Blondes on his mind

This is an old story -- heck, I shot it back in November -- but I've been a little rushed on things lately, as ...

a) I'm moving back to Georgia on Wednesday.
b) Wednesday also happens to be my last day at the internship.
c) It's friggin' Christmas.

... so I'm going to post this and then That'll Be It For A While. As in, I probably won't be post for a week or two (or three) as I make the move back to Athens, college, and actually having a social life. Looking forward to all three of those. And not so much the same about leaving Birmingham.

... on second thought, I'll be posting something kinda a reminisce-y about the internship and Birmingham on the whole. Maybe not a whole heck of a lot, but just something pretentiously nostalgic and maudlin.

So, the story: there's a group that makes bikes for kids with disabilities. It's a cool idea, since what little kid doesn't love the idea of finally getting mobile? I think the excitement of a bike for a four-year-old is motivated by the same feelings a sixteen-year-old has for his first car. Anyway. It's a cool story, and the writer, Rakhia Nance, found a pretty cool angle to suit it.

This little guy has an unidentified mitochondrial disease that affects all the muscles in his body. He has practically no muscle control, none at all. He can't hold himself up, he can't lift his arms and legs, he can't even swallow on his own volition. I'm in awe of his parents. And these guys decided to build him a bike. It turned out more like a tricycle, but it'll allow him to sit up in the bike and be helped along by someone behind him.

Biggest thing I remember about this assignment: the kid was unabashedly attracted to blondes. A couple of the girls helping out at the foundation where they presented him with the bike were young attractive blondes, and every time one would walk by, he'd loll his head to the side to watch them, then give them this little grin. Mitochondrial disease or not, guy knows what he likes.

With grandma.

Just hangin' out, waitin' for my bike ...

Blonde alert.

With his mom.

The trike needed some adjustment when they first got him into it, but it wasn't bad for a first time.

I hope things work out with the little guy.

Okay, more later.

FYI

Just so y'all know ...

My HP laptop, which has been giving me issues of varying degrees for the past couple months, has gone (temporarily, I hope) to the great ... whatever ... in the ... well, whatever. It's dead as a door nail (though I assume nothing on the vivacity of door nails), gone to this digital realm and on to the next, an ex-notebook/current-paperweight, et cetera, et cetera ... needless to say, I'm a tad distraught.

But anyway, though I had a good handful of posts and photos to put up, that's going to have to be put on the backburner for the moment.

On the good side -- HP has recognized the issue as widespread and is offering an extended special warranty to fix the issues (it's a motherboard thing, so it'd be either ~$600 out-of-pocket, which I simply can't afford, or two or three weeks without my 'puter whilst they fix it). So it'll be going off after I get the harddrive backed up and come back in 10 days or so with the original factory settings.

Sigh. Not really been my week -- long drives all week; one of my fan belts snapped, leaving me without power steering and air conditioning; got a little sick at the beginning of the week; computer's busted for the time being; some jerk continues to steal my newspaper in the mornings ...

But hey, hope springs eternal, the weather will cool down, I'll meet interesting people, and catch the twerp who's stealing my paper.

One of those days

It's just been one of those days when I feel totally, totally useless. Like, completely. I had no assignments, aside from getting some photos of one of the interns, and then I was out trying to get "heat" pictures, which totally bombed.

Sigh.

Just one of those days, I guess. Somebody told me that "you're gonna fail a lot more than you're gonna succeed, so get used to it." He or she was right.

I'm going to write today off as a failure, and look forward to tomorrow.

This part sort of sucks

Yeah, so the internship is going well -- I'm learning (or at least, I hope I am) and I'm enjoying the experience so far. But I'm still friendless. I like the people I work with, but that's not the same as having someone I can call and say, "hey, I'm not doing anything tonight, so you wanna hang out?" This hanging out with the friend-of-an-uncle thing is looking a little bleaker each time it comes up. The last time, there was mention of things becoming "mayhem" if I joined her and her crew and her boyfriend showed up. ... I mean, what the hell? Sounds like a great way to meet ... hi, I'm Jake, and that guy wielding the barstool must be your boyfriend ...

It's weird -- I go out and meet a dozen people in a day, talk to them, get their names, their numbers, and find out what they do, or why they are who they are, or what makes them special, and then I shake their hand and they go their way and I go mine. I go back to the office and eventually "home" though I don't really feel that my little apartment is a home just yet, and I'm alone.

I've gone down two lonely roads in the past couple months. The first was the move from Athens to Calhoun, from a half dozen roommates and friends to two friends from high school who had obviously decided I wasn't worth their time. But I had my family there, at least for the latter half of my time there. I had my dogs. And Chana was only an hour or so away. Now I've gone from Calhoun to Birmingham, and from having my family and dogs to having nothing waiting for me at home.

I called Chana tonight to talk because I hadn't talked to her since earlier this week. She was hanging out with her friends. I felt a little strained talking to her because I miss her and I'm feel quite alone out here, but neither she nor anybody else can do anything about it. And it honestly makes me angry and frustrated, with being sad coming as an aftertaste. I can meet people like nothing when it comes to my job, but I have no idea (or, as yet, time) how to do it otherwise.

Yeah, this is just part of moving somewhere new.

Yeah, it'll pass.

But it's a bitch all the same.

More kids

More little kids playing tennis. And tomorrow I'll probably shoot challenged kids doing arts and crafts and swimming. And puppies, tomorrow morning for the pet of the week bit. Puppies, kids ... I just need old people and sunsets and I'm golden.

Sigh.

From the weekend til now

So the weekend was nice. Saw "The Incredible Hulk" with my parents on Friday night in Cartersville, got an AJC (we're suffering from our lack of newsprint since our subscription ran out), and got dinner at the new Fuddruckers in town, which happened to have an extremely cute girl behind the counter. Who was more than a little annoyed by the family of three who appeared and delayed their leaving the store by ten minutes.

Saturday started out slow -- puttered around the house and yard, yadayada, then drove to Chattanooga to check out a used bookstore, then drove to Trenton, Ga./Rising Fawn, Al., to join Aunt Bob and Unka Jerry to go to a big hippie gathering/art council/pot luck dinner/drum circle/general debauch on top of the mountains about twenty minutes away. Mostly folks from my parents' generation, and the two girls who were about my age didn't seem too inviting and I wasn't really looking to be especially cordial with anyone, despite the encouragement from various members of the party to take the initiative. I think they're just worried about their Artsy Sapien species dying off and are encouraging breeding. Besides, I find myself attracted to very go-getter-girls, not the come-get-me-girls. It's no fun if I'm the only one in the chase. It's also ... eh, never mind. If you want to know my thoughts on dating and relationships and what not, figure it out. Or ask me.

Got good and sauced for a while, enjoyed the fire, drummed a good bit, talked alternative energies with a guy named Bill who reminded me of some good family members, listened to Mary talk about New York, and to Bob about Istanbul (not Constantinople, which is nobody's business but the Turks, apparently), and to some random guy about West Virginia jokes.

"So we ended up outside and I pulled my razor and I would have cut him good if I'd'a been able to find some place to plug it in."

The next morning, Bob was quite hungover and Jerry and I were just tired out from the night. I hadn't drank that much or stayed up that late in a very long time -- outta practice, which makes me a sad excuse for a college student. Late, late breakfast, then some Bill Hicks with Jerry, and then digging with Bob in the dirt to retrieve some nice looking potatoes. Never dug for potatoes before -- both a learning experience and a good deal of fun.

Oh, shit -- I'm leaving for Birmingham on Saturday. It's just sort of sneaking up on me.
No more dogs ...
No more "real" bed ...
No more frie- ... actually, scratch that, the friends I had around here don't seem too interesting in hanging out ...
No more parents being supportive and loving ... well, not readily available, at least ...
No more knowing exactly where I'm going by feel ...
No more running at Ooky in the evenings ...
No more seeing people I knew in high school but never really liked ... well, maybe, we'll see ...
No more not worrying about bills ...
No more relaxed job at the paper where everything's basically optional ...
No more small town ...
No more yardwork ...
No more ... well, Calhoun ...
...sigh... No more Chana, I guess, at least, not just an hour away ...

Well.

Awkward ...

I imagine this is what it feels like to run into the girl from a month-and-a-half ago, the one-night stand, after having tried to avoid her and having not returned her phone calls. Sure, there are excuses, but none of them are really worthy of being spoken. Or true, for that matter.

So let me recap the last few months:

-Weekend Workshop: Very cool, lots of fun, very busy, met some really nice folks in the business, including one Walt Stricklin, who offered me an internship with the Birmingham News in Birmingham, Alabama.

-Got a 6-month Internship: Again, very cool. Again, with the B-ham News. I'll start on June 30th, and I'm headed down to 'Bama to check out some possible accommodations tomorrow with Chana. Who is, by the by, quite pissed that I'm "leaving her forever." She knows I'm not actually leaving forever, and that I'll be back in Athens come January, but she's still not too happy.

-Got 2 B's, 2 A's: Big surprise, the same grades I always get.

-Completed a Final Project for JOUR5990 (in 20 hours): I was sick at the beginning of the week, finally felt well enough to get some work done on Thursday morning, spent most of the day dealing with class stuff/bureaucratic BS/gathering materials, and editing and created this between the hours of midnight and 5:30 am Friday morning. I didn't sleep, and the day was long and funny. In the "haha" sense. Everything was amusing.

-Had to Drop Out of the Rome Internship: I really wanted to do both, but Jim Alred at the Rome News-Tribune felt that seven weeks at his wouldn't be enough. Sigh ... I still feel guilty about it, and I got some (seemingly) joking ribbing from Billy Weeks of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press, but most folks have just said, "hey, that's business." Still, sorry Jim.

-Picked up a 3 Week "Internship" at the Calhoun Times: Initially, I was just offering myself and my little camera up for some freelancing, but they called me a week later (as I was about to take Chana hiking) and asked me to come in for a meeting. Before I really knew what was going on, they were hiring me on for at least 20 hours a week with their GPA internship money. So, cool, I'll have another internship for my resume, and they're paying me. Gnarly. So far, I've been to a meet-and-greet with some local officials (shot stills for print), toured the local jail (stills for print and an online gallery), watched high school cheerleaders babysit little girls (stills for print and gallery), met most of the local Kiwanis Club (...uhm, we ate lunch together), and drove to Fairmount to watch them replant the park (stills for print and gallery, and video for the 'net). I'm none too happy about the online gallery the Times uses, but hey, small town newspaper, whatever.

That's been the most of it. Folks got back from Alaska with stories and pictures and whatnot, but I've mostly filled my time with yardwork, reading, running one of the dogs and moving my crap out of Athens.

Whoo -- not so awkward now. So, uh, can I buy you a drink? ...

This makes me happy ... truly, it does ... kick his ass, Gary. We'll burn your character sheets for you.

Imagine a rant

People are stupid -- they make stupid decisions, deciding to get together with their ex, who happens to be three years younger and still in high school. They shun you because you aren't tall, skinny and Latino, despite being a pretty damned good match.

Or they're perfect for you, you love each other and they just ... can't get it together. No matter what.

People are fools.

Thank God this holiday is over.

Lethargy

I'm lacking the motivation to do much of anything right now. Part of me says that it stems from a lack of assignments this week, which means that my "system" (as I refer to my whole being) is running on idle in expectation of long periods of engagement.

The other theory winning votes in my psyche is that there exists an inverse proportion between my energy/happiness and the chronological proximity to Valentine's Day.

Anyway, the things I will be doing soon:

1) Loading photos of women's rugby team.
2) Finishing up the design for Laura Ford's Web site.
3) Reworking the photo galleries on my site.
4) Going for more photos of the Habitat for Humanity house.
5) Finally get around to another short slide show on either Alicja or Drew and Liz.
6) Die from loneliness.

... okay, so one argument might have a little more validity than the other.

Black pit of despair

So I realized something about two hours ago that sent me spiraling into a minor depression, which made studying for my imminent Arabic quiz a little difficult. I don't think I did too badly, mind, but I'm still a little bummed by the ephihany.



Which is that my two closest friends are leaving me.



No, no, this is not some "poor little ole me" rant about friendships falling apart. I'm quite serious. They're both leaving.


Chana is leaving to attend a six-month internship in Atlanta, which is not too far away, but the distance combined with her schedule will make our normal chats and such very difficult. Also, her new boyfriend will probably take up a good bit of her time, but I'm not really counting that as anything specifically worrisome.













Aleks is graduating with her bachelors and probably going back to live with her parents, get a job, and continue on with her life, also in Atlanta. I haven't seen in a long while, though.









In fact, I think I've been distancing myself lately in order to get ready for this whole thing of not having my good friends anywhere nearby. No more dinners with Chana; no more dancing with Aleks; no more laughing, chatting, teasing, flirting, heartfelt talking, or ... well, anything, I guess, with either of them.

Sigh.