Chilling Effect

It's about 12:30 a.m. in Iowa City, and it's the first cold snap. When I ventured out this morning the wind hit me, shot straight through my coat and sucked the moisture out of my skin. The steering wheel of my car was so cold it hurt my hands to touch it. Seasons don't creep up on you in Iowa--they burst through your door like noisy relatives whose very presence sends the cat diving under the sofa.

Journalism school finals are over, the final papers handed in and the office keys returned. I'm one semester closer to my master's degree. I still feel woefully inadequate. And yet, I'm undeterred, perhaps because there's really nothing else I could do. I cannot be a teacher or an accountant or a therapist or a lawyer. So, I will continue to try to be a journalist even if I am bad at it. For me, being bad at journalism is more fun than being good at something else. As Babs sings in "Funny Girl": "I'd rather be blue thinking of you than be happy with somebody else."

It's about 12:45 a.m. in Iowa City, and it's the first cold snap. Everybody says you have to have a thick skin to do journalism. I have a pretty thick one. I think I take criticism well. Or at least I can appear to, which is the important thing. In journalism, being told you suck is part of the experience. Don't worry--nobody's told me I suck, yet. But in this business, there's really no use for anything less than stellar. So I guess I'll get stellar. Slowly.

It's about 12:50 a.m. in Iowa City, and it's the first cold snap. So make some hot chocolate already and get over it.