I was really confused by the cheesemaker, which was the first one I clicked on. Though I did laugh, especially at the “smells like a proctologist’s finger at the end of the day” comment. (If you’re not curious what prompted that comment, you’re not normal.)

But this kid, Gio, is so cute. It’s like someone gave one of my nephews a video camera and just said, “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Or maybe it’s like 7-year-old stand-up comedy? With the jump cuts, that’s kind of what it feels like.

A tease for you to click:
“I get those like scary feelings. If I die in my sleep, I don’t even need to worry. I’ll either be in heaven or in hell, either one. I think I’m gonna be in heaven. Because I got this little feeling that I’m special. So, it’s been a good life, but it’s hard on a little guy like me. It’s actually gonna suck more when I actually grow up. I know that. Uh huh, I know that.”

Either way, these awesome portraits/interviews are a part of a new project by the Washington Post called onBeing. Reminds me vaguely of the NYTimes project I blogged about awhile ago, where they went around and found ordinary people doing off-beat things. Only, probably because Rob Curley sprinkled his magic on it, the WP project is so much cooler.

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
— Mohandas Gandhi

Again, Gandhi has a way of speaking the truth. This is something I should probably paste on my monitor to remind myself each day.

I’ve always been one of those people rushing through life. My schedule as far back as I can remember, even as a very young child, was dominated by activities, games, performances, rehersal, meetings, etc. I don’t know what it feels like to not be overwhelmed and busy. It’s part of why I pushed myself to get through college so fast and still accomplish everything else on my “college accomplishments agenda.” I could do it, and the rush of it made it exciting.

Basically, I thrive on being overwhelmed.

BUT, in moving to take my job, I’ve pretty much taken everything else out of the equation beyond the 40 or so hours of work each week. I’m slowly going to build back up some activities (volunteering, etc.) with a conscious eye on having free time to do nothing. I’ve done more nothing in the last two months of my life than the preceding decade. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know. But it has allowed me to do things like keep this blog, catch up on some reading and just drive around and get to know my new home.

We’ll see how the slower pace works. I think balancing the fast-paced nature of journalism with my new, mostly empty planner, will be a good more healthy alternative to my sleepless college days.

I am only posting this because three different people in the past week have said it to me. I just kind of look at them, try not to laugh and scratch my head trying to think of a way to respond without making them look dumb.

In all three cases it was man on the street/pick a random person from a crowd that produced this dialogue:

Me: Hi, I’m Meranda Watling with the Journal & Courier, would you be willing to talk to me about [insert topic of the day]…
Them: Am I going to be on TV?

My standard response, because as everyone in the business knows three makes a trend, is just going to be what I told the man tonight, “Well, sir, it’s a newspaper.” Nothing more.

I mean, what can you say?! In one instance, one of the kid’s friends did the dirty work for me and said, “Dude, she’s with the newspaper. Do you see her hiding a video camera?!”

My thoughts exactly.