Currently Listening Euphoria Morning By Chris Cornell Preaching the End Of the World see related

Of false gods and erroneous proclamations...

As I was preparing to walk out the door of my last job, a giant box of back issues of the newspaper straining my posture, someone remarked to me that "the newspaper gods must have spoken" and that I was apparently destined not to work at a newspaper again. At the time, that sounded about right.

After all, three of my last four attempts to work at a paper had failed miserably with me either getting fired or laid off for reasons well beyond anything I could even have a passing amount of control over. It seemed I was destined to move on to a line of work that didn't involve daily, print journalism. And to be honest, I was more than happy to oblige said gods. Given that much of my experience with newspapers had been a horribly mismanaged muddle of mediocrity or maligned madness from morons who majorly misused their means, well, let's just say I wanted a career change. To anything. Anything at all.

Proof of my disenchantment could be seen in the fact that of the 40 or so resumes I sent out over the two months of my unemployment, a grand sum of "0" were sent to newspapers. I figured I was finished.

It seems, however, that false gods had predicted my early retirement from the medium as I once more find myself within the confines of a daily's newsroom. My responsibilities with said confines has changed quite a bit, but here I am none the less.

It feels odd, though, not producing a story or two every day. I never thought I'd say it given my overall growing disdain for newspaper gruntwork, but I miss it. I miss listening to the police scanner, the bizarre interviews. In some ways I even miss the pressure of the deadline, but mostly for the sweet release of completion upon filing the story just minutes before deadline. I don't know that I will ever go back to it, but I know I certainly have more of a love for it than I thought I did. It takes a special kind of someone to miss a job that is mostly thankless, has horrible hours, worse pay and offers little to nothing in the way of upward mobility. Once again, Hunter Thompson's description of being too weird to live and too rare to die is almost too apt for journalists (yes, I know he wasn't referring to them even remotely when he said that, but it fits. Sue me.)

Having said all that, this venture is so far removed from my past experiences at a paper that I hesitate to call them newspapers at all, so drastic are the differences in management, production and priorities between here and there. This place is a paper, the rest (save for one) are a cruel joke propagated by the world's misanthropes.

All I know is that I've pretty much given up on using absolutes and superlatives when making proclamations about my life's direction. They never lead anywhere but in the opposite direction of where I ultimately end up heading.

"It was the law of the sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain. And not always at the top,"- Hunter S. Thompson

Of horrible batting averages and figurative lock picks...

Life's bullpen specializes in firing off curveballs from the mound. This is not a new concept.

What becomes frustring, however, is when even though you can see that curveball coming a mile away you're swing is still apparently limp enough so that you once again strike out or just keep clipping it off into the stands for foul ball after foul ball.

I'm not really sure where this baseball analogy is coming from other than possibly the fact that I stayed up late last night watching Major League II. Random, I know.

Still, the comparison stands firm, I think.

This isn't the first time I've found myself in a situation like the one I am currently in and, suffice to say, it will likely be far from the last. Such are the trials someone in my station must endure, I suppose. This one feels markedly different, though. Perhaps it's the fact that I have absolutely no safety net to fall on this time and find the prospect of spiraling into a money-less freefall a bit unnerving if not a bit inspiring in a bizarre sort of way. For those of you who are not melodramaticists such as myself, don't bother trying to discern the meaning of that last statement, it's not for you.

These past few weeks have forced to wonder, though, just how some of these people I know actually get their jobs. Job hunting is such a nebulous and frustrating concept. It's like someone purposefully keeps re-writing the rules on how to land employment but doesn't bother letting you in on the secret just so some hidden camera crew and audience can have their jollies watching you flounder about. I mean, the least they could do is let me in on it so I could give them a proper comedic performance. But then, I've always wanted my life to be a definitive bit of meta-humor so go figure.

People keep telling feeding me the age-old phrase, "well, when one door closes..." at which point I usually cut them off and add "it means you have to pick the lock of another one."

"The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive,"- Robert Heinlein, author

Currently Listening Live In New York By Stanley Jordan see related

Down on Main Street...

Currently Listening Bob Seger - Greatest Hits By Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band see related

Ka is a wheel...

Life, it seems, has brought me full circle. In two weeks I begin working at the very place I was instructed, quite unexpectedly I might add, to leave not but a year and a half ago. But just as unexpectedly as I left, The Huntsville Item decided to request my talents for their use once more. Such an offer left me in an odd state given that my taste for the realm of print journalism, or, more precisely, newspapers, had grown quite stale. Undertandably so, I'd say, given I had been laid off from two of my previous three ventures in said realm.

So, not only is it odd enough going back to work for the exact same establishment that dismissed me, but I have also managed to reclaim the very same apartment I once inhabited. Ladies and gentlemen, if in five months I am laid off and subsequently transferred to Mississippi you may very well see me change my name to Phil Connors and possibly attempt to kill myself to see if this cycle is simply reset upon the next day.

My initial reaction to returning to Huntsville left me almost depressed. Sure, reuniting with some of the best people I've ever known is ideal, but from a career and life standpoint it almost felt like I would be regressing, in a way, were I to simply "settle" for coming back. I would like to think that all the decisions I have made in my life thus far, for better or worse, would lead me on some other tangent not yet considered. This is not to be, however. My life seems inexorably attached to this quaint town where big things occassionally happen. My trust in God guiding me to the proper place has never waivered and I suppose that has been both a blessing and a failing. A blessing in that it prevents stress and anxiety from dominating my thoughts and psyche but a failing in that it has almost become a blind devotion. God calls us to be servants not mindless automatons who bend to his every whim with nary a thought to the contrary. He expects obedience not ignorance.

Still, despite my reservations it will be refreshing to once again be on my own and back in good company. It's been a long time coming. I realize, too, that it's not location that matters but rather what is done with the time spent there. Sadly, this is a conclusion I reached far too late during my stay in past locations.

"A life spent making mistakes is not only honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing,"- George Bernard Shaw, playwright

Currently Listening Franz Ferdinand By Franz Ferdinand see related

Of words that tingle the tongue