meditate on the yeasted wheat dough

July 24, 2007, I was in a motorcycle accident that included me hitting the ground with such force I nearly broke my neck.

To continue with being dramatic, I shall point out that I actually bulged five disks and herniated two in my spinal cord- four of those are located in my neck. If my neck had rotated one centimeter more… one… I would have snapped my neck and either become a quadriplegic or died.

Nice thought, that.

Two years prior to my accident, I had been fifty pounds heavier. Yep. At five foot eleven, I weighed 205 pounds. I decided one day that huffing and puffing because I was walking up a slight incline (also known as… my driveway) was really not the way I wanted to live and so I bought a treadmill. I actually got ON the treadmill and started walking. I didn’t care how “far” I went, but I did want to do something enough to get me breathing hard and possibly even sweating.

I lasted five minutes.

FIVE.

I was gasping and wheezing, too. I decided that I wouldn’t be able to get into very good shape if I continued smoking, so I quit. I just dumped it into the trash and quit. None of that tapering off nonsense, I just decided I wasn’t going to smoke a pack a day and QUIT.

Then I changed my diet. I tried to (unsuccessfully) eat five fruits and vegetables a day. Although I have Celiac Disease (mentioned in the post under this one), I was not very healthy. I poked around a lot and ended up taking a class in basic diet and nutrition at the local community college.

So, I got on my treadmill every day, I quit smoking, and I changed to a healthy diet. In one year, I lost fifty pounds. Yes, it does take a long time to lose weight, if you want to be healthy about it! When I finally reached my weight goal of 155 pounds, I started resistance training.

You could probably have bounced a penny off my rock-hard abs at that point.

Prior to my accident, I worked out an hour and a half a day, six days a week. I ran on my elliptical machine for an hour (I have Bursitis in my feet, so actually running down the street is OUT), and then would drop to the ground and do lots of situps and squats and such. No pushups. Couldn’t do it.

So on that fateful day in July when I went flying through the air at forty miles an hour, I hit the rock solid ground and my rock-hard muscles… held me in one piece.

The doctor told me that my amazing physical condition is probably what kept me from being dead or really mangled. It ALSO made my recovery faster.

That was a nice thought to ponder, since for an entire week I was just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, almost unable to move because all my muscles had cramped up. I couldn’t turn my head even slightly, for three weeks. I couldn’t lean over, I couldn’t turn, I had trouble picking things up, and OH MY GOD everything hurt.

Yeah… accidents are painful.

It was also really sobering to go into physical rehab and not be able to take my left leg and push on the rubber ball because I’d thrashed my knee so badly. (My left knee, which I’d vaulted off my gas tank with, had a torn ACL, a bone lesion, crunchy arthritis, and patellar tendonitis.)

I went through a lot of pulling, stretching, massaging, and pushing in the next six months. My knee, of course, will never be the same and it occassionally locks up and then gives out while I’m walking. It’s almost funny. I’ll be walking down the street with my usual slight limp, and then I’ll be like… uh oh… my knee is doing that weird I-don’t-want-to-bend thing… and then I’ll just go WHUMP and it’ll give. Pretty much to the casual observer I look like I stumbled. Um, no- I just almost fell on my face.

Back injuries take a really long time to heal, if they ever completely do. My understanding is that if I get into very good physical condition again, it’ll alleviate a lot of the pain I am still in.

I don’t have a lot of time any more because I run around like crazy with my job. So, I tried to figure out how to get into better shape in such a way that I didn’t have to change into superhero-spandex and waste two hours.

It was rather simple. The first thing I did was walk faster. I practically speed walk every where that I go. I still get sort of winded when I go up a hill at that speed, but I can still walk for five miles and keep going without a problem. I walk up and down stairs most of the time, and ignore the elevator unless I’ve got mountains of groceries in my arms.

I drink a lot of water, I eat tons of vegetables, and I try to get regular sleep.

The only thing left, was that I felt rather wimpy in the muscles.

Like most women, I’m decidedly weak in the upper body. Most girls I know, don’t have bulging biceps (nor do they want them)! I’m a big believer in what I’ve nicknamed “natural weights” as in, I don’t like to work out with weight machines, barbells, or any equipment at all unless I have to. I like the ability to work out whenever, and wherever, and just use my own body weight.

I was told about the ONE HUNDRED PUSHUP CHALLENGE. Now, I could barely do a pushup even when I was nineteen and in the Marine Corps. So I looked at the plan incredulously, knowing… no, no way, there is no way I could do a hundred pushups in six weeks. I can’t even do ten!

Actually, I did six. When starting the pushup challenge, the first thing you do is to see how many you can actually do in a row. Yes, you can do them on your knees, if you need to, but I decided that if I was going to do them, I was going to do them military style and go all out.

So, I did six, my arms wobbled like jello, and I fell on my face in a sweaty, red-faced heap. I decided I would promptly die if I tried to do it, and put off starting the plan for another week.

Last week I actually started the program, and have effectively completely Week One.

And at the end of week one, I did twenty pushups.

Twenty.

I knew that if I was going to do it, I was going to have to do it right. So I made sure I was doing proper form: all the muscles in my body held tightly, with my butt NOT drooping towards the ground like some sort of al dente spaghetti noodle- and that I was doing them slowly and carefully.

After just a few minutes (which is all it takes) I am done, usually groaning, but always very impressed with myself. And I noticed something today, in the mirror.

I was standing up really straight. My posture improved, in one week. And the part that made me the happiest? That I could see my abs again. I could SEE them. They’d been hiding under there. I was just sort of admiring them in the mirror all awestruck that I even HAD abs under all the squishiness-that-had-become-me.

Of course, my knee is complaining immensely, since doing a full extended pushup is putting a lot of tension on it. I might have to put that knee down so it’s not quite so agonizing, but, I checked with my physical therapist a few months back, and I’m not making my injury worse. It’s just whining, and therefore, I don’t plan on whining about it.

I’m thinking that at the six week mark, I’m actually going to be able to do one hundred pushups in a row. Cool. I’m going to have to video that, or no one is going to believe me!

After discovering that I had Celiac Disease when I was twenty-five, I was thrown into “you can’t figure out what to order at a restaurant” hell. Celiac Disease means that my body cannot process gluten, which is the main protein in grains such as wheat, rye, semolina, and barley among others. To make that even simpler, it means that I cannot eat flour or pasta.

Yeah. No pizza. No pasta. No bread.

No deep fried nuthin’. No batter dipped french fries, no creamed soups, no croutons on my salad.

Now, before you clutch your throat and fake faint, it is obviously possible to live without eating those foods (since, of course, I’m still alive). There are two options: (1) Don’t eat it or (2) replace it with other stuff.

I’ll get to the “other stuff” in a different post. Right now, I’m talking about how hard it is to not eat it.

The other day I went with my boyfriend Keith to Outback Steakhouse. I sat down at the table, ordered a glass of water, sighed, and asked the server if he could pretty please get me an allergen list.

The usual response I get is “a what list?” Oh… that happens a lot, and I’m going to thoroughly annihilate IHOP in a moment. But Outback Steakhouse? Oh, you guys are awesome.

The guy brought me an actual, bonafide, nicely printed (and officially laminated) gluten-free menu!

Outback Steakhouse, you guys are my heros. Everyone needs to emulate how awesome you are.

IHOP, on the other hand, can kiss my butt.

This weekend I was visiting my friend Amie, and I went to the IHOP in Virginia Beach, Virginia. What happened next is what USUALLY happens to me at restaurants, and although I’m “used to it” that doesn’t mean I LIKE it.

I have to back up for just a moment and explain what happens to a Celiac if they eat something with gluten in it. If I eat flour, it’ll go through my stomach and once it hits my intestines, it essentially burns the little finger-like villi in there… sort of like tiny little acid burns. Mostly this feels a lot like lower-gut cramps. You wouldn’t really notice… most people with Celiac Disease are misdiagnosed as having IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)… and no… eating a hamburger right this second isn’t going to kill me… right away.

See, Celiac Disease is best described as being a cumulative problem. After years and years of eating flour, the little fingers-like villi things in your intestines are burned to itty bitty crisps and they can no longer do their job of pulling nutrients from your food and distributing those nutrients to the rest of your body. You can eat and eat at that point, and golly gee! You lose weight! You look sick, tired, pasty, and have bags under your eyes! You pretty much eat… and starve to death.

It’s a nice way to go.

Most people discover Celiac Disease somewhere in their fifties, when they look gaunt enough to freak out people by their mere presence. You can live a long life, sure, but you’re not going to be healthy. When my grandmother died a horrible, agonizing, torturous death in 2007, my mother said her intestines were described as “looking like they’d gone through a cheese grater” by the docs that did the autopsy. Um, yeah…. I think I won’t be eating any flour.

So you’d THINK you could go to a restaurant, tell the waiter “I’ve got allergies, can you tell me what is in the food?” and they’d come back with a list of ingredients and voila, all is well.

Yeah, right.

What happened to me at that IHOP on Sunday is typical.

Amie and I sat down and eventually a server showed up with the obligatory ginormous pot of coffee and the menus. I told her I was allergic to “everything” (complete with ha, ha that’s so funny!) and that I would like to know what was in the food.

The usual response: what are you allergic to?

Me: Well, flour… and other things. Do you have a list of ingredients? An allergen list, maybe? You know, one that says if you have… eggs or milk in your things?

Server: huh?

I asked her if she would be so kind as to ask in the back if they had an allergen menu. The FDA has required since 2004 that the major allergens be pointed out on ingredient lists of stuff you’ll find in the store… which means that all the food restaurants serve will also have a nice, neat ingredient list. Which, of course, I should be allowed to look at. Since, you know, eating it will kill me.

Notice I said “should.”

The server disappeared. Amie and I poured coffee. I gave Amie a “I can imagine what’s coming next” look, and I was correct- the server came back and told me there was no such list.

Me: Well, I’ve got allergies, um, I can’t just eat stuff without knowing what is in it… mmmmm, is it possible for you to ask the chef if they can show me the ingredient list?

The server disappeared again.

Of course, they came back and told me no. No? Really. Well, can I talk to your manager? Please? Thanks.

So the manager comes over and I explain to him that I have allergies, I can fall over and die if I eat certain foods (okay, so that’s dramatic license) and that I was simply trying to look at the list to determine whether or not the item I was going to order (an omelette!) had certain ingredients in it.

Of course, he said what everyone says, every single time: What are you allergic to, and I’ll ask the chef it it’s in there.

Guess what.

Not good enough.

You know why?

Because they list flour in other ways. It doesn’t always say “flour,” or “wheat.” Nope. Sometimes it’ll say “starch” or “modified food starch.” Besides… I’m not going to take YOUR word for it, when my life is essentially on the line.

The manager went in the back for a moment, and then came out and decided to tell me that he wasn’t going to tell me what was in the food, because it had “secret ingredients.”

No, I’m serious, that’s what he said.

Okay, I’m sorry, but so… you’re willing to risk killing me because you think I’m trying to steal your secret ingredient list?

Guess what.

The eight major allergens….

Milk
Eggs
Peanuts
Tree nuts (such as almonds, cashews, walnuts)
Fish (such as bass, cod, flounder)
Shellfish (such as crab, lobster, shrimp)
Soy
Wheat

… aren’t usually going to be a “secret” ingredient. It’s an allergen. Why can’t you just show me a list that says “omelette = eggs, milk, cheese?” Why not?

Why was it so difficult to get a list telling me what was in my food? I was going to EAT it!!

The server that originally came to my table decided that they didn’t want to be my server any more. I got myself a new one, courtesy of the manager.

The new server asked me the same question- what was I allergic to? I answered… she disappeared, came back… and said that hey, the omelette? It has our pancake batter in it.

Thanks.

She then offered to have them make me an omelette that was “just good ‘ol eggs and cheese” which is what I ended up ordering.

But… why was it so difficult to try and learn if there was an ingredient in my food that might KILL ME?!

I know perfectly well that if I’d gone stomping into the kitchen, I would have found a book back there that listed all their ingredients in every food item. Yup. I know that, because I’ve done that before.

Yeah. I totally went stomping back into a kitchen at a diner in New Jersey I ate at regularly and demanded they bring out the box that held their frozen french fries. They’d been telling me over and over that their fries were “just freaking potatoes, lady!!” and yet, I kept getting stomach cramps after I ate there. I got the box, discovered that their “just freaking potatoes” were actually lightly dusted in flour for “crispness” and ended up debating whether or not I wanted to whack the manager in the head with the box.

I digress.

My point is, what if Celiac Disease caused an immediate visible reaction, like life-threatening throat hives (aka anaphylaxis)? Even though it doesn’t, it’s still a reaction that will kill me in the long run. I just want to, you know, not die.

I think that if all restaurants decided MY LIFE WAS IMPORTANT like Outback Steakhouse has, then things would be so much nicer.

Pfft.

I went on vacation to Canada from July 1st till July 6th. July 1st, of course, was Canada Day, when everyone came out dressed in red with white to watch a parade celebrating the “we never actually declared Independence” Day. I must say, they were having more fun than I remember even as a kid, when parades were still fun and I still went to go watch. Nowadays it seems that things have changed to the point where no one cares anymore about much of anything, save perhaps what the next big shoe sale is going to be.

I have started longing for yesteryear, a time I never have actually known, and most likely have a glamorized non-recollection of. I am greatly frustrated in my own timeline, where it seems that there is a severe lack of decency, common sense, and boundaries for privacy.

Oh yes, I’m about to say I hate the internet.

Yep.

I have said before and I will say it again: what has enabled us to grow closer to the one on the other side of the world has effectively pushed us farther away from the person on the other side of the room. I whined a few months back about how I have too many social media tools and how they were sucking out my life force instead of sustaining and/or highlighting it. After spending a week in Canada, where the only internet I utilized was the occasional checking of my email, I realized that not only do I severely dislike what the internet has done for the world, I have actually come to revile it.

I see many good things from the internet: instant news dissemination ability, instant contact with friends and family, online research resources, and the ability to find weird things for sale in Singapore. But with it there is so much negative… I’m not sure what I think anymore.

I’m tackling email first.

If an email is longer than a couple of paragraphs now, you’re most likely going to lose the attention of the reader, even if it’s written to your mother and she actually wants to know what you’re up to. I actually wrote a real letter to someone last month, and it was awesome. Today’s emails are badly written (if you’re going to talk about style!), cryptic, and many times inappropriate. When was the last time YOU called someone? Me? I dunno. I had to text the person first, to see if they could take my call.

I happen to like texting. I have an unlimited text plan on my iPhone. I see funny things on the metro (like two nerds with laptops) and I will take a picture of them and share. But it can get to the point where an entire conversation can be held in two messages of 160 characters or less, and that sort of makes me nervous.

Seven years ago I worked for the Post Office, first as a clerk sorting mail for a year, and then as a mail carrier delivering the mail for a year before going back to school again. I noticed then what I see even more so now. No one gets personal mail anymore. I actually wrote to President Bush (I am not kidding) and suggested National Letter Writing Week, to try an encourage people to sit down with a real live pen and paper and write a letter to their granny.

Er- nothing happened, obviously.

But I noticed this seven years ago, and I started writing letters myself. That has since transitioned into emails, but I am not happy with that at all. I, too, have fallen into the trap of the shortie emails that drop immediate content with no fanfare into the laps of whatever poor unfortunate person I sent it to. I am able to instantly communicate with people, but what am I actually saying?

Not much, I’m afraid.

I frequently sit and listen to the younger generation of twenty-somethings talking to each other, and they talk about stuff that I am familiar with, but is still so completely alien. I know all of it: FaceBook, MySpace, Blackberry, iPod, LastFM, YouTube, Google, Blogger, Twitter, Flickr- but they talk about it differently than I do. I am frequently aware that I will be 33 in September, not because I feel old, but because I can actually remember a time when I did not own a cell phone. Or a computer. Or… a television.

I *still* don’t have a television.

On purpose.

I also have noticed that although I joke about “I’m addicted to my Blackberry like Crack,” that I actually am using it to sift through all those work emails I get slammed into my brain all day and that’s about it.

When was the last time I actually used my Blackberry to make a PHONE CALL? Seriously? Last week. Last WEEK!!! Sad. Very sad.

I have felt myself using the internet the way I choose, now, by writing up a blog post usually once a week, sending out an email here and there, and reading the news online. I have decided that I will not let the internet start to use ME.

I have an odd task set before me, which is deliberate withdrawal from constant connectivity. I figured out that the reason I am so tired all the time, is that I forgot how to live. Life is not in that little box sitting on my desk. Life is outside my room, with people I know, sitting at a bench in a park while talking about the last book we both just read. Life is in the real flesh and blood people I see every day I don’t actually know because I never talked to them other than “what’s your phone number so I can text you?” Life is interesting and exciting, and I just remembered that.

I’m going outside now.

I notice that the more I am buried in work, the less I type on my own blog. I chat on Twitter (which was recently mentioned on CNN!), I work all day (and sometimes all night), and sometimes feel as if there isn’t anything I haven’t said yet.

Oh, yeah, right.

Sunday, June 15, I got what I really wanted in life, I guess- an email, telling me to get on a plane to cover a live story. Of course, that is what I love to do the most: stand in the middle of hell and describe the smell of the burning embers. Apparently, the ‘Katrina of the Midwest’ had waterlogged Iowa, and I was going to go have a look at it.

I pretty much jogged to the nearest WallyWorld (because it was the closest thing) and bought myself a pair of boots and my disposables. Those tend to crack people up when they find out what it is… I’m talking about socks and underwear. Yep. I go buy a big ‘ol bag of drawers and toesies and it’s for a good reason- I ain’t bringin’ it back!! As I go through a trip like this, I want to come back with my clean clothes, not some crusty socks in a bag, stinking up the place :) So I throw them out every night and pull out a fresh pair from my WallyWorld bag. No, I’m serious.

After three hours of sleep, I was on my way to the Baltimore airport, busily reviewing information on my Blackberry about what had happened over night. Flooding. Lots of it. And that’s why I couldn’t land in the Cedar Rapids area, and instead had to go to Chicago and drive over in an SUV I rented online. On the drive over I was fine, till I actually ended up about forty miles from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, because the roads had washed out bridges and so I had to go around.

Er- I mostly was fine, till I ended up on a detour road off the original detour, and then my SUV, which was really a car with an ego, decided to slide off into a very big mudhole. Well then. I was in the middle of nowhere, very close to Iowa City, and I jogged about half a mile through mud to a farmhouse. The farmers found me very amusing- apparently I was the fourth reporter to get stuck. “Perhaps, sir, you might want to put up a sign saying ‘don’t go this way?!’” I said. He looked at me funny, and then dispatched his son in a John Deere tractor to drag me out.

I got to ride on a tractor. OMG that was so cool.

The problem I had was this: I was Flying Blind. Essentially, I had landed in an airport and I knew the cities that were having issues, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, but I had no other information than that. I had no specific location, no contacts on the other end- nothing. I was essentially blind and only knew “go that way.”

Wow.

That is the fun part in all of this.

Fortunately, I have good resources and I work with very cool people. Jay Tamboli (Talk Radio News Service) probably heard from me about sixty-seven times that first day. I had set up my personal iPhone to send pictures to my Twitter feed, but not to TRNS, something which Jay immediately remedied. I also had set up an Utterz account with Twitter, but same issue- something Jay also immediately fixed. He had to pay attention to my Twitter stream, notice I had Utterrd, listen to it, label it, write it up, and post it FOR me, and do all that all the while still doing his own job. Jay Tamboli- you rock. Period.

Utterz are small audio recordings you can make from your cell phone and have them post to your blog. This is awesome, since I could pretty much record something right there, including interviewing people, and have it up and live on our site in less than ten minutes and not even having to really do anything. The only problem is the inability to edit *laugh* and sometimes people completely freeze when they are being recorded. Such is life! Here are the nine Utterz that I made during the trip, in order:

The microblogging platform of Twitter enabled me to report, in real time, exactly what I was seeing- nearly instant access without having to use a lot of my crazy equipment that I’d brought with me (oh, I certainly had it!)

I fortunately had lots of help, also via Twitter. I put out a message, and within minutes had people sending me messages about roads that were out. I had people calling other people, and at one point, my phone was ringing off the hook and I’d spoken to five people and they were either leading me towards something or away from something else! I ended up being able to take great pictures like this:

That’s over by the University of Iowa. If you went through the lake, you’d end up at one of the dorms.

It is very difficult to stand almost unemotionally in the midst of people that have lost everything. Practice has made it possible for me to hear stories from people that are sometimes crying their eyes out, hanging onto my arm, and not let it crush me. I’d say the worst thing I’ve ever seen, of course, is New Orleans (and I wasn’t even over there till long after it happened), but it gets to me after a while. The only thing I can do is put up my shield of calm and just listen.

All people really want, I think, is for someone to listen to them.

I think there is a distinct difference between empathy and compassion. You cannot fake either one. I understand the depths of most people’s pain and suffering, I think, and I am fairly certain that I must emulate that innate understanding, because people naturally gravitate towards me and tell me anything, everything, and all of themselves all at once.

It can get to be a terrible emotional drain after a while. At the end of the three days I was there, I went up in a little bitty Cessna with Dan Patterson (the one in the middle) and flew with pilot Jim Seifert:

By then, I was so worn out emotionally I could barely grin like a cheeseball for the camera. The only reason I did actually smile, was that I desperately want to be a pilot (and I’m going to take flying lessons soon) and that really made me happy that Jim (the pilot) had let me hold onto the thingie and turn the plane side to side and also change altitude. He was laughing at how I’d suddenly gone from nearly sullen to shreiking happy because he let me fly the plane (yeah, sure he did! I know he was secretly holding on!!).

Um, I’d say I was nearly sullen at that point because we were flying over things like THIS:

Those people… lost everything. So many people lost everything, and when I finally got on my airplane to go home, I could barely speak. I am reminded, though, that stuff is just stuff. One of my interviews, Kathy Alter (the web content editor for The Gazette in Cedar Rapids) said just that.

Of course, things do go on, and although I’d only got three hours sleep every night for about five days at that point, I went back to work on Thursday and was sort of staring expressionless at the wall while doing so. I highly recommend to all reporters, that they do not do that- take the next day off- at least one. I needed to get my bearings and I really did not. I kept on going- Thursday, Friday, and even Saturday I was at the White House chasing the President around- that come Saturday evening I couldn’t hardly stand up.

I was physically tired, and emotionally worn to the point where I realized at some point that I hadn’t even eaten since Friday morning. I noted on Twitter that I felt like collapsing- so I went to bed and slept till Sunday!

I feel it’s sort of odd how life and all it’s idiosyncrasies tend to just bump and bubble next to each other but one thing doesn’t affect the other- save for the person that is living in the middle of both worlds. Life returned to normal, for me, and on Sunday I went zipping around on a Segway in front of the White House with Keith and his mother, with Keith and I both yelling “I’m the King of the World” at one point:

So… life continues… weird as it may be… affecting me as it might… or might not.

To see TRNS’ full coverage (done by myself and Dan Patterson), click here to see our flood tag.

This is arguably the most difficult video I have ever made.

During my two month journey of making this nine minute video, I frequently lamented about the sadness that tended to envelope me as I watched apalling footage over and over again.

I received over thirty-four hours of footage from five different people, Jack Rice (WCCO), Rusty Humphries (Talk Radio Network Syndicated), Justin Hartmann [son of Thom Hartmann (Radio America Syndicated)], Ellen Ratner (Talk Radio News Service), and Dan Patterson (TRNS). They were all shot on different cameras and for different reasons.

Jack’s footage was shot on mini-DV, and was chock full of good “stand-ups” where he stood in front of his camera and either talked to the viewer or interviewed people. He put almost all of his own footage on his YouTube channel.

Rusty’s was shot on an über cool high-def camera, resulting in AVCHD footage that gave us nightmares for two weeks till we could get it to play properly. Rusty’s footage also included stand ups but included lots of neat shots of people and buildings as well, and at one point- his giant mosquito net in the hotel room. He was standing in the net, shrieking enthusiastically about “bugs the size of footballs!” The best part of watching Rusty’s footage is that he did “Rusty being himself” standups, and so I got to hear about the ants in his toilet, the smell of the trash heaps outside his window, and three times he woke up in the middle of the night and talked to his camera… in green night vision.

Justin used a mini-dv, and his video was mostly shot while he was sitting on the ground looking up at people- which meant I had mostly great views of everyone’s butts; Ellen used her still camera in video mode, and Dan, as far as I understood, ended up holding Jack’s camera quite a few times and pointing it at Jack or other interesting things, like my boss Ellen chasing a goat (and kissing it), or Ellen holding a chicken, or Ellen hugging the head of a camel. Ellen… loves animals.

The problem I discovered was this. There were three main stories appearing within the footage:

~the slaves within Southern Sudan and Darfur- they are called “abductees”
~the “Sacks of Hope,” which the organization Christian Solidarity International brought
~terrible poverty and lack of medical care

(and probably a million other things).

I was supposed to tell this story in a very tiny time allotment, and I felt as if I had to essentially choose one flavor of each jelly bean from a very large bag.

The other problem is that I cannot tell the viewer what to do about anything. I am intent in my own personal life to let people make up their own minds. To me, this was my opportunity to show the world “look, here is the problem,” and then the world gets to decide what it wants to do about it.

I watched footage over and over of dying children, raped and abused women telling their stories, freed slaves looking mystified, and a very sad Jack Rice, for two months straight.

Jack’s footage was hard to watch because in the first tape, I saw Jack smile into his camera and talk about the upcoming trip. In the successive tapes that chronicled his trip, I watched how the story affected him. Seeing Jack get to the point where he was literally hunching from his physical reaction to the overwhelming sadness of the situation that was surrounding him, really bothered me.

The point in watching the footage so many times was because I, myself, did not go on this trip. I had to understand the feeling, the emotion, the STORY that was there, so that I could close my eyes, take a deep breath, and figure out how to relay that emotion to everyone else in a very short period of time.

Here, is my result.

This video was shown to radio hosts and others at the New Media Seminar held in New York City on June 6 & 7, 2008. This video is the property of Talk Radio News Service, and I have embedded it here on my personal blog with permission.

I think somewhere along the line, I forgot how to live.

I think at some point, I forgot how to have fun.

I think somehow, I don’t see sunshine as brilliantly as I used to.

I was speaking with a very good friend of mine tonight, and I was attempting to figure out what, if anything, had actually happened to me.

Oh yes, I said, I laugh. Yes, I am happy. Yes, I smile and have fun with my friends.

But where did my glee go?

Sort of nodding off into a tangent, I deliberated the possibility of being jaded on life in general. I used to have genuine mirth, genuine gut-busting-silent-squeaking-lying-on-the-floor fits of laughter at something deemed hilarious.

I don’t laugh like that anymore.

Oh, I’m not burned out, I’m not depressed, I’m not even sad. But I realize that I no longer find solace in things like I used to.

When I was a child, I would play with our pugs for hours, or play the piano for hours, making up songs and playing some repetitive piece that would zone me out into a la-la-land state and make me smile.

As I got older, the music still could move me, and when we stopped breeding pugs right around my twelfth birthday, I didn’t play with baby doggies anymore. I no longer wanted to be a veterinarian, either, since I disliked that things died.

As a teenager I found my happy moments in choir, where I sang alto for three years before switching to soprano where I belonged. I had a nerdy group of friends and we sat around playing poker constantly, using Starburst squares as our money and eating the winnings later while watching Monty Python until we could quote it verbatim.

In my twenties I could never find my zone out happy zen moment while playing the harp (I played it for three years before deciding I wasn’t a natural at it) but I would still turn on my radio and blast it till my windows rattled. My zen moments included scrubbing my bathroom till my nose hairs burned from PineSol. Ahhhh, that’s a way to relax- kill those germs! Whoo~

The older I got and the more of life that I saw, the harder it became to find that glee that I used to have as a naive child. I am still happy, oh certainly, and I have never known such bliss as that I get as a reporter, but like I was telling my friend: I have lost my purpose.

My goal and my desire in life, for most of it, has been to help other people. It gets a bit hard when you start becoming dredged down in the particulars of life, with its mundane tasks and itty things that like to go wrong, like you run out of black socks and now you’re screwed.

I also talked, briefly, to one of my co-workers about my favorite news anchor. Being in the industry myself gives me a unique perspective among most when concerning other reporters, and we talked about him: he’s pulled so far into himself from seeing too much and feeling too much, that he’s withdrawn to the point of near unrecognizability.

I do not want that to happen to ME.

I’m not saying he’s jaded, no, and nor am I, I realize. It’s just that when things are going right, a little voice in the back of our heads reminds people like he and I that there are things that are so much worse, so much more deep and meaningful than what we see now.

The nearly nine minute movie I made out of thirty-four hours of footage shot by five different people, will be played before over four hundred radio hosts on Friday at the Talkers New Media Seminar. It will also be put up on all the video sites on the web, plus on a bunch of other places, like the XM Satellite radio site, and rumor has it possibly on the Travel Channel.

And that video I equate to taking one flavor of every jelly bean from a very large bag and giving that little pile of beans to the viewer. It’s supposed to make you want to jump up and change the world.

I think it reminded me too much of how I haven’t.

Yesterday I sat with Jay Tamboli in an overcrowded, understaffed, improperly heated, and crazy room that contained a bunch of mad radio people, coffee, cookies, and pickles-with-greek-olives. I was at the Marriott in the radio overflow room, and the DNC Rules and Bylaws committee hearing was going on two rooms over.

To say that it was a bit nuts is an understatement. Historic, yeah, insane, oh yeah. The proceedings weren’t as interesting to me as the spectators were- some of them were downright ravenous for blood after the decisions were made.

“I’m not half a person,” one young man screamed. “This is not a democracy,” someone bellowed. Another shouted obscenities and god-damned the Democrats. That one, I got on video:

Their practical bloodlust made me think. Yes, it was a bit funny (I wonder how poor Harriet Christian, the woman that called Obama “an inadequate black male,” is doing today- I bet she regrets that outburst), but at the same time I wondered how many people even understand or have a bare inkling of the democratic process.

This is not to say that I’ve got a hefty grasp—who does?—but that I’m sure a lot of these younger kids, the college idealists, have just launched themselves on the latest “these are my rights, dammit!” platform without true comprehension of what is really going on.

This disturbs me, the lack of basic knowledge. When Alice Huffman said that this was “the next best thing” to democracy, I turned to Jay with my eyebrow up. Er- if it ain’t a democracy, uh- what is it? I dunno.

It is highly apparent that the Star Trek Utopia does not work (have a good look at Russia!) and the Congressional system here in the UnUnited States is bloated like a turd that’s floated a bit too much in the brine. I read the Constitution Party’s platform (all ten pages) and it’s interesting. It seems rather intolerant in ways (sorta homophobic) and extreme (abolishing things like the Department of Education, etc.) but their point is valid I believe: the current state of our government is not what our framers intended.

What exactly is the solution to that, I have no idea.

I was talking to my bureau chief today, Ellen Ratner, over lunch. I watched her enthusiastically stab her guacamole dip with a fork and I lamented that the Bible Thumpers were starting to yell that Obama is the anti-Christ. I made a joke… he fits Revelations in a lot of ways (of course, you can tweak it any way that you like!) but if he suddenly manages to create peace in the Middle East, I’m going back to church *laugh* That would make a believer outta ME, in that respect, since I’ve got quite a load in my head about the Middle East and if peace were made, well, that would be a miracle.

Of course, there is the obligatory assassination, three days in the hospital most likely brain dead, and then ohmygod he lives! Uh, yeah, that would DEFINITELY send my caustic, sarcastic, and jaded self right back to church….

So it concerns me that I don’t understand the nature of the world in general, I guess. Human natures mystifies me on a regular basis—WHY DID HE DO THAT?!—and that’s why I read continually and talk to people.

In the grand scheme of things, I guess shrieking “I want my rights, dammit!” isn’t such a bad request. I’m going for basic human rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Life: to maintain existence in a certain way.
Liberty: The condition of being free.
Happiness: A condition of supreme well-being and good spirits.

Life, of course, brings about the question “can I live MY life the way that I want without infringing upon your rights to live your life the way that YOU want to?” Good question.

Liberty says, what is freedom? Freedom to one, may be different in the minds of others. How do we know who is right?

Happiness is a state of mind. I decide to be happy. I choose mirth over anger. I have a life that would probably have cause many to jump from a bridge a long time ago, yet, I choose to realize that there is more to my life than just myself. I discovered a long time ago that empathy for others could cure my own broken heart.

So I guess those unalienable human rights… are purely subjective.

When I got the call from the News Director on Wednesday that I was going to be at the White House on Sunday, I didn’t say anything. I held in the excited rush I was getting until Friday, when my clearance came through.

Just because I’ve got Congressional Clearance, and Pentagon Clearance, doesn’t mean I’ve got White House Clearance (this applies to Treasury and State Department, too). So I didn’t get all excited until I got word back from the White House that I would be able to watch President Bush land in that helicopter, over there in the big ‘ol backyard of the house he lives in.

Kinda weird if you think about it like that.

I was acting in a special capacity, called “pool,” and therefore if the President had arrived back at the White House and gone to church at the crack of dawn, I would have been at church too. Same goes for if he felt like hopping on his bicycle and going for a ride- I would have been sitting in the vans with the rest of the pool press, watching him pedal. He didn’t do either thing today, and so I only got to watch one special thing; Rolling Thunder.

Rolling Thunder is a motorcycle group, and they meet with the President once a year on Memorial Day weekend, to commemorate the holiday. At 12:50, Marine Corps One landed in the grass behind the White House, and I started videotaping. This is a behind the scenes video, with no editing, so you get to see things go unexpectedly- the President was supposed to walk to the pool (us) but he instead decided to go to the other set of cameras. Nobody, and I mean nobody, takes a deep breath when POTUS is around. You hear a camera man waiting for authorization to move ourselves, and then we take off running.

A second unexpected moment was at the end- the President was supposed to go off a different way, but decided to go the complete opposite way instead. All camera people tripped over each other in live shots (hear them tell us to get back on the asphalt, and I had to duck because I walked in front of CNN, and then I went under a chain into the “pen”) and we watched him leave. All that in five minutes and fifty-one seconds. Such is my life :)

Most people are aware that Senator Kennedy has a brain tumor. It’s a malignant glioma, and the short version is that be it quick or be it slow, it’s going to kill him.

Immediately on television, there was an onslaught of pieces about “the life of Ted Kennedy.” Last I checked, he isn’t dead yet. But the media is a beast, and it likes to be fed. Yes- he’s a Kennedy. Yes- he’s going to die. Yes- he’s leaving a family behind. And Yes- that’s what I’m thinking about.

If you ever love someone, even after it’s over, they’ve taken a piece of you and you can never get it back. That’s why you don’t feel the same. I think that applies to relationships period, whether they be romantic, family, or deep friends.

Regardless of whether or not I like or dislike Ted Kennedy, I feel for his family not only because it’s harrowing to deal with cancer, but because the relentless media (of which I am a part) will likely hound them. My favorite? “How do you feel?” Well, how do you THINK they feel? They’re sad, they’re horrified, they’re going to be despondent soon. And yet, we want to have them say it on television so that we can share in their misery.

Why?

Is it that we’re all so empathetic that we want to hurt as badly as they do? Or is it more that we can look at them and say, well, I’m glad it’s not ME!

I wonder sometimes about the glee with which people take on stories like this. I, personally, knew in about ten minutes all about cancer, and brain tumors, and life expectancies, because I was set to go on the radio and tell it to everyone else. I am not one of those reporters that simply states the facts, no, sorry, I’m not like that. And I don’t expound on any sort of religious belief, or democratic belief, or any other belief save for common decency and ethics- and it seems to be missing in our society.

I notice it when there are disasters. Myanmar, or China, or Florida—doesn’t matter—they want the stats of the dead and injured. How about, how many survived?

Sometimes the joy with which people chew on the stories about death, destruction, and despair really makes ME despair for society as a whole. I feel like everyone is a blood-sucking vulture when it comes to other people’s pain.

I sit in my comfortable room, sipping my freshly made hot coffee, with my pristine white Mac on my lap and a movie that just changed my life sitting in the return wrapper placed at my feet.

There comes along, every great once in a while, a story so powerful that even if my “tears were turning into pearls” I would want to stop crying simply because it hurts me inside. The Kite Runner is one of those stories.

To say that the plight of the Afghan people is now more real to me, is an understatement. Though this story was centered around Amir, a young boy, and events that happened when I personally was a child, I could feel the tension of the people right through my screen.

To realize that this is not just a movie but that this truly happens is what disturbs me the most. The more I look at the Middle East, the more subdued inside I become.

Right now, Richard Miller is over in Afghanistan for TRNS. The day before he left, I was sitting with him (and Ellen) in his hotel room. I was there to work out the kinks with his recording equipment. We had just ordered a new Marantz for him, since it was tiny and therefore easier to carry around with him. Later the three of us were sitting in a Thai restaurant, and Richard was drawing on a napkin, making a map, and circling the area where he was actually going to be in.

I’m not sure where exactly that is in relation to where the movie was set, but it’s a sobering thought. I sat there at the Thai restaurant, watching Ellen and Richard eat mushroom soup, and crunched away on fried celery as I tried to convince my boss that she should send me over there.

I think, honestly, that I may have lost my fucking mind.

I do not think I was truly, honestly comprehending what is really at the other end of that tarmac, should I get myself onto a cargo plane and fly in that general direction.

But that, I think, is what scares me the most.

We just don’t get it.

We just don’t comprehend.

We just don’t realize all the subtle nuances that make the truth of events what they are.

It is now highly apparent to me, as I stare at my world map on the wall, that so many people, if they are not in the sand themselves, have no comprehension of reality.

Nor, what to do it about it if they do.

I have lost my mind, I am certain, because although now it terrifies me more than it did before, my resolve to DO SOMETHING is now growing stronger.

My favorite journalist is Ernie Pyle.

Ernie made those events real, and I wonder- can I do the same?

If I do-

will I die just like he did?

Would it be worth it?

I don’t even know right now.