While I’m a cat-person, that cat is not a people-cat, not at all. In the photograph, I’m wearing the strangest expression, a pained smile that’s on its way to just plain pain. It’s because the cat has sunk his claws deep into my thigh.
On Sunday, the Oregonian published an essay I wrote about what it’s really like to quit your day job. They also used that photo from so long ago. Today when I was out for a run, a couple walking a dog stopped me and congratulated me. I kept trying to place them, but couldn’t. Did my kid go to school with theirs? Were they neighbors? It was only after I started running again that I realized they must have recognized me from that photo. Maybe I wear the same pained expression as I stagger up the hill.
You can read the essay here. No photo, though.
