Don't question the editor

2008

Because I haven't posted in weeks, I thought I'd blatantly steal my friends' idea and recap 2008.

At the beginning of '08, I ditch my plan to finish grad school by the end of Winter term and decide to just finish my courses and stay enrolled for spring term to buy myself more time to finish my terminal project. This is partly due to spending most of my time working at the Emerald, partly due to laziness, and partly due to not wanting to speed up the whole becoming-an-adult-paying-off-loans process.

I start applying for jobs and send applications to every posting I find that will keep me within a day's drive of home. I decide that I need to stay in the Northwest. A few applications fall through or turn out to be offering far less money than I need to live, but I get a call from a paper in Washington state and head up for an interview in early April (I try my best to be cryptic about where I live and work). I decide to make a small vacation of it and head up for a two-day interview, followed by a trip to Seattle. I'm in the Experience Music Project, learning to play the bass line of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," when my cell phone rings. It's the news editor at the paper calling to offer me a position. I happily accept.

On the way home, I stop in Portland to see Margaret Cho perform. She is every bit as fabulous as expected. My friends Matt and Tiffany are there as well and they meet her.

In May, I finish up my terminal project just before leaving Eugene. I'm excited for my new, grown-up job with real benefits and a good salary, but am sad to leave all my friends behind. It is the first time in my life I've moved somewhere where I didn't know anyone. Even when I interned in Washington, D.C., in 2007, I already had three friends there and then had roommates and met another friend at my internship training.

The new job is great, although working the late-night copy editing shift on weekends makes it hard to get out and do stuff or meet anyone. As the summer wears on, I slowly start to make friends with coworkers, but I find that I'm out of my comfort zone a bit in terms of meeting people. I've always considered myself an extrovert and have had an easy time making friends in the context of extra-curricular activities or school, but in a new job and new place, it's hard. I feel like it's high school and I'm the new kid in school. I miss having friends who know me -- know my stories, understand my sense of humor, etc.

In June, I head back to Eugene for graduation weekend. Getting my master's is exciting, but feels strange after having already been working for a month. It's fun to get back and see a few friends, though.

In July, I buy a new car with the help of my grandfather, who loves to research cars and told me what to get and even called a dealership in Seattle to find me a good deal. I expected to buy a used car, but managed to get approved for a loan for a brand-new Chevy Aveo that I LOVE. It's the first time in my life I've had a car of my own that I know will start every time I put the key in and that I don't have to teach people how to use. The loan is a little scary and a very adult thing to deal with, but six months later, I'm still in love with this car.

Two of my friends get married in August. One is my best friend, Kim, who I met in driver's ed class the summer after my freshman year of high school, and I'm the maid of honor. It's a lovely, short ceremony and the reception is a lot of fun. The second wedding is my friend Luci, who I've known since she was a fetus. (Our parents met when her mom and my mom were in childbirth class together and are still good friends.) My dad performed the ceremony, which was held in the yard of her grandmother's house. The Applegate river runs through the backyard and it's a beautiful location. I have great memories of floating down that river on inner tubes in the summer, picking fresh blackberries off the bushes along the bank. The reception is also at the house and they have a zip line that runs across the river. It's fantastic. A lovely outdoor ceremony with a zip line over a river seems like the way to go.

September is fairly uneventful. Some friends from Eugene and their adorable little genius baby, Avery, come to visit. He's 2 and spends the weekend counting the wrenches in my toolbox and telling me how many I had. I wish I were that easily amused. My birthday comes and goes without me really doing anything. A few weeks later, a friend from work buys me a belated birthday dinner, which is nice.

By October, I'm working a new schedule that reflects the paper's move toward a "Web first" philosophy, which requires the Web copy editor (me) to be there early in the day to post updates as they come in. It's hard to adjust to being at work at 8:30 5 days a week, but it's nice to have my evenings free again and I get the weekends off, which I love. I make it down to Eugene for homecoming even though it turns out the Emerald is not having a tailgate party this year. It's fun anyway and I get to see my friends.

In November, the election ends, and suddenly I have nothing to do with my free time because I no longer need to read political blogs or check fivethirtyeight.com every hour. Working election night is really fun. I love being in a newsroom on such busy nights. I thrive on the stress and energy.

Later in the month, I fulfill a childhood dream when I go see the New Kids On The Block in concert with my friend Kat. Amazing concert, awesome friend, hours (and gallons of gas) lost to driving around Seattle looking for parking/freeway on ramps, shitty hotel shuttle driver who leaves us stranded at the Tacoma Dome ... memories will last a lifetime.

December's pretty uneventful, except that the weather starts to go bad. Most of the Northwest is hit by weather that makes traveling out of town by car quite scary. I realize quickly that while it's nice to see the sun most days, I'd take Eugene's six months of grey skies and rain with temperatures above freezing over snow and single-digit temperatures.

January '09: So far, so good. New schedule at work again. But I'm going to Washington, D.C., to go to the inaugural address (and hopefully to see the Newseum), which is very exciting. Having a bit more of a social life but still miss my group of friends in Eugene.

[Cheesy pun based on a song title]

This weekend, my friend Kat flew out to Seattle to meet me for an event we've been waiting for our entire lives — a New Kids On The Block concert. Kat and I met at summer day camp in 1991 and bonded over our love for the group. She had been to a concert and I hadn't, so I thought she was totally cool. Words can't quite express just how obsessed I was with the New Kids, but the one thing I've ever really felt sad about in my childhood was that I didn't go to concert.

At some point in the very early part of this year, when word spread that the boys from Boston had reunited, Kat called and said "Girl, we HAVE to go to that concert."

So, when we learned the group was coming to the Northwest, I bought tickets to the Portland concert for Kat's birthday. In September or October, when we found out the group canceled the Rose Garden appearance to perform on the American Music Awards, I called in a panic to make sure she could change her travel plans and then I bought tickets to the Tacoma show, conveniently scheduled for the day before the Portland show.

Anyway, I hardly ever see Kat, so hanging out with her was awesome, and it was so great to have a friend to share the concert with who understands why it was so exciting for me. I've been waiting 18 years to see the New Kids in concert. They were my first loves, after all.

We got to the arena and discovered that our seats were phenomenal. Far better than I thought they would be from looking at the seating chart. We were only 14 rows off the floor and maybe about 200 feet from the stage. The opening acts were Lady Ga Ga, who was OK, and Natasha Bedingfield, who was actually fantastic. I wouldn't have known from the one song of hers that ever plays on the radio, but she has a really beautiful voice and seemed like a genuinely sweet person.

At 9:30 (the show started at 8), the New Kids finally came on stage and the place went insane. The stage had a raised platform and the group was raised up so they appeared out of nowhere as columns of smoke shot into the air. The entire floor lit up with the display screens from digital cameras and when Kat laughed about it, I said "Uhm, digital cameras didn't exist at the show you went to. We're old."

They started out with "Single," a song that is performed with Ne-Yo on their new album, "The Block." It was fantastic. The vocals were spot-on and the balance between the vocals and instruments was perfect. I've been to a lot of shows where the music was so loud and the balance so bad that you can't understand the vocals, but it was perfect. Aside from the screaming, we could have been the only people in the room. Big kudos to the sound guys at the show.

The next song was "My Favorite Girl," which was one of my two favorite songs when I was a kid. The audience went nuts. Everyone was singing and dancing along -- I'm guessing a lot of fans don't know the new album as well, so the crowd's energy was best on the old songs that we all remember (and that some of us never saw live before).

Throughout the show, they kept the energy up. You'd never know those guys were pushing 40 (although they make the late 30s look pretty damn hot). Even with all the performances I've seen on TV and all the YouTube videos I've seen from shows on this tour, I had NO idea these guys were such good live performances. Joe McIntyre really does have a way of making you feel like he's singing directly to you, even in a crowd of thousands.

They did a two-hour set with no intermission, although there was time for the guys to take turns resting while Joe, Jordan and Donnie sang solos. Jordan sang "Baby I Believe in You," which, like he did back in the day, he did with a fan blowing his shirt open. Now, at 10, that would have embarrassed me. At 28 ... it got pretty hot in that room during that song. He also performed "Give it to You," from the solo album he did about 8 years ago. Something was a little off about it. It's a fun song, but there was a point where it sounded like he messed up. I'll forgive him for it.

Joe sang the song "Stay the Same" from his own solo album, and while I don't remember ever hearing it before, I loved it. I'll have to get it on iTunes. Again, he's just an incredible performer.

About halfway through the show, the lights went down and when they came back up, the guys were on a small circular stage in the middle of the arena, where they performed "Dirty Dancing" off the new album and "Tonight," which is a song a lot of people dislike, but which really translates well to a live performance. It was harder for me to see during that portion, but it was fun.

I'm not sure I've ever heard screaming so loud. I was in Autzen Stadium when the Ducks beat Oklahoma in 2006, and I was in Mac Court when we beat then Number 1 UCLA the same year, both of which are places that are so loud other teams complain about it, and I've never heard screaming as loud as what I heard in the Tacoma Dome Saturday night. As Kat put it, "You know, it's one thing when the place is full of 10-year-olds. It's another when it's full of grown women." I swear to you, the screaming actually created overtones (ask me sometime about the piece I sang in choir that uses overtones).

They did every single song I wanted to hear, including "Please Don't Go Girl," which is my favorite "old" song. I always loved how sweet and sincere Joe was (they recorded that song when he was about 15), and he still is. He may have a deeper voice, but he still puts everything into it. It was beautiful. And they sang "I'll be Loving You Forever," which I think every fan thinks is just about her.

All the effects were fantastic (Fireworks! Smoke! Confetti streamers exploding out of the ceiling!) and everything was just really well put together. Their roadies and production people and the band really deserve big props for how well-done the entire show is. Never a dull moment. It really was a phenomenal show. The energy of the crowd and the fact that I've been waiting my entire life for the show aside, it really was the best concert I've ever been to. Absolutely incredible.

The set list was (although not in order, because I don't remember the order):

"Twisted" (from "The Block")
"Single" ("The Block")
"Grown Man" ("The Block")
"Summertime"("The Block)
"Click Click Click" ("The Block")
"2 in the Morning" ("The Block")
"Dirty Dancing" ("The Block")
"If You Go Away" (from "Face the Music" -- the last single they did before they broke up)
"The Right Stuff"
"Please Don't Go Girl"
"I'll be Loving You Forever"
"My Favorite Girl"
"Hangin' Tough"
"Cover Girl"
"Didn't I Blow Your Mind" (from their first album)
"Baby I Believe in You"
"Step by Step"
"Tonight"
"Valentine Girl"
"Give it to You" (from Jordan Knight's solo album)
"Stay the Same" (from Joe McIntyre's solo album)

Happy Punctuation Day!

Today is my birthday.

It is also National Punctuation Day. You should celebrate both.

The day should be celebrated by everyone on the Internet. Moderators should insist that everyone on message forums begin using periods and commas correctly. The semi-colon is optional.

Next, we'll work on teaching people the difference between their, there and they're.

Those of us with good grammar will take over the world. ...

No, I didn't get enough sleep last night. Why do you ask?

Shamelessly stealing surveys

I stole this from Patrick , who got the questions from his friend. I don't know where she got them. I hope she came up with them on her own, because they're pretty great.

1. Your full name:

Jobetta Pauline Hedelman

2. What your Native American name would have been if you were in Dances With Wolves:

Watches TV with Cats

3. Your birthday:

Sept. 24

4. Name of a famous person who shares your birthday:

Jim Henson

5. What is the best thing you can do with your hands?

If I told you that, I'd have to kill you.

6. What is the worst thing you’ve done to someone?

See answer to #5

7. What is an evil thing you’d like to do to someone (enemy, Tom Cruise, Accounting Dept., etc.)?

I'd like to take away all of a certain wealthy president's money, give him three little kids and force him to spend the rest of his life working two minimum-wage jobs only to find out he still can't afford health insurance for the kids and has to choose between buying food and paying the electric bill.

8. What is the stupidest movie you’ve ever seen?

Fantastic Four.

9. Have you ever cheated?

Not on anything important. But I'm sure I copied people's worksheets in middle school. Stupid busy work anyway.

10. Have you ever been cheated on?

Nope. Part of the advantage of never having been in an exclusive relationship is that there's no cheating involved.

11. Have you ever discovered a dead body while hiking?

Dead birds ....

12. If you ever did discover a dead body while hiking, would you take anything off the body (jewelry, loose change, sunglasses, etc)?

That would require touching the dead body. That's gross.

13. Do you ever talk to the TV?

Oh yeah. CNN gets the brunt of my ranting.

14. Does the TV ever reply?

No. The idiots continue being pathetically stupid. Such is my life.

15. What is your marital status?

Unless there's something I don't remember, I'm very much unmarried.

16. Would you recommend that status to a friend?

Sure, I guess. There's nothing inherently wrong with not being married.

17. How about to an enemy?

Definitely. My enemies don't need to procreate. They should be single and abstinent.

18. Have you ever hit a parked car and failed to leave a note?

Not that I remember.

19. Has someone done it to you?

I've had dings in my door but never any real damage.

20. Have you ever consumed an entire pie in one sitting?

Probably.

21. Name a fictional Olympic sport that you would win:

Advanced DVR races. The most shows watched in a single 24-hour period wins. Bonus points for the amount of chocolate consumed.

22. Do you believe in the death sentence?

I believe in the lethal power of the semi-colon, but so far I know of no complete sentence that has killed someone.

23. Do you believe in Santa?

Of course. He went to my church when I was a kid. Nice guy.

24. Do you believe in God?

Yes, but it's complicated.

25. Do you have neighbors you can’t stand?

I don't know my neighbors. The guy across the hall is kinda cute, though.

26. Are you the neighbor people can’t stand?

Probably.

27. In your opinion, what’s the best thing to make out of leather?
A) Furniture, B) pants, C) purses, D) “toys.”

I don't even know what "toys" means, and I try to avoid buying things made from real leather, but I'll say purses. Because I like purses.

28. Have you ever been arrested?

Nope.

29. If yes, did the charges stick?



30. If you are in a public bathroom with five stalls and someone is in stall #1 and someone else is in stall #5, which is the correct stall for you to use?

The one that is not out of toilet paper.

The cutest dog on Earth

I haven't seem my parents' dog since January (they got him at Christmas). When I visited this weekend for my best friend's wedding (more on that another day), he was thrilled to see me. He spins around in circles and jumps when he's excited, which happened every time I woke up, entered a room after being gone for more than two minutes or called his name. It was quite good for my self-esteem to have someone be that happy just because I was awake. I realize it's somewhat sad that a dog's reaction to me improved my self-worth, but it was fucking adorable.

I mean, look at this face.

Woah. Responsibility.

As if earning a master's degree and finding a job that puts me in a tax bracket that may require me to understand terms like "itemized deduction," weren't enough, I now have a VERY adult responsibility. An actual new car, with a real loan. With quite a bit of help from my grandfather (who LOVES to help people shop for cars online), who found a dealership and told me what kind of car he thought would work for me, I bought myself a brand-new Chevy Aveo (the hatchback model) And when I say new, I mean new. A comparison: When I parked at the dealership, my old car had 247,006 miles. I left in a new car that had 36 miles. The entire process was interesting, but way too time consuming.

The first car I looked at cost about $3,000 more than I wanted to pay (actually, I test-drove two, but the second one I drove was way more expensive, so I only asked seriously about one) -- in the most cliched move EVER, the salesman made a big show of writing down the price and terms on a piece of paper, then sliding it across the table to me. That's when I said "Well ... I like the look of this model better, but I'd be much happier with the number on the other model. Why don't I test drive that?" He tried to talk me out of it, but I took the other one out anyway. And I'm glad I did, because I loved it. The first car I drove, I could have lived with, but I really loved the second one.

The negotiations were also helped by my grandfather, who called me in the morning before I went to the dealership and told me about some great deal he found down in the Bay Area and he would pay cash for that car and have me pay him back, but it would have to be delivered. This was not a scenario either of us really wanted, but he suggested using it as leverage. So I did. That little game, plus my time on debate team probably helped quite a bit. I was laughing inside at how cliched the entire process was. "Well, I really want your business, and I want to take care of you, so if I can get that number down, can I get you to drive away in this car?"

When I decided on the specific car, again with the total "salesman" move, "You're going to love me," he pushes a piece of paper across the table with the price on it. I agreed to the total price and thus began THREE HOURS of waiting around to talk to the finance guy, then sitting there while he did something that eventually got me a much better APR without me having to ask for it. Quite a bit of the finance guy trying to talk me into these extra deals they have and doing a lot of "let me ask my boss if I can do this for you ..." that just seemed a little too staged in a "I'll pretend that I'm only doing this to be nice to YOU, but really, it's what I do for everyone so they'll think better of the dealership" sort of way. All of the men who helped me were very nice, though, and I would recommend the dealership. Seriously, if I do and you buy a car they'll give me $200. If you live near Seattle, ask me about it.

All things considered, though, I think I handled things very well. It was great to have my grandfather's help because he'd personally talked to the salesman before I came down and told him what I wanted/needed, and he made me promise not to buy anything without asking him if he thought the price was a good deal (he told me I did "very well" when I told him the final terms). It was awesome to have that to throw into the conversation, but I do think that I negotiated better than I thought I would. I'm quite proud of myself.

Anyway, I'm now a very happy owner of a car I like very much. I gave up on a couple of extras (AC and a stereo with an iPod hookup) to get the price I wanted, but I love the car. I must admit, though, that it's kind of sad to part with the old one. They couldn't take it as a trade-in (I didn't expect one) because it's in my parents' name and we lost the title. So they're holding on to it for me until I can find the title and donate it. Yes, it was very old and getting to be rather unreliable and scary to drive through the mountains, but I've been riding in/driving that car forever. It's an '89 that my parents got when it was about two years old. There have been many fun road trips with my dad in that car. I learned to drive in that car. All it's little quirks and the need to explain to all my friends and mechanics how to use the car really gave it some personality. I laughed at it, but really, it was a pretty good car. Driving that car was like having a friend who you disagree with about everything but keep around because fighting is so fun. I felt a little guilty driving away from it, leaving it sitting there looking so sad and alone.

The joys of cat ownership

I think the guy who does these awesome cat cartoons on YouTube has a surveillance camera inside my apartment. Here's his latest . The difference is, with my cat, it's 7 a.m. and his food dish is entirely full, he just wants to go outside before it gets hot out.

My cat is very sweet in the daytime and I love him when he's not waking me up. But this photo is why I have this cat. About five years ago, I went out into the parking lot of my new apartment building and heard mewing from behind a bush. Upon investigation, this let me pick him up and purred, and I couldn't not take him home. What was I supposed to do?

My childhood dream

I have a confession.

Most of you know this about me, but if you didn't, here goes:

I love the New Kids On The Block. I loved them when I was a kid (some might use the word "obsession") and then grew out of it and stopped listening to their music for about 10 years until one day, in a fit of nostalgia, I bought their "Greatest Hits" CD. I listened to it only in secret when no one else could hear me, but I enjoyed it. I didn't admit this to many people, and I may or may not have occasionally used Google to see what my childhood crushes were up to.

Fast forward to earlier this year when the news came out that the group is reuniting. At first, I thought "Ok ... interesting" and then I found out they were touring. My friend Katie, (who now goes by Kat, but who was Katie when we met) called and said "Dude, we HAVE to go to a New Kids concert." Katie and I know each other because of this group. In 1991, I went to summer camp and met a very cool girl -- Katie -- who had been to a New Kids concert in Reno. My best friend Sara had actually been to the same show, so I knew some details about it. Katie and I bonded over our love for the group — she wanted to marry Jordan Knight and I was madly in love with his brother, Jonathan -- and 17 years, some high school rebellion coupled with grunge/punk/rap phases and several interesting relationship/career/geographic moves later, we're still very close friends. How could I not take her up on this suggestion?

The truth is that the one thing I was still sad about regarding my childhood is that I never saw a New Kids concert. I loved them so much and expended so much energy professing my love (and a lot of stamps mailing every member letters on his birthday), that it didn't seem right that I never saw a show. So when I found out they were coming to the Northwest, I knew we had to go. It's partly nostalgia, it's partly that it's something my friend and I will always have in common, and it's partly how damn catchy the group's new single is, but I was thrilled. I bought pretty good tickets (I did not know about the possibility of spending hundreds of dollars to sit close to the stage and have backstage passes, which is probably a good thing) and treated Katie to a ticket for her birthday. We're taking her best friend. On November 23, we will be in Portland, cheering on our childhood idols. I got myself a T-shirt on eBay and there are plans to make large, brightly-colored signs. Neon paint and glow sticks may or may not be involved in this plan.

I've been trying to hide it, but I don't care. After buying the show tickets, I managed to acquire the rest of their albums on iTunes and through another friend, and I will be honest -- I'm loving hearing the music again. There are some songs I don't like now, and others that I'd forgotten about that are really quite good. I love all the ballads and the cheesy late '80s/early '90s beats are perfect for the pace of my workouts.

I've been attempting to deny this, or to pretend to be embarrassed about my re-love for this group, but I'm going to be honest. I still love them and I don't care who knows it. I won't be plastering my walls with posters again, and my propensity to argue to the point of being punished with anyone who dares criticize the group is long-gone, but I am still loving the music and am thrilled about this concert. I'm every bit as excited as I would have been at 10 years old, but in a calm, collected, grown-up sort of way.

And because I can't resist, this photo reminds me of why I liked Jonathan Knight so much. What a killer smile ...

I'm a grownup

A month too late, I figured I should write about graduation. I got a weekend off work to go down to Eugene to pick up my master's degree -- rather, to walk in the ceremony and get my diploma holder -- more than a month later I still don't have the actual diploma. The trip involved a lot of driving (about a third of which was through the beautiful Columbia Gorge) and after I came back I needed a vacation to recover from my "time off," but it was nice to see some of my friends again and it felt great to get to have my "hood" put on in front of the big crowd at Mac Court. The ceremony itself was pretty standard graduation stuff -- it was just the departmental one, so there wasn't really a speaker, but they gave out a few awards (I didn't get any) and then went through the graduate students and then hundreds of undergrads while those of us who had already gone sat there starving (or, while I sat there starving because the bakery I tried to go to for breakfast wasn't open when I got there and I had therefore not eaten anything). Sadly, I didn't get many pictures -- my parents aren't the type to run up in front of everyone and take a picture of their kid -- so all I have is the photo they took of the big screen and the professional one taken by the company the school hired. It's funny. I'm the type to bring my camera to events and take a million pictures of all my friends, but I never make people take pictures of me at my own big events. I don't have nearly enough photos of me after my hood was put on, and I can't pose for any fake ones because the robe was only a rental. My parents had my camera so I didn't get any pictures with my friends except the one Matt took (see below).



My parents and brother came up to Eugene (rather, my parents came up -- my brother lives there) and went to the graduation and then had to get back rather quickly, so I spent the day after the ceremony with my friend Anna, her husband Josh, and their awesome kid, Avery. He's two and is quite the little genius, obsessed with the alphabet. That's a little copy editor in training. I got to read him the book I bought for his birthday, which was the week before. I hadn't seen the book since I bought it online and had it shipped right to him. The book uses the letters of his name and has a little poem about the other words you can make with those letters ("A is for apple, V is for victory," that kind of thing). I miss hanging out with that family. I can't wait for them to find time to come visit me (hint hint).