Long black veil.

I guess none of us in the newsroom should plan on a career in professional basketball. We can't seem to get a wad of paper into the garbage can on less than a dozen tries. You should see the floor.

Anyway, we've all been a little stressed out with personal issues...well, everyone except Ryan who is still blissfully in a newlywed fog. Patti is moving into her new place, Jeff is sick, Josh was on the phone having some sort of crazy all day and I am trying to live through the insanity of a family torn apart by terminal illness, money and busted up relationships. Life is grand. Someone call Lefty Frizzell and find me a long, black veil.

Cricket Superman

Ryan is crawling around the floor, trying to catch a cricket to take outside and turn loose. The girls back in layout saw the poor insect hopping around and called for male assistance - but screamed at Jeff when he wanted to "just step on it!"

I am writing a story about the Bad Girls of the Bible. I love bad girls. I would do a story about the Mata Hari if I thought I could get away with it.

Too darn hot, even for Ramadan.

It's been a fairly sedate day in the newsroom. I think we're all just really hot (temperature hot...everyone knows we're awesome hot) and too sluggish to be too out of control. Scotch and Ryan are going to get fat, however - they have been eating cookies since we got in this morning.

Ryan is making his second soda pop run of the day, and the Ginger Midget (Josh...who is actually quite tall) is surfing the net. Patti is running amok instead. Her ponytail band matches her bright turquoise coin purse today.

Jeff went home to watch whatever football-related stuff he can find on television...he's going through some bad football jonesing the closer to the actual season we get.

I've been yelling "RAMADAN!" all day...I decided to do a story about it because this part of the world is so white and Christian and I think it's good to learn a little bit about other cultures. I will probably be stoned to death in the newspaper parking lot tomorrow.

Cluck cluck.

It's been a day. Wrote a story about the history of liquor in Oklahoma, met with an attorney, covered school board, bought cat food and deleted the plumber guy I was talking to from my Facebook friends. (Oh that Facebook!)

Waiting for the next bus. The last one was full of chickens.

Ten Pound Mary Jane

Today we're deciding whether or not a person could smoke ten pounds of marijuana in a day...a conversation which started in reference to a religious column about how music lyrics may or may not affect what people do. So Jeff said he would write to the columnist and say "I've been listening to 2 live crew, non-stop, for the last two decades...am I alright?" I said "Yah, and you could tell her you killed tons of people, raped at least 67 women and you smoke ten pounds of weed every day." Josh piped in "Ten pounds of weed?" We busted up...murder and rape - no problem. BUT TEN POUNDS OF WEED??? Haha.

Actors and Blood

Today we had a debate in the newsroom about the best thing that can happen to you AFTER you're dead. In other words, how we wanted our bodies deposed after we've breathed our last. Ryan insisted he MUST be cremated and his ashes scattered so he can "travel about" after he's dead. Jeff said it didn't matter to him - he said he will be beyond caring at that point.

Our editor, Patti, just wants to be buried...in a casket...next to her grandpa. I want them to just take me to one of the family farms, find a nice shady spot, dig a hole and drop me in. No yucky formaldehyde preservatives or expensive caskets. I just want to be part of the earth again.

Bad rollover accident at exit 80 just outside of town. Guy is still alive. He was going fast and lost control...Ryan went out and got the pics. I wrote about actors and blood today.

Kickbacks and tragedy.

Jeff kicked the back of my chair. Then Josh kicked the back of my chair. Ryan is still too shy, I think, to kick the back of my chair. Patti will probably never kick the back of my chair. She's too nice.

Scotch stayed home today...he was eating grass this morning and has a belly ache.

Other than that, it's a typical day in the newsroom. Except for just about all the news coming in has been sad.

Brenda just paged Patti's phone and made a fart noise into it. It sounded real, so we're giving her a hard time about "blaming the phone." I think Brenda is bored today.

We're all trying to stay in decent spirits because bad things seem to be happening all around. One of our co-workers suffered a grave hardship today, and the news in general has been grim. A 23-year-old burned to death near here when the truck he was driving had a blowout and he lost control. The truck went on its side and caught fire. I simply cannot imagine the heartache that surrounds tragedies like that. One minute your life is cruising along...you're thinking about something ordinary or doing something ordinary then in just a split second it all turns bad.

Prayers to his family...as well as to the families of the eight people killed in Connecticut. And the the family of the shooter. It can get pretty terrible.

That's why, here in the newsroom, we've learned to hone our crazy. That's why lots of newspaper journalists (as well as ER docs, EMTs, police officers, firemen and other people whose days are filled with someone else's grief in detail) seem a little hardened or have an inappropriate, twisted sense of humor. It's so we don't dwell on the facts or the stories that come at us every day. Including the ones you never read.