Building My Career
in Print and Web Publishing

by Kay F. Davis

Copyright © 2024, Kay F. Davis

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is dedicated to my college professors, who taught me to see the world from new and interesting perspectives.

Contents

Foreword

Career

True Colors Temperament Test

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Pathfinder Career Analysis

Humanities

Education Makes a Difference

Virginia Commonwealth University

University of Virginia

Publishing

Magazines

Proposals

Technology

Web Sites

Salaries

DC Web Women

Women in Film and Video

Cultural Studios

City Life

Richmond

Falls Church

Reston

Generation X in the Workplace

About the Author

Foreword

I was born in 1970, just as the women’s rights movement was beginning. Women were becoming more aware of their sexuality, learning to express themselves creatively, and asserting themselves intellectually.

The 1970s was a time of great social change. Women learned to advocate for control of their bodies. They began to experience their sexuality without fear of negative labeling or ostracism within their communities. They were able to choose their partners without fear of repercussion.

If their ability to choose was taken away, they could prosecute the rapists who had taken away their right to choose. If impregnated, they had the right to have abortions legally.

In the 1980s, women adopted the power suit and entered the business world. They worked in the health and fitness industry and became advocates for their beauty, to make money and show off their beautiful bodies.

The two-income household appeared in the 1980s. Women obtained business degrees and ran large companies. They established themselves as homeowners and breadwinners for their families.

In the 1990s, women continued to rise in the business world. Some branched out on their own and started small businesses. Women entered the information technology industry. By the 2000s, they had become leaders in Web publishing.

In the last 20 years, working women have become accepted as a normal part of our cultural evolution. Women now hold political offices and are able to own homes. They have same-sex marriages. The days of Jane Austen, when sons inherited everything, regardless of circumstances, are over.

Geography seems to play a role in the evolution of women's careers. When I lived in Richmond, Va., in the 1990s, women held mid-level positions, but rarely obtained senior-level jobs. Coordinators of departments and, sometimes, directors, were common. There was a sizeable administrative pool of women, as well as nursing, banking, and retail workers.

In Richmond, many women stayed at home. Because the cost of living was low, women could afford to take care of their children while their spouses worked. It was common to see women walking their babies in strollers in the West End.

In Northern Virginia, in the 1990s, women took on positions as directors of departments and vice presidents of companies. However, there were rumors of pay discrepancies. Women held those roles, but did not make as much as men in the same positions.

Due to the high cost of living in Northern Virginia, most women worked full-time. Dual-income families were the norm. The only people visible during the business day were workers on lunch breaks and retirees running errands.

Women’s leadership has evolved slowly over the last 50 years. Instead of looking forward to careers in low-paying positions, women have opportunities in most professional industries. Hopefully, someday, we will find a woman who has the morals, ethics, and values we need to run this country.

This book should be useful to college students choosing majors and contemplating careers in different industries. I hope, women, particularly, will gain ideas for careers that inspire them personally and help them make a contribution to the world.              

Kay F. Davis

January 24, 2024

Career

Personality tests are accurate measures. They reveal our natural abilities and our personal and professional interests. From personality tests, we are able to discover what we are best at doing, and what we are most likely to do.

Personality tests should be incorporated into the job recruitment process. There would be less turnover and a more positive work environment. The retention rate would be higher because people would be happier at work.

True Colors Temperament Test

I recently took the True Colors Temperament Test on the Internet. The test revealed that my primary color is orange. This means that I am a spontaneous, action-oriented, big-picture thinker. The test also showed that my secondary color is green. This means that I am a thoughtful, methodical, and detail-oriented worker.

With my primary orange and secondary green ratings, I felt like the character in “The Orange and the Green,” a 1967 song by the Irish Rovers:

Now, my parents never could agree about my type of school.

My learning was all done at home, that's why I'm such a fool.

They've both passed on, God rest 'em,

But left me caught between,

That awful color problem of "The Orange and the Green."

Actually, the problem isn’t so awful. Big-picture thinkers are needed to plan out projects, create schedules and workflow, and assign tasks to others. Detail-oriented workers are needed to develop professional products from the assignments.

I realized that I was a good manager because I could envision new projects, schedule them with staff, and participate in all stages of development. I was also a good worker because I could complete the many details of each project.

I often listened to songs like “The Orange and the Green” while driving to and from work each day. I loved Celtic music in my 20s and 30s. On weekends, I went to local and regional Celtic festivals. I watched the dancers and spoke to craftsmen about their jewelry and leatherwork.

In Leesburg, at the Potomac Celtic Festival, in 2006.

Celtic music offered an outlet for my sedentary lifestyle. After editing all day, I relaxed with the songs of up-and-coming musicians. The energetic, joyful music made me want to sing and dance with the performers.

I became interested in the culture of Ireland while living in Richmond in the 1990s. I collected Celtic music CDs at the Borders Books & Music store on West Broad Street. Borders had a vast selection of music and listening stations to sample it. The store was across the street from my apartment, so I went there sometimes at night.

I discovered the Celtic Twilight series through my Borders forays. I also purchased the Celtic Legacy and Celtic Christmas series. The CDs included New Age versions of popular Celtic songs.

I searched for venues in Richmond that held Celtic music concerts. Unfortunately, there weren’t any at the time.

One night, I traveled to Alexandria with a friend and listened to music blaring at a bar. I looked around at the inebriated customers. It wasn’t the type of environment in which I wanted to experience the music. I wanted to listen to professional musicians who performed these songs at coffee shops and smoke-free restaurants.

To my delight, Jammin’ Java in Vienna had acoustic singers with an Irish collection, like Al Petteway and Amy White. The Barns at Wolf Trap in Vienna brought in Wyndham Hill artists and other performers.

I played the tin whistle briefly and took lessons from a Centreville music teacher. I practiced in my apartment kitchen, which had two louver doors. I thought my playing wouldn’t disturb my neighbors.

Unfortunately, my metronome, and the shrill sounds of my tin whistle, made the neighbor upstairs bump around nervously. I seldom heard her. I realized that this was not the best location in which to practice.

Sudden respiratory issues in 2007 prevented me from continuing to play tin whistle. I wasn’t great at reading music anyway. I seemed to have more fun picking out tunes by ear.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

In my 30s, I took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test. A former employer administered this test to help coworkers understand each other and get along better in the workplace. The testing consists of answering a series of questions to determine personal preferences.

I discovered that there are four major categories of personalities: Introvert or Extrovert, Sensing or Intuition, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving. These four primary categories combine in different ways to make sixteen secondary personality types. We received a book featuring descriptions of each of these personality types.

My test revealed that I am an INTJ–an Introvert, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging person. The book revealed that only 8 percent of the population are INTJs.

INTJs are independent people who like structure without regimentation. They manage projects from concept to completion. They plan the big picture and work on the details along the way.

My personality type seemed to describe me well. I was analytical and judging and trusted my intuition about people. I used my intuition to make decisions. I liked to plan projects and carry them out at all stages.

In later years, I moved to the middle on the feeler and perceiver scales. I learned to speak up for myself, so I moved to the middle on the introvert scale.

My coworkers were different. Many were ISTJs. As sensers, they were rigid with schedules and wanted everyone at work to follow a strict set of rules. As judgers, they wanted staff members punished for their transgressions at work.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is one way to avoid the labeling that defines the psychiatric industry. Instead of thinking of people as mental health subjects, it is possible to use type indicators to find ways to get along with people who are different from us.

Pathfinder Career Analysis

In 2004, I read a book by Nicholas Lore, founder of a career planning business called the Rockport Institute. The book is called The Pathfinder. The book explains how to change careers or get other positions in the same industry.

Since the author lived nearby in Rockville, Md., I contacted him and scheduled an interview. I met with him and decided to take his career coaching sessions, which included skills testing and results analysis.

The testing revealed that I am a person with high idea flow. I am also a visual learner. I need work that draws on these natural abilities.

Through Rockport’s career analysis, I discovered that I am naturally good at research and writing. I am interested in the social sciences and would make my best contributions in those fields. My ideal job choices would be historian, writer, or documentary filmmaker.

Social sciences research would be helpful in looking at the rights of individuals and the behaviors of groups around the world. With two interdisciplinary degrees in the humanities, I could draw on many different topics.

With big-picture project management skills and detail-oriented, hands-on editing skills, I was a good managing editor. My intuitive personality made me a good observer of people and an analyzer of situations.

Based on the analysis, which cost about $400, I decided to make a transition within my publishing profession. Just as I had moved from print publishing to Web publishing in 2000, I decided to move from editing Web sites to writing humanities content for documentaries.

My goal was to make literary documentaries of authors. The documentaries would be for a museum audience and Web dissemination. Maybe there would be an opportunity to broadcast these projects to a broader audience. I estimated the transition to documentary filmmaking would take place in 3 years.

Humanities

I was the first woman in my immediate family to go to college. It meant a lot to me to obtain a college education. I greatly expanded my knowledge of the world and met people who shared my intellectual interests.

Many people with English degrees choose teaching as a career. I decided to work in publishing. I loved glossy, full-color magazines. I liked exploring the interplay between words and images, writing witty titles and subtitles, and managing publications at an early age.

I reached a broader audience than I would have had in an English classroom. I sometimes got to travel and speak to interesting people. The only drawback was the deadline environment, a more stressful alternative to teaching and research.

In my print publishing career, I was managing editor of Collecting Figures magazine in Richmond. After that, I became a proposal editor for C2 Multimedia, an e-learning company in Falls Church.

In Web publishing, I was a Web editor for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, an education association in Reston. I wrote lesson plans for EDSITEment!, a Web site published by the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C.

Education Makes a Difference

For most of my career, I have been an advocate for women’s education. It is a shame to make women who are excellent workers flounder in low pay because they don’t have a set of credentials for better pay.

It is easy to get this set of credentials. Financial aid exists through grants and loans for community college and undergraduate degrees. Of course, students must have good grades, as well as time and money, to take classes.

Some women may be undereducated due to financial need or have a family history of working in low-paying jobs. They may not be financially able to move out of the environments that keep them hostage in generational poverty. They may be unwilling or unable psychologically to move past these positions.

If there is a history of low income due to domestic violence, counselors should help students move to safe housing. Psychological services should be available to help students overcome the low self-esteem and psychological trauma prevalent among victims of domestic violence.

High school counselors can do a better job of presenting career options to students. They should help students get to work early through job placement services. Personality tests can help students find jobs they will be good at and enjoy.

Virginia Commonwealth University

I attended Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) from 1990 to 1993. The university was in downtown Richmond.

I studied British literature at VCU. Dr. Larry Laban taught Eighteenth-Century British Literature and Nineteenth-Century British Literature. His classes were the most informative.

I read several six- to eight-hundred-page novels weekly and analyzed them for college papers. Adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels were sometimes featured on Masterpiece Theatre. Channel 23 aired the episodes on Sunday and Monday nights.

Jane Austen was the highlight of my British Literature studies. Austen was known for her insightful commentaries about gender relations among family members. She was the first to reveal, with some humor, how easy it is for a single woman to become homeless if financially dependent on a brother or sister. She also revealed, in all seriousness, that women are far more likely to be financially bound to a Mr. Collins, than marry a Mr. Darcy, with love and respect.

One of the most successful adaptations of a Jane Austen novel into a film script was Emma Thompson’s version of Sense and Sensibility. I went to see the film twice, in 1995, at the Byrd Theatre in Richmond. The film received a standing ovation both times.

In the film, Jane Austen provided a more realistic, although unhappy, alternative to the fairy tale ending. For women insistent on the fairy tale, Austen offered two choices: fantasy or friend. Marianne selected Willoughby as her fantasy man. But he left women unwed, pregnant, and poor. Colonel Brandon was a handsome and wealthy friend, but boring, in her eyes.

My English advisor was Dr. Bill Griffin. He taught courses in British Literature and William Shakespeare. He helped me consider my options for the future.

Dr. Griffin told me that I should find a university after graduation that would take me as a Ph.D. student in English. He warned me that students sometimes had difficulty getting into the University of Virginia. This is because professors considered VCU a third-tier university, after Ivy League schools and top-rated state universities.

Dr. Griffin told me that William & Mary was the best choice in Virginia for an English Ph.D. The professors accepted VCU students, and the classes were exemplary.

I was surprised Dr. Griffin had mentioned this career path to me. I had seldom spoken up in his British Literature class, though I had some good ideas.

I liked to talk about the books I read for classes with my mother at home. I didn’t think I would be comfortable standing up in front of groups of people and talking about literature each day.

I appreciated Dr. Griffin’s help in selecting career choices that would be more appropriate for me. He said that if I did not want to consider a career in teaching, I might try a job in communications or business administration. This seemed like a better career choice.

I declared a double major in history while taking English classes at VCU. One of my favorite teachers was Dr. Robert Talbert. He taught courses in ancient Egypt, the ancient Near East, and the Old Testament.

During his Old Testament class, students inquired about his Nile Cruise trips and his summer study trips to Israel. He told them that he no longer took groups of students overseas because it had become too dangerous to travel to those locations.

Dr. Talbert was known for his beautiful slides of ancient Egyptian art. Accompanying these slides were personal anecdotes about his trips. His classes were always popular and full.

Dr. Talbert became my history advisor. Because I liked the study of ancient Egypt, he recommended I apply for an Egyptology program. There were a few in the United States. The two best ones, he said, were at Brown University and the University of Chicago.

I took a class in the History of Christianity to explore the scholarly studies of the Bible and the ancient world from which it emerged. I learned from my academic study of religion that the Bible was constructed during a series of meetings with Council members.

Works that did not appear in the Bible were discussed in Intertestamental Literature and Thought. These works included the Song of Solomon, a controversial work about sex. The art of Susanna featured a young, plump nude in the midst of sexual violence.

A class called the Bible as Literature introduced me to the joys of reading this ancient text. Like novels and fairy tales, the Bible features stories of murder, rape, and abuse, plus magical elements such as the appearance and disappearance of Moses and Jesus. Dr. Clifford Edwards, director of the Religious Studies program, taught this class as well as my class on the New Testament.

In addition to Christianity, I studied World Religions and Zen Buddhism. In World Religions, I studied the beliefs of other cultures. In Zen Buddhism, I learned how to write haiku.

With a college degree, I had alternatives to the administrative positions and retail jobs I was destined for in my region. I was able to apply for positions at museums and magazines so that I could use my bachelor’s degree in the humanities.

University of Virginia

I applied for an M.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1999. This was the only English graduate program in the United States that allowed students to build Web sites and present them as theses.

With 7 years of work experience, I felt that I was a more competitive candidate than I might have been fresh out of undergraduate school.

American Studies was an undergraduate program in English until 1995. Dr. Alan Howard began the graduate multimedia program to enable English students to learn Web publishing. He accepted ten students a year.

I remember my classmates as assertive and ambitious. They were articulate and loved to argue their points in class. As always, I was a good listener and observer. However, I preferred to read, process, and write my essays on my own time.

I had been interested in Victorian America since 1996. I had seen UVA architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson on A&E’s America’s Castles. He was an expert on American resort history and the decorative arts.

Dr. Wilson met students annually in Newport, R.I., for the Victorian Society in America’s summer school program. I attended his program in 2000 and 2005. I planned to take his classes while in the American Studies program at UVA.

Controversy arose in 2001 when I proposed an essay on Edith Wharton for an American Studies Web project. Dr. Howard refused to consider this author. He informed me that she was unpopular and not worth the investment of time.

I decided to have a conversation about this Web project with Dr. Wilson. The project proposal, on Edith Wharton and classical architecture, was well-received in the Architectural History department. After a presentation to Dr. Howard, I posted the project on the American Studies Web site, xroads.virginia.edu.

Visiting my parents at Easter,
while a graduate student at UVA.

During the spring semester, Dr. Howard approached me about doing a Web project on Survey Graphic, a magazine from the 1930s. He said that he wanted to post a project about it on xroads.virginia.edu. This Web site has been archived at the Wayback Machine, wayback.archive.org.

Dr. Howard advised me to scan and code documents by selecting several articles of interest from the print issues at the library. He also advised me to write an essay about the magazine and its history.

This was a great project as it introduced me to many nonfiction writers of significance in the 1930s. Among them was Pearl S. Buck, a magazine writer, cookbook author, and missionary.

Paul U. Kellogg and his brother, Arthur Kellogg, wrote for the publication and managed a professional writing staff.

There were several American Studies courses and computer lab requirements. As an elective, I took a Documentary Photography class offered by Dr. John Bunch in Education.

I was fascinated by a documentary on photographer Lewis Hine. His child labor photos were great sources of evidence, taken at farms and factories throughout the United States.

My master’s thesis was about class issues in the resort community of Newport, R.I. I visited Newport for a week in the summer of 2001 to look at archival material in the Newport Historical Society.

Half of the sources in my thesis were primary, and half were secondary. This was sufficient for the American Studies department.

Dr. Howard referred the project to English professor John Sullivan for review. He signed off on the project as the second reviewer.

I published the thesis as a journal article, “Class and Leisure in Newport,” in Newport History in the fall 2007 issue.

I wrote my M.A. thesis on class, leisure, and resort culture.
Pictured here in Newport, R.I., in 2004.

In the competitive marketplace of Washington, D.C., where many people have master’s degrees and Ph.D.s, an M.A. in English from UVA was advantageous. Within 5 years of obtaining this degree, I doubled my previous salary.

With an interdisciplinary American Studies degree, I expanded my knowledge to include American history, literature, architectural history, and the decorative arts. I knew this would be beneficial as I considered returning to the museum community with a multimedia background and publishing experience.

Publishing

During my last semester at VCU, Dr. Philip Schwartz, the history internship coordinator, offered me an internship at the Virginia Historical Society. The organization has since changed its name to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.

The education department was developing an educational booklet about an exhibition on Virginians and the Westward Movement. I learned how to look up information in the archives and send away for photos from other agencies.

I wrote some brief entries about Virginians who moved west in the early 1800s. I helped Education Director Bill Obrochta and his staff organize the project.

This was a nice introduction to museum employment. I was able to spend some time learning about each department and its functions.

While I enjoyed the experience in education, I hoped to someday learn about curatorial work, which involved researching object histories and writing essays about them.

After graduation, Dr. Talbert wrote a nice recommendation for me to obtain a 6-month internship at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. I completed this internship at the end of 1993.

I enjoyed studying ancient Egyptian art at the museum. I researched and wrote seventy-five object histories from primary and secondary sources. I revised the museum’s docent training manual to include essays on daily life and women.

This internship rekindled my interest in Egyptology. I dreamed of becoming a curator for a museum with an ancient Egyptian art collection. But first, I wanted to visit Egypt and explore the remains of the ancient world.

I looked around for a position as a researcher or curatorial assistant. Preferably, I wanted a job that involved travel to the ancient lands.

In Richmond, I attended a Virginia Association of Museums conference in 1994. I spoke to a few people about their work. Their information interviews were useful.

In Northern Virginia, I looked at Aviso, a job newsletter from the American Association of Museums. This gave me knowledge of position vacancies nationwide.

Some of my relatives were transportation employees at Smithsonian Institution. I considered joining the museum community. However, I didn’t have contacts within the museum, which is how people usually get jobs. I did, at least, interview for two positions.

By 2004, Web publishing had reached the museum community. Jobs for Web content positions appeared in Aviso and online.

I attended a Museums and the Web conference in Washington, D.C. I learned that Web content management positions were usually available in information technology. Ten years later, these positions had a department of their own.

Magazines

When I looked for work after VCU, I wrote long academic letters to directors of departments at local historical organizations. One of my letters was to Publications Director Margaret Peters at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. She met me in person and liked me. She offered me a job as a part-time publications assistant.

Ms. Peters obtained approval from her director to give me a job for 4 days a week. She told me she would like to offer me a full-time job, but she did not have approval to create a full-time position with benefits.

Ms. Peters said the Commonwealth of Virginia employed people to work on-site 4 days a week. It saved the Commonwealth money not to offer part-time employees benefits. Since many of the part-time employees were married women with children, it gave them something to do without the full-time commitment.

According to Ms. Peters, it was unusual to hire someone from a cold call. Most of the time, people got jobs at agencies because of who they knew. She said she was glad I had given her a call because she had extra money in her budget for an additional staff member.

I sat in the receptionist’s chair one day when the receptionist was out. Ms. Peters asked me to try the phone system. It consisted of one beige telephone that looked like my mother’s telephone at home.

When a call came in, I took the request from the caller. I pressed the receiver button to place the caller on hold. After calling an extension to reach the employee in question, I pressed the button again and hoped that the caller was still there.

I tried this a few times. I ended up flustered and embarrassed that I could not get callers to the right places. Fortunately, Ms. Peters knew the phone system well and stepped in that morning.

One day, I sat in the chair of an architectural historian, Calder Loth, while waiting for an office in which to work. I recalled rows of books on Virginia architecture, and the faint smell of cigarettes.

The agency used to be in a set of rowhouses. They were connected by hallways on the bottom floor. I remember shifting offices a few times until I found a comfortable spot.

I was given a private office on the third floor of rowhouse three. To get to the office, I had to walk from the office of Ms. Peters behind the reception area, through archaeology, to a set of stairs leading to the third floor.

It was quiet and peaceful upstairs. I had an office computer, a telephone, and Word. Stacked before me were architectural survey reports on almost one hundred properties that had been nominated to the Virginia Landmarks Register.

I spent most of my time reading the reports carefully to understand how they were put together. I summarized each report for publication in the agency’s quarterly magazine, Notes on Virginia.

I worked at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources through 1994. Toward the end of the year, I told Ms. Peters that I was thinking of looking for a full-time job.

She asked if I would be interested in working in archaeology next. She told me she could set up a similar arrangement so that I would learn how the Commonwealth’s archaeology office was run. I would be reviewing archaeology reports and writing about archaeological digs.

In retrospect, I probably should have accepted the next project. It would have given me a few more months of employment, and the experience would have been useful. However, I thought that perhaps I had enough work experience, with this job and two internships, to move forward from the City of Richmond.

While looking for a full-time position, I found a part-time job as a communications assistant for a company called the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). The company was located in Chesterfield near Stony Point Parkway.

I met with the communications coordinator, Mary Ann Wirtz. She told me the job was for 2 days a week. I would be looking for transplant stories in newspapers, writing articles, and editing a booklet on living donation.

I worked at UNOS through 1995. I was living in Henrico County by then. I commuted to Chesterfield via Mayland Drive and Parham Road over the Willey Bridge.

In the summer months, I went to Asheville, N.C., with one of the communications staff members, Esther Benenson, and her friend Jean Verostko. We traveled to the Pisgah National Forest and rode horses through the mountains. We stayed at a mountain resort and went to Biltmore Estate. It was a fun trip riding in Esther’s new Saturn.

That Christmas, another coworker, Melissa Devenny-Redman, invited us to her house in Brandermill to have dinner. It was a nice ending to a good year.

While I am not an organ donor, I appreciated the hard work of the staff members, and the transplant coordinators, to provide options to people seeking ways to extend their lives.

Around the holidays, I took a desktop publishing workshop downtown. I met a graphic designer there named Lisa Daniel. She told me that her friend, Wayne West, worked at a company called Collecting Concepts. He was the art director for a magazine called Collecting Figures.

Ms. Daniel said that the publisher, Ernie White, was looking for a new copy editor. I saw an ad for this job later in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

I looked for the magazine at Barnes & Noble. It was nicely designed and written. I decided to send in a resume, mentioning that I had met Lisa Daniel at the workshop.

I received an interview and an offer within a few weeks. This was my first full-time job. I worked there over the next 2 years.

The job was very demanding, physically and mentally. I worked up to 80 hours a week the first year. My schedule dropped to 60 hours a week when we hired a new copy editor, Kristen Noz. After that, I moved up to managing editor.

Ernie White sent me to Toy Fair with Kristen Noz in New York City in 1996. We stayed at the Doral Park Hotel for a few nights. We went to Toy Fair exhibits and met toy industry experts. Upon our return, we put together our upcoming issues. We had enough material for several months of articles.

I visited Times Square for the first time on that trip. It was a vibrant district filled with colorful signs for theater performances.

One night, I attended a Broadway show called Victor/Victoria. It was a fantastic production featuring Julie Andrews. The timing and the actors were perfect.

I collected Looney Tunes during my work at Collecting Figures.

Pictured on my 26th birthday, with a Tweety Bird cake.

Toward the end of 1997, I decided to move to Northern Virginia. I found an editing job in Vienna at the National Captioning Institute. The hours were early, from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Martha Lorentz was the captioning supervisor. The salary wasn’t great, but I got to caption some interesting shows, such as Wild Discovery, and one of my favorite holiday films, Christmas in Connecticut.

The early morning schedule allowed me to get to an evening proofreader position, which I held two nights a week at U.S. News & World Report. Jim Sweeney ran the proofreading department at U.S. News.

My coworkers were detail-oriented, Type A personalities who had been professional editors in other jobs. Some were semi-retired or married with children. They worked at night on the proofreading desk.

There seemed to be a territorial issue between the editing and proofreading staff. A coworker, Deborah Wallace, brought chocolates to work to help everyone get along better. She organized cookie swaps at her home for people who wanted to mingle.

On Friday nights, we stayed until the magazine closed at 1 or 2 in the morning. The company gave us dinners at night–mine was a vegetarian eggplant mix–and rides to the metro from Diamond Cabs.

In 1998, I was a proofreader for U.S. News & World Report        
in Washington, D.C.

Proposals

There was plenty of editorial work in Northern Virginia. Through a freelance company in Reston called Editech, I worked in the proposal department at SAIC in Tysons Corner.

Erica Romberg was the editorial manager. She worked long hours each day and often worked on weekends.

When an editorial manager position came up, she offered it to me. I had worked there for several months by then. I contemplated it, but was afraid the long hours and 7-day work weeks would become tedious.

The company maintained a room for editors down the hall, and offices for editorial managers.

I recall the desktop publishing staff as boisterous. As deadlines loomed, their verbal abuse became irritating. I spent a year in this environment before asking for some other assignments.

I went on a few assignments for CSC. The office was in Merrifield and had one room for proposal editors. The editors rotated frequently.

I went on a few assignments, also, for Ernst & Young in Tysons Corner. I edited documents for the desktop publishing department.

I sat next to an Oracle IT consultant. Across the room from us, an on-site concierge made sales pitches on the phone. He claimed that his services enabled employees to be in two places at one time.

In 1999, I looked in the Washington Post and found an editor job in the e-learning industry. The company was C2 Multimedia in Falls Church. The bonus was that the office was across the street from my apartment.

Victoria Griffiths was the editorial manager. My coworkers were Linda Ross and Courtney Gorham. The job consisted of editing desktop publishing documents and proposals for e-learning projects. I kept the position into graduate school.

Technology

After graduating from UVA in 2001, I found a job in the Washington Post for a mid-level Web editor position at an association called the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). I interviewed for this job and began in January 2002.

Web Sites

The NCTM job was very group-oriented. Business was conducted daily through a series of small-group meetings.

I had many responsibilities. I edited print content from the math journals the association published. These journals were placed online as PDF documents. The edited content was included on teacher Web pages as math problems and article summaries.

I helped the department make a series of e-newsletters about upcoming math content on the Web pages. I attended annual conferences and helped present NCTM math products.

Dave Barnes was the electronic resources director. My coworker was Becky Ries. We managed content for the NCTM Web site. The two coworkers were subject-matter experts in math for CD supplements and lesson plans. We seemed to get along well.

Like most new departments, there were issues regarding position duties. Publications staff were concerned that the electronic resources department would infringe on the editorial duties of their department.

They disliked the electronic resources staff for offering content ideas and suggestions to them. It took a few years for them to adjust to a new team contributing to the Web presence.

Executive Director Jim Rubillo was a former high school math teacher from Philadelphia. He patrolled the building like a school security guard. He watched everyone intently, even during group meetings. He made me feel uncomfortable.

Fortunately, the job presented a normal work schedule. I liked this benefit. I arrived at 9 a.m. and departed at 6 p.m. I had plenty of time for after-work activities, such as walking around the track at George C. Marshall High School. When I moved to Reston, I walked around the lake where my apartment was located.

As part of my job responsibilities, I traveled to annual meetings to promote NCTM's electronic resources. I worked at the Las Vegas, San Antonio, Philadelphia, and Anaheim annual meetings. These trips inspired me to take vacations to nearby destinations on my own time.

I visited San Diego in 2005 and went to Balboa Park and the Heritage Park Victorian Village. At the end of the year, I visited Philadelphia and saw the Ben Franklin statue on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

There were conversations between workers throughout the day, in both the cubes and the hallways. Overall, I found cube life like being in an observation booth. However, it became the norm rather than the exception to work in a cube or open workspace.

I was exposed to the concept of an open office environment for the first time. I remember being uncomfortable with these open workspaces. I felt a lack of privacy.

After NCTM, I joined Discovery Education. I commuted from Reston to my new office in Bethesda, Md. The commute took an average of 90 minutes each way.

Jean Teichroew was the editorial manager. She had a team of producers that made educational science videos. She oversaw video production with a producer named Leslie Becker.

The vice presidents, including Robert Lippincott and Robert Onsi, managed the department. Steven Seidel was president. Onsi’s assistant was Gerry Drake, a content manager.

I love Ben Franklin. His humor is timeless and inspirational.
In 2005, I did a lap dance with this founding father in Philadelphia.

I worked on a Web site called Cosmeo. It featured video content from Discovery programs and photos that looked like they had been clipped from 1970s encyclopedias. The Web site was available to teachers through a monthly subscription.

The employees at this job were Type A personalities. Many of them had sales backgrounds or previous careers in management.

Jeffrey Rule was Vice President of Cosmeo. Jean Teichroew and I sat with him in weekly planning meetings.

Melanie Bowen, Senior Vice President of Cosmeo, was seldom seen. Upon entry in the fall, she wanted to delete staff and revamp the Web site. At the end of the year, many positions were eliminated.

I went through a corporate layoff at the end of 6 months. I was informed that I should reapply for some Web positions at Discovery Channel headquarters. However, most of the vacancies listed on the job sheet were for positions below my job level.

I decided to revamp my graduate school projects in 2006. I sent several lesson plans based on those projects to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Staff members published the lesson plans on a Web site for teachers called EDSITEment!

The first lesson plan was “Having Fun: Leisure and Entertainment at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” It discussed how Americans lived, worked, and played a century ago.

The second lesson plan was “Edith Wharton: War Correspondent.” It discussed Edith Wharton’s journalism during World War I.

The third lesson plan was “Pearl S. Buck: On Discovering America.” In a 1937 essay, Pearl S. Buck defined the word “American” and discussed immigrant relations in the 1930s.

The fourth lesson plan was “Women Aviators in World War II: Fly Girls.” In the lesson, students explored World War II posters, newsreels, and memoirs of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.

The EDSITEment! staff liked my work. While writing for them, I found out about a full-time position in the department managing content. I applied and interviewed for the job. The only drawback was that the salary was less than my salary at Discovery Education.

The other drawback was the commute. Instead of driving around the beltway to and from Bethesda, Md., for work, I would have to drive to Vienna Metro and take the subway into Washington, D.C., every day.

I ended up staying at Discovery Education until the end of the year. Because I did not take the NEH job in the fall, the Discovery layoff in December 2006 put me out of work.

Salaries

In my 15 years in publishing, I encountered moderate salaries. I started out in Richmond making $36,000 at Collecting Figures.

At C2 Multimedia, in Falls Church, I made $39,000. I ended my NCTM Web job in Reston at $47,000.

At Discovery Education, in Bethesda, I made $88,000. I doubled my salary by highlighting my advanced degree, and by commuting. Unfortunately, the job lasted only 6 months, so I made less than $50,000 overall.

Coincidentally, in my brief Washington decade, I made the same wage my father made when he retired as a mechanic from Smithsonian Institution in 1998.

If a woman can build her career, and have her castle, too, she must make more money to be marketable. I realized after my three-city stint in publishing that I must learn to negotiate for better pay. Only then would I be taken more seriously as a business professional.

DC Web Women

In the 2000s, the Web publishing industry evolved to include editorial and design positions. Once the domain of IT departments, Web sites began to be managed like professional publications.

Web content managers emerged to manage content workflow. Their role was also to transform print copy into readable Web copy.

DC Web Women was the professional development group for Web staff in the area. The group consisted of a listserv and many workshops. The listserv featured posts from people working in all aspects of the field, including content.

The group was helpful to me during the decade I lived in Northern Virginia. I was able to maintain my professional development by attending events pertaining to content management, writing for the Web, and e-marketing.

Women in Film and Video

I decided to learn video production on my own. I had saved enough money to live on for a year while learning the trade. I thought I could make a few documentaries and have samples to show for future positions.

One of the projects I wanted to undertake was a documentary, or even a feature film, on the life of Edith Wharton. I had studied this author since the 1990s and visited two of her archives in New England. I felt that I had enough information to present a beautifully made film featuring living history actors, seldom-scene photographs, and little-known facts about her life.

I joined a local group called Women in Film and Video in 2005. For 2 years, I read the listserv. I thought I might be able to acquire some actors and camera people for a living history production on Edith Wharton. I attended an actors’ audition one Saturday and found a few local actors who would be sufficient.

My goal was to return to the museum world. I wanted to work on the curatorial side and make multimedia exhibits for a history or literature museum.

In my home office, with my Edith Wharton books, in 2007.

Cultural Studios

I thought of running a small multimedia business in Northern Virginia in my mid-30s. I was going to call it Cultural Studios. I would be a full-time Web content manager helping businesses create educational Web sites and documentaries.

I would partner with a professional Web designer, and perhaps another person if I needed one. I bought the culturalstudios domain names for .com, .org, and .net. I hired a Web designer to put together a Web site for me.

I went to several networking events in the Washington, D.C., area. I posted to listservs and sent around many e-mails. But I could not seem to get enough business to get it started.

One reason for the lack of immediate business is that I wanted to focus exclusively on the humanities. Had I branched out into other topics, and approached larger organizations for funding, I may have gotten it off the ground.

After maintaining the domain names for a decade, I released them and closed my Web site.

City Life

I grew up in a small community in Central Virginia. During my 19 years away, I lived in Richmond, Falls Church, and Reston.

There are advantages and disadvantages to living in cities. Among the advantages are many cultural activities. Transportation is easy to obtain. Jobs are plentiful if city residents have good reputations and circulate in the right places. Among the disadvantages are criminal activity, workplace competition, and wages that don’t match the market value of housing.

Richmond

Richmond was a sketchy urban environment that took some getting used to. VCU was located in the Fan. A collection of row houses spanned outward from campus toward midtown. There were restaurants on almost every corner, which built a sense of community, but the neighborhood was unsafe.

My mother lived in Richmond with me while I attended VCU. I think she was protective of me and wanted to make sure I was safe in Richmond.

We rented a first-floor apartment in a brick building at 4003 Grove Avenue from 1990 to 1991. It had two bedrooms and one bath.

There was a gas stove, which my mother wouldn’t use. She was afraid it would blow up, or there would be a gas leak. Instead, she brought her square green electric frying pan. We ate fried vegetables and potatoes, saturated with cooking oil, for most of our meals.

We had two troublesome neighbors. On the second floor was an elderly woman who slept during the day. As my bedtime approached, she arose, with an alarm clock, in the bedroom directly over mine. She slipped on a noisy pair of clogs and clopped throughout the apartment. She ran a long bath, the water thundering over our bathroom tub. I frequently heard the clatter of metal clothes hangers on the floor as she hung up her clothes.

My mother said that she probably hung like a bat from the ceiling in the morning after her chores were completed. The sound of her false teeth slipping out of her mouth would create a thud on the floor above my bed, further disturbing my sleep.

I slept fitfully while all of this was going on. In the mornings, my own alarm clock blared as she settled down to sleep upstairs.

On the third floor was a young man who liked to smoke stogeys in the stairwell. He entered and exited the building each day, climbing and descending the stairs while puffing away. We could smell his cigar smoke under our apartment door.

We had an infestation of cave crickets, which were a nightly nuisance. They sprang at the swatter as if on attack. We discovered that they were coming from some open spaces under the radiator vents. Stuffing trash bags into the open spaces, and placing plywood over the vents, seemed to help.

There was an annual Greek Festival on Malvern Avenue. Vendors brought refrigerated trucks for the event and parked them in our apartment lot.

My mother complained of the nightly humming noise coming from the refrigerated trucks. It vibrated the windows and distracted her reading. She attempted to muffle the sound with our air conditioner unit. She was thankful when the Greek Festival was over.

Within a year, we received a notice that Malvern Manor was going to be renovated. Each tenant had to move out, or move to a renovated unit.

The renovation work would consist of upgrading appliances, adding a washer/dryer room off the kitchen, and upgrading the plumbing. It was unlikely that the renovation work would improve the sound quality of the building.

We moved a few blocks away to a townhouse at 3714 Patterson Avenue. The complex was called Georgetown Apartments.

Unfortunately, the community was not much better. There was a flea problem from the previous tenants. They had apparently owned big dogs.

The apartment manager failed to spray the empty unit to get rid of the fleas. We lived miserably, picking fleas from our socks, for about a year.

We must have believed we couldn’t afford a better apartment community. So we put up with the noisy neighbors who always seemed to rent the townhouse on the left side of ours.

First, there was Amy Basten. She had a boyfriend who visited her on weekends. Let’s just say they were a rowdy pair.

Then there was Cindy Lane. Her two white dogs fought furiously throughout the day.

Finally, there were two Medical College of Virginia student nurses who worked at night. When they were off, they played their stereo loudly into the night.

Somehow, we managed to survive these disturbances.

Interestingly, the townhouse to our right was always extremely quiet. We wished for a new neighbor like that each time a noisy neighbor moved out of the townhouse to our left.

In 1994, my mother moved some of her items back to her home. I was alone there most of the time. I decided to get my own apartment, and hoped this would be in a quieter location.

Richmond’s West End had a different culture. There were single-family homes, malls, and movie theaters. People were middle-class and married. It didn’t seem quite so sketchy to live there.

After a few weeks of looking around, I settled on a one-bedroom apartment at Culpeper Farms. This community was on West Broad Street across from Lowe’s. My address was 9501 Turf Club Court, #1110.

The apartment community consisted of one- and two-bedroom garden-style units. My unit faced Mayland Drive at the back of the community. It had a woodburning fireplace, which I liked, and a nice view of the woods.

I did not have enough income to qualify for a one-bedroom apartment on my own, so my mother came up and filled out a co-application for me. I remember that she had to verify my father’s income with his employer. My father had to come up one weekend and co-sign for me as well.

The apartment community approved me for a 6-month lease. The move-in date was March 1995. My parents moved my mother back to the family home first. They came back and moved me into the Culpeper Farms unit.

As a single tenant, I spent my first week a little nervous at Culpeper Farms. The garden-style apartments had an open corridor. I could hear neighbors come and go more than I could at the townhouse. I kept the TV on for a few evenings until I got used to the place. After settling in, I enjoyed my new fireplace, burning Food Lion logs nightly.

The neighbors below me were a young couple with a small dog. Across from me was a single, attractive man who had no girlfriends.

Like most women in their 20s, I went out to events sometimes to meet cute mates. By then, I liked muscular, blonde men. However, I did not engage in casual sex. I wanted to wait until I found the right person with whom to share my mind and body.

I began to see men as potential friends and partners in a relationship. There would probably be no “love at first sight.” But there might be some good friendships if I went out looking for them.

I considered the amount of time and energy it had taken to attend college and start my publishing career. I could see, by this time, that there would be no “knight in shining armor” to support me financially or offer a secure home. I had embarked on the next phase of my life as a single working woman.

I enjoyed visiting the pool that summer and using the outdoor hot tub. In the afternoons, I had the pool all to myself. In the evenings, I worked on some creative writing.

I developed a stress-eating disorder in my mid-20s. I began to gain weight as I binged on desserts. I remember feeling stressed out one day and going to Ukrop’s for a cake. I bought a yellow cake with chocolate icing and ate most of it in 2 days.

I suppose I was feeling the stresses of life as a single woman, with no dependents, looking for work. Without my mother to talk to, I sometimes felt lonely.

After graduate school, I took a class in Human Development at the UVA Northern Virginia Center. I became interested in the psychosocial development theory of Erik Erikson. He described human life in a series of eight stages. 

Stage 6 of Erikson's theory takes place between ages 19 and 40. It is characterized by a desire to form relationships outside of the family unit.

I recall that I began to seek friendships after graduating from college. I ventured occasionally to events like concerts and horse races at Strawberry Hill. I went to Shockoe Bottom restaurants and Shockoe Tea for people watching.

Because I had not addressed some self-esteem issues from my childhood, it seemed hard to make friends as a young adult. I felt emotionally isolated.

During graduate school, I was so busy that I didn't think about my emotional isolation. I walked from classroom to library each day, absorbed in planning my papers and projects. It may have been better for me that I didn't have the additional stresses of relationships and children.

Culpeper Farms was one of the few apartment communities with a racquetball court. It was next to the fitness room at the clubhouse. I bought a racquet and some balls and played by myself to keep in shape. I also walked on Mayland Drive sometimes in the afternoons.

Rent became pricey because I was on a 6-month renewal. After a year and a half, I decided I should save money by sharing housing expenses.

I found a house rental in the Richmond Times-Dispatch for $725 a month. The house was at 2243 Aspen Way. It was a duplex, meaning that it was attached to another house.

I had a nice upstairs office. I set up a new home computer with a dial-up service called Infinet. This was the Internet provider at my workplace.

I spent most of my time working at night. Sometimes, I rented movies from Blockbuster. I went out to restaurants a lot.

I tuned in to Xena, which aired Saturday nights on Channel 6. I went with a friend to a SciFi Convention at the Richmond Sheraton in 1997 and met the woman who played Alti. After watching Xena’s weekly fight scenes, I felt relieved of my deadline stress.

I went with a friend to Georgetown one year and saw a movie called When Night Is Falling. The Canadian movie was about a religious studies professor who develops a friendship with a traveling circus performer. The message is that while a woman may be an uptight intellectual, she can always find orgasmic release in the arts, or in Canada.

In the spring, we visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was hard to believe the smiles and laughter of the families visiting this place.

I was depressed after viewing the museum’s exhibits and documentaries about torture, starvation, and death. Perhaps there is relief in the knowledge that generations have survived.

Falls Church

Falls Church was a small city filled with renovated Victorian houses. There was a park in the middle with a historic house museum. The museum was a venue for weekend concerts and readings. A community pub called Ireland’s Four Provinces was the focal point for socializing.

Falls Church had a wealthy west side near the metro station. There were several mid-rise condominiums and office buildings. In nearby Tysons Corner, two ritzy malls with large department stores kept upper-middle-class clients happy.

I looked at apartment communities in Tysons Corner. There was a mid-rise community off I-495 called the Renaissance. I settled on a garden-style apartment at the end of 1997. The address was 2243 George C. Marshall Dr., #222.

It had been difficult to obtain approval for this application. I had to qualify with income from my captioning job and my part-time job at U.S. News.

While living at the Renaissance, I went to Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library a few blocks away. I checked out books and accessed the Internet on the library’s desktop computer stations.

When I wasn’t working 10 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, at my editing jobs, I watched I Love Lucy reruns on TV. I listened to Sarah McLachlan’s Surfacing cassette and sampled D.C. radio stations.

I put on more weight as my lifestyle became increasingly sedentary. I had held several editing positions by then. All of them required me to sit at my desk for 8 to 12 hours a day editing copy. I gained 50 to 60 pounds over that decade.

In 2000, I suffered a herniated disc in the L5 region of my lower back. For a few months, I walked, slightly bent over, due to muscle spasms in my back. This was, I believe, because I sat with a tense back at my work desk during the day.

Dr. Abraham Cherrick, a physical therapist at Falls Church, prescribed a series of lower back exercises, such as back crunches and pelvic tilts, to alleviate misery and improve my lower back and abdominal strength.

I had to lie supine for a few weeks after the L5 injury sent me to Inova Fairfax Hospital for a day. I was bedridden with sciatic nerve injuries in my legs. My coworkers sometimes came over to deliver work to me.

By then, I had applied for, and been accepted to, the M.A. program at UVA. I had received my reading list for fall classes by that time. I recall attempting to read books from my reading list while lying on my back, dosed with Percocet. It took me a while to get through all of the books.

I took a blue back cushion with me to school. This is because the chairs and desks in the classrooms were too hard for me to sit on. The cushion helped me get through each class until my lower back healed. I used the cushion throughout my graduate program.

The happy ending to the lower back story is that I moved to a new apartment in 2003 and began a weight loss program at McLean Rec Center. With a circuit weight training and cardiovascular program approved by a personal trainer, I shed my excess weight. I looked and felt much better. This was the beginning of a decade of weight loss and productivity.

I loved Smooth Jazz, 105.9. The DJs were always positive and upbeat. I missed the Capital Jazz Fest every year, but heard Boney James, Spyro Gyra, and many others on the radio. One year, I managed to see a Keiko Matsui concert at the Kennedy Center.

Smooth Jazz sustained me through my deadline-oriented jobs in Falls Church, and my physical injury. Whenever I hear a smooth jazz song on the radio, I remember my years in Falls Church. Smooth Jazz always puts me in a happy, lighthearted mood.

Reston

I spent an additional year in Falls Church upon my return from graduate school. After a year of working in Reston and commuting on the Dulles Toll Road, I decided to look for my own apartment closer to my Reston job. With several lakes and hiking trails, Reston inspired physical activity.

I also liked the suburb because it was close to concert venues and Dulles Airport. A subway system now runs through the suburb, connecting Reston to Washington, D.C.

I looked in the apartment guides and visited some communities. I remember thinking that St. John’s Wood in North Reston had open corridors and a foreboding set of stairs to the third floor. Spring Hill in South Reston seemed reasonably priced, but unsafe.

I looked in the Washington Post Real Estate section and found an efficiency unit in Heron House on Lake Anne. The address was 11400 Washington Plaza West, #205.

This was a waterfront apartment. Utilities were included at $795 per month. The price seemed right, so I called the phone number listed in the ad.

There was an open house that day. I filled out an application because it looked like a nice place.

The landlords rented out the unit annually. A woman had just moved out, they said, to get married. The landlady was going to start a new lease with me.

The landlord approved my application the next day. The landlady said that my credit score of 800 was “immaculate.” I signed a lease with her in February 2003 and moved in the second week of March.

I liked the unit when I saw it. It had a large open room with a floor-to-ceiling window and a sliding door facing the lake. There was a separate kitchen, entered through two louver doors, and a foyer with a large closet. There was a smaller foyer with another large closet, and space in the foyer for shelves. The unit had one bath.

I remember moving some items to the lake one Saturday night and looking up at the sky. For the first time since I had lived in Northern Virginia, I could see the same night sky I saw at my mother’s house, clear and filled with stars. It seemed like a good omen.

Instead of commuting from Tysons Corner to Reston on the Dulles Toll Road, I drove down Weihle Avenue to 1906 Association Drive on Sunrise Valley Drive. It took about 15 minutes to get there from my apartment.

In addition to the short commute, I could pick up my mail at Reston Post Office on my lunch break or after work. I maintained P.O. Box 2074 at Reston Post Office for 7 years.

My favorite spot on Lake Anne was a pier across the plaza. Turning at one row of townhouses facing the parking lot, I descended a set of wooden stairs to a deck on the water.

Sitting in my chair, I could see a large lake fountain to my right and a row of white townhouses to my left. Most of them had spiral staircases.

Sometimes, I found a mother goose hiding her eggs in a flower box. When I approached the box, she hissed and snapped her beak.

The gander on the lake, who appeared to have many friends, came to see me only once. He swam to the deck and hopped up to greet me, honking and flapping his wings.

I wrote on some notebook paper each time I went out. Sometimes, I took a book called The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity and worked on some writing exercises. After a few hours of working, I felt mentally well and physically relaxed.

Life seemed idyllic at the time. After work, I walked around the lake to Weihle Avenue and watched the sun set over the houses. I traveled an hour to see jazz and pop music concerts around the city.

On Saturday mornings, there was a farmer’s market in the parking lot of Reston Community Center. Farmers came from Leesburg and Berryville to sell baked goods and vegetables. I purchased tomatoes, zucchini, and loaves of fruit bread and took them back to my apartment for lunch.

I walked around Lake Anne two or three times a week. This seemed to give me plenty of exercise in the evenings after work.

I went out a lot, but usually alone. I rarely dated. I maintained an active fantasy life, however. I sometimes dreamed of meeting a handsome redhead with a trim beard. But he never materialized.

I resolved, in my 30s, to lead a healthy life, in celibacy, until I met someone nice. I still considered some men attractive, but my mind was focused fully on my career.

In 2007, the lake changed from a quiet, peaceful elderly community to a younger community filled with workers and children.

There was a No Skateboarding sign near Heron House, but high school children rode their skateboards around the plaza anyway. The restaurants were filled with rowdy people who sang karaoke songs late into the night. There were loiterers around the plaza at all hours.

It is a shame that the lake changed after more than 4 years of living there. I remember it sometimes with regret. It was a beautiful time in my life when I was single, healthy, and well-adjusted.

Generation X in the Workplace

I am very much a part of Generation X. I am an independent thinker. I value creative expression. I want to make money doing something I enjoy. I am unwilling to compromise my career choices just to make a salary. I am willing to challenge authority for the causes I believe in. I did not have children, but I probably would have been a gently instructive parent.

Generation X is known as a generation of innovators. Generation Xers are sometimes maestro personalities, to use the terminology of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. They like to start new businesses and invent new products.

It is no surprise that many Internet start-ups began during the 1990s. The Internet, once a fledgling community of computer programmers and amateur designers, has blossomed into a sophisticated network of professional Web publishing executives with business models similar to those of the print publishing communities.

While my career in Richmond and Northern Virginia lasted only 19 years, I was glad to work in the print and Web publishing communities. The professionals I worked with were very helpful in exposing me to the industry.

My two decades in publishing gave me skill sets in writing, editing, project management, office management, and customer service. These foundational skills can be applied to jobs in any industry.

About the Author

Kay F. Davis is a print, Web, and social media editor in Central Virginia.

Kay has a B.A. in English and history, with a minor in religious studies, from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has an M.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia.

Drop Kay at line at kayfdavishumanities@gmail.com.

In Heritage Park Victorian Village, San Diego, in 2005.