New Mexico
To say it’s been a long year would be a gross understatement. At the beginning of 2023, I was still driving back and forth between Kentucky and Wisconsin every two weeks to help take care of my dad. By the end of March, he was dead. By May, I’d created this website. By July, I’d sold Dad’s house, car, and condo in Florida—and we held his memorial. By August I’d gone through my first bout of COVID-19. By October I’d given a presentation and published multiple articles about being an executor. And somewhere between all that, I traveled to Sweden, attended a work conference in Chicago, attended a concert in Los Angeles, spent a long weekend at Riot Fest in Chicago, went to my cousin’s wedding in Cincinnati, did my full-time job, wrote and published fiction, read over 60 books, exercised, cleaned my house regularly and maintained/grew my friendships.
I am, apparently, a marvel. I am also exhausted.
That’s why I decided to abscond to New Mexico with my dog for a month. I’m lucky enough to be able to work from wherever, and I’m taking all the PTO I have left anyway. I am basking in the mountain landscape. I am going to museums. I am eating my body weight in green chile. You can’t stop me!
I haven’t even spent 24 hours in Santa Fe yet, but I can tell my mom would have loved it here. It’s full of Boomer Mom Shops™. You know what I mean—overpriced decorative tchotchkes and wildly expensive alpaca scarves. I’m more interested in the coffee shops and bookstores. I completely forgot George R. R. Martin had a bookstore here—and a movie theater. And I have to go to Meow Wolf, of course. Santa Fe also has the largest dog park in the United States—138 acres!—but I’m worried about the dog plague that’s been going around. We’ll see. I’d like to drive to Taos, too, and maybe Los Alamos or Albuquerque.
On my cross-country drive, I stopped for a half-day in Oklahoma City so I could see the house where my dad grew up. His family moved around a lot—my grandpa worked in the dairy industry and got transferred from state to state. Dad spent his junior high years in OKC in the early 1960s. The house is a simple, one-story ranch with light blue shutters. I didn’t stick around long—I was afraid I’d worry the neighbors or the current owners. But I’m glad I can picture where he lived now.
I did bring the Uber Death Notebook with me on vacation—hopefully I can find the time to concentrate on figuring everything out with their stocks, which is far more complicated than it should be, especially because none of these financial companies are willing to answer the phone. An executor’s work never ends—but a change of scenery helps.