Journal Jism

Bloggers, ask yourselves what you're paying attention to. What are you hearing? Whose words fill your ears with tears? What are you saying? Make me care. And, in the quiet between your bedsheets, write something real.

There was a time, not so far back, when it didn't matter what kind of page words came on; if it felt right, it mattered. If it mattered, we told one another to look. Is it so different now? Because it shouldn't be. Risk is beautiful for its lack of form. Don't you think?

Thanks, Meg.

oh, and journaljism.com--that'd be mine now. ;-) Who want's to have some fun?

Virtual Refrigerator Magnet

Awe, shucks, lookie what Doug blogged me!



Now that is a fact.

What the Walgreens Pharmacist Told Me About the Flu

The best thing about Walgreens is the drive-through pharmacy. No wait, the best thing about Walgreens is that you can order refills online and they email you when they're done. No wait. The best thing about Walgreens is what the pharmacist told me last night.

You see, this mighty illness is rampant around these parts, and from what I'm reading, much of 'Merika. The thing about this illness--which has passed through, and is still passing through, our house--is that it doesn't really want to go away. It's an upper respiratory thing that hits fast and stays longtime. Our friends have it. Some of the cast members of Ain't Misbehaving (Hi George! Blog, wouldya?) are suffering from it.

George finally got it, after two runs of antibiotics and steroids for me, and he has not been able to shake it. As is part and parcel of this little bug, it turns into a bacterial infection after it hangs around for what seems like a year.

So, I'm picking up his medicine at Walgreens and I ask the pharmacist, "Hey, is this thing the flu gone wrong or what?"

She tells me that they are nearly out of cold and flu medicine at their store, and that they're running low on certain prescribed medicines too. She tells me that they've been talking about it (I guess she means some informal network of pharmasists) trying to figure out what the deal is.

Then she said they have a theory. Remember when 'Merika ran out of the initial supply of (killed) flu vaccine? Well, there was a lapse, a panic if you will, in usable vaccine, until finally--late in the season as far as flu goes--more vaccine arrived. (I believe that was right after the contaminated batch from the UK was turned down.)

Well, turns out that those folks who had been waiting to get their pokes rushed to get their flu shots. Thing is, according to my new pharmacist friend, the second round of vaccine that arrived was the live (not the usual killed) vaccine. So "their" theory is that the folks who got the live vaccine late in the season are in essence giving the flu to the non-vaccinated. That's the oddity of the way it's spreading.

Anyway, you know as a serious Journalist, I've checked all of my sources and stopped by the CDC in Atlanta yesterday to check this theory out.

NOT! But you did hear it here first.

Stay well.

The Tag Challenged...

have spoken.

Dooce is D-O-R-K-I-N'

Simply wonderful. Dork dork dork. I wish I would have seen it. Did anyone see Dooce on the T-Wee typing Dork? Blogging doesn't get any better than that. Dooce does live film blogging. Beats conference blogging all to hell.

I remember when the NY Times photographer came to lilolmy house I had the same exact feelings--they must not have realized that I'm a dork yet. Wait until I open the dork--I mean the DOOR. I called RageBoy, told him the Times interviewed me about women and blogging, and that they were sending a photographer. Oh, I fogot to mention, I told him that I wasn't going to be home. On purpose. Hell no. I am the man behind the curtain. He said what the fuck are you talking about, you will be home, and you need to look at this thing with you. Yes you do. What the hell are you talking about. Yes you are newsworthy. And then he talked to me up until Times photographer showed up.

Anyway, the nice lady photographer told me to just do what I normally do. I avoided getting undressed and stuffing a piece of cheese pizza in my cakehole. Instead I sat at my couch-office with Jenna peering over my elbow and that rotten now-gone cat on the back of the couch, and I typed.

I didn't type dork dork dork.

I think I typed asdf asdf asdf asdf.

Either way.

You go, Dooce.

How early does school start for you?

I know Halley is proud to wake up at 5-o-damn-clock in the morning and start stair steppin' at the side of her bed, pilates, karates, or whatever such hellacious way she chooses to greet the day. She can do that stuff. She's Halley.

And I know they say morning is a great time to get work done, to meditate, to load the dishwasher--whatever it is THEY say to try to convince you that real people actually enjoy the crack-o dawn and don't whine about it.

I'm here to tell you they are a bunch of liars--conodolisaliesalot liars--that there is no conceivable way they can enjoy morning before it is officially morning--especially hearing an alarm cut through the silent sleepy bedtime land that should be sacred.

Waking up before nature is sick.

It's twisted, it's wrong, it's industrial age nonsense.

And it's what I've had to do since Jenna changed schools in October--her new school starting an hour earlier than her old one.

I know--I'm in my 40s. The last five years notwithstanding, I've done the 12 hour a work-day job thing, the commute, the early push down I-75. Fine. That's fine. That was then. And even then, there was no way to get me out from underneath the covers before 7:20. Usually 8:20. Then once they couldn't live without me, 9:20.

I compensate for it--I work til midnight. And I'm more than happy to.

But 6:00 a.m. crap is beyond even the birds.

What are we training first graders to be--besides miserable and over tired? GM trick workers? Is that what public school is about--is that all we have left?

I hate it hate it hate it hate it. Four times each day I think about how I cannot possibly wake up in the dark one more morning. How much I want to stay curled up under the comforter. How right the song "Is that all there is" sounds when you're brushing your teeth in the moonlight.

I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it for four more grades. It's mind numbing and it's spirit killing for me and for Jenna.

I am so lame. But I'm telling you true.

I am not a morning person.

When does school start for you?

I know Halley is proud to wake up at 5-o-damn-clock in the morning and start stair steppin' at the side of her bed, pilates, karates, or whatever such hellacious way she chooses to greet the day. She can do that stuff. She's Halley.

And I know they say morning is a great time to get work done, to meditate, to load the dishwasher--whatever it is THEY say to try to convince you that real people actually enjoy the crack-o dawn and don't whine about it.

I'm here to tell you they are a bunch of liars--conodolisaliesalot liars--that there is no conceivable way they can enjoy morning before it is officially morning--especially hearing an alarm cut through the silent sleepy bedtime land that should be sacred.

Waking up before nature is sick.

It's twisted, it's wrong, it's industrial age nonsense.

And it's what I've had to do since Jenna changed schools in October--her new school starting an hour earlier than her old one.

I know--I'm in my 40s. The last five years notwithstanding, I've done the 12 hour a work-day job thing, the commute, the early push down I-75. Fine. That's fine. That was then. And even then, there was no way to get me out from underneath the covers before 7:20. Usually 8:20. Then once they couldn't live without me, 9:20.

I compensate for it--I work til midnight. And I'm more than happy to.

But 6:00 a.m. crap is beyond even the birds.

What are we training first graders to be--besides miserable and over tired? GM trick workers? Is that what public school is about--is that all we have left?

I hate it hate it hate it hate it. Four times each day I think about how I cannot possibly wake up in the dark one more morning. How much I want to stay curled up under the comforter. How right the song "Is that all there is" sounds when you're brushing your teeth in the moonlight.

I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it for four more grades. It's mind numbing and its spirit killing for me and for Jenna.

I am so lame. But I'm telling you true.

I am not a morning person.

An easy answer to that age old question...

Who died and left you boss?

I now say, that's easy:

My father in March of 1969 of pancreatic cancer, followed by my grandfather, who was murdered in April of that year.

Several great aunts, an uncle I never met, and an uncle I liked a lot.

A niece.

Five dogs, a cat, two horses.

As far as non-living things go, you've basically got some hopes and dreams -- and my innocence.

That about does it.

--References available upon request.

turn of a phrase

markets are constipation.

If you could fence the net, would you?

I was thinking about this today--somethng I heard on (ghastly) A.M. talk radio (I know) about border control and homeland suckurity. Anyway, as my mind is wont to do (wont is right, right?), I started thinking about the net, and about how I've been so uncomfortable with what smells to me like the pollution from intitutional windbags who've come West to claim their gold nuggets in dem dere hills.

But what would I do? Fence them out? I mean, if I could. Or shoot them (metaphorically speaking, of course) before they made it over the fence? Or let them in and try to actually talk with them (when they have no intention of hearing us).

It's different than border control, acutally it's the flip-flop opposite, but still I ask myself: would you keep out the assholes (you know who they are) if you could?

I think that instead I would add new ways in. I might help dig a tunnel, and the ones who come in UNDERNEATH the wire, from below, under the ground, unassuming, smart, dirty, knee-bloody, I'm there to welcome them to safe harbor.

But the guys with the wire cutters busting through my make-believe net fence because they can--I'm not throwing a party for them.

I might even throw some cake in their face.

And I can, because I have my make believe fence I can take up or down and you have a fence, or lack thereof, of your own.

'cause I said so

The next person using the word "transformation" loses!

Coming Clean

So, yes, that's what I've been so busy with. It would be interesting to say I've left the freelance life behind and joined Peachtree Street again, Big Wall Window and Virtigo View. (I said it would be "interesting," not "nice.") But that's not the case.

Essentially I'm doing my work in the same way as I have since leaving Ketchum--at one of three offices: King-Size Bed, Living Room Couch, Living Room Floor. The difference is that, in truth, more work was coming in than I knew how to handle, and at the same time, as synchronicity likes to work, Paul Mckeon was also looking to team up on something new, and as synchronicity would have it, my deacde-old-writing-mate from the pre-Ketchum (i.e. Crescent) days, Jay Tillinghast was interested in what we two good writers were up to, and the idea was born to join into a semi-formal organized informed by best and worst practices alike!

But don't get over excited. She's the same girl she used to be.

On the same king-size bed.

Right now.

Blogging for you like I write for them.

Except I get to swear here.

And I'm not changing that. Hell no.

But I will keep you posted here on how things are going with The Content Factor as we smash old business models in a single bound.

For more background, read our profiles.

Or Search google:

...where Paul's quoted a lot.

...And where I never shut up.

More soon....

The Content Factor -- good writing, good folks

Update: I'm no longer affiliated with The Content Factor. You can contact me at ewriter AT bellsouth.net, or jeneane.sessum@gmail.com.

Just a bit of subtle shameless self promotion.

Or another way to look at it: your solution to a tangled web of too-busy, unreliable freelancers or high-maintenance,in-house writers.

My preferred way to look at it: top-notch, veteran business writers under one virtual roof.



[[dum dum deee dum...]

jeneane inside.

I don't know how to use Tags.

There, I've said it.

I don't know how to incorporate them, I don't understand what they do, and I wish we didn't have to jump around the latest techgizmo just to hear what we each are saying.

I thought the net was supposed to fix all this conversations stuff.