feeling blue

The colors are bright. They always were. That I do remember.

I take a handful of tiny rainbow nuggets. But I toss just one in my mouth this time.

My tongue slowly moves the melting morsel, pressing it into the roof of my mouth. Only when it’s about to melt to nothing do I bite down, listening to the familiar cracking of its hard shell against my back teeth. I bite down on my right side, as always, and taste the sweetness, feel its melted insides against my cheek.

I haven’t always eaten them this way. But today is different. Today I’m savoring each and every bite. Today I’m thinking about the past and realizing that my sense of taste is overwhelming. Then I realize. Today is really no different. Today is exactly the same. My sense of taste takes me back to my childhood every single time I eat an M&M.

Laugh. But I kid not. Every time.

This time, I close my eyes. I see your wrinkled hands, your long fingers curled over the couch, which you call a davenport. I smell your breath. It matches the smell in the air. Lucky Strikes, I’m thinking. And the cologne. Not sure what it was, but every once in a while I smell you when I’m in a crowd filled with grandfatherly types. I smile and think of you.

The blue glass jar you kept on the coffee table near your spot on the couch/davenport now sits in my dining room. The M&Ms come and go. They don’t last long. But the blue jar isn’t going anywhere. It holds a special place in my heart and memory. It, like so many other things, reminds me of you. Just as every bite of an M&M does.

It seems like forever and a day since I last saw you. Sadly, it was. You’ve been gone now longer than I knew you. A lot longer. You’ve missed so much. We missed so much.

The other day, my middle son, your second great-grandson, was riding his bike, trying to “pop a wheelie.” I laughed and thought of the day I did exactly the same thing by slamming my bike into a manhole cover that stuck up out of your street at least an inch. My front wheel flew completely off my bike. I ran to your house and you drove me back to get the bike, then we fixed the broken wheel. Together.

It has sucked not having you around. You would’ve loved your great-grandsons. You have four. Four great-grandsons to go with your six granddaughters.

They all would’ve loved eating M&Ms with you.

a bit of (free) friendly advice

Twitter has been an ugly place the past few days with blogging moms and lady bloggers with no kids bombarding the Twitterspace with obnoxious updates about what they’re doing at Blogher ‘09 and what they’re getting for FREE! and what fun they are having with their parties and how many tears they’ve shed over one another’s AWESOME! AMAZING! LIFE-CHANGING speeches.

puke.

I will say with all honesty that you are wrong if you’re thinking I’m just jealous of all of them and wish I were there and had so many cyberfriends I couldn’t count them all. I am not jealous. I don’t want to be there. (Though I do love Chicago and would love to be there … just not for that.) I am not impressed with their illusions that they are changing the world and their opinions are golden and that the world cares whether they are eating deep dish pizza or getting FREE! swag bags and FREE! iPhones and FREE! belly ointment to prevent stretch marks (that shit don’t work.)

I will also follow that up with a disclaimer that I DO like some of the women who have gone to this event and I DO consider a couple of them “acquaintances” and I DO admit I’ve met at least one or four of them IN PERSON at least ONE TIME.

But that being said, I do have to point out to all of these women a few things:

* People value your opinions more if you are honest and open about what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how you got to do it in the first place

* I want to know things YOU LIKED BEFORE you were offered the chance to get something for FREE!

* If you do a review and you get something for FREE! by doing it, it IS A PAID REVIEW in that you were COMPENSATED for your efforts. You should say that. Just because no MONEY changed hands does not mean you weren’t compensated.

* I would actually believe you more if you came clean and just admitted you started blogging to TRY TO MAKE MONEY, not because you think you are a good writer or the world cares that your right boob is smaller than your left.

* I like to hear your REAL stories, your REAL opinions, your REAL dreams and REAL family drama. I am sickened when I read something that is bloated with BS and full of smoke and mirrors. Be honest with yourselves. Be honest with your readers. Enough of trying to be something you aren’t when your fingers aren’t on the keyboard.

That being said, for the three people who read this blog, I give you a few of MY OWN THOUGHTS on things I love. Things I think you would love. Things I AM NOT BEING PAID TO PROMOTE. Things that, as a mom, woman, friend, sister, daughter, etc., I think are fun and awesome and worth your time.

Take it for what it’s worth.

My favorite book: To Kill a Mockingbird. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and pick it up on the summer reading table at your local independent bookstore. If you don’t have an independent bookstore in town, DO NOT BUY IT. Go to your library or ask a friend. Surely someone you know has a copy.

A great family beach: Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. While I DO NOT want this beach to become even busier with tourists, even though I am one myself, I will share that it is the best quiet little nook ever. We love it for its wide, clean beaches and grassy dunes. It’s fun to look for the turtles that nest in the dunes and to eat THE BEST CRAB CAKES EVER at The Oceanic restaurant. We love it here. You will, too!

Favorite money-saving item at Costco: We love the bagged, frozen salmon at Costco. The fish cuts are excellent and grill up great with sauteed spinach and some rice. Mmm. No way our family of five could eat this kind of meal at this cost any other way.

Favorite large family car that isn’t a mini-van: Honda Pilot. Hands-down our favorite car EVER. Seats 7 comfortably and has tons of space if the back seats are folded down. Three kids fit across the middle seat IN CAR SEATS. That says something. Get the leather seats for easy cleaning.

My camera of choice: NIKON. I got my first Nikon a few months ago and LOVE IT. Have used Canons in the past for work (never owned a Canon) and do not like nearly as much. I use the Nikon D40 and have absolutely nothing bad to say about it. Easy to use. Nice size. Great quality. Affordable for a digital SLR.

Coke or Pepsi: Coke. Absolutely.

Best movie you might not have seen: Roman Holiday. Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Come on!

Somewhere you might never have thought of going but should: The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C. America’s largest home just got larger with the unveiling of some never-before-open-to-the-public rooms. I can’t wait to go again! And kids get in FREE ALL SUMMER LONG. Breathtaking from the minute you enter the gates. Dudes, the DRIVEWAY is incredible. It’s about 3 miles or something crazy like that. It’s larger than you ever, EVER would imagine. Do yourself a favor and GO.

Most over-rated restaurant chain ever: Melting Pot

Best chain restaurant that doesn’t feel like a chain: Bonefish Grill

Most unnecessary baby item on baby registries: Baby wipe warmer thingee. Spare me.

What you need that everyone says you need and you really do need for babies: LOTS of onesies, cloth diapers to use as burp cloths and butt ointment

Easiest meal that tastes great and smells great and will impress your family: Salsa chicken. Take boneless, skinless chicken breasts, throw into dish sprayed with Pam, pour an entire jar of salsa over top. Put on lid and bake for an HOUR AND A HALF on 350. With about 5 minutes left, open lid and add your favorite shredded cheese. Serve with sour cream if you’d like. YUMMY. Chicken FALLS APART it’s so juicy and good. Also goes well with Spanish rice and corn. Mmmmm ….

OK. I’m out of control now. This has been fun.

My point? Nikon didn’t pay me to say they’re great. Honda didn’t give me a Pilot to drive around and blog about. But even if they did, I WOULD TELL YOU THAT.

I would expect that others do the same. It means a lot to me to know the honest truth from my friends and fellow bloggers … what you really, truly like means something.

Stay true to yourselves and your readers. That’s all. It shouldn’t be too hard. RESIST the urge to dive in and elbow your way to the free stuff. People will appreciate your words more if you do.

pretty pictures

I love it when I see something pretty, wish I had been there/done that, then realize I have.

Check out Shutter Sisters. Then look at this photo of our kayak trip in Montana several moons ago.

Lovely.

mourning what I’ve missed

I blame this post, and the mourning it is causing, on Facebook.

I just finished looking on the site at about 160 photos of journalists, some I’ve worked with at The Indianapolis Star. The journalists worked together at The Indianapolis News, which still existed when I first came to Indianapolis to work as a copy editor. Both staffs shared an office at that time. I remember sometimes coming in around 4 or so to start my shift, only to find a bunch of people I didn’t really know finishing up theirs. A lot of those people I know now in one way or another. Some moved over to The Star when The News shut down. A lot of those people are in these photos.

To be honest, I don’t know most of them that well. But this post and the feelings surrounding it aren’t about those people at all.

It’s not that I don’t like them or don’t miss them. I do like them. I do miss them. But it’s more about the feelings I get when I look at the photos. It’s like I’m mourning something I wanted so badly and never got the chance to have. At least not the way it always was in my mind.

Let me try to explain.

When I look at several of the photos, I see an active newsroom. I see men smoking. I see people SMILING. I see messy desks and people on phones. I can practically hear the tapping of the old typewriters and can smell the stinky inky air. I can feel the newsprint. I can see it smeared on all their hands.

It’s the newsroom of my dreams as a young gal and a newbie journalist.

It’s the newsroom I never saw.

You see, while I did have a few of those things, it wasn’t the same. Yes, I worked in the composing room with hot wax machines. I used Exacto knives to cut and place type. I had the ink on my fingers. I picked fresh, still-moist newspapers up the second they rolled off the press. I took long, deep breaths while walking past the pressroom. I typed on an old computer (not the same as a manual typewriter for sure). I designed pages in a clunky pagination system (Egads! The horror!). I even used all those ancient tools journalists today have never even seen or touched (pica pole, proportion wheel, etc.). I can even still count out a headline the old-fashioned way. Know how many spaces an M takes up? How about an i? I do.

So yeah. I’ve been there. But I never did see the smoke, the men in crisp, white shirts and ties. I never heard the screaming, swearing editors (OK, well maybe a few times) and never saw gruff old-timers take a swig of Jack Daniels at their desk. I never felt the thrill of that kind of newsroom. The thrills were there in the newsrooms I’ve been in, sure. But for some reason, I just know it was not the same.

I know some people would be like, “Why would you WANT editors yelling and screaming and people smoking and all white dudes ruling the newsroom?” It’s simple. That’s the newsroom I pictured the entire time I was growing up. That’s what I read about in All the President’s Men. That’s what I thought it would be like. That’s what I was craving. The noise. The chaos. The excitement.

Being a journalist is like no other job I can think of, and maybe that’s because it’s the only real job I have ever known. But there is a special passion in people who want to gather and share stories, photos and information. I don’t know how to explain it. If you’re one of us, you just know. Because you feel it, too.

And most definitely, if you saw these old, black and white shots, your heart would hurt just a little bit as well. Especially when you realize just how fast that type of newsroom went up in smoke.

Almost as fast as the modern newsrooms are following behind.

And that, my friends, is heartbreaking.

P.S. As I write this, news has hit that Walter Cronkite has died. Heart. Hurting. Worser.

the only jackson 5?

Someone told me the other day that we’re now the only Jackson 5, so my blog/Twitter name doesn’t work anymore.

I guess this post is overdue.

Michael Jackson died.

Let the jokes begin. Like the time we checked in at the Ritz-Carlton in Maui, only to have the dude at the counter say, “The real Michael Jackson just checked out of here last week.”

The “real” Michael Jackson? Does that mean my hubby is a robot? Alien? Blow-up doll?

I’ve even been asked which Jackson I am. “Ha! Are you LaToya or Janet?”

Uh, yeah.

I always say, “It’s Kasey. Miss Jackson if you’re nasty.”

Hee hee.

So yeah. The jokes. We’ve heard them all.

Well, actually, we haven’t.

That’s what’s weird now that the gloved one is gone. We haven’t gotten any jokes. My husband says he has not heard a peep from anyone.

Hmm. What’s up? Even my brother-in-law says HE got e-mails the day Michael died, all saying things about our Michael and asking how his brother-in-law was and if he was still alive. Ha-ha.

But this Michael Jackson in our house has heard NOTHING.

When I talked to him that day, I actually broke the news. He had seen news that he was in a coma, but not that he had died. When I told Michael he actually had died, he was dumbstruck. Speechless. I actually had to hang up the phone, saying, “Dude. I had no idea you cared this much. I’ll just talk to ya later when you can speak.” There was simply some grunting and “Oh my god” comments on the other end.

Later, when he could talk about it (seriously, he was a mess), he told me: “You don’t get it. I’ve lived my entire life with comparisons and jokes. It’s so weird to think he’s dead. He’s DEAD. He was 50, Kasey. This has been my whole life. I just can’t believe it.”

I guess I thought he was freaked out to read the headlines: “Michael Jackson is dead”

That would be weird to have your name in headlines as being deceased. A bit creepy, I suppose.

There are undoubtedly other Jackson families with Michael as the front man. But I certainly can say this Jackson 5 family is bummed. Even my kids love Michael Jackson songs. They know it’s weird that everyone was talking about Michael Jackson being dead.

It was funny the other day, though, when I called a friend and caller ID popped up on their television as I was calling. It read “Michael Jackson.” Her daughter got a kick out of that. I guess it’s funny to a kid to get a call from someone famous. Especially someone famous who just died.

So I guess the jokes will go on. Right now, though, all is quiet.

RIP, MJ.