Archives:
November 4-November 10, 2007

November 4, 2007

“Wow,” I say, standing in the doorway of the my room. “That's amazing.” I'm kind of shocked to come in and see a painting that looks just like the trees and grass outside our window, as Cameron begins to paint the sky overhead.

“Thanks,” she says, glancing back, her hair all tied up in a navy blue bandana.

I close the door behind me, and head in, setting my book bag down. I stayed at Teri's last night, and I'm just getting back now. “But really. You're really good.”

“Well, this is what I go to school for,” she says, dipping her brush in her palate, swirling the blue-gray paint a little before she moves it back up to the canvas.

“It makes sense. You could be a professional.”

She chuckles. “I don't know about that. I mean, that would be the best if I could do that, but when I decided I was going to be an art major, I had kind of decided I wasn't in it for any sort of career or money—I was just following my passion, and I'd see where it took me.”

I continue looking at the painting, and run a hand through my hair, remembering how disheveled it must be. Teri and I sat around watching movies last night and ended up staying up till after 4 in the morning, then sleeping till 1 in the afternoon. I forgot to set an alarm and I'm just glad that I got up at all. I'm due at work in half an hour now.

Turning from Cameron and the painting, I kick off my shoes, take off my coat and grab my towel, robe, and a clean pair of boxers from my closet. In a moment, I'm sidling past the back side of Cameron's easel en route to the bathroom.

“Late night last night?” Cameron asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Late, but not too exciting. I can tell you about it later.”

“Don't sweat it,” she says with a smirk, “Teri's meeting me to play ping pong while you're at work. I'll ask her about it.”

November 5, 2007

“Did you see the good news?” Teri asks, coming into the office.

I turn from computer. “What would that be?”

“Your website—it's back up and running.”

“Ah, that good news,” I say, looking back down, finishing the sentence I was writing. “I was instrumental in that news—spent an hour and a half on the phone with tech support this morning.”

“Really?” Teri asks, turning her book bag, so she can look through it. “Well at least all's well that ends well, right? You're back to good.”

“I guess.” I click to save my file, then rub at my eye for a second. “You know, when the page was down all weekend, we didn't get a single e-mail complaining about it. And not a single phone message here in the office.”

Teri shrugs. “Well, be thankful for small favors.”

“I'm not so sure it's a favor.”

“What?” Teri asks. “You want to deal with complaints?”

“If something goes wrong with our paper—with our organization, than yes. If people complain, it means that they care enough to.” I push the mouse away from me. “The site was down for two days, and no one even noticed.”

“I'm sure people noticed,” Teri says, pulling a pack of gum from the little pouch at the front of her bag. “And they probably understood there was nothing you could do about it.”

I shake my head, putting a foot up on my desk. “It just makes me wonder if it's even worth it keeping this website up—if it's worth my time.”

“It's worth your time because you made a commitment to The Window,” Teri says, plugging a stick of gum in her mouth. She rolls the wrapper into a little ball between her fingers. “When you ran to be Editor in Chief, you were telling the staff they could count on you to lead this organization. You can't just pack up and leave it behind when you face a challenge.”

“I'd say this is more than a challenge. This isn't even the same organization as the one I took over.”

“It has the same name. It has the same function.” Teri pauses, pulling her cell phone from her bag and flipping it open. “Nick, what's up? Yeah—no, I'm right over in the Window office. Yeah, I can be over in a sec.” She flips shut the phone, turning back to me.

“Nick?”

“We have work to do. I'll talk to you later.” She flicks the wrapper into the trash and heads out of the office.

November 6, 2007

I'm eating lunch at the center table in the office, biting into an apple, and staring at the wall across the way from me. There are a series of old front pages and top headlines from the paper taped and tacked into the cinderblocks, highlighting big stories from Taylor College history. A lot of the pages are yellow with age, the corners starting to curl up on themselves. The most recent posting is from the rape scandal I wrote about freshman year.

I think about this wall as a museum of sorts, chronicling the history of the college, and The Window's place in recording and reporting it all. I think of what additions we could make to the wall—how computer print outs of the site would look amidst the newsprint up there now.

“ Preston , check this out,” Gabby says, sitting off to my side. She reaches out with a sheet of computer.

I extend my arm to meet her, and can see from the letterhead that it's an SA press release. I'm more than a little surprised to read the headline “Student Association plans to launch new student newspaper.”

“You've got to be kidding me,” I start.

“They say they want to start a new paper to meet the interest from comm. students who are saying they don't have a place to get news writing experience now.”

I rub my chin, looking back down at the page. “And where were all of these writers when we were up and running?”

“The press release hardly even mentions us,” Gabby goes on. “They act as if we never even had a print publication. The one thing it does note is that this new paper would share an office with us, because we already have the equipment necessary to generate a newspaper.”

I shake my head, skimming the release over to see she's right about all of this. There's no indication of when the new paper will start up, what it will be called, or what kind of schedule they'll operate on. I wonder who else this release went to. I wonder if it was designed just for us—with enough information to let us know we're being replaced, but not enough for us to contest a thing.

November 7, 2007

Teri peels up the top piece of bread from her sandwich, looking down at its contents. “Ugh, I think these are red peppers.”

“Not what you wanted?” I ask, sitting across the table from her in the din of the Lighthouse at lunch hour.

“I asked for tomatoes,” she says, peeling them off. “Guess the brain trust staff couldn't tell the difference.”

I take a bite of my own sandwich, turkey on wheat, then wipe my mouth off with a napkin. “So, Teri, I've been meaning to ask you if you know anything about this new paper SA's going to put out.”

“Yeah, the one the comm. department wants to put together. Sounds pretty neat, huh?”

“Pretty neat?” I ask. “It sounds like SA's replacing The Window.”

Teri rolls her eyes. “No one's replacing anything. It's a different publication altogether—all written by comm. students, built to give them experience for their careers.”

“OK,” I say, and sip some Mountain Dew through a straw. “But why couldn't comm. majors get that experience at The Window?”

“The Window just has a different sort of reputation—especially with it being web based now and everything. It's not seen so much as a hard news source.”

“So when we're sharing an office with this new paper, and we both have deadlines pressing, does that mean that the hard news source is going to take priority?”

Teri puts her sandwich back together and picks it up. “Well I imagine that's something that the leadership of the two organizations will have to figure out.”

I can't help smirking at the whole ridiculous situation. There's not a doubt in my mind that this new paper is going marginalize The Window. My only question now is whether Teri realizes it, or if she's genuinely oblivious to the whole thing.

“What are you smirking at?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

“ Preston , what's going on?”

I shake my head again, taking a big bite of my sandwich.

November 8, 2007

Gabby sits at my side, tapping her fingers together as she has all staff meeting long. She's seemed nervous ever since I talked to her earlier today, and I suppose I can't blame her.

As the meeting winds down, I look out at the staff. There are fourteen people in attendance tonight, up from the twelve we had last week, down from the thirty to forty people who came each week back when we had a real paper. I clear my throat as they begin to pack up their things, ready to head out for the night.

“I have one last announcement to make,” I say, a little louder than I mean to. I go on, “As many of you are aware, SA is has sanctioned the creation of a new organization, to create a new student newspaper, which will operate of the same office we do. I've been told that this new paper will operate in a different fashion from how we do, and serve different needs.”

I sigh, looking down as I continue, “Personally, I don't buy it. It's my belief that SA all but killed this organization when they took our budget, and are trying to wipe out what's left by creating a new newspaper to replace us.” A few voices murmur. “Now we could continue about our business, and make the most of the situation, like we've been trying to for the last couple months. Or we could rise up and fight SA on this—letting them know that they already have a newspaper, and we're not going to sit by while they give our office to another one.”

Rich nods from the center table. I turn to see Gabby staring straight ahead.

“But as for me, I think it's finally sunken in that you never really beat SA. And if they want to replace us, they're going to. If we stick around, we're just prolonging the inevitable.” I click the pen in my hand, retracting the point of it. “I can't tell anyone else what to do. But, personally, I am resigning.”

November 9, 2007

“More popcorn anyone?” Brad asks, gathering up the last kernels from the big plastic bowl.

“I could go for a little more,” Chang says, feet propped up on the coffee table in their room. “You, Preston ?”

“I'm good,” I say, not taking my eyes from the TV screen. I called Chang earlier and told him about the paper, asking if there was something he wanted to do tonight. He said Brad had already rented a DVD for the night, but I was more than welcome to come hang out. At the risk of the whole third wheel thing, I figured I'd give it a shot.

More anything, I just wanted to hang out with a friend, and take my mind off The Window. I'm trying to get absorbed in this movie—a flic about vampires attacking a college campus—but the longer it goes, the more often I find my mind drifting, to the point where I can barely follow what little plot there is.

I contemplate whether I should be mad at Teri. Maybe she really doesn't see the new newspaper as a threat to The Window. After all, as a board member, she probably played a part in deciding to give funding to the new paper, and I can't imagine she would do so directly at the expense of The Window.

But then, she didn't vote to keep The Window funded either.

“Here comes the smackdown,” Brad says, pushing shut the microwave door just as this scantily clad woman with fangs drops from out of nowhere, directly behind this nerdy looking guy. She proceeds to bite down into his neck. He struggles for a second, before going limp. “I love these movies,” Brad says, before turning back to the microwave, pressing some buttons to get the next batch of popcorn started.

November 10, 2007

“Oh shit,” I say, turning away just after I opened the door to my room.

“It's OK, Preston ,” Cameron calls out, before I can close the door. “You can come in.”

“Uh—no offense, but I'm not sure I want to.”

From what little I saw, Cameron was painting again. This time, she was working on a nude portrait of her boyfriend Geoff, who's posing on her bed.

“It's all right, buddy,” Geoff says. “I just covered up, you can come in.”

Against my better judgment I open the door again. Any sort of logic would dictate that I just wouldn't look over at Cameron's side of the room at all. And yet, it's sort of like driving past an accident. As much you know you shouldn't look, and you may genuinely not want to see it, you can't help your eyes roaming in that direction.

Geoff has moved a pillow to cover his dick. I guess Cameron's already painted that part.

“So, a new art project?” I ask, batting my computer mouse around.

“Yep,” Cameron says, “and fortunately I had a model ready and willing to help me out.”

“Yeah, that worked out well,” I say, fixing my eyes on my computer screen, typing in the password to my e-mail account.

“So what are you up to today?”

“Well I was just stopping back here for a second,” I lie, “then I'm headed back up to the library to finish some more reading.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“May not be as exciting as your homework,” I say, closing the browser window, and straightening my book bag against my back. “But it keeps me occupied. I'll see you guys.”