From the Tundra

Actually, from the office, which is as cold as I imagine a tundra might be. I've always like that word anyway, so a nice opportunity to use it.

After two days of slamming through two 1,000-word stories, well, they'll probably not run this week. Editors are like jailers. They let you out in the yard when they feel like it.

I did get to speak to an old prof whom I never distinguished myself to in our lecture class, but always admired for his wit and experience (at the top of just about any major news outlet in various media), if not his dodderiness. He was a perfect source for my story (about newspapers reporting on themselves) and was a witty as I'd remembered. I liked particularly that he called himself an old fogy. Foggety old fogy. I haven't the foggiest. (Props to my pops.)

In the meantime, I recall, warmly, getting warned out of a ghetto neighborhood that sits like a gloomy island in the glossy chain of towns around here, just before getting harassed by cops and men on bicycles. All this to find the house of my welfare interviewees last Friday. (Use adverbs like quarters, another old prof always said. Sorry, Kevin.)

The muggy heat in their house was awful and the light was fluorescent and draining. A boy on a bike asked me how many years of school I'd gone to as I walked up the front path, and then he told me he wants to be a pilot. I hope that boy becomes a pilot...

I always wanted to be an astronaut. At least it's close to what I do now: I leave the earth for short periods of time, explore new planets and definitely encounter aliens.