From DawsonsCreek.com

The story about my long-time boyfriend and first-time roommate asking me to switch up my tunes while getting ready Friday night really got me thinking.

We’ve been friends since the fall of 2007 and attached at the hip most of the time since then. Yet, living together is somehow bringing out some really funny, weird and potentially irksome traits that we’ve never fully realized in each other – or ourselves.

Obviously, one of mine is my love of female singer/songwriters. Yes, it’s totally cliche for a young woman to love listening to other young women who share their life experiences. It’s also totally understandable.

Much less understandable is the fact that I’m a bit … well, less organized than I’d like anyone to know. But see, when I merely shared my space with people who also shared their space with me, it worked. No one knew how much time I spent searching within my collection of purses for that one tube of Burt’s Bees. Or how many times I put things somewhere only to spend fifteen minutes in a panic, tearing the place apart wondering, “Where in the world did that shirt/hair clip/note pad/book/phone/pair of shoes go?!”

Now I’ve got someone watching me like a hawk, keeping score of my wasted minutes and false alarms. (By the way, if I ever call you and complain that I can’t find something, I will find it within the span of our conversation and then say, “Thanks, I always find it just as I really start to panic.” In that sense, I’m more predictable than a clock.)

Since we share a room and a kitchen and all of the items in it, he knows every single time I don’t put the Tupperware back in its place. And it kills me! It’s like I have a big, giant reminder any time I don’t make my plays by the book.

The great irony here is that when I work, I aim to be ridiculously organized. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it results in sticky notes infiltrating my work space.

As the quirky, annoying and overachieving Dawson’s Creek character Andie McPhee once said: “I’m the girl who writes sticky notes to remind myself to get more sticky notes.” (This quote is according to my memory, not fact.)

Guess it’s time to write a sticky note to remind myself where to put the Tupperware?

It also meant I was usually the designated driver when we jam-packed for make the journey to and from parties. There are a bajillion reasons why being the only sober gal in a crowd of drunks is less desirable than a root canal, there I always had one reprieve: my car, my tunes.

Or so I thought.

Let me tell you, drunk people don’t hold back.

“Ugh, your music is so depressing. What’s wrong with you?” (Ummm. I can’t really relate to being “up in the club, VIP” or hard life on the streets, but we’ve all had unrequited love.)

“Why don’t you have any T-Pain?!” (It was 2007 and “Buy You a Drank” was poppin’.)

“I’m beginning to think you’re an angry lesbian on the inside!” (I think one friend had it with my collection of Feist, Fiona Apple and Ani DiFranco.)

Thus, the “Make Other Bitches Happy” playlist was born. Filled with the likes of Usher, Lil Wayne, Nelly, Pitbull and other artists whose names don’t mean all that much to me, the playlist did exactly what its name entails.

Though I’ve made newer iterations with less hostile names, I’ve started to realize that being out of the college atmosphere has a lot of perks. For one, I’m remembering that – gasp! – there actually are more than five songs of each genre on the radio.

For two, I got ready to go out Friday night while listening to Jewel’s amazing 1995 album “Pieces of You” after “Who Will Save Your Soul?” was stuck in my head. I belted my heart out to her songs, filled with sadness and social commentary.

“This is awesome!” I thought. “I can listen to whatever I want and no one will complain that it’s not the latest Chris Brown song.”

And awesome it was, as I relived every heartbreak I’ve ever had and pondered how little I could have understood the lyrics when I was all of seven years old. But my glory was short-lived.

“Can’t we put on something else?” my boyfriend said as he walked into the room. “This isn’t really music that’s getting me pumped to go out.”

After I published my last post, I noticed a widget with suggestions for future blog topics. Once I recovered from my FCAT flashbacks, one prompt caught my attention: ”Exactly half of the year is now over. List 10 things you want to do before 2012 begins.”

Why thank you for the bucket-list style challenge, folks. I’ve had a number of goals floating around in my head, and this provides me an opportunity to share them.

1. As you know, I’d like to run a 5K. No race commitment yet, but I’m training.
2. Attend a Florida football game – for the first time as an alumna.
3. Save $1,000 from here out. With my pay, that’s going to take a LOT of frugality.
4. Visit my dad’s family in North Carolina. I haven’t been there in years.
5. See my best friends more than twice. Now that we’re dispersed, that’ll be a challenge.
6. Turn 23. Duhhh.
7. Spend the holidays with my family — without missing work. Thank you Saturday Christmas! (Hey, I’ve got five vacation days and I’m being VERY protective of them.)
8. It should come as no surprise that I’d like to lose weight. But I’m adding it because it is possible that I could accomplish No. 1 and still not shed a pound.
9. Get a puppy. Which actually won’t happen while I’m in this lease, which is a kicker because I have a great place.
10. This one’s open. I’ll add something new to the list when it comes to mind.

Here’s to hoping WP prompts me to reevaluate my goals come the new year!

What’s on your list?

“Wow, congrats, Danielle — that’s like a toddler being proud it licked a garbage can,” you’re probably thinking.*

For me, this is a HUGE deal. According to the record in my phone (drat! The app tracks my failures, too), I’ve attempted this program seven times without sticking to it in the future.

I tried in the beginning of January. I tried at the end of January. Looks like I finished the first week in February. And once more in May.

Between January and April, I worked out an average of two days per week with a trainer and did a lot of interval training with weights, so I wasn’t totally useless.

But. I did keep giving up on myself. My shins hurt (thanks, shin splints), my calves hurt, I felt silly running on the indoor track. It was too hot to run outside, and yet treadmills were too cranky about my interval choices. I tried every excuse in the book to cut my efforts short.

I even tried day one twice this week. Once, my calves hurt way too bad and I gave up halfway through to bike instead. The second time, to be fair, I accidentally skipped my warm-up and walked through the first run, completed the other five and then cooled down on a bike but hit the “done” button before the app thought I was done. Hey, if the app doesn’t believe I finished it, then I really can’t tell it I did.

Now I’m realizing that my sneakers aren’t going to run themselves, and I’ve got to set a tangible, quantifiable goal to keep me on the straight and narrow.

So Sunday, I’ll do day two and day three will follow suit.

Let’s make a deal: If I haven’t gloated about finishing week three, day one by this time next week, you have full permission to ask me why and then call me on every one of my excuses.

If my will isn’t motivation enough, the threat of all four of my blog’s readers calling me a cop-out totally will be.

*Weird analogy, but that was the first to come to mind. And it made me laugh.  

I created it at the urging of professors who guaranteed that aspiring writers must demonstrate through all possible channels that they are, indeed, capable of writing. And following AP style instructions. And complying with ethical guidelines.

(Notice that? I just wrote two phrases that don’t constitute complete sentences, but since I’m not actively seeking employment, I’m fully confident this won’t rattle my career.)

But I’ve always had questions and reservations about the rules for journalists who blog. For one, most blogs have a conversational tone. Now I’m not sure about you, but I find it pretty hard to hold an interesting conversation without bringing my opinion into it. But wait! Journalists aren’t supposed to express opinions. We’re “just the facts, ma’am” for the sake of credibility, so we’re not burned at the stake for having an agenda. On a side note, that’s a funny thought, because I know now that very few TV stations refrain from editorializing, and most papers are accused of having a partisan bias. 

Also, if the point of my blog is to woo potential employers, wouldn’t it be risky to opine on many topics, because, as we all know, it’s really really hard to not offend anyone these days?

Because of these misgivings, I decided I would play my blog safe and only write about my professional development. I’ve merely skimmed the surface of topics that are truly close to my heart, and I’ve ignored politics altogether. And my blog has really suffered as a result.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I’m so excited about stories that I call everyone who loves me and tell them everything – but I’m also keen enough to know that few people care about the slow-construction of my professional ego.  My reservations have made me too dry, too safe and pretty dull.

To combat this issue, I’ve been thinking of writing more about personal matters (a tricky idea, since I work in such a small market and value my privacy) and about what makes me tick on a macro-scale. I’ve been mentally crafting guidelines that would enable me to loosen up (and embrace!) my blog while keeping me within my ethical bounds.

The number one thing that’s plagued me recently? These ridiculous grand-standers who refuse to compromise for the sake of the country. Yesterday, I decided that it would be kosher for me to report on my general view of politics and tackle this monster. It would be acceptable, I decided, to blog about political ideas that I am not likely to write about in the line of duty. That’d be fair, right?

This morning, I went to work riled about Congress and ready to write. And wouldn’t you know, my editor asked me to localize a story about the national debt fiasco. Basically, my angle is: How might the Liberty County economy be affected if our representatives fail to find a solution by Tuesday?

Damn the luck! It’s a good story, if I do say so myself. But now I guess it means I’ll have to hold my tongue.

How do you think journalists should proceed when blogging?

Photo by James Farmer/sxc.hu

Let me tell you my biggest secret: If you and I dine together and there is a bread basket sitting between us, I cannot focus on what you’re saying. I’ll try, but really I’m focused on not consuming the entire basket.

As a writer, reader and weight-conscious woman, the lede above is one of the most powerful ones I have ever read.

Writer Arianne Cohen wrote it for a Marie Claire article, How To Stop Binge Eating, but when I read it, I felt just like the writers of “Killing Me Softly” must have felt once upon a time.

Yesterday morning when I tuned in to NPR and heard Kara Curtis share her own struggle with obesity, I felt that same, familiar sting. I could relate to everything she was saying, short of eating “a pureed concoction of hemp and rice protein, coconut milk and avocado” for breakfast.

I suppose I could add a couple more caveats: namely, I’m not as heavy as she is, and I have not struggled for quite as long. But our similarities – and attitudes toward ourselves and food – still unite us.

 ”It’s a very schizophrenic relationship we have with obesity,” Curtis says. “I understand it as addiction, but then there’s also this other piece of me that knows that there is a lack of willingness on my part. So really, who’s to blame for that? Me!”

When I heard this, my mind was racing, screeching “Yes! Yes! I’m to blame – but skinny bitches don’t understand my struggle – but then if I were better, I could be one, too!”

This is my inner struggle. And sadly, it’s not mine alone. Like Kara, I will begin an earnest effort to control my cravings, but all too often a cookie or brownie or clandestine trip to McDonald’s gets the best of me, and my confidence tumbles with my will-power.

Food, it seems, beckons us on a deeper level.

The thought process goes something like this: I’m stressed, and a sweet treat would rev me up and get me through this. Ooh, I scrounged up 75 cents, that’ll get me a candy bar in the vending machine. Wow, this is good. Wait, why am I eating this? Did I really just eat that? Well, the fact that I only ate natural foods and a dab of mayo on my whole wheat sandwich is now negated. Wait. Weren’t there other treats in the fridge? Fitness isn’t coming today, so instant gratification will have to do instead.

This mindset has controlled me for years. It’s a trap, truly. It’s nearly impossible to hop on the wagon and stay there. I did a great job this spring while training with Lucy; I never lost more than three quantifiable pounds, but my body became firmer and leaner. But a perfect storm happened: I tried to combine all of my favorite college pastimes (which too often include food and alcohol) into a raucous month, and at the end of it, my membership to the gym expired. So did my resolve.

Now that I’m pouring the foundation for my true adult habits and routines, I’m trying to make a change for the better. As I wrote earlier, I’m trying to cook more and make healthier choices (substituting ground turkey for ground beef, eating more seafood, using whole wheat options, reducing added sugars, cutting my drinking significantly) and am once again setting fitness goals.

The hardest thing to change? My mindset. Like Kara, I need to stop volleying between self-pity and shame and step up to the plate. It’s time to realize that though my shape does not define me, my own behaviors certainly have power to define my shape.

For an eye-opening look at obesity by the numbers, check out this “Obesity in America, By the Numbers” graphic representation. 

Salmon, quinoa & asparagus. Yum!

I’ve always loved cook books.

Let’s rephrase that: I’ve always loved to look at cook books. With their flashy pictures, pops of color and endless stream of ideas, you’d think they were the perfect resource for a professional/domestic goddess in training. But I always manage to forget about them.

But now I have Allrecipes.com to thank for saving me from my inner Amelia Bedelia. (Confession: In the last month, I’ve misread “teaspoon” for “tablespoon” and popped a batch of cupcakes into the oven without adding the eggs.)

Since moving to Georgia, I’ve found that I spend a LOT more time in the kitchen than I ever did before. In Gainesville, my staples were Tijuana Flats, Jimmy John’s, 35 cent wings at Swamp, Boca Fiesta, Panera — you get the point. Dining out in college was social and practical (most of my groceries went bad because I was never home to eat them).

But now, eating out is a luxury. I’ve fully converted to being a cook at home, brown-bag lunch kind of gal – it’s just as practical here as going out was in college. Since my conversion, I’ve spent hours perusing Allrecipes.com*, and I love that it offers more interactivity than any cook book. I can pick and choose which ingredients I want to use, learn how to shop effectively for a maximum number of ingredients, and choose from lists of meals by genre. It’s uh-maze-ing.

Lowcountry boil with turkey kielbasa.

Since becoming a foodie/meal planner extraordinaire – with the help of my beau, Jon, who truly deserves much of the credit in the kitchen – I’ve experimented with familiar foods, tried new recipes and even opened myself up to new foods like quinoa. We’ve also conquered a euphoric salmon recipe (and I don’t really like salmon!), pulled pork, and fresh peach cobbler. 

I’ve also taken a real interest in the local food movement and farmer’s markets and can’t wait to integrate more reasonably priced, locally sourced, fresh and in-season items into my life. First stop: $5 shrimp fresh off the coast via the Richmond Hill Farmer’s Market. Mmm-Mmm. 

Here’s to ushering in a whole new era!

*I did not receive any compensation for this post. I’m a genuine fan. 

And now, reader reactions have gone too far.

Rumors swirled in the office this morning that the Midway Police Department has been receiving death threats and that Chief Morningstar’s house was shot with a pellet gun. Tonight local TV media reported that Mayor Clemontine Washington and the city attorney have ordered the cops not to discuss the matters.

I do not regret breaking the story – it was a worthy human interest piece – but I regret the absolute stupidity that some people have exhibited in response. Comments, calls and donations are understandable, but really: Who cares so much about whether these girls make it to the water park that they are willing to break the law and bring violence into the equation?

Seeking someone out at his or her home and offering threats is absolutely wrong in the majority of situations, including this one. It is also worth mentioning, as many before me have offered in comments, that there are greater issues at play in this story: an overzealous city ordinance and legal jargon so complicated that the average resident can’t understand the ordinance anyway. Like Morningstar said, her job is not to write the rules, only to enforce them.

It may seem that the police exhibited a lack of sensitivity when acting in the situation and that they possibly disregarded “slices of Americana” as one source said, but the bottom line is that they did not do anything wrong or corrupt, and they certainly did not do anything to deserve this backlash.

What do you think of the situation?

Curious how things are shaping up for the girls? Read my follow-up story here. 

Literally.

Seems like I've moved in with Joe.

In the last week, we’ve seen three palmetto bugs in our apartment. Very little skeeves me more.

Once upon a time, seeing anything that vaguely resembled a roach or palmetto bug was guaranteed to make me shriek. And maybe cry. Three former roommates can testify to my cowardly panic: I’ve jarred them from sleep, pulled them from the shower, and even jumped the couch.

One time I called my boyfriend and asked him to drive across town in the middle of the night, all because I was too afraid to come within killing distance (you never know, the roles could reverse and I could fall prey).

You know what also gets me going? When my hero (or heroine, in the case of my former roomies) sits on his duff waiting until the right time to take action. This happened the other night when my roach-y senses were tingling. Drying my hair in the bedroom, I saw something move above our kitchen door out of the corner of my eye. Wouldn’t you know it: a giant, dirty palmetto. It meandered along the wall, inching closer to our stackable washer and dryer.

“Uh, babe, we’ve got another roach,” I said. I know, the term is incorrect, but it’s fewer syllables.

“I’ll get it in a minute,” he answered, not flinching from his “Call of Duty” game.

For the next five minutes, I watched that thing cover a lot of ground in the same spot. When it inched closer to the dryer — and escape into the abyss — I freaked. “Dude! You’re going to lose it and then we’ll find it in bed later tonight!” I insisted.

By the time he got up, the little bugger was nowhere to be found. Not behind the washing machine, not on the sink, not on the floor or the adjacent wall. We lost it! 

Since then, visions of palmetto bugs have danced in my head. I see it nesting in the toaster, lapping up stray liquids, gorging on coffee grinds. I imagine it’ll rear its ugly head when I reach into my clothes, or make its presence known while in the shower. It plagued me for hours.

“Palmetto bugs,” I’ve wondered. “Does being closer to “The Palmetto State” mean I’m closer to them?”

Seldom the optimist, Jon’s upbeat gene has kicked into overdrive in the wake of Roachgate. “It’s probably outside,” he’s said multiple times. Doubtful.

But surprisingly, my fear hasn’t totally crippled me. I haven’t really screamed here (confession: I have scurried away in disgust), and I’ve slept soundly two nights. Perhaps he did me a favor by forcing me to live in unison with this creature.

And maybe I’ve conquered my fear. Or at least stopped it from conquering me.

The girls pose before they deconstructed the stand, courtesy of Amy Roberts.

Last Wednesday, in my third week as a staff writer at The Coastal Courier, I broke a story about Georgia’s Midway Police Department shutting down a lemonade stand run by young girls.

“Lemonade stand operation goes sour” was a hit. It riled the community, instigating more than 18 callers to contact the paper’s “Sound Off” line, and I took calls from at least three people who wanted to donate money or Splash in the ‘Boro tickets to the family of four.

This morning, I learned that the local TV markets adapted the story for themselves. Savannah ABC/Fox affiliate WJCL picked up the story this week and ran it complete with footage and expanded comments from Chief of Police Kelli Morningstar. They’ve even done a follow-up, and it seems that since their audience is larger than ours, they’ve stirred up even more ruckus.

I’ve heard (but have no been able to confirm, since we don’t have a TV in the office) that CNN and “Fox and Friends” picked up the story this morning, and I’m eager to see where it goes in the future. But at the same time, I want my small-town paper, The Coastal Courier, to get the credit for breaking this story. Without a Facebook tip from the girls’ mother, Amy Roberts, and my diligent investigating, it seems that no one would know this little slice of life.

I have a couple more tidbits about the article that I would like to share, since it’s taken off in such a big way:

1. It may sound snarky, but I broke the story, and I’d like to reiterate that. Mine was published on July 6, and WJCL’s first online mention of it is July 13.
2. Kudos to reporter Maura Kennedy. She cracked Morningstar’s shell and got her to explain herself more fully. Perhaps she realized after reading my story that speaking openly with the media is the best way to get your point of view across. When I spoke with Morningstar last week, she seemed very reluctant to speak about the topic. It was hard to get too much more than a yes or no answer out of her, and I even asked her if she had anything else she wanted to share or clarify. Her answer? “No ma’am.”
3. While we’ve received great feedback in support of the girls, some have written scathing letters accusing involved reporters of bias. I’m not out to speak on behalf of anyone else who has taken on this story, but I know that I pride myself on presenting both sides. My piece has accounts from both the mother and the officer, as well as support from many in county permitting offices that explains why the police were justified in taking action. While I ended my story with an opinionated quote, I took great caution to present the entire story without bias and objectively.
4. This experience is casting light on an aspect of media competition that I never learned about in school. I know that ethics and tactics are very different among newspaper, magazine and television reporters, but I’m surprised about how cut-throat it is. When WJCL reported the story, they must have staged some footage (and I’m surprised the police department participated!), because I know damn well that the lemonade stand was already taken down by the time I began reporting my story — that’s the whole reason my source felt the need to make the matter public. Makes me pretty skeptical now of television footage I see in the future.

Guess you’d call this a jumping off point, eh?