A glimpse at the interior of my new career... the old newsroom has no windows! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I didn’t even know what a copy editor did, but soon I was in charge of the thing, overseeing a revolving staff of 0-2 people in the proofreading of stories. I did a stint as opinion editor, where I really crafted my writing style, but soon took a part-time job at the town’s actual newspaper, the Bowling Green Daily News.

A few months later, part-time became full-time; a few months after that, I got promoted to weekend editor: basically, the guy who runs the show when no one else wants to because they have lives outside the office. Here I added to my knowledge, learning page design and news judgment and some management skills.

A couple years later, burnt out from all that jazz, I bought a coffeeshop. (Note, I had not — and still have not — returned to college). Which I still have, and which is cool, but it doesn’t quite “pay the bills” for a married dad of two kiddos, one of whom is special-needs. So I headed back to the newspaper, got my old job back, and kept the coffeeshop… thus making me a “beancounting journalist,” to paraphrase my friend Nathan’s astute observation, which links back to a Kurt Vonnegut quote.

Well, late last night the beancounting journalist made yet another stark departure: I accepted an offer to become the Creative Director of Earnhart+Friends, a boutique (read: small but good) marketing firm based here in Bowling Green.

It’s truly a blessing, for a number of reasons. The schedule is more flexible (this helps my family and my business), the job is more creative and less cyclical (new projects every day, few if any “rules” that have to be followed), and — let’s face it — journalism isn’t the field anyone wants to find him/herself stuck in these days. (It’s not a terrible gig, but an escape plan is a must.) A close friend of mine is the Art Director, which means he and I will essentially be the firm’s top-tier tag team (underneath the owner, of course). And to find a job like this in a town like this is a dream come true… I am certain it is the only one of its kind in a 90-mile radius, at least.

In the previous few months I’ve taken part in writing TV scripts, rebranding a widely available retail milk, conceptualizing a new restaurant, crafting a new direction for the company itself — and all freelance, while keeping the other flaming clubs of my life going up and down in this juggling routine. Come July, however, my days as a muckraker are over — at least for now. What the future holds, I can’t tell. But the present is looking pretty good.

Oh! And the millions of you reading this will be glad to know that I’ll probably be able to get a bit more blogging done too.

I asked my friend Mercad, “Why’s he only wearing one sock?” Mercad said he has to wear a sock on that leg all the time, something to do with diabetes.

Question: If you had an arm with leprosy, and were going to cover that arm, would you do it (even in summer) by wearing a one-sleeved shirt? Why in the world doesn’t the guy just wear both socks?

Sometimes people just don’t make sense to me.

PS: Some kids were throwing snowballs into the windows. I went outside — partly to tell them to stop, partly to bring in my snow-covered bike — and they didn’t like what I had to say! Moreover, they didn’t believe that I owned the shop: “If you own this place, why do you ride a stupid bike?!” Humor is everywhere…

President Obama stubbed his toe his first week in office when he paid a surprise visit to the White House press room. He wanted to introduce himself informally to the press corps, and was taken aback when reporters began to ask substantive questions. “I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here,” said the president.

The press, for its part, took offense that President Obama dodged their queries. They also bridled at being excluded from the swearing-in redo with Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as the president’s first interview (an exclusive given to ABC). …

Franklin Roosevelt, however, adopted a hands-on approach. Rather than meet the press at a formal session in the East Room (as his predecessors had occasionally done), F.D.R. invited them into the Oval Office. Twice a week the White House press corps gathered around the president’s desk and fired away. …

In his first term, Roosevelt held 337 press conferences. That is no misprint. Three hundred and thirty-seven. Normally the conferences were held at 10 o’clock on Wednesday mornings for benefit of the afternoon press, and 4 o’clock on Fridays for the morning editions. When the war came, the conferences became less frequent, but altogether F.D.R. held 998 press conferences as president. [bolds mine-R]

When candidate Obama declared that he wished to restore openness to the White House, this is what I (and many of my press colleagues) had hoped for: A president who would answer questions, answer them himself and — most importantly — just answer them. Hence my dismay in his pre-inaugural “I’m going to let the justice system run its course” cop-outs to questions on the Blago scandal, even when it was pretty apparent Obama had done nothing wrong. I hope he is a great president, and I think he will be a much better one than his predecessor (who gave far fewer press conferences than any other president in the last century… I’ve been googling for a specific number, but can’t find it). Still, the bloom may be off the rose if by “openness” Obama means that everyone who signs up for email updates will get periodic spin bulletins from the White House press office.

PERSONAL FILE: Overworked and underfed

On Friday night, I think it was, I came down with a stomach bug that’s “been going around” (doctors are so precise!), and since then I have eaten eight chicken nuggets, some french fries, two half-bowls of chicken noodle soup, a half-piece of toast, a small helping of stirfry last night (when I was starting to feel better) and a half-bagel with cream cheese this morning. Worse, my 4-to-6-cup-per-day coffee habit has been whittled down significantly: Yesterday I had about six sips, and as of this writing I’ve gotten about 10 ounces down this morning. (Lewis has it, too, and since he’s not yet potty-trained, we’ve been changing diapers and washing clothes at an unheard-of pace.)

Meanwhile, I’ve been busier than ever: Trying to hone in on improvements that can be made at Spencer’s, putting in my 40 hours at the paper (where there’s ever less work to do, in fact, since ad sales are down, which brings the page count down with it), and doing some freelance writing that I’m really enjoying but probably shouldn’t disclose just yet.

All that to say, blogging has not been a top priority. I miss it, but can’t seem to allocate the time I don’t have. Maybe I’ll get better; maybe I’ll turn into one of those people who just updates his Facebook status and thinks that’s enough. Either way, thanks for reading.

I, of course, freaked out — it was pretty expensive, and I haven’t had a brand-new computer in many years, buying used or refurbished to save money. To buy this one wasn’t an easy decision, but I decided to find the money in order to have a computer that I can rely on for years to come.

The first surprise was that it was still on — I shut it down, dried it off with a towel, then proceeded to blow-dry in all the little crevices I could find. Luckily, the new Macbooks have few crevices, being made primarily from a single piece of aluminum. I took over the battery cover and dried in there; blew hot air into the SuperDrive slot; into all the USB and peripheral ports. And now (as evidence by the above picture, which I took with the computer’s built-in camera) I’m blogging again from a machine that seems to be experiencing no ill effects.

Credit Apple for making a good product, I suppose… but more than that, praise God that while he didn’t save us from a leaky roof, he did allow this computer to survive its cold shower in the middle of the night.

Now, my jaw is sore from all the numbing shots, but the tooth feels good. I got to listen to the dentist’s iPod while he drilled… Counting Crows’ classic “August and Everything After,” which I haven’t heard in years and which brought back great memories. (He noted that the Jonas Brothers was not his, but his daughter’s… I’m not sure whether to believe him or not.)

After that fun experience, I went to the shop, where I was met with a refrigerated display case that refuses to work, a trio of credit card processing salesladies (why do they travel in threes?) who proceeded to ask lots of questions about coffee drinks, buy nothing, hassle me about my provider, tell me their rates were better, and then not show me a single reason to believe them.

Then, I had to lay someone off. Not fire, but lay off, simply because I don’t have the hours to give. She informed me that many of her friends come to the shop specifically to see her, and this is why I should lay someone else off. Eesh! This is not the fun part of being a business owner. (I’ve long since forgotten, actually, what the fun part is.)

Now, Shelley’s off to Nashville to see some friends, and I’m taking care of a mute 2-year-old and a wide-awake 2-month-old.

Life is so very, very strange.

Today, however, it’s time to watch football, eat pizza and pretend all my other struggles simply don’t exist.

Now, does this not seem a little too personal — and IMpersonal — to you? Here I am, sitting down at my computer for a little relaxation, and BAM! I’m hit with the news that one of my friends is apparently getting a divorce, or is already divorced, or is possibly a widow?

After all the technological advances, we’re going to have to create a closet industry that helps people learn how to communicate once again, via that old-fashioned email or (gasp!) an actual conversation on an actual phone!

UPDATE: The more I’ve thought about this, the more worried I get about what I might see next time.

The list goes on and on.

Now, he’s Owen Andrew Shepherd, a 7-some-pound healthy baby boy, spending his time sleeping and eating and occasionally crying, here in my own house.

We got little sleep last night, as Owen couldn’t decide if he’d had enough to eat. He’d cry, we’d get up and try to feed him, and he’d fall back asleep. We did this a few times over, before he finally decided to give up and submit to slumber… at 5 in the morning.

I want him to have everything: A happy childhood, an intelligent mind, a fit and coordinated body, a high-school sweetheart and college education and six-figure job and a house with granite countertops and an undermount sink. And I fear he’ll miss out on at least some of it, due to some unforeseen error on my part.

And, of course, I want him to know the Lord… but if fathers are children’s primary examples of God, I feel very sorry for the little guy.

Exhibit B: Two years ago this Saturday, I was feeling a little of the same for this guy, Lewis Christian. He had a traumatic entry into the world, marked by 10 days of only supervised parental interaction due to a blood infection. It was traumatic, too, for us, as we wondered how God could mar such a beautiful moment with such a stupid circumstance.

Two years later, I still love this boy with all my heart, and yet he frustrates me as few other things do. He’s yet to say a single word, and this causes all kinds of problems for Shelley and me. His only ways to communicate are to cry/yell/moan, and to grab your hand and drag you around. The big problem with this is that he doesn’t understand (or pretends not to understand?) any attempt to tell him no, or to divert him to a different activity. Still groggy from last night, I was met with a Lewis who, after waking and watching “Elmo’s World,” wanted immediately to go outside and walk around the block in already stifling heat. If I tell him no, he cries and whines and is generally not fun to be around, so I’m more or less forced to give way to his will.

I want everything for him, too, but more than anything my concerns for him are in the here and now: God, why won’t you give this child a voice? Why won’t you give him the will to use a spoon on his own? Why is his mind so quick and his manipulative instinct so sharp, and yet his communicative skills nearly nonexistent?

There are no answers here, at least not yet. And that makes me—God forgive me—hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless in the face of these two miracles, these two God-breathed lives that are so utterly connected to me. My own dreams seem shattered to a million pieces, and that would be OK… if only my vicarious dreams for Lewis and Owen would show themselves on a march of progress. But Owen’s too young, and Lewis too frustrating. I’m being honest here, not righteous.

I’ve suffered little, I suppose, and Shelley probably feels these things far worse than I. Maybe you feel them, too, whether you’re childless or fruitful, married or single. Maybe we all feel it, somewhere, at some time. But it’s rather new to me… My only real hope, for now, is that this is simply God’s inoculation against something far worse. But the needle is thick and the sting is real, and I’m left reeling in both bone and blood.