She took a year off from her day job to work on her favorite project -- herself and never went back. She now works nights answering a patient hotline for a major home health care provider based in New York City and loves her job!
And has learned folks are lot less stressed about dying than they are about money.
Still trying to reconcile writing poetry and making money, she curates Poets Wear Prada, a website designed to promote poets, their readings and their poetry; she owns a small press by the same name.
An expert on change, some examples of her personal miracles include:
- Racing around to various gigs and events all over NYC & NJ, like a madwoman, minus four toes on her right foot. A cab ran over her foot early one morning when she was coming home from her night job and she now only has one toe, the little pinky toe, on her right foot. Actually, we suspect it was a "hit" job. She contemplated getting rid ot that annoying little toe everytime she wore her favorite 8-inch spike heels, you know, the black patent leather Helmut Lang's with the pointy toes that her husband likes so much. I think the little toe got wind of it and had the the other toes knocked off. Okay she's given up the spikes for now, but don't be suprised if you see her running in the NYC Marathon this fall!
- Oh by the way she got her current job in health care after working as security and a grip on the set of an independent film in Soho. The actress who played the Vampire's bride, worked in HR Recruiting and they were hiring. Talk about a scary interview! But I do love blood and gore.
- Getting married at 36 to the confirmed bachelor she had been living with for 8 years. It's a well known fact that a single woman over 35 has a better chance at meeting an extra-terrestrial than Mr. Right. So I married the extra-terrestrial.
- Staying married. Well, anybody can get married. Even Britney Spears! Jennifer Lopez has been married at least twice. But can these girls keep their men? Roxanne and the Martian celebrated their 19th Wedding Anniversary this winter on December 11th. Or was it their 11th Anniversary on December 19th? or maybe it's November 12th?
- Applying for a two-year master’s degree program in actuarial science at NYU’s Stern School of Business and getting accepted into the Ph.D. program with a full scholarship as a teaching fellow. Okay, Okay, So I was their token multi-cultural multi-ethnic lactose-intolerent female. I'm 3/8 Hispanic, 1/8 Italian, 1/4 Russian Albino Jew, 1/8 Turk and 1/8 Austrian and if I go back a couple of generations I'm part Mongol and part Head-Shrinker and I don't mean Psychiatrist.
- Graduating! Roxanne graduated from Stern with her Masters in Business Administration at 30 in 1985. Okay, Okay, so I didn't get the Ph.D. and my mother still refers to me as the Grad School Dropout.
- Maintaining employment at JP Morgan Chase for 20 years despite having her job eliminated three times (Yes, 3 times!), the 1988 stock market crash, two mergers, one nervous breakdown and a partridge in a pear tree.
- Convincing JP Morgan Chase at the beginning of 2003 to let her have over a year off with pay and benefits. And then getting them to pay for a career coach and retraining. I'm still trying to get them to pay my gym membership and my personal trainer but they did cough up the money for a Stand-Up Comedy course.
- And the hardest of all, finding a rent controlled apartment in Hoboken, NJ for under $3000 where she lives with her Martian and their pet pigeon Nikita Nick the Quick White. And then getting her rent cut in half while converting the garbage can area to a private park complete with trees and a cast-iron bench. We even have our own squirrel.
- Accomplishing all of the above while being certifiably certifiable. After 37 years of being stark raving mad, Roxanne was finally diagnosed by Doctor Mom as Manic Impressive in 1992. Yes, I was one of those kids that always had to shout out the answer! Roxanne is an active member of NAMI, a national mental health advocacy group of consumers (the politically correct way to refer to us nuts), families and friends. Consumers of the World Unite! Yes, we want equal pay for equal work! (You didn't think being shopaholic was work? What about the Trend Tracking? The Bargain Hunting? The Quality Testing? The Power Shopping? And when the government wants to know how the economy is doing don't they look at consumer spending? Who did you think was propping up the economy!) Yes, we want separate paychecks for each personality, insurance coverage for our shrinks (this time I mean the psychiatric kind) and our meds, and we want to be President. Actually, I think we have been President.
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Roxanne welcomes comments and constructive criticism for her webpages as well as invitations to read or perform and to submit her poetry and prose for publication.
Copyright ©2004, 2008 Roxanne Hoffman
