When Mr Chairman called me into his office and told me not only wasn't he going to renew me contract but he was going to make me pay back what I'd earned so far this year, it seemed a sensible option.
"Probably I was too old when he tried to renew me until the Monza race (in September), and he kept pushing and pushing and having talks, and even in the last moment we had a lot of phone calls and emails that I still have in my computer.
He said he could get me a much better rate, but first he wanted to renew me and he'd call me back with details.
He reminds me that in the day-to-day balance of work as a climate activist and taking care of my empty nest, I sometimes forget to breathe -- to stop and let this vital air wash over and renew me.
Perhaps more important, Bali renewed in me those productive, melancholy questions of where home actually lies.
How now such an old and kindred emotion be renewed in me, peculiar to one whose carcass so long ago was swept away, left to wallow in endless longing for anything that might pass for a heart?
Another woman walks past the St Louis de Gonzague St Aloysius Roman Catholic Church in – where else? – Nashua, New Hampshire, displaying the words from Psalm 51 10 ("A clean heart created for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me"), hinting at the humility for which campaign manager Robbie Mook has already called.
Will finding out the world is quite fine, with my little acknowledgement about orgasm, heal me and give me renewed life?
Then in 2003, the planets collided, the agency told me that my contract was not going to be renewed and offered me another similar role in another department.
Melatonin had helped me to reset my sleep patterns, testosterone had given me renewed vigour, and HRT seemed to have levelled out the mood swings from fury to low-level depression and put me back on a more even emotional keel.
