Intel dump

This is going to sound pretty dumb, but the last few times I've sat down to write something, I can't stop worrying about the fact that I've never actually told y'all what I'm doing with my life these days. Feel free to skip this, but I need to purge all this what's-going-on information. I think the best way to keep this from being too epic will be to go all Seemay-style and do it in outline form.

I. Career

1. Part-time

A. The Washington Post

i. News aide — it's my job to make sure my boss, the bureau chief, has everything she needs to do her job

ii. Tasks: research; some interviews; ordering office supplies; scrounging through newspapers for stories that my boss might want to cover or need to track

iii. My little in: each week I write a 200-word story on something light and off-beat from our coverage area for the Sunday paper's Coast to Coast section

iv. Coverage area: Texas, New Mexico, OU Sucks, Arkansas, and very, very occasionally parts of Louisiana not named New Orleans

v. Perks: Every so often I can sneak longer feature stories and/or photos into the inside pages of the paper

vi. Drawbacks: None, except I wish it were full time

B. PK Grocery

i. Sandwich Boy — Louis from Visitors is in charge of catering at this upscale neighborhood grocery store/deli in South Austin (near SoCo, etc.), and I help him out three nights a week

ii. Duties: roast tomatoes, roast mushrooms, overcome my gut-wrenching aversion to mayo in order to make dressings, slice a bunch of shit

iii. Perks: learning to cook something besides just breakfast tacos and pasta with mushroom-cream sauce; Louis is my boss; free kick-ass sandwich with every shift

iv. Draw-backs: low pay, limited hours, having to go straight to this job from the Post two nights a week

C. Seeking: The Texas Observer

i. Blogger — on Texas politics

ii. Status: Interviewed two weeks ago, submitted my sample blog post to them last week, hoping to hear back soon

2. On the side

A. Photography

i. Weddings, you can never escape weddings

ii. Hoping to get more editorial work with Daemmrich Photography, which hired me for one shoot on election day and liked my work

iii. Very rare licensing opportunities — and someday I will have a print sale

3. Fresh resume fodder (less than one year removed)

A. NCS Pearson, where I copyedited the TAKS test and felt morally culpable for the pandemic of boredom desending upon today's youths

B. Enspire Learning, where I copyedited textbooks, but this time on the computer — all the boredom with double the eye strain

Disclaimer: I would be a total jerk if I didn't mention that my actual employers were nothing but great to me and both companies are great places to work

II. Social life

1. Relationship: still going strong; living together in semi-filthy apartment near campus; two-year anniversary in Feb.

2. Friends: many in Austin, with even more coming to visit seemingly every month

A. Hancock Bowlerz, me, Danny, Benavides, and Paul: in 3rd heading into playoffs

B. Hancock Ballerz: don't play often enough

C. Fantasy basketball: The San Antonio Breakfast Tacos have been devestated by injuries (Peja, Jameer Nelson, Kevin Martin) and suspensions (J.R. Smith) but will bounce back

3. Family: relieved that I haven't left Texas yet

4. Cats: kick ass

III. Art

1. Photography

A. Currently: shooting, always shooting, continuously, every day, probably too much — and yet, I've somehow managed to not be able to find time to shoot for the blog Austinist anymore

B. Accomplishments: Had something resembling a first exhibition when I put some work up for the East Austin Studio Tour

C. Projects: Always want to do more with my website; wish I had more focus to what I shot; need to shoot more for myself, with patience, and less with the "on-assignment, gun away" mindset

D. Frustrations: Digital workflow is backed up like a left guard's toilet; still feel like I'm missing something about RAW; wondering if photography on the web will always value color saturation above everything else; perfectionism in editing leads to way too much time at the computer; impulse to chronicle every memorable moment probably just counterproductive; the work that pays usually sucks

2. Writing

A. Currently: jack squat

3. Reading

A. Non-fiction

i. The New Yorker is the only publication I read regularly

ii. Just finished George Packer's The Assassins' Gate, simply an incredible book about the Iraq war and worth reading every bit as much today as the day it came out

iii. Concentrated photography studies on the pioneers of modernism, masters of black and white, specifically Dre and the Two Eds (Kertesz, Weston, and Steichen)

iv. Up next: Mencken's account of the Scopes Monkey Trial and then the search for a comprehensive book on W. Eugene Smith

B. Fiction

i. Just finished Willa Cather's My Antonia!, a beautiful book about memory

ii. Failed again to finish The Brothers Karamazov; made it half way this time

4. Music and Movies — I can't remeber the last time I saw a movie that I wanted to own on DVD or heard a band that I had go see live, buy a T-shirt, and recommend to everyone I knew

5. TV — I desperately need to download season four of The Wire (stupid Grande charges too much for digital cable)

IV. Fun and Adventure

1. Travel

A. Washington D.C. (for Post training)

B. Europe (for foreign-culture training)

C. San Francisco (for the-good-life training)

Wow, okay, I think that's about it. It better be.