I am NOT the editor

"I don't want your
Photograph.
I don't need your
Photograph.
All I've got is a photograph,
But it's not enough."

Photograph - Def Leppard



A few weeks ago, my uncle ranted to me. "I don't like that I have to turn the front page to keep reading a story. See what you can do about that."

On New Year's Eve, I met one of my cousin's friends, who works for the sheriff. "See what you can do about getting them to stop bashing our department."

From a sales clerk at Kaufmanns: "Do you think you could get the paperboys back?"

About a week ago, my dad tells me, "I have some Steelers pictures for you, if your paper needs them. My friend took them."

I get this left and right. If it's not about our coverage, it's "Do you know so-and-so who works there, my friend used to go to school with her." I don't recall ever getting any such requests in Florida or Indiana, Pa.

I think my uncle was half-joking (which is funny, because his idea is a possibility we are exploring), but most of the comments I get are dead serious.

Tonight my dad actually printed out pages and pages of the Steelers photos he had talked to me about a week ago. I have to say, there wasn't a bad one among them, even the ones that had type over them, with "Priceless" punchlines.

"Where did you get these, Dad?" I asked.

"My friend."

"Who took them?"

"I don't know."

"Dad, we have photographers who take pictures for us. Besides, these are old."

"So what? How can you tell?"

"And when we do run other people's photos, we have to say who took them."

"Just say I took them," Dad says. "Put my name on 'em."

Land of the lost

"Nobody on the road,
Nobody on the beach.
I feel it in the air:
Summer's out of reach."

-- The Boys of Summer, Don Henley



It snowed... for two days. It started Tuesday as rain drizzle when I was leaving work. I had no idea that an inch of snow would be on my car when I came out from picking Zoe up from school 20 minutes later. There was no time for plows or salt trucks, and I shushed Zoe for most of the ride home as I gripped the steering wheel and hoped for the best. First gear, is, in fact, the best.

Today it didn't snow. I actually had fun.

Twice today I tried to make it to Zoe's school the hard (steep, snowy) way. I failed twice, but learned some things while trying. Mostly, that it was stupid to try.

Yesterday was the first time I skidded on a real road with businesses and stuff. I was trying to pull into a parking lot, and it just didn't happen. It wasn't dramatic or anything... I just skidded right past the parking lot entrance. So, I parked a few yards beyond and hopped out of my car like... like I meant to do that. Yeah.

Now I know what the grinding moan of uncooperative brakes against ice and snow sounds like.

More embarrassing, I got lost trying to get home yesterday. How many people can say that? I have my regular bridge, but I've tried out another one in case I need to get around something. That something came up yesterday, and so I went. And so I got lost.

Instead of crossing the Ohio River in one straight shot, I ended up in downtown. Now, downtown is sooooo not unfamiliar to me en'at. I mean, I used to, like, cut school all da time and be dahn 'er at dat mickie Ds right der on Stanwix.

But I digress. My point: I have never driven downtown. With all its one-way streets and ramps and loops and bullshit, I just took the bus, and I was usually reading the Press or spitting cookies at Aimee or something during the ride rather than watching where we were going.



I'm confident I can get out of the mess, but not in time to pick up my Zoe. So I call my dad. I should have just told him I was running late at work, but I made the mistake of blurting out my crossroads. Two things are just as important to Pittsburghers as calling a Steelers game: predicting the weather, and offering TEN ways to get to the same place.

"GO LEFT GO LEFT!" Dad yells. I'm stopped at a light.

I'm the frontrunner in the go-straight lane, and there's about 40 cars that have been waiting patiently in the lane to turn left. Ain't happening. I tell him I see a sign for 279 or 379 or I-95, I don't remember, LOL, but he's vehemently against that one, but it's that or go into the river. At the last second I see a sign for my alternate bridge... and let's just say I'm no expert at cleaning snow off my windows... I can't see shit... don't know if I can whip over and take that lane... that ramp... so...

I just do it.

Nothing dramatic. I just skidded into line with the other cars. I got into the wrong lane and probably waited 15 minutes longer than I should have to get to the tunnel and beyond.

Hey, I'm learning my way around again. Maybe the Florida plate helps in times like these. People just want to stay out of the way of a blatant rookie.

Now I know TWO ways to get to the Fort Pitt Bridge and into the tunnels. That's in addition to my THREE nifty ways to get to the West End Bridge. I'm catching up.


The West End Bridge, in the foreground, is the route I normally take to and from work. This is not my photo, but could be if you turned it black and white but left the bridge yellow and threw in a fog, rain and/or snow filter. But, you get the picture.

Just in time

"If you've ever known love,
If you've ever known peace,
If you've ever known joy,

If you've ever known war,
If you've ever known pain,
If you've ever said no,
Make sure that you are on time"

-- You Are the World, Live


Recently, my timing is strangely coincidental.

I left a job I love and shortly after there was a wave of uncertainty about cuts and layoffs. I discovered that at my new employment, they weren't really hiring, but my boss was making a push for a design desk and was looking for someone to lead it. I scored days on top of that, even though when I walked out of the interview I felt I would have nothing more than a night editing job offer.

Hurricane Wilma offered a strange transition from Florida to PA. It was a convenient disguise for leaving.

I made it back to the Burgh in time for the holidays and got to reconnect with family in one fell swoop. Single moms with kids my daughter's age just seem to be falling into my lap. I found a great school and pediatrician for Zoe on the first try. It seems every time I bitch about something in my blog, my fortune immediately changes. The love life shows potential, though I'm keeping it at arm's length for now. And I got a serious crash course in snow-driving before I actually started the new job, but the weather has been mild ever since.

So why do I summarize the blog?

BECAUSE NOTHING, NOTHING TOPS BEING HERE TO SEE THE STEELERS GO TO THE SUPER BOWL!!


It is one thing I can't describe as bittersweet.

Since when am I so damn lucky???

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GOOOOOOOOOOO



My A1 concept published nearly intact. I'm not crazy about the headline they came up with, but I found a lot of papers struggled to nail anything better.

Designs in mind

"Do you get what you're hoping for?
When you look behind you,
There's no open doors.
What are you hoping for?
Do you know?"

-- Do You Know Where You're Going To, Diana Ross & the Supremes



I think I had the sweetest job in the newsroom today: Celebrating by designing A1 for next Monday, after the Steelers win the AFC championship and advance to the Super Bowl.

I also had the saddest job: Mocking up some A1s in case they lose. Or, as anyone I have encountered within 100 miles would put it, in case WE lose.

I dunno, Dolphin fans, do you refer (er, reefer, newsies!) to yourselves as if you played tailback? Or more importantly, do Bronco fans???

I had no idea my editor would present my designs at the 3:30 planning meeting or else I would have a) started them before 1 p.m. or b) not turned them in at 3:25. THE editor did origami with my designs and handed them back to me, and I mocked up a couple more. His ideas were good... to say I was surprised would be a stretch, since I of all people had them too, but I didn't know I might have time to get them done.

My first group critique went great!

As dreaded as I felt when I realized they didn't pick up that I was anti-1A, I think I'll leave that off my resume should it come time to polish it off again. What more could a former Pittsburgh design-journalist-type gal hope to accomplish for her homecoming?

GO STEELERS!!!!!

Go Steelers!

If the playoff game had been an ordinary game, as it appeared to be when it started out, I wouldn't even be writing this. But man, that was a good fucking game.


I've spent Steeler Sundays at my brother's house more than a few times since I moved back to Pittsburgh, and it's usually emotionally charged and entertaining for me to watch the audience in the room as well as the TV set.

But today, I was jumping up and down and cursing right along with them. I saw glasses and bottles on the table leaping from their coasters as the dozen or so in the room bounced about and off each other in agony and joy during the last few "minutes" of the game. Men were hugging, women were near tears, phones were ringing.

After it was all over, Jen summed it up: "Man, I feel like I just played that game myself." And luckily Zoe didn't get trampled.

I didn't make it to Rob's in time for the kickoff... he's only minutes away from my dad's so I tore over during a commercial and didn't miss much. There were almost NO cars on the roads; it was eerie.

After the game, I stepped outside for a smoke, and it was like midnight on New Year's Eve, only it was daylight and the yelling and honking and firecrackers went on for much longer. Jen and I did a little howling of our own from the front porch. And I couldn't get a phone call or text message out for half an hour: All circuits busy.

The city swelled with a roar of cheering that made me remember what it was like when I used to live here; it made me forget snow and wind and cold and gray skies. I recalled the powerful sense of pride from native yinzers, the very idea that I could shed tears over a sport on TV. I wish the players themselves were able to walk out of their living rooms and just listen to the craziness echoing throughout the hills and valleys; I've rarely felt so much adoration for Pittsburgh.

And then I realized: It's 33 degrees out here, windy as shit, and I'm cold as all hell.

Hey, it's just football.......

Pass the Rolaids.

:)

Sometimes you want to go....

Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came."

-- Cheers theme song


Zoe has been coughing for a few days. Last night she complained that her ear and tummy hurt. I saw it coming: We were up most of the night.

I hit the phones this morning, kicking myself for not having found a pediatrician before now. I was cold calling places out of the phone book... nothing open yet. I called my old doctor here, hoping he'd see kids. No deal. (I'd make a horrible reporter.) But I got a referral agency, and the woman was really helpful, but in the end she gave me all family docs, not pedes. Which would be fine if I had a 12-year-old, but the kid is 4.

I hadn't had much sleep, and I was getting irritated, but I remembered driving past a storefront near my brother's place less than a week ago, and making a mental note of a practice I saw there. I don't know if it said pediatrician or not, or if I noted it because of its proximity to my house, but I scanned the yellow pages at that point and picked out the name.

Damn, she had three locations. I called up, and got an appointment at 10; how lucky for us that she was in Pittsburgh that day, and luckier that her office answered that early and had an appointment available so quickly.

Ahhhhh. I couldn't find anyone to watch Zoe so I called in to work, and soon headed to the doctor's office.

The waiting room filled up shortly after I got there, but we were called up quickly. I'm sitting in the examining room with Zoe... and maybe I had a subconscious inkling of this before now, but it suddenly hits me: THIS WOMAN WAS MY PEDIATRICIAN.

And like, suddenly, whoa, I'm like, dude, far out....


I did have a different pede for most of my childhood, but he got old and others joined his practice, including this doctor. I know I saw her at least a few times, and today we chatted about other doctors that were there then... there was one my mother hated and one she liked, and it turns out I was in the presence of the one she liked. She had moved her practice and was on her own now, and suddenly I felt so old.

Zoe got a prescription for her ear infection and by this evening she was bouncing about like her old self.

The sun came out for a little bit today, and the Chia Pet, as mangy as it has been, filled in a little. You'd think from the commercials the damn thing would grow overnight, but it doesn't mention you need more than a cumulative day of sunlight a month.


The elephant Chia rejoices after today's hour of partly cloudy skies in Allegheny County.

Houston...

We have a problem.



"All the science, I don't understand.
It's just my job, five days a week.

I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touchdown brings me 'round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at all
Oh no no no, I'm a rocket man."

- Rocket Man, Elton John



I am officially doing my job now. I am back on days, I am dropping Zoe off at school and heading to work, doing my job and going and picking up Zoe, having dinner, giving her a bath (as warranted) and enjoying the company of my family and getting to bed at a decent hour. I've become an instant news junkie: I have so much more time on my hands that I'm soaking up TV and radio news, and I even found myself reading the competition and poking around internet news. Yes, I'm am officially doing my job now.

I am so fucking bored.

Not so much with the family side of it... I relish that. I've had a daughter for four years and I've never had dinner with her on a regular basis. I haven't spent any meaningful time with my father in more than 15 years. (And we're all caught up now, done, LOL.) I get to see my brother whenever I want, but I don't, and I can call up my cousins and friends without worrying about long-distance charges. Though I don't have their numbers memorized so I continue to use my programmed cell so.. well... I'll move those to the "pro" list later.

But it's the work part. I go to work. I get there before most people and I have about an hour to get done what I want. Then.... it's meetings. All day. I have a minimum of three meetings a day. Monday I should have had seven but only made it to five.

Through these meetings, it's how I learn about the company. It's practically my only opportunity to learn about the company now, and I get along just fine with everyone and have started inserting my 2 cents... but it's the upper folks I'm dealing with, and I just never had the foresight to think about that. I have so much to get used to here -- political affiliations, private ownership, financial freedom, among them -- that I can't believe I'm not in the trenches. Where I love to be.

Oh, woe is me, right? LOL. I guess I'm not used to making decisions, enterprising if you will. I think if my old paper had handed those reins to me, I would have embraced it, but walking into a new place and feeling a little pressure to judge the marketability of the product and run with it....

I've had no training. Not even on the programs, and I feel stupid calling technology over to find out why a PDF looks incorrect. Forget mentors, I haven't been offered one: In a month probably I'll be expected to mentor others and I suspect I'll have to run meetings. I don't even know who is who and who does what. I spend a good deal of my time snooping around about who I'm supposed to be talking to about this and that. And reintroducing myself to everyone I've already met.

I know I'll learn. But I just want to sit and do what I'm good at: EDIT. Design or copy, I wanna edit. I wonder if I'm not supposed to do that anymore, if I'm expected to let my days be consumed by learning the ropes on my own, feeling my way around and carving out something for myself, suggesting projects and following through.

Which I have been. I feel like I've been turned loose in the newsroom and they're seeing what I come up with.

It's more stressful than a midnight deadline with breaking news at 11:45. But way less exciting.

A mother's daughter

"Lying down in Charleston under the Carolina sky,
You see, I’m tired of feeling this pain.
I’m tired of living my own little lie.
And it makes me wonder
When I see you in my dreams,
Does it mean anything;
Are you trying to talk to me.

I see you in my dreams,
And I wonder if you’re looking down at me
And smiling right now.
I wanna know if it’s true,
When he looks at me,
Won’t you tell me,
Does he realize he came down here,
And he took you too soon."

-- Not Even the Trees, Hootie and the Blowfish



Zoe's been asking about my mom, so we went to visit her. Also, some guy at work cracked a joke about being so stressed he thought he'd have a brain aneurysm, and it made me wonder if us kids just stressed my mom to death. OK, OK, I know, not too funny, but she would laugh by now, so you laugh too. She was really REALLY funny, and like me (surprise) got through the hard stuff with a little levity, perhaps sometimes mildly inappropriate or questionable.

Sometimes when I crack a joke that doesn't go over well I secretly apologize to her. She was the queen of gag gifts in my family and always hit the mark telling a funny story. She always made everyone smile; it was her gift.


Zoe didn't at all seem fazed that we were visiting a piece of granite in the ground. She seemed to understand that someone who died was there, and why we were there. She was more inquisitive about how my mom got sick, and if me and my mommy missed each other. And we finally gave a name to my mom for her: Grandmommy.

I tried to be careful to explain in simple terms that not everyone who gets sick dies... that not everyone who dies was sick...

I thought she might be too young to understand, but she gave me great comfort and seemed very intuitive about the whole experience.

Then she wanted to get back in the car.

"I'm tired, Mommy. Bye Grandmommy. See you later."


Zoe picked out flowers to give to Grandmommy.

Bowled over?

"And so it is,
Just like you said it should be.
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time.

I can't take my mind off of you..."

-- The Blower's Daughter, Damien Rice



For New Year's Eve, Zoe and I went cosmic bowling with three of my cousins and their kids. I forgot my camera, which is a damn shame since I couldn't document me kicking Zoe's butt.

OK, maybe I didn't do any butt-kicking. OK, maybe I bowl worse than a 4-year-old.

The first game we tied at 98 (bumper bowling, yes, and I have to credit those bumpers with a couple of my spares, yeah I'm that bad, er, lucky) and after that my cousins just made fun of me! "Aim for where those pins are," Mark quipped. Har har.

Zoe had a great time her first time bowling.

Me, I was feeling guilty, I think! It was on my way there that I started to feel like I had never left Pittsburgh; I was zipping around barely lit streets in the rain with total hillage and glare and conditions that render any mirror in the car useless... It was a very odd feeling, and I could feel my skin crawling when I realized the thought I was having. It was like ... I was cheating on Florida!

But I can't stop thinking about Lauderdale...

I'm driving illegally now, still on my FL license and plate. *GASP* I'm so bad. :) If a cop pulls me over, it won't be hard for me to tell him that I'm not sure if I'm a resident of PA or not yet.

But I've had a few slivers of feeling like... maybe it's all coming together. Maybe I am here for good. And maybe I'm happy about it.

Maybe.

Change is good

My brother has been through a lot of changes in his 20-some years. Some sad, some funny, some slow and some fast. For instance...

Here is Rob on Christmas Day:


And here is Rob (with Zoe) on New Year's Day:



I'm working on getting together some holiday photos to post... I couldn't pass up a chance to post these tonight though. :)

Happy New Year!!