Roseanne T. Sullivan

December 14

Last week, a windstorm knocked two branches off the palm tree in the back yard, and Liberty is cutting up the branches to be left out for pickup with the yard trimmings tomorrow. I have walked to 7:30 a.m. Mass happily crunching through falling leaves a couple of mornings this week, and each day I ran into a different older Italian man who was raking and sweeping in a vain attempt keep his small lawn and sidewalk neat. (Removing fallen palm branches, playing in and raking leaves are not what people in many climates do this time of year, so I give you these details for local color.)

Last year at this time, Jim S., my former editor from a supercomputer company in St. Paul, was living in my spare bedroom for a time after his family broke up. In the Spring, he moved in with a male friend. My heart goes out to him. These kinds of changes are tough to live through.

I had a big change too this year.

Above, me in front of Sun's Newark CA training center after a team building class in January. Teammate Tom Brodie is behind me.

Me in my office with a Thank You gift from a vendor's writing manager who has become a friend.

In last year's Epiphany letter, I wrote I had made it through another round of layoffs. I joked that I feel like a survivor on a reality show, and I was glad they didn't vote me off the island. This year, my turn came to be banished. No joke.

On 11/12/03, I was told that I was being laid off "because Sun is adjusting its business priorities." Ten of us laid-off writers had to scramble for clues to try to make sense of our dismissal. Only one of the writing staff that was in the Network Storage division when I joined still has a job. We hear that in the division, writing is going to be done by contractors from now on, who are willing to work for less than half of what we got paid-with no benefits.

Outsourcing and off-shoring (which is the removal of jobs to other countries) are becoming prevalent in the computer industry— so much so that Liberty was asked by his boss at Cisco systems to go to India next month to train writers. Many of Cisco's engineering work is already done being in India, so it seems inevitable that writing jobs will soon follow.

I am thinking of tagging along to India and trying to pitch an article to Atlantic Monthly or the Wall Street Journal about the trend and our personal experiences . . ..

OK, the severance package I'll be getting is nice, but I can't help having hurt feelings. One week after I got the news, I woke up crying from a dream in which I was telling off Scott McNealy, Sun's CEO. I was telling him that for the company to cast me out into the bad job market after 14 years, and at my age, just wasn't right. Scott is always exhorting employees to go out and kick butt. The day after the layoff, I'd written Scott an email saying that I felt my butt had been kicked! When I had that dream, I guess my subconscious was reacting to my not getting a reply from McNealy.

Being of two minds (if not more), I am at the same time euphoric and trusting that the change will be for the better.

For one thing, I will be able to do more free-lance writing. About three weeks before the layoffs, I published an article for $500. But working on that deadline was tough, since I had other deadlines to meet at work. I also had deadlines for papers for the Institute for Leadership in Ministry (I'm in the second year of a three year program at ILM). Because it was all too much, I had reluctantly decided not to continue writing articles and to drop out of ILM. After I got the layoff news, I was relieved that I could take on those other things again without having to get up at three a.m. to write articles and study before I left for work.

For another thing, before I became a technical writer my training and desire had always been to be a creative writer. I got an M.A. in writing and won prizes in a few writing competitions. I have a lot of stories to tell and thoughts to share and now I might have the time to share them.

Another possible source of future income might be tutoring. My friend Christina Fu is an engineer at Netscape/AOL, and she has told me in the past that lots of Chinese parents are looking for tutors. She hired me to tutor her daughter once a week and will tell other parents about me if I like the work and I'm good at it. Yesterday, my first day tutoring 10 year old Carolyn Fu was fun. I'll have to see how that goes too.

And I might be able to go back to Sun as a technical writer after all. A former boss at Sun thinks she may be able to hire me again sometime this Spring.

Many other significant things also occurred this year. I continue to go to events connected with the Oakland Symphony Chorus to which my ex-sister-in-law Linda belongs, including to their very good concerts. With Linda I attended a "Styles Sampler" one Saturday, which had sessions taught by specialists in different musical styles. My favorite was William Mahrt of Stanford, who taught us Gregorian chant and then taught about its evolution into polyphony, in which the chant becomes one of many musical lines. I enjoyed singing through the Hail Mary in Latin several times along with the highly educated chorus of mostly agnostic skeptics, who probably weren't bringing the same degree of devotion that I put into the hymn.

In February, Liberty and I traveled to northern Minnesota for Theresa Zottola and Shane Drift's wedding. (Now they are expecting a little one, sex unknown, whom Theresa has nicknamed Gizmo. Gizmo will grow up on the Nett Lake Indian Reservation with them.) Before we got on the return flight, my old friend Don (Papa Panini from the MN Renaissance fair, where I was Mama Panini) surprised Liberty and me by showing up to meet us at the departure gate at the Duluth airport.

Me as Mama Panini, with a meat cleaver and Papa Panini at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival bakery stage, circa 1985 (Lib found this photo at an archived RenFair website).

On a much sadder note, at the end of June, my Aunt Rose suddenly died in Tumwater, Washington. She had Parkinson's, which must have weakened her throat muscles, and one day after lunch in the assisted living center where she was staying, to everyone's shock, she choked on a small piece of melon. I joined my Aunt Peggy and two cousins, Wayne and Christopher, there to pay last respects. Wayne gave me one of his mom's photos from about 1949 of me, my sisters, cousin Marybelle, him, and his brother Bruce on a beach blanket at Carson Beach on Boston Harbor. In the photo, I'm a serious four year old trying to hold wriggly baby Wayne on my lap.

Left to right: Sister Martha, cousin Marybelle, sister Joe-anne, cousin Bruce, me with Wayne.

In July, nieces Susan and Eowyn, and Eowyn's 10 month old son Thomas, came to my house for a visit from Massachusetts. We had a big open house party. One of the many other enjoyable things we did was tour the Mondavi vineyards where my nephew on my ex-husband's side, Jeff, works. That evening, we went to Jeff and his wife Maureen's little acre in Napa. Our visit with them, Linda and Cole there was another good time.

I took two business trips in the Fall. From 8/15 to 9/6, I worked out of Sun's Acton Massachusetts office. One week I stayed at a B&B in Stow, a charming place built in the 18th century. The next two weeks, I stayed with my sister, Martha, in Marlboro. We had a good time together, and took walks every morning before I went to work.

My sister, Martha, poses with my rental: a Ford Escape SUV.

I also got in a lot of visits in with other members of my family, most of whom live in MA. My niece Mary, her three kids, Darrius, Rylin, and Jadis, sister Martha and I attended the Spencer fair together.

Jadis, Rylin, and Darrius, taken in the Home Ec building at the Spencer Fair.

I attended Jadis' and Thomas's birthday parties and visited Eowyn on her birthday too.

During my second trip in early October, I went to a documentation conference and then worked a few more days in Acton. One night that week, Martha and I had dinner with cousins Dave, Barbara, and Jody, who we haven't seen since we were very, very young. Liberty joined me in Worcester (as Susan's guest at the Crown Plaza hotel where she is a manager) on Friday for a long weekend, and we went with Susan and the rest of my sister Joe-anne's family to Sturbridge Village and the Mystic Aquarium.

My sister, Joe-anne is on the right; Back row, left to right: Susan, Mary, Liberty, and Eowyn. Front row (left to right): Jadis, Rylin, Darrius, and Thomas.

Before we went to the airport, Liberty and I dropped in on Martha and then on Aunt Peggy and Uncle Ray for much too short visits.

My other memories of being upset by the confusing vibes at work--since by that time I had already been marked for layoff--are more than offset by the happy memories of being in New England with loved ones in the Fall.

That's the news for 2003. With love from Roseanne

Please visit my blog at http://roseannesullivan.blogspot.com. New babblings mixed with the occasional profundity are added almost every day.

Christmas Eve Meditation

This is a thought I found quoted today from Origen, early Doctor of the Church: "What benefit is it for me that Christ was born once in Bethlehem, if he is not born again by faith in my soul?" Which led to this thought from me, "Faith is not only a matter of agreeing in our minds. We are saved by welcoming Christ to make His home in us, by allowing God to have God's way with us." Actually, I heard a priest say something like this at a Baptism last Saturday. I went up afterwards and congratulated him for saying it. Because it's not the sort of thing I heard much about growing up Catholic.

Evangelical Protestants encourage people to "make a commitment to Christ." Another phrase they commonly use is to invite a new believer to ask Christ into their hearts.

These kinds of statements from evangelical Protestants might sound foreign to cradle Catholics, but they are right out of the Scriptures. In Revelation 3:20, Christ says: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me."

In John 14:23, it is written that Jesus and His Father, both will come. Jesus says, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him."

And any Christians who sing Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem, sing the same thing too:

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. . . ..  O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!

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Last Updated: December 28, 2003