Sadly, Frankenfoods aren’t just for Halloween.

I admit, I used to willingly eat Frankenfoods rather than eating real food, opting for low-fat or non-fat mayo or ice cream, margarine or spread, skim milk, turkey bacon, non-dairy creamer, and many more that I really don’t care to remember. People smarter than me – or so I thought – with letters behind their names said to eat these foods in order to be healthy.

Around this time in 2007, I was finishing a run of a play in which the cast partied hard every weekend during the run and even sometimes went onstage the next day still drunk, or at least severely hung over. In order to clean up my act I hopped on the Anabolic Diet and could eat pretty much as much protein and fat as I could handle during the week and then carb up on the weekends.

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Six years ago today, I got laid off, becoming just another stat in the initial wave of layoffs during the Great Crash of 2008. I’d actually found out right before I was leaving for the night the day before but my bosses wanted me to come in one more day to clean out my desk. Having been there over four years – and being quite the pack rat – I’d accumulated a lot of junk along the way.

That morning I got up early so I could get into the office before anyone else and start the process of purging my work life. I’d just got up, showered, dressed and caught the bus and L to my office in the Loop, arriving just before 7:00 A.M. No one was there yet so I wandered around and took pictures to remember the place since I had enjoyed working there.

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