Because I, like an idiot, didn't file the story right after yesterday's press conference, over fifty papers beat me to the latest story about the ozone layer.

We sent my version out today in case anyone still wanted it (another editor, perhaps unbeknowst to Hargrove, sent out the official Scripps version yesterday) but, as happy as I am to finish another story, I'm still kicking myself for not filing yesterday. I had everything ready, I just wanted some better quotes.

My first and longest assignment is almost finished: I interviewed former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson today.

He's a Republican and adventurer who's for school vouchers and against the war on drugs. He kept his state out of debt and out of Washington (excepting elected officials, of course). He's climbed Everest and, for the past week, could not return my calls because he was kayaking. He's… hilarious.

Between the politicos who don't want to talk to me and the scientificos who can't speak plain English, I think I was going crazy from lack of human contact. Talking to someone who was brutually honest about his own views (he has no political ambitions and not much of an agenda) was absolutely invigorating.

I have pages upon pages of great quotes. I think it would be unethical to quote anything Scripps is going to use, but at one point he complained that "the American dream nowadays is to slip in Walmart and sue for millions."

Maybe he didn't say nowadays; I can't remember. But he said "It's a laugher" a lot. I had to go to dictionary.com, a site I won't link to because I secretly despise it, in order to confirm the spelling/meaning of that last word.

I kept my cool on the phone, but once I hung up I actually had to laugh out loud; all that manic, strangely idealistic energy had been focused on me for about fifteen minutes, and it was infectious.

Wandered around a fancy hotel trying to get into a ALEC conference… but no, I'm not allowed in until Wednesday. I was turned away at the door and sent to the press room.

The press room was empty.

Well, not empty. It had hard candies and Dentine-brand gum in little bowls. I took some, considered it fair payment for the hour of my life I'd wasted fishing for a story there, and left.

There was a meeting of master chefs on the ground floor. I really wish people wanted a story on really good chefs. There were about a hundred chefs in this one conference room, watching their keynote speaker cook. Chefs always seem happy.

But, back in the real world, the conference was a bust. And so I have nothing to write (until Wednesday, when I interview a former governor) and no Hargrove to send me off somewhere else. And it's only five, so I don't really want to leave the office quite yet.

So I've been reading stories from A.L. Daily and the Wire. It's mildly exciting to read breaking news before it's printed, but I could turn on MSNBC and get the same coverage, so it's not that big of deal.

I've been inspired by this article about the blog Back-to-Iraq.com.

There is a culture, a living breathing literate culture out there, and I want to contribute to that culture before I die. (I die in a tragic auto accident at the age of 24; which means I don't have too much time.)

So, I may, at the very least, try to retool my blog into something more… significant. Or I may try to write something fictional, seeing as my nonfiction-oriented job isn't providing me with much to do at the moment. But I want to do something, and that's the point here. Inspiration is 1% of success.

My News You'll Never See

There's nothing like seeing your name in print, and there's definitely nothing like seeing it in print after it's gone through at least two editors. Not that the original product was ab-fab, of course.

Behold! My story in the Albuquerque Tribune!

The News You'll Never See

For all of you crazy conspiracy theorists out there, here's something I stumbled upon while helping Hargrove research an article on Colin McMillan, the now-dead nominee for Secretary of the Navy. He was found in New Mexico, dead of a single gunshot wound to the head. An autopsy confirmed suspicions that this was a suicide.

Ok, here's the crazy part. I mean, I could make something out of the fact that McMillan was found dead at his ranch, one of the largest in New Mexico, and that there were no witnesses to his death…

But I'd like to up the ante by pointing out that Colin McMillan is (well, was) the head of an evil cabal dedicated to killing Extraterrestrial Biological Entities. For a reasoned and coherent discussion of this, look here.

Could a naval undersecretary called Colm Mcgrath be the same man as a nominee for naval secretary named Colin McMillan? The crazies say yes! It's a clever pseu-diddlyu-donym. After all, anything in the 81,128th best-selling book on Amazon.com must be true. Eventually.

Conspire away.

And with that, I'm off to my next adventure.

NASA… wildfires… satellites… blarg

So I'm almost done with my second story. I gave Hargrove (my boss, who seems to control every intern at Scripps) my final versions and he gave me his final versions and I think we're sending the story (with slight changes, depending on its destination) to Denver and Albuquerque tomorrow.

My first story… might be dead. No one will talk to me. Wow, I hate that story right now.

Journalistic writing is hard, when you're used to writing short stories, blogs, and journals. But I learned a few things today. Like not to use creative verbs when "said" will do--not an ironclad rule once you get outside of AP-style writing, but still a helpful one.

It shouldn't be so difficult to write something airy and interesting. But it would take me hours to finish writing a story, even if I had all the quotes in front of me (which I never do; if I ever do journalism for money, I'm buying a tape recorder).

And what I wrote (I'll link to it if one of the papers picks it up) isn't very good. I'm not trying to be modest; it's just that compared to what I usually write, the first thing I might actually get published is incoherent trash. It's good news, but literary garbage.

Thankfully Hargrove helped me iron out the major (occasionally factual) errors. He was very encouraging when I expressed doubts about the quality of my work. Which means that, at this point, I know I'm being coddled. Fritzell, should this ever get back to him, would not be pleased.

I think, I hope, that I can get in the swing of things and start cranking out quality stories in the weeks I have left. We'll see how I take to journalism.

I still want to be literary. I met someone recently who has several screenplays and a season's worth of sitcom episodes just lying around. Such creativity! Such productivity!

Meanwhile, I haven't been cloistered in the basement writing the first few chapters of a brilliant novel. I have been cloistered in the basement, don't get me wrong, it's just that I haven't written anything since I came here.

I haven't felt any desire to write anything. I don't know what I'd write about.

Still, this is the perfect opportunity, so I guess I should write something, eventually. Or I'll just keep trying to enjoy myself, sightseeing and all that.

Angels in the Outhouse Field

Saw Northfork downtown. That was good. Odd, subtle, and a little endearing. It could have been a bit more coherent, though.

In other news, today was not my day. I now have two unfinished stories instead of one. I had to walk to and from the metro because I missed the bus three times. I was very late for an very important appointment with a V.I.P.

And I was having appearance issues; I looked like I'd lost a fight, hard.

So tonight, all in all, was mediocre. And that's prettymuch my fault. But the movie was good.

At work again, Blogging

Brief office buzz around this story.

This would be best tried as a libel case, in which the Catholic Church had to present evidence proving that the deceased is in hell.

I find it hilarious that the priest is being sued for basically paraphrasing stuff from the bible.

Giddily Counting My Blessings

Whoo!

I just hit my head against the ceiling. No more jumping up and down, startng now.

The fruits of independence:

My own all-access press pass.
My own totally jerkin' bachelor pad.
Free internet, compliments of AOL.
Hard salami sandwiches with Miracle Whip on wheat.

And best of all:

Wandering downtown D.C., solo.

Hurrah! Now if only I got paid…

Dan in the Big City

I'm not getting paid, so technically my time is worth nothing. Which means I'm not "stealing from the company" right now. But I still feel weird, blogging.

I'm waiting on an AOL disk; I actually ordered one from their website. Then I'll have free internet at my place.

Which is amazing, by the by.

I love this town. All is well.

Another "Last Night in Brainerd"

Watched The Believer with Adam. I probably won't see Adam for a while (at least four weeks, possibly four months) so it was good to see him once before I left.

Wrote some glowing praise of Adam, right about here. But I decided that would be better on a "people" page. I need a people page… time to copy Graham, yet again.

Anyways, in case I don't have internet access or don't bother to post, I'm off to Washington D.C. tomorrow and I'll be back in about a month.

Later… whatever that means.

A Typical Midnight Rant, With Caffeine

I saw a great, utterly true statement on A.L. Daily tonight (and followed the link to here). Here, let me set it off for emphasis.

Ann Coulter is an inversion of Michael Moore: he�s ugly and ill-kempt, she�s glamorous and perfectly coifed. They share only an hysterical hatred.

I've railed against and mocked both on this site, but I'd never thought to connect them so cleverly. So, kudos, Andrew Sullivan.

Also, Jenna is on her way, once again, towards becoming a citizen. More kudos.

I suppose I should be reading some articles from my future place-of-internship, to get a feel for what it is they do…

I can't believe that I still don't even know when I'm going (it's been almost a week since my mom set out to get us tickets) but it's soon. Probably at the end of this week; that's when that place opens up. I hope my sublet has internet access.

This lemon tea is great. We should all live a little more like Jeremy, tea-wise.

I'll post something a bit more coherent. Tomorrow.

A Brainerdian Missive

I'll be brief, I think. I've got other stuff to do still, and miles to go before I sleep.

I worked on the 4th, but I got off in time to see most of the fireworks with Graham, Dylan, and special guest Ashley. And I had enough time beforehand to help Graham create an excellent protest sign for the parade.

This was the first time I'd seen the Brainerd fireworks from anywhere closer than my house, so it was quite amazing. Everything was so big, like an omnitheater…

Anyways, afterwards Dylan said his goodbyes and the rest of us wasted an hour of our lives just so Josh could get a ride home from work. Rather than have me drive right back into town, Graham cannily suggested that we hang out at my house for a while.

I gave a substandard version of The Grand Tour which culminated, as always, at the boathouse, the coolest bachelor pad in Brainerd. The house is significantly different now, so even/especially Graham was taken aback.

We sat out on the dock and looked at the stars.

Then everyone went home. And I slept. And I got up. And I went to work.

Back at the dock: the next day.

We decided to go swimming, so I got the mixed pleasure of bathing in warm fresh water and remembering the past. I think if I swim enough I'll stop associating the act of swimming with the time of my life when I swam every other day, but for now all I can do is float and feel the undefined nostalgia.

But as always, it was nice to go swimming. We got cold, at varying times, and eventually the entire group was cold enough to get out of the water.

We went for ice cream, but Nisswa was closed (it was after five, after all) so we had to go to the Triangle Stand in Brainerd, an extremely modest operation that doles out Kemps ice cream to paying customers.

With a firm blessing from Graham's girlfriend, we then rented a movie (a Spanish movie, the title of which translates to Life's A Bitch) which turned out to be, as expected, long, and, as was not expected, very good. Like Lantana with much more violence.

All in all, it was a good time. Ashley's a nice girl and an inveterate debater, albeit not always in that order. And Dylan is irrepressibly Dylan, even if I only saw him for half an hour.

Graham, likewise, was prettymuch his good old self; we exchanged a few old jokes and polished some antique arguments (which I plan to sell at the Flea Market tomorrow), we worked out logistics for the future (or the logistics of a future discussion about logistics, at least), and we talked about people who weren't around.

And they say that, for twenty-four hours, Brainerd was Brainerd again. Well, I say that at least.

Strange Friends and Friendly Strangers

Went to the beach today with Larson and his bland-but-popular tag-along.

This was, sadly, Larson's last day in town, which means that I probably won't see him for months and months. But we had some good times, these three days. An abortive campfire, a trip to the beach, a quick jaunt to his favorite fast food joint.

I have next to nothing in common with Larson—like Graham, I sometimes wonder how I became Larson's friend—but he's a good guy, and his life (often perpendicular to my own) supplies my hetero-life-buddy with some interesting anecdotes.

The beach was interesting; I don't go out swimming with anyone, anymore, and I never swim at home, so it's been a while since I've been to any sort of beach. I'm utterly pale, though now some parts of me are sunburnt.

Giovanni's overzealous assistant manager walked by, noting gladly that at least she wasn't the only pale person at Pelican Beach.

The busy families with wayward toddlers, the token drunks, all the tan people… I haven't seen that many people or that much flesh since the Senior Streak at Lawrence.

It was all so crowded, like a Where's Waldo… In fact, I'm sure that even Larson and his friend were more interested in eye-ing the scenery than they were with any water-related activity. Hah.

We did swim, though, and it was good. Afterwards I walked over, sans Larson, to chat with his ex-girlfriend, who was sunning herself six towel-lengths away.

Flo went out with her, Larson got dumped by her, Jenna fought with her… I think this girl has probably had more peripheral involvement in my life than anyone else. And, for my part, she's never been anything but cordial to me. Next to Sam French, she's the most civil stranger I know.

And, as luck, coincidence, and my narrative style would have it, she actually was next to Sam French, my old ninth-grade desk-partner and Giovanni's coworker, who I didn't recognize at first. She used to be one of the Brainerd pseudo-Goths; now she has freckles.

I exchanged three or four more pleasantries with that pair and wandered back to my tiny towel before things got too awkward. I have little or no real connection to either, after all.

That was it for today, really. There was a nasty storm tonight, with tornadoes, but so far nothing interesting has happened. I was darkly hoping that our just-completed four-month renovation would be somehow destroyed. For irony's sake, if nothing else.