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Friday, April 28, 2006

you know you're in santa fe when

a crack of thunder sends you running out the front door to catch the rain and there are already a dozen people outside doing the same thing.
And people say there's nothing to do here. C'mon!
I went, yesterday, to a booksigning for T Cooper, which was really interesting and the book, itself, is that rare combination of being a great read and a literary read. I would highly recommend it, particularly if it stays rainy as what is nicer than curling up with a book on a rainy day? And how often do we get to do that? It's like the inverse of that Bradbury story...All Summer in a Day, where on Venus the sun only shines for an hour every seven years or something, and one girl ends up missing it. That story freaked me out when I was a kid. I should reread it and see if it still freaks me out.
Tomorrow night I'm going to Rob Wilder's booksigning at 4 pm at the Cowgirl. My bike is fixed, for TEN BUCKS at rob and charlies. I find it freaky you can get anything fixed for ten dollars. You can't even get a dog fixed for ten dollars. badabumbum (that's my drum sound for when you make a dumb joke).
I need to get online and update the Best of Santa Fe readers' poll. I really do. I'm doing it now. Watch me!
I will end this post by not mocking the Journal and The New Mexican for following our story about Riordan and never crediting us. It's fine. I'm not making snide comments. See me not making them. Watch me!
Besides, I got to say my piece on the daily papers in a recent online media survey I took; that kind of calmed me down.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

the plot thickens

Here's our story today on the connection between Guy Riordan and Con Alma, exclusively in SFR. Note, please, how we credited the Journal for their reporting, and how we copyrighted our story in the hopes they might credit us if they find this newsworthy. Time will tell. Meanwhile, it's pretty amazing, to me 1. that Eric Serna spoke with us, although I guess he's never been one for running for cover. I also find it slightly odd that the AG's Office didn't know about Riordan's connection w/ Con Alma. Well, will be interesting to see what we can find out next.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

I've been tagged

Over at New WestI've been singled out for this meme, which I think I've seen all over the place. Oh well, here goes. Oh, wait, guess I gotta tag some other people too. Hmmm:

Four jobs I've had:
1. Bakery counter at German bakery
2. Life guard at city pool
3. Almost every editorial job at The Santa Fe Reporter
4. bookstore clerk

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Heaven Can Wait
2. Annie Hall
3. Blade Runner
4. The Matrix

Four places I've lived:
1. Alto Street Barrio
2. Agua Fria Street
3. Philadelphia
4. Amish Country, Pennsylvania

Four TV shows I love:
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Six Feet Under
3. The Sopranos
4. ?

Four concerts I'm glad I went to:
1. Lucinda Williams at The Paramount
2. Live Aid
3. David Bowie at The Philadelphia Spectrum
4. KRS 1 at The Paramount

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Maui, Hawaii
2. Hermosa Beach, California
3. San Francisco, California
4. Vancouver, Canada

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. tuna sushi
2. yellow tail sushi
3. green chile stew (vegetarian style)
4. liquid chocolate cake thingie at Santa Cafe

Four sites I visit daily:
1. altweeklies.com
2. nytimes.com
3. joemonahan.com
4. slate.com

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. On the beach in Hawaii
2. On the beach in LA
3. On the beach somewhere I haven't been yet
4. at home with my dogs

Four things I love about my town
1. my guy
2. my friends
3. the sky
4. green chile

Four bloggers I'm tagging:
1. Joe Monahan (just to torture him. :)
2. Cloud Messenger
3. My Dog is Chelsea
4. Steve Terrell also to torture him as he's probably already done this 1,000 times.

Monday, April 24, 2006

a new leash on life

the good news is annual manual has left the building.
the bad news is political endorsement interviews start tomorrow and I need to get all the Best Of Santa Fe categories revised and ready for the online polling.
But, hey, it could be worse. And here's how:

1. When I fell off my bike Saturday night onto the sidewalk I did not fall into the oncoming car. Thus it was mostly my dignity that was injured. And my shoulder.
2. I didn't spill anything on my new white shirt until 3 pm today. Yes! In your face!
3. We might have a nice little scoop for Wednesday. Although I'm sure it won't be as exciting as the New Mex and Journal's identical Saturday front pages. New Mex's headline on Richardson's gun permit was better than the Journal's though.
4. I just got five uninterrupted minutes to write on my blog. But it's over now. More latah.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

I kind of wish I hadn't mailed this letter.

April 15, 2006


Dear IRS,

As you will likely notice, you are only receiving a partial payment for the amount I owe for 2005. I will send the rest next month when I have it. I realize this probably causes you a great inconvenience, but not as large an inconvenience as it causes me.
Please consider the following.

1. I work constantly
2. I am broke
3. I still, somehow, owe the government money.

I think, even though you are employed by the government, and the IRS in particular, you would have to agree with me that this is not the American Dream. Frankly, it’s very discouraging.
Any way, I promise to send the rest of the money next month after I get paid again. In the meantime, I will be spending my money on my: house, food, job and the like. I promise you, I’m not having any fun.

Sincerely,

Julia Goldberg
American taxpayer

Monday, April 17, 2006

seasonal affection disorder

I should be mad stressed and cranky but I'm not. Took Sunday off. The boy worked on my bike and then we rode our bikes on the bike trail by the river. People picnicked alongside us. Came home, grilled fish and veggies, had Dan over to eat. Felt...weirdly calm and happy it was sunny and that I was in the sun as opposed to being in the insanely cold office looking at my taxes. Ah spring! Ah love! Ah alternative transportation! I am turning into a sap. And a politically correct one at that. Hey, look, more annual manual pages to edit. Hopefully will be back to cranky pale self in a couple of hours. I think I just caught myself smiling!

Friday, April 14, 2006

i'm still alive

but on psychic life support. One more week until an man goes to press, but every day I age about 10 years. I know I sound melodramatic but, seriously, try to imagine editing a 200 page guidebook in between editing a paper. My job normally takes 50 hours a week without an man. It's madness I tell you, utter madness.
So I'll be back and hopefully I'll have something interesting to say, but every minute I spend bitching on this blog is a minute I should have spent doing something else.
Just one quick thing r.e. the anti-smoking ban: I don't like being in a horribly smoky bar any more than anyone else. But couldn't the city council find some kind of compromise, require better ventilation or seperate smoking rooms ala Swig? Given how badly Santa Fe is suffering to rebuild its nightlife, given all the lip service council pays to local business, how is ordering businesses about what they can do helping? Couldn't they still allow smoking on patios?
I'm hungry. Sentences too hard.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

ah, dante

Clearly not a journalist, or Annual Manual would be a level of hell in the Inferno.
In between reading Annual Manual sections, which I'm doing in between reading the regular paper, which I'm doing in between trying to figure out what to talk about on the radio for the next two days, which I'm doing in between reading the sheriffs' blog and Alicia Valdez Rodriguez's blog (both are posting GOOD stuff on immigration), which I'm doing in between trying to remember other emails lost in the Great Email Disaster of April 2006, I have been registering on Pandora, which I'm definitely stoked about. I like technology sometimes, like when it's giving me new music, as opposed to losing all of my emails.
This was definitely not the right month to give up sugar.

Friday, April 07, 2006

i suck

i do, but things are so psycho here I barely have time to capitalize let alone write anything. Annual Manual.. it's an unbelievable bitch. And the crazy thing is we are going to work around the clock for the next three weeks to get this thing out and then all I'll do, once it's out, is take phone calls from people pissed about something. No one ever calls and says anything positive. It's kind of fascinating. For example, when we wrote about Blue Monkey shutting down, we got one snarky letter from someone who didn't like Blue Monkey. No one wrote in to say anything good about Blue Monkey until then, then people came out of the woodwork to defend it. Yet the average person would say, why write something negative, why run something negative? How come that's the only thing people respond to? I also find it kind of weird when people are mad that we've run letters expressing points of view they don't agree with and that they think we don't agree with. Can I really only run letter I agree with? What kind of editorial policy would that be? Um, fascist? Plus I don't agree with anyone about anything anyway.
On a different note, Sheriff Greg Solano's blog war with Whitney Cheshire is kind of amusing. (Cheshire's blog doesn't have permposts that I can see, but the posts about Solano are fairly close to recent). Also a good read on the blogosphere today are Alicia Valdez Rodriguez's point by point refutations to someone who wrote to her about immigration. OK, yes, I have made a small amount of time to read other blogs today. I mean, you have to rest your eyes here and there (not that that's resting exactly).
This weekend?
Um, work.
And then some more work.
And then a little bit more work.
Although there is a martini with my name on it waiting for me after work. You gotta rest your brain sometime, right?
Have a great weekend y'all. Feel free to write me and tell me nice things. I promise you my inbox is not too full (for real; ALL of my email mysteriously disappeared a few days ago. Every single thing is gone and no one, not the computer people, or our email provider or anyone can find them. They are just gone. It's like a whole new world. Then, I went to use the microwave and one of the outlets went poof and stopped working. I feel like one of those freaky kids on the twilight zone or star trek or Children of the Corn that look at things when they're upset and accidentally blow them up.)

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

out of the goodness of their hearts, no doubt.

ugh

I wish I had more to say. Monday and Tuesday really drain the lifeforce outta me. Plus, you know, allergies. Plus, you know, annual manual. Plus, you know: whiner!
OK, I wrote those sentences 45 minutes ago and then, lo and behold, people come in and out and ask me questions and I've lost my train of thought. Oh yes, I was whining.
Tomorrow, at 9:05 am, I will be on The New Talk FM, 94.7 (in Santa Fe) and 106.3 (Albuquerque). So tune in and listen to me hopefully not whine on the radio.
Now, I guess I'll go back to editing Annual Manual. The worst thing about it? Its name rhymes!
No, that's not the worst thing about it.
Jeez, and there are so many other things to write about this morning. Well, maybe manana, or later...