Today is the 10th anniversary of my lay-off from the one professional job I’ve ever had, working for the aerospace firm Rocketdyne. November 7, 2012, after 30 years. Details of that life and the aftermath of the layoff on my Personal History pages.
Perhaps it’s worth spending a few minutes reflecting on what’s changed in 10 years. Where was I then, where I am now. (For no particular reason, the photo is from 2017, when I visited the famous Vasquez Rocks, for the first time in my life. The front door of my car is open.) Bullets, as always.
- Home: In 2012 I was living with my partner in Woodland Hills, in southern California. In early 2015 we moved the Bay Area, specifically the Oakland Hills, and have been here for over 7 1/2 years now.
- No more conventions: I had (have) a pension from work but given reduced income I curtailed my routine of traveling to science fiction conventions, which I’d been doing two or three times a year, for some 25 years. Since the layoff I’ve been only to the Worldcon in San Jose, in 2018, because it was nearby.
- Websites: I continued to run Locus Online (which I’d begun in 1997) and sfadb.com (which I’d launched earlier in 2012). I continued daily posts on the former until the magazine staff took over the site in late 2017. I continue to maintain sfadb.com entirely by myself.
- Trips: My partner Y (who does want his full name spelled out online) and I have done several trips, to Dublin, to New Orleans, to London. A cruise in the Mediterranean. (Many other trips, and cruises, before 2012.)
- Cats: A year after my Woodland Hills cat, Munchkin, died, we adopted a brother and sister pair (Potsticker and Soybean), and a year and a half later, a third (Huxley).
- Child: Even before the layoff I’d entertained the idea of a child by surrogacy, and founds ways forward, but was finally derailed by lack of support from Y’s kids. Had matters gone forward, that child, whom I would have named Alexander, would be 4 years old now. (Meanwhile, one of Y’s kids had a child, now 2 years old.)
- Heart Attack and Transplant: Though generally in good health most of my life, I had a heart attack in October 2020, and another leading to a heart transplant in April 2021. I’m fine now, except for being 67 years old.
- Reading: Especially since moving to Oakland, in early 2015, I’ve had time to read my library, as I’d always imagined, or wished, to have the luxury of doing in my retirement. Rereading the classics; reading books I’d collected and hope to get to. Projects like reading the Bible; revisiting philosophy; understanding how the world works. And documenting it all on this site.
- TV and movies: Somewhat in parallel: close rewatches of classic SF movies and TV shows, in particular the first season of Star Trek (TOS). (http://www.markrkelly.com/Blog/bibliographies-and-reviews/trek/)
- Sfadb rankings: And expanding sfadb.com with the idea, which goes back 20 years, of ‘ranking’ novels and stories based on various criteria to identify core lists of most acclaimed works. This project is about 80% done.
- Which complements and informs my reading projects.
- Own website: I created my own domain, markrkelly.com, in 2013, initially inspired by Andrew Sullivan’s site as a more personal site than the editorial blog I’d done on Locus Online.
- The book: And of course as I’ve mentioned many times, my conception in 2013 of writing a book to consolidate my thoughts about science fiction and its relation to science, and reality. In a sense, everything I post on this site is thoughts toward that project.
- Kelly Family: I’ve spent quite a bit of time, since 2017, compiling family history, and personal history, here on this site, and scanning many photos and slides left by my father to document family history. This project is about 80% done; there are more slides to scan.
- Y’s Family: My family now, more than my own. Y’s boys are grown up, married, have their own lives, so we don’t see them as much as we used to, but we still see them a few times a year. There are also their cousins throughout the Bay Area, who host events from time to time. The generation of Y’s boys and their cousins are all having kids…
- Y’s career: We moved to the Bay Area because Y was laid off from *his* job in early 2014. And many twists and turns, in currently between consulting and full-time positions.
Prospects?
I’ll continue this, and revise this page, in the next few days.
