Friday, July 08, 2005

Haven't done too much today. Planned on going down to Rutland and seeing "Fantastic Four" with Jo tonight, but she was sick so that was out. Made a couple calls about jobs. I've spent a lot of the day cleaning my room - my own mess was one thing, but what the damn pug added to it when someone let her into my room and she chewed stuff up a couple days ago was enough to make even me get orderly. You know, maybe this is just my negativity/bad mood, but I can't even say I like her.

In a way, it's almost sacrilege to say that about a small and (relatively) harmless house pet. Even if you don't play with an animal a lot and stuff, you're just supposed to at least have a love/hate relationship with it. Like my dad with Fiji - he complains a lot about her messes and the expenses and stuff, but he loves playing with her and wrestling around with her and he thinks she's cute. And I admit that occasionally I will run back and forth across the house so she can chase me, playing like that. But she makes messes constantly and ruins anything she can reach, she's high-maintenance, the only redeeming quality she has over a hypothetical "average" pet is that in some situations she's easier to ignore and get away from...

Dad had an extra scrapbook lying around, which should help me clean and organize like I talked about. But now's not the time - I found pictures lying around my bookshelf here and there from when Gretchen and I were together, and I don't want to try to decide what to do with all of those yet. Whine whine whine, I know, but it's not what I need these days.

Yesterday and this morning were a little like being back at college. While I was in Seattle I got an e-mail from the Addison Independent asking me to do another story, which they wanted to put in the July 11 paper, this coming Monday. But the guy the story was about had to cancel our first proposed meeting time, so I didn't get to see him until 1 p.m. Thursday - and the deadline, the time the editors try to have everything not just in but ready to go to the press, is noon on Friday. So I was cutting it close, considering that I'd almost certainly need to do another draft.

So even though I didn't pull an all-nighter or anything, the last-minute fevered typing was just like back in school. Basically I interviewed him at one - it took over an hour, which was a lot longer than I had expected, which made the rest run on - started typing my notes on my iPod onto the computer at 2:30, and except for a break for dinner, worked straight through until I e-mailed a presentable version to the editor around 8 p.m. or so. I got his comments back later that night, and first thing this morning I made them, mostly from my notes and a little online research but I had to call the guy briefly.

So, just like at the old Campus Times. Cool. Now all I need to do is get paid for it.

No comments: