Thursday, February 21, 2008

happiness

Howdy world! I'm feeling so much better after being so sick for so long. It is a world of difference to not have your head and eyeballs throbbing with snotty pain.

I had a farr-bulous day yesterday on my first day of feeling back like a member of society. Lemme tell you all about it!

First off, I made some stops downtown on my way to an interview for an article I'm writing. I stopped at a health food store to buy some bulgur wheat for the vegetarian chili I was making. I've never used bulgur wheat before, and it was well worth the stop. When you add it to chili, it gives it a consistency much like ground beef. Next I stopped at Knit for some cobalt blue yarn to make a requested beret for Beauty. I love this store for their amazing selection of Noro yarn, and they sell coffee and tea there as well.

Next I headed off to my interview, which I'd had to reschedule from last week due to snotty illness. I was kind of nervous because (a) it's been a few years since I did anything journalistic, (b) I want to eventually work for this organization, which is sort of why I chose this piece, because obviously I want to work for a place I admire, and (c) I was still pretty out of it.

I was early and he was late, so I bumbled around the West Village for a while in the cold, stopping for a timbale and tea at Bonsignour on Jane and 8th Avenue, and feeling happy to be living in The NY, where bumbling around can be considered a legitimate pasttime.

My interview was with Aaron Naparstek, the editor of Streetsblog, a blog that is currently transitioning from being more of a DOT watchdog to being one of the many epicenters of the livable streets movement. He was a great interview because he is just a really fucken cool guy, but also a not-so-great interview in that he's so humble and softspoken. If you're looking for any killer pocket quotes, you're going to have to listen hard. It was a great time. I rested a little easier because Neighbor lent me this kickass Belkin recorder that fits right into my iPod, and it worked like a charm. I fit our hour-long interview onto my nano easily, and it didn't kill the battery or anything.

I loved getting back in the journalistic groove. Being a writer is great in that you can just call up anyone who you think is interesting and ask to talk to them. Streetsblog is published (i.e., funded) by Mark Gorton, the developer behind LimeWire, who I can't wait to corner for a little chat someday.

The great news is that halfway through the interview, he brought up that they are looking for writers, and asked if I knew anyone in my program who would be interested in writing. Uhhh....yeah? I told him I would definitely be interested, and when we circled back to that topic in the end, he told me to pitch him some ideas and he'd pay me for the stories. It all played right into my master plan so perfectly that I felt stupid when I left...stupid happy!

Happiness is knowing what you want to do, and being able to do it.

Next up was our vegetarian dinner party, which was wicked fun. My favorite new tradition in this old tradition is our post-dinner dance, where we rock out and get stomach cramps.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

streetsblog is waaay cool. I can't wait to see your articles on there.

Luis Celestino said...

ah, I just realized i know who Beauty is. You do make lovely head garments!

ps. i read your article in the fall issue of columbia urban planning, and It Was Good!