My second class today was “Finding Your Voice in Journalism.” I hardly knew what to expect. In fact, i didn’t even really know where the class was; when i arrived at its original location down on 32nd and Market i saw that it had been reassigned to a classroom over half a mile away! The remarkable part wasn’t getting to the class, though, but my instructor Clark DeLeon. Clark used to write for both Philly daily papers, and for the past five years he wrote a regular column for America Online where he had his own keyword. What impressed me more than his digital cred was that while he wrote for the Philly Inquirer he wrote a daily column, once a day, every day. Writing a daily column is so much more intimidating than doing daily reporting… there are no facts and stories to hunt down so much as there are facets of yourself that you can put on display through the subjects you select.
I always say that i want to write a column in a weekly magazine or newspaper like the one that Liz Spikol writes for the Weekly, and even that is intimidating. She at least has an entire week, during which should could conceivably write and erase her column multiple times before settling down on a final version. Clark had no such luxury — he had to come out of a weekend with five fresh ideas and get them all written before the deadline. That takes some balls.
I haven’t got the slightest idea about what he’s going to teach me about my voice, other than he told us to write a short piece about something that makes us really angry. I think i have found a bit of a voice through this, but blogging isn’t quite the same thing as doing daily writing for the major newspaper in one of the big five metro markets in America, is it?
college
The trend in weblogs for ringing in the New Year seems to be a dead split between resolutions that might not be upheld and a litany of excellent things about 2001 that never came to light through the actual process of blogging. So, in the spirit of my general disagreeance and spitefulness this past weekend, here are the reasons why my year sucked (in roughly chronological order):
My grandmother dies; i proceed to get so sick that i miss the funeral (never to be forgiven by family). (!) I have to drop a class for the first time. (!) The weekend of my dress rehearsals for Good Woman of Setzuan i am diagnosed with Pneumonia and Bronchitis. I have to argue not to be admitted to the hospital so i can start going to rehearsals again. Upon my return I forget an entire verse of my big song on opening night (at this point being generally attributed to my medication, which i will neither confirm nor deny). (!) My first girlfriend wound up being somewhat of a psycho/bitch; horrible breakup ensues. (!) I managed not to fail anything despite all of the above circumstances, but garner my first C (in Recording Class) (!) I have no spring vacation; i immediately started work at Admissions after classes ended. (!) I am totally miserable in my apartment; i don’t speak much to my roommate. (!) I miserably quit blogging for an entire week when my archives disappear. (!) I do not leave the city once during the entire summer. (!) I spend the majority of the summer wondering where i’ll be living in September. (!) I sign up to attend the Philadelphia Folk Fest and then have to back out because of work and moving into my new apartment. (!) I step in to give the counselor-of-the-day presentation one Tuesday in September, because the counselor in question was to horror-stricken to speak. (!) I enter a rather depressive haze and let details about it slip to my mother, who becomes physically ill at the thought of my mental instability. (!) I am admitted to the hospital for four days only to be told absolutely nothing is wrong with me. (!) I endlessly deliberate over a first date with someone who lives across the country from me and who i like very much — only to be romantically rebuffed. (!) I spend the entire last weekend of the year in the most dire of blah moods. (!)
So, that’s my year. At a glance, 2001 looks as though it might have been my worst year ever pound for pound. However, lest we all despair for my miserable year, click the end of each phrase for the happy ending that i might not have hinted at while blogging. And, in case i haven’t mentioned it, Happy New Year.
There’s a unnatural desert wind through the chill of my room every twelve minutes or so as the heater in Lindsay’s closet warms the house with its breath, and in the breeze that just passed a picture came fluttering down from my wall. I picked it up to affix it back to the wall by my door and saw that it was a picture Ross had just given me a few weeks ago – one of Laurel and I at my first Drexel party.
It was taken over two years ago.
Two years ago, and as i pressed my fingers against its shiny corners to cover up the bare rectangle of wall it had left in its wake all that i could was that life is a strange and mazelike thing. I thought about how i spent all that week decorating her house along with her roommates, namely Kate and Erika. Kate wound up moving away at the beginning of my Sophomore year, and then Laurel moved away for a while and Lindsay took her room. I moved into a different house with with Lindsay and Erika this September, and Kate just came to stay with us for the remainder of the holidays.
Two years ago, and i only wound up at their house so much in the first place because i got into the play that four of them were starring in, and i was only there decorating so often because i developing a crush on Laurel, and i only went back last year to hang out with Lindsay, which brought me back into their social circle again. And now i am friends with Laurel, and her boyfriend from back then was just in my living room, and Kate is staying here for New Years, and life doesn’t seem to do anything but endlessly coil and snake around itself anymore.
How did it get to be midnight? I guess this is what happens when you stay up until dawn alternately playing StarCraft with your hostees and trucking through the 600’s of Infinite Jest. I deserved it though, if not for getting an A in Philosophy then for my all-day cleaning binge. And, so, up i stayed, mindlessly click-clicking on my Hatchery to “build more zerglings, goddamnit!”
In one of those between-game intervals i happened to glance out of my back window to find that my oft-spied-on neighbor had his lights on. I idly kept my eye on his window as i delved through page-long paragraphs in Jest until i saw a bit of movement and perked up — to find him taking a naked post-shower stroll through his room. The whole seeing him naked bit is rather anti-climactic after all this time (but, really, who the hell gets dressed before they get back to their room after a shower?), but i suppose he forgot that i had been spying on him after i left him alone for a while. Now he seems fond of sitting directly in his window with a huge drawing-board; i can’t imagine why he draws there … it’s not as though there’s any natural light. Could that be his convenient way of spying back at me? He has such an easy bead on my computer from there that he easily catches me turning around to glance at him before i can even see him in my peripheral vision.
Or maybe he just likes to draw. I wonder if he does nudes.
I have become totally domesticated in my living with the gals. It’s not as though it bothers me, but i just feel like they’re intruding upon my messy bachelor years, or something. For example, yesterday i actually called home from work to see what they would prefer my nighttime culinary endeavor to be. So, not only did i premeditate my potential meal (based upon leftover supplies from the dinner i made on Tuesday!), but i decided that i needed to clear it with the roomies before i made the decision on my own. Sadly, I didn’t catch either of them, and seeing as i had the sneaking suspicion that one of them was highly alarmed by eggplant i refrained from shopping for the supplies i had in mind until i got a verbal “okay” from them. After a few hours of lounging on the couch when i should’ve really been doing the Business final i’m taking a break from now i was greeted by Erika, who came bearing groceries of her own! I started helping her with dinner until we realized that we were out of eggs, and so off i went (in my pajamas) to the grocery store — without a second thought.
It seems likes common courtesy or just being thoughtful roommates, but i really feel as though i’ve gone from being one of those cats that the neighbors leave food out on their porch for to being a house cat that occasionally struts around the lawn just to affirm his outdoorsyness. It’s not that it bothers me or anything, i just think it’s incredible what a difference a year makes; this time last year i was spending $60 a week on takeout food and eating a box or two of granola bars every weekend. Now i’m spending $60 a week on making dinner for the three of us, and eating leftovers all weekend.