Sticky

You're right: I should have updated sooner. I mean, it's not like I'm actually doing much in Houston. I go to work, and then most of my evenings are kind of spent bumming around. I'll get dinner once or twice a week, go to the gym, but there's been plenty of time to update.

I'm glad I didn't, though. I wouldn't have wanted to be hasty about anything I wrote, hasty about assumptions or susceptible to falling into moods that might pass.

I've been down in Houston for about six weeks now, and the humidity is already warning me that I'm going to be a greasy, sweaty mess for at least half the year as long as I live here. Memories of three years in Florida, including my first two years of high school, swim in the back of my mind when I wake up and it's sort of mildly cloudy and damp. Tonight I came back from the gym and found a mosquito sitting on the outside wall of my apartment; thankfully, it wasn't nearly as big as the mosquitoes in Alabama, that sticky place I spent my senior year of high school.

Tonight I also finally started hanging pictures on my wall. It's to make my little apartment feel more like home and less a place I happen to sleep when I'm at work, ticking away hours between trips to Fort Worth.

I left Fort Worth after four years, the longest I've ever consecutively lived anywhere. The city was good to me—it gave me an education in college, when I was there for school but left at every chance to go home and be with Topper. It gave me a job, a career start, a place to let Topper live with the pony, an epicenter where my friends and eventually family would be. It gave me the love of my life (Dutch's burger, in case you were wondering . . . oh, and my guy, too). It gave me a place to really work on growing up.

The most peculiar thing about this move is that I'm going back. I've written before about how going back to places I've once lived is an extremely rare opportunity, which makes me often feel like my past is imaginary. I'm going back to Fort Worth frequently on weekends—my family, my friends, my soulmate (Topper) and the love of my life are all there. It's four hours up the road. I have a car, I have cash, I can return.

And it's almost as strange as never returning.

Every time I'm driving north on the highway that leads toward downtown Fort Worth, I have to check my mental state. Am I happy? Am I relaxed? Am I unnerved? Do I realize I don't live here any more? It doesn't matter that I'm not gone long enough to miss much, that I read the newspapers every day and most of my life is still there: I am not there. Not really. I am just a visitor.

I really like most of what I've seen of Houston so far. I'll delve more into my work, my neighborhood, all that stuff in the future, but I still haven't realized it's home. Maybe I'll somehow keep deluding myself that Fort Worth is still home, or maybe it's that place that I'll call home from now on. People will ask, Where are you from? and I'll answer, Fort Worth. Right now, I just say, I moved from Fort Worth. I don't claim it yet. But it looks like maybe I can, maybe I will.

It's hard to tell.

First Of The Last

Tomorrow is my last day at work.

This is, I guess, my first grown-up job, which doesn't include having back-up income from student loans or nannying or something like that. My freelancing when I first got out of grad school was pretty fun, except for the whole barely-able-to-pay-rent-why-does-the-daily-only-pay-once-a-month-this-is-bullshit part, and when I quit that I basically called the metro editor and told him I got an offer of a full-time job. He told me I should take it. I told him I had.

So tomorrow, really, is the first of what I'm sure will be many (hopefully not too many) last days of work. I've already turned in all my stories, already contacted all my favorite PR people to tell them how much they've helped me over the years and how I only know like three phone numbers by heart (one is Dan, two others are PR people), and so if I end up in a car accident and they can't find my phone and they need an emergency contact and Dan's not around, I'm calling them. Tomorrow I'm basically going in to finalize a list of contacts and story ideas for my editors and to pick up items and drink beer.

I'm still processing this whole thing, the whole "holy shit, I'm moving to Houston" thing, but I'm feeling calm now. My work here will be done. I'll have a week off. I'll go with Dan to the North American Handmade Bike Show the weekend before my first day, and then I'll be going back and forth until I can move everything with the much, much-appreciated help of my parents. I went down over the weekend and found an apartment, and I'll be signing the lease and getting keys and paying for a place that includes all bills, and you know what that means in Texas: I can crank my AC down to 62 in the summer and not have to pay extra. Bonus points for also being able to not feel the guilt for slowly killing the planet one fake Fahrenheit at a time, since I won't have to pay more for it.

Today I cut out of work an hour early and checked in on a fossil site near the office, since it hadn't rained in a while and I figured the creek bed would be nearly dry. I wandered around picking up sea urchins and snail shells for an hour and a half, because clearly I need more rocks before I move halfway across the state. I just realized yesterday that I could perhaps find more recently deceased (or live) sea urchins or snails near my new home, since Galveston will be nearby. I've often been close to the shore -- D.C., Boston, Florida's Fort Walton Beach -- but it will just be so different after living in Cowtown for four years, which is Texas prairie.

I guess I mean that to say that yes, it's all going to be a big change. But some things don't change. It will still be Texas, and one thing I've learned about this state is that it does have the power to continually surprise me. I look forward to the next surprises, and I'm crossing my fingers for lots of pleasant ones.

Remember That Time?

Remember when I said I was going to do the NPR Three-Minute Fiction contest? Well, I did write it, actually. I just forgot to send it in. It was a bit of a whirlwind weekend--it's been a bit of a whirlwind several weeks, actually, but more on that in a moment--and so it completely slipped my mind to send it in. You probably don't believe me when I said I did finish it in time, but it is 599 words (one under the 600-word limit!) and I posted it on my other site, Journalism's Dark Secret, for all you who are not creepers and who are actually friends. Yeah, it's totally randomly thrown in, and if you read preceding posts, it makes ZERO sense, since that's where I put Nanowrimo stuff, but just go with it. Right? Right.

Right: So I took a new job and I'll be moving to Houston in like two weeks. I'm trying not to think about it, because denial is a pleasant state right now, since I have no place to live down there and I know three people in the whole damn city (and work with one, so that's nice) and my room here in Fort Worth is such a damn fucking disaster that the thought of packing makes me feel slightly hive-y.

I've been in Fort Worth as an adult (read: post grad school) for four years now, and I feel good about the change. On the other hand, I feel sad and miserable and terrified. Dan will start looking for a position down there, but he'll be up here, and we'll be doing that whole long-distance thing while trying to finish planning a wedding. (We have it all planned. We just . . . well, we haven't actually executed most of it. We're working on it.)

The horses will stay up here and will probably be moving down at a later date, once I find an apartment and get some paychecks and all that good stuff. They're at an excellent full-board barn, so they'll be looked after nicely, but still--moving Topper is always an experience, and I mean "experience" the same way people say someone is "interesting," which is never in a good way.

So many of my friends are here in Fort Worth, as are my parents and sister and Dan's parents and a few siblings (after one comes back from Stanford and discounting another who is in the Army). My Horned Frogs and TCU are here. My favorite burgers and pizza are here. My favorite seafood is still outside DC or on the Emerald Coast, but I've learned to live with these challenges.

Growing up moving around a lot, I got fairly adept at getting shit to happen, making living situations work and moving on. I expect it will take a bit longer now to make friends and settle in--I'm really looking forward to working with everyone at the new place (more info to come), but I also think I'll be on the younger side again, so may not be in the same stage of hanging-out-abilities as coworkers, so that might mean it's slower to make friends. How do you make friends as an adult? Through friends of friends is mostly what I've seen. However, only knowing a few people in Houston, I don't know how well that will work out there. We'll see.

Anyway, I'm excited. This will be good. Don't expect any updates soon, but if I am updating, leave me a comment telling me to shut to fuck up and GO PACK. Because seriously, this place is a disaster.

Teeth Grinding

There should be gnashing of teeth and rending of garments about all the things didn't accomplish in 2010, but here I am, half a month into 2011 and feeling OK about my slacktitude.

(A side note: I have a 2005 Mac Powerbook, which I love, but it's starting to show it's age. It's a bit slower, it's a bit crankier with wifi, and my "I" button frequently doesn't work. I guess that's a testament to the sort of writing I do.)

I didn't finish my Nanowrimo. Maybe I still will. Maybe I'll say fuck it. Right now I'm daydreaming about NPR's Three Minute Fiction challenge — 600-word short fiction. That's something I can deal with. It all fits onto one page. Right now, I feel like my mind isn't quite working the way I should. I'm scattered and forgetful when I'm not at work, and most of it is because of work, which I won't get into but will say my (incredibly hot and young) dentist told me to stop grinding my teeth and I want to be like, Dude, I'm a reporter, I can't help it, you should talk to my doctor because she knows better than to lecture me on my blood pressure.

The one thing I have stuck with is the running, because I'm sort of afraid of keeling over if I stop logging the miles. I'm not a great runner, and I'm definitely not fast, but I already downgraded to a 10k at the end of February instead of the half-marathon and I find comfort in mindless circuits on the high school track.

People already made New Year's resolutions and a bunch of people have probably already broken them. I didn't really resolve to do anything, because I feel like they're unnecessary for me at this moment. I already made the biggest resolution last year when I said yes to getting married; all I have to do this year is follow through. In the meantime, I'm just going to do what I've been doing: wander about feeling happy if slightly off-center, like I'm wearing sweatpants that are two sizes too big. They're still damn comfy and awesome, just a little off. Not that there's anything wrong with that. This too shall pass.

And now, for my journalism wrap-up of 2010:

I can now say I've had two moments as a reporter that kicked ass. I mean, I've done some investigative things, ruffled some feathers, gotten doors shut on me and phones hung up on me, blah blah, but these are opportunities that were just too good.

In 2004 or 2005, I was editor in chief of the Daily Skiff, the student newspaper at TCU. James Carville, the political commentator, was coming to campus for something, and there were a handful of spots for us student journalists, so I took it upon myself to go, along with another editor or two and a few reporters.

Most of the time I wouldn't go out to something like this; figures visit college campuses all the time. However, I'd just discovered the movie Old School and knew Carville was in it, so I joked to my staff that I'd ask him the question he's asked in the movie during a debate: What is your position on the role of government in supporting innovation in the field of biotechnology?
And so I did. I raised my hand and had to read the question off a notecard. And he laughed. It was awesome.

I one-upped that this December when Uncle Bob, as he's jokingly called around the Schieffer School of Journalism at TCU, was the guest of honor at the big annual fundraiser MD Cancer Center holds in Dallas each year. There was a press conference beforehand, and it was just me, a writer from a Dallas magazine, and a bunch of TV camera people. Schieffer was just sitting there when I walked in, so I introduced myself and could feel myself turning bright, bright red. I was all stammery and hot. He was very gracious and showed me his custom TCU cowboy boots, and when the press conference got started (Tom Brokaw was also there), I asked most of the questions, since I was basically the only reporter there.

At the end, I worked up the nerve to pull out this rolled up poster out of my purse. (I don't have a picture of only the poster, so forgive me for that.) Dan had stolen it from the walls of the journalism school at TCU during homecoming; they raffled off a signed one, which we didn't get, but Dan took that one with the philosophy we could still hang it somewhere.

So I roll this poster out and tell Schieffer this may not be professional, but I'd love it if he could sign my poster. He laughed and held it and showed it to everyone else (hi, Tom Brokaw!) and then signed it to Dan and I and added "Go Frogs!" at the bottom.

I'm going to get that shit signed and you can bet your sweet ass it will be hanging wherever Dan and I take up residence.

Journalism's a weird world. I got through another year, got a second weird notch in my belt of bizarre journalist encounters, and hold on to that sort of thing whenever I wonder what the hell is happening.

A Penance

For those of you keeping score at home, November came and passed without me finishing Nanowrimo. Am I disappointed? Yes. I have a ton of excuses, too, ranging from work stuff to personal stuff. Do I want to finish what I started? Yes. I'm going to try to finish it before the end of the year, effectively giving myself another month to write (and I'm losing days already, because HOLY FUCKING SHIT, we're in December).

As a sort of peace offering, a penance, an act of contrition to the Great Writing Gods, I've decided to instead, here and now, finish the story of Dan and I traveling to Leadville. Remember that trip, way hell back in August, the one where we killed Dan's car and went through Boulder and tooled around at such high altitude that three flights of stairs to our little prudish Victorian hotel room made me feel like I'd run a mile without breathing? That one. For a reminder, here's the first part of the trip, and here's the second part. I never finished it because, as you can tell, I tend to take on writing projects that never quite get completed.

So the alarms go off at an ungodly hour to wake us up for the race, which starts at 6 a.m., just when it's getting light. It's cold out, and Dan and I eat breakfast at the hotel, which graciously had a Riders Breakfast earlier than usual and filled with things like peanut butter, hard-boiled eggs and oatmeal. Dan kitted up, I pulled on about nine layers of clothing and got my bag of supplies and cameras, and we went to find a place on the street for the start. There was a vibrating sense of urgency and excitement as families and crews did checks with their riders. Do you have your CamelBak filled? Do you have your other gloves? Are you warm enough? Did you eat enough? Do I need to get anything else to put in my bag?

Just before the start

The shot finally went off, and about 1,600 riders went off and out to the great beyond. The day before I'd met a really nice woman whose husband was racing, and she'd offered to meet up with me, and I'd met another woman who'd offered the same thing. The three of us met after all the racers went (there were very few women racing, so a lot of the crews were headed by women) and we went in one of their rental cars up to the first viewing spot.

Didn't see a lot at that viewing spot--except the race leaders, including Levi Leipheimer, go smoking by and kicking up a huge tail of dust. The younger woman and I decided we'd like to get on to the next stop, our riders be damned, and so the older woman stayed and the younger and I hitched a ride with another woman to the next stop, which was on a damn right before the really scary ascent up a big mountain.

When we were lugging all our assorted shit to the next stop was when I realized it wasn't the weather I'd banked on. I was prepared for rain, cold, sleet, snow, an apocalypse, and instead it was getting warm, bright, sunny, and as we waited, watching. There were drunken frat-type guys pounding Natty Light, there were kids playing, there was a really long line for the porta-potties. I didn't have any food for myself--a major oversight--so had some Gatorade and a few bites of a Powerbar. I propped open my giant umbrella and pinned my TCU flag on it so Dan could find us (and the husbands, who'd been told about my flag), and tried to stay out of the sun. I met one dude who had possibly the most impressive thighs I've ever seen.

Seriously. Glorious. And yes, my shirt does say "I Love Jens Voigt."

One of the women I spent the day with. We traded the shade; I haven't seen the latest Leadville documentary yet, but I hope my TCU flag makes an appearance.

I didn't see Dan on the way up the mountain, but I did see him coming down. It's an out-and-back course, so he saw my flag and I yelled at him and he stopped, grabbed his bag, refilled with fluids, gave me a quick kiss and went on his way. I felt dusty and excited when he arrived--he was riding with a vengeance, mad because a guy had crashed into him and another rider on the way down the mountain due to carelessness. We'd packed up bags for him at each stop, in case I couldn't find him, and the volunteers at the race were ridiculously quick about getting his bag, filling his CamelPak, shouting encouragements at him as he took off again. I felt a little light-headed and really happy when I saw Dan disappear going toward Leadville again, knowing that he was more than halfway to finishing.

Made it back to Leadville, where the mayor was acting as announcer and calling each rider's name and hometown as they came over the line. I went to a little bakery and bought cookies to eat while camping out waiting for Dan to pass the line. It was nice to eat, nice to watch each rider come through the finish. Some looked like death; others looked so jubilant that they might float away. Lots of kids ran through the finish line alongside their parents as they rode in. It was like a festival, and everyone was jovial.

I was keeping up with text messages, telling Dan's mother, my mother, his best friend and another friend of ours what was going on. When he rolled across the finish line, I hung over the barriers and yelled at him, and he came over to the barrier and sat down for a bit. His knee was gashed open and bleeding and he was covered with grime. He looked exhausted, but they put a medal over his head and I passed him a water bottle, so relieved he'd survived and I wouldn't have to come back next year. (I'm pretty certain if he hadn't finished in time, he would have gone back to try to do it in time again.) The only bad thing is my camera had died, so there are no photos I took of him finishing.

He rolled out of the finish area and he said he wanted someplace quiet to sit, so we went to the back side of this bar (free Sierra Nevada beer if you have a medal!) and sat down on the sidewalk, in the shade and away from the crowd. We sat for a few minutes in quiet, and he reached into his saddle bag, pulled out a ring box and proposed. No one cried. I giggled like a mad man. Then about thirty seconds later, a volunteer medical person came by and asked Dan if he would want to get his knee cleaned out in the medical tent. He helped us up, and I pushed Dan's bike along as he gimped to the tent.

Honestly, I'm glad the man came along, and for more than the obvious reason that Dan needed someone to clean his leg out and bandage it up and make sure he was ok. I do better in life if I have a purpose, so pushing the bike, gathering up all the stuff, running to get some more food and drinks for Dan while he was waiting, and then walking slowly with him back to the hotel was nice. He showed, I showered (I got a wicked sunburn, which hurt), we got a pizza and marveled at ourselves. We called people, sent text messages, and then pretty much fell asleep by 8:30.

The next day was the awards ceremony, and they called up every single finisher to get their prizes. It was a long wait -- some 800 people completed -- but Dan and I sat through it, and by chance ran into a really nice guy who was talking about the drive home (turned out to be the same guy with the Futurama outfit; I hadn't recognized him without seeing so much leg) when he and Dan saw Dave Wiens walk by. Wiens is a god in the Leadville world (six Leadville wins, has beaten both Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong on the race), and when the two stopped him to ask if he would mind doing a photo, he obliged, very graciously and very politely.

Dan had me print off a copy of this when we got home. I fully expect it to be on the bedside table when we move in together.

Dan and I tooled around Leadville a little bit; I wanted to take photos of the old shop paintings and various murals around town. We got pictures of him and his medals and silver belt buckle in various places. The main drag of the town is about six blocks long, so it was easy for him to limp along slowly while I stopped with my cameras. We loaded up all our belongings and took them to the Budget van to drive home, and we filled the CamelPaks with ice cubes to wrap the internal bladders around Dan's knee on the drive.


We had a lot to talk about on the way home, of course. It helped pass the time, since the drive was considerably slower. I was the only one who could drive (Dan's legs were useless), and the van went about 15 miles per hour slower than the car had. The time change headed back east also caught us. But we got back, and here we are in cyclocross season, with Dan racing on weekends and then accompanying me to the barn, and we're planning a wedding. It's fun, I guess. There's a lot of it that's bullshit. I could rant about it, but I won't. I will say, however, that I'm excited to be marrying Dan, and that as awesome as the Leadville experience was, the whole wedding thing can't be any more of a roller coaster than that was.

Close Neighbors

It's official: I will be moving out of my one-bedroom apartment, where Fenway and I have been living on our own since last May, and will be rejoining the world of roommates come the beginning of June, the world of neighbors on the other side of walls who you have to actually get along with and all that shit.

Just to rehash, I signed the one-year lease on this apartment about a week before the first round of furloughs were announced at work. I even went through the trouble of asking the publisher if he thought we were going to have any financial issues, and he said no, so I signed and then BAM, paycheck cuts. Then two more rounds. We've been (knock on wood, cross fingers) without furloughs so far this year, but I don't trust it all.

Also, I've put a student loan on semi-deferment, and my grace period on that is up at the end of May, so I'll be looking at higher bills. It made sense to look for a cheaper place. I'm moving in with two other lovely ladies my own age who are renting a house, and I'll have more on that topic later.

As much as I adore living on my own, moving will be a good thing. I won't be stressed the fuck out about money all the time quite as much, and as of today, my AC in this little old apartment has gone out for the second time in the past three weeks. That shit's just not acceptable in this state. It's hot in here, and I can sit around in a tank top and shorts, but Fenway's stuck in his heavy fur coat. He's a snob like that.

Like I said, more to come later. For now, I'm going to spend the night at Dan's, where it's cooler, since the property manager won't do anything after 5 p.m. on a Friday unless the temperature is over 90.

But Reporters ARE Like Children

One of my favorite PR people, a woman who is a year older than me and works at one of the local hospitals, was at a press conference yesterday that Dan went out to go cover. He sent me a text message saying he thought she was pregnant because she said she'd be out for the fourth quarter and just introduced the person who would be replacing her.

And sure enough, Dan talked to her afterward and she is expecting. This woman will be a fantastic, enthusiastic mother--I've discussed infants with her a lot for stories, and she's always exciting. She actually got most of the way through nursing school before she realized she didn't want to actually be a nurse, so she's got a great geeky background, which I admire. I saw her get all teary-eyed once when we were in the same room as a birth (long story, but we didn't actually see anything behind a curtain, we just pounced on the poor woman for an interview like 5 minutes after she just pushed a baby out, how heartless are we?), and so I know she's got to be excited.

Anyway, the point is, when Dan called to confirm this with me after the press conference, I was simultaneously excited for her and reeeeaally bummed out because she is great at what she does and won't be around to cater to my every insane request for a few months at the end of this year. I feel like she should have taken a poll of local journalists before she went off to have a family, should have asked when would be a good time to take off. (Answer? Never.) Why didn't she think of the reporters?!

Home For The Holidays

I haven't updated lately, although I meant to write about what a transcendent experience it was to be at the sold-out TCU/Utah game a few weeks ago. I showed up with my signs for College GameDay, ate a giant burger at Dutch's, drank warm beer and then cold beer given to me by the guy who was my editor when I was but a young reporter at the college newspaper and then another cold beer given to me by a former professor. I fought the lines for the bathroom--sometimes I wish I could pee like a guy--and watched TCU kick the shit out of Utah. It was good, and the fans were so noisy and everything was so great I almost wanted to cry.

But anyway, enough waxing poetic there. I've been mostly keeping up with the National Novel Writing Month that is November. I'm about 34,000 words into what needs to be a 50,000-word short novel by 11:59 p.m. Nov. 30. I didn't really start with much of a plot, except I'd have a reporter who gets laid off and gets a job at a horse stable, and I've gotten that far. I don't know what else to really throw in, so I'm making stuff up as I go along, under the careful watch of the wonderful Kate, who's a great coach. Maybe I'll actually do a triathlon some day. She'd be a great coach for that, too.

(Hey, Kate, tonight I'm going to go running for the first time in . . . well, a very, very long time. You should turn your whip that direction, too.)

Thanksgiving is this week, and it's so nuts to think about the holidays with my parents nearby. They're about 50 minutes away, which is just mind-blowing. My parents buy me like a week's worth of barbeque and send me home with leftovers, and this time I'll see them without the vacation days and flights to Reagan.

Winter and the holidays were always my time to be in Virginia, to be riding the Metro around D.C., to be walking around in the cold from museum to museum, iPod on and hands in pockets. I knew when I was at home (I refer to everything as "at home," it feels like; my apartment, my parent's place, Dan's apartment, etc) in July that I'd miss Virginia. I miss the gray skies that hold the possibility of snow. I miss the fat squirrel who lived behind our first house and the fat rabbit that lived behind the second one. I miss driving around to the Bloom grocery store or the Safeway, and I liked the church our family went to there, since there were windows to look out and see the trees through.

Since I was a sophomore in college, holidays always meant Virginia. I spent summer vacation and spring breaks there, too, and I did spend two brief Christmases in Tampa when I was in grad school, but they're pretty firmly linked with Virginia in my mind.

This holiday will be fantastic, no doubt. But at the same time, I won't have the luxury of stepping completely, totally away from my responsibilities as an adult to go home anymore. When I was halfway across the country, there was no chance of an editor calling me to do something or of me worrying about getting something in the mail. My parents are close, now, and their new home is, too. I just won't be able to get away from my home, either.

I love Fort Worth, I sort of think of it as an adopted home, but I am antsy.

Third Time Is No Charm

Yep, a third round of furloughs.

This was announced by e-mail yesterday. It's not exactly the best way to crush the hopes of your employees, but hey, I'm not the boss. I would have preferred they wait until Friday, when I'd gotten paid, because I would have been brilliantly blinded by the non-furlough paycheck I'd just gotten and may not have realized it was the last one until well into the next week.

I'm not going to do the calculations, but I think this means we get more furlough paychecks--paychecks with 10 percent taken right off the top--than regular paychecks this year. It also means there's another five days that have to be dealt with, but no money to help out with them. I'm also stuck with nine vacation days to use, so I scheduled to take off about two weeks straight for the end of September and early October. I'll still have four vacation days to use up somewhere.

I'm still planning to use part of those days to go to Albuquerque, but now my plans have been hit by paycheck worries. I'd planned for N.M. because it was fairly close, fairly cheap, and I thought I'd at least get three or four regular paychecks before going. But no: two regular paychecks, and then back to the skimpy ones. I'm reining in my plans for the trip; not as many museums, not as much food, maybe not buying Christmas gifts there. (Fuck, maybe I'll just scrap Christmas gifts this year. Maybe if I tell everyone now I'll skip accepting them if it means I can skip giving them, my budget will be a bit happier.)

I was really, really pissed off about the whole furlough things yesterday. It happened to fall on a bad day--a Monday, first of all, and secondly I was sore from the crossfit class on Saturday that I think sprained or strained my right elbow. That arm is kinda wonky since I messed it up in college with a bad riding fall and really badly broke it, and I can't straighten it now. I went home and had some wine, took a hoarded muscle relaxer (from the most recent bad riding fall, back in 2007), called my student loan company to get an extension on only paying interest on my loan, and went to bed at 9 p.m.

Today I'm pretty dejected, and I've got shit to do. There are special publication stories to be written and people to track down for this week's normal stories. I just don't want to be here at work today. It's not worth it. I can't really concentrate, and I just need a few days to be in my funk and then I'll be fine. But some days you know you're not going to get much done at work and you still have to be there, and it's frustrating. I'm looking forward to 5 p.m., when I can bolt out of here and go to the barn. A trainer at the barn found a potential family to lease the pony, and both the boys have shoes again, so I'd much rather be at the barn than here at my desk.

I know I'm grateful to have a job, to have health insurance, to be able to afford groceries, even if I'm going to have to redouble my efforts to not spend money. I'm grateful to be with a company that appears to be doing everything it can to not cut people.

But fucking hell, they did a shit job of telling us all this, and we're all pretty damn tired of it. Sometimes I feel like fate is trying to give me a sign but I'm too dumb to take notice and get out. I don't know. What I do know if there's a cold half-bottle of wine in my fridge and I look forward to finishing it.

Mild Forms Of Pain

I heard once that an itch is the lowest form of pain. I'm pretty sure that what the horses went through on Friday was more than that, but they did get drugs, which is nice. When Dan met both of my parents over the weekend, he did not have drugs, so there's that.

Friday was an appointment with our horse vet, who (as I believe has been previously documented) is awesome and cute and funny and smart. He also is passionate about horse teeth for reasons too dorky to get into here, so he came out to float the horses' teeth and make sure their dental works were all good for the next year. I don't know where the term "float" came from, but floating teeth means filing them down, since sharp edges from uneven wear can start to cause sores in a horse's mouth.

Both the horses are decidedly middle-aged, and Topper's got a bit of an overbite, so our vet filed everything down and pulled two pieces of cracked, loose tooth out of the pony's mouth. Topper had teeth pulled last time, so he got out without anything pulled this summer, but they were both heavily sedated during the procedure. I stuck around for a few hours after the procedure, to make sure they woke up okay and could eat and drink, and went home with part of one of Rio's molars in my pocket.

That piece of tooth is what I gave to my parents as a hello gift on Saturday, but I don't think they were particularly impressed. My parents showed up in the grand town of McKinney, Texas, about 30 miles north of Dallas, last week, and they're staying in an apartment there while they find a house (they put a bid on one in Rockwall, east of Dallas, on Sunday, so cross your fingers). Dan and I went out to see them on Saturday night, since I got four tickets to the FC Dallas soccer game that night.

Now, Dan and I have been dating for four and a half years. He has met my father once, briefly, when my dad was in town between flights and took my sister and I (and Dan) out for dinner. Dan has never met my mother. My parents have been living halfway across the country during the time we've been dating, and they've only come through Texas two times, maybe three, but it was always for a day or two. I usually only see them once a year for Christmas, flying home, because of my work schedule (and before that, my school schedule). Dan has had an equally nutty schedule with school and work, so although it sounds bad that he hasn't met them both, it really isn't.

My parents took us out to get burgers before the game, and then the stadium seating separated us all into a row and gave us a game to watch and talk about. It was a beautiful evening after thunderstorming all day, and I think everything went well. I guess you'd have to ask my parents and then Dan to find out how it really went.

Now it's a Monday, and Dan's off with his sister enjoying a day off while I'm watching the clock. He is now switching over to a Tuesday through Saturday work schedule, so we're only going to be able to spend Sundays together, which sucks. A lot. But I guess it's good I got him to meet the parents when I still had the chance. I wonder how long they could have managed to not see each other while living in the same metroplex?

Beer, Beans And Tuna

I find myself running out of names for blog posts, which is probably why it's a good thing I'm not a copywriter or an editor trying to come up with headlines. In a last-ditch effort to be original, I named this one after my dinner: Shiner 99 beer, tuna and white bean bruschetta.

On a side note, how long can bottled beer be stored before it goes skunky? I really liked last year's 99, so I bought five six-packs or so, but I rarely drink at home. I've been keeping them at the back of my closet, along with my skeletons and my sister's gay cat, and they're still good but now I'm afraid I need to drink them all within the next six months or they'll be gross.

Anyway. Today we finished a health care focus at the Big BP, and it was also Dan's first day at his new job. The health care issues, as anyone who listens to me bitch knows, are a pain in my ass, and today's was especially bad because I had this monster story that defied logic and didn't fit anywhere. All morning I was freaking starving, so I kept snacking, and then all afternoon I had a headache. I took three extra-strength Tylenol from my desk stash, I'm drinking beer now, and if it doesn't go away but the time I go to bed, I'll pilfer the leftover painkillers from old prescriptions. (I guess another question would be how long those prescriptions stay good. The last thing I need is to end up sick because I took funky Vicodin or something.)

Journalism continues to be a bitch. To distract myself, I'm checking out and reading a lot of fiction from the library and entertaining my fantasies of becoming an author, and I'm also hoarding measuring cups and kitchen towels, preparing for the move. (One week! Today I even arranged to have Charter come set up my internet the day after I move in, so I'm feeling proud of myself. Now, if I can only get electricity.)

I think things are ending on a relatively good note with my sister, too, which is nice. Our relationship has been all over the place since she graduated college and then threw all her ambitions to the wind, and yesterday we had a good, civil, friendly talk. It sounds like she'll be moving only about a quarter mile from where I'll be living, so that will be nice. I shouldn't keep tabs on her, but I kinda do. It's an older sister thing. I just feel like if I don't, no one else in the can, so she could drift away and there'd be nothing anyone else could do.

Hm. I'm realizing that I don't really have much to say today. Not that I ever have much to say--even when I'm on my soapbox, my rants probably don't matter to more than, say, five people on the planet at any given time. But that's cool. Beer makes me all talky, so I'm taking it out on the interwebs. Unfortunate. Next week, though, when I'm in the midst of moving, I'm sure I'll have plenty to write about. I've moved enough times to know that every move is a pain in the ass, even the little ones across town.

Cleo Shows Me The Future . . .

. . . and it's a future that holds a lot more griping about money. I wouldn't be a journalist if I weren't griping about my paycheck, right?

So no, I still don't have any faith in journalism. I love it, sure, but at the same time I don't trust it. It's what I imagine loving Godzilla is like. Or a serial killer. Whatever. The good news is Dan got pretty quickly picked up by a local news station, and he's just waiting on new equipment to get in before he starts that job. The bad news is my paper's parent company said everyone has to take another 5 unpaid days between now and the end of August. (For those keeping track, yes, we just finished taking 5 unpaid days. Now we get to start all over.)

This is why decent journalists leave the profession--because they can't pay their fucking rent.

That's my biggest concern. The past few weeks I've been getting things in line for a new one-bedroom apartment, and I signed the lease last week. It's fairly cheap, all things considered, but before I signed I talked to our publisher about whether we were getting full paychecks back. (Most of us opted to have one unpaid day per pay period, which lessens the financial blow, and also results in a 10% decrease per paycheck, which is just enough to be a pain in the ass and result in some imaginative money shuffling.)

Our publisher said he hadn't heard anything--this was a few weeks ago--and then today I was covering an event and a fellow reporter texted me about the announcement. I appreciate the text. It means I got to have a panic attack in my car driving back to work instead of at my desk.

It's going to be really tight to pay rent, pay bills, pay gas, pay student loans and eat. Reeeeaally tight. So tight it may be cheaper just to get an eating disorder, although I don't know if treatment is covered on our shitty health insurance. I'm desperately crossing my fingers one of the adjunct journalism teaching jobs I applied for comes through--being an adjunct doesn't pay much, but I think it would cover what I'll be not making through this furlough.

(Every journalist knows, a furlough is just a fancy way of doing a paycut. Fucking A.)

The event I was covering this morning was a job fair sort of deal, with staffing organizations and employers networking to get their clients all lined up. I should have been paying more attention, because I feel like the next step is layoffs.

Double fuck.

Journalism, you suck.

Fuck That Shit

I think Birnam may be right. What better to hold on to than anger and an easy three-word motto? It's easily repeated in journalism company, because we all curse way too much, and it's a convenient number of letters that would look good tattooed on anyone.

I'm still sort of reeling. It's very surreal. Dan's sister has been home through all this--she was stopping by Fort Worth before several months of backpacking through South America--and she left early this morning. Today is my last day of work for the week, so Dan and I will be able to hang out all weekend. Tonight a bunch of people who got laid off and some who still have jobs are meeting up at a bar in Dallas, and while Dan's refrained from drowning his sorrows thus far, I think tonight will be the night to get blitzed.

Easter is this weekend, too. Dan was supposed to work on Easter, but now it looks like we'll have the day together. I'm just hoping it will be quiet. It was exceedingly awkward spending Tuesday night with Dan's family. There'd been plans for about a week for the family to go out to dinner that night, since his sister was home, and I'd initially declined because I planned to go out and ride. After everything that happened, though, I couldn't say I had to pass on seeing Dan, so I went out there. I'm not sure I'm up for doing that whole awkward thing again on Sunday.

In the mean time, I'm just bracing myself for a frustrating next few months. My life is still fine; I still have a job, I don't think I'm in danger of losing it, but I expect it will be difficult to be the only working journalist in what has always been a relationship between two working journalists.

I did tell Dan that if he went into PR, though, I'd do it. That way we can both be sell-outs.

Unemployed

This morning Dan got laid off by the Dallas Morning News.

We both knew today would be cuts, but we both thought he'd be safe. He is (was, I guess) a mobile journalist, doing photos, video and stories for the web and the paper, and he makes about half of what a lot of other reporters make.

But he got laid off, along with many, many other reporters, photographers and web people. He was the last person hired, so that may have been a red flag, but not a single editor got laid off. Not a single one, and yet those who generate content were axed.

Obviously, I've been on an emotional roller coaster today, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't affect my job today. I was having a hard time concentrating, I was forgetting things, I just didn't give a shit. I can only imagine Dan had it worse than me. I know we have it a lot better than a lot of those who lost their jobs--those who are married and have mortgages and kids or whatnot. There's enough freelance work out there to give him something to do, and he's already sending out his resume and pulling together clips, but this is going to be a huge, shocking transition. It's going to take a while for him to settle into the reality of this, I think, and it's going to take me a while to process it as well.

With the DMN making irrational business decisions and the Star-Telegram pulling shit like this in some misguided attempt to keep afloat, I can only say that I have utterly and completely lost my faith in the newspaper industry.

And as a reporter, that's a fucking awful feeling.

Counting Days

I realize it's been a while since I updated. I fell into a sort of blog slump. It came from various things, including a new workout schedule, being busier at work, and just a general "eh" feeling when it comes to writing. Well, I take that back--I've been writing, but not here. All I can say is that I suddenly decided I could write short stories since I've been reading dozens and dozens of them lately. They're a new obsession. Two days ago I finally set down the anthologies and picked up a normal novel for the first time since some time in January. It's a fairly crazy idea of mine, but what the hell, it's writing, it amuses me, why not, right?

Anyway. Today is essentially my Friday, since tomorrow is one of my unpaid personal days to save the company money and hopefully save my job. Every week should be four days, I've decided. This is no huge epiphany--I've said this over and over, but I continue to stand by it. It's good to have convictions.

Also, I've been anticipating tomorrow all week--not just because it's a day off, but also because the equine vet is coming out to the barn to check on Topper's legs. This is a huge thing for me. I had a mini breakdown over the weekend about this. Topper's accident-prone: About five years ago he put a hole through the major tendon in one of his front legs, and he couldn't go out for a ride or be turned out or anything for a whole year. He was only allowed to walk. He finally healed, and scar tissue filled in the hole, and I rehabbed him with slow work over the course of months, and he was fine again. Then about three years ago he somehow tore a ligament in a back leg, up in his hips, and he went through a treatment where the vet irritated the area with these injections to cause scar tissue to grow and connect everything back together again. It worked, and I rehabbed him again, but he hasn't really been able to jump since then.

Two months ago he got this mysterious lump halfway down his lower leg on the right side. There was no heat, no pain, and he was never lame, so I just kept an eye on it but kept riding. About three weeks ago he developed a similar lump on the left side, and now he's off. He doesn't want to work when I ride him, so we only walk around, and he just looks lame. I've waited for it to heal, but he's still off, so now the vet comes in.

The reason I'm so freaked out is I'm afraid this is finally the injury that will retire him and he won't be allowed to do anything but walk ever again. Or he can't do anything and has to be on stall rest for a year. He's miserable on stall rest. We had to drug him the first time around because he got so wound up in his stall. He was bred to be a race horse, he loves to go out for rides and work and jump, and when he can't, I just feel sorry for him. There's an awful lot of feeling sorry for myself, too--what if I can't really ride my horse anymore? I love jumping, and I miss it so much, and to lose riding altogether? Real riding, not just walking? Terrible.

The good thing is I can ride the pony, since he's back up to riding condition, and he's good and fun to ride and loves to jump as much as Topper. For a while, if Topper has to be off a bit, I have someone to ride. I know I'm also jumping ahead to worse-case scenarios (that's what I do). Maybe Topper just needs some time off or something simple. I am so wound up and nervous about this that I become nauseated when I think about it too much.

Other days I'm anticipating--next Sunday, a little over a week from now, daylight savings will dictate we move clocks forward an hour and gain an hour of evening sunlight. I'm so excited! That means I won't have to worry about getting out of work as soon as possible to get to the barn while it's still light outside. Whew. I love evenings, and I'd much rather deal with dark mornings than dark nights.

In journalism news, the Pentagon lifted its ban on photographing coffins of military members. Photos are ok, but only with the family's permission. I'd like to say congrats to the military for doing this. It's about time. These military personnel fought and died, in part, for the freedom of the press, so I think it's only right there should be access. I think there should be full access, but you have to take what you're given. Positive reinforcement! But this will let others recognize and honor those who died through the media, and that's a huge thing.

I'm sure tomorrow I'll update with what the vet says. If I can get going with blogging consistently for a few days, both here and on the Dork Reporter, then hopefully I'll be out of this blogging-block.

Close To The End

So I think, after a series of mini-meltdowns this week that occurred while I was driving in my car and never ended in tears but did get me close and also almost made me swerve into a huge pickup truck, that I'm getting close to the end of my despair over journalism. (That sentence was entirely too long.)

This does not mean that I have some great, profitable career lined up, like being a bankruptcy lawyer, or that my job is secure. No, it merely means that I am closing in on overload and so won't be able to process any more bad news. It will then just go in one ear and out the other and hopefully I won't think any more than, Well, that's a fucking shame, and move on. (Unless I get laid off. I just don't see how I couldn't NOT freak out over something like that.)

What finally got me to the edge? It was probably the news today that the Star-Telegram is going to lay off everyone it's ever employed and also their mothers and not let their kids run lemonade stands on the corners any more. Fifty cents for lemonade? Are you effing kidding me?! It turns out the rumors and rumblings Andrew heard were right.

I know, it's not my paper anymore, but it's more the principle of the thing. The industry is just slowly collapsing, like a flan in a cupboard, as Eddie Izzard would say. I'm taking off tomorrow afternoon as part of the whole five-unpaid-personal-days-to-save-money, and yes, I do expect to be drinking. And getting an oil change. I can't afford to pay for serious car repairs because I was negligant.

Rumor-Mongering

Word on the street is five editorial people at the Star-Telegram have to be gone by Monday, and Belo announced that 500 people from the company will be cut by the end of February (that's roughly one in seven people getting cut from its newspapers too, which includes the Dallas Morning News).

Fuck!

I'm looking at my resume and wondering if there's till time to get into some kind of teaching program, where I can yell at thuggish high schoolers all day to SHUT UP and SIT DOWN and wonder why they don't care about the finer things in life, like naming the cell organs and reading The Sun Also Rises.

I think either tonight or tomorrow night will turn into another mournful, bitchy, whiny night of journalism drinking. I felt better about my paper after having too much crappy beer to drink last Saturday night (no hangover! it's a miracle! I believe it's the multivitamins I took before I went to bed, because a girl's got to believe in something, right?), and so I'm thinking maybe Dan and Andrew will feel better after some drinking and late-night Whataburger. Andrew, from what I gather, essentially had his regular job disappear from under him and will only be able to freelance now, so it's a good thing he's in graduate school, and Dan's nervous about what's to come.

I've talked a lot about changing careers, going into medicine, but those were always long-term plans, something to slowly work on and get ready for over the course of maybe four or five years. I cannot wrap my head around the idea of how quickly all the papers around here are falling to bits and I might end up getting fucked too. I'm not mentally prepared to do anything else; I don't want to do anything else at this point. I like being a journalist, I like the self-righteousness that comes with it and the superior feeling of always knowing something other people don't.

Thankfully I've been writing, usually in the evenings, so hopefully I can finish things up there within the year. Maybe I can get a book published and then become a hospital janitor or something.

I'm so glad it's Friday at 4:39 p.m. I'm also glad I have a stockpile of Shiner 99 in the back of my closet, just in case of a nuclear attack or an industry breakdown.

Aaaaaannd Done

I'd just like to take a moment to gloat about the fact that I (generally) stuck to my 2008 resolution to take up running. Exactly a year ago today, I went out running for the first time since I had moved back from Boston (so there was a year off there, a year spent drinking a lot of beer), and ended up so sore it hurt to walk up the stairs at work on the 2nd.

I took some time off when I got sick, and switched to running stairs in the summer, because I am psychologically ill and clearly in need of help, but all in all, I'm pretty proud of myself.

I'm also feeling generally ok about 2008. Yeah, it was a shit year with the economy and all, and I haven't hit the jackpot despite the fact I buy $1 lottery tickets like three times a year, but for me it was pretty good. And even though my immune system finally cracked under the pressure of the holidays and being surrounded by sick people, I had a good time at the New Year's party Dan, Loren and I went to out in Dallas. I didn't feel it was prudent to drink with a cold and had volunteered as the designated driver, so I only had some Jello shots (those totally don't count) and a glass of champagne (again, doesn't count). It was a great house to have a party in, there was a bartender (!) that had been hired for the event (this classifies as really swanky in my book), and a great mix of dance music from the computer, just right to use the giant hardwood floor in front of a lit fireplace. For everyone who witnessed my dancing: I'm sorry. I'm just glad you were drunk.

So seeing as how I did fairly well with resolutions in 2008, I'm hoping I can do it again this year. I'm going to stick with the running still, and then my new task for the year is to do some serious work on The Novel. Last year was all fine and dandy, but the economy IS sinking fast and I don't have the money to enroll in school again, so I'm going to need to invest some time and effort into something else that has a remote possibility of offering some cash in the future. (I'm talking really remote here. I've spent many years researching and agonizing over how hard it is to get a novel published. But I also know that the sooner I get it out of my system and probably get the big rejections, then I'll be more productive as a journalist, knowing that I don't have any other options at the moment.)

And since this first day of the new year is almost done with already, I feel like I should probably go pound out 100 words or so, just to get some momentum building here. Maybe tomorrow my writing muscles will be so sore that I won't be able to get anything done at work, which would be a real shame, because seriously--how on earth am I supposed to fill eight (ok, like six, after you count showing up late and a long lunch) hours at work on the Friday after New Year's?

The Status

Ok, so my sister is the first one who mentioned this. Last night, after the election, she was telling me about all the people she's friends with on Facebook who have these really negative status reports posted about how Obama is a socialist (my sister got offended because they weren't using the right definition of socialism). She said she thinks a lot less of some people because of their Facebook statuses.

I noticed it again today, when I saw a bunch of comments on Jezebel about women de-friending people on Facebook because of their statuses. Leslie even posted a status saying she's disappointed to find out (via Facebook) what some people really believe.

Personally, I only have an odd one or two friends on Facebook who have posted anti-Obama statuses. Some have graciously avoided it (kudos to them), but most of my friends have political persuasions that reflect mine, so it's generally not an issue. I think a lot of it is an issue for people who A) like my sister, friend or accept friend invitations from anyone they ever meet and B) who are more liberal than most of their families and friends, usually due to culture/geographical things.

Maybe everyone on Facebook with de-friend everyone whose political statuses disagree with their own views. Maybe people on Facebook now will only accept friend invitations from people who are legitimate friends (instead of everyone you ever meet once) or who have views more closely in line with their own.

Probably not.

But wouldn't it be funny if this election changed Facebook forever? I love me some Facebook theories.

The following are comments I pulled off Jezebel, because they're funny/sad/awesome/really amusing:


"Also, reading all my friends' Facebook statuses keeps making me cry, too. It's unbelievable how many of them supported Obama and amazing how it is affecting so many people in such profound ways. "

"Some of my friends' Facebook statuses are making me cry too, but for a different reason - I can't believe people that I used to think were decent and logical have turned into crazy assholes. "

"That sucks. Shockingly, I can only think of 3 or 4 of my hundreds of Facebook friends that were McCain supporters. That makes me happy. But I am in a liberal area, went to school in a liberal city, and am queer. So that might explain that. "

"I live in Middle America (yeah that red strip down the middle) and my Facebook page is oddly silent. heh heh heh. Yesterday I was fighting with self-righteous McCain supports and today I guess they've gone to the ammo store to buy up the guns. "

"I just "de-friended" one of my best friends because he's an unthinking Republican and I cannot having him harshing my mellow right now. I feel sort of bad about it, but I just do not need shit like this in my life: "_____ is a true American because he supports even the lowest of presidents, instead of whining like liberals". God, just STFU, go crawl into a hole and build a goddamn shrine to Sarah Palin's loveliness, fuck twit. "

'MY COUSIN is pulling that shit right now. He congratulated Obama, and when someone commented on his status, he mentioned that it would be nice if the left had been as "magnanimous" about the election results in 2000 and 2004. I just told Facebook to not show me stories of his on my news feed."

Read All About It!

As Gawker puts it, today's a great day to be a newspaper. When I got up this morning, I got up early to try to find a copy of the paper. I got to the Barnes & Noble a mile from my apartment two minutes after they'd opened, and they were already sold out of the New York Times. Same thing at the grocery store. Same thing at the gas station. Same thing at another grocery store, and then I ran out of time and had to go to work.

There are copies of some papers, like the Star-Telegram and the Morning News. But I don't want a copy of those. I want the big one. USA Today? Too much of a paper lite reputation for me to hold on to it until I die and my relatives have to dig it out of my attic.

I love this commenter on the Gawker website:

"Times Editorial: We now support term limits. Short ones. Say, 90 days."

Maybe this will be like the day-after-Thanksgiving sales that push retail stores into the black for the first time during the year (although that's looking doubtful this year). Can one day of fantabulous sales make up for an entire fucked over industry, though?

It'd be nice to think so.