the navel times and observer

Cows, I'm afraid, have it lucky. At the end of the worst day of a cow's life (beef or dairy cows alike) it gets a piece of metal fired through its head a high rate of speed. At the end of the most rotten, miserable, heartbreaking day of the animal's life it never has to live to see the end of it.

I mean once a cow meets its end it just becomes another slab of beef on a table. Or, in the case of gamey old cows, jerky. Yup, once this world is through the only worry for a cow is the judge in its next plane of existence: USDA grade inspector 1284.

The same is not true for the rest of us. I've spent the last two nights working late on pulling hot stories together. Two co-workers recieved reprimands today for not having the level of production the newspaper requires, though both of them put themselves under precarious levels of stress and spend all day working the only way newspaper reporters can -- by talking to people.

Unfortunately the next day is still the next day. The newspaper has to be filled every single day regardless of what did or didn't happen the day before (or, as is unfortunately sometimes the case, the week before, we are, of course, only as good as the information we're fed or that we dig up).

Which means we have to find something to write about, enough to fill up the paper for every single day. For some of us that just ain't easy. After all newspapers require change, change is expensive, and plenty of people around here are anxious for their lives to change as little as possible. My co-worker in a rural county and me when I was in Barton County suffered endlessly for an utter lack of change. Those areas aren't very dynamic, people are pretty pleased the way they are, which means curtains for the journalists interested in covering more than beauty pageants and parades.

I mean the Globe covers those events as well, but the newspaper's there for more than that.

Me? I got lucky with this beat, these little towns are under heavy dynamics because of changing traffic problems, growth, loss, dickhead ego-driven politicians and those who just can't seem to figure out this "governing" business in the post 'good ol' boys' generations.

Even so that stuff doesn't happen every day, sometimes you have to dig really hard into the mundane business to dig up all the news fit to print. Mediocrity? Mostly, but it's just good enough to be worth column inches if you can get a few "little people" (Joe and Jane Offthestreet) to comment on it.

At least I hope so. We've had the nose to the ground to look into a dog poop pick-up ordinance yesterday. For the rest of the week it's looking pretty dry if I can't scare up some life.

I will be covering the governor tomorrow, though. I just hope I can get my question in. He's touting a plan to sell only 10 percent ethanol gasoline in Missouri and I want to know exactly how much jet fuel it took to fly him and his relatively small entourage around the state to five towns in the span of 7 hours.

So, after yesterday's hurried post.

I spoke with an editor today, who advised me as a friend to consider another option to build up some confidence before getting back into a bigger city market. I've gotten similar advice from my parents.

Regarding the new possibility, it will be largely reporting duties with, as I understand it, some layout included as part of doing business. The Sunday editor position is apparently just sort of guarding the paper and getting anything big that should happen on a Saturday included before it is shipped out.

No, I've never expressed an interest in editing and I have very little experience with laying out pages or editing copy (though more experience editing copy than laying out pages). At this point I'm not sure what I want to do. I'd like to be happy. I want to be happy, but at this point I'm aiming for something higher than where I am, or "not sad, anxious, depressed, frightened, leaping out of my skin, spiralling toward a nervous breakdown et cetera."

I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

On the other hand, I may have (this is an outside chance because of circumstances surrounding a relatively new publication) an opportunity to stay in my current apartment (and not lose a $470 deposit), but could cost me any positive reference from my current employers.

I may also have an opportunity to take on a job in reporting/layout at one of several small weeklies in the area. I'm not anxious to get into the weekly market, though, because I feel like once I delve into that market I may never resurface, though they are much more comfortable than the daily anxiety attack. Again I don't know if there's a job in the small weeklies (haven't asked yet) but I know if there was one I could get it.

On the upside my reporting has vastly improved in my time at the Globe, if not at the pace the Globe would like to see. That's somewhat comforting. Though I still can't take a decent photo as will (if it's on-line tomorrow) should be evident on the Globe Web site.

Ciao.

Definitely unclear.

So after being advised by an editor at the Globe (Alternating Oscillator), I recently contacted a former coworker about a possible position as a reporter/designer/editor at the Lebanon Daily Record.

It involves reporting on an education beat, designing part-time and being basically the last person to get to take care of the newspaper before it leaves by being an editor Saturday evening. There's one other person at least vying for the job, I have next to no design experience, i've proven to be correction-ridden, it will still be stressful, but it would be different than working at the Globe.

It would be about the same pay, so far as my coworker knew. I'm not sure what my odds are at getting it but I know my former coworker thinks very highly of me and circumstances would make it seem that her editor thinks very highly of her.

It would also be closer to my grandparents. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. But any advice is welcome. Pass me an e-mail if you wanna. Most of my readers have that info.

We're heading into another rough week. After getting my reprimand (always pleasant, so pleasant it makes me want to seek out a rock to hide under for a few weeks) I managed to make another error.

Somewhere yesterday while writing one of three stories I thought twice about something I wrote and made a mental note to change it before filing the story. Those mental notes, while reliable, do not always reappear when you absolutely need them, like before you file a story. A mental note, however helpful, is not helpful at 11:30 p.m. that evening when the story is being sent with the rest of the page to the printer and you're sitting at home sweating it out and hoping your editor thought it was just an extraneous detail.

He didn't. So now there's a fact out there I don't know quite how to fix yet and I'm sweating bullets until I hear otherwise. There's a correction (well, possibly, since i really have no proof right now that what i put into the paper is wrong) out there to be made and so soon after getting my ass grilled we may be looking at another unemployed American. A thought which scares the piss out of me.

Friends, thanks for the contact information, you may soon be hearing from me begging for a job and/or money to keep my butt out of the breadlines.

In the meanwhile I need to get my butt out of those boneheaded mistake business. I know I'm better than this, down, deep somewhere I know that to be true. I just have to prove it to those who don't know me so well.

On the plus side, however, it appears I made a new friend lately. That makes me happy.

Yeah, real bad week. This one began with a correction Tuesday because I confused the East Ward for the West Ward in a story even though I had it dead right in my notes. Not really all that unusual for a guy who has to think about whether he's turning left or right every single time. The lesson, however, is double checking those friggin notes. It's an easy lesson to follow, really, just something I need to make into a nonstop habit. Basically I need to get on my butt to get the stupid thing done.

This was followed by a story that took three days to get out the door because I failed to get another couple pieces of information each day. It started with me being over confident that I had done all the work for the story (not a long story nor one that was worth a whole lot of time, so I thought) and ended with a shaken self confidence against an editor who definitely intimidates the piss out of me.

I get along with him fine on a personal level, at least most of the time, but he's called me out on so many things that I'm afraid to approach him when I have bad news.

So yeah, all that resulted in a verbal reprimand Thursday. A really miserable way to end a miserable week. Or so I thought.

Friday when the ATM says insufficient funds on the day my paycheck came in while I'm trying to get cash for my rent I find out that in the past week I've accumulated 7 overdraft fees from the bank, totalling $203 to really write off the whole bloody week. I hope the people around me thought I was laughing humourously while really it was hysterics as I went to two other banks, a Wal-Mart and a grocery store to get a cash advance on a credit card and a money order to cover the rent.

I ended up covering my rent and, by proxy, utilities for the next month but only with another emergency loan from my parents and now about $50 to somehow find my way to the next paycheck.

Yeah, I covered the last event for the day, a play at one of the high schools in my beat, and went home, where I sought solace in booze. Fortunately booze is pretty reliable for that.

Two martinis and almost a bottle of wine later I was screaming to my brother that "Osama bin Ladin is a woman" on the phone while wandering around my living room (which was in some context at the time but while i remember the lead in i'm not going to try to explain it sober).

It was the zenith (or the low point) for the week. At least it can't get worse? Right?

In other news my coworker met his second young single mother within about 8 weeks of moving here on a night out last night. Frankly I think my luck in that department is about as good sitting in my apartment as it is going out, as I have no interest in dating single mothers, particularly at my age. Neither does my co-worker, which is sorta funny.