103005“It’s 3:08,” he whispered in her ear. “I should get going.” He rolled out of bed, brushing past the metal window blinds as he gathered his clothes from the floor. She watched him dress through groggy eyes, drifting in and out of consciousness. She looked at the clock, blinking to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. He turned on the faucet in the bathroom and began brushing his teeth. As much as she wanted to stay wrapped in her warm blanket cocoon, she gingerly put one foot, then the other, on the floor, struggling to get the oversized t-shirt over her head. He eased his way back in the room, lightly laughing as he caught a glimpse of her wrestling with the shirt caught in her ponytail. “Stay in bed,” he cooed in her ear as he sat down next to her on the blue comforter.
She followed him into the kitchen, stretching as he put on his shoes. His jacket rustled as he zipped it up. Without looking into his eyes, she immediately threw her arms around his body, resting her head on his chest. “Have a fun time in Mexico,” she managed to choke out. The thought of him leaving for another 10 days caused tears to well up in her eyes, but she couldn’t let him see her cry. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her head harder into his chest. He wrapped his arms tighter around her. She lifted her head and looked into his blue eyes, memorizing every fleck of color. She pushed herself onto her tiptoes and parted her lips. He bent down and met hers. They stood in the dark kitchen for what felt like an eternity, arms and lips intertwined. “Okay, I have to go,” he said, breaking the silence. He unlocked the door and swung it open, his left hand still holding hers tight. He turned in the doorway and faced her.
She held his hand as long as she could until his fingers slipped from hers and he disappeared down the hallway. She softly closed the door and locked it, leaning back against it as she took a deep breath. She returned to her room, flipped on the nightlight and crawled back into bed. The few minutes she’d been gone had caused the covers to lose their heat. She shivered, partly from the cold, partly from the feeling of the empty space next to her. She looked at the clock and realized she had a few hours before the alarm would sound for work. She rolled over and saw the empty pillow. Sadness began to take hold of her entire body. As she reached for her stuffed animal, a single tear hit the space his head had occupied minutes before. She buried her face in her pillow and began to cry. 102705If I would have seen myself from across the bar, I would have thrown up a little in my mouth. I had my pink high heels resting on Joe’s barstool and my legs situated in between his. My two-beer flush was accompanied by a beaming smile and the occasional giggle. Every so often, he’d brush the hair out of my face. I’d return the favor with a kiss on his cheek. We looked like a couple of 15-year-olds who’d just experienced the acting of mating for the first time. Game three of the World Series was on every TV in Frenchman’s. A big guy in a leather jacket and a woman wearing a wife beater sang a karaoke duet. A group of early 30-somethings next to us decided to take a round of shots. But all I could focus on was him. Joe would be off to Mexico in less than 48 hours, so I knew I had to make every minute count. And sitting in a hole-in-the-wall bar by the airport, drinking a Honey Weiss from the tap, trying not to suck too badly at Golden Tee was exactly where I wanted to be, giggles and all. 102005How does it happen, falling for someone? It can occur at any time for any number of reasons. It can be for a friend, a co-worker, a perfect stranger, your brother’s best buddy or the women who parks next to you. You can’t control it, either. One minute, you’re going about your daily routine. The next, you can’t stop thinking about the way she smiles or how he leans in when he talks to you. It happens in an instant; the speed of light, perhaps. It gets you. And once you fall, it’s damn near impossible to grab you along the way. When that happens, there’s no turning back. But before all the grand gestures of love and marriage and babies, what determines our attraction to the opposite sex? Science would tell us it’s an unobtrusive scent of sorts that we produce: pheromones. It appeals to our animal side – our pure, unadulterated, low-lying urges. We smell something we like and we’re pulled to it. In some cases, it explains how the most random of couples end up together. On the other hand, it seems like a scientific explanation of fate. If we’re emitting something unbeknownst to us and others are drawn to it or we’re drawn to them, we have no way to stop it. It’s a like gravity or magnetism for human nature. But if you choose not to believe the men in white lab coats, where does attraction come from? Perhaps, as much as we’d hate to admit it, every one of us comes with a predisposed image of what we want in a mate. Maybe it’s something developed at birth. Maybe it comes from years of watching tear-jerker movies and Lifetime television. Regardless of the source, when that person we pass every day suddenly finds a way to reveal themselves, a door opens inside of us. The optimist in me believes in that one moment when the clouds part, the music begins to swell and you think to yourself, Oh my gosh, this is it. You’re so swept up in the present that you neglect to realize you did it. You ran to the edge and leapt, falling and falling with no clue of where you’ll land. Maybe you’ll crash into the ground. Then again, maybe you’ll be caught. Nobody can predict the outcome. But what most of us do know is when you come across those moments in your life when you tingle from head to foot, it’s right then and there that you’re glad you’re alive. Falling for someone can be terrifying, but it’s so damn fun. 101905If only we could speak our minds when applying for a job… Answer these questions:
Are you a better reporter or writer and why? What are you doing to improve in the other area?
What newspaper or magazines do you read regularly and why?
What can newspapers do to attract younger readers?
What reporting experience have you found most gratifying and why?
How would you go about learning the schools beat for Star Tribune South?
101805Today is the end of day six without any form of contact. Wherever he is (I’m sure he told me, but all I can remember is “out west”), there is no phone service, no television – pretty much no civilization. It’s him, his parents, the horses and a bunch of dead pheasants, which, I’m told, I’ll get to eat when he comes back. Part of me feels like I shouldn’t miss him this much. I’m just being a silly girl, right? I’m totally okay with the fact that he’s hundreds of miles away and I can’t even pick up the phone to leave him a deliriously long message telling him about my day, only to have him call back an hour later, laughing and telling me how much he enjoys those rants, right? It’s the hardest at night, especially when I’m crawling into bed. As I pull up the covers, I half expect to snuggle back against a warm body and feel big, strong arms wrap around me. But there’s nothing. Only cold sheets and an empty space, night after night. I hate to admit it, but I miss Joe. I really do. 101605I remember it like it was yesterday. We found a table, but it had yet to be cleaned off. You sat down and I remained standing, impatiently looking around for a busser to remove the half-consumer drinks and dinner dishes. Without warning, you grabbed my hand and pulled me into the booth. It was seamless, as if you’d done it a million times before. I reeled back quickly, startled, but in that short instant, I felt a spark. Two months later, the spark has turned into electricity that courses through my body at all hours of the day. Call me crazy, but I’m crazy for you. It’s the ChapStick, the dancing, the text messages, the glass of water on the nightstand, the way you tell me I’m beautiful when I’m in pajamas and putting a scrunchie in my hair. It’s the little things, the big things and the medium-sized things, too. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Thank you, cheesy cheese. 101505I sat staring at the open story in Adobe InCopy. Only three more quotes to go, I thought to myself. My editor asked me to come in Saturday morning and finish up my profile story for the following issue. I quickly got a hold of someone on the phone and figured I’d be done in an hour. But now, I’d left two messages and was waiting: waiting for a call, waiting for a quote, waiting to finish this assignment and enjoy the sunny weekend. That’s when I heard it – a drum beat – from somewhere off in the distance. My ears strained to hear more against the ever-present roar of downtown traffic. A whistle blew. Cheers erupted. I quickly realized the commotion I was hearing was two blocks away at the Metrodome. It was Gopher football Saturday. I pictured my friends decked out in gold t-shirts and facepaint, drinking beer from plastic cups, enjoying the brisk fall morning. I pictured them staggering into the student section, plopping in the blue plastic chairs next to equally-intoxicated Gopher fans. While I wasn’t secretly longing to be drunk at 10:30 in the morning, I was wishing I was somewhere else, anywhere than this desk. Then it hit me: I’m an adult. I have a college degree. I pay my own rent. I only go to bars on the weekends. I hang out with three people on a regular basis. I get carded sporadically. I’m sitting at a computer writing a story about some woman I’ll never see again instead of cheering for sweaty men in spandex. I’m an adult.
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