holy quantoli am I out of shape!

Ok so as you know I'm on a Minnesota alumni football team. We're really not that good. But I like to think that despite screams coming from the men-folk on our team aimed at refs, the other team, themselves, the girls on our team, and anyone on the sidelines, despite dropped pass after fumbled ball after terrible throw after outstretched arms after balls sailing by after interceptions after trips after missed flags and after pivots gone awry, that beneath all that terrible, low-morale-having, football-sucking nonsense, we still have a little fun.

Regardless, team members are dropping like flies. One girl moved away. Four guys are frequently gone. One girl travels a lot for her job. Another shows up halfway through the game, if at all. And what does this mean? The majority of people have to stay in the whole game, without breaks.

After one such game where I had the pleasure of playing offensive blocker on top of defensive rush, I retired to my dormitory to take a quick cat nap. Five hours of nap plus two hours of inadvertent facebooking later, I woke up and felt determined to go for a run, a jaunt which I had yet to accomplish in more than a month. So I strapped on my shoes, ipod, and sweatshirt, and headed out the door. After running a long circle around my area I decided to do another. I was feeling great. Then I decided to slowly walk it out, completing yet another circle. Then I got home, laid on the floor, and actually felt the motivation to complete 100 crunches. Three sets of 30, one set of 10, you're welc.

Then...the next morning came. I awoke, sleepily reached over to turn off my phone alarm, and attempted to swing my body over the side of my bed, only to find that the slightest, and we're talking slightest movement felt like 145 hands, positioned in fists all over my body, delivering one punch to every part of my body at the exact same time. Every. time. I. moved.

I'm not kidding. If you would just take a moment here, please picture 145 of these bad boys ALL over your body -------------------------------->


Two days later it's not even a little bit better. I'm stiff, I waddle instead of walk, and everything I do is in slow motion, because it has to be.

Any advice?!

I've been up and down the Hill so much I feel like Jill-- sans bucket

I think my favorite part of my job is going to hearings up on the Hill. I don’t care what they’re talking about; watching people in power interact is just fascinating. I especially like going to hearings in the Capitol building, which is just beautiful—from the murals on the ceilings to the mosaic tiling on the floor.

Today I went to a hearing of the House Rules Committee, one that I had hoofed all the way to the Hill for yesterday only to find it had been postponed. Today I discovered they had once again put off discussion on the bill I was there to cover to sometime next week, but I figured I’d stick around to hear a report from the Small Business Committee since I was there already.

The atmosphere in these hearings is enough to make someone with ADD scream for mercy. You’d think there would be some sense of decorum; it is, after all, a meeting of our nation’s leaders. But there are always people coming in and out of the room, banging the doors as they go about their business. The staffers seated behind their fearless leaders are nearly always chattering with each other, if not demanding said leader’s ear while people are testifying.

And everyone, I mean EVERYONE, is constantly on their Blackberries. There’s a near-constant hum in the room as vibrations from incoming messages demand attention. It's just rude.

Anyway, I’m ever-so-glad I chose to stick around today because I was lucky enough to witness some of the worst partisan bickering I’ve seen yet. The chair of the committee, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) got into a tiff with ranking member Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) over deadlines to submit bill amendments. Dreier was complaining that she roundly rejects Republican amendments for being as little as five minutes late.

Apparently her leadership of this powerful committee has rankled Republicans since she took the reins this session.

While Slaughter denied that she had a partisan motivation for rejecting amendments, Dreier kept up a constant drone of requesting to speak. When he finally got his chance he refused to look at anyone in the room in the eye, instead doodling in his notebook. I think this is what he was making.

Fears of My Life

Searching for inspiration for a blog post, which I haven't had in a disgustingly long time, I turned to something I remembered hearing on This American Life this summer called "Fears of Your Life." Author Michael Bernard Loggins went through an exhaustive list of everything he was afraid of, from the funny to the creepy to the poignant.

What follows, dear readers, are the fears I have experienced already today.

-Fear of sleeping through my alarm
-Fear of my gross roommate getting into the shower when I need to and making me late
-Fear of getting in the shower and realizing I'm out of shampoo
-Fear of seeing my gross roommate naked
-Fear of my gross roommate seeing me naked
-Fear of my pants being too short
-Fear of forgetting chapstick
-Fear of forgetting my keys and being locked out
-Fear of chemical-laced frozen food causing cancer
-Fear of dropping my wallet on the train tracks
-Fear of dropping my body on the train tracks
-Fear of tripping down escalators
-Fear of the heel of my shoe breaking off in the middle of the day
-Fear of birds pooping on my head
-Fear of people in my office I haven't yet met secretly despising me
-Fear of wildfires
-Fear of outer space
-Fear of my editor thinking I'm stupid
-Fear of smelling the way my kitchen does
-Fear of losing access to the Internet
-Fear of a flaw in my life plan

I'll add to this as the day continues. Fun game: leave comments about your fears.

Who feels me? C'mon! Who?

Does anyone ever momentarily attempt to use your phone as your mouse? Gah! I hate that.

keep your eyes away from my lunch you mongrel!

People that work in an office are obsessed with lunch.

I found that out today. I mean, I know I've always been really excited myself when it gets to be time for that sweet, sweet midday break, but I don't take it to the extreme that some people do, and did today.

I brought lunch to share with another intern today because I had extra dorm food left over from last night. Needless to say, it wasn't peanut butter and jellies or apples, but it was delicious food. Big deal, right?

Right. Huge deal, apparently. See, we were enjoying BBQ chicken with green beens and pizza and a brownie.

And people FREAKED OUT about it. "Whoohooa. Where's the party?" one asked. Another followed us around, trying to get to the source of this food. Some exclaimed "Yum that looks great!" Another person asked us where the food came from. "My house," I said.

As we walked through the hallways, we had to endure "What is that smell?" and "Man, what a treat!" Even the man in the elevator was asking us all these questions about the food. "Look! A lamb chop! Wow, that looks amazing! It's so funny that you're eating that for lunch!" he said. "It's actually chicken," we replied.

After a while I began to feel, sort of...on display. What makes people feel like they can comment and drool over our food? Get off it, people! If you like chicken so much go get some from the thousands of Chinese restaurants all over! Get some for $1 from McDonald's! Or make some at home and bring it in a container! Sheesh!

*Story addition*
Mary, the intern I ate lunch with, reminded me of the weirdest part of the whole experience. So the elderly male who rode the elevator up to the roof with us (we eat lunch on the roof) was admiring and freaking out about our lunch. We got to the door that lead us out onto the patio and Mary and I had both hands full so he stepped forward to push open the door for us, but then Mary threw her leg up and pushed the door open with her foot. The man, flabbergasted, responded "ooooooo child!".

when it's just really too late.

Have you ever been in a situation where you really should have met someone, but you never did, and now it's way, way too late?

I'm definitely in that situation. There are about 200 people that work here, and on my first and second days I met a ton of them. I can't remember most of their names, but it's not a huge deal because we all have name plaques on our cubicles, and I've met and learned all of the people's names that I have to interract with on a daily basis. That is except...

The woman who sits next to me. Yeah. I never met her. She was away on a reporting trip my first couple of days, then on her first day back she never introduced herself to me. And now, we just go straight to our cubicles when we sit down and that is that. But last night, I was saying goodnight to everyone on the area and I couldn't just ignore her! "Goodnight, Mitch. Goodnight, Don! Goodnight, Jenny!" I said. Then I got to her desk. "Goodnight!" I said. She looked up and replied, "Oh, uh, goodnight."

You're probably asking yourself why I wouldn't just say "This is so crazy that we haven't met yet, but hi, I'm *blah blah. I'm an intern here. I'm from *blah blah." But don't even try to tell me that, because it is way too late. As in, weeks too late.

Also, on a side note, my outfit today consists of ripped converses, holey jeans, and a plaid, casual button up T.

She is in a fancy red dress with heels, much like this one. If you ask me, though I am underdressed today I look more like the normal one. C'mon! This is a newspaper not a fancy gala ball!


Ok so I'm slightly exaggerating. But still. We are in two different, different worlds. And it is too late to fix this. Too late I tell you!

Far, far ago, there was a meeting of the very boring people

My editor has been out of town the past two days, and the same woman who filled in for him my first two weeks and made me cry with frustration every night because my stories never seemed to get into the paper under her watch was back in control.

On Tuesday she had me go to a meeting our governor would be attending. I told her they wouldn't be talking about anything we cared about, but she wanted me to go anyway to get some quotes from the governor for another reporter's story. I sat through two and a half hours of excruciating boringness (the gov was even nodding off) and dutifully snagged an interview with him afterward. I sent his transcribed quotes back to the reporter, but in the morning I checked out his story and they were nowhere to be found.

That's Waste of Time numero uno.

Yesterday I went straight to cover a House subcommittee meeting in the morning because one of our congressmen sits on the parent committee. My fill-in editor thought they were talking about one thing, though I told her repeatedly they were talking about something entirely different. When I got back and told her that, like I thought, they didn't talk about what she wanted them to, she decided we didn't need a story about it.

That's Waste of Time numero dos.

When I returned to the office at 12:15 or so my coworker told me the powers that be wanted him to concentrate all his efforts on a story about another of our congressmen, so I was to go to a different subcommittee meeting in the afternoon he had been planning to cover. I barely had time to retrieve and eat lunch before leaving for this hearing, which started at 2. Forty-five minutes into it, before the guy I was there to cover had even testified, they took what became an hour-long break for floor votes. I didn't end up getting out of there until 4:35, landing back at the office at 5:10. I raced to file my story by 6 and was proud of myself for being successful.

This morning I searched my name on our website to read my story and see how it had been butchered. I couldn't find it. Instead I found a wire story on the hearing.

Yup. WoT #3.

So, in sum, I may as well have been dead these past two days.

Today's rousing conversation between interns near my desk.

Intern 1: So, what's the good word?

Intern 2: *blank stare.

Intern 1: What's the good word?

Intern 2: *blank stare. "What?"

Intern 1: What's the good word?

Me: I think he means like "What's up" or "How are you".

Intern 2: Oh. Um, not much.

Intern 1: *Bobs head. "Cool, cool."

dorm dining experience #1

Does anyone remember this scene from "Big"? Ok well do you remember some of the stuff that he eats at that party? Ok well do you happen to remember the tiny little baby ears of corn that he eats? What in the frick are those called?

The reason that I ask is because last night I had a terrible dining experience. When I determined that my dining hall chicken breast, half-soft, half-rock hard dinner roll, and two pieces of giant broccoli wouldn't be enough to sustain me for the rest of the night, I decided to go for the salad. I was pleased to find out that there were loads of toppings, including vegetables, croutons, raisins, every kind of dressing, and even cubed ham. I was especially pleased to see little teeny, edible cobs of corn, a la Tom Hanks in "Big", so I did what any corn/"Big" lover would do and piled them on top of my salad. Since I was so hungry, I didn't even wait until I sat down to pop one in my mouth. But the second I did...my good sweet baby jesus was I regretful because it tasted TERRIBLE. There was a distinct flavor I could not for the life of me place.

But then, as I sat down and gave another mini cob the ol' college try, it hit me. I knew what the taste was. Horses. The mini corn tasted exactly, 100 percent, no doubt about it, like a solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped of the horse-like origin. To figure out what this corn tasted like, picture a horse. Then picture smelling what the horse and it's surroundings smell like. Then picture converting that exact smell into a flavor. Then picture tasting that flavor. There you go. You can now envision the exact experience I went through.

And now you can take heed next time you gingerly pop one of these bad boys into your mouth. Just say no! Say no to horse-tasting mini devil cobs!

Creepiest moment of my life

My roommate and I had a routine, or so I thought. He gets in the shower at 7:45, does God knows what until 8:20 (with various faucets running the whole time, mind you) and then gets to work by 8:30. Once I hear the front door slam shut, I then enter the shower, do my routine (which has never taken more than 15 minutes, even when I shave my legs and blow dry my hair) and hang around eating breakfast, reading news sites and whatever else until I must leave at 9:20.

But lately he's been throwing a wrench in that wheel. On Friday he didn't get into the shower until 8:25, meaning I didn't get in until 8:55, but by some miracle I still got to work before 10. This morning, since I didn't hear him go into the bathroom I showered at 8:15 as a precaution. Hearing no signs of life emanating from his room thereafter, I assumed he left for work before I got up or was perhaps on a business trip.

So there I was at 9:00, straightening my hair in the bathroom with the door wide open, singing a little song to myself in my blessed solidarity. But as I reached up for another hank of hair to tame, I glimpsed his face bobbing around in the mirror, staring at me.

Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.