Friday, July 06, 2007

The Easy Casual Banter Of A Friday Afternoon


For a brief period in my life, I fulfilled my fantasy of girl reporter. I wasn't good at it -- I had an old-fashioned camera that gave me the prop of seriousness without any talent. I didn't weigh much in those days, but my heart had already grown burdened and weary, much like I imagined veteran reporters to be. Since I was the youngest staff member, my boss sent me to the places nobody else wanted to go and those places became me. To note, I dealt with each and every elderly person who barraged the newspaper with phone calls about a story they wanted to tell. I'd often find myself hostage in an airless houses nodding over yellowed newspaper clippings. I interviewed a felon who needed a kidney, a Pizza Hut employee who had been cheated out of a hundred dollars by a sleight of hand artist. The world, so full of treachery, had much need and not a lot of softness.

The guy who had my job before me had taken off for Alaska. Someone peeled his name off his work station with a flourish and said, Someday we'll be doing this to you. It wasn't a place that encouraged nostalgia. Still, I loved its strange particulars, the break room with its ancient vending machine and dinky window looking out at the parking lot, the time cards we'd stamp every morning and night, the easy casual banter of a Friday afternoon. Loved developing photographs late into the evening, bathed in the glow of red light and chemicals, pulling up negative after negative, curious as to what would appear, what I had captured, what had captured me.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"When people say there is too much violence in my books, what they are saying is there is too much reality in life. " Joyce Carol Oates

Cocktail Hour
Drinking music suggestion: Add It Up Violent Femmes

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Friday!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

:o) lois lane with a hot bod huh?

TGIF-Carpe Noctem

-shaun-

Anonymous said...

Zis iz zee smale pills, eh?

Charles Gramlich said...

I like the ending about developing the photos. What had you captured? What had captured you? Such phrasings always make you feel more than what is actually said, and that's hard to do with writing. Good stuff.

Cheri said...

At least in living that once dream you found that it wasn't your calling after all, instead of wasting your life at something you hated.

Jason said...

That picture is so through the fucking looking glass.

the walking man said...

I don't remember ever having a job where things lightened up on Friday afternoon. It was always from open to close about nothing but making money as fast as you can, for yourself and the owner or putting out production.

No one, myself included, ever wanted to hit the bar or somewhere to unwind, we'd already seen enough of each other and when Mondays rolled around people were still as tense and twisted as the last time you saw them on Saturday or Friday.

I am happy, really happy that you didn't stay in journalism, because if that had captured you and had been able to hold you, you'd never be able to answer any e-mails or stuff like that because that's what you'd be doing all day is chasing a reality piece and that, in your case would suck.

Peace

TLM

JAM said...

This picture of you with this post is the coolest picture I've seen in a long, long time. Where was this taken?

I love the monster looking out of the door's windows.

Michelle's Spell said...

Hi JAM!

Thanks for the kind comment! It was taken downtown. Cool building, huh? I love it.

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