In 2001, my first book, Circles of Confusion, was chosen for the Oregonian Book Club. The paper sent a photographer to take a picture of me at my local bookstore, Annie Blooms. The photographer liked the store’s black cat and asked me to pose with it on my lap.
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.
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