Ten years after

Sometime this past month marked the tenth anniversary of my divorce from the TV news business.

That's long enough that I can stop thinking of myself as 'that guy who used to be on TV,' although I still hear that once in awhile.

I was having lunch with a friend the other day. She saw me from time to time in her office when I was a reporter, but we didn't actually become acquainted until about four years later.

"You're nothing like what you were then," she told me.

"That was just a character I was playing," I said, "but playing the part was a full-time job."

I ran into a former co-worker and his wife the other night. "Do you miss it?" she asked me. I told her no, unless having constant nightmares about it can be said to be missing it in some perverse way.

In fact, I rarely bump into people from that period of my life. The number of co-workers and/or colleagues I've talked to since leaving television is probably fewer than ten — about one a year.

I get 99% of my news from the internet these days, and less than 1% — probably less than .1% — from television. I know Linda Cavanaugh and los bros. Ogle are still around, but beyond that I can't even tell you who's on the news now.

One of the more fortunate things that happened to me was that I got a pretty clean break from it. I didn't fall into that weird limbo of car and hearing aid commercials that some people wandered into. It was pretty much a clean and quick transition from cardboard-haired news weasel to slovenly and lethargic commercial artist/slacker.