First off: I’m sorry I haven’t been updating. I’m working on that, or at least I’m working on working on it (I know in a week I’ll be “working on working on working on working on it,” but one must do this one step at a time.
CUE THE RANTING!
I’m aching from a 10-mile hike I took today working on a story for the Missourian (5 miles down the MKT [Katy Trail] and 5 miles back with a backpack on). I have 3 blisters, a drained body, 2 mini-essays to work on, and a job interview early in the morning.
I’m now regretting that 8:00 a.m. call time, but that’s the way things go when you sign up late and are left skimming over the scraps left over.
(For those few people who have occasionally checked back here for updates, I apologize. Things have been crazy. For those people who though 13 credit hours plus the Missourian was a light load, I’d like you all try to pull off an “Atlas” and see how well you do)
For you less-cultured swine (which is a way nicer slam than “uncultured swine,” I’m assuming you’ve had culture, just not enough to totally get the reference. If you did get it, you may go ahead and proceed to the following paragraph), Atlas was the poor giant whose job it was to hold up the sky. Why he didn’t say “Screw it,” drop it, and kill the whole world is beyond me. At least he had job security.
Anyway, things are totally nuts. Actually, I should spell that with a ‘z.’ nutz. It should be capitalized too: NUTZ. Yeah, that’s the best description I can come up with. I think it aptly encompasses the general feelings of frustration, exhilaration, boredom, and non-stop movement I’ve been going through.
Sometimes it’s all I can do to make sure I have the time to call home once a week. No offense meant to Megan if she reads this, but if we hadn’t broken up in December, we’d have had to break up in January.
The push for a couple articles every week is constant. I’m starting to lose weekends to the Missourian (this Friday I spent two hours in an open-air observatory and another hour downtown looking for minors to talk to about a proposed city curfew [at the same time the curfew would go into effect {my editor instructed me to cruise for minors after midnight. I have another editor who tells people to go to bars to get story ideas. If I wasn’t too tired to be corrupted, I’d be in trouble} I didn’t find anyway; which is a good thing, I think. Saturday I spent several hours writing up the story, with a brief stop by the arcade looking for more minors.
In the past week I’ve joked with Columbia’s Mayor, chatted with several Councilmen’s wives, and paged the police chief who was at a barbeque. I’ve seen Saturn’s rings, I’ve met a woman who was in Libya during the 1969 revolution [BEST QUESTION I’VE EVER GOTTEN TO ASK: "Mam, what were you doing in Libya in 1969?" ANSWER: Working for the World Health Organization], and gotten a story on the front page. Things have been busy, but fun.
My pulse is still going, but I’m still having fun. I guess it works out…
I apologize for this blog being more disconnected and disjointed than usual. I’ll work to keep things more organized in the future. My first thought was just to leave you with quips and little thoughts that have come to my mind (“The sun will come up, tomorrow… and so does the Missourian: SO WRITE FASTER!” or “Wait a minute…It’s ante, sana, SQUASH, banana”).
But then I figured without narration, or a little context, it would too NUTZ. I wish you all a good night and a better tomorrow.
For the record, “Ante, sana, squash, banana” is a rhyme Rafiki repeats in the Lion King. Who knows how long that’s been floating around my subconscious?
Good night!
