Odd man in

When I was a kid, I played soccer. Only, this was back in the early 80's when there really wasn't girls soccer, at least not in the small town where I grew up, but when you're eight years old who really notices. At first I was horrible. My coaches were very patient as they tried to find a position for me. I got better over time, and if nothing else, I was tenacious and protective. That's probably how I ended up on defense. It brought out my protective nature, and I took it personally.

When I was in middle school, I had a coach who finally turned the light on for me. He spoke to my inner nerd with his more academic approach to the game. He showed me the geometry of defending the goal and taught me to use statistical advantages. At this point, we were all hitting puberty head on, and while the boys were all sprouting muscles, I was growing boobs! If I was going to keep up, I was going to play smarter and want it more than the boys.

I was fearless on the field, and by the time I was playing in the oldest rec league division, the boys were starting to complain that I was too rough. Ha! "Oh, no, they've got that girl on their team." I played within the rules, but there is no rule against a hip check in soccer, and I'd gotten a full set of hips along with the boobs. When we were eight, no one cared that a girl was playing on the boys' team. There were a couple of us actually. By the time we were teenagers, I was the only girl in the entire league. A girls' league had started, but the girls were so far behind me as a player because I'd been at it for so long. Luckily, there was a coach in the boys' league willing to take me.

I'm not sure the league could have refused to let me play on a boys' team legally, but I was keenly aware that I was an exception and made up my mind to act more as a guest. I would stay in the league as long as a coach would willingly take me and the players didn't mind. The moment I wasn't wanted or became a liability, I would quit. My coach knew this, as did my teammates.

It was at a practice when one of the guys got pissed at me and shouted that I should go back where I belonged. That was it. I called Coach that night and told him I was quitting. Even though that one guy didn't speak for them all (and he was a bit of a schmuck), I'd made a promise that I intended to keep. Coach told me not to come to the next practice and he would call me after it. He wanted to make sure the guys knew what I was doing and why before I really quit.

At the next practice, some of the guys asked where I was. I never missed practice. Coach calmly told them that given the comment made at the last practice that I'd kept my word and quit. He called me that night to tell me the team wanted me back on Saturday for the game. The guy that made the comment didn't think I'd take him seriously. I didn't want to go back because I thought the guys just felt guilty or that coach talked them into it, but Saturday, they showed me I was part of the team.

You have to keep in mind that soccer is not a high-scoring game, and we all know how teenage boys feel about scoring. (Couldn't find a way to write that sentence without implying something, so I just went with it.) Anyway, a free kick came up during the game, which is an almost-guaranteed goal. Again, I played defense, so scoring wasn't ever going to be my thing, but without anyone saying a word to each other, they guys all turned around to look at me. They were offering me the kick, the goal. Offering turned to insisting, and I jogged my way to the other end of the field to take the kick. Thank God I didn't screw it up!

After playing soccer for 12 years, that is still the only goal I ever scored.

Being one of the guys was like watching an animal in it's natural habitat instead of at the zoo. Other girls didn't want to do what I did, but man, were they curious. To them, I was the perfect spy. I wouldn't betray the guys' trust though. I had earned their respect on the field, and that meant more to me than all the gossiping with the girls in the world.

My last two years in rec league, it really grew. We started having away games and playing kids from other towns. They were all boys, and often they didn't understand my team having a girl. Some saw me as the weakest link. (Nothing gave me more pleasure than putting those on their asses!) There were a few times when I knew I'd never get the ball from another player, but I'd hang with them until I forced them out of bounds or I got some help. I think that was the most frustrating to my opponents.

If the girls gets the ball from you, that can just be dumb luck, right? If you can't get past the girl after running in circles for five minutes, it's more embarrassing. It wasn't unusual for frustration and embarrassment to lead to a guy pushing me or saying something nasty, but I took pride in holding my own. One occasion I remember like it was yesterday.

I had been frustrating the same guy every game we played each other for a couple of seasons. It wasn't that I was better than him -- he was amazing -- but he'd gotten in his own head, I think, because he could not get past me to save his life. This day was getting particularly heated, and he started running his mouth. Perhaps it's the female genes that kept me cool and unflustered on the field compared to my male counterparts, but I wasn't talking trash or making fun of this guy. I'm pretty sure my teammates were starting to take jabs though.

The rougher we played the more everyone was paying attention to our little rivalry. At one point, his mother, who happened to be sitting next to mine, yelled at him to "stop pushing that girl!" My mom's comment was somewhere between, "Rachel can take care of herself," and "I'm going to kick your son's ass." In the final minutes of the game, he got desperate because they were losing, and reared back to take a swing at me. That moment is frozen in time for me.

How so many people got around us so fast defies physics, but in a heartbeat, my goalie, the two other fullbacks and a midfielder were standing at my side, looking threateningly at my opponent as if to dare him to touch me. One of his teammates grabbed his arm and another was pulling him back from me. I just stood there stock still. I refused to back down, but I wasn't going to egg the situation on either. Refs and coaches came running and broke everything up. My team was going to defend me, and no one wanted a teenage boy melee on the field, including me.

The image above reminds me of that moment. My team protecting me when someone else threatened, even though I was different. We were a team in the truest sense. It's not often in my life I've felt so accepted and included as I did playing soccer. I went on to play on the high school boys' varsity team. On game day the guys wore ties to school, and I said I'd wear one, too, since coach was clearly confused as to how to handle that one. My wearing a tie got a lot of attention, and more students came to our games and cheered us on because of it. It helped raise awareness of a sport that back then was not mainstream like football, basketball and baseball, especially in the south.

My mom had worried at every game that I was going to get hurt. She really wanted me to switch over to the girls' league. I did get hurt a few times, some worse than others, but I refused to let my mom see it because I was afraid she'd make me stop playing. (I was probably right.) Ironically, it wasn't until I played on my high school's first girls' soccer team that I got really hurt. I'd only agreed to play to help my coach who'd so graciously let me play on the boys' team. (Technically he had to let me on the team because of Title 9, but I made sure I earned the spot.)

Boys may be rough, but I'll tell you one thing --- girls are vicious.

I got tag-teamed by a couple of redneck girls and separated my shoulder. I came out of the game for a few minutes but went back in. I spent the night in the ER screaming in pain. I couldn't play for six weeks, and a few years later, I had to have surgery on that shoulder. It still hurts sometimes, along with several other joints. I wasn't kind to my body as a kid.

Yes, I carry some aches and pains from those days, but I also carry some of the most precious memories of my young life. Those guys and my coach still hold a special place in my heart. I'm not sure that in another place and time I would have had the same experience. Another group of guys might have rejected having a girl on their team. Another coach might have just let me quit. But that's not my story.

In my story, I won the respect of my teammates, played my heart out and scored exactly one goal.

Logically speaking

When I was a kid watching Dirty Dancing, I didn't really understand what was happening in this scene. I'm sure my mom appreciated having to explain it, but it had a lasting impact on me.

I should probably qualify here that I was not your average kid. I thought things and recognized things that most kids my age did not. I was serious and slightly dark. Now, back to my point.

At first, I wondered why someone would have an illegal procedure done with "a knife and a folding table." Then realizing what a pregnancy out of wedlock would have meant back in the early 60's, I wondered why it was illegal when clearly people were going to have it done anyway. Wouldn't it be better to have it legal and safe?!

If you look at a Venn diagram of those who are anti-abortion and those who support gun rights, there is a large percentage of overlap, so I'm going to use an argument of the anti-gun control lot. "If you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns." People who are determined to have guns are going to have them regardless of the law. Only people willing to break the law will have guns. The argument is that law-abiding citizens are safer because they can have guns, too.

Someone who is pregnant and, for whatever reason, cannot or will not have a child are going to have an abortion whether it's legal or not. Keeping abortion legal means it can be done in an accredited facility by a reputable doctor. It can be safe. (It can also reduce late-term abortions, which I oppose.)

I'm not even touching the issue of rights, which often comes down to ideology. Those are points that we can all argue 'til we're blue in the face without changing anyone's mind. I do think that people need to see the reality behind banning abortion. Think about it logically, even if just for a minute.

Pretty pictures

Reproduction of a Degas. Colored pencil on paper.

Jerry. Original drawing. Pastels on paper.

High-contrast self portrait. Original drawing. Pastels on paper.

Susan. Original drawing. Pastels on paper.

Blessed

When you've spent a quarter of your life -- yes, that's 25% -- with a group of people, they tend to become family. It's like a family reunion every day at work. The little brother, the loud cousin, the weird uncle, the whole gang's there. Some days you want to kill each other, but others they're the only things that gets you through the day. So it was with me at USA WEEKEND, and the day I was laid off, I felt like someone had died.

I wasn't sad to leave my job. I'd outgrown it, and I was miserable. But I got home that morning and I kept crying. I know part of that was being hurt at having my job eliminated and the delivery of the news, but that wasn't what kept the tears coming. It was the emails, IM's and text messages I was getting from my family.

The news spread like wildfire, and while I felt like I'd been betrayed by one person I'd considered family, I was worried about the effect my departure would have on others, and I was moved beyond words at the outpouring of support from some unexpected places. I also felt a large hole growing in my life. After spending five days a week with these people, I left within 20 minutes of being laid off, no chance to say goodbye.

Well, last night, I got to rectify that.

I drove over to a restaurant near the office to meet some of my former coworkers after work. I knew it would be good for me, but I had no idea how good. For a couple of hours, we laughed, drank sangria and reminisced. I told them how everything happened and how I was doing. They told me what had transpired in the office after I left. It was closure for all of us, and for me, reassurance that my family hadn't forgotten me and would stay in my life -- to some extent anyway. I felt so full and happy and warm (and no, it wasn't the sangria).

There are so many times I feel alone and isolated. I'm wired a little differently, and not everyone understands me. I scare the hell out of others. (Ha!) But last night, I was connected to people who, with the exception of my husband, have influenced my life the most for the past nine years. I felt loved.

I know it's idealistic, but I think companies would do well to realize how much like family work really is and play to those dynamics. They should certainly take them into consideration in dealing with their employees. People need to say goodbye. Criminal behavior aside, they need to clean out their own desks, send out one last email with their contact info and say goodbye to a place and people that have been integral in their daily life.

Thankful doesn't even begin to describe what I am to the people who came to see me off last night (and those who wanted to come and couldn't). My ship is now sailing on without an anchor dragging behind me, knowing I'll see my family again at the next port. I am blessed.

Cabbage and cole slaw

Being laid off is a shock to the system. Even if it's not a total surprise or if it's really for the best, it's still a shock to the system. It's like thinking, "I am a cabbage," being tossed into a food processor that's set to shred, and having to grasp the concept of being cole slaw.

Not going to work Monday morning made me a bit anxious, but like I do with most things, I made a plan. Step one, apply for unemployment. Step two, enroll in COBRA. Oh, wait, I can't do either until I get packages from the company that's managing my TPP (Transitional Pay Plan) and the Gannett benefits center. So not only did I have no control over my choice to leave my job, I now have no control over picking the pieces back up and restarting my life.

I'm not naive enough to think that caring about a person will ever outweigh caring about profits, but it's still hard for me to wrap my head around the lack of conscience or humanity in the process. Companies have turned terminations into a machine. It's not personal; it's business, and business is about the bottom line. I get it. After nine years at Gannett, I've seen some callous moves by management. It should be criminal the way they've treated some good and loyal people. (I could definitely have it worse.)

It's my warped sense of loyalty and responsibility that have kept me at Gannett all these years. I've been watching more and more go wrong, and the draw of solving a new problem kept me strung along like a drug. My co-workers and I had become a family, and I didn't want to leave them. I put everything I had into my work and my work family. I took on mountains of extra responsibility and fought the good fights for the benefit of the magazine. I made the mistake of thinking any of it would matter in the end.

At the meeting where I was laid off, I listened as the head of my department read the script in front of him. When he'd come to the magazine from another part of Gannett, he faced a neck-breaking learning curve to adapt to our business model. On more than one occasion, I removed his hind end from the fire. I helped him succeed as our leader. We'd been in the trenches together for four and a half years. We'd been through the turnover of more support staff than I'd like to recall. As the words came out of his mouth, what shook me the most was how cold they were, hollow. As he thanked me for my nine years of service and everything I'd done for him personally, I would have rather he just skipped it. It hurt more that he was saying words he should have meant ... and didn't.

Some would say I'm lucky to have gotten any kind of package when leaving, but for everything Gannett has ever given me, I can assure you they got more than they deserved in return. The nice lady from HR went through the highlights, and I'd like to think that when she said, "And you get to keep your benefits until the end of the month," that she didn't realize that was less than a week, only four business days. Four. Days.

That was a Thursday, so first thing Friday morning, I checked all of my prescriptions, and I have a few, to reorder as much as I could while I still had benefits. I took literally the instructions to apply for unemployment benefits and enroll in COBRA immediately. Since I didn't have the necessary paperwork in the packet, I started calling the numbers they gave me to see what I could do to move things along. Surely in the digital age, I could do things online. Something. Nope. I had to wait for the hard copies to be delivered via U.S. Postal Service. Really?! Two things bother me here.

First, with all due respect to the postal service, there are much more efficient, quicker and environmentally-friendlier ways to get forms to people. I already had or would have to set up accounts on the TPP and Gannett benefits websites; why not just let me download the forms or fill them out online? Snail mail, really? It's not like these papers aren't essential for me to get paid and have healthcare for the next few weeks (I hope). For a company so big on being digital, I say #epicfail!

Second, forget that someone worked for you for nine years, just focus on them being a fellow human being. Laying them off at the end of the month, and cutting off their benefits at the end of that month, is unconscionable. I called to find out how to enroll in COBRA, but I was told the benefits center hadn't even gotten my paperwork and would have to process my termination before they could send me the information.

There is no possible way that management didn't know my job was going to be be eliminated at least a few days before they did it. I'd wager it had been at least a week. It was certainly long enough to make sure my email and computer access were removed before I even came out of the meeting where I was terminated (I'm not going to get into how insulting that is.), but they couldn't manage to get my termination processed through the benefits center to get my COBRA paperwork started.

I waited for over a week to get a letter that was dated August 1, but wasn't postmarked until August 3 and I didn't receive until August 6. That's six days worried that if I got sick or hurt how on earth I'd pay for it. The real kicker is that the letter only told me what benefits I'd have available under COBRA and notified me it would take another 2-3 weeks for my enrollment papers to arrive.

I know that COBRA is retroactive to the first day I lost my benefits, but what is someone, an unemployed someone, supposed to do when the doctor or ER asks for my insurance card? How am I supposed to pay them until I can get enrolled, file a claim and be reimbursed? The standard co-pays don't exactly apply. I know, it's not their problem.

What will be their problem are the myriad loose ends I leave and the institutional knowledge that go with me. What will be my boss's problem is living with having cast someone aside coldly who did as much to help them as anyone ever will. Gannett still has a significant revenue problem, and what they saved by laying me off on July 26 vs. August 1 won't even begin to make up the difference.

So I'm cole slaw. I can live with that. It may only be a moral victory, but I'll take what I can get these days.

5 Observations from the Olympics

It's hard not to watch the Olympics, even if NBC has tried repeatedly to ruin as much of it as possible. I don't so much care about the taped delay. I'll watch to see how things play out even if I know the outcome, but I don't like how they've manipulated the story lines and ignored other important moments of the games while pandering to Americans. That's not my point though.

First, I would want them to play Rocky Top instead of the National Anthem if I won gold. (I realize this is sacrilege to many. Deal with it.)

Second, if I'd known about trampoline as a sport, my life would be completely different.

Third, my odds of my ever being an Olympian started dropping drastically when I was eight and outgrew my training bra.

Fourth, I would drown if I ever tried to play water polo.

Finally, I will always be a little girl when watching gymnastics. When I was a kid I took gymnastics and I loved it. I was not however a natural. I got too tall and too big. I could do power elements like tumbling passes on floor and vaults, but uneven bars and beam were my nemeses. A bad fall on beam ruined my back, and no one with my proportions is ever going to do well on bars. I just don't have physics with me on that one. Regardless, learning to flip around the floor and spring over the vault were the closest I'd ever come to flying.

I've watched gymnastics since Mary Lou, and I watched replays and movies of Nadia. I remember vividly Phoebe Mills bouncing wildly out of bounds, and Dominique Dawes spinning like no other. Kim Zmeskal winning again and again. The Mag Seven made me smile, and as annoying as Kerri Strugg was, I'll forever respect her for not giving up and nailing that one-footed landing. Bela smiling and cheering will always bring me joy. This year, Gabby managed to combine the graceful moves of gymnastics past with the power and athleticism it's know for now, all with an electric smile that I guarantee thrilled many more little girls.

No matter how bizarre the opening ceremonies or bad NBC's coverage, the Olympics will always hold magic for me. The pageantry and pride are awe inspiring. I love watching.

And so it goes

My career at USA WEEKEND has come  to an end. After nine years, my position was eliminated.

I started in Newspaper Relations as the assistant marketing specialist. It was a different time in newspapers, at USA WEEKEND and at Gannett in general. As time passed and the industry started changing, it became harder and harder to maintain the status quo. Gannett started merging and consolidating, and USA WEEKEND was no longer immune. Departments were absorbed; layoffs started. I watched as long-time staffers were eliminated, and our CEO retired. We slowly being absorbed into USA Today. In the past year, it started to feel like longevity was a liability. The more of the old guard that was replaced, the more I started feeling like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.

My bosses were meeting in the conference room and asked me to come in. It wasn't an unusual thing to happen, but as soon as I stood up from my desk, I knew what was happening. For no real reason, the thought just popped in my head. There's no doubt when someone you don't know is also in the room when you arrive.

I'm sure my bosses expected some reaction from me, but instead, I smiled, listened and cooperated -- hell, I was downright friendly to the woman from HR -- as the man I helped adjust to the mountainous learning curve of our business told me that as part of the restructuring of the magazine my position had been eliminated. He tried to tell me he appreciated everything I'd done for him and for all my years of service, but the words were flat and meaningless. I chose to just smile and turn my attention to the nice woman from HR who was going to tell me I had one week of pay per year of service and 5 days of benefits left.

While there were lots of things I might like to have said or asked, I chose instead to keep my head up and just roll with it. I knew I'd have a lot to deal with later, but I also knew that I could handle whatever comes. And I will.

This all happened on a Thursday. I was paid through Friday. The next week, I was going to be out of the office anyway for friends' wedding. We just got back and so tomorrow will really my first day in the trenches of the unemployed. I've already applied for unemployment benefits and talked with two recruiters. My resume is spit-shined and ready to go. The fact is I've been ready to go for a long time. I should have left years ago, but my admittedly warped sense of responsibility and loyalty kept me at a job where I no longer fit far beyond what it should. As crappy as this may be to experience, being laid off is going to ultimately be a good thing.

I've been applying for jobs and interviewing for a while, but nothing had worked out so far. I was applying for jobs online after work when I was tired and often frustrated. My job now is to spend time every day looking for the job I'll love. I have no excuse. In the meantime, I've talked to a couple of organizations about volunteering during the week, and training for my next race starts soon. My life is still quite full, and my hope is it will also have balance.

A few people know this has happened. I haven't kept it from anyone who's asked how work is going. The fact is I have nothing to be ashamed of and I see this as a good thing. I've been so touched at how many people have reached out to me with kind words about having worked with me and offers of help. Regardless of anything else, that means success to me. Here's to new opportunities for even bigger success.