Almost the weekend

I'm glad it's Thursday.
Thursday night is practically Friday morning, which is only hours away from Friday evening, at which point I can officially stop thinking for a couple days.
It's been a busy week at work and today was especially stressful.
I walked in the office to find multiple messages on my voicemail from grumpy old men scolding me for using the word "elected" instead of "appointed" in a recent article. I admit, appointed is the proper word to describe how the board members I was describing were chosen, but I don't think it made the sentence wrong. I used the phrase "elected by the governor." Doesn't that imply that the governor choose the members? I don't think that phrase means that they were chosen through an election, like the men screamed through the phone. Anyway, I hate when people call for picky things like that. It makes me feel like someone is sitting out there with a magnifying glass on my work, just waiting for me to mess up. It's upsetting that most people don't take the time to send a compliment when they like something, but they're more than eager to pounce on you when they don't like it.
But that's not what made it such a stressful day. My introduction to more corporate policies at the paper can be blamed for that. Especially the one about not letting interns have front-page stories when corporate high-ups come to town.

Fog

This day feels like it will never end. Or never began. It’s one of those days where things that happened early this morning feel like they happened yesterday. Or didn’t happen at all. Maybe that’s because I should have been dreaming when they happened.
After resetting my alarm a couple different times to get every minute of sleep possible, I woke up at 3:30 a.m., two hours after I went to bed. If the final score from last night’s game was reversed, I would have been excited to get up. Or I might not have gone to bed in the first place. But the Pistons lost. Therefore, getting up in the middle of the night to drive 40 minutes to Oakland County Airport to watch the team exit its plane from San Antonio was not high on my list of priorities.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love the Pistons. They made it all the way to game 7 of the finals when most didn’t expect them to reach the first game. I was thrilled that I’d be home this summer, instead of in Erie, to watch Detroit fight for another championship. The energy has been incredible. It was crazy last night at the Palace, which was sold out even though the players were thousands of miles away. People screaming and pounding thundersticks like we could give our team a home court advantage away from home. Everyone felt so confident. So sure that we could defy all odds and bring it home. And that’s why the loss was so depressing.
In less than five minutes, the energy was transformed to sadness and disbelief. That cloud has stuck with me through today. I didn’t get much of a chance to sleep it off and pulling into the airport driveway to find more members of the media than fans didn’t help.

Reunions

I almost got sent to Lansing for a story today and I was so excited. Unfortunately, 10 minutes later, my editor told me to stay in the bureau instead. But during those minutes, I painted the trip in my head. A familiar cruise down I-96. Interviewing people on the Capitol steps, a place where I covered rallies about issues ranging from gay rights to abortion when I still carried the State News title. And best of all, a stop in the newsroom to surprise Amy and the few other staffers I still know there.
I miss that place.
I miss a lot of people.
But this weekend helped a bit, as each day brought some sort of reunion. On Friday, Abbey and Adam flew in from New Jersey for her sister's graduation party. Abbey left in May, two weeks after we graduated, and being away from her for this short amount of time has been rough. She's my best friend, has pretty much has held that title since third grade, and it's difficult not having her on call when I just need someone to hang out with. You take people for granted when they're around and realize how much it meant to just have them there for the little things: watching cheezy rental movies or driving around town with no destination in mind. Anyway, it was great to see her, and Adam, this weekend. I miss both of them and want to visit them on the "shore" as soon as possible.
The second part of my reunion weekend came on Sunday. Pat was in town, and I met up with him and some of the other guys to watch the Pistons game. I still can't believe how Pat's life has changed in four years. He was in my dorm during first year at MSU. After that year, he joined the Army and has since been to training camps across the country, South Korea, and possibly Iraq in the near future. It's always good to see him, and he's the same old Pat, only with a little bit (OK, maybe a lot bit) more muscle.

The recital

I went to Kelly's dance recital tonight and it brought back lots of memories. Plastering my face with blue eyeshadow, black eyeliner complete with cat eye lines and red lipstick. Walking into the studio every week hoping that our costumes would be sitting in a box in the corner. Finally trying them on and worrying about what my parents would say about the midriff-baring, skintight outfits. I miss it, somewhat.
But it also made me realize how silly recitals really are. What's the point of putting on a white one-piece uniform with flared legs and a sailor cap and moving to the beat of a techno rendition of "In the Navy?" Or paying $50 for a costume that makes you look like a fluff ball? It's strange, yet somewhat endearing. And I'm sure when I have a daughter, I'll be watching her do the same thing, and loving it.

The first one

I had never considered starting a blog before. And I'm not quite sure why. Maybe it was lack of time. Or it could have been the desire to spend the spare time I had doing something that required as few brain cells as possible. But, most likely, it was because of privacy, or lack thereof. I'm a quiet person and I've always valued physically writing down my thoughts.
Well, maybe not always.
My grandma gave me my first diary when I was 9 or 10 years old. It was pretty high quality on the diary scale, with a page for every day of the year and a lock that really didn't matter when my mischievous brother was around. But by the end of that year, I hadn't filled in more than two or three pages.
My grandma nagged me every time she visited: "Have you been using your diary?" I always told her yes and then worried that she'd run upstairs to my room, grab my diary from its hiding spot beneath a pile of Beverly Cleary books, open to its blank pages and discover I was lying. Of course, my Christmas gift from her the following year was another diary, to replace the one that I'd so anxiously filled the previous year.
Right.
But something strange happened in the next couple years -- I started to take my grandma's advice. During my transition from sixth grade to seventh, I started to write down my fears, loves and general thoughts in a looseleaf notebook, much less constricting than the predated paper I was used to. I've been keeping some sort of a journal ever since. Writing down my thoughts helps me think, if that makes sense. It takes time, a millisecond, maybe more, for your pen to write the word your brain comes up with. And that time helps me slow down and filter my thoughts when there are too many to comprehend.
But in the 10 or so years since I've been in sixth grade, the definition of writing has changed. Now, "writing" a paper, report, letter, etc. usually doesn't mean that a pen will be involved.
So maybe more than anything else this blog is a surrender to technology.
It could be a sign of the free time I've had since graduation.
Or maybe my boredom with VH1, MTV, reality TV and other mindless entertainment.
Whatever the reason, I can tell you one thing the birth of this blog doesn't signal: the end of my journal. You know, the one that needs a pen.