I make lists of current events and things I do day to day, things to blog about, but then I power on my laptop and stare at the keyboard. I’ve got nothing.
I wait for inspiration and the writing gods just laugh at me.
In April I traveled to Lisbon, Portugal – a buoyant city of immeasurable beauty. I’d like to live there someday.
But in the meantime, I’m going to give up on the muse and scorn the gods.
“If you wait for inspiration, you’re not a writer but a waiter.” ~ Anonymous
What happened to summer?
A crisp undercurrent greeted me on my walk to work. The air wasn’t quite as stifling as the day before.
I pulled my black leather dayplanner towards me and noted that all of the major events planned this summer have come and gone…. The dedication of the World War II Memorial on the National Mall – Check. Cicadas – Check. Friends down for the Fourth of July – Check. The DNC Convention in Boston – Check. The Prince Concert – Check. The Olympics in Greece – Check. The RNC Convention in NYC – Almost checked.
Time flew by and I feel as though I’ve accomplished little, if nothing. Well… not counting my professional epiphany at the end of August.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, taking many career assessment surveys, spending countless hours driving friends crazy with talk of fate and destiny over drinks. The conclusion? I’m tired of relying on others to provide for my livelihood. I’m talking about “the salary.”
Sooooo I’m taking the bold step of starting my own company… while searching for a new job that will keep me afloat in cash and benefits til my business can stand on its own. I’m realistic. I think. Or scared to rely completely on my abilities to survive. I mean, the monthly rent isn’t going away anytime soon. Or the weddings. And the birthdays.
But I’ve got to try this because in my gut I feel it’s the only way I’ll achieve the excitement that I crave in my life.
My parents will try to talk me out of it. My friends think I’m nuts. Most small businesses don’t survive to see year five. Whatever – I’ve always been a believer in Frost’s “road less traveled.”
Stay tuned for updates on my corporate adventure and wish me luck!
A wise person once said:
“Our lives are not defined by our abilities, but by our choices.”
Of course, I don’t recall who this sage was, or which film it was in, or the book I lifted it from. I just remember that simple sentence.
I’ve made some bad choices. Sometimes I almost feel like I’ve been running from the choices I made ten years ago… and if I don’t make changes and soon, I’ll be in the same place another ten years from now.
Which isn’t necessarily an awful thing. It just isn’t great either.
You’ve been married for six months. You love this person and life has never been better. You’re looking forward to forever.
One day, you’re looking for something in the closet and find a shoebox with a handgun shoved in the back.
You’re shocked. You never felt strongly about guns one way or another, but fear creeps into your heart as you look at the shiny metal. Two thoughts pop into mind:
1. You don’t want this in your home or anywhere near you.
2. When did the love of your life become interested in guns, register for one and buy one? More importantly, why wasn’t there a conversation about it? Why weren’t you informed?
So your honey comes home from work. You’re sitting in the kitchen/living room/study with the shoebox in your lap. And what do you do?
Because he says it so much better than I ever could… here is an editorial by Don Wycliff of the Chicago Tribune.
Bush reaping the benefits of journalistic professionalism
Covering an inarticulate president
Why is the press protecting George W. Bush?
You heard me right, Russ. And Larry. And Byron. And all the rest of you folks who pen those jeering notes to me every day about anti-Bush bias in the Tribune’s news reports.
Why is the Democrat-loving, Republican-hating, pond scum-swilling, lower-than-the-rug-on-the-floor, biased, liberal [curl upper lip when pronouncing] press protecting George W. Bush?
You don’t believe it’s happening? Well, then, tell me about the furor over W’s speech last week to a joint meeting in Washington of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Newspaper Association of America.
You didn’t hear about it?
That’s the proof.
If the press were not protecting Bush, you’d have read in your Chicago Tribune–or Washington Post or New York Times or Wall Street Journal or USA Today–that he delivered one of the most confusing, inarticulate public addresses since … well, some people would say since his press conference a week earlier.
As it was, those hopelessly biased reporters who cover Bush overlooked the mangled syntax, penetrated the rhetorical fog and extracted some usable lines from the dross and manufactured stories that had the president sounding, if not quite statesmanlike, then at least intelligible.
The New York Times’ Elisabeth Bumiller led with Bush’s response to a poll that showed the majority of Americans expect another terrorist attack in the U.S. before the November election. “Well, I understand why they think they’re going to get hit again,” Bush was quoted as saying. “This is a hard country to defend.”
The Washington Post focused on his remarks about Iran’s effort to acquire nukes. “The Iranians need to feel the pressure from the world that any nuclear weapons program will be uniformly condemned–it’s essential that they hear that message,” the president was quoted.
Neither The Wall Street Journal nor the Tribune carried a story about the speech per se, although the Tribune carried an Associated Press story that wove one quote from the speech into a story on the unexpectedly high costs of the Iraqi excursion. “The Iraqi people are looking at Americans and saying, `Are we going to cut and run again?'” the quote ran. “And we’re not going to cut and run if I’m in the Oval Office.”
I can’t prove it, but I would bet that most of the editors and publishers went away from the speech wondering why Bush, who long ago proved that he is no extemporaneous speaker, hadn’t ordered up an address for the occasion from his stable of White House speechwriters. I heard more than one of those in attendance say the same thing: “He wasted an opportunity.”
But you didn’t read about any of that, because the reporters, trained to seek meaning and the meaningful in any utterance by the president, focused on what could be understood.
Bush has benefited from this journalistic professionalism throughout his presidency. In a column almost two years ago, in July 2002, I quoted the complaint of a reader who claimed we had misquoted the president’s statement in a press conference denying any “`malfeasance’ in his business dealings prior to becoming president.”
“The word that he actually used … sounded to me something like `misfeance’–something which is not a word in any dictionary I’ve ever seen,” the reader, Sean Barnawell of Chicago, wrote. “I feel the Tribune should not be in the business of `cleansing’ what the president says in order to make him sound more articulate than he is.”
I replied thus: “Ideally, we would have a president so articulate that we would never be in doubt as to what he said. In reality, we have one who regularly mispronounces. … This confronts us with the question whether our purpose is to transmit to readers what the president means when he speaks out or to simply relate what he says. I have always felt that transmitting meaning is paramount. ..”
And so “nuculer” becomes “nuclear” in the newspaper. And “misfeance,” unknown to any dictionary, becomes “malfeasance,” because an experienced White House reporter has learned to translate Bushspeak.
Bush benefits from the reporters’ professionalism. And his cheering section jeers from the sidelines about journalistic “bias.”
The investigation continues
In response to queries from outside the Tribune and within, let me assure you that the review of Uli Schmetzer’s past work is going forward. My colleague Margaret Holt and I continue to read stories, marking those that seem to merit additional attention and turning them over to a researcher in the paper’s editorial library for deeper investigation. Those that merit even deeper attention after that will get it. But it would be imprudent of me at this stage to suggest when the investigation will be finished.
———-
Don Wycliff is the Tribune’s public editor. He listens to readers’ concerns and questions about the paper’s coverage and writes weekly about current issues in journalism. His e-mail address is dwycliff@tribune.com. The views expressed are his own.
I can see the Made-for-TV movie now…. a lovely, bright co-ed played by Hillary Duff logs onto her boyfriend’s laptop to find (GASP) emails, flirtatious messages, definitely romantic in tone, to a female (maybe they’ll reinvent Jennifer Love Hewitt to portray this phantom vixen). Distraught and desperate, she deliberates the pros and cons of various plans to get him back.
I’ll tell him I’m pregnant.
No, that’s been overdone. And we haven’t had sex in months. I can come up with something better. Hell, I AM a college student.I’ll hire someone to take out that bitch.
Nah – that’s too Quentin Tarantino-ish. I need to be original. REALLY grab his attention.I’ll abduct myself.
I mean, make it seem like someone kidnapped me. Then he’ll realize how desirable other men find me and worry that he’ll never see me again and … and… then he’ll find me and we’ll live happily ever after.
WHAT is wrong with this girl? Talk about crying wolf! She disappears from her apartment, with no coat or purse, and four days later is found in a marsh. Hundreds of people band together to search for Audrey Seiler, fearing the worst. After she’s found, she claims a man with a knife abducted her, setting off a police manhunt that cost the authorities $96,000.
And her lawyer is great. Randy Hopper keeps stating that Seiler is a “model student and a model citizen.” I’d like to know his definition of the word ‘model.’
I prefer the word manipulative. And the phrase big trouble.
What would be a proper punishment for this woman? And aside from the charge of lying to police, what other crime(s) is she guilty of? Or perhaps you’re convinced she’s a troubled soul who needs help? What do we do about Audrey?
I had the strangest dream last night. Actually, it started off as a dream, but ended as a nightmare. Well, not really a scary nightmare, but very…. disturbing.
A group of people were sitting at a conference table. I looked around and recognized faces from my past, people I knew from college and high school. I thought, “How weird, what are they all doing here? Never thought I’d see HIM again.” That sort of thing.
This guy stood up at the head of the table and announced that he had made his decision. He looked nothing like Donald Trump, but I knew it was Trump. Very, very peculiar.
I realized the situation was something out of the “Apprentice” (which I’ve never watched, but seen plenty of promos for), but it was real life and not some reality program.
So Trump’s standing at the head of the table and all eyes are on him. He points to me and says, “I’ve selected her.”
All heads turned in my direction and a collective groan grew in volume as everyone complained at once. “What? Her? Why her? But I’m so much better. But I have more talent. She was the token idiot. She can’t run anything. Give me another chance. She’ll run your company to the ground.”
And all of a sudden, while everyone in the room protested my selection, they all started getting undressed. As if, by taking off their clothes, Trump would reconsider and choose one of them instead. I just continued to sit there, horrified, as people around me stripped during this business meeting.
I didn’t say a word the entire time I was in that board room. Just remained seated in a leather swivel chair, wearing a navy blue suit, looking around in constant bewilderment.
Anyone out there have a clue what all this means? Do you want to take a stab at deciphering this dream?
malaland.net 