Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Such a lonely little clause
While not quite at the level of Caleb's Internet deprivation, I certainly feel like my recreational Internet time has definitely been suffering as of late. I've heard it from no less than three people that I spend a long time on the Internet. Well, it's true, how am I going to argue with that? As a result, however, I seem to be getting the "shakes" when I'm rendered incapable of checking up on blogs (and by blogs I mean important people's lives. I'm not kidding.). Most of my time, however, has been spent working for my bread, noodles, beer, Coke and Cheerios (I'm almost a little embarrassed to look at my refrigerator, it's sad). At least that time when I'm even near a computer, I only just yesterday had dial-up access at home.
At the moment, however, I'm free to browse the Internet at my leisure in the brilliantly Praire style (think Frank Lloyd Wright) library in Pittsburg(sp.), Kansas. This place is amazing, and it certainly does me good to know what I was looking at in the beginning. For a journalist without a Pittsburg library card anxious for anyone that will give him bandwith to send his stories. When I was across the street I was trying to figure out what this building looked like, there were Cherokee (no joke) Red shingles, a cantilevered very horizontal roof (a dead give away), concrete construction, lots of very straight and, in lapse of them, organic lines, flower pots that resembled temple offering bowls and the distinct script on the signs on the doors, this place has definite resemblances to Taliesin.
I love the building, and the librarians were very happy that I was excited about it. I think, again, it helped me cover my butt for the business I'll need to do out of Pittsburg, like the story I turned in today, only 14 minutes short of making my deadline. Honestly, I need to get on the ball about those deadlines, I was closer today than I was yesterday, which, I felt, was pretty good, considering I only made it into town around 9:50 this morning and had to get to know a whole new town and university before devoting any real time to gathering information for the story I was supposed to (and managed to) get today. I really only took about 2 real hours to report this thing and one hour to write it.
Honestly chewing out a story while trying to make contacts scares me each and every day. Every day my thought is "please let me find something to report today." I feel like it may get a little easier when I can get people to call me, but that takes a lot of time and a lot more work to really pull together. Until then I'm sweating a new day and writing on my afternoons. I guess this is real reporting, until now most of my stories were handed to me by an editor, and that was enough for them. Oddly I can't help but think of the reporters who were handling my work load while they were still in school, I guess it just took me longer to catch up.
On the other hand, I was on the Pittsburg State University campus today and, quite frankly, kept asking myself the same question: "why do people ever leave college?" Everyone is young and attractive. There's a very loud voice in my head trying to convince me to go back and ask someone out.
And in a brand new tangent I need to find some spiritual base again. I felt like I was almost there last night, almost where God seemed as palpable as he did. I've been so apathetic for so long that religion sometimes seems like a really hazy concept, like the lines fading at the bottom of a watercolor canvas in the rain.
Taliesin, and forgive me for being snobby, was Frank Lloyd Wright's studio. It's not like I know anything about architecture, I just know a Wright-influenced building because it's so distinct, you literally can't miss it. It's like a Van Gogh painting: it quite simply doesn't look like anything else. Or it's like a Mozart piece, which, when you listen to it, is so distinct with the staccato tunes and clean notes that it doesn't sound like other composers.
At the moment, however, I'm free to browse the Internet at my leisure in the brilliantly Praire style (think Frank Lloyd Wright) library in Pittsburg(sp.), Kansas. This place is amazing, and it certainly does me good to know what I was looking at in the beginning. For a journalist without a Pittsburg library card anxious for anyone that will give him bandwith to send his stories. When I was across the street I was trying to figure out what this building looked like, there were Cherokee (no joke) Red shingles, a cantilevered very horizontal roof (a dead give away), concrete construction, lots of very straight and, in lapse of them, organic lines, flower pots that resembled temple offering bowls and the distinct script on the signs on the doors, this place has definite resemblances to Taliesin.
I love the building, and the librarians were very happy that I was excited about it. I think, again, it helped me cover my butt for the business I'll need to do out of Pittsburg, like the story I turned in today, only 14 minutes short of making my deadline. Honestly, I need to get on the ball about those deadlines, I was closer today than I was yesterday, which, I felt, was pretty good, considering I only made it into town around 9:50 this morning and had to get to know a whole new town and university before devoting any real time to gathering information for the story I was supposed to (and managed to) get today. I really only took about 2 real hours to report this thing and one hour to write it.
Honestly chewing out a story while trying to make contacts scares me each and every day. Every day my thought is "please let me find something to report today." I feel like it may get a little easier when I can get people to call me, but that takes a lot of time and a lot more work to really pull together. Until then I'm sweating a new day and writing on my afternoons. I guess this is real reporting, until now most of my stories were handed to me by an editor, and that was enough for them. Oddly I can't help but think of the reporters who were handling my work load while they were still in school, I guess it just took me longer to catch up.
On the other hand, I was on the Pittsburg State University campus today and, quite frankly, kept asking myself the same question: "why do people ever leave college?" Everyone is young and attractive. There's a very loud voice in my head trying to convince me to go back and ask someone out.
And in a brand new tangent I need to find some spiritual base again. I felt like I was almost there last night, almost where God seemed as palpable as he did. I've been so apathetic for so long that religion sometimes seems like a really hazy concept, like the lines fading at the bottom of a watercolor canvas in the rain.
Taliesin, and forgive me for being snobby, was Frank Lloyd Wright's studio. It's not like I know anything about architecture, I just know a Wright-influenced building because it's so distinct, you literally can't miss it. It's like a Van Gogh painting: it quite simply doesn't look like anything else. Or it's like a Mozart piece, which, when you listen to it, is so distinct with the staccato tunes and clean notes that it doesn't sound like other composers.
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