Ferry, ID
31. Frenchglen, OR
32. Tulelake, CA
33. Mt. Shasta, CA
34. Ashland, OR
35. Fairport, NY
36. Buxton, OR

And here are the flights I took this year. These do not count layovers.

1. Portland, OR to Chicago, IL (January)
2. Chicago, IL to Portland, OR (January)
3. Portland, OR to Las Vegas, NV (February)
4. Las Vegas, NV to Portland, OR (February)
5. Portland, OR to Rochester, NY (April)
6. Rochester, NY to Chicago, IL (April)
7. Chicago, IL to Portland, OR (April)
8. Portland, OR to New York, NY (June)
9. New York, NY to Athens, Greece (June)
10. Athens, Greece to Herakleion, Greece (June)
11. Chania, Greece to Athens, Greece (June)
12. Athens, Greece to Chicago, IL (June)
13. Chicago, IL to Portland, OR (June)
14. Portland, OR to Rochester, NY (October)
15. Rochester, NY to New York City, NY (November)
16. New York City, NY to Portland, OR (November)

The “year in cities” thing has become enough of a pattern that I did it again (here are links for 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015). This is basically just a list of cities in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. An * denotes those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights. I didn’t count nights spent in airplanes.

1. Lake Forest, IL*
2. Chicago, IL*
3. Portland, OR*
4. Seaside, OR
5. Las Vegas, NV
6. Kankakee, IL
7. Atlanta, GA
8. Hollywood, FL*
9. Happy Valley, OR*
10. Dayville, OR
11. Cambridge, ID
12. Detroit, OR
13. Westlake, OR
14. Newport, OR
15. Glenoma, WA
16. Netarts, OR
17. Austin, TX
18. Meacham, OR
19. Twin Falls, ID*
20. Riverdale, UT
21. Moab, UT
22. Monticello, UT
23. Page, AZ
24. Fredonia, AZ
25. Orderville, UT
26. Bryce, UT
27. Torrey, UT

And here are the flights I took this year. These do not count layovers.

1. Chicago, IL to Portland, OR (January)
2. Portland, OR to Las Vegas, NV (January)
3. Las Vegas, NV to Portland, OR (January)
4. Portland, OR to Chicago, IL (February)
5. Chicago, IL to Atlanta, GA (February)
6. Atlanta, GA to Fort Lauderdale, FL (March)
7. Fort Lauderdale, FL to Portland, OR (March)
8. Portland, OR to Austin, TX (October)
9. Austin, TX to Portland, OR (October)
10. Portland, OR to Fort Lauderdale, FL (November)
11. Fort Lauderdale, FL to Portland, OR (November)

COVID changed things this year. It cancelled Chicago multiple times,, as well asNew York, Helsinki, Athens, Crete, Amsterdam, Scotland, and at least one more weekend somewhere else.

Today marked 10 years since my perspective on life began to shift and “life is short; live it” began running through the back corners of my mind. Over the course of seven seconds in a California courtroom on March 4, 2009, I watched as a judge narrowly avoided being stabbed in the jugular and her attempted killer was shot to death. By then, I’d already seen plenty of dead bodies and gruesome crime scenes and grieving families, and now I’m in a career where I deal with a lot of traumatized people. It doesn’t bother me and I sleep just fine, but that day in the courtroom had such a different impact on me.

It took me a long time to figure out why that courtroom attack hit me so strongly. In the days after that incident, I kept a running daily tally of every single Chrysler 300 I saw on the road — and those cars were at the peak of popularity in 2009, so I saw a lot of them. Every single minute, I knew exactly how many black Chrysler 300’s I’d seen that day, and how many non-black ones I’d seen. I spotted them across a divided freeway, in the distance rounding a corner, and in dim evening light. Every morning, my tortured mental tally restarted, and every day I vehemently hoped it wouldn’t resume. Four weeks later, my brain finally stopped differentiating between black and other colored Chrysler 300’s. After six weeks, the daily counting finally stopped, and I was so very relieved. I suspect it was post traumatic stress reaction — not disorder (the D in PTSD), though I refused my employer’s counseling offer so I never did find out. However, I do still get silently enraged when people joke about PTSD, because I know how much my version bothered me, and how hard I tried and failed to make it stop until it had run its course.

I still hate Chrysler 300’s with an embarrassingly absurd passion. This morning, a black one got very close to me while making a turn, and I felt that familiar rage, especially with today’s anniversary. Why that car? That’s the question I’ve asked myself for a decade. The guy who nearly killed the judge was on trial for murder, a crime that happened when he admittedly stabbed his girlfriend in the jugular inside a black Chrysler 300. His attorney, coincidentally, drove a nearly identical black Chrysler 300, and I had even been in it before the crime. (His lawyer later got a different car, and told me that case was the reason he got rid of it.)

I’ve mostly accepted the fact that I’ll never know why my brain fixated on black Chrysler 300’s. But along the way, I’ve finally figured out some of the reasons why that courtroom attack had such a profound impact on me. Sure, the attack itself was out of the ordinary and justifiably made headline news across the country. But by then, I’d already seen and done a lot of crazy things, and none of them gave me a mantra that has run through my head for 10 straight years.

First, in the moments immediately after the stabbing and shooting, I knew that the attacker had been shot and stopped by a detective I would have trusted with my life (that’s saying something for me). But suddenly a sergeant came running from behind me, hollering, “Everybody get down!” I experienced a moment of sheer horror, suddenly thinking that it wasn’t over and that the attacker must have gotten hold of a gun. I found myself crouching on the floor in front of my seat, few yards away from the attacker. I was later teased both publicly and privately for my reaction of ducking to the floor, which still fills me with indignation, since I was defenseless and had just heard a very urgent order to get down. I think that combination of brief terror and later ridicule contributed to my Chrysler 300 reaction, because my brain just couldn’t deal with all of it.

Second, people close to me had very different reactions. One, who had flirted with me for a while and we had briefly dated (and years later tried again), knew I was in that courtroom and was instantly texting me, then calling. Over the next days and weeks, he checked in with me regularly to ask how I was, and praised my reporting and writing. Meanwhile, the guy I was actually dating had the opposite reaction: He thought I was lucky I’d been there to get the story, and said it was mild compared to many other things. We barely talked, because he could not understand why I kept thinking about it. He thought my car counting was absurd and that I needed to just get over it.

But, third, the biggest take-away was that line: “Life is short; live it.” Three months after the courtroom attack, I was on a freeway when a truck accelerated, went up a hill, then went airborne and sailed over an overpass with a vehicle on it. Both occupants of that truck died, the driver who’d had a heart attack that caused the wreck, and his wife who awoke from a coma just long enough to learn that her husband hadn’t survived.

It took a little more than a year for me to finally listen to that line running through my head. I left the job environment that was making me unhappy, I finally broke up with that “just get over it” guy for the last time, and I decided to move to either Portland or the Bay Area. A door opened in the Bay Area, and I walked through it, never once regretting the change that meant leaving behind a 10-year career I had truly loved.

Six years later, my paternal grandfather died and my grandmother couldn’t live alone. And then my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer. As I went every direction at once (thanks to the most compassionate boss), “life is short; live it” kept running through my head. My mom beat the odds, and that’s when I knew it was time to move to Portland. I finally found a way to make it happen, and though today is the courtroom attack anniversary, later this month I’ll mark two years of living in Portland. They’ve been two years of the hardest job training I’ve ever experienced, but once again, I’ve had no regrets.

A decade later, I’m still scowling at black Chrysler 300’s, and I’m still remembering 2:10 p.m. on March 4, 2009. But I’m really trying to live life. I just returned from a romp through Italy and Spain, where I ran marathon #20; I’m watching more international flights; I’m gradually making my way through each of the 50 United States; I’m mapping out road trips to Yellowstone and ocean camping; I’m begging people (and my bank account) to go to Antarctica; I’m still dreaming of qualifying for the Boston marathon despite my injury-prone self that was never supposed to run in the first place.

And I’ve also gradually been learning that I don’t need the people who ridicule me or brush me off. Yes, we usually get what we give and we shouldn’t expect anything in return, but some people can just be acquaintances while others can be true friends.

 

(I’ve written about this previously. Here’s the 2016 post, where I reprinted the first-hand account I wrote the night of the courtroom attack.)

The “year in cities” thing has become enough of a pattern that I did it again (here are links for 2017, 2016 and 2015). This is basically just a list of cities in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2018. An * denotes those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights.

1. Portland, OR*
2. Kankakee, IL*
3. Over the Midwest*
4. Hollywood, FL
5. New York City, NY*
6. Boston, MA
7. Seattle, WA
8. Banff, AB (Canada)*
9. Jasper, AB (Canada)
10. Coeur d’Alene, ID
11. Lincoln City, OR
12. Netarts, OR*
13. Redmond, WA
14. Milwaukee, WI
15. Oshkosh, WI
16. Lake Forest, IL
17. Harrisburg, PA
18. Rehoboth Beach, DE

And here are the flights I took this year. These do not count layovers.

1. Portland, OR to Chicago, IL  — April
2. Chicago, IL to Ft. Lauderdale, FL — April
3. Ft. Lauderdale, FL to New York City, NY — April
4. Boston, MA to Portland, OR — April
5. Portland, OR to Chicago, IL — October
6. Chicago, IL to Portland, OR — October
7. Portland, OR to Philadelphia, PA — December
8. New York City, NY to Portland, OR — December

The “year in cities” thing was easy/fun enough to do for the past two years that I did it again (here are links for 2016 and 2015). However, I didn’t get the idea to add a photo for each city until this year, and now it’s March but I haven’t gone back and added pictures. Since I’m lazy and it IS March, I’m just going to post this now and hope for better results in 2018… This “cities” idea is basically just a list of cities in which I spent at least one night between January 1, 2017, and December 31, 2017. An * denotes those cities in which I spent multiple non-consecutive nights.

1. Upland, CA
2. Dublin, CA*
3. Fort Lauderdale, FL
4. Beaverton, OR
5. Portland, OR*
6. Dunsmuir, CA
7. Salem, OR*
8. St. Helens, OR
9. Kankakee, IL
10. Lake Forest, IL
11. Madison, WI
12. Seattle, WA
13. Sacramento, CA

And here are the flights I took this year. These do not count layovers.

1. San Francisco, CA to Fort Lauderdale, FL — February
2. Fort Lauderdale, FL to Oakland, CA — February
3. Oakland, CA to Portland, OR — February
4. Portland, OR to Oakland, CA — March
5. Portland, OR to Chicago, IL — September
6. Chicago, IL to Portland, OR — September
7. Portland, OR to Oakland, CA — December
8. Sacramento, CA to Portland, OR — December

I began this post on March 8, 2017, the morning after I accepted a final job offer. I started writing that day with the words, “there is nowhere else I should be,” and I almost clicked the “Publish” button a few paragraphs later. But I hesitated to tell the world that everything felt perfect when I hadn’t even yet moved or started the new job. I came back to this post a couple more times, always with the same content feeling, but I was in classroom training and still had yet to do the real job. So I waited some more. You see, this new venture of mine has a high washout rate, and often half the people hired are gone in a year. I’m an optimist, but I’m also realistic and felt that it would be unfair to shout from the rooftops before I even started the real job.

Well, I have now worked five full days on the operations floor and I still have the same sentiment 15 weeks later, so I’m finishing this post and publishing it. I’m green and need the constant words of my coach in my ear, but every time people ask if I have any regrets about turning my life inside out, my “no” is an easy answer. I still want to shout from the rooftops, “Keep fighting to be happy! Make changes! Take chances! LIVE LIFE.”

 

Written on Wednesday, March 8, 2017: Only once in a great while do we get that distinct feeling of “there is nowhere else I should be,” and I was fortunate enough to feel it twice in one year — when I got on a plane in January 2016 very shortly after my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and when I clicked the final button to submit a job application nine months later. Last night, I received a telephone call that I had gotten the job.

Exactly 13 weeks later, on another Tuesday afternoon, the same woman who called me about the job was congratulating me for passing academy and moving to on-the-job training.

 

In each of the many hoops I jumped through for this job (and there have been many), I never once hesitated or questioned it. Instead, as I passed each test and interview and subsequent test and subsequent interview, the feeling intensified: I was on the right path, and I really did want this job. Only time will tell if my instinct was correct, but I woke up the morning after that March phone call with a sense of peace and excitement. That’s a good combination, and it has not faded.

I try not to look back on my life events and decisions with regret, because I cannot change the past and because I know that, no matter how bad something was, it could have been worse. Of course, this knowledge doesn’t help me immediately after an unhappy event, and that’s where time and perspective help. I believe two tumultuous times in my life contributed heavily to my latest life change, and that’s why I can now see that good things came out of hard times.

 

First, in August 2010 I upended my life. I look at the “Timehop” app that shows my vague Facebook and Twitter posts from that time, and I see how incredibly unhappy I was for the year leading up to the breaking point. I almost included a screenshot in this post, but the sad reality is that there were too many screenshot options. I was miserable and didn’t realize how much so. The diagnosis of a stress fracture in my leg was the final crack that shattered the increasingly fragile glass of my well-being. Suddenly, I could no longer run and train for the Portland and New York marathons, which were the only bright spots in my life. Everything that remained was negative.

And so, in a few moments of desperation that caused my family more than a little worry, I quit my job, thus ending my 10-year journalism career. I also ended a dysfunctional three-year relationship. I suddenly had spare time and a lot of vacation pay-out, and then my old friend Ryan, whom I had recently reconnected with after an absence of 15 years, suggested I move my Portland trip to August, since I wouldn’t be going for the marathon in October. A few days later, I packed two weeks of belongings in my car and drove 10 hours north. Ryan hosted and showed me around Portland, as did my friends Becky and Frank, whom I hadn’t seen since I was in their wedding 10 years earlier.

 

I loved Portland. It just felt right. However, I needed a job, and a great opportunity came along in the Bay Area. I took it, and occasionally visited Portland when I could. I’ve never regretted moving to the Bay Area, because I made lasting friendships there, and I grew and learned a lot along the way. I also had no idea that it would allow me to take on the other tumultuous time I referred to several paragraphs ago.

In January 2016, my mother was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic colon cancer that had spread to her liver. What followed was a whirlwind of cancer doctors and surgeons and hospitals. That soon became chemo treatments and prescriptions and medical decisions. I was able to fly back and forth a number of times while still paying my rent, thanks to a compassionate boss and remote work access. My sisters and I watched as my mom fought cancer. Chemo wreaked havoc on her, and then she had to make a big surgical decision. In June 2016, I spent an anxious day in a waiting room while two surgeons operated, and then we spent more than a week in the hospital. Recovery at home was also very hard on my mom. But she kept going. It was inspiring.

 

Along the way, I had started pondering jobs in Chicago, knowing I couldn’t sustain the time away from work. It was not my first choice, though, and when my mom continued to rally despite undergoing more chemo, my thoughts again turned to Portland. We only get one chance at life, and I knew it now more than ever. If I never took a chance and tried Portland, would I look back one day with regret? The answer was a firm, resounding “YES.”

 

In early September, Becky randomly sent me a picture of the two of us from that first visit to Portland six years earlier. She said it was a nice photo of a time in my life when I was going through a lot of changes. Her timing was, as Becky later said, “providential.” I told her I was again thinking about moving to Portland, and she said to send her my resume. A month later, her husband Frank emailed me a job posting, asking if I’d be interested in being a 911 call taker.

 

My first instinct was another capitalized “YES.” I made myself think about it for a week, considering the shift work and the stress that I knew about from my years as a crime reporter who listened to thousands of hours of scanner traffic. I looked at several dispatcher friends’ Facebook pages to remind myself of what they gave up on countless holidays and weekends. When I looked at the application again as the deadline neared, I had answers for every question. There were no feelings of doubt.

My application — one of 150, I later learned — made the first cut and I then snuck away to Portland and sailed through a two-hour test with what I was later told were “incredibly high” scores. I got to an in-person interview and found myself wearing a new outfit while sitting at the head of a table in front of an interview panel. I had all those answers, too. Then another interview felt right. Sure, I had prepared for each one, but the answers came naturally and I never had a feeling of incompetence, or the thought of “well, that was a long shot, but at least I had interview practice.” The process continued (and I owe heartfelt thanks and drinks to the nearly 20 friends and family members who were contacted during the background investigation). More tests ensued, and along the way I confused a doctor and nurse with a perfect hearing test (what?). The vision test said something about my astigmatism (oops), and the psychological evaluation was the most exhausting part of all. [Note: All of these requirements and procedures are listed in the public job description. I will not reveal anything that is confidential. Also, any opinions expressed here are my own and not my employer’s. This was written on my own time.]

I received a “conditional” job offer, pending that daunting psychological evaluation, and found an apartment in Portland. I even had a backup plan in case the new job fell through — but that made me want it even more. When I received the call with a final job offer on that Tuesday evening in March, I sat in my car in a parking lot, filled with a kind of electrical shock and excitement.

And so it was that old friends introduced me to Portland during a rough time in my life, made me smile when I struggled, and were there for me years later.

A little less than three weeks after that job offer phone call, I had moved 650 miles to a new state.

 

Then I started a full-time academy. It was generally harder than I had imagined, especially the vast amount of geography I was required to learn in a short amount of time — Portland is the biggest city I’ve ever lived in, I moved here five days before work started, and I already have a knack for getting lost. One day found me crying in my car after scoring 20% on a geography quiz, and another day I was sent to a different instructor to see if maybe SHE could work some magic on me. As I type this, I still don’t fully know all 71 on/off-ramps of Interstate 5, plus the ones for I-205, I-84 and I-405, or all the bridge ramps. But I kept going. I gave up most morning runs so I could study when my brain was fresher, and I made many flash cards. And, to my utter amazement, I scored 100% on a subsequent geography quiz.

 

And then, after two days of exams, academy was done. I was officially on the work schedule, with my name on a mailbox and permission to park inside the secured gates. That said, this next level of training is going to be a different kind of exhausting than academy — and it will last at least four months. And then I’ll start an even more intense, longer phase of training. All in, this will take 18-24 months.

I still have no regrets. Every single day, even the time I was hating myself for crying over geography, and the unpleasant calls I’ve already taken, I see funny, beautiful things that make me so glad I took this big plunge.