Wednesday, October 25, 2006 | by nathan

3 - Brian

On this, your birthday, I want to say how much better my life is with you in it. No amount of words is enough. Happy Birthday.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006 | by nathan

2 - Jay

Ran concerts at Wake Forest. Taught me humor works best if nothing is sacred. It was the best job I’ve ever had, he the best boss.

Monday, October 23, 2006 | by nathan

1 - Dylan

In five years I have watched you become someone who should be very proud of who he is. I hope you find happiness very, very soon.

Monday, October 23, 2006 | by nathan

9,940 Words

When I used to write piddling little columns for the Old Gold and Black in college, I never edited myself. I’d come from a high school where - not to blow my own horn or anything, but - I was praised by teachers and peers for being a pretty good writer. I took honors and AP classes, where passing that stupid AP test was the most important thing, and as such we learned to write well and quickly, but not to edit.

So when I wrote my ridiculous columns in the OGB I would write them, read them once - sometimes - and email them off. And oh, my, did I write some terrible, terrible columns. Same sitch in 2002, when I started writing QAF: write, read once (maybe), email. Very little editing. I’d catch typos later on the web and beg Justin to fix them, which he would, dutifully.

Since I have started earning a master’s degree in professional writing I have learned more about editing than I ever wanted to know. Not just how to copy-edit, which is simple, and which I learned in junior high journalism. I learned how to edit my work to make it better, to look over my own writing with a cold eye and say things the way they needed to be said. I love doing it now, and I think my work is a million times better for it. Now, when I write QAF, I sit down on one day and get everything out that I want to say. Then I leave it, and the next day I go back and force the whole thing into 1,500 words. I cut away the fat, I close up rabbit trails, I bring down plates I shouldn’t be trying to spin.

It’s become much tighter, much better. I’m writing work with which I am consistently pleased, and this means I will not have to take up drugs anytime soon.

So I’ve taken on a new project recently: the x365 project, which I’m really enjoying. This dude named Dan wanted to mark his 40th birthday by doing something special, and so he decided to write 40 words about 365 people who had touched his life. Now a whole bunch of people have joined in. The general rule is that you make a list of 365 people who have touched your life. You have to have met them in person - it can’t be a historical figure like your great-great-great-great grandmother, whose story you love, but whom you never met. Dan decided that he had to remember the person’s name; I threw that rule out for myself, because I have some wonderful stories of people who have changed my life, but whose names I do not remember - one-off interactions and the like.

Anyway, every day for a year, you write a certain number of words about each person on your list. Most people, myself included, are using their age - so, on Day 1, I wrote 26 words about my friend Dylan. Day 2 was 26 words about Jay, my old boss at Wake Forest, and so on. I flirted briefly with using only 1 word per person, but I think the words I use for people I don’t like would become monotonous. 

Anyway, I’ve been compiling the whole thing in a Word document for over a week, and I’ve been in two minds as to whether to post it to this site. Since I started this whole blogging business in earnest in 2004 I have found that it is fraught with peril; people find this blog whom I would rather not, and I get in all kinds of trouble for saying all kinds of things. This site has never been exactly what I thought it would be, but I have kept it up, often to my own detriment. Now I’m a week into the x365 thing, and I think I am going to post it. I just told my friend Leah about it, and she is thinking about doing it too, which I think is fantastic. The more the merrier, right?

What’s fun about it is trying to condense an entire relationship, a whole interaction often spanning years, into 26 tiny little words. (And yes, when I turn 27 I will add a word. But that’s not for 9 more months.) You have to tighten your language. Every word has to mean something. It’s wonderful.

I have become addicted to 5 different blogs that feature this project, and I’m really enjoying reading little blurbs about people I’ve never met. I hope you will too. 

Thursday, October 19, 2006 | by nathan

When You Work From Your Home, and Johns Call on the Phone…You’re A Call Girl

So I’ve decided on my Halloween costume. The title of this post is a clue. Here is another one.

Also, I’ve started my own x365 project, but I’m in two minds about whether or not to publish it here; I’m pretty sure it will cause drama of some kind, and I’m just not sure I want to deal with that. I am enjoying the hell out of writing it, though, and I look forward to working on a new one every day. So we’ll see. Feedback is welcome.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 | by nathan

Wherein My Little Hello Is Returned Unto Me

So I just had a phone call with Chambers where he told me that someone told him at his job that they were reading all about him on this website. Here and I thought I really was just masturbating all over the internet, speaking into the void and not being heard.

Now I feel kinda like the Who that got through to Horton. 

So I will try to be a bit more regular with this whole business, though you may take that as a promise of nothing. I am considering taking part in this little exercise, but I am fraught with distress at the thought of it, and for more reasons than I care to list. Unfortunately, I also think it could be not only an incredibly fun, but an incredibly useful writing exercise for me. Problem is, someone I can’t stand is doing it already, and I don’t want to go there.

At any rate, I figure if I’m so bored with the Internet - when will we get another haunted bear to shake us up a bit? - I might as well try to do something to make my little corner of it more exciting, or at least stop complaining. And when have you ever known me to stop complaining? 

Saturday, October 14, 2006 | by nathan

Fair Warning (Jingle Bells)

So I’ve started planning a Christmas party. You’re invited.

Last week at Target I bought a set of skull bobble-head lights to start decorating the house for Halloween. I think I’m going to spend a fair bit of today trying to find a costume. This holiday season is going to be the best ever for everyone. Do you understand me? If I have anything to do with it, and if you know me, you’re going to be so goddamn fucking merry that you won’t fricking know what to do with yourself. You got that?

The kicker: we’re giving presents that are not over-the-top or bank-breaking, and we’re not asking one another beforehand what we want and then going out and getting that exact thing. We’re going to surprise each other with unassuming presents so as not to be stressed out. Got it? We’re going to sit together, watch "24 Hours of A Christmas Story" on TNT and football, and we are goddamn well going to give thanks for one another’s company and love. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?

I am going to be annoyingly cheery. I am going to be baking like a busted Stepford Wife, and you are not going to whinge about your diet and how the holidays stress you out. You are going to come to my party and drink white hot chocolate and eat cookies and enjoy yourself. It’s going to be the best Christmas ever, because I decided today that life is just too damn short for everyone to stress about the holidays. We’re going to enjoy them, okay? And if that means not getting presents, fine - that’s just not what it’s about.

So put your fricking jingle bells on standby, kids, because I am not going to warn you again: I AM GOING TO BE UNBEARABLY JOLLY THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON AND YOU HAD BETTER BE, TOO.

‘Kay? Kay. Glad we got that all straightened up. Now, excuse me: I have to go see if that Wonder Woman costume at Target will fit me. 

Tuesday, October 10, 2006 | by nathan

Bored With the Internet, Part Deux

Okay, Internet. I’ve had it.

I just got a call from my good friend Jaye, who remarked that he, too, is bored with the internet. There’s just never anything to read, we lamented to one another over the phone. It doesn’t hold our interest like it once did.

I imagine that once the novelty wore off television people started to find it boring, too; perhaps after 15 or so years the Internet has reached a crossroads wherein its mere existence is no longer enough to sustain its likeability. It needs enlightened, creative people to come to it and create wonderful content.

And so I put the challenge to you, Internet, and to your users: what’s some good stuff that is out there that I’m not seeing? I want COMMENTS on this one, people, with links. You have yet to let me down, Internet - you know, except for the stealing what probably ALREADY amounts to a year or two of my life. I want to know where your creative, your talented, your off-the-wall, your fascinating and your intelligent things are THAT I CAN’T FIND IN OTHER MEDIA.

I’m really rooting for you here. 

Monday, October 9, 2006 | by nathan

“She Has A Pleasant Phone Voice.”

As almost any journalist will tell you, writing headlines is just about the worst, stupidest, and most difficult thing to do. At least, it is for me, and it is for most of the print journalists I know.

Our magazine project at work is winding down - finally - and one of our most long-procrastinated tasks is writing 50-some-odd three-word headlines for our series of 100-word profiles on various alumnae. Trying to sum up these women in three words is a bit like saying the Iraq War was "a bad bet." Some of the headlines write themselves, because some of the women are articulate and funny and gave us wonderful quotes. Others are easy because some of the women have cool jobs or interesting positions.

But some of the women are boring, their lives are boring, their quotes are boring, and their jobs are boring, and I’ve been using filler headlines to assist my sometimes less-than-creative brain. Some examples:

"She Was Mean To Me On The Phone."

"Eric Took Her Picture."

"A Woman’s Place Is In The Home."

"The Season Premiere of Drawn Together Wasn’t Funny."

"She Can Bite Me."

"Hi, I’m Mrs. Bill Johnson." 

Monday, October 9, 2006 | by nathan

Bored With The Internet

Someone asked me this weekend, "So, are you just not updating your blog as much?"

I nodded wistfully. "Pretty much." But I didn’t explain, because I don’t have an explanation.

I can tell you that a few of my favorite blogs have shut down or gone silent of late, and several more have gone slow. In fact, almost all of the RSS feeds I subscribe to have been really quiet lately, and I’m finding that I have shockingly little to read on the internet. I read CNN, Salon, SoMA Review, blah blah blah. But of late - even with North Korea about to end the world - I find myself shockingly bored when I’m online. Even the blogs that do update are just boring as all get out, for the most part. 

I wonder all the time if blogging is a trend or a truly viable new form of online communication and interpersonal connection. I’m beginning to think it’s the former, especially when I catch myself thinking about shutting down this site in favor of something much more worthwhile. The problem is, I really enjoy doing this, and I occasionally hear through the grapevine that people - for whatever reason - enjoy reading it.

So, nice try, Internet - but you’re going to have to work harder than that to get rid of me.