My first 24 hours of unemployment.

As of 5:00 last Friday, I officially joined the ranks of the unemployed. This is a strange feeling for me, because I have never once been unemployed in all my adult life. From the time I started working full-time at age 21, I've always had a job. And now I don't.

I didn't go home moping, however. Mister and I had already planned to meet a group of folks at Monell's for dinner. (Y'all who aren't Nashville folks, I'm so sorry you don't have a Monell's in your town.) I thought there was only going to be about 6 or 7 of us, but it turned out we had about twice that many. These are ladies I met on a message board several years ago, and since then have met many of them in person, but Friday night, I finally got to meet a few more. We had a rollicking good time and stuffed ourselves with fried chicken, corn pudding, green beans, turnip greens, catfish, hush puppies, ribs, and biscuits. Oh, and banana pudding. Unemployment works up an appetite, after all.

Saturday morning I met with a friend about writing a movie script on women's suffrage. Did you know (and I'm sure some of you did) that Tennessee cast the deciding vote on the ratification of women's suffrage? And that the young man who cast that vote was only 24 years old - the youngest person in the Tennessee legislature? And that his mother wrote him a famous letter urging him to cast that "Yea" vote? So, I have an interesting research & writing project to work on while I'm looking for that job.

After that, I went to a dance class. Not just any dance class, mind you - this was a burlesque tassel twirling class, and yes, it's exactly what you think. No, I don't plan on doing this in public anytime soon, or ever, for that matter, but it seemed like a fun thing to do, so I did it. (Maybe I should add tassel twirling to my resume to see if anyone's paying attention.) Then I came home and made some jewelry, which will be available for sale on my website as soon as I can get the photos up.

This past week, I've had the great fortune to be supported by people who have been in this position before, some of them more than once. My friend Pat, who owns an art studio with her husband, told me how she'd had a nice comfy desk job with a big factory operation in Nashville. It was a great company and she was happy with her job. But they ceased operations, and she was out of that comfy desk job. She said, "If that hadn't happened, I'd probably still be sitting there at my desk, and this studio wouldn't even be here." Yoshie, my movie producer friend, said almost exactly the same thing. She is a great inspiration because I have personally watched her reinvent herself more than once over the years when it became necessary.

Today, I have no idea what the future holds. It's scary and exciting all at the same time. So I guess now it's my turn to reinvent. To infinity, and beyond.

Till next time ---