the perfect space

I wanna have pride like my mother has,

And not like the kind in the bible that turns you bad.

-avetts

this is a great day. it's coffee friday on thursday at work, there are cheerwine doughnuts in the breakroom and i am almost on vacation.

#oops

Today there are two printed errors in the paper that are my fault. Almost immediately after looking at them and feeling stupid about it, I get a call from the front desk that someone is here to see me.

In my head, it is one of the people affected by my error and they are here to chew me out. Give me a break, I'm thinking, I get a few free ones! 

So the whole time I'm walking downstairs, I'm making a speech inside my head that I plan on saying as soon as I see the mean guy so he can't say anything smart. 

Turns out, I'm a drama queen...and it's a sweet old man from Lenoir City who came to drop off an announcement about a benefit golf tournament. 

Close one.

insert clever title here

After a month at my job, I think I can finally say I am starting to feel comfortable. The biggest challenge for me has been for me to accept correction as instruction and learning to swallow my pride and ask for help.

But here's how I know I'm in the right place:

I can probably tell you the meaning of almost every acronym-ed club or organization in Knoxville and when they installed their latest officers, I edit signs as I pass them, my desk calendar is stained with newsprint and I have finally mastered the art of spotting extra spaces, misplaced semicolons and pretending to be interested when someone calls with a “story I should investigate"...

A little bit of me still sometimes feels like a random kid in the newsroom. Probably because I crack myself up at my desk thinking about stuff like this. Oh, and sometimes this. 

texas forever.

I'm not usually one to make bold statements, but I would like to go on record that

a)Friday Night Lights is hands-down my favorite show of all time.
and
b)Friday Night Lights is (was) the best show on television.

You can now quote me on that.

Just watch it. But don't search Youtube for videos because then you will find fan-made montages of Coach Taylor set to Tim McGraw. Yeesh.

clear eyes full hearts

stuff from that time and those places

1. My most commonly used phrase as of late is "I'm just trying to be where I'm at." This grammatically incorrect sentence is brought to you by my cousin Lauren, who is full of other nonsensical knowledge and witty wisdoms.

2. This picture of a popsicle. Yum.

3. The movie Bridesmaids-I have now seen it twice. Bethany and I went for the second time around  this past Saturday and created yet another scene in the theater. At one point I think we were the only two people laughing. There is a scene on an airplane that I think is literally One of the.  Funniest things. I have ever seen.

4. Adele power ballads.  Namely One and Only. Also, this song, that is most definitely NOT a power ballad, but makes me laugh every time I hear it.

5. Rewatching Friday Night Lights season 1- that was just purchased for 10 bucks at Target-will be keeping me busy this week, along with...

6. The Hunger Games' second installment, Catching Fire. Holy distopia these books are so fun!

7. Counting down days until I can eat my weight in hushpuppies Hudson's on the Docks on vacation in a few weeks.


 I think that's enough random items for now.

dreams

Well last night/this morning, I dreamed that I was dressed as R2D2 in some kind of Star Wars re-creation that was taking place at Disney World. Oh and the Super Bowl was also going on. Also, I was not allowed to ride some swing-type ride because of my costume. Clearly.

I had a pretty significant amount of sugar before bed, so I figured something like this would happen. I have been having crazy vivid dreams lately and can remember every detail when I wake up. Flip side? I don't feel like I've rested at all. I was too busy fighting off linebackers and Storm Troopers.

Meaning?

happy dance

It's Thursday! Cut a little rug! No really!

Here, watch this for some inspiration...

43 years ago...

...Robert Francis Kennedy was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in LA, shortly after winning the California primary. Twenty-six hours later RFK died, just 5 years after his older brother Jack was assassinated in Dallas.

I became interested in all things Kennedy when I was a junior in high school.  We held a night honoring the 40th anniversary of JFK's death and other events that transpired in the volatile 1960s. I worked for months and months researching Jackie Kennedy and I have absolutely consumed anything I can read about the Camelot couple and their renown family ever since.

{Ok, ok, call me a nutjob, but I love a good conspiracy theory. AND if you have half an hour I will gladly share my thoughts about the JFK assassination and the absurdity of the Magic Bullet theory. And I digress.}

RFK gave just a speech in Cleveland, Ohio exactly 2 months before his death. It is unfortunate and somewhat haunting that this particaular speech was about violence.

I think that by reading the text you will see that a lot of the same issues that America faced in 1968 still plague us today. People still don't get along, there is still war and there is still hatred and ignorance.

Let the final sentence move you. Who doesn't swell with pride when they hear the word countrymen?

Remarks of Senator Robert F. Kennedy to the Cleveland City Club

Cleveland, Ohio, April 5, 1968

This is a time of shame and sorrow It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives. It is not the concern of any one race The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed And yet it goes on and on. Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by his assassin's bullet. No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people. Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded. "Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs." Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire. Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them. Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter. This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered. We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers. Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is now what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence. We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution. But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again. *** Text and audio found here