A remedy

Everyone finds themselves, from time to time, in situations where they don't quite have the upper hand. Your first day of work, a trip to the doctor when you're worried about your health, a first date or a public speaking engagement. There's a lot out there to get stressed over, and now that I'm not a reporter at the Chatham News, not covering the same meetings and events, not working with the same individuals and not writing for the same audience, stressful situations are bound to come up more often. Because when you forge ahead, let's face it, you've got to do some new stuff. It is also quite possible to stay home and read murder mysteries late into the morning and avoid the situations. But that won't really get you anywhere.

Last night I was doing some work for a local AM talk station. I've covered stories for them before, when I had time while working for the paper, and figured I could do a little more of that now that I do - well - nothing. Covering stories for radio is similar to covering stories for a newspaper. You look for similar angles and pick up the same quotes. You ask the same questions and gather the same information, basically. It's just that in radio you, obviously, record everything while in print journalism you write it down.

I remember the first meeting I covered for the paper. It was a big one for the town of Pittsboro. A semi-judicial meeting that went well into the night and I thought to myself, "What have I gotten myself into?" I remember trying to put something reasonable together the next day for that week's paper, but not really having any training I was very, very nervous about what the editor, and other reporters, would think. What I'd done was fine, luckily, and the next week it got easier and the week after it was easier still. Pretty soon I was sending text messages during meetings to catch up on baseball scores. I ceased scribbling pages upon pages of notes and just took down what I knew I'd need the next day. I'm not saying I was a slacker. I wasn't. In most cases I sat through every minute of every meeting, for fear of missing anything. I just, as most people do, became comfortable with the responsibilities of my job.

Last night, however, even though I've covered meetings before, and even though I've done some work for the radio before, wasn't exactly easy for me. First of all, I had to carry all this equipment around, like a microphone for instance, that I don't know much about. After I'd plugged into the system in the back room, in order to record the commissioners, the woman working there asked "how my levels" were. "Fine," I answered, unwilling to tell her that I couldn't judge anything by looking at my mini-disc recorder except that it was on, thank God, because if I couldn't get it to turn on I was just going to have to go home and get in bed and eat several chocolate truffles. Like maybe 20 of them.

There are other, more difficult facets to the whole regime, like having to go back to the studio, listen to and edit the tape, and then put together a nice 30-second news story. The worst part is that these things aren't difficult for basically everybody else there, a crack team of young journalism students and recently-graduated broadcast stars who are total pros. I've learned how to do the basics, but not without freaking out a little each time. It's like my first day on the job, over and over again. Since I've never been a regular, I have to relearn a little each time.

I really can't complain though (even though the above paragraphs might suggest I do, and a lot). I'm learning a whole new skill because the people at the station trust me enough to do some work for them. And knowing a little bit about of broadcast journalism will, no doubt, help me when the people from NPR show up and ask if I'd be interested in hosting a show.

The other thing that gets me through is these earrings I have. I'm not about to go all Harry Potter on you guys or anything, but right before we left Maine, Max and Jennifer gave me a present - two sets of earrings - as a thank you for the summer, with a really nice card, and when I wear either of these pairs of earrings, I think about them and all my friends and J and my family and realize that some stupid meeting is not enough to get myself worked up over. So when I start to lose it because I may have just missed an important quote, or in other situations, like when I'm home alone and haven't heard from anyone I've contacted about writing or anything else and am feeling kind of lost I just remember that I have these magical earrings and I feel better. Not only better, but I feel so much better.

I realize that's a pretty simplistic way of looking at life, but it works, and also, it may just be a sign that I'm losing all the edginess of youth and becoming, like, a mom-type, or maybe I'm just going straight to grandma-hood, what with my "magic earrings" and all, but anything to save me from the stomachaches and sleeplessness of worrying about totally non-important things is worth, I think, risking my reputation as a cool, confident and mature person, which, come to think of it, may have already been destroyed on many other occasions, including, but not limited to, ah, everything that I get myself into every single day.

After all, the father-daughter dance was to a song about a hobo

I'm sure some of you, some of you who have, literally, nothing else to do but think of me and what I'm up to lately, might have wondered recently just what in the name of God I'm doing with myself now that I've quit my job, spent the summer in Maine and am allegedly trying to "further my career." The answer is, well, complicated. Complicated because, you see, I'm still figuring it out myself. But to break it down to a bare bones explanation, what I'm doing is attempting to jumpstart my freelancing career by writing letters and emails to various publications and trying to get them to think I'm great, and thus allow me to write articles that they'll print, for which they will pay me hundreds of dollars. Or ten. Ten dollars. Whatever. I'd prefer hundreds, though.

What I'm also "doing" (doing in quotation marks because I'm not doing it at all, yet) is working on pieces I think fit for publication. For instance, a piece on young people and politics, or modern careers and marriage or how to best keep oneself focused in a coffee shop without visiting MySpace 10,000 times in one sitting, because damnit, it's hard to stay focused.

That's what I'm coming up against really. The whole focus thing. I don't have a hard time with it normally, but when you're faced with the great unknown and no deadlines and nobody around asking what you are working on, well, it's hard to get down to work, especially when you aren't sure what "work" is because, you know, you don't work. Not like nine to five heading to the office and all. You work when you vacuum the house, yeah you do. But that's different.

But focus I can gain. I can create a schedule and really work with this time I've got now, because that is, after all, why I left the job. I believe in myself and my ability to succeed, going the unconventional route. Plus, it hasn't been long. A schedule and acheiving some sort of day-to-day sense of accomplishment will come. Already I'm getting better. At first, months ago, I was nervous to write to random editors with my ideas. Then I got a few things published and am now learning even more about how it works. I'm comfortable emailing complete strangers to tell them I'd like to write for them. Pretty soon I'll be walking up to people on the sidewalk, people just minding their own business, and asking them if they'd like to contribute a quote to my yet-unpublished piece that may-never-be-published, "but trust me, it's going to be great, just great."

It will come, the work, and eventually I'll know what it is I do and will be able to define it when people ask. I have a work ethic and was always well aware that this transitional period woud be a bit tough getting going, but I have hope.

I feel the real problem may be far deeper and harder to overcome.

When I'm reading these books on writing and looking at these publications and the current state of affairs in the nation, all I really want to be doing is this sort of thing. Writing about the mundane. The minor moments. And I wonder if I can ever truly get away with doing that for a living. To me, these moments in a person's life, although perhaps self-indulgent, are so worthy of permanent recording.

This weekend I went on a quick, overnight trip to Maryland, to pick up my darling Cecilia, just back from Maine with my parents (if you'd like to see a couple pictures of the trip, including some heartbreaking ones of the moment Lucy, my parent's dog, realized I was taking Cecilia away and jumped into my backseat, check out my Flickr account). On our way out of town, my mother, father and I stopped at a new coffee place to get something for the road. My mother and I spent a while inside checking out the items for sale, particularly these really decadent-looking chocolate crumble cake things that we pointed to about 10 or 20 times before deciding we'd make do with a biscotti each, then grabbed our coffee and met my father out in the parking lot where he hemmed and hawed and said things like, "Jesus! You guys were in there forever. Ehhhhhhhhh!"

I looked at him disappovingly and then found my target.

"Your fly's down," I said, from across the lot.

"What?"

"Your fly's down," I repeated, a smile making it's way into my faux-angry expression regarding his impatience.

"What??"

"YOUR FLY'S DOWN!"

He looked, zipped it up, and said, "No it's not," as my mother watched the scene, laughing at us, but also shaking her head, as if to let us know that the moment certainly had it's merit, but she had a biscotti that was really a little more deserving of her time.