create the world and the clues follow. soon the clues will start to reappear and the new home will reveal itself.

{origin of the title phrase}

Ever since I got clean I have this theory that if there's anything I want to do that isn't heroin, I should do it. I have pretty healthy tastes in general, so it's not like I'm eating cartons of ice cream or watching TV or something. Usually I indulge myself by reading the paper, looking at blogs, eating good food, sometimes drinking wine. The problem is times like right now -- I have tons of work I need to do *now*, but the stress is so intense that it's making me really upset. So I feel like I should "let" myself take a break, read the rest of the Sunday paper, relax... as long as it's not heroin, I should do what I want. Except if I don't do the work, I'm fucked. But I feel like I have reached some kind of breaking point. It's a paradox.

I was supposed to write this 1,300-word story for Ethos about Somali pirates. And my internet friend Chicago Sane told me he knew a Somali pirate. Seriously. If you read his blog, you'll see it's not that much of a stretch to believe he really does know a Somali pirate. Anyway, it took him a while to get back to me with the guy's email address. And you know me, I love to procrastinate. The final story isn't due until July 24, but the rough draft was due today. So I waited until the last minute to do any of the background research. I finally got the Somali guy's email address last night, which was way too late to think of interview questions and get a response in time. I could have pieced something together from my extensive notes (seven pages, typed, single spaced), but I didn't want to write something all from secondary sources that would sound like a history lesson. It would be SO much better if/when this guy answers my questions, so I can have some direct quotes. (I think this story idea is kind of lame in the first place, but I didn't think of it; the editor assigned it.)

I got an email a few hours ago from my Associate Editor that said:

Please send me your Pirates Draft in the following format: MWORD document, title and your name on the first page, a list of contacts following the draft, and saved as 7.6.pirates.doc.

Thank you for making my life easier.

Hmmm. Yeah. I had to write her back and say that I wasn't done yet. FUCK. It's not like they can fire me; they'd have to find someone else to write the story, and that would take just as long as letting me finish it. I told her I've done a lot of research and I'm waiting to hear back from an interview contact. And it's only the rough draft. I still have a few weeks before the actual final story is due. But this whole situation is really stressing me out.

I was so wound up from all this that I didn't fall asleep until 7 a.m. I slept for three hours, overslept and made it to my first class five minutes late. By the afternoon I was exhausted, and my eyes kept falling shut in my writing class -- which is normally my favorite class. The teacher kept me and another guy after class and yelled, "NEVER, EVER SLEEP IN MY CLASS." I tried to protest that I was listening, with my eyes closed. (I was -- I was even taking notes. In fact, my eyes only shut a few times.) But he didn't care. I was so sleep deprived and stressed out that I started crying (in the bathroom). Then I came home and took a nap from 3 until 8 p.m. I woke up in the most horrible, dark mood -- I hate naps. I took a walk to get some carrot juice and talked to Robert on the phone for a long time while I walked around. That made me feel a little bit better. What I really need is a hug, though. I wish I knew someone in this town who would give me a hug. Maybe I should post an ad on Craigslist. No, scratch that.

So I have a test tomorrow, for which I need to read six chapters. Then I have a short assignment due Wednesday and two BIG projects due Thursday. Actually three projects. I am SO FUCKED. The Info Hell thing due Thursday is not the kind of project you can do in one day. Neither is the design project. Even if I start working now (studying for this test) and work on the other projects straight until Thursday, I'm still not sure I'll finish everything. And that's not even counting my unfinished pirate story. The reason these classes are so intense is that they are condensed from 12 weeks to eight weeks. I know I've already explained that -- I just feel like a wimp freaking out about only THREE classes. I have to keep telling myself it's because the workload is much more than three normal classes.

A friend on Twitter keeps asking me why I don't drop something. The answer is that I have to take all three of the classes I'm taking in order to be admitted to the Journalism School. Right now I am a "pre-journalism" major. In order to be a "full-major" you have to take five classes -- J 101, 201, 202, 203, 204. I took the first two last term; I'm taking the other three right now. In order to take Reporting, you have to be a full-major. This involves getting a 2.70 GPA in these first five classes, and applying to J School. My GPA is way higher than that, and I already applied, so all I have to do now is complete the classes.

If I dropped a class, I'd have to take it in the fall, and I wouldn't be a "full-major" until winter, thus I wouldn't be able to take Reporting until winter. My Twitter friend asked, "Well, is Reporting only offered in the fall?" No, it's not. It's offered every term. I just really really want to take it in the fall. And I really really really want to be admitted to J School by the end of this term. And no, the last two sentences were not correct per AP Style. Or any other style for that matter.

So I don't want to drop any classes. That leaves my (two) writing jobs. I don't want to drop the school job (Ethos) because it's a year-round publication. I could write for it all year. It's a great opportunity; it will help me build a portfolio of published stories. If I quit now, it's dubious that they would accept me back next quarter -- flaking out two weeks before the final story is due is not the way to make a good impression. As for the other job I just got, it's my first ever PAYING writing job, so I definitely don't want to quit. Actually, the paying job seems the most flexible thing in my life right now. She wants writing, but there are no set deadlines. But even just my three classes + Ethos is WAY WAY WAY too much for me to handle right now. Like, there are not enough hours in the day. There just aren't.

Okay, I'm done complaining. I just wanted to explain all of that because some of my Twitter friends seem confused as to why I don't do less stuff. I can't do less. I keep going over it in my mind -- whether I should drop a class -- but I don't want to drop any of them. The way it is in my mind, I feel as if I would do ANYTHING -- sleep two hours a night, have no social life, make a pact with the devil, etc -- to get into J School after this term and take Reporting in the fall. I feel like my dream is so close at hand, I can almost touch it, and I don't want to wait any longer. But in reality, the amount of work and stress and sleep-deprivation that is actually required in order to get through these classes might not be possible. But it is possible. Anything is possible.

See, I should be studying for this test or writing my story instead of writing here. But the last few hours since I woke up, I've been trying to cheer myself up in any way I can think of -- carrot juice, walking, talking on the phone, writing here. The way I deal with my life and my stress is not a complete system, it's a patchwork of pieced-together ideas and half-thought-out tactics, and I'm just hoping it will turn out okay.

Other than today, actually, I don't think I have ever been happier in my entire life than I've been in the last two weeks since this quarter started. I'm serious. Maybe there are a few issues -- I only have a few friends here, I'm stressed out, I still have heroin cravings -- but the good FAR, FAR outweighs the bad right now. Even when I was at Reed and following my dream of studying anthropology -- and living with Donna in Portland and having this beautiful, perfect life -- I was so unsure about what my future was. I was so anxious about what I would do "when I grow up" and had no clue how to function as an adult.

Maybe things aren't perfect right now (they mostly are) but I've never had a clearer picture of my future and my goals. It is really strange to think and dream and fantasize about something for five years and then finally do it. Is this really happening or am I going to wake up?

No one knows
I live in a dream

Love, Becky

ps I wrote this quickly and informally and did not consult my AP Stylebook (okay I did a few times) but feel free to correct any mistakes. I like being corrected. I know my comma placement is not always ideal (I think I don't use enough commas, or maybe it's the other way around) but I'm more interested in word usage issues. By the way, I had a very long and involved dream last night about AP Style. Seriously. It was intense.

running through my veins an american masquerade

Wow, my readers are pretty sharp! I am officially humbled. The more you learn, the more you learn that you know nothing (about AP style rules). In addition to the two comments on yesterday's entry, my brother pointed out a few more mistakes:

ben: when you write out lists, omit the last comma
ben: oh, just caught another one...75% is wrong
always spell out percent
ben: and "1300-word story" needs a comma
1,300

I might as well just quit while I'm ahead and leave the rest of this entry blank.

I've also been enjoying ground zero (lowercase according to AP) for anally retentive (no dash between adverb/adjective if the first word ends in "-ly") grammarphiles (not a word, but I'm going to use it anyway): the "Ask the Editor" section of APStylebook.com. Often the question is long and conversational, but the editor's answer is only a few choice words -- as if the questioner's stupidity is too annoying to waste more time on the answer.

Q. So sorry; I've checked the "numerals" entry, but can't find what I'm looking for. I know Chicago Manual of Style says to use all numerals in the following type of string, but since the first number here is below 10, how does AP handle the "5": "Awards for 5, 10, 15, and 20 years of service were given." Thanks!
A. see "numerals" OTHER USES.

Q. When does the verb "advocate" need the word "for" after it?
A. no.

Well, the first six paragraphs of this entry are about grammar; I'd better write about something else every now and then so I don't bore the 99 percent of you who do not share my delusion.

The other thing I wanted to write about is something Steve mentioned in his comment yesterday. I've actually been thinking about this a lot -- the issue of privacy, and employers potentially finding this blog. When I created this blog, I had been clean for a while and decided to switch from my last (private) blog to a public one. I figured most of what I would write about would be employer-safe, and even though I knew I'd still write about my "sordid past," I figured anything I'd write about would be six or more months in the past. Also, I knew I was going to journalism school, but I didn't expect to be finding a job right away. I mean, it wouldn't really matter if a coffee shop manager found my blog, but if I got a real writing job, it would be a lot more important.

My plan was: go to school, find a writing job in a few years, and by that time anything "bad" would be so far in my past that it wouldn't matter if someone found it. Maybe that's unrealistic, but it was a compromise between 100 percent honesty and completely erasing my past. I wouldn't go around telling my boss about my former addiction, and I'd try to prevent anyone from finding this blog (not linking to it, not using my full name), but if someone found it by accident, I figured it would be okay. I mean, lots of people have had issues in their past. As long as my work was good and the bad stuff seemed solidly in the past, I figured my future boss would understand (in the event that he/she accidentally found this). I also thought that when I started looking for "real" jobs, I'd sanitize my online presence more and take more precautions.

The problem is that I started doing heroin again and wrote about it, a lot. Even though I've been clean for a month, anyone finding this blog would learn quickly that my drug use was not that far in the past. Also, I originally intended this blog to be free of other "bad" things, like references to escorting and other illegal stuff. But I ended up writing about that, too. At this point I would either have to lock this blog and start over somewhere else, or delete all those back entries. I'm not too worried about the job I just got -- it's not the New York Times or anything -- but there is a possibility that I could get a "real" writing job in the future, and I want to plan ahead so I'm not scrambling to erase traces of my former life.

The other problem is that I purchased this domain name, and I really like it, and I really like a lot of the writing I've done here that is not drug-related. I suppose I could start another Blogspot blog and associate the new blog with this domain name, and lock this blog. I think Blogspot allows you to do that. Maybe I could cut and paste some back entries. Or just start over. Hmmmm.

The final problem is that even if I started a new, sanitized blog, I might still want to write about non-employer-friendly topics. I can hold back on writing about my memories of escorting and crime, but sometimes it helps me to write about heroin, like when I'm craving it and want to distract myself, or when I write about it in order to remind myself how horrible it was. When I hold it all inside, it tends to grow more. When I write about it, it loses power.

I have been thinking about these issues for quite a while; I just didn't think I would have to deal with them so soon. I wish Blogspot allowed different entries to have different permission levels. I like having a public blog because sometimes new readers find it, but it's nice to be able to write about my past without worrying about who is going to read it.

If you have any advice, please share.

Yesterday I rode my bike to that coffee shop and ended up talking to this random guy for a long time. He sat down next to me, uninvited, but ended up being pretty interesting. He just moved here with his 18-year-old son -- they have a car, but nowhere to live, and they've been camping out by the river. He's a certified lifeguard and swimming instructor, looking for work, and he told me about some great places to swim in the Willamette around here. I had no idea! I told him I'd go swimming with him today (I love swimming in rivers and oceans) but I'm not sure I have time.

Also, I was riding my bike around Whiteaker and heard music coming from a garage; I followed it and found a band practicing. They were pretty good. No one else was there, so I listened for a while, unnoticed. Later when I was riding back I saw a girl going into the house, so I asked her about it. She said it was her boyfriend's band, and that they're having a party tonight. A few different bands are going to play, and she said I was welcome to go.

But I have SO much work to do. I have to write two stories by Monday. I definitely can't swim in the river AND go to this party. Am I even social enough to deal with a party right now? It seemed like a really awesome house: There were little stars dangling from the porch ceiling, and the entire house, inside and out, was covered in art. I'd like to meet whoever lives there.

Happy America Day. And happy one-month-clean day.

love, Becky

elements of style

Hello fighters and lovers. I'm sorry I have been absent. This summer quarter at UO is absolutely insane. Three classes, one magazine story assignment and now a writing job. Yes -- I got a job writing for a local Web site yesterday. I wrote about applying for it a few months ago. Apparently the owner had overlooked my application and just found it recently. I was a little surprised, actually. When I submitted the application, I had only been clean for a few days, and I mentioned that IN THE APPLICATION! I guess I was feeling manic and ebullient and thought my sobriety was relevant to the story I was telling in my writing sample.

At the interview, she sat down and said, "You were the one who wrote about the bike adventure, right?" So she clearly remembered my application, but she didn't mention the part about drugs. I had mentioned getting clean not once but TWICE in my writing sample.

She mentioned specifically, "I really liked your writing style," and said that many of the writers she'd hired had trouble writing an "experiential narrative."

I was like, "That's my specialty!"

I don't want to write out the name of her site here. But the site is called -- take out the X's -- "DiscovXXer EugXXene Dot Com" -- you should check it out. Apparently she and her partner started it in January and started getting Google traffic before the site was even complete. So now they're rushing to fill in the content so they don't lose traffic when people come to the site and find empty pages. She said that the faster I can write stories, the better. I can write about whatever I want, too. She loved all the story ideas I had. We agreed that my first assignment would be to write about local yoga studios. I'm supposed to list them by type of yoga, difficulty level, price and location. And I'm supposed to write a short narrative about it.

The only problem is the pay. I mean, getting paid for writing is amazing. But at the interview she said she paid "1 to 2 cents per word." Multiplying stuff in my head with decimal points has always confused me. So I didn't realize until later that I will be paid $5 to $10 for a 500-word story, $8 to $16 for an 800-word story, and so on. Is that normal? It seems REALLY low. 600 words is about two pages, double-spaced. I could write 600 words in an hour (any faster and I'd be sacrificing quality). But that doesn't include the time it would take to research the story. To pay my rent, I'd have to write 40 500-word stories in a month, plus another 30 stories to cover food and other stuff. Wow. The research for some of her ideas would be pretty time-consuming, too: visiting a park way out of town, going to a weekend festival, reviewing restaurants and visiting local business.

Hmmm.. I've done some searching, and it seems that my pay rate is not that unusual. I've found writers talking about being paid anywhere from 1 to 10 cents a word. For a startup local website still trying to find advertising, and a writer (me) with no prior experience, I guess 2 cents a word is the going rate. This article is a rundown of various pay scales. It seems that the average pay for freelance online writers is 10 cents a word, but lower rates (1 to 5 cents) are VERY common. Not sure how I feel about that. Obviously REAL writing (for a reputable source like the AP, newspapers, etc) would pay more.

One commenter expressed how I feel: "I've written fiction for a penny a word, 6 cents a word, and $1 a word. Mostly, though, I write it for no money at all. I write because I love it..."

At the end of the day, being PAID to WRITE is amazing to me, and I believe that whatever I'm paid -- to write in my spare time while I'm still taking Journalism 203 -- is totally worth it. I mean, I haven't even taken my first reporting class. I am a complete novice.

At the very least, I'll end up with a bunch of PUBLISHED writing with my name on it. I can build quite a portfolio in the next few months. Also, I'm not sure if I wrote about my article for Ethos already. I'm writing a 1,300-word story about Somali pirates. The rough draft is due Monday, actually, and I haven't started it yet. I met with my story group yesterday to talk about layout, and I guess it doesn't matter if my initial story is not that great because I'll have until July 24 to make it better.

I really have no idea how I'm going to get through this quarter. All week, I've been going to class from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., going to Full City to read the paper for an hour (reading the paper is REQUIRED -- yay!) and then doing homework until I collapse from exhaustion around 1 a.m. I set the alarm for 6:30 a.m., wake up, make coffee and do more homework until my 11 a.m. class. Repeat. Toward the end of the week, I could barely keep my eyes open in class. I've gone from one cup of coffee per day to three. I'm still getting behind in Info Hell -- I need to use this weekend to find a bunch more sources for my research project.

It seems like I have a major assignment (three to five pages) due EVERY DAY, plus lots and lots of reading. It reminds me of Reed, except at Reed I would work this hard and still only get 75 percent of the reading done. At least at UO, I can finish it if I work hard enough. These summer classes are insane, though. It's 12 weeks of classes condensed into eight weeks, but it feels more like double-time. I have twice as many class hours per week, and it seems like I have twice as much homework.

But it's all okay, because I love the work so much that half the time it doesn't even feel like work. Even reading textbooks, doing research, studying for exams -- it all makes me so happy. Even waking up at 6 a.m. to write pages of annotated sources, or spending nine hours working on an InDesign project. Half the time when I'm sitting in class, I have this big ridiculous grin plastered on my face, and I'm always giggling like an idiot. I try to suppress it so the other students -- who are all completely bored -- don't know how much of a nerd I am.

This week, my friend Lance was in town from Santa Rosa, and it was totally epic to see him again. I wish I'd had more time -- I only got to see him a few times. He was staying with his friend Nina, who's from L.A. and is studying chemistry at UO. The strange part is that both of them went to my wedding. My wedding was tiny, so having two people in Eugene who were there is strange. I hadn't seen Nina since then, and didn't even know she lived here. Last night, after I finally finished my last two projects of the week, went to my story meeting and had the job interview, I got to spend the rest of the evening with Lance and Nina. We drank a bottle of wine and hung out in her downtown apartment. She has this awesome loft above her kitchen, complete with a ladder, and she's not using it. She said I could move into the loft if I wanted! I'm not sure if she was serious, though. We did talk about possibly finding a two-bedroom apartment and moving in together before Fall quarter starts. It would be so great to live with someone I like.

In other good news, Oregon is finally heating up. I love the heat. It's like a lover who never leaves. My favorite temperature is the one that allows you to have all the windows wide open, sit around in a strappy sundress and never be cold. I like heat that gives you an excuse to sit in the shade with a cool drink and a book or the paper and just be lazy. In fact, I haven't even gotten dressed yet. I'm still wearing my little slip I've been sleeping in. All I've eaten so far is this wonderful cup of coffee.

My only complaint is that I'm having style issues. We have to abide by MLA style for my research class, but for my media-writing class, the AP Stylebook is our bible. The two books are in completely different formats, so it's hard to compare them, but I know there are some rules that are very different. At Reed we also used MLA style, and I got used to spelling out virtually all numbers. But in AP, you use numerals for any number 10 and above. That is still tripping me out. In this blog, up until now, when I wanted to practice "good" writing, I automatically referred back to MLA. But really I should be practicing AP because I want to write for newspapers or magazines. So from now on, I'll be referring to my AP Stylebook for blog entries. I consulted it at least 20 times writing this entry, mostly to check the rules for writing about numbers and monetary amounts. I may not be much of a rule-follower in real life, but in writing, I want perfection.

Okay, it's time to get dressed and enjoy the wonderful, sticky-hot day. I think I'll ride my bike to that coffee shop on the other side of the train tracks, do homework and watch the trains go by.

Love, Becky

P.S. I've been clean a month, as of tomorrow (July 4th).

And if you are familiar with AP Style, please correct me if I make any mistakes.

this is america, after all. identity is our work of art.

Hi,
This is Becky from J203; I'm just writing from Gmail. I think I included stuff in my autobiographical letter that might have been a little too much information. I tried editing it out but it really bothers me to skirt the truth, especially about something that affected the last six years of my life and colors my perception. As an older student, I think that how I've spent my adult life so far is relevant even to how I approach journalism. I should have included this in my letter but I ran out of room.

Maybe this doesn't even matter.

I've really enjoyed class so far! I guess I'm one of the two people who is doing news/editorial, so the material is all fascinating to me.

Becky

* * * * * * * * * *

Hello Becky,

Good to hear from you. I actually liked your letter very much. I found it to be refreshingly candid and honest -- two traits I see you consider important (which is good!).
You are right: what is in our past is interwoven into the fabric of our lives and makes us who we are now.
That's what I was trying to get at with this assignment. Journalism often demands that the writer encapsulate the life of someone else, but before that's possible, the writer must look in the mirror, right?

I myself have always felt like the "older" student in undergrad, grad and now doctoral school.
I appreciate the life experience you bring to the classroom. I'm looking forward to reading your work throughout the term.
Hope you have a nice weekend!

* * * * * * * * * *

The letter in question is posted below. The assignment was: "...your opportunity to introduce yourself to me, to provide a succinct autobiography, and to discuss your goals for this class and for your future as a SoJC major. It will also provide a baseline for my evaluation of your writing skills. Let's see how you combine clarity and conciseness with style. I'm looking forward to finding out who you are, and how you present yourself."

* * * * * * * * * *

A friend asked me recently why I love journalism, and I was at a loss for words. I said something about how much I like newspapers, but that's just tautological. The only thing I could think of was, “I really love the truth--if truth is even possible--or at least, as close as anyone can get to ‘truth.’ I’m really bad at lying, and writing fiction, and I think those things are connected, like all I can do is truth--and I want to spread the truth, and be a conduit for truth.”

I should come up with a better answer in case anyone asks me again. But I do think that my current goal of becoming a journalist is connected to a thread that has been running through my entire life, a desire to capture and record experience as purely and as truthfully as possible.

I am 28 years old and, compared to my classmates, I feel I’ve already been through so many lifetimes. I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I lived there until I was 18. In high school I was planning on being a photographer when I grew up. I was always the “weird” girl; I was voted “most intriguing,” “most creatively dressed,” and “most musical.” I took all the advanced classes and got good grades, but not good enough to get into Yale or Columbia.

I ended up going to Reed College in Portland. I moved out here alone, not knowing a soul, and loved it. I loved Portland and I loved how intellectually challenging Reed was. In the middle of my junior year, I took an anthropology class, and fell in love with it. I was becoming disillusioned with photography because photos are an unfaithful record. They’re underwhelming compared to how something really looked. And sometimes it's the other way around: You can take a photo that makes something look more picturesque than it really was, by playing with the angle or the light. Something about that bothered me. Smoke and mirrors. I liked how anthropology was about recording and interpreting everyday life. So I switched my major.

My problem was that I had always been a perfectionist. It is not humanly possible to finish all the work at Reed. My new major made it even more difficult. I had always experimented with drugs, but a neighbor introduced me to heroin, and I found that it allowed me to do more reading. A month later, after passing the exam to become an anthropology major, Reed found out about my addiction and I was forced on medical leave. That was in 2003.

Since then I have had several more lifetimes. I traveled all over the country working on political campaigns. I got married and moved to Thailand to teach English with my husband for six months. We separated; I moved back to Portland. I went on and off heroin, never able to stay clean for longer than six months. But the whole time, I found solace in reading the newspaper. I’ve always read the paper, but it became an obsession. I’ve written in a blog since 2001, and gradually my writing skills improved. I realized maybe I could work at a newspaper.

It took me until January 2009 to stay clean long enough to get back into school. I was afraid I might be disappointed with my journalism classes, but the opposite happened: I get more excited every day. I cannot understand how some people in my classes seem so bored. I guess when I was 19 I was directionless too. My experiences over the last ten years, though difficult, have enriched my life and given me a vast array of memories from which to draw ideas for writing. I’m interested in writing long features, but I’d be happy with any writing job. I already write for several hours every day. I think I’ve finally found the best way to fulfill my mission of truth.

* * * * * * * * * *

Two of the paragraphs are lifted almost verbatim from this blog. And for something that starts out talking about truth, there are two non-facts in it: It was a therapist, not a friend, who asked me the question at the beginning. I just didn't want to start the whole paper off with, "My therapist asked me..." And I have stayed clean longer than six months. But this letter was originally two paragraphs longer than it was supposed to be, so space was at a premium. I didn't need to say, "Then I stayed clean for 4 months, then one time for a year, then..." It's not important. Omit needless words. Quick, where is that last sentence from? No Google!

I have to write out a research proposal for my Info Hell class tonight. And do a bunch of other busywork for that class. But even though it is pretty hellish, I'm just still completely beside myself with excitement about my classes, EVEN Info Hell. I mean, a ton of the examples and research scenarios are from newspapers, so that's enough to keep me happy. My day starts out with Info Hell at 11, then I have Visual Communication from 12-2, which is moderately interesting, though it focuses too much on advertising design for my taste. I am NOT interested in innovative marketing angles. It kind of makes me feel sick to hear the prof talk about how a certain ad uses design tricks to sell something to a group of people that don't actually need the thing. Some of the ad campaigns were to sell stuff like soda, or Twinkies. But mostly that class is okay. My last class, from 2-3, is Writing for the Media (for which I wrote the above letter), and that is SO my favorite. I'm glad my day goes from semi-boring to awesome so I don't get tired of sitting in class.

Anyway. I woke up at 6:30 this morning to write that letter, because it's really hard for me to do creative writing at night. And I have a TON of homework to finish before bed. So this is my cop-out blog entry that only involved a few paragraphs of actual new writing! I'm trying to decide if I should go up to Portland this weekend. I'm afraid it might be the last weekend when I don't have too much homework to go anywhere. But I feel like I just got here.

I've been clean three weeks today!! YAY!!

love, becky

the best of times are when i'm alone with

I'm procrastinating this writing assignment, so I'm going to write here instead. Actually I think I'm going to go to sleep and wake up early to write it. I just can't write at night. Actually I can, but I'm a perfectionist and it really annoys me to write something that I know is not the best I could do. And I always write more inspired things in the morning.

I just wanted to say that my classes are 100% AWESOME!! My final schedule is Journalism 202, 203 and 204. There are two other people who are taking all three classes, so I'm not the only one who's insane. I asked my professors why the J website says not to take 202 and 204 at the same time, and none of them knew, so I figured it would be okay. Actually I figured out why: because both of them are a lot of fucking work, and both involve big final projects. But J204 ends halfway before the end of the summer term, so then I'll just have two classes.

J202 is Information Gathering aka "Info Hell," and it seems like everyone I've talked to in the class is taking it for the second time because they failed it the first time. Encouraging. I was actually signed up for the class last term but I dropped it for Writing, and I'm really glad I did. There's no way I would have passed it, since I did half the work for the quarter in the last week. It seems kind of dry so far but my seemingly unending thirst for anything remotely related to journalism has been holding my attention in class.

The other two classes are a lot more fun: J203 Writing for the Media and J204 Visual Communication. The writing one is my favorite, obviously. The teacher is pretty cool and has worked at a bunch of papers, including the Washington Post. One of our "required readings" on the syllabus is... wait for it... the daily newspaper!!!!! There are even news quizzes every week!! Oh my god, I have been waiting for this moment my entire life! I kind of feel like when you're at the eye doctor and they have your vision split in two, and then they bring the two images together and they suddenly click into one. Now my free time is homework and vice versa. Because the only significant thing I really do in my free time other than talk to friends is read the newspaper. Now I don't have to feel guilty that I'm wasting time, I just tell myself, "I'm doing my homework, so it's okay!"

The first news quiz was to identify a bunch of government figures by their picture. We had to write their name and job title. The ones I got right were: Obama (obviously), Joe Biden (VP), Rahm Emanuel (chief of staff), Hillary Clinton (secretary of state), Timothy Geithner (secretary of the treasury), Nancy Pelosi (speaker of the House), and some other ones. The ones I didn't get were Janet Napolitano (secretary of homeland security), Robert Gibbs (I knew he was press secretary but couldn't remember his name), Eric Holder (know him by name as the attorney general, but didn't recognize him), Robert Gates (same, didn't recognize him, but know he's secretary of defense).

I was kind of surprised I got that many wrong, actually. And I feel it was unfair to newspaper readers rather than TV-watchers -- because when you read about the attorney general, they almost never include a photo. But the girl next to me blew my mind -- she didn't even write down Joe Biden! The only names she wrote down were Hillary and Obama. Shocking. Especially shocking in a journalism class. I guess she was probably an advertising major. Not that there's anything wrong with advertising! Okay, maybe I hate advertising, but I finally found one positive thing about it in J201 last term: It makes the press cheaper/free. So carry on, girl-sitting-next-to-me, as long as you help pay my salary as a media writer and make my newspaper cheaper.

J203, Visual Communication, seems like it will be pretty fun. We get to do photography projects and use photoshop and illustrator. It's funny, though, since I used to be an art major and my focus was photography -- visual stuff just doesn't interest me anymore. A long time ago I became frustrated with photography because frequently you aren't able to show what something looked like with a photo -- it ends up being underwhelming compared to how awesome it was in person. And often it's the other way around; you can get a photo that makes something look MORE pretty/picturesque than it really was, by playing with the angle, the light, etc. Something about that bothers me. Smoke and mirrors. Writing is a lot of work but I feel I can get closer to what I really want to convey.

I remember when I got back from Spain in 1999 with 20 rolls of film, developed it all by hand in the black and white darkroom at Reed, painstakingly messed with filters and exposure lengths to get the best image from each negative, and then put the best photos in an album. And people would just flip through it, glancing at each page for a second and moving on. I wish I had written about the trip while I was there instead of only taking photos, because I felt it was impossible for my friends to understand what it was REALLY like from glancing at that album.

So it's strange, sitting in class, because I already know almost everything he's teaching -- about layout, typography, design principles, art movements -- but it just doesn't interest me anymore. I was into visual art from when I was a toddler until I was 21. I also played a bunch of musical instruments, but from age 17-21 I decided I loved art above music. Then I was into anthropology for a few years. From age 23 until the present I decided what I really liked was writing/journalism. I hope I can hold onto this obsession long enough to make something of it, because I don't have time to switch interests again. I don't think it's going to go away, though.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I'll be clean for 3 weeks. It's probably today for you if you're reading this. It's not exactly getting any easier -- it is, but it's still SO HARD. Like today, I started thinking about it, and I'm really glad I didn't have enough cash. I'm not sure what I would have done otherwise. It's not that the craving is THAT BAD anymore, it's that I can be so irrational and spontaneous, and this devil that lives in my mind will take advantage of that to make me do something stupid in a split-second decision. It *is* a lot easier than it used to be years ago, now that I am doing something I love and care about. I feel like I have a reason to live, a reason to stay clean other than just "because I should."

You have no idea how happy it makes me to be in school and be able to think about journalism 24 hours a day for a REASON, and not just because I'm constantly wasting time reading the newspaper and thinking about it on my own. I'm just waiting for the momentum to run out and for it to get boring, because it seems like all the other J students are completely bored with everything. I seriously can't imagine that happening, though.

Oh, I almost forgot: I went to the meeting for the school magazine, and got assigned one of the feature-ish articles for the PRINT magazine, not just online like they originally told me. I mostly just got the assignment because I spoke up a lot in the meeting and I was the only one who said anything about one of the topics. The editor wanted someone to write about Somali pirates from their perspective, and I mentioned something from an article I read about them a few weeks ago. My infinite mental filing cabinet of NYT articles finally pays off. I posted something on Twitter about my assignment, and one of my Twitter contacts (supposedly) knows a Somali pirate and can get me in contact with him? I ended that with a question mark because it still seems incomprehensible to me, but he claims it's true. We'll see.

All my classes are small and they have a bunch of the same students in common, plus some of the people who work on the magazine, so I've already probably talked to more people outside of class than I talked to all of last term. All my classes during the spring were so huge and anonymous. I've finally met a few interesting people. This girl in my writing class said that "the newspaper is like church" and I was like, Oh my god, where have you been all my life?

love, becky

anonymous comments are cowardly

In response to this comment:

Becky,
You = me at one time
You've been in tumult for so long, when you land you are already looking for a place to jump off of again. Repetitive tasks and working towards a goal are foreign concepts. Calm is terrifying. There must always be a drama in order to find peace. The trauma is a welcome, comforting distraction.

This is a reaction to living in trama. It breeds more trauma because the trauma has become "normal", even a comfort.

What will be magickal, fresh and new is breaking the addiction to catastrophe. It will be a brave new world when you don't pick up roots, when you build long tern loving relationships, and when you take on responsibility for something larger than yourself. It will all come to you when you are ready.

You do things, like sex, drugs, and travel, to get yourself away from that plodding along normalcy of nothing particularly exciting. When you can really face doing nothing, doing for others, doing what is boring you will really break the need to freak out. THEN you can start to build. And when you have built something completely for others, the family and the children will follow.

Challenge yourself to do NO drugs. To stay put. To work a day job where it is not rewarding to you at all, but you feel is for the greater good. In this space, this gap, this breath, you will be able to find yourself. Not in the cliche way, but in a way that you feel well, powerful and in control of your destiny.

You addiction to the adreniline rush is just as bad as your addiction to the heroine.

I am really confused about this comment. I have been in school since January. I've also been living in Eugene since then and don't plan on leaving until I finish my degree in a year or so. I'm single-mindedly pursuing a career in journalism, which has been my obsession for about five years, so it's really exciting to finally do it.

Repetitive tasks and working towards a goal are foreign concepts.

Really? Cause I've been working towards the goal of going to UO since last September when I started applying. I was clean for six months then and working on that political campaign, so I was finally able to start following my dream. Then I had to take two classes at a community college (math and college writing) to be admitted as a transfer student. Then I was finally able to start at UO in March, for spring quarter. I've gotten A's in virtually everything and I've worked really hard on my classes, even though I was struggling with heroin for part of last term. I'm crazy-obsessed with my journalism classes.

I also have quite a few "long term loving relationships." Maybe not in this town, because I just moved here in January, but I'm working on it. I still have Donna, anyway, and a bunch of other friends in other cities.

You do things, like sex, drugs, and travel, to get yourself away from that plodding along normalcy of nothing particularly exciting.

The only traveling I've done recently (since I started trying to change my life last summer) was during my school breaks: I went to Hawaii for spring break and San Francisco last week before summer term started. Last November I went to New Orleans and I went to Chicago for Christmas. Other than that, I stopped going to Portland when I stopped escorting in April. I think I'm allowed to travel a little on my school breaks, aren't I? It's not like I'm taking off randomly and leaving my responsibilities behind. I only left for five days, and came back for the beginning of the term.

Also, I don't do heroin to make my life more exciting. Heroin makes things LESS exciting. My emotions and the way I perceive the world are so intense and sometimes anxiety-inducing, heroin appealed to me as a way to blunt my emotions. Yes I am a thrill seeker, but heroin wasn't really about that. And I know I wrote about having casual sex with someone a few weeks ago, but trust me, that is extremely rare. It's not my thing at all. I can count two times in the last three years that I've done that. And I've had two boyfriends since I left Brian in 2006 -- hardly promiscuous.

My life is plenty exciting without drugs, sex, or traveling. It's TOO exciting. That's why I crave heroin a lot, because I have these insane moods. I'm not easily bored. In fact, EVERYTHING interests me. I don't know where you get the idea that I find life boring. That is so far from the truth. I get excited about the most random things, like reading the paper and drinking tea in the morning, looking at trees, chilling with my cat, whatever. I'm all about the everyday, and I love little rituals. (Remember, I used to be an anthropology student. Anthropologists love everyday stuff.) I am really a child when it comes to life: Everything always seems new and exciting (when I'm clean).

Challenge yourself to do NO drugs. To stay put. To work a day job where it is not rewarding to you at all, but you feel is for the greater good.

I am challenging myself to do no drugs. Yes, my SF acid trip was a mistake -- but since I have no more acid and don't plan to buy any, I won't be doing that again anytime soon. There are no other drugs that I do anymore; acid is the only one that interests me at all, and clearly I should wait a while before I try that again.

So I hope it's all right if I travel during my school breaks, but other than that I really have no idea what you're talking about. The only other "thrill-seeking" in my future is riding my bike really fast on my way to school.

What you describe is actually what I have been working towards for a long time: I realized a while ago that running all over the world at random was not productive, it just took a while for me to settle down. And I realized that I needed to WORK towards my journalism goal instead of just dreaming about it. Hopefully this is good enough for you, because I'm not sure how to work any harder. I'm already taking so many classes that my professors have advised me to drop one of them. I'm up to my neck in journalism and writing and it is making me incredibly happy.

I haven't done any heroin for almost a month, and I don't plan on doing any drugs in the future. I really am trying to keep my thrill-seeking in check and do healthy stuff like yoga and playing guitar instead. I'm not sure if you actually read my blog, because if you did, you would already know everything I just wrote.

Also, advice means a lot more when it's not anonymous -- when I know who's saying it, whether they know me or not, etc. Don't you think you would take a friend's advice a lot more seriously than an anonymous blog comment? It's hard for me to put anonymous comments in perspective when there is NO information about the commenter. Anyway, my litmus test is if Donna is happy with my life and not freaking out, I am happy too. And I think she is.

love, becky

ps I don't mean to sound defensive, it's just really annoying to have someone tell you to do a bunch of things you've been working really hard at for a long time.

san francisco is perfect and acid won

Good evening darlings. This is my 100th blog post (at this address, anyway). And I have been clean for 18 days. And I am back in Oregon. I really, really love Oregon, but I really, really did not want to come home today. Usually being in the Bay Area gives me this exhaustion and feeling of overexposure so that by the time I leave, I'm okay with it. Maybe it's that almost all the other times I was returning to Portland, not Eugene. Portland and San Francisco have been competing for favorite city status for almost ten years now, with no sign of a winner. There are a lot of other cities I like, namely New Orleans, New York, and Chicago (in that order) -- and I'd like to live in NOLA and NYC someday (already lived in Chicago briefly) -- but SF and PDX are the only two places I can imagine myself living FOREVER.

Though, I don't think I'll ever live anywhere forever. I can hardly manage staying somewhere for a whole year. At some point Elexa made me make a time line of all the places I've lived or traveled since I turned 18. It took me an hour just to get to 2003, and by that time I had a huge headache -- and the vast majority of my traveling was AFTER that. My stuff has been in storage for about 3/4 of the time since November 2003.

Anyway... San Francisco is the most magical city in the world. Portland has this gothic, tragic beauty, but San Francisco crams so much gorgeousness into such a tiny space: layers and layers of Victorian filigree, spidery webs of wires powering the electric buses, roller-coaster hills layered like a vertical Japanese painting, and fog making everything disappear and reappear with alarming speed. When I sit on the bus and watch the endless hills and rows of bay windows, I feel like I'm looking at some impossible view -- like looking across a canyon so large that you can hardly comprehend the size and distance of the cliffs on the other side -- and I can't tear my eyes away, I can't stop drinking it all in and trying to figure out how this city is possible in physical reality.

Portland has something different -- Portland is approachable, and it has fairy-tale gardens and moss bursting out of everything, and I always feel like there is some bittersweet story happening beneath the shadows. There are no locked gates or blank facades at sidewalk level like in SF. I used to feel like San Francisco was beautiful and perfect, but Portland was *mine*. But now, not living in a city... I forgot how much I miss living in a city. I just wanted to ride the MUNI trains around SF and stare at the throngs of people getting on and off, forever, like this enormous, dynamic, never ending exchange of people. I get energy from crowds of people. This place I live is definitely too small.

Enough rhapsodizing. So I got to Sacramento at 7 am on Tuesday and had breakfast with Brian and walked around taking pictures of this beautiful golden bridge that I'd never noticed before. Brian was really nervous for some reason, so I bought him some carrot juice to make him feel better. I got back on the bus after my layover, and got to Oakland at 11 am, and killed time in Berkeley while I waited for Angela to get off work. I went to my favorite coffee shop, the place where Donna and I once met this amazing old hippie named Howie who was working on translating Finnegan's Wake into Chinese. We hung out with him for two days and he showed us pictures of the 60s, and told us about James Joyce. I always go to this cafe and think about him. When we met him he didn't have a phone and this was before the Internet (kind of) so we completely lost touch with him. I wonder if he's still alive.

I met Angela at a grocery store back in Oakland, and was shocked to find that she is shorter than me! I always imagine that powerful people will be very tall. We had a picnic by Lake Merritt and then went to her house and watched some movies -- including "Truth or Dare" by Madonna! Angela gave me some lessons in 80s pop culture. It was very entertaining. After being completely cut off from the world as a child, it's funny to learn about what I was missing. I wonder how I'd feel if I had ever heard Madonna when she was current.

The second day I went into San Francisco and walked around forever taking pictures of everything. I wish I hadn't taken so many pictures, because my camera battery died, and I had forgotten to bring the charger, and couldn't find a store that sold them!! So for the rest of the trip I had no camera. But I did get some good photos on the first few days. Back at Angela's, we watched some old Golden Girls episodes -- and had more pop culture lessons. Angela is going to be teaching at a high school in Berkeley and told me about teaching, and Oakland history, and making films, and a bunch of other stuff.

The third day was.... interesting. Alice picked me up and we hung out and talked for a while at the Berkeley co-op where she lives. She had stuff to do, so I walked to BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and went to San Francisco again. And decided to take the acid I'd brought with me. I was a little apprehensive, because I don't know my way around SF as well as I used to, and I had forgotten my map and didn't want to buy another one. Also, I'd be alone -- not just no one to trip with me, but no one with me at all. I've tripped alone before, but never wandering around a semi-unfamiliar city. I took the Judah MUNI train to the Haight and wandered around for a while, and went to Golden Gate Park.

For some reason, while I was already tripping, I decided to buy heroin. I have no idea why. Maybe because I was near this needle exchange I've been to a few times on Haight and Cole, or maybe because I kept seeing this homeless guy who looked like he was on it. So I bought it, and got needles, and was going to do it, when I suddenly thought, "No, this is fucked up!" Not just because I was clean, but because acid is sacred to me. I decided that even if I was going to do it later, I could still enjoy the rest of my acid trip. I've done heroin a few times at the END of an acid/mushroom trip, but never in the middle -- it would probably have made it much less acid-y. So I put the stuff away and wandered around downtown for a while. After a few more hours, I got on BART back to Berkeley. It was 9 pm or so at this point and I had taken the acid around 4 pm.

This is when things started getting really strange. At some point later, in the strangeness, I decided that by NOT doing the heroin I bought, I had triggered some kind of epic showdown in my mind between heroin and acid, or between heroin and Donna, or something like that. I'm still really confused about what happened, and I'll probably never know completely.

I had some trouble getting on the train to Berkeley -- there was a non-tripping tourist who told me he was going to Berkeley but that there were no more trains. The next day, someone told me this was because after a certain time of night, you have to transfer trains to get to Berkeley. But I didn't know that. So I got on the train that I normally would have taken, and spaced out. It's a long trip. This is when I think I started losing my mind, though I didn't know it at the time. There have been other acid/mushroom trips when I completely lost it, but I was always kind of aware of it. At least the other times I was aware that something was wrong with my head -- either I'd think I was dying, or something. But this time I thought I was still completely sane. I started thinking about my friendship with Donna, and how only something as fucked up as heroin could (almost) tear us apart. I tried to make this diagram in my journal, but all I ended up with was page after page of these words repeated over and over: Donna, Becky, heroin, acid, death, love.

Then the train announcer said: "This is the end of the line for this train! Everyone off!" Except we weren't in Berkeley. I thought I had gotten on the wrong train and was SOUTH of San Francisco. Instead of asking or looking at a map, I went to the other side of the platform and waited for the next train. Luckily I realized I was on the wrong train and got off. This time I asked someone, and eventually had to tell him I was on acid, because I was so unable to understand what he was saying. I told him, "Whenever you give acid a challenge, it always one-ups you... so I can't tell if acid is trying to fuck with me by confusing me with the trains, or what?" Finally the train came. But just as I sat down, the train started and my phone flew out of my hand. I looked under the seat where I'd seen it go, but I couldn't find it.

This is where things started to get really, really strange. I remember TELLING some lady on the train that I was on acid, because I needed her to help me. Then, instead of looking for my phone more, I inexplicably got off at the next stop. I knocked on the conductor's door and told them that my phone was on the train, but that's all. Then a woman and her husband got off and tried to help me. I thought they were the same people I had been talking to, but I found out later, they weren't. They just realized I was too fucked up to take care of myself and they were worried about me being alone in Oakland, which I guess is where I was.

I pieced all this together much later, though. At the time, I thought that they wanted to know all the revelations I'd had on my acid trip. Not only that, but at this exact moment, I suddenly became convinced that Brian and I *WERE* soul mates after all... and started crying about my abortions... but somehow made this mental leap that it was okay that we weren't together and I hadn't had his kids, because DONNA made up for it all, and also if I just kept doing more acid and not doing heroin, I would eventually meet *another* soul mate and have kids. I was sobbing to this woman about all this stuff, but it probably made no sense to her. I remember at one point saying, "I figured it out, I know the secret -- it's Donna! Donna Donna Donna!" I thought this woman was going to be my new best friend and she wanted to know the secret of the universe that acid was telling me. But really, she just called 911. Meanwhile, I became convinced that the heroin I had bought earlier was causing some kind of rift in my psyche, so I took it out of my wallet and GAVE it to her! She looked at it and was like "What is this?" and I told her.

When the ambulance came, I don't really remember much of what happened, or why on earth I voluntarily went with them, except on the ride to the hospital I was convinced that all the ambulance tech guys also wanted to know the secret of the universe and I was going to be their guru. Also, I thought that all of this was going to be on national news and that the entire country would finally realize how awesome acid is. I have no idea why anyone would want to take acid by seeing some girl get hospitalized on the news, but that's what I believed at the time.

At the hospital they had me in a hallway, I guess because a room wasn't open, and all I remember is lying on the gurney watching all the nurses come and go, and I thought that all of them were working for me, that the whole hospital was centered around me, and that they were trying to decide which nurse was going to talk to me and figure out what was wrong with me. I thought that the reason I hadn't been able to find the right train to Berkeley had something to do with human interaction and my inability to see beyond the surface of people I was talking to. I also thought that there was some fundamental rift in my mind between who I am on acid and who I am when I have sex, and in order to be whole, those two selves had to merge. And that I would tell my new nurse friend all about it. At the same time, I still had this battle going in my head between acid, heroin, Donna, and a bunch of other stuff. The nurses were asking me questions -- like "Where do you live?" and "Where do your parents live?" and stuff like that -- probably to try to complete my paperwork -- but I thought they were trying to prompt me for more amazing acid-wisdom. So every time they'd ask a question, I'd start babbling more nonsense, repeating myself over and over. "Oregon. I live in Oregon. Eugene, Oregon. Oregon Oregon Oregon."

Eventually I decided that acid had "won" over heroin and even Donna, and I just lay there staring at the ceiling repeating "acid acid acid acid acid. L. S. D. L. S. D. L. S. D." At some point during all this, one of the nurses managed to get an IV in my arm (I was too out-of-it to instruct them that the best vein is the one *with* the dark spot on it, so they were trying to hit all the veins that don't work anymore). Then I think they gave me some kind of sedative. I'm really not sure though. I would have given me a sedative, with the way I was yelling and carrying on. But I thought that because acid had "won" in my head, that the hospital was going to kill me, or keep me in some kind of perpetual coma, like I was an experiment gone awry. As I felt them give me this sedative, I started yelling, "Don't kill me! Do. Not. Kill. Me. I don't want to die! Don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me!" I swear to god, I heard them say, "It's taken you fourteen years to get to this level with acid, and it would take you too long to get to the next level, so we have to kill you." I also remember them saying that they had given me lots of drugs but they couldn't figure out why I was still alive.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital room (not in the hallway anymore) approximately three hours later. At first I thought I was in some kind of observation room. I also thought that my entire family, and Donna, was going to be there momentarily. I still thought it was all going to be on the news. And I didn't want to live in a hospital forever. I tried to tear all the wires off my chest and disconnected myself from the heart monitor, which prompted a nurse to come in. That's when I started to realize that my version of things was not what was happening, because she said, "As soon as you get a ride, you can be discharged." I said, "I'm really confused. What happened to me?" She didn't say much, just that I had been yelling a lot. I'm still not sure if they actually gave me a sedative. I lay there trying to figure out what the fuck had happened for a few hours, until Alice picked me up around 9 am.

Meanwhile, the lady who'd found me on the train had found my phone somehow, and called my mother to tell her I was in the hospital. I guess she didn't realize that I wasn't from in town. She also TOLD my mother that I had handed her the bag of heroin, which I really wish she hadn't done. You'd think my mother would be happy I handed it to the lady instead of doing it, but she wasn't very happy at all. Plus, since I had been too out of it to answer my phone for hours and hours, she had emailed or called everyone I know trying to figure out what was going on. She even managed to find Angela on my Facebook friends and wrote to her. Wow. I spent most of the day sleeping, and pieced together the above story from what my mom told me the lady had told her.

The part that really makes me disappointed is that there is not going to be a national news story that makes everyone in the country want to do acid. I was totally envisioning this new world of love and LSD. Oh well.

I know you're probably thinking "Becky, you shouldn't do acid! It's too dangerous if stuff like this happens!" But I think it was just because I was alone in a kind of unfamiliar city. I never realized the strange things that can happen if you're alone with your acid thoughts. Like, I thought people on the train could read my mind. And I was having a lot of fun imagining this epic battle between Donna and heroin and all this other stuff. I wish I could remember more of that, because it seemed so amazing at the time.

Anyway, this is really really long. That same day, after buying a Walter Benjamin book in Berkeley and eating Thai food with Alice, I took the bus to Sacramento and met Brian and we drove to Chico. And I kind of covered the Brian situation in the last entry. Maybe I'll write more about that tomorrow. It was very strange.

Tomorrow is my first day of summer term, and I'm scared. Since summer classes are condensed, I think that the three classes I'm taking are technically an overload, plus that magazine thing. But I don't want to drop any of them. And I'm nervous that the "news lab" class I signed up for (J-400-something) is going to be way over my head because I haven't even taken basic reporting or anything like that. Fuck. But maybe it will be okay.

love, becky

ps and I'm STILL clean!

all your dreams are over now

Hi.  I'm in Chico, California.  I'm sitting at Brian's daughter Angela's computer while they all make Thai coconut soup downstairs.  This has been a really strange visit.  I'm just going to preemptively say -- please do not tell me not to get back together with Brian.  It is not even a possibility in my mind.  Even if it were, it would be so far in the future that there will be plenty of time for you to warn me not to do it -- I'm in school in Oregon and he is here with his job, for at least another year. Also, there are a lot of other things.  Like, I stopped having feelings for him in December 2006 when I left him, and those feelings haven't come back.  And I really can't trust him since I already gave him a second chance years ago.

That said, I can't believe how determined he is.  I had no idea he even felt this way anymore.  We talk on the phone a lot, but just as friends.  But since I've been here he won't stop talking about how much he wants me back... begging me.  Not to be with him right this second, but someday to reconsider.  Pleading with me to keep an open mind.  I haven't really said definitively "No" because what he's asking is so indistinct and so far in the future.  Plus I feel sorry for him.  I know what it's like to want to be with someone that bad, for years and years.  He keeps telling me that I'm the only person he's ever cared for or ever will care for and that no one else will ever compare to me.  And how proud he felt when we were together, to tell people that I was his girl, and how much he wants to help me and support me in whatever I want to do with my life.  It's overwhelming.

The problem is that whenever he says anything nice about me or tells me how much he loves me, all I can think about is how he treated me when we were actually together.  So the more he talks about it, the more upset I get.  Then eventually I can't hold it in and I blurt out all these things he said and did to me in the past, in rapid fire.  He finally decided he was "moving too fast" and told me he would stop talking about it, and that we should just have fun while I'm here.  But he still won't stop hugging me, trying to hold my hand, trying to kiss me -- which I will not do -- and even when he tries to hug me, it just reminds me of all the times when he was angry and wouldn't speak to me or touch me for days... I don't know. 

Even if I believed 100% that he was a new person -- which it kind of seems like he is, way more than when we got back together that other time -- I don't think I could ever be in love with him again.  All that died when we were in Thailand and he told me I was worthless and he didn't want me dragging him down anymore, and that I should just leave.  I could never open my heart again after that.  And I don't really want to.  And that was so long ago.  Two and a half years.

So anyway, you don't need to tell me not to be with him.  I'm not.  I'm just telling you what's happening.  It's very surreal.  It's even more surreal now that both his daughters live in this town.  I've met them before but I don't really know what they think of me or what they think of me popping back in to his life.  His older daughter, Angela, was born when he was 17.  His younger daughter, Leiha, is supposedly getting married to her boyfriend.  She's only 19.  She was picking out wedding dresses today.  Her boyfriend is 28 (my age) and has a *neck tattoo* of a *flaming skull*!!!!  

Anyway.  I have so much more to write about, from going to San Francisco, but I don't know if I have time right now.  

Actually I think I want to drink more wine and watch a movie with them.  I'll write more later or when I get home tomorrow.

Love, Becky

paper i just finished. it sucks.

New Media, Social Entropy and Democracy

WR123 * June 2009

Have you ever gone forty-eight hours without consuming any mass media? This includes books, music, TV, film, video games, Internet, newspapers, magazines, and radio. For a journalism class, one of our assignments was to avoid all mass media for forty-eight hours and write about the experience. I don’t watch TV or movies very often, so I thought it would be easy. But in the first three hours I had already accidentally started to check my email on my Blackberry, and looked up the address of a business on the Internet -- I don’t have a phone book, so I didn’t have a choice.

Americans have been heavy media consumers for decades, but the recent advent of the Internet has combined with advances like IPods, PDAs, and digital cameras to change our society more than any recent technological advance. These new forms of communication are changing journalism, interpersonal communication, and the way we relate to the world. The so-called “new media” are causing a creeping social entropy while democratizing and equalizing the way we relate to each other.

Journalism was already heading for a crisis even before the Internet came along. Newspaper readership declined as more and more people switched to TV news, but the evening news was losing viewers too. In 1980 roughly 52 million people watched the evening news, while in 1990 only 41 million people were watching (Project for Excellence in Journalism). Many polls show unawareness of world events. Some people think the news is not objective enough, but they may not know that 40% of newspaper stories originate directly from PR news releases, virtually unedited, or that 90% of TV news stations use pre-taped “Video News Releases,” from PR or advertising firms (Baran 364-365). Deregulation of TV and radio has produced a world in which four companies own the vast majority of the mass media, causing a lack of local news and less connection with everyday people. People may not be aware of these details, but only 39% of Americans think news organizations are “moral” (Baran 18). This situation isn’t bad only for the media industry, but for democracy. How can people vote without knowing what the candidates stand for, or when the news is bought by lobbyists? Thomas Jefferson believed a free press was possibly the most important part of maintaining a democracy (McChesney 126).

But while traditional media are dying out, people spend more and more time with some kind of media -- the average adult spends more than nine hours every day with mass media (including Internet) (Baran 18). While newspapers run doom-and-gloom columns about the end of democracy, blogs, Twitter and even texting have improved political awareness and voting behavior. The Obama campaign got on board with new media way before his competitors, sending out daily emails with news and donation requests, making a Facebook page and comprehensive website early on, and even texting updates to supporters. Personalized texts and emails reminded people about local deadlines to register to vote, and the website had links about voter registration, finding your local polling place, and even a form letter to send to your email contacts to remind them to vote. The surge in voting in 2008 proves that people still care about what’s happening, even if they are using new media rather than watching TV news.

In a way, though, the Obama Campaign was atypical of the most potentially democratizing aspect of new media, which is the leveling and opening of communication. The proliferation of blogs, reporting on everything from local news and politics to international matters, has made everyone a potential journalist. Anyone can give his or her take on subjects as diverse as the IPhone or the Iraq war. Anyone can take a digital photo and upload it instantly to a blog, somewhat eliminating the importance of professional news photographers. And people trust these “citizen journalists” more than they trust the mass media conglomerates who are increasingly setting their own agenda rather than being objective.

Twitter could prove to be another step towards a “brave new world” of Internet news sources, since it connects people in real time, allowing both rapid communication and dissemination of news to a wider audience. Several recent events, including protests in Moldova, the plane landing on the Hudson, and the Mumbai terrorist attacks, were first reported by people on Twitter, sometimes hours before traditional media. In Moldova protesters used Twitter to organize, and outsiders could follow the events from the perspective of a local person on the scene (Miller). Businesses can use Twitter to communicate with customers directly, and celebrities have latched on to the service as a way to talk to fans without the filter of a gossip magazine. One writer was unsure about Twitter, until he saw a coworker post a question and get useful information back from multiple people within fifteen seconds (Pogue).

The most important effect of the “digital revolution,” though, is less hyped, because it is unimportant to advertisers, the media business, or politicians. Our world is going through a process of increased “social entropy” and diaspora, while the closeness we are losing in real life is being replicated on the Internet, only in specific interest groups rather than organic connections. According to Wikipedia, “social entropy is a measure of the natural decay within a social system. It can refer to the decomposition of social structure or of the disappearance of social distinctions.” Social organizations and governments expend significant energy to resist entropy, with rules and laws, education, and mass media. Entropy in the physical world is already taking place, as once-homogeneous societies are spreading out across the globe in interweaving diasporas, making each place on earth more and more diverse, but more similar to each other (like how you can find a Starbucks or a Chinese restaurant in any city, or how immigration is making America and Mexico more and more similar).

On the Internet, social entropy means that any forum or blog can be written from anywhere, by anyone, and can be read by anyone, anywhere. Traditional distinctions of race, class, gender, and even location cease to matter. A 15-year-old African girl can argue with a 60-year-old American man about politics, and their ideas are more relevant than their identities. At the same time, while people may not be interacting with the type of people they would have known in real life, Internet users are self-sorting into categories based on interests and beliefs. Liberals read liberal blogs, knitters read knitting blogs, and so on. An interest-based Internet community might contain a diverse range of socio-economic and locational characteristics, but everyone has at least one quality or belief in common. More and more, people are exposed only to people who agree with them. In this sense, the Internet is causing reverse entropy -- trading one organizational system (class, location, age, gender) for a system of affinity groups.

In real life, too, Internet and cell phones have erased the distinctions between different locations. Just as you can find Chinese food anywhere, you can get Internet anywhere -- especially with the spread of IPhones and Blackberries. In a city on the other side of the country, your friends can still reach you at the same number, you can still check your email and post to your blog or Twitter, and you can still read the same blogs or news sources you read at home. This effect can be cyclical: modern society causes more moving around than in the past, which causes us to keep up with our friends on the Internet or by cell phone, which causes less connection to our current location, which makes it even easier to pick up and leave the next time. Our offline friends often become online friends, but our online friends rarely become offline friends. And the leveling effect is clear on Facebook or Twitter: your brother’s status appears next to updates by NPR news, your elementary school friend, your senator, and your boyfriend.

There are many potential drawbacks to the switch from traditional media to new media. A lot of Internet phenomena still haven’t figured out how to make money -- Twitter hasn’t made a dime, despite its popularity, and The New York Times stopped charging for its online edition because it was driving away readers. Online writers rarely get paid, and even if they have ads, they don’t make anything close to what a traditional journalist would make. This makes investigative journalism almost impossible. Blogs are great when the blogger has knowledge of the topic or story already, but some stories are not just sitting out in the open, and require more time, energy and resources than are available to the typical blogger (like the Watergate scandal). The way the Internet sorts people by interests and beliefs means that people are exposed to fewer viewpoints that differ from their own, further polarizing society into extremes, or into dozens of sub-categories. Matt Bai argues that Twitter is a horrible development for politicians: “[W]hatever else Americans may be craving in our politics these days, brevity and immediacy aren’t among them. Politics today is already too simplistic and binary, its news cycle more comically truncated and ephemeral than at any time in our history.”

Many of these are serious flaws with the new system in which we find ourselves. Newspapers, evening news and face-to-face communication all still have important roles in our society, and sometimes it’s good to step away from all the media consumption and hang out with a real-life friend. But the Internet isn’t going anywhere, and traditional mass media usage was already declining. It’s important, as new media become more pervasive and new phenomena emerge, to make sure to keep the Internet in the hands of the people, as a potential tool for democracy and social change. One reason people have latched on so quickly is precisely because it is nothing like older mass media, which are no longer trusted. We aren’t (usually) afraid that our favorite political blogger is being fed stories, or that YouTube videos have product placement. That is a direct result of the flattening, opening, and entropic nature of an instantaneous and “world wide” form of communication. We are at a watershed moment, potentially at the beginning of a completely new era. But in the end, any kind of media is what you make it. Communication tools depend on the communicators to convey messages. Keeping new media “of the people” will ensure that we will benefit from it at the same time as it changes us.



Works Cited

Bai, Matt. “The Chatty Classes.” The New York Times. 22 April 2009.

Baran, Stanley J. Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2009.

Cardin, Benjamin. “With No Newspapers, as Thomas Jefferson Knew, Democracy Suffers.” US News and World Report. 04 May 2009.

McChesney, Robert W. Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media. New York: New Press. 2007.

Miller, Claire Cain. “Putting Twitter’s World to Use.” The New York Times. 13 April 2009.

Pogue, David. “Twitter? It’s What You Make It.” The New York Times. 11 Feb. 2009.

“The State of the News Media 2007.” Project for Excellence in Journalism. 2007

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!! I just got an email saying I am part of the summer staff for Ethos, this campus magazine. It's not the New York Times or anything, but it will be the FIRST EVER time I am published anywhere other than my blog. Actually, my three writing samples were all cut and pasted from entries in this blog, with a little deleting and editing. They were all from November and December of last year -- this Christmas entry, this one about Texas, and one I wrote on acid, about politics. I took out the part about acid and that whole Obama speech at the end, and deleted the first paragraph of the Christmas entry. But otherwise I didn't change anything. Here's the email I just got.

Hello Everyone,

Congratulations! You are on Ethos this summer! Attached is our contact list, which includes your name, email, phone number, and position (job title).

Our first meeting will be NEXT Monday, June 22. Attendance is mandatory, I expect everyone to be there. We'll be going over basics about the magazine, the production process and schedule, job expectations, and a few more story ideas.

If you have any questions, please email me. Have a fruitful zero week!

See you soon,
Roger

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. I checked the attachment; my position is only "online writer," whatever that means. Maybe they could tell that stuff was from a blog. Ha. But I don't care. The hardest part for me has always been the idea of applying for a writing job with NO published writing (I've never even applied for a writing job, for that reason). At least now I should have *some* kind of legit sample by the end of the summer. Here's the magazine website. You can see the cover and what kind of magazine it is -- the application said it focuses on "diversity and multiculturalism" and a lot of it seems to be about traveling.

I don't even know if I will have time to do this plus take three journalism classes, especially because News Lab also involves writing and publishing real news stories and is very time-consuming. And the summer classes meet more often and probably have more work since Summer quarter is shorter than the other terms. I wonder how much time this will take, and whether I should drop J 203 or 204, or J410 (News Lab), if it ends up being too much work. I don't want to drop *any* of them.

HOLY SHIT.

OK, back to this paper I'm writing about new media. My thesis is that new media (internet, etc) are restoring the fabric of our democracy, causing social entropy and postmodern flattening of values and social distinctions, and reinforcing the physical diasporas that are already happening throughout the world. It's only a four page paper. I always end up with an overly complex thesis and have to edit my papers down to half their original length.

I just had to share that news with you guys. Thank you for allowing me to practice my writing on you for the last eight years; it's finally paying off! Now you can say you knew me back in 2001 when the most I ever wrote was a paragraph per entry, in misspelled lowercase. This is the second entry I ever wrote; I sound like a child.

Anyway, wow. I won't say holy shit in all caps anymore, but just, wow. I can't fucking believe it.

Love, Becky!!!!

ps 11 days.