August: a commentary

Oh, sad.

August used to be the month we waited for the mail to come.
(I've had that line-to-begin-something rattling 'round my brain about a week. Let's run with it.)

August used to be the month we waited for the mail to come. Experience had shown that letters revealing your fate for the year -- your homeroom teacher's name or your class schedule -- could arrive as early as August 1. By this time of year the days were dragging by because we had played every game and written every story we could think of by July 25, and we could barely wait for school to start. Needless to say, we sat near the window and kept an eagle eye on the mailbox beginning at the earliest conceivable time each day the mail lady might arrive.

August was the month that nothing ever changed. It was like a stock month they threw in to every calendar to pad out the summer a little. Only since they couldn't add half a month, they had to put a whole one in. And it was agonizingly long.

But since high school graduation, August took on a new face: the time for major change. Logically this had to happen because all my friends were college students and college students move to college in August. And even friends who weren't in college -- they were teachers moving to new jobs starting in August, or they were married to teachers or grad students...

Now I'm out of school and August is still a month for drastic change. Friends are moving to Japan, California, England, Ohio, Bahrain. It seems that August will continue to mark the annual life shift for a while yet. It still entails some frustrating waits, too. But overall, August is still a really long month. It at least matches January in draginess. (Though July seems to have taken forever this year, too. The Fourth of July was only a month ago?)

P.S. It's my grandma's birthday. Grandma 'Lene. And her twin sister. My sister and I used to get tongue-tied if we were telling a rushed story about Grandma 'Lene and Grandpa John and we'd say Grandpa 'Lene and Grandma John. And we'd laugh hysterically. It was almost as funny as the times in First Grade I'd talk about what I did in Art and Gym and my dad would pretend he thought Art and Jim were people.

The doorbell rang early this morning. I was still in bed, enjoying a sound night of sleep without waking up sweating every hour and a half. My AC failed to produce cold air beginning last Friday, and last night was the first cool one since.

Irony: I was wakened from that peaceful slumber by the repairmen, who finally had time to look at my AC. :) They brought it back in the afternoon and left it on. The high today: just barely 80. Ah, well -- it's bound to heat up again soon.

the rains came down (and the floods came up)

The rain is finally here. Here, so far anyhow, it isn't enough, but at the very least it ushered out the heat.

It's bobbed around 100 the last three or four days. Add that to the .54 inches of rain we got in July... and things are getting rough. The three towns north of here share a water system, and it sounds like things are getting severe -- absolutely no lawn watering, no car washing, full dishes and laundry loads only, limiting showers... Most towns around here are still at limiting lawn watering to twice a week during off-peak hours.

A few people have mentioned that what the farmers really want right now is heavy hail. Crops are insured in case of hail, so they'd at least get some cash. Particular fields of corn are fading browner by the day. The beans don't look awful yet. I'm told they can hold out longer and still do okay if rain comes eventually.

We're actually in a Flash Flood Watch tonight. It just might rain hard enough that the parched, packed ground won't soak it in fast enough. That possibility looks slim to me -- we haven't even made it up to a decent downpour yet. This morning the National Weather Service was saying some locations could get 4 to 6 inches! I think we'd be thrilled with anything that'll form puddles.

No matter how it adds up, it's brought in cool air. It feels incredible and fresh like nothing has in weeks. Tomorrow it's not even supposed to get to 80! :)

switching shoes

Nearly every day I interview or prepare to interview a person. But now I have a better idea what it feels like to be in their shoes.

Someone took up the notion of profiling me for the Classic. It's an honor but embarrassing. She said on the phone it was going to be short, but when what you’re reading is about you it all seems ridiculously long.

I understand:
1) How it feels to be asked a question you have no idea how to answer, and then read back what you said and know it wasn’t true.
2) How any little adjective or adverb can cause an entire paragraph to be slightly inaccurate.
3) How we do try to sensationalize everything. This person was the best at this. She loved this. She hated that. She learned this for sure. We try to explain unexplainable people into things as simple as words.

I got to see a draft of the proposed article and, being a finicky editor (it really is shameful), I made so many suggestions that I feel bad sending it back to her. What I was suggesting, though, in my defense, wasn’t grammatical or stylistic or anything. They were all either factual corrections or new ideas for adjectives that would be more accurate.

There's a lovely program at the University of Missouri: the MA in Journalism (Editing).

You get to spend two years two years learning about research methods, the history of mass media, advanced newspaper design and editing... and editing along the way.

It sounds like bundles of fun to me. Bundles and bundles. But,
1. It costs money. (Or, at least, prevents me from paying loans off so quickly.)
2. I wouldn't get out until I was... 26.
3. Do I really want the hectic life and late hours of a newsroom editor?
4. If the answer to 3 is no but I want to teach college journalism, am I willing to go to school until I'm... 29 or so?

I don't know...

I guess maybe the smart thing to do would be to prepare this fall as if I did want to apply in the winter. If I get in (it is very competitive, but in my vanity getting admitted is a concern at the very bottom of the list), and if I will not be actually adding to my loans... then maybe we'll think some more.

My sister showed me this blog for Maria Von Trapp, and it's hilarious.
http://vontrapped.blogspot.com/2006/03/last-night-von-trapp-gave-me-night-off.html
The main page is http://vontrapped.blogspot.com
(Sorry about the links. Macs + Safari + Blogger = Poor combo, though each are marvelous individually.)

sunset over South Dakota

A Sunday Drive

I. You know you’ve read a good book when you’ve marked so many poignant sections that if feels like it will take a painfully long time to copy them all down.

“Gilead” has won wide acclaim, and it’s worthy of it – at the very least, as a collection of sometimes-random stories.

This morning I have been trying to think about heaven, but without much success. I don’t know why I should expect to have any idea of heaven. I could never have imagined this world if I hadn’t spent almost eight decades walking around in it. People talk about how wonderful the world seems to children, and that’s true enough. But children think they will grow into it and understand it, and I know very well that I will not, and would not if I had a dozen lives. That’s clearer to me every day.

I can’t believe we will forget our sorrows altogether. That would mean forgetting that we had lived, humanly speaking. Sorrow seems to me to be a great part of the substance of human life.

You must not judge what I know by what I find words for.

How can capital-T Truth not be communicable?

I don’t know exactly what covetise is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else’s virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it.

II. Does anybody remember the name of the Ewazen piece in memory of Sept. 11? It’s beautiful – just listening to it now. Seems like the word “heroes” was in their somewhere.

Confession: Some of my favorite lines are brass lines. There’s the intro solo trumpet (Sarah? Maybe Tim?), and the low brass solo in the middle’s my very favorite (it sounds like a baritone, but maybe it’s Pete) even though it’s about two measures long. I never minded when we had to repeat that section. And the running French Horn lines were lovely, too – VZ, I feel for you guys. It sounds rough. Malinda, do you feel trombones get overlooked a lot? If you’re listening to our recording, I’m the clarinet that keeps squeaking. It was a bad night. There’s one part we rehearsed over and over at the beginning to get the legato or whatever just right.

Next up on the CD is one of Monica’s many solo pieces. Did you hear she got married this last weekend? I guess it was unbearably hot outside.

Now the band/choir combined concert! Can you imagine the fun? :)

screw that

Love page design? Maybe not. :) We got the paper back from the printer this morning, and my sports photos are all fuzzy boxes of crap because I forgot to link them to the pages properly.

As you can see, I've initiated a propaganda campaign against myself in attempt to correct this problem in the future.

learning as you go...

Through Poynter.org and Knight Ridder there's a site called NewsU where anyone can take brief online courses about a variety of news-related topics. This afternoon I took part of a course in typography (all about fonts and the rules for designing pages with them). I've been designing pages for over a year without any formal training on the matter. This hasn't been much of a problem yet, but intuition will only get you so far if you're trying to move up from the small weekly paper.

Today's lesson was several dozen typography terms and tips -- part review and part new knowledge for me. That new knowledge would have come in handy nine hours earlier as I was breaking those laws.

• Thou shall not make widows (single words for the last line of a paragraph);
• Thou shall not make orphans (single lines before an empty line beginning a new column);
• Thou shall align thy baselines (body text should line up from column to column); and
• Thou shall not make rivers (narrower columns of especially loose justified text).

A couple I had heard before but choose to overlook when convenient.

I like the challenge of layout. It's putting together a puzzle with either too many or too few pieces and no indication beforehand what the puzzle's supposed to look like. It does get frustrating, though, when a piece "fits" somewhere but you can't leave it there because it violates design principles. For instance, today: I had a ten-inch tall column with a six inch story and a three inch photo beneath it on the front. One inch was all white, and filler ads aren't allowed on page one...

It takes at least 1 minute and 45 seconds (at least) to edit one photo from its raw form to the version I can use in the paper. The first step for preparing a photo for black and white printing: Get the photo as close to perfect in color as possible.

Black and white printing really can be frustrating. In a large sense it is simpler than color printing because there aren't multiple plates to be lined up perfectly. But on the other hand, you don't know how much ink your printing company is going to use in black and white. You might adjust the brightness and contrast and greys just right for the screen version, but make that version several shades darker all over... and you'll have a photo full of things people guess might be faces. Or your printer could be wary about ink, and you'll have overexposed to compensate for a lot of ink, and then your photos will be really white and lose a lot of definition.

I have a lot to learn in the art of black and whites. How do you preserve all the definition and contrast as well as possible?

I'm glad women don't have to wear hats anymore. It's difficult enough to find shoes that match your outfit, let alone having enough hats to go 'round for every occasion.

bor-ed

There's half an hour to kill between my last interview and leaving for the softball game.

Well, what's new here? Everything and nothing.

Did you know there are no calories in pickles?

The pesky fly in my office disappears if I take out the flyswatter.

The paper two towns north of here plagiarized another one of my stories this week. How do you confront someone about something like that?

I wrote a witty headline this week: "Dentist may fill in downtown cavity." There's a hole in the downtown strip because of a fire and a dentist is going to build a new office there. The pharmacists really liked it.

One of my favorite shirts has gone unnoticed in my closet the entire summer.

All these books listed that I'm "reading"? Psh. When I get to it I'm chipping away at them. I picked up a sequel to "All Creatures Great and Small" last weekend and I can sit and read large chunks of it at a time. If you've never read any of James Herriot's stuff, seriously, it's addictive. I'm sorely disappointed that I can never go live in 1930s Yorkshire as a male veterinarian. They're stories that suck you in and make you laugh out loud and tear up and become good friends with the characters. His characters are amazing. Half of them are farmers with strong Yorkshire accents, and it takes a bit at first to try to figure out the terms. Translating English to English, you know.

Watched "Hotel Rwanda" yesterday. It seems disrespectful to call it a movie. It must have been difficult to review, because if you really wanted to look at it as a film then you might be criticizing it and people will probably think you're evil.

Have I written about my ant infestation? (Sigh.) A large part of my home life. Some days I avoid sitting in my living room at all costs, because occasionally I'll find one crawling on me. My bedroom has become a refuge -- none sighted there yet. (Unfortunately, no AC in there.) Their numbers have been very few in the last few days, but I'm not confident they're really gone. Little cardboard squares of poison are all over.

I have nice moles. On my right leg there's an isoceles triangle of them, all exactly the same size and shade of brown. It's very striking against my pasty skin. Sometimes I connect the dots with a pen for amusement.

last-minute informal driveway party

what do you think?

"Parable" is a term applied to a variety of figurative sayings of Jesus. Jesus' parables are like those that have a special meaning within a family. ... Jesus parables also can be understood only by those who enter into a special relationship of being his disciple. Of course, others grasp something of what he says, but only the ones who follow Jesus are able to see some part of the deeper, hidden meaning. This is true not only of Jesus' parables but of the God to whom so many of them refer."

ketching up on the facts

It’s safe to say the majority of us probably consumed at least one thing in common sometime over the past six weeks: tomato ketchup. (And yes, that “tomato” was a fairly important specification at one point.)

Most ketchup historians, I was amazed to learn (at Wikipedia), classify the origin of the term and the product as either Chinese or Malaysian. The terms “ke-stiap” and “kchap” referred to a pickled fishy sauce in the 1500s. The Dutch and other explorers brought it back home to Europe where the Dutch called it “ketjap.” It makes more sense now why it might be called “catsup,” too.

As time passed the word referred generally to sauce. Some ketchups were made of mushrooms, cucumbers, kidney beans, walnuts or anchovies. Yum yum.

In either England or the U.S., a tomato ketchup materialized by 1800, when the first recipes for it have been found. Those recipes were relatively salty, and the tomato was still rare (and sometimes considered poisonous) back then.

Tomato ketchup only became more and more popular throughout that century. Apparently, some of those early ketchups were pretty watery because they were made of unripe tomatoes, which have less pectin. They were also less likely to contain vinegar. That has remained true of ketchup in most other English-speaking countries, where it is more of a tomato paste.

The most common ingredients in American ketchup today are tomatoes, vinegar, salt, sugar, allspice, cloves and cinnamon.

Ketchup has, for most of its life, been stored in – insert groan here – glass bottles. Scientists tell us that ketchup is a “thixotropic” fluid – which, for all practical purposes, means it doesn’t pour too well.

Next time you’re at a restaurant with one of those irritating glass bottles of the red stuff, try this: Turn the bottle upside down (top on, please) and give it a good couple taps on the neck with your index and middle fingers. Specifically, some caterers say, tap a Heinz 57 on the 57 circle. If you care to know, it helps flow by correcting the G-forces. I’ll just stick with my plastic bottle stored upside-down, thanks.

In 1981, the government considered classifying ketchup as a vegetable for economic reasons in the school lunch program.

Teresa Heinz Kerry, is, yes, tied genealogically to the ketchup company. One of my favorite ketchup books, kids of all ages, is “Mrs. Pig’s Bulk Buy.” It’s about a family of piglets who coat everything they eat with ketchup.

ruminations (a true mixed bag)

*At the beginning of the Puddlejumper on the Orange City end is a saddle club/stables. The horses -- all brown -- were off in the distance tonight. I'd say they were chestnut mares. Of course, I have no idea whether they were mares at all. But they were definitely chestnut-colored. The word 'chestnut' automatically associates with Laura Ingalls Wilder in my mind. She called her hair chestnut brown. My sister also has brown hair, so I imagine calling hers chestnut, too, even though it's not really. We played 'olden days' a lot when we were little. She would be Laura Ingalls because she was younger and had brown hair. I had to be Mary because I was older and had blond hair. I didn't really enjoy listening to the books or reading them and I hated the shows, but I loved just playing olden days. That's a whole 'nother book.

*A friend today talked about heritages and homelands. Where am I from? Part of me says, "Duh, you're from Grandma's pasture." My grandparents own a ... I guess you'd kind of call it a hobby farm in Northwestern Minnesota. They don't grow anything or keep any farm animals anymore, but they have a good deal of rolling pastureland. What makes it even more spectacular is that it's at the end of the rolls -- someone once told me one of their hills was documented as the last significant one before the Great Flatness of the Dakotas. I'd believe it.

We didn't visit Grandma's that often, maybe twice a year tops. So I haven't even been to the pasture all that many times. But for all of us kids it was mysteriously sacred. Fascinating. Alluring. Rolling prairies. Nothing to see but maybe another farmhouse. A couple of cows. So serene. If you followed the right paths, you'd come to a good-sized pond. You really do have to follow the tire tracks, though. I've never been able to find the pond without them, no matter how hard I try.

I don't know why I feel that's where I'm from. Maybe because that was homeland (and is) for over a century to my mother's family. Sometimes I feel I'm from the river bluffs of La Crosse, even though I don't even remember them from when we lived there. But where I am really from is the small-town sophistication of Northfield, Minnesota. Truly, I believe, there are few other places in the country quite like it. I love it and it makes me crazy. In ways I love it more now that I can take more of an outsider's view of it -- the cleanliness; the ultra-chic, ultra-expensive downtown; the carefully preserved natural beauties of trees and prairies; the above-average regard for education; the extensive historical settings and intact architecture; the liberals I grew up believing were next-thing to devil-worshippers. And yet, it seems, all the things I like about it are things that are not of relatively high value to my family -- they buy cheap, live in the country, watch history on PBS... Don't get me wrong. I love my family. It's just a strange observation. We aren't the stereotypical Northfielders.

*It's been a year now since graduation, and I've come to some reluctant conclusions: This, right now, where I'm at in life, is not what I want. In a nutshell. (Is the problem the circumstances or is the problem how I'm looking at them? We won't get into that mess right now.) Okay, what do I want, then? Okay, what do I want that I can have?

I've started actively looking at help wanted ads again, and it's a little frustrating. (Trying to stop exaggerating so much. It's a bad habit.) First of all, I'm looking in a limited area. Second, I'm looking for a job that very well might not exist. Third of all, even if it does exist, who knows when it will come open again, or if I could be deemed qualified for it.

And then I ask myself -- will a new job really make me happier? Yes and no. At the least, the readers of my current paper deserve better. They deserve someone who will get their hands wetter and hunker down and talk to them instead of observing them. They deserve what they had before, but that's just not an option right now. Sadly for them, the chances of them ever getting anything like that again are pretty much slim to none. That's how life goes, I guess.

Back to the topic at hand: what I want. I want to drive through the Yorkshire dales with Jim Herriot and stand on the hillside with him on a blustery winter night while he delivers a turned calf. I want to dance with Tristan Farnon and have a glass of sherry with Mrs. Pumphrey.

And I want to be Jane of Lantern Hill. And ride the train across Canada.

I want to shed this social anxiety and work up the courage to chat with strangers.

I want to be known and humored anyhow. I want to make enough money to buy a car that I own. One with the gearshift down in the console like a sports car -- but not own an actual sports car. I want to work in red pen. I want to weigh 30 pounds less. I want to see the thesis in a book on my own. I want to "discover" a great new band before anyone else does. I want to speak every language. Help my mom figure out how to make a successful cake from scratch. Get a cable modem. Make a plant grow instead of wither. Photograph small children. Be five years old. To know somehow some part of my life made a difference (these things you forget you knew before). Eat chocolate. Do algebra. Be looked for. Dust. Cook raw meat. Choose a political party. Pet dogs and touch people.

Those are all (in a way) small things, though. What do I want that's big?

*I finished "A Farewell to Arms." It was entertaining, yes, but... I wasn't all that impressed, to tell the truth. It was lacking in overall conflict. Yes, it's about wartime, but... it almost lacks direction. You don't even know where the characters want to go. They don't really even half a problem. And even when they do have one, they're not really that upset... I'm sure I've totally missed big things. I'm not denying that. But... yeah. I just wasn't overly impressed. Was it even worth reading? You know, I'm not altogether sure.

*The mayor of this town owns a chain of funeral homes. He has such a baby face. You can't help but imagine him as a little boy.

the sound of music

(is this a repeat? it seems likely...)

I look at people's Facebook profiles and Xanga profiles and anywhere profiles and they list all these favorite bands they have. Where are you all finding all these bands? Where do you find the music you like -- how do you discover it in the first place?

our "representative?"

We get many shocking press releases from the office of U.S. Representative Steve King.

"KING APPLAUDS DECISION TO GIVE AMERICANS ANOTHER CHANCE TO END BILINGUAL VOTING

Washington, D.C.— Following outrage from Members of Congress, citizen groups and constituents, the bill to renew certain controversial provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) was pulled from the U.S. House voting calendar today, giving Members more time to respond to concerns before a vote by the full House.

The bill to renew the VRA, H.R. 9, was expected to go to the full House today; however, a debate over institutionalizing bilingual voting loomed over House leadership.

U.S. Congressman Steve King (IA-05) offered an amendment to the bill, which was denied by the House Rules Committee, the body that decides which amendments are to be made in order on the House floor. King’s amendment would prevent renewal of a provision of the bill which requires localities to produce multilingual voting ballots for twenty-five additional years."
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/ia05_king/PRBiligualBallots062106.html

I can see the point of trying to save money on elections and wanting voters to ... or wanting voters who understand the issues in the first place, BUT, we've recently put tons of money into making voting equipment more accessible to those who arne't competent enough to connect the lines or fill in the bubble. If a Spanish-speaking voter is concerned about the issues and wants representation, then until (if ever) English is our national language, they should have that right. To make it fair to all minorities, it should probably be qualified that people speaking a particular language have to reach a certain percentage of American citizens in a given precinct.

This is also unbelievable:

"ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM REP. STEVE KING (AP)

DES MOINES, Iowa – A Washington-based Arab American public policy group is demanding an apology from an Iowa congressman for comments he made Saturday to delegates at the state Republican convention.

The Arab American Institute says Republican Steve King made disrespectful comments about a veteran White House correspondent when he discussed the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a U-S airstrike on June seventh.

King says that al-Zarqawi is now in hell, and if there are any virgins there they probably all look like 85-year-old Helen Thomas."

AP says (in 1987) that you give a man's full name first, then you refer to him by just his last name after that. Makes sense, right?

But women -- you refer to them by their full name first, then you refer to them as Miss, Ms. or Mrs. Such-and-Such. Does this sound mixed up to anyone else? (I'm pretty sure AP doesn't do this anymore, but it seems like someone else still does.)

She was much more adorable from the front, but hopefully you get the idea.

I don't understand... I just photograph.

Clearly this picture has aged now. But this tiny roadside chapel outside of Sioux Center is still picturesque.

"WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprise move, a House panel voted Tuesday for a hike in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25, which would be the first increase in a decade."

(body summary: But it's not going to pass the floor because of political and process confusion.)

... "When adjusted for inflation, the $5.15 per hour wage is the lowest it has been for 50 years, according to a study by Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal-leaning think tank.

'"The minimum wage is lower than it has been at any time since 1956," said Miller, the top Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. "Congress' refusal to raise the minimum wage shows an utter disrespect for millions of Americans who work hard every day and still struggle to meet even the most basic needs."

"But Republicans counter that raising the wage would provoke inflation and lead to job losses, especially for young people just entering the job market.

"At $5.15 per hour, a worker who works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year earns $10,712 per year."
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-13-minimum-wage_x.htm

The man who wrote "The Ox-Cart Man" is the new U.S. poet laureate! (His name is Donald Hall.)

all I really need to know I read in the AP stylebook

New truths for today:

1."Do not follow an organization's full name with an abbreviation or acronym in parentheses." I am guilty of this.

2. "Amendments, ordinances, resolutions and rules are adopted or approved. Bills are passed. Laws are enacted."

3. "Air Force Base" should not be abbreviated in datelines, so they write in 1987. I'm pretty sure that got changed.

4. "Another is not a synonym for additional; it refers to an element that somehow duplicates a previously stated quantity."

5. April Fools' Day should have an apostrophe. I think I have advocated against it in the past.

6. "Legally, however, assault means simply to threaten violence, as in pointing a pistol at an individual without firing it."

7. "The phrase (average of) takes a plural verb in a construction such as: An average of 100 new jobs are created daily." I can feel this one both ways.

**It is a sad, sad thing to say that The Journalist's Bible is fallible -- or at least it was in 1987.

How would it feel to know 700,000 copies of your baby, the stylebook you created, are in print, and that it contains ERRORS? I wouldn't know how to live with myself. At least in the A section, there is not a standard number of spaces between entries. The entry for "association" unnecessarily begins with a capital letter.

And I found part of the "affect, effect" entry amusing:

"Affect, as a noun, is best avoided. It occasionally is used in psychology to describe an emotion, but there is no need for it in everyday language."

journalism, ethics, constitutional freedoms: you name it

Welcome, SIJ! :)

I work in a notorious heavily-republican county. One of our representatives was recently speaking to folks at a nursing home during a reception in his honor. One woman commented during a Q&A time about how upset she was that a school recently outlawed prayer in a graduation ceremony, and expressed outrage that baccalaureate services could not be held in school or on school time.

"It's a sad day when we have to make that separation," the representative replied. "I don't see anything wrong with being able to pray at graduation," I wrote that he wrote, adding that graduates were going out to a harsh world and needed all the help they could get, that faith needs to be part of our whole life.

The woman followed up by asking if he saw long-term plans to put God back into the schools. Vaguely, he replied: "I sense a change in this country... maybe it's not a good one."

Maybe it's just me that finds this a bit astounding (the representative). Yes, I'm a Christian, but the nation was founded on freedom of religion.

As a reporter, (had I a publisher who'd let me mention it any way about it), is this something one should make a big deal about? How would you address this statement? Would you ignore it because he's indulging the elderly, or would you print it?

Clarinet reeds will always make me think of the smell of listerine.

My clarinet case was opened today for the first time since my graduation day. After so long I've been half afraid it had cracked or corks and pads had deteriorated.

No problems, though. I slipped a new reed out of its plastic case. Reeds are picky things. The tip becomes almost paper-thin, and if it touches anything too abruptly it will chip and may not produce any sound anymore.

Even just wetting the reed can be an art. (It has to be wet to make noise.) The first part of assembling a seven-part clarinet is putting the reed in your mouth to soak. You have to open your mouth wide enough when you put the reed in that it won't hit your teeth. It needs to go far enough in so that teeth and tongue tip are not near the reed tip, but no so far that you risk bending it on the roof of your mouth.

Purchasing the reed in the first place is yet another matter. Each clarinetist has their favorite brand and size and refuses to suffer with anything else. (For me? Mitchell Lurie 4's, please. I can live with a 3.5 if I really have to. But don't give me any of this Van Doren or Rico crap.)

And after all that work, you might have a poor reed anyway. They're so fickle. The initially awful ones can age to perfection, but they might not.

Reeds taste like wood when fresh (and like listerine when sanitized). Then they taste like your mouth. A reed used or being used is constantly fussed with because mouth slime is building up on the face of it or drying up there.

Clarinet players are like little mothers constantly fussing about their helpless wooden children.

my name is not Asher Lev

Chaim Potok writes with passion.

His characters feel intense pain and the most mournful sadness and cry out to God and occasionally encounter pleasant happiness.

His characters must be perpetually exhausted just by living. But I envy them.

They are passionate. They are fervent about their love for the Rebbe and for spreading Hasidism and for keeping the commandments. Every move is purposeful. Life is drastic choices.

I want to write that I love Chaim Potok like a grandfather. I pick up his novels like a child eager to hear a story.

He must be a professor, I think, the way he writes so much about vocation -- vocare, you might say easily. And he just might be. His bio says he has a PhD in Philosophy.

I'm surprised it's not psychology. His stuff often deals with a tension between psychology and religion. Danny snuck into the library to read Freud. Danny used his psychology training to treat the girlfriend's cousin. Asher's mom went nuts. Asher's practically nuts himself. That makes me love them more.

The characters are all devoted Hasidic Jews. What's strange is that I feel they're deeply Christian when I'm reading them. Well, it's not really strange. But it's so easy to relate to them despite the key differences in our beliefs, and they have so much to teach me about my own faith.

I admire how cut and dried their lives are. "That's forbidden." This is how we do things. It causes both pain and freedom.

mistress of the house

My mom says the dog believes my dad is the smartest one in the house -- when she whines for something and begins her charades of "Look, my bowl is empty. Look, there is the bag of food," Mom tells her to go lay down and Dad will fill the dog food scoop.

I've lived with an animal for years and years, but it still takes a little time to remember how to do it when I visit her.

Example: I drive up. She's sitting in the yard and wants to come see me. However, she's managed to wind her grazing-rope-leash around a bucket of water and she's confined to a 10-square-foot area.

Example 2: Everyone is in bed, so I head downstairs to the guest room. The dog is also stretched out, snoozing on her fleecey bed. Not two minutes later as I enter the pitch-black bedroom, I hear a rustling behind me. She heard me digging in the jar of -- her favorite -- honey-roasted peanuts and she snapped into action. I throw her a few intermittently, show her my empty hands and say the magic words: "All gone!"

When you have a vacuum-on-legs, you don't have to worry about potato chip crumbs or loose popcorn kernels, or meaty gristle. Whenever the dog comes in from her grazing/surveying of the premises, she heads straight up to the kitchen to review the latest spills. (Deliberate spills in her presence must be preluded with the word "oops." When you use the word in other contexts, she still comes running.)

in good hands

The nurses down the street at the clinic rescued seven baby ducks separated from their mother which were found under two pouncing cats. (An eighth got run over by a car...)

fly me to the moon

This tree, located in Storm Lake, is the descendant of a seed that traveled to the moon with an American astronaut.

more disgrace

(Why do so many thoughts occur while driving?)

To some degree, you could say that we are avoiding disgrace when (if) we rebel from associating with Christian groups we either are ashamed of or disagree with. Maybe we won't register as a Republican because of the ridicule associated with George Bush, or we won't join an anti-abortion group because the public associates them with clinic bombings and doctor assassinations. Maybe we see hypocrisy in evangelical churches, so we look for something more liturgical.

Maybe we are hypocrits, too -- avoiding the disgrace God freely gives (?) and takes away.

disgrace

meaning: often implies humiliation and sometimes ostracism

Zechariah and Elizabeth are a pair of cute old codgers. They always go to temple and say and do the right things, make the right sacrifices -- they're even descended from the line of priests. If you can earn your way to heaven by goodness, then they're right on track.

But they had never been able to have kids. In spite of their moral purity and kind hearts, God's favor was not on them. Elizabeth believes she is disgraced.

Very randomly one day in their golden years, there's an angel and Zechariah's struck mute and Elizabeth's pregnant and the world is upside down. 'The Lord has done this for me,' Elizabeth says. 'In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.'

Six months later, her cousin Mary, another nice little girl, gets her own visit from an angel. This time, the angel flat-out tells her she is highly-favored. She gets a baby, too, and her 'soul glorifies the Lord.' Only it's God's baby and she's not supposed to have a baby yet, technically. She has been given both grace and disgrace.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know why the word disgrace catches my eye so much here. Is grace or disgrace a human conception of life circumstances here? Or is grace passed out apparently willy-nilly -- and disgrace, too, for that matter, regardless of your track record?

you know technology hates you when...

• Saturday AM: You get up to a warm and humid morning. You walk over to your air conditioner, which you've never used... and nothing happens.
• Saturday early PM: Temperature is becoming miserable. You sweat through primping for a friend's wedding, finish wrapping the gift, figure out what to write on the card, look forward to sitting in a cold church.
• Saturday mid PM: In two trips, you manage to get your gear into the car. Put the key in the ignition and.... nothing. Try once more and gather your gear back up without even batting an eye.
• Saturday night: First try sleeping on the floor in front of your fan. Then decide to open the windows and risk being abducted.
• Sunday early PM: Your co-worker tries to call you on your cell phone to tell you she will come help with your car -- only you have no reception. Go over to your landline and try to call her back -- except nothing's happening. Realize something's wrong with phone's sensor and it is not charging. Over the course of two or three calls, communicate with your co-worker to come ASAP.
• Your co-worker (and her toddler grandchildren) arrive. You go to retrieve your jumper cables from your trunk... only the trunk button inside your car has never worked, and your car is so dead it will not respond to your keychain button. Crawl into the backseat and try to reach in through a 6" by 18" hole for it.
• Hook up the cables.... wait a minute or two...
• Notice the smoke coming off the cables on both ends
• Notice the rubber melting off the cables, which had been cooking inside your hot trunk
• Your kind neighbor you've never met pulls up with his own jumper cables. Attaches. Car almost starts.
• Neighbor says you probably need a new starter. (You have had two new starters in the last 10 weeks.)
• Neighbor tries again and car starts. Starter is non-issue.
• Neighbor makes a suggestion that leads to your air conditioner working.
• Take the car to Wal-Mart while the air-conditioner refreshes your abode. Buy a new non-cordless phone.
• Hook up the phone to talk to your mum. Your mom wants to know what that fading in and out noise is all about...

:) We love technology. But do you ever worry we are too technology-dependent? It concerns me quite a bit.

do-it-yourself public relations

(Please, don't read this as look-what-I-did but as a narration of this-is-one-of-the-central-issues-in-my-life-this-week.)

Today my job is to write articles and press releases about what I did on Saturday for my paper, my hometown paper, my grandparents' paper and the college.

Here's what I've got for my paper (censored for security purposes):

Ariel ***, editor of the ***, received six awards at the South Dakota Newspaper Association's (SDNA) annual Better Newspaper Contest in Vermillion on Saturday.

The SDNA named *** its 2006 Outstanding Young Journalist among weekly newspapers. The award goes to an individual 30 years old or younger based upon their work in writing, photography and/or layout.

*** also received a first-place award for best news story, second place awards for best local column and best spot news photo, and third place awards for best humor column and best feature photo.

The awards were given for work *** completed as a reporter and photographer for the *** and the ***, sister papers to the ***.

--30-- (That means the end in newsspeak)

It was a long, long, long day -- the awards are spread out over a luncheon and a supper for goodness only knows why. I got to spend a good two hours out on the campus green reading in the sunshine, and several hours making small talk with my cohorts at our sister papers.

The Outstanding Young Journalist was the only award I really wanted. Part of this is because it is the category with the least competition -- there probably weren't even five people applying for it. If I couldn't win that in such a small state as South Dakota, there's not much hope for anything in the Iowa association awards. And it will look very nice on a resume, especially if they don't know how few choices the SDNA actually had for bestowing the title. :) When I went up to receive it, my co-worker stood up applauding and soon everyone was standing up. It was mortifying. :) For goodness' sake -- I turned in about one thing I was even proud of. (I like having the award but I hate getting it!)

The other awards were each surprising in their own way -- I was surprised to see which of my entries weren't recognized and which were. My favorite photo, a dead ringer, was third to some fires. Fires swept the feature photos. My first place news story was crap -- I would have torn it apart if a Beacon writer gave it to me. The columns received pretty accurate critique, I believed.

What twirked me off, though, was the second-place news photo. What twirked me wasn't that it was given second (I'd give it third) but which photo beat it out. It was a basketball photo! And what's really irritating isn't that basketball won the news category but that the SAME PHOTO also won in the sports photos. It says very explicitly in the rules that something cannot be entered in multiple categories.

Yes, I am complaining about awards. It was really a nice day, though. I can't say I learned a lot from people at other papers, but I have their winning stories to read through so that I can later. It was nice to hear at a session about ethics how people would handle deaths and accident photos and other scenarios. It was nice to sit down and share a meal with co-workers I rarely see. And it was nice to have something to add to my resume so early on in my possibly-brief journalism career.

why I'm glad I live in a small town

People drive past me as I walk down the street this morning. It appears to the passing public that I'm holding my rear end because I:

A)am giving it a good scratch,
B)am taking care of a giant wedgie, or
C)just like the feel of it.

The truth is: D) tried to jump the fence into the high school track for a shortcut. got my pants caught and ended up with a six-inch-long rip in the seat. How far did I have to walk home like that? 13 blocks.

At least it's mid-morning and most people are at work. :)

How do southern states go about teaching their children about the Civil War? Do you tell the children that their ancestors were wrong, died for something bad? Or do you teach with a tone of hostility toward the Union?

happy anniversary to me: one year in the news biz

It was one year ago today that I strolled into the Akron office in an outfit changed again and again at precisely 9 a.m., only to be handed a pen and a notebook and told I was going out to do an interview.

The more entertaining things I've learned have to do with semi-professional/news photography.

• "I need to run take a picture of the staff at the tanning salon. I'll be back in five minutes," I naively told my co-worker several months ago. Even then, it was easy to forget one of the basic principles of news photography: It will always take longer than you think it possibly could (that time, an entire hour). In most cases time is eaten up by waiting for all group members to arrive or become available to photograph.
• Windows are a no good, very bad thing. Lamps can be almost as terrible. Mirrors -- no.
• The bane of every bottom-of-the-totem-pole news photographer's existence: auditorium stage curtains. The darn things suck up light like a black hole. And if the curtains actually are black to begin with, forget it. You might as well go home right away and not strain your finger because 10 to 1 you won't be able to shoot anything that will be of decent newsprint quality.
• A definite advantage to being the designated photographer: Many events don't start until you've arrived. With some minor events, you are the reason they are happening at all. They cater to your schedule.
• Advantage 2: Being able to get up and move around during virtually any type of event or program (even eventually slipping out before the end) in order to get a better angle.
• Disadvantage: Sometimes feeling dumb because you're hiding behind the piano at the front of the auditorium to get a better shot at the stage. Or you're sitting on the floor of the gym during graduation.
• Disadvantage: Travelling light. At an event, you are always on the move. Don't bother to even find a permanent seat if you don't know exactly what shot you need and when it's available. You will be on all sides of the room and in everyone's way and need to have hands free to pick up the camera at any second. Pants with pockets are a must for storing notebook and pen. If you have ever, at any time, noticed your battery was low after just one day's use, the other pocket had better darn well contain backups.
• Useful trick my boss taught me: Group shots for teams are a common encounter. Instead of making the players wait forever while you take their names, bring a notebook and have the coach start writing them out while you are taking the pictures.
• Next time I have a team photo, I'm going to try tweaking that a bit: There is an awkward period of time when the coach is still writing and you are done shooting and the team has to sit there. This is prime time for headshots! One by one, players can stand up and you shoot them then and there. You know their names because the coach is writing them down in order.
• Even quicker: Get the group leader's e-mail address, send them the photo, and let them ID the members on their own time.
• Tip: Get a camera with a quick shutter response, tell the group, "Ready? 1, 2, 3," and snap on Ready, 1, 2 and 3 and throw in your own silent 4. If it's really important, even tell them you're going to take the picture three times for security and you'll end up with 9 to 12 shots. You'll have to count three times, though, if your flash will be really obvious.

diary of a church hopper, part whatever

The tale of Swastika-Carpet Church:

The whole church-hopping process is still dragging along. One obstacle could be that I don’t really believe I’ll find anything I’ll want to commit to, and even if I did chances are I won’t be here more than another year anyway.

The main town I cover is one of those with 10 churches for 2,500 people. Practically everyone belongs to a congregation – even those you would never guess. One of my co-workers even shocked me this week by telling me he was not only a church member but has given dozens of sermons in his lifetime as well. So not infrequently I am asked what church I go to.

Swastika-Carpet Church (RCA) is about five blocks from my apartment. It’s a smallish building with those early ‘70s wooden boat ceilings and orange-upholstered pews. It took me until this morning’s sermon to notice the carpet swastikas. They’re not really noticeable unless you’re closely studying the pattern. It isn’t like they’re red and black or anything – just brown and gold and flowered and wavy. But if I were to photograph it and outline the pattern for you, there’s really no way to deny they’re there.

The style is quite traditional – all organ accompaniment, no drums or guitars of any kind, not even a hint of PowerPoint fundraising. The pews are surprisingly full.

One thing about this congregation is that it looks to be Sundays-only. There is Sunday morning worship and Sunday School and evening worship.

This morning one lady asked my name. I said my first name and she replied, “Oh! From the newspaper!” Same incident occurred when shaking the pastor’s hand. The lady works at the library and was nice – asked me where I was from and where I was living and said she liked my articles. The lady sitting next to me asked my name too and shared her Bible with me.

The pastor, I’d bet, is a relatively recent NWC grad. At the very least he must be the brother of a recent grad from the theater department. And this pastor sounds like he came out of the theater department, too – I need to learn to live with the fact that some pastors use purposeful voice inflection. We aren’t all looking for the same thing in a pastor. Some are looking for interesting instead of honest. (Not that everyone isn’t concerned about honesty…) While I was sort of listening this morning I wondered – what would it take for me to like a pastor? The only pastor I’ve met in a long time (besides Will Healy just for being Will Healy) that I’ve really liked was at St. George’s. But again, St. George’s is the most unusual of congregations – full of academics and very much Sunday only. To my knowledge, the pastor’s role there is more so official permanent celebrant and figurehead more than really leader. But I like that. But “real” congregations (normal, full-time, larger, diverse) do need some kind of leader.

Update in short: There is no progress. If anything, I’m farther from committing to a congregation than I’ve been in my entire life. Much of this, though, is life circumstances.

But, as the pastor said this morning, we need to learn to be content in all circumstances. And I know he was right.

Side note: Does it seem accurate that congregations use pathetic (emotional) arguments much more than the average rhetor today?

things that remind me of my mom

Porch swings: Every morning warm enough, early, as soon as she had gotten Dad off to work and brewed her coffee, my mom did her devotions out on our front porch. She swings, with that unintentional but innate gentle rocking motion most women who were meant to be mothers have. Usually, I was awake as soon as she and Dad were, but I knew enough to stay in the shadows. And once she was settled into her devotions (and I’d counted the school buses going by out the window), I’d creep downstairs with my afghan and lay my head in her lap while she rocked and rocked, sips and passing cars the only things breaking the silence.

The word ‘occupied’: My sister and I had a habit of following my mom anywhere – even into the bathroom – whenever we wanted to tell her something. A few times, even before I could actually read “Cinderella,” she would tape a piece of paper with the word ‘occupied’ written on it to the bathroom door when she went inside. We didn’t know what occupied meant, so we were still asking her questions through the door. “Mommy, what does this sign say? What’s occupied mean? Can we have some Kool-Aid?

Tomatoes: Each summer, her greatest horticultural ambition is to raise a successful crop of tomatoes. For many years, they would blight over like clockwork, or the rabbits would manage to get at them, or a storm would wither them beyond hope. She’s had a lot of success lately, with some years more tomatoes than she can deal with without having to can them.

Sewing machines, all fabrics and the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook: Things my mom has found fascinating since she was five.

Pastels (as in for artwork): She had a box tucked away somewhere that we kept finding and begging her to let us use in our coloring books or as sidewalk chalk.

Teakettles: For her habitual drinking. (Now she is using a regular saucepan, to the chagrin of many in the household.)

Jerry Lewis and Bob Ross.

The names Tillie (especially in reference to Tillywompus), Edith, Meredith, Margaret, Annie, and Paula.

Marigolds and pooping earthworms.

And Tabasco sauce and horseradish.

nothing new under the sun -- more pop culture

Because it stars Jill Hennessey (former -- well, you be the judge -- ADA from seasons 4-6 of Law & Order), I tried to get into NBC's "Crossing Jordan." The show is about a SWF who works in the Boston coroner's office. Her mom was mysteriously murdered when she was young and last I knew her dad is on the run from someone or other. She works with a cop who she's had a relationship with in the past. This past week, she woke up covered in blood, holding a gun next to an off-again-on-again boyfriend who was dead.

A new show on Fox this year is "Bones." She's a forensic anthropoligist (analyzes bones to determine cause of death, etc.) in D.C. who is very un-emotional, highly logical. Her parents disappeared when she was about 15. She works closely with Booth, an FBI agent. They do not have a "relationship," but people are constantly mistaking them for a couple and the writers are always hinting something could happen eventually. Earlier this season, Bones blacked out for a whole day and was the most logical culprit for a gruesome murder.

Others have remarked on very similar episodes between the two. And really, the similarities are endless. Who are the supporting characters in each show? "Crossing Jordan" has the head of the coroner's office, a man who is loosely a mentor to her; two geeky, quirky young men who help in the lab; and Lily, the grief counselor, Jordan's good friend. The cop has various lawyer or cop girlfriends from time to time.

"Bones" supporting cast: the male head of the institute she works at (a mentor-type); two young quirky men who are her lab assistants; and Angela, some sort of forensic artist who is also Bones' best friend.

Yes, clearly this is earth-shattering and worth reading six paragraphs about.

Theoretically, "Bones" is the copycat since it came around a couple of years later. But, to be honest, I like "Bones" more. The characters are a little lighter, you don't want to slap Bones for being so dramatic and wishy-washy, and the fact her relationship with Agent Booth is lightly hinted at is more realistic and believable.

I wish I wasn't saying it -- if it weren't for Claire (Jill Hennessey, the Jordan of "Crossing Jordan"), I'd pick "Bones" hands down.

on religion

There's a radio spot on the biggest local station advertising a site called "notreligion.org." It's geared, it seems, toward those who grew up disillusioned in the church and aims to persuade them that it's not religion that has eternal value but a relationship with God.

"I grew up in the 'church' and it was all rules and regulations. It wasn’t until I went to college that I found out that God doesn’t want “religion;” He wants a relationship. He’s made this relationship possible by sending us His Son, Jesus. (See John 3:16)," writes contributor.

"Would it shock you to know that God isn't interested in religion? Religion is the human effort to reach God through rules and rituals. What God wants is for you to respond to His invitation to join Him in a relationship," explains another talking point. "And while every family has rules, the rules aren't what the family is all about. Religion can never meet our deepest needs; for that, it takes a relationship."

This site and these arguments make me nervous. For one thing, it is essentially bashing the church and, well, either any positive experience a visitor previously had with a church may be trumped, or the visitor will stick with their positive view of the church and tune out the site's message. Church-bashing, while some of the reasons may be valid, puts the organization on some shaky ground because where they might try to "plug in" a responder locally will more than likely need to be a church.

Second, the modern trend of rebelling against liturgical religion is, in a way, a fad. Personally, I believe one explanation for this may be the strength of the Catholic church (and other liturgical traditions)in the 60s, when most of our parents were young. We tend to rebel against what we grew up with of late, so liturgy has been going "out." I would be surprised if liturgy doesn't rebound in the relatively near future as those who grew up "nondemoninational" grow to rebellion.

Third is mostly a personal dilemma -- included in these quotes is something I'm beginning to suspect could be a fallacy. (While many evangelicals accuse Catholics, etc. of adding scripturally-unbased theology, sometimes I think the finger may need to be pointing both ways.)This statement, Religion can never meet our deepest needs; for that, it takes a relationship -- what is it based on? Does anyone know of scriptural support for the promise that God can meet our every need? No doubt it is out there -- I just can't think of it offhand. I would like to believe it. It sounds nice. But I'm getting more suspicious of my own theology as time goes by. What do I believe because it sounds comforting, loving, radical, and what is there really evidence for?

everyone else is doing it

My Personal DNA Report
It was "accurate" than I expected but probably less accurate than the truth.

out at the park

netscape tabloid, pt. 2

Just to finish up this series and be fair to the ever-perplexing majority of regular readers who are single men, the following are the Ten Things Every Single Woman Should Own.

"1. A fabulous photo of yourself -- Post that sucker at eye level on your fridge so your male guest can't help but notice it as he checks out if you have beer (see item #5). What he says: "Is that you?" What he means: 'Daa-aamn, girl, you're hotter than I realized!'" I don't know if I buy this. Thoughts?

"2. A pretty pair of heels -- Admit it. You feel like Maria from West Side Story (You feel pretty, oh so pretty…) when you slip on a pair of nice heels." I think I do own some heels of various types, but I can't say I enjoy wearing them or feel anything but awkward while doing so. Men, do men like heels and if so, how much and why?

"3. An Eminem CD -- Balance out your collection with one CD, any CD, by Eminem and you have no idea how relieved he'll be. It shows you have an open mind and aren't easily offended—and that's music to any man's ears." Mmm, forget it.

"4. A great pickup line…and a way to blow 'em off -- In this post-chivalrous period, we can't always depend on guys to initiate contact, so prepare thyself with one simple, non-cheesy icebreaker to lay on that cutie who's making his way to your area of the bar." Do real people seriously use pick-up lines?

"5. A six-pack of good bottled beer -- A prepared single girl is ready to host and toast at any time. " So far, this is probably the closest tip to being realistic.

"6. Bathroom reading" -- I think they were desperate to find 10 things.

"7. A business card -- After the age of 18, it's no longer cute to scrawl your first name and phone number on a napkin and hand it to a man who wants to call you." Yep, they were desperate.

"8. Earplugs -- Ah, there's nothing sweeter than a man who wants to cuddle up with you in bed for a long night's sleep. Unless—SNZZGGHGHRRJJZZZ!—he snores so loudly you can't get any sleep." Wow, really desperate.

"9. A straight male friend on your speed-dial -- Every girl knows she needs a gay male friend she can go to for fashion advice (a personal Queer Eye for Your Closet). But when it comes to relationship advice, you need another source." Really, really desperate. Wow, this list is a letdown. It's not even amusing like the other one was.

10. -- I'll just let you guess what this one might have been.

netscape: the online tabloid

One of my co-workers has Netscape mail. Netscape's homepage is full of links about strange news or celebrity news or online dating advice. Occasionally he will read to us stories about the top 100 places to live in the U.S. or a Bigfoot theory or what have you. Entertainment. And entertainment is all well and good, it just makes me think of tabloids when it's in this form.

You have to give them credit: these topics do catch your eye and pique your interest. For example: today, a link advertised "Ten things every single man should have," and although you know you won't agree with them, you still want to know what ridiculous things they said. And here's what they said:

"1. A Top-Notch Coffee/Espresso Maker -- Any girl who’s at your place for dinner (or lounging in your bed come morning) deserves a classier send-off than “see ya,” so trade in your college-days $20 coffee maker for a machine that’ll give Starbucks a run for its money. " The recommended machine runs for $230. Maybe that $230 would be better spent... anywhere else at all.

"2. A Lamp in Your Bedroom -- Now, all of you, go out and buy a bedside lamp with a fabric shade. This inexpensive trifle is not lost on women, who not only see it as a sign of your civility (imagine that, a light switch within arm’s reach vs. across the room!), she’ll also feel much more comfortable under its softer, more forgiving glow." (Gag, gag...)

"3. Swiffer Sweeper + Swiffer Cloths + Swiffer Wet Cloths -- For her, walking across your floor barefoot should not be an exercise in muck tolerance." This one's okay -- they really are handy gadgets. I would buy them if my apartment wasn't completely carpeted.

"4. A Comfortable Couch -- Repeat after me: You do not need a black leather couch. Skip the cliché and pick out a plush upholstered sofa, like the simple, elegant, under $1,000 Mercer at Roomandboard.com." Everyone should have a comfortable couch, not just single men. I really need a new couch, too. Or any couch at all.

"5. Nice Underwear -- When it comes to your love life, the last thing you want is for your underwear to be a mood-killer..." (lol)

"6. A Key-Ring That Can Fix, Cut, and Open Anything -- Sure, your power-tool collection is outstanding—but it'll do you no good sitting in your closet when your date's sunglasses come apart at the restaurant." Tell your freaking date to buy a new pair of sunglasses. Why the heck does she need her sunglasses functioning at the restaurant anyway? Chances are it's evening and the sun isn't out anymore...

"7. $150+ Jeans -- Why cough up that much dough when you can find a seemingly fine pair for much less? Because designer denim does make a difference—and you can wear them everywhere from a dive bar to a five-star restaurant, if paired with the right shirt and suit jacket." 1) Never wear jeans, no matter their worth, to a five-star restaurant. 2) The only kind of date who will notice your jeans are designer denim is the kind that may spend you out of house and home one day.

"8. $200+ Dress Shoes -- Accept it: Girls are into footwear, and your feet will be one of the first things she looks at." 1) No they won't. 2) I have never seen a pair of shoes that cost more than $125 in my entire life. 3) If I knew my date was wearing $200+ dress shoes, I would think he was an incredibly irresponsible spender.

"9. 300-Thread-Count Cotton Sheets"-- That's a tad overboard. And who sits and counts the threads, anyway?

"10. The Joy of Cooking -- Few things are sexier than a guy who can cook…" Am I the only girl in the world who doesn't think a guy who can cook is particularly sexy? I can't figure out why everyone doesn't think the other way around -- that a guy who can't cook, is "helpless," is particularly sexy (not that I think that, either). That at least my stimulate the female "mothering" instinct (and please forgive the word "mothering" in connection with dating, but it really is true).

'A picture is worth 488 words' or 'Newspaper production at a small weekly'

On my tax return, I noted next to my virtually useless Social Security Number that my occupation is “journalist.” I might as well not have entered anything, though, for all that word really specifies how I spend my 40 hours a week.

From the scoop-hunting newsrooms of The Washington Post to the sole news desk in the corner at the Sioux County Capital-Democrat, journalism entails completely different things.

One visits washingtonpost.com once or twice a day in order to learn what is happening in the world – murders, bombings, government scandals, new laws, you name it. But in your average small-town newspaper, the news isn’t what sells subscriptions. (Subscriptions are essential – a higher number of subscribers both attracts more advertisers and makes a publication eligible for certain types of legal advertising, which brings in a good chunk of change.) A household subscribes, reads regularly, because the businesses they shop at advertise, or because they want to know who among their neighbors was arrested or married or gave birth or died, how the high school football team did, what free events are coming up. A big-city newsroom would be concerned with none of these things, but they’re the first things you might look for in your weekly. The name is rather misleading – news is the most expendable portion of a weekly paper. Yes, the occasional controversy at the school board will sell some extra issues that week, but counter sales are a minimal income for this type of publication. If the news stories there are are truly heinous, the paper will be less successful, but moving from decent stories to fantastic stories won’t make much difference to the bottom line.

The first thing that must be done each week in the news department at a weekly (often one person) is an assessment of how much space (or how many column-inches, in newsspeak) must be filled. What makes this step most challenging, perhaps, is that it isn’t possible.

The majority of newspapers are funded by advertising, and just how much room the advertising will take up in a given week is not finalized until just hours before the deadline. If an unusually large amount has been sold, the newspaper may choose to add extra pages to the issue. Here, however, there lies a fine line. If only a large amount of ads has been sold (but not unusually large), then the publication may remain at a normal number of pages and the news “department” will be cramped for space. But if the staff extends the issue, they will find themselves “loose” on space and scrambling to find enough copy. How many pages to run is not a decision lightly made, especially among tabloid-size publications that can only adjust their length by increments of four pages.

Formerly, my title was “reporter/photographer.” Again, this was somewhat deceiving as to my actual duties. At least 20 percent of every week is spent in what is called “layout,” or production, of the newspaper. We create what the readers see completely by computer, and it takes significant time to do it. It might take me an hour and a half to actually write the front page text, but it will often take at least that much time just to arrange that page in its final setup.

Challenges:
*A photograph or image of some type really needs to begin “above the fold,” or on the top half of the page.
*The most important or most interesting story needs to be at the top. Sometimes more than one story deserves to be up there, or you’d rather that readers saw more than one headline above that fold. Unfortunately, it is very dangerous to place two headlines directly next to each other, or you might end up with “Peas are good, Bush says”/”Clowns make good friends,” or something hilarious you’d find on Jay Leno. How do you separate them and keep the page looking good?
*Stories should form one rectangle whenever possible.
*Every line, corner, cranny must be filled. Sometimes you must add to or cut from a story to make it fit in the space you have.
*Your photographs might only “work” on one side of the page. If the person is facing left, the photo will most likely need to be placed on the left side of the page. Maybe you have two photos and they both need to be placed on the left. Then your page is off-balance. Or maybe it isn’t off balance, but they leave an awkward amount of space left between them that is too narrow to fit a headline and the start of a story.
*Your headlines must be catchy, must be complete phrases when possible, and they must come as close to the far edge of the column whenever humanly possible. You just try writing a two column-wide headline that inevitably must include “sex offender” and “ordinance.” The phrase you use must place the two terms on separate lines – the terms will not fit on the same line (in the appropriate font size) and neither can be hyphenated and continued on the next line.
*Headline fonts must decrease as you go down the page.

A picture, so they say, is worth 1,000 words. That’s a rather liberal estimate, I say. Your standard tall two-column photo will compensate for maybe 400 words worth of space (similar to a 4x6 snapshot). When you add in a caption (make it a long one), you might be talking 450 words. Add a title, and you could make 500. Still, even 400 words is a considerable hole when it comes to the crunch before the deadline. When our office assistant tells me that I’ve cleaned out her stash of filler photos, this is a warning to be heeded. Readers love photos, and I love giving them photos (a quick fix to most problems), but sometimes there just aren’t any photos to be had.

1,000 wet cows in the dark

On my way home tonight I drove past a feedlot. In Iowa. Can you believe it?

Only I couldn't see the cows. I've seen the confinement many times before and there are just hundreds and hundreds of cows eating themselves to death calmly every day.

But tonight, I noted that I could only see a dozen or so of them as it was pitch black and the night smothered the few yard lights. 1,000 cows are out there in the dark.

And they had to be soaking wet, too -- it's been raining for two days, supposed to rain two days more...

1,000 soaking wet cows lowing in the pitch black night. Is this the most miserable place you could imagine, I wondered? Wet, dark, laying in the mud, the smell, probably cold...

Or, I wondered, is it not so terrible after all? Yes, you're wet, it's dark, but you know what's out there -- your 999 closest friends. Sniff, sniff -- there's Bessie laying in the slop next to mine. Sniff, sniff -- there's Dolly over there. Community.

Commoonity...

Hmm. Who knows.

Top 10 Reasons I Like My Roommates

10. They've seen me at my messiest, and they're not afraid to say so.
9. They don't throw pillows if I reset my alarm once or twice a morning.
8. They let me read stories to them.
7. They can tell when something's wrong.
6. They have nice clothes ... that they let me borrow.
5. They don't lock me out if I forget to take out the trash, or wash the dishes, or clean the bathroom, or vaccum, or...
4. They're busier than me so sometimes I had the room to myself.
3. M & Ms
2. We all have sisters the same age.
1. They aren't stuck-up jocks like I thought they were during freshman orientation. :)

degree surfing

So... about sixty years to fill.

Step one: Pick up the "Rhetorical Grammar" textbook and see if you can major in rhetorical grammar.

Step two: Google all the schools listed in the acknowledgements in all the rhetoric textbooks in the bookshelf.

Step three: Read every page linked to UI Urbana-Champagne's writing studies program. See the words theory and pedagogy and critical so much that grad school doesn't sound fun anymore.

Step four: Go back to Mizzou's graduate editing homepage and picture yourself with a can of red pens and a bookshelf full of stylebooks (one of which you compiled). Headline snafus are tacked up all over your bulletin board.

Step five: Remember the money-hungry ad monster that makes the newspaper possible.

Step six: Check your e-mail for the 56th time this hour and wonder if anyone wants to pay you $30,000 a year to proofread previously published newspapers, conjugate French verbs and work algebra problems in a tulip field where chocolate mysteriously has no caloric value.

4/25/42
Hello, love.

It was just about the best birthday any four year old could ever ask for – minus one crucial ingredient, of course.

You were right – Jimmy and his four little friends loved the army theme, especially the little Spam cakes. I didn’t hear any whining at all about the lack of chocolate frosting. Well, Bridge did ask why she couldn’t have Gimby ice cream, but I did a premo job of distracting the boys right away – I asked who was ready to go secure the perimeter around General Patton’s pigsty. There was a lot of yelling and half-eaten Spam cake on the floor, but spirits were high and, well, you know that’s what counts. I think I’m starting to get the hang of this mothering thing after four years, but half the time I still can’t believe they don’t have a real mom somewhere who will come take them away from me. Either that, or Gimby will finally get fed up with my incompetence and send me packing.

As expected, there were a few moments when Jimmy was on the brink of tears, like when he opened up the official army duffle you sent. He kept a brave face because his friends were there and your dad was watching. As he was getting into his pajamas he did finally break down. At the very least I was thankful Bridget was already asleep and I had no other place to be in the world than in Gimby’s old rocker with my worn-out, heartbroken little boy in my lap. He finally cried himself to sleep, but I didn’t try to stop him.

The day wore on me so much that I fell asleep the moment I hit the mattress. I was sleeping so heavy that I only woke up once wondering why I couldn’t smell the sweet smell of your sweat. And I can’t help worrying about that. Am I forgetting you? That thought kept me from sleeping at all the next night and made me forget the baking powder in the breakfast muffins. You should have seen your dad's face. I worry every day that the day will come when I will want to forget you ever showed your face at that barn dance, that I ever professed my love for haylofts, that you told your mother off about my lousy cooking skills. I know there isn’t much you can do, but – please don’t let that day ever come.

Your dad says he thinks the corn will come up faster than usual this year, even in spite of the flooding. He hasn’t ripped Georgia’s udders all to sheds yet but Gimby still tells him he will every day. Her shaking is getting a little bit worse. The milk almost started spilling out of the pitcher at the party while she was holding it. Virginia is so smitten with that Rogers boy now that Gimby swears up and down that she’ll probably ask him to the Myers’ square dance.

Jimmy is sending you a picture he drew of him and Skip securing the horse barn. Bridge’s scrawl is Gimby spanking Jimmy for tramping around in your dad’s boots all over her clean floor.

I cross myself every time I hear the chime and say a prayer for you.
Barely breathing,
Maisie

'a picture is worth 488 words' or 'how house ads saved my sanity' or 'newspaper production at a small weekly'

captivating: THE END

That's right -- there is indeed an end to this book. And I did finally manage to get there.

Long and short: From a literary standpoint, I contend it would have made a more effective essay than book-length work. There was a lot of material that was kind of a stretch to tie into the theme at all. At times I wondered if it was just a chance to write about oneself, but that's an incredibly cynical thought so I'm trying to stifle it. But as there's not much of a venue for essays in Christian pop lit, I guess this was what there was.

(It helped in finishing that I found a new fantastic reading spot -- a sunny hill across the street that overlooks a real field and owls are calling back and forth to each other and all that jazz.)

One thing I started to think about toward the end was that the author's preferred rhetorical tools and mine do not line up. Several friends mentioned that they've read the book and loved it, which makes me feel kind of snooty and bad. (So please, don't forget that when you too read it and think it's fantastic.) The authors tend to use pathetic argument (meaning sort of emotion-as-reason arguments, not pathetic as in really bad), whereas I'd personally prefer a logical argument when someone is trying to prove to me that "this is the essence of a woman" and so on. Quite possibly the Eldredges did not write in order to be be argued with, but more to let people think about particular topics in a new way.

Who am I to judge until I've published (and actually written) my own crap.
(I'm well on my way with an extensive vocabulary including the word "crap.")

I would like you all to meet my most prized possession. No, it is not my sister. Possession.

But possession in the loose sense, as in it hasn't legally been mine for 15 years, yet it is mine all the same.

Surronding my sister you may notice a greenish porch swing. Now imagine you had a way-back machine and could see it in its proper sky blue state. Isn't it amazing? Look how swingy it looks. And what a view! And it's right there hanging on a ceilinged-porch in case it has been raining for days and you just have to take your Barbies outside to go camping.

It probably doesn't look very big but it does comfortably seat three five-year-olds or a five-year-old and a mom. With a little less roomminess it will seat a mom, a five-year-old and a three-year-old, but a mom, a five-year-old, a three-year-old and a screaming baby is really pushing it. Even a mom and a dad and a child of any age is pretty awkward.

My only goal in life that does not change like vocare in a passing breeze is to once again own a hanging porch swing.

Over and over...

Close my eyes and hold my heart
Cover me and make me something
Change this something normal into something beautiful

Why do I like Jars of Clay? It should be clarified that it's more of a love-hate relationship. Particular songs will resonate for years at a time,

Take the selfish, take the weak, and all the things I cannot hide

Though the pain is an ocean
Tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
Higher mountains have come down

and others fall in and out of favor.

I want to fall in love with You.

It should also be noted that I own the majority of their CDs, yet the majority of that majority is not currently in my possession. If you are responsible for this, you know who you are. :) Burn a copy and send it to me?

There's a large public cemetery near my apartment. Today I took a walk around the edge of it. Instead of reaking with sadness, love seemed to be overarching emotion inside the grounds. It really is a large cemetery for the size of the town.

It was a little unsettling to see a husband's name with no death date on the headstone with the dead wife. Yes, obviously they will want to be buried together so he knows where he's going and his name won't be changing and his birthdate won't either, but... It's still a bit morbid to me.

i heart south dakota

The Sioux Falls news was talking about a mumps case that popped up in the area. They said you should check your medical records if you don't know if you've been vaccinated. Because most clinics are closed for the weekend, they said, "Check with your mother, or another medical professional who might know."

how well can we afford to be?

Last week I stopped by the local pharmacy. On my way out, I wrote a hefty $35 check for a month's worth of two daily medications. That does not include vitamins.

Now, these medications are not vital to my existence. I have lived without them in the past and would not be at (very significant) risk of death without them. But still -- $35 for 70 pills? Can I afford to be more comfortable? Is it worth $560 a year to be cheerier and blow my nose less?

Someone once made an interesting point about prescription meds (esp. for seniors). Yes, seniors are paying outrageous prices for the medications controlling their heart conditions and blood pressure and Parkinson's and so on and so forth. Some must choose between meds and meals.

But sometimes we lose perspective of the fact that part of why healthcare has become so expensive is that we are living so much longer. These miracle pills are causing people not to die of heart attacks at 60 and add on another 20 years to the time they would have had half a century before.

This is not to say people are not entitled to these medications if they exist, but... I don't know what I'm trying to say.

in the news (of me)

• Easter, as you know, is over. I went home and ate chocolate with the fam. Because my lovely new camera arrived in time, it came home with me and I took a couple hundred photos (whittled down, then, to 40 worth looking at) of them and their activities. Photos to come when my computer cooperates.
• My landlord sent me a letter and asked me to pay less rent from now on.
• I went shopping with my mom. This entails trying on clothes -- not fun. Yes, I picked out the clothes (and paid for them), but this required me looking at myself a lot. Anytime you are looking at yourself you find a myriad of things wrong with you. So you come home with a bag or two but a level of self-esteem far more deflated than before you left. And then there's the shopping headache. I try on armloads of things and sometimes come home with one or two items (and never what you were looking for in the first place). My mom is one of the few people I feel comfortable clothes shopping with, because I'm such a slow browser/trier-on-er.
• I've won six awards through the South Dakota Newspaper Association. It will be the end of May before I know what they are. That's kind of mean and torturous of them to give you a little hint and then leave you hanging for five weeks.
• Two words: allergy season. The torture began slowly Wednesday and was full-blown misery by Thursday afternoon. Gradually they have been relenting, with relative normalcy restored today, no thanks to prescription meds.

things I like about my job

1. Events don't start until I arrive. Example: The ribbon-cutting for the new track could only be moved up 45 minutes if I could make it at the earlier time.
2. I can go pretty much wherever I want. I can stand in the front of the room, get up in the middle of the program, stand backstage, stand on the field, on the track, on the roof of the AV room...
3. People already know what my name is and why I'm there just because I'm holding a camera.
4. I get 475 words each week to write about whatever the heck I want.
5. I can leave number 5 until tomorrow if I want.

just kidding

On second thought, it makes more sense to shut down the other blog. This one is prettier and lets me post photos. Sorry for the temporary confusion.

the end

Irony -- the 200th post will be the last. Thanks for reading.

two things

Thing 1: My goal is to learn plant and bird names by the end of the summer.

Thing 2: I confess that I have never "witnessed" to someone with words. That was one reason I would get really nervous in conversations with my (now ex-) co-worker that veered toward religion. He went to a "Christian" college and took several religion classes, so he knows his theology and his Bible better than many Christians. He knows what he's talking about in a conversation. I'm a little shakier. (Plus I cannot think on my feet.)

Some friends of his have been trying to get him to visit their Bible study. He's really ticked off about this. And he made a good point: What's a more threatening picture than joining a group of people who all believe this Bible is truth when you don't and they're all going to be attacking you with questions?

What then is my role as a Christian? Apparently asking someone to your Bible study is not a clear-cut answer. Pushiness does not seem to be the answer. Is it being that "book" for others to read? That friend who listens? Or just to plant another seed as a picture of a Christian who was not judging him?

packing

Awhile ago I heard about a speaker who asked his audience to love the poor and leave things behind as they left that very room. It would have been so powerful to see.

The challenge is even more stressful as I take a good look at every single thing I own and attempt to box it up for transport. How much of this do I need? Eight plates? There's only one of me. I don't have company often enough to merit seven extras. On the other hand, most people want a full set of plates (if I were to give them to goodwill).

One big issue is the TV. I picked up this bigger TV at a yard sale. For me, it's huge, since it's just me and my old TV (which I still have) is 13". Now, no one person needs two TVs. I could get rid of the little one... only it's a VCR combo and the whole thing goes wacko if you put a tape in now. So it's essentially junk to someone else. To me, it works just fine without the tape component. What would be truly generous is to give the big TV. But I paid for it with my hard-earned money. So? God didn't really ask how you got it or why you have it.

Then there are these CDs I don't listen to. They're not in the greatest shape. I might want to listen to them again. Or maybe my siblings will want them. Hmm...

Looking at the pile of stuff I have to donate, it is not the cream of the crop of my crap. It is the things I don't like, don't use, don't remember. It is not a sacrifice. I can't afford to sacrifice right now. I can just barely afford to move at all. The woman at the temple gave everything she owned.

I really need some new Birkenstocks this summer. No, you don't. Seriously, they're six years old and ratty-looking.

Is there a line between generosity and wisdom? Giving everything and risking becoming a burden on society yourself? Are there moments we're not called to give everything? That we're allowed to keep some of it?

P.S. Books are my biggest weakness. I actually had to go out and buy a bookshelf this week to accomodate all of them in my new apartment -- I have a built-in bookshelf here. What about libraries??

And above all these, restore to me love.
The love of life:
sunshine
quacking
chocolate
snowstorms
necks
humming
red
blue
nectarines
words
hugs
cold
sandpaper
flannel
hills.
The love of people:
angry ones
wrong ones
fat ones
anorexic ones
sad ones
cheerful ones
noisy ones
irritating ones
bashful ones
mine.
The love of you:
whom I've never seen
doubt others really see
who is silent
colorful
not a hugger.

don't you just hate it?

Do you ever get upset about getting upset over something little?

Today, for instance. I get in to work and pick up this week's paper and the very first thing I see is a mistake -- because it's a pretty blaring one (to me at least). It's the headline on the top story on the front page. Part of it is MISSING. (For techies, I text-wrapped an object around its clipping path on the left hand side, and either the object got slightly shifted or the text got shifted a bit so that the first two words got blocked off.)

Yes, the two words that are missing are miraculously not crucial. It still happens to be a full, appropriate phrase without them. Just a capital letter is missing on the first word, and there's this glaring white space. Part of a cutline is missing, too, which wasn't saved as well, but I don't care about cutlines. I probably misspelled the lady's name, anyhow.

And I'm ticked off. I went and looked at the page before it was PDF'd for production, and it's wrong right there, which means the error was made here and not at the printer's. I looked at my printed copy, and it's still just fine there. Conclusion: it's my co-worker's fault. Obviously he didn't try to do it and is beating himself up because he did. I know he feels terrible and angry. (Although he also doesn't feel as bad because he's blaming it on the incompetency of the printer, who caused him to mess with it at all in the first place.)

So I shouldn't be mad at him. These things happen, and this thing could have been much worse. If a certain part of this woman's name had been cut off, we'd have had problems. Big problems. But I'm ticked! It was a neat set-up, and now I can never use the clipping. And yes, he works too hard already, but if he'd taken one more second to double-check his work, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Why am I so mean? I make mistakes, too, in fact have made a similar affecting someone else's work before. And he does work too hard. But when people see the mistake, I'm the one who will look stupid.

Get a life, Ariel.