SFMOMA

Dan and I flew out to San Francisco early this morning for Liz and Pat's wedding on Saturday night. We left DFW at 7:30, arrived in SF at 9:30, and God bless the hotel front desk people, they let us check in to the hotel around 10:30 instead of waiting until 3 p.m.

After dropping our bags, we went out looking for food because it was 12:30 Texas time and we were starving. A woman at the desk recommended a diner up about two blocks, where we stuffed ourselves on breakfast food before heading over to Chinatown, which was up a giant hill and east about three blocks. We spent a lot of time there, walking around, looking at cheap Chinese-made toys and nicer home items and going into food shops where nothing was labeled in English but lots of stuff looked sort of illegal to sell. (Shark fins? Whale baleen?) I bought some little things for myself and Julie and tried some dim sum that probably would have been better if it had been pan-fried.

Then we figured since we were halfway to Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill, we may as well go there. So we did. We walked there. The hills here are ridiculous. I'm going out tomorrow with my little film camera (I left my big one at home because I haven't had enough time to test it out all the way) and hopefully I can capture the insanity. My calves are so fucking sore. I think all told we walked four miles or so, and a lot of it was up hills that had a 30 percent grade. Tomorrow I'm taking the public transportation.

We came back to the hotel, and I tried to take a nap but it didn't work, which is too bad because I don't think I really slept at all at Dan's parents' place last night, for a lot of reasons. The nap didn't work, but the giant bathtub made my legs feel better, and Italian food helped. I had to buy Excedrin to take care of the killer lack-of-sleep migraine, and then we went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which is half-price Thursday nights.

I love modern art. I know a lot of people say that some of it is stupid, since some of it is absurd or looks like it could be done by anybody. That's part of what is so neat about modern art, though--it's not necessarily about the object or outcome, but at least partially about deciding that this thing can be art. Fountain by Marcel Duchamp is one of those things--it's a urinal he bought, painted "R. Mitt 1917" on the side, put it on a pedestal and called it art. It got removed from some exhibit when it debuted, I think, but this is a current version and now it's at the SFMOMA, so he wins.

There were also a few paintings that I'd seen before but just never realized how detailed they are in real life, like Diego Rivera's The Flower Carrier. I'd seen it in books, but up close the basket detailing makes it look three-dimensional, and the flowers look soft and feathery on the canvas.

Ladder for Booker T. Washington, by Martin Puryear, is part of the permanent collection at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and yet when we walked into the SFMOMA, there it was, hanging in the giant atrium space, on loan. It looks a lot bigger in the Modern, which has it in a smaller, starker place, but it was funny to see it here when I'm so used to seeing it at home.

Then there were other staples of the modern art museums, also represented at the Modern: Clyfford Still with his huge canvases and ragged streaks of colors; Roy Lichtenstein and his dots; Donald Judd with his stacked boxes hanging from the wall; Robert Bechtle and his photo-like paintings.

There were a couple of installations at the SFMOMA that I really liked and would have put in my house if I could figure out a way. My favorite was The Structure of Light by Alyson Shotz, a beautiful, swirling, transparent and sparkling example of form in air. (I can't find a big photo, but here's a little glimpse of it.) It was made of piano wires, strung with transparent beads, and it shimmered as you walked around it. I realize how dorky this makes me sound, but it reminded me of what I imagine the principles of physics look like.

Yeah, that was geeky.

Not as geeky as how excited I got as the special exhibit Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900. It showed diatoms, snowflakes, daguerreotypes of eclipses and photos of insects. A woodburytype (I dunno what that is) of the surface of the sun, an image of the Orion nebula, circa 1900. Lightening and electrical sparks, Trouvelot figures, electrical pulses of the heartbeat. Eadweard Muybridge's galloping horses and flipping gymnasts. Ernst Mach, of supersonic fame, and photos of flying bullets and the disruption of the air around them. Radiation emitted by things and x-rays of various items, including the fetus of a river dolphin and x-rays of x-ray tubes.

All of the images were beautiful, and also so familiar, especially to those of us who spent years in science books. The photos of cells don't look much different than photos of cells today, and x-rays are x-rays. We have more advanced imaging today, like MRIs and electron microscopy, but it was amazing to see these images and realize all of them were at least 100 years old. I just never think of close-up photos of the moon being taken during the 1800s. I couldn't find any prints in the museum store, so I ended up buying a book about the exhibit instead, so I can be geeky any time I want. I wish I could find giant prints to frame and hang on my walls, but no luck yet. I'm going to do some work with Google and see what I can find in the future, though.

Tomorrow we're getting up and Dan is heading off on a bike ride, across the Golden Gate Bridge and up Mt. Tam, which I stay over here and take photos and hang off cable cars like a rhesus monkey, just like Eddie Izzard said. Then we're going to hit up the California Academy of the Sciences, go drink with the wedding people and go find Halloween parties with a friend who went through BU's science journalism program the year before me.

Dan's already decided he wants to move here. As we're sitting eating dinner he says, "I wish the Chronicle weren't such a shitty paper, because I'd totally live here." I like the city so far. If I moved here and walked around all the time, I feel like I could cut out working out from my life. That could free up a whole, oh, hour and a half of my life every week. I could do a lot with that time. Like eat chocolate and seafood.

Productivity

Today was a full day and I got a lot done, and today feels about the same--I've finished reporting for stories for this week, and half finished for next week. Tomorrow I'm taking a half day, and so will probably spend the morning writing up this week's stories, and then I'll leave for lunch, go ride Topper, take a nap, watch some crap TV, and start packing. Every week should be only 2.5 work days. It makes me feel so much more productive. When you take all the spare time out of the work week, the time spent waiting on call backs, the actual amount of work I do every week is really only 2.5 days. And that includes time to still read the news and check my usual blogs.

Yesterday I got off work, went for a short run and got myself all winded and tight chested. I haven't gone seriously running in about two weeks because I thought I had a cold and now I'm obsessed with daylight after work. I like being able to get to the barn and get onto Topper before it gets dark because even if it gets dark once I'm on him, he's better if we start in the light rather than starting in the dark. I don't know why he's like this. We've already established he's a weirdo, so who knows what's up with that behavior.

But yesterday I made the run shorter, since I haven't been out in a bit, but tried to step the pace up instead. It was good, except at the end I had to fish my inhaler out of my purse, where it was under receipts from Target and books. Today I'm hoping for a mile and a half before I go to the barn and hopefully tack up quickly.

Thursday morning Dan and I are flying to San Francisco, and it would be an understatement to say I'm excited. I'm really, really looking forward to this. I've been planning and scheming and now, finally, we can go and I can wear my fucking awesome silver strappy shoes to the wedding on Saturday. Additionally, I can hopefully dink around in Chinatown. I love Chinatowns. The Asian sector of any city is one of the best places to walk around. The general neighborhood we'll be staying at is really central and Chinatown should be within walking distance, so I'm hoping for dumplings. That's not too much to ask, right?

It's finally fall and chilly and I can't function at work without my space heater on. If it ever breaks, I'm going to bust out the fingerless gloves I have from being in Boston. I got them because I couldn't work my cell phone with normal gloves on. That, and I was too lazy to take my gloves off when I'd go grocery shopping.

Keeping Up With The Skillz

I haven't done one of these since I was 15 or so, but Dan and I had a good deal of fun on Friday night:

http://www.dallasnews.com/video/?z=y&nvid=296822

I'm hoping the Fort Worth Business Press doesn't care that I helped make a video for the Dallas Morning News. I always tell people journalism is an incestuous little world.

Counting Down Til Five

Today I got to meet billionaire T. Boone Pickens. He was the guest speaker at a huge fund-raising event for the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and the event is always held in Dallas, so John (covers energy) and I drove out to go see him.

Pickens is a pretty amazing guy--he's given hundreds of millions to charities, made billions for himself, and he got lead into the hall by the Oklahoma State University marching band, which I guess is pretty appropriate since he's got several things on that campus named after him. He was also a really great guest for the event, which was a sort of Q&A format. John got a one-on-one interview with him afterward, too, and we got signed copies of his book for being media.

We were also the only reporters there--there was supposed to be someone from the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Business Journal, the M.D. Anderson PR person said, but they never showed. I wasn't really surprised at the DMN thing. Dan is sitting in a newsroom today quaking in his boots as people all around him get laid off. Everyone there knew last week that this would be the week for layoffs, and nothing happened, nothing happened, nothing happened, and they're doing it all today. Dan sent me a message online saying it was like a funeral in the newsroom, and he even had a scare when his editor and editor's boss called him over to have a little meeting. Turns out they only wanted to talk about what was happening, like it was some big secret that people were getting axed.

I guess yesterday was the 10th anniversary of "Baby, One More Time" by Britney Spears. Remember that? Of course you do. It was the debut of Britney, and since then tabloids and internet rumors have never been the same. The two writers behind Go Fug Yourself wrote a short piece about the video for Spears' website, and I just find that little bit of pop history trivia amusing.

Other interesting news: Dan and I will be in San Francisco in one week. Actually, less than one week, since we'll get there next Thursday. I haven't had a real vacation yet this year--three day weekends don't count--so I'm very much looking forward to it. In case you couldn't tell. Which everyone can. Because I can't shut up about it. Because I need a vacation!

Aside from that, this week has been long. Lots of issues to work out, stuff I won't get into here. Dan will be thankful when the dust settles and I'm not griping anymore, because he's obligated to listen to me when I gripe. Tonight I think he'll be the one griping, though. I'd ask all the journalists out there to raise a beer and salute the laid-off reporters and mid-level editors tonight. You know they're getting let go from more than just the DMN.

I'm Just Like You

Lots of phone calls and interviews today. Lots of getting to use the phone voice. Also a lot of me trying to assure people I'm just like them.

I do this a lot, especially when a source seems nervous or it's a touchy subject. I want them to relax, feel comfortable--I'm not out to skewer anyone, even those people who probably need to be skewered. (For those, I just want to get the facts and quotes and let them skewer themselves. It's less messy for me.)

This week I'm working on a story about horses being neglected or abandoned or being seized by the county. There was a horse slaughterhouse here in Fort Worth until last year, and so I wasn't sure if there were a bunch of horses who would have been slaughtered and are now lingering and dying slowly in someone's back yard.

It's not exactly a happy topic, as you can probably tell, and when I covered some animal seizures when I was at the daily I got a lot of unhappy people on the phone who didn't want to talk. I had one animal control person hang up on me and then no one answered that phone when I tried calling back repeatedly. People are afraid of sparking a big fight, I guess.

So this week, as I'm getting my sources on the phone, I'm always trying to suavely point out that I'm a horse owner and I'm conflicted about the slaughter houses and that's why I'm trying to find out more. I try to let them know I'm just like a normal person, wanting to talk about it. The only difference is I'll publish this for thousands of people to see, that's all.

I'll do that with almost any topic. I have a bunch of shit I'll pull out. Oh, I went to TCU too, when did you graduate? My father was in the military too, when did you serve before opening this business? Yeah, I lived in New England for a while, aren't the summers here unbearable? It's never disingenuous, because that stuff is all true, and it's just me trying to relate to the source. I can understand why people are gun-shy around the media. I can understand why someone would be hesitant to talk to a reporter. Frankly, I'd be reluctant to talk to the media myself, even if I weren't a reporter. The majority of us use our powers for good, so to speak, but there are those who are lazy or manipulative.

Also, like normal people, I'm looking at the clock and it's 4:05 p.m. and I've got a mofo of a headache coming on and it's gray and breezy and chilly (fall! finally!) and I want to go home. My ME isn't here. Why am I here?

Coffee

When I was in high school, probably my junior year or so, my dad was up getting breakfast at the same time as me and asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee. I said no, I didn't like coffee, and he joked that I'd never live through college unless I drank coffee.

I did live through college, and grad school, and a crappy freelancing job and year and a half of a real job without drinking coffee. Diet Coke and similar products--diet cherry Coke, diet Pepsi, whatever--have always been my best caffeinated friends. They make me happy. And they're so deliciously cold and bubbly, and sometimes feel like you're drinking battery acid. Sodas are for me.

Last winter I got mildly hooked on the cafe au lait (misto, if you happen to go to Starbucks, because they are freaking Nazis). It's one-half or one-third milk, which cuts the bitterness of the coffee, and it's warm and sweet when you throw in a few sweetener. I used to like to stop and get one over the winter when I was done running in the freezing rain or something equally stupid. The cooler weather lately (although it's getting into the low 80s now as I speak, naturally) has made me crave them again.

I decided to start making my own instead of throwing $2.50 at Starbucks every time. I brought milk up to work, and last week mixed my own drinks with the giant communal coffee pot in our break room. Then on Friday I realized I was drinking more caffeine than I really needed, and I worried about going down what Dan refers to as "that slippery slope."

My dad is addicted to his coffee. He drinks about 36 ounces a day from a giant tub, laced with sweetener, and he probably drinks more when he gets to work. I still love my soda, and I don't want to be drinking insane amounts of caffeine--I've been through that phase of my life, and it doesn't need to happen again. So I went to Target last night and bought a 4-cup coffee maker and some decaf ground, and brought my own coffee to work today.

It's another one of those "holy shit I'm an adult" moments. It's also one of those "holy shit I'm just like my father" moments. It's funny when you start realizing your parents' traits in yourself; usually it's a good thing, but it's still strange. I'm very much like my father, as I think I've probably discussed before. My mom and sister get cold sores; my dad and I get canker sores. My mom and sister can be hot tempered; my dad and I get annoyed a lot, but rarely really, really mad. There's 101 more examples, but no one needs to be subjected to them.

My coffee maker was quite nice today. I'm looking forward to it through the winter. Maybe I'll start gradually decreasing the milk and become like my dad. Maybe I'll get myself a giant tub-mug to drink out of. Maybe my dad would like my apartment now if he came to visit, since the 4-cup maximum is his minimum for waking up.

Voicemail

For months now I've been getting these phone calls at work from a 312 area code and this person never leaves a voicemail. I'll come back from lunch, see my blinking voicemail light, check it, and it's a message that's two seconds long of ther person just hanging up. I figure if they don't want to leave a message, then they're creepy, and I'm not going to return a call to some unknown number with an unknown reason for calling me.

Recently, over the past 6 weeks or so, my phone would ring and I would see that 312 number and just not pick up. I'd sit there, staring at my phone, waiting for them to leave a message, and they never would. So I'd never pick up.

There's a point you reach where you don't want to pick up the phone when you see certain numbers. It's like when that drunk friend calls at 3:12 a.m. and you just don't want to deal with them. Certain area codes mean trouble, and those are:

A) Dallas area codes, like 214 and 972. Those typically mean it's a PR person in Dallas who wants you to cover something clearly outside your county coverage, and you have to come up with a nice way to say no.

B) 202, 212 and 312, which are area codes for DC, NYC and Chicago. All of these mean it's a PR person who's representing someone in North Texas who typically doesn't know jack shit about your newspaper or what you cover but they're gonna try to get an article in your paper anyway. And they want you to listen to it. They also want to call you and make sure you got the spam-ish e-mail they sent over, too.

So I just never picked up this number. It's been months now.

Today, I accidentally picked up the 312 number when I was half-distracted reading a news article online. It was a PR person I'd talked to eons ago about some start-up home health care company in the area, and she wanted to know if we'd done something about it. (Answer: No. I need a news peg, people. I know we're weekly, but I gotta get a news peg of some sort.)

She and I had a brief discussion where I told her I needed dates for openings and updated contact information for the business, and at the end of the conversation she asked if she could call me back with that info and leave me a voicemail if I wasn't there.

Seriously? Seriously.

I wanted to laugh. Of course you can leave me a voicemail. It had this vague impression that she didn't leave one because she didn't know if she could or something. I told her I check my voicemail every day and usually return calls the same day, and part of me wanted to tell her that if she'd left me a voicemail 3 months ago, she wouldn't have had problems finally reaching me.

The Red Sox lost. This means I no longer have to watch any baseball for the rest of the year. Oh well. Top Chef starts soon, and honestly, that's almost as big of a nail-biter. Project Runway would have been, but we all knew who should win, and when she did America wasn't surprised. We were just glad we didn't have to deal with any nasty dramatic turns of events.

I went through mail yesterday. My 401k lost about $236 in the period. Given how small mine is, that's a lot. It made me sad. But my mutual fund made $1.68 or something, so I'm gonna live large and buy myself that Big Gulp diet Coke I've had my eye on.

Odds And Ends

Some random things for the day before I jet outta here at 5:00 on the dot:

I need to eat more tacos off Hemphill. I went to this place near Seminary today, and it was amazing. Andrew, who has a similar love for tacos and especially waitresses who bring him tacos, came along with some other friends and we did a leisurely lunch at a new place today, El Mil Tacos. He saw a review in the Fort Worth Weekly and we gave it a whirl and it definitely did not let us down. Better yet, it cost $6 to have four tacos, chips and salsa and a can of soda. Significantly cheaper than the sushi we've been eating the past few weeks. Last summer we did weekly tacos, and I don't remember why we ever stopped, but I hope we can get back into this regularly.

Also, TCU kicked the shit out of BYU last night, in addition to the Sox winning. Happy sports times! Photo above courtesy SomeECards.com, which has fantastic stuff. Much better than the first generation of e-cards, which all had bad flash animation and annoying sound effects. Remember that stuff? From back in middle school and high school? That stuff was painful.

Today I went to this presentation thing by a doctor who directs this breast cancer center at a local cancer center. It was for this story I'm working on, and I did my due diligence and called around to all the other hospitals and cancer centers to see if they had any doctors who did similar presentations. A PR person for another hospital called me back and said, Why, yes, this doctor does it--and it was the same doctor I'd already talked to. That sometimes drives me nuts with the medical community. The same doctor who's a faculty member at the college can be a division director at a local hospital, or a program head at a hospital can be a partner in a practice and all sorts of things. Half of them have about 3 affiliations and 10 titles. It just seems awfully complicated to be a physician. Geez. And speaking of being a doctor, I've decided putting off classes until I have money. Even with community college prices, I'm spending way too much on student loans to be able to blow a few hundred dollars on classes. I guess my potential future career depends on the success of my current one, and when I make enough as a journalist then I can pay to get out of the industry. It sounds as though I'm screwed, doesn't it?

Need More Sex In Headlines

Today was press day (hooray!) and I spent half my day proofing pages and the other half at a board meeting for the county hospital system. The board meeting was pretty successful, in that it was exciting enough to keep everyone awake and people were throwing out tons of numbers and stats. I adore stats and numbers, and I tell everyone this. All of my coworkers have probably heard me say this like 1,000 times, but it's because grad school put the FEAR of BAD STUDIES into my heart.

Anyway, a bunch of us reporters were milling around looking at final pages when Aleshia commented on the headline "Get your groove on to put food on the table." It was about a '60s music festival kind of fund raiser thing for a food bank, and it's something I wrote in the morning because we needed a long headline. Groove is totally '60s music, right? It's also kind of a euphemism for sex, as Aleshia pointed out. Whoops. I completely did not see that.

Nor did I see it when John pointed out a headline on one of his stories, which said something like "CEOs expect more blows during holiday season." I bet they think it's an awesome Christmas gift.

I was going to ride Topper today, but I'd completely forgotten it rained a lot this week. All of the arenas (except the big covered one) and the lunge pen were flooded into quicksand, and there were 8 horses and show jumps in the covered arena. I was not going to fight with two lessons, that many horses and the arena all blocked up with jumps. Not worth my time. That's part of the reason we moved to this barn; the last one only had one medium-sized arena, and when there were more than 3 horses it was just too damn crowded to function, and Topper would flip his shit and start getting the other horses riled up. If it hadn't rained, it would have been a great night, but oh well. I grazed the horses for a bit in the cool weather instead.

When the horses were busy stuffing their horses, I tried calling my parents, but I think this is the weekend where they're down in Florida at a wake for the MH-53J. Let me explain the 53: This was one of the biggest definers of my family while I was growing up. It's a massive helicopter used for special operations, and my dad piloted one of these for most of his career. He lived and breathed the 53. It was a cool-looking helicopter, lots of guns and rockets hanging off it, and there was a very small community of pilots and their families, and a very small number of bases the helicopters were based out of, so we all knew each other really well. It was the extended family that comes with small niches in the military.

Anyway, they finally retired the 53--it was basically a Vietnam-era aircraft, and while it was effective, the Air Force is moving toward other types of aircraft, like the tiltrotor V-22. All of the 53 pilots are sad, since it's the end of an era--the end of their era--and there's basically a wake for the 53 and its programs and its pilots down in Florida. My mom and dad are going and will probably get tipsy-giggly and trade stories with others, stories about flying incredibly low between the hills in Scotland in thunderstorms and taking Navy SEALS into snow-blinded areas to drop them for missions.

It kind of makes me sad, too. This is something, a career of my father's, an identifier for so long, and now it's gone. It's this reminder that my life is no longer defined by what my parents do but what I do--something that still takes some getting used to. When you're in school, everyone asks, "What do your parents do?" Now, people ask, "What's your job?" It always seems strange to me to say, "I'm a reporter" or "I'm a journalist." (It will be stranger yet when I say "I'm unemployed" because newspapers disappear into a black hole, but hopefully I don't have to get to that point for a while yet.)

Anyway . . . while my parents are mourning, I am not! Not yet! The Red Sox somehow dug themselves out of a hole and won the game tonight and are now 2-3 with the Rays. Whew! I was preparing myself for commiserating comments to others when I wear my Sox hat this weekend (because I hate brushing my hair or showering on Saturdays unless I have to), and now it looks like I have a bit more time. And since we're focusing on headlines today, ESPN's headline of the game story on the main Web page is "Don't Stop Believing." Am I the only one who will now always associate that song with the last 4 minutes of the Sopranos?

Mourning Over . . . Now

Our ME announced yesterday that we won't have to do two of our special publications next year. They killed the Men's Magazine (because the world needs more stories about . . . tie pins?) and Homestyle (because we needed to see pictures of beautiful homes of people who make 50 times what I do annually).

There was much rejoicing.

And although it didn't make me sad at all to see those two pubs come to their end, what does make me sad is the state of the Red Sox. Let's just say they got their asses handed to them on their home turf. That hurts. I'm prepared to possibly hold a wake for their season later this week.

Tonight is the last presidential debate, but it's also the finale of Project Runway. I will probably not be a good American, not be a good journalist, not be a good intelligent person, and will watch PR while flipping to the debate only during commercials.

Two weeks from now I will be packing for San Francisco. I spent a lot of time yesterday gathering information about the trip--looking at public transportation lines, examining maps, looking at outrageous admission prices for the California Academy of the Sciences. I would be tempted to say "screw them" and not go, since they're going to charge me $25 to go in, but dude: They have a lawn on their roof. That's awesome. How can I not go?

Hoping Against Sickness

Boston vs. Tampa Bay. It's stressing me out. Maybe that's why Saturday night, during the ridiculously-long game, my chest started tightening up and I couldn't take a deep breath. I've been glued to my rarely-used asthma inhaler ever since, getting embarrassingly winded going up the stairs to my apartment or up to the office, and I'm just hoping it goes away soon. It makes me tired, slightly hoarse and cranky. I think it's the early stages of a cold and will go away soon, but who knows. As long as I'm not sickly going to San Francisco.

I spent a good amount of time over the weekend reading books, which is nice. It's good to sit on the couch for a few hours, with nothing to do, and work through a book. I picked them up for about a buck each at Thrift Town up off Jacksboro Highway, where I went to find things for a mystery dinner party I'm attending. (The sunglasses I bought make me feel like Elton John . . . and that's just effing cool.) The books were ones I hadn't read before, and it's a good feeling to have lots to read in the coming weeks. I also went to the Halfprice Books by my apartment and chose a copy of a classic that was printed back in 1978 or something, so the total price was 73 cents. That's one of the reasons I like reading classic books--they've been in print for eons, and so it's easy to find a used, ultra-cheap copy. Also, I feel like my high school literature classes were really lacking after 10th grade, once we moved to the sticks of New Mexico and Alabama. Since I was a journalism major and only took the required composition classes in college, I hardly read any books for class as an undergrad. Same thing in grad school. Good thing I love to read on my own, have to read on my own, can't stand the thought of not turning to the characters and symbolism and stories of the printed word.

Today looked like fall but didn't feel like it; it was kind of balmy, almost. My arms felt itchy after I went to the barn and carried flakes of hay out to the horses' paddock. I lunged Topper, since I wasn't feeling up to riding and potentially fighting with him, and he ran and rocked and bucked around like a madman. He seems to have very human moods, and I can empathize with them; sometimes he just doesn't want to deal with me, and stays at the back of his stall or paddock, always slipping out from under my hand. On those days I just let him have his time alone and leave early. Sometimes he frolics like he did today, reveling in the feeling of movement and seemingly happy to have someone to play with. Sometimes he's tired, or lazy, and I have to urge him to work but try to let him off early, and some days he's just anxious and frazzled, can't concentrate and can't be bothered to think about being good.

I need to buy warmer breeches before it gets cold this year. Last winter I suffered through with my summer breeches, which are a thin layer of fabric that doesn't do much to keep warm. I need some gloves, too. The problem is it's an expensive sport--the cheapest breeches are $40 for summer ones. At least the bare-bones gloves can be had for $5.

So many things on my list of things I want, so little time and money. It's a downer sometimes, but luckily I really like thrift stores.

Pinked Out

In case you never set foot in a store in October or never see fliers or listen to the radio or are just a damn hermit, this month is the national breast cancer awareness month.

Sigh.

I have conflicted feelings about this month. For one thing, it's great that women, patients, advocates, physicians, families, everyone is coming together to raise awareness and funds for treating and eliminating breast cancer. It's the second most common cancer in women (after skin cancer), and the risk of getting it is about 1 in 8. It comes in lots of different varieties, from relatively benign to very lethal, and it has a huge economic impact when you look at lost productivity and money spent on care.

But holy shit, give me a break with the freaking pink stuff. I walked into the grocery store the other day and was greeted by a table full of pink iced cupcakes, pink magnet decals for cars, pink dishtowels, and a lot of other stuff. There are no real regulations about all those pink items out there for sale, and read the fine print carefully, because there's no real obligation to give any portion of sales to an organization like Susan G. Komen for the Cure or anything like that.

It's all just playing off of feelings, too, which is what drives me nuts. Buying cupcakes with a pink ribbon on top is supposed to make me feel stronger or something. Beats me. In the mean time, you'll eat lots of pink stuff and get fat, and fat in women produces hormones that can be related to breast cancer.

I'm glad to see people united, but at the same time, breast cancer has a pretty good treatment rate. Where's the love for the other cancers? What about multiple myeloma, a blood cancer my grandfather was diagnosed with? What about anal cancer, which makes people snicker? What about pancreatic cancer, which is incredibly fatal, most of the time?

I know that whenever there's a big cause to rally around, people will try to profit off it. That's what business does. I know that women are more proactive in their health, typically, than men, and that's why a disease that usually strikes women gets so much attention. (How come we so rarely hear about the guys who get breast cancer?) But I also know that most people out there with cancer do NOT have breast cancer, and we shouldn't forget about all of them and their need for treatment and disease elimination as well.

And as a complete aside, October is a pain in the ass for me. I've got to write some kind of story with a breast cancer angle, otherwise readers will get ticked off and think I'm stupid that I ignored the biggest health phenomemon on the calendar. But finding new angles, and especially new business angles, is really hard to do. I don't want to write the same story over and over. I can't just rely on this really fantastic survivor, because anybody who survives deserves lots of credit, and I'd feel crappy picking one person over another. Thank goodness for a few PR people I know who feel my pain and help come up with new stuff, though, otherwise I'd be miserable.

I'll be glad when October is over and even happier when researchers figure out a way to prevent breast cancer. I hope I live to see the day when it's a disease of ages past. I also hope it's soon, before I retire from being a journalist, so I can relish an October without all the over-wrought stuff.

Error

Yesterday, while the PR person and I were waiting for this doctor-source to finish with patients, we scheduled a time to talk to another doctor-source. I wrote down the doc's name and the time in my notebook so I could talk to him today.

Today I knock off for lunch and get back to five missed calls on my work phone. Whoops. I completely forgot to take the appointment out of my notebook and put it on my calendar. I cannot function, day to day, without my calendar for scheduled phone calls, so I had missed the phone call and it was a huge snafu.

I ended up calling the PR person back, apologizing profusely--I'd never done this before, and I felt incredibly embarrassed and just plaint stupid--and she ended up conferencing the doctor in for about 15 minutes between patients. I got my interview, I did lots more apologizing, and it all ended well.

Strangely, I looked back at my notes and found out I did leave the office about three minutes after the time we'd set up for the doctor-source to call me. So, technically, I was here for the appointment. But three minutes is a lousy error times, especially that I usually give people about 15 minutes before I try calling them.

I did another interview with a woman today and found myself amused by how much she was assuming about me while talking with me on the phone. I'd never met her or talked to her before, but she said she was a baby boomer, she had grown children, and she made an off-hand comment about the lacking work ethic of the younger generation (and that younger generation would be . . . me. Her theory may be right. I'm at work writing a damn blog post instead of writing stories.).

People often say, Well, you're probably too young to remember, or, I'm old and I remember a time when, etc etc. People will ask if I'm married or if I have children. People will ask if I own a house. People also draw correlations and ask me to remember something that happened before I was even born.

It's just funny to think how much I infer from a conversation with someone on the phone, even if I have no freaking idea. And it's funny how they do the same.

But now me and my lacking work ethic should go do real work.

No Wall Street Journal

Today I've got a whole slew of interviews with doctors set up. I knocked out two earlier today; even though I had to wait a half hour on each interview, it's OK because they were doctors finishing up with patients and the PR person I was waiting with is young and friendly and we just shot the bull for a while.

When I got out of an interview, I had these missed calls from the director of communication at another institution. I'd talked to a communications coordinator earlier in the week, trying to get an interview scheduled, and the coordinator called me back and said the professional I needed was out of the country and only available during one half-hour window by phone. I already had an interview booked for that time, so the coordinator and I decided to e-mail questions to this guy instead.

I guess the coordinator and the director didn't talk to each other, though, because the director left these frantic messages about how I needed to call this professional ASAP. I called her back and explained that I was tied up and couldn't call the guy in Europe. I asked about the e-mail, and the director said the e-mail wasn't the "right format" for the guy I needed and I had to talk. Well, wasn't going to happen. I explained this, and the director said something to the effect of, "Well, we didn't have problems getting in touch with the Wall Street Journal."

That's right. The Wall Street Journal. A PR person trying to compare the Fort Worth Business Press to the Wall Street Journal.

It was frustrating. I think the PR director was just under a lot of pressure and frazzled and was accidentally snide to me, because they've always been very nice and very helpful. But it did make me indignant--don't try to make this seem like my problem. My schedule is first-come, first-served; whoever calls first and books a time gets it. The interview times were already full, and it's not my fault this guy only has a short window for me to call him in Europe. Don't try to make me feel guilty, because I'm not. Your problem, not mine.

I have two more interviews before the end of the day, and both should be fairly straightforward and good, just like the other ones. Then, off for a run (yesterday was another mile and a half, and that dead possum is STILL in the middle of the road; it's a good neighborhood, right by the Bass family, so why hasn't it been scooped up yet?) and to ride Topper. I may wimp out on the riding, since I'd like to see most of the presidential debate tonight, but I feel like I shouldn't squander the evening light because soon it'll be daylight savings and dark at 5:30 or something dismal like that. Then my urge to sleep and eat cake will be doubled as my body keeps hoping I'll just hibernate through the winter.

Hurry Up & Wait

Right now it's 3:23 (according to the phone clock, and 3:17 on the computer clock) and I'm waiting for a source to call me. He was supposed to call at 3, but he's a doctor, and he probably got caught up with a patient. This happens a lot to me. This kind of thing always makes me slightly anxious, though. It's time that's going slowly to waste because I know I can't pick up the phone and call someone else or get up to get a cup of water; the minute I'm on the phone or in the break room, the source will call and then I'll miss it and have to call him back. It'll just be a huge pain.

Rushing and then waiting is the nature of journalism, though. I think I've mentioned this before. You make a whole slew of phone calls, and then things are out of your hands. You're chained to your desk, or phone, or Blackberry or whatever, waiting for this . . . there he is. I'll be back in a half hour . . .

Ha! Totally wasn't him. It was someone else, a PR person, scheduling for another interview tomorrow. I was on the phone for 20 seconds with her and the other line rang, though, so now I have to go listen through my voicemail (I cannot express how much I hate voicemail) and call him back. So now I'll be back in a half hour. For real this time.

At least the gentleman was worth the wait. He was helpful, well-spoken, good for quotes. It's always a pain when you've arranged and waited and hoped for a good interview and then it turns out to bomb. But that's the thing--I don't think people realize how much is out of the hands of reporters. Sure, a reporter should do due diligence, but sometimes there's just not a lot you can do.

The Red Sox play the Angels in game 4 of the ALDS tonight. They should've won last night--Fenway and I were both watching the game--but they didn't. Sad. That's what I spent Friday night doing, too--watching baseball. I rode Topper after work, and he only spooked twice, and then went to Dallas, where Dan and I went to dinner with his friend and a bunch of her friends. I was thankfully able to talk to some of the friends, and had an OK time, and I think I said maybe 10 words to this friend. She just drives me nuts. I don't want to be completely rude, but I don't want to be fake nice either. It's a tough spot to be in.

Today is gray, sort of cool and drizzling off and on. It's a lame attempt at fall weather, but it's better than nothing. It makes me miss the New England fall, with snappy, crisp days of sweaters and hot drinks and being able to smell fires walking to and from the subways stop to my place. The house I lived in was probably close to 100 years old and had been split up into three flats, and our apartment took on a very distinctive smell every fall when we fired up the oil heater to get warm air flowing through the Victorian vents and into our rooms. The best part was a refund form the oil company at the beginning of every summer. But the beautiful falls turned into OK winters and pain-in-the-ass springs where it rained for months on end, so Texas isn't too bad. I'll take what I can get.

Still Useless

It can be really hard to fill an entire day when you have nothing to do.

Also, on weekend plans: Dan asked if I'd be willing to go out to dinner (maybe drinks) with this friend of his. I personally cannot stand this person, but she has no idea. I have successfully avoided seeing her/having anything to do with her for a few months now. I will probably end up saying OK and going out, but at least Dan's good enough to know how I feel, not pressure me, and even gave me an out that we can leave early to watch the Red Sox game.

I have the completely unfounded joking-belief that my cat (named Fenway) caused the Red Sox to win the World Series last year. I also have a completely unfounded joking-belief that he will bring good luck for the team this year as well. Yeah, sure, the team is lucky and talented, but I think a woolly cat in Texas has more sway over the team than good hitting.

It's awfully fun to believe/say absolutely bullshit, insane things.

Useless

During story meeting our managing editor was telling us we had another round of assignments for another freaking special publication coming out, and John wrote on the back of his paper something to the effect of "Special publications make me drink heavily and do drugs."

And all of us reporters kinda collapsed into delirious giggles, because special pubs have killed our last brain cells.

Yesterday after work I went out for a run and got in a good one--well, a good one for me, anyway. It was like a mile and a half at a steady pace and I didn't get hit by a car, so that equals a good run. There was one point where I turned onto another street, and all of the sudden this smell hit my face and it made me want to gag. There was a giant, bloated, fly-encircled dead possum in the road right in my path. Thank god it did smell, otherwise I would have totally run into that congealed mess. I'm not very good at paying attention to my surroundings when I run. That's why it's considered a successful day when I don't have near encounters with vehicles.

The debate last night was better than I would have dared seriously hoped for. I have more respect for both our potential VPs, but I still want to backhand Gov. Sarah Palin. It's her cutesey, folksy way of talking that drives me nuts. It's like talking to a 14-year-old Mormon, all the "gosh darn it" and "you betcha" bullshit. And then she pulls out the whole soccer mom/hockey mom thing and I want to yell at her.

I pretty much came to work today so I could go to lunch with Andrew. I made calls yesterday on all my stories for next week, and I'll probably get some call backs setting up interviews, but I sincerely doubt anything's going to happen today.

But I can take a long lunch, sit here, probably put up like three posts, read a bunch of blogs, dink around and see if it rains. Then I can bolt at 5 p.m. on the dot and go ride Topper before heading to Dallas for the weekend. Too bad my editor ruined by weekend by bringing up the damn special pubs again.

And Exhale

I'm feeling good about the week now, and I think it's because it's almost over. This happens almost every Thursday, even if I'm not as frantically busy as I was this week.

Do you remember Thursdays in college? After your freshman year, it was rare to have morning classes on Friday (or even classes at all on Friday), and so Thursday was this automatic jump-start for the weekend. Lots of bars had college nights on Thursday, and a lot of those places let in everyone 18 and over, so right from the start you were invited to make every weekend a three-day weekend.

That stuck with me through most of college. My senior year, the only thing I had on Friday was holding a staff meeting at noon for the college paper, and most of the students (reporters, editors, everyone) would show up nursing a hangover. You should up, you have a half hour meeting, the editors have a planning meeting, then everyone resumes their drinking or weekend slacking.

Grad school was more of the same. I don't think I ever had class on Friday, and I did work late night agate at the paper on Thursday night, but that still just encouraged me to stay up late and sleep in and do jack on Fridays.

Now that I have a job, not a lot has changed. Fridays we have a story meeting at 10, and we can wear jeans, so it feels like it should be a weekend day. Thursday night I have this sense of freedom--all my stories are done, we've gone to press, and I can sleep in a bit in the morning, don't have to dress up and can relax through most of the day.

(Recently, special publications have made Fridays busy, but I think we're done for at least a little bit. I think. Maybe. I hope I didn't just jinx us.)

Tonight is the vice presidential debate. I'm hoping that there will be some intelligent back and forth, but the gossip/bitch in me wants a total train wreck. I want something I can talk about for years to come. Plus, I admit that I love hearing gossipy-type stuff, so I want to hear lots of dishy excuses and complaints and jokes afterward. I think that if my legitimate journalism career ever blows up, I'd be rather content at a snarky blog or whatever that supermarket rag is that talks about the bat boy and aliens. I'll pass on the celebrities and semi-truth-and-rumor mags; give me the insane bullshit.

Avoiding The Breakdown

The weekend was fantastic--drinking and music and Whataburger at 2:30 a.m. on Friday, then artfully slacking on Saturday and Sunday.

So far this week, however, I've been swamped with budgeted work, special pub stories and a last-minute story that got put onto my plate. I've spent so much time on the phone with people that my left eardrum is driving my crazy. I've reached the point where just hearing any voice on the phone in that ear is enough to make me want to tear my hair out. Every time you talk to someone on the phone, there's that slight tinny quality that comes with being blasted through the airwaves, and that tinny feeling vibrates my ear the wrong way and sends the same feeling up my spine that I get from nails on chalkboards.

Yesterday I was extremely busy (why are all these people calling me back? I have an error rate that I work with that's fairly high, so I only expect a percentage of my calls to come through, and when they all call back I'm fucked), and was really excited to get out of work. I bolted as soon as I could, went on a run (good one, hurrah!) and then had an excellent ride with Topper. He didn't try to kill me, didn't even spook once, and I've taken back my title of horse whisperer.

Then I went home and wrote two stories. It made me feel incredibly productive, and I knew my Wednesday would be less stressed because of that, and I got up this morning expecting to feel better. However, I found out my cell phone service had been cancelled because of a past due bill.

Ok, so I should be ashamed that I didn't pay the bill on time or whatever. But I'm not. Using the phone is just something I take for granted and then forget about it. Frankly, I'm more worried about forgetting to pay a student loan bill or rent than I am my cell phone. That's why I have a phone at work too, right? (Kidding. Kind of.) But they slapped on some rather large late fees, and I ended up paying it all off and wiping out all the money I'd been trying to save to the trip to San Francisco at the end of this month for Liz and Pat's wedding. I've already paid for my airline ticket, and still have a small amount that will pay for part of the hotel room, but now I've decided I don't really need to eat in San Franciso.

People aren't calling me back for my last-minute story and I had an interview with a bitchy person that put me in a dour mood. I called Dan (the good thing is my service was back on within about an hour of paying it) and told him I may or may not have a nervous breakdown today. Then I told my editor the same thing, and we decided that getting ice cream would keep us from coming unglued.

The good news is I can see this BS will end soon. The bad news is I'm also not totally sure I should be spending $5 on ice cream.