We Are

I've never had a job that I liked. I mildly enjoyed working at Hollywood Video because I got free rentals and I worked with some people who were really cool back then, some of whom are still cool to me now. Since then, I've worked at a number of different jobs. I've hated them all. The only thing that is ever a saving grace for me at any job I work is the people I work with. If I don't like my environment, I hate my job and will probably quit quickly.

Some people at the Collegian call it their "job" or "work" or something. I never do that. It's not work to me. That's probably a good thing, since I don't get paid. But still, the fact that what I do is considered a "job" to some people is, frankly, kind of awesome. Everyone wants more money, but I've always put that aside in favor of doing something I enjoy. Even back when I was a little kid, before I even knew what money really meant, I felt that way. It's innate to me, to work a job that I like, no matter what I'm getting paid.

Travis and I had a great conversation last week that touched on this. He really put some faith back into me. Recently, I've just been sort of fed up with not ever having extra cash. All my money goes toward drinking. Besides being a student journalist, I'm also probably an alcoholic. They say that admitting it is the first step, but fuck if I care. But that's all besides the point (for now, anyway). The point is that Travis made me feel like I cared about being a reporter again. People care about what I do. Without that encouragement, I might be hating my "job" right now.

In all honesty, I'm a lazy shit who does very little and doesn't really exceed expectations, ever. I live up to them sometimes, but mostly I'm streaky. That's how I sort of am with everything, from beer pong to academics, but the hot streaks impress people enough that they forget about the cold ones. I'm like Allen Iverson, except white and not a basketball player.

The reason other people at the Collegian call it "work" or a "job" is that they're not all lazy shits like I am. They do their work day in and day out and they do it fucking well. College newspapers are interesting in that most of the people who are doing a specific job now and doing it fucking well will never do that job again once they graduate college. I can't guarantee that's true for specific people, but I think that's generally the case. And that's what people don't understand. The people I work with do a great job and they do it for nothing and they will never have that job again for the rest of their lives. Does that sound like fun? It sounds terrible to me. It's a good thing I like this job.

I thought about this today because Erin James, my wonderfully underappreciated Editor in Chief wrote a column Friday concerning The Phaily Phollegian, a parody newspaper created by my old colleagues in Phroth. Funny, yes. But apparently harmful, as some morons didn't get the joke. Their fault, our problem. I don't fault Phroth at all; they did do a great job. But one of the things Erin touched on in her column is that, while Phroth's parody was a great one, we at the Collegian do the same thing every weekday. We also have to report those stories. We also have to fact check those stories. We also have to edit those stories about six or seven times. It's a painstaking process that Phroth doesn't have to deal with. I'm not complaining or putting down Phroth; I'm just trying to point out what a ridiculously complex process putting out a paper is. And we do it Monday through Friday. And we also have weekly agendas, and on top of that we theoretically have to do respectably well in school. That's why, upon hearing the proposal that we have a minimum GPA requirement at the Collegian, I balked big time. I don't think I'd even pass the requirement.

I spend a lot of time at the Collegian. It's like my family, my home at this point. It's pathetic, really. But at some point, it absorbed me and now I'm stuck. Most of my friends are from the Collegian. Everyone at the Collegian makes bad decisions together. It's like The Real World, except once you make an embarrassment of yourself, you can't just leave the house after a few months. And that's kind of why I love it. I don't know how the hell we do it, but we do it. So yeah, when people bitch about the Collegian, I just kind of laugh. They have no fucking idea. It's not just some little rinky-dink pamphlet. It's one of the best college papers in the country, better than most professional ones, even. As good as the Centre Daily Times, and we're students. We've got places to go and b-dawgs to drink, baby.

My Swinging Bachelor Pad

I instinctively flick the light switch every time, only to find that nothing happens. Oh yeah, the lights don't work. After I step over the corner of my obnoxiously and excessively large seating device which blocks the door, I turn the switch of my desk lamp. It lights up the left third of my desk very nicely. A look around the room yields disgust. I have two couches, another obnoxiously and excessively large seating device, a miniature refrigerator incapable of maintaining a consistent temperature, and a dresser in the closet. Suffice it to say that my room lacks feng shui.

The dresser is unreachable. The unused seating device blocks the entrance to the closet, which forces me to scale the epic heights of the device whenever I need to quickly move piles of clothes to or from the closet. The clothes do not go into the dresser because that would somehow be less convenient. Rather, my clean clothes rest on one of my two sofas. The clothes sofa is a hideous color resembling the upper crust of the earth at some archaeological dig. Somehow, it's not the worst-looking sofa in the room.

The other sofa extends from the wall at about a 10 degree angle. This is not an ideal maximization of space in my room. It's also bursting at the seams, revealing a soft yellow foam that matches the color showing through the holes in the cushions. By all measures, this should be the clothes sofa, as even the archaeological dig pattern on the clothes sofa is preferable to this monstrosity.

However, my bedroom lacks a key component. In fact, there seemingly are only two key components of a bedroom: a bed and a room. Well, it is indeed a room. The existence of a bed is debatable. The yellow foam explosion couch does indeed pull out. However, the "mattress" is roughly three inches thick, lying atop metal bars that make me feel like The Princess and the Pea every time I bother trying to sleep on it. Most nights, I crash on the sofa itself; I've always been a big fan of sleeping on couches. However, I am a firm believer that variety is the spice of life, and every once in a while my memory of the spine-twisting torture rack fades. I've never had a great memory for anything but obscure baseball players from the 1990s.

It is this desire for variety that keeps the couch at its 10 degree angle. What, you ask, does the angle of the bed have to do with pulling it out? Well, unfortunately, my sleeping cell of a bedroom lacks the proper dimensions for two sofas, two excessively large seating devices, a desk, TV stand, dresser, and volatile mini-refrigerator. Therefore, the only way to pull out the yellow foam explosion sofa is to leave it at a 10 degree angle. This allows for an awkward space between the couch and the wall, which is where I put my hamper. The only entrance to this awkward space is a six-inch gap between the two sofas. I don't have to do a lot of walking in my room. I doubt I could play Twister in here.

My television remote lacks batteries, and I don't know if you've noticed what with the uproar over gas prices, but batteries are expensive. If I watch TV before I sleep, I watch TV as soon as I wake up without the burden of walking the 10 feet to the TV to turn it on. I cannot, however, change the channel without making that painstaking marathon of a walk.

I have a rather large collection of CDs, many of which I would love to listen to. Unfortunately, a 30 GB hard drive only allows for roughly 7500 songs, less if you account for all the necessary software for running a computer; my impressive CD collection well exceeds that number. It would be cool to listen to the CDs which don't fit on my hard drive with the aid of the DVD-ROM drive, except that a couple months back, the tray decided to cease all communication with the rest of the computer. I am staring right at the drive as I type this, and yet my computer refuses to acknowledge that such a drive exists. It's kind of like on TV shows when fighting family members tell a middleman to relay a message to the opposing relative. I suppose that makes me the middleman. Unfortunately, I speak English, and as far as I know, neither my computer nor my DVD-ROM drive speak a word of it. I have yet to try my sub-par Spanish speaking skills. But both parts were likely assembled in Asia, which is very far from Spain.

I have a digital camera that I don't use enough. Before, the reason was that I'm not much of a photographer to begin with; now, the reason is that the three-year old camera suffers from an internal problem that can only be solved under warranty. I had similar issues with my 20 GB iPod earlier this year. Thankfully, my parents supplied me with an iPod nano for Christmas. It goes nicely with my massive (and awesome) headphones.

The small refrigerator is just big enough to hold my two jars of peanut butter and three jars of grape jelly. I'm almost out of bread. I'm also sick of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When I'm not hating my room, I'm usually playing guitar or bass or video games. My favorite video game is a three-year old edition of Madden. That stopped working a while ago for some reason. It works for a little bit, but it always ceases functioning right before I can save my franchise. Trying to salvage the franchise is like assuming the role of Phil Connors in Groundhog Day. My new favorite game is NBA 2k6 because it's only one year old and it's mildly enjoyable. I also own the Grand Theft Auto double pack, but I stopped playing it because I lack the motor skills to snipe down enemies. Both GTA III and GTA Vice City are at a standstill on missions that involve sniping.

This is my room. I spend more time at the Collegian than is necessary for most people on staff, much less the senior music reporter. It is littered with unusable items, including food that I cannot cook due to a lack of cooking supplies. It also has a number of stolen items from my drunken adventures, including (but not limited to) a pair of orange star-shaped sunglasses, a (nearly empty) bottle of Everclear, a straw basket with a Burger King crown in it, assorted magazines, a white plastic stick with a red flag attached, a black cane with a white tip, and a large piece of wood.

It's come to my attention that I haven't done much hunting around for a place to live next year. I guess there's always this room.

Football Season Is Over

I recently read Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas. I always thought Klosterman was sort of funny and cool in a nerdy kind of way, but I never realized how good a reporter he actually is. One of the features he shares in IV is an interview he had with the Val Kilmer, whom Klosterman calls "advanced"--which essentially details a person who constantly reinvents him or herself, but not in such an obvious way that they're just doing the complete opposite of what's expected. It's a complicated and ridiculous concept, and frankly I'm not sure why Klosterman bothered to write about it. But by his definition, Val Kilmer is in fact "advanced."

Even more ridiculous than the concept of advancement is Val Kilmer, the man himself. He is by far the most ridiculous person I've ever read about. And though he is a Christian Scientist, which is some step between Christianity and Scientology, that's not even close to touching how ridiculous a person Kilmer is.

Val Kilmer, a man whose biggest contribution to film was portraying Ice in Top Gun, claims that, as an actor who thoroughly researches the roles he assumes, he has a better understanding of what it's like to be a pilot, or a cowboy, or John Holmes, or Batman, than the people who lived through those experiences. That is to say, Val Kilmer believes he knows what it's like to be a pilot more than an actual pilot.

...

Val Kilmer.

Anyway, I think of Val Kilmer now because as an Eagles fan, I think I almost know what it's like to be the spouse of an abusive alcoholic. You're madly in love with them, you only want the best for them, and you can't bear to be without them. But at the same time, no matter how hard they try, they just can't shake the sauce. That's what being an Eagles fan is like. I love the Eagles, my mood seems to swing with the success or failure of the team, and at this point in my life I'd consider the day of a Super Bowl victory the happiest day of my life--sort of like the consummation of a marriage between a wife-beating drunk and an unconditionally supporting spouse. And in the same vein, when my wife-beating drunk of a favorite football team fucks it up year after year, I refuse to turn on them. I am simply disappointed. Sometimes, I'm broken-hearted, but broken hearts can heal.

But having said that, I'm not terribly broken up by the Eagles' loss to the Saints. If my relationship with the Eagles is akin to an abusive relationship, this season was not necessarily a heart-breaker. Last year was utterly depressing--every week, I knew the season was over, like a wife knows deep down that her husband will never kick his terminal habit. This season, I felt the same way when Donovan McNabb tore his ACL. The season is over. The Eagles will never ever win a championship. I considered divorce. But suddenly, there was a new spark. Jeff Garcia came in and didn't suck. It was a miracle. My husband was on the wagon again. Things were going great. We had a few romantic evenings and we never made a scene in public. Everyone was commenting on how happy we looked together, for the first time in what seemed like ages.

But alas, old habits die hard. The Eagles' long-time weakness, failing to stop the run, was ultimately their downfall. My husband went back to the bottle. But unlike previous years, I'm not down like I usually am. After all, just months ago, I thought our marriage was left for dead. I soon found new life, and those good memories have dulled the pain of losing yet again. I can make up all the ifs, ands, and buts I want, but I know that even had the Eagles beaten the Saints, they would have likely ran into walls with the Bears or the AFC representative in the Super Bowl. Such is the NFL. 32 will compete (or 31, if you're a Lions fan), only one will win. The Eagles just weren't that one this year.

I remain optimistic, like only a foolish battered spouse would. I live for the good times. Someday those good times will stick around for a whole off-season. I have reason to believe next year could be that year. Normally the Eagles are criticized for never making the big off-season move they need to put them over the top. Those critics have short memories, as they tried that just a couple years ago with Terrell Owens and Jevon Kearse. We know how that turned out.

Those critics also fail to realize that the Eagles' widely reported ample cap space isn't really as stingy a strategy as it seems. Every mid-season comes a deadline for teams to extend contracts and maintain the first year of that extension as part of the current year's salary cap. Recently the Eagles have done this with Trent Cole, Mike Patterson, and in past years with Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown and so on and so on. The Eagles lock up their young talent. They notably declined to do this with Michael Lewis, which apparently turned out to be a great decision. Generally, rookies drafted in the middle rounds of a draft get three- or four-year contracts, which means the Eagles have three or four years to evaluate their talent and decide whether they're worth keeping around. Michael Lewis didn't pass that test; Trent Cole and Mike Patterson did.

By maintaining that ample cap space into the beginning of the season, the Eagles allow themselves to lock up their young talent so they can remain contenders for seasons down the line. They don't like to take the Daniel Snyder route and constantly put all their eggs in one basket by making ill-advised free agent signings like Adam Archuleta, Brandon Lloyd, and Antwaan Randle-El. And it usually pays off; I can only think of two cases where it didn't (Todd Pinkston got an unearned extension; Derrick Burgess didn't).

My optimism extends from this philosophy. The reason? The Eagles don't have any young players that they need to keep re-sign this year. Therefore, that ample cap space can be used to make a splash in the free agency pool and bring in a stud to put them over the top. I don't have a list of the upcoming free agents in front of me, but if the Eagles can take a look at a solid strong safety or outside linebacker or fullback, they might be the front-runners in the NFC.

Of course, I could just be setting myself up for another beating. There's always next year.