Playing the Game

This was my first Friday helping out as a P.E. aide at my son's elementary school. The kids were playing kickball, and an ambitious few immediately snatched up the prime positions. My son and about a half-dozen of his second-grade classmates were sent to the outfield (the rules were loose). Upon reaching his spot on the far edge of left field, my son promptly plopped down in a sulking heap -- defeated before he'd begun.

It wasn't the best sportsmanship, but I could relate.

I'm back in the job-hunt game after 10 years of getting up every morning and knowing exactly what my role would be that day and feeling confident in my ability to succeed at it.

In the outfield, there was a lot of smack talk and clashing bodies. Some kids love that kind of rough-and-tumble competition. My son isn't one of them.

When it was his team's turn to kick, my son gave the ball a fine wallop, but the pitcher and first baseman were too quick. He was out. Defeated again.

I cringed inside as he stomped off, slunk down behind the bench and blinked back the burn of tears. "Come on. Get up. You can do this," I telegraphed mentally from across the field. But I bit my tongue. This wasn't my game.

When it was his team's turn back on the field, he picked himself up, brushed off the dirt, rubbed his eyes and immediately stepped forward to claim the pitcher's mound.

The first few rolls didn't go smoothly, but he soon found his groove. With each pitch that went well, he stood a little taller. He knew what his job was, and he felt confident in his ability to do it. It wasn't about being center-stage. It was about being given the chance to show what he could do without having to claw his way past his peers to do it. It was about feeling that what he did mattered.

A lot of newspaper journalists have been tossed to the outfield lately, replaced on the diamond by their more tech-savvy peers. I've felt myself slumped in a heap of self-pity on more than a few occasions of late. The game has changed on me, and I don't know the rules.

I've lobbed a few applications out there, but the response has been less than inspiring.

Still, I want back in the game. I'm going to find my place, even if I have to take a few ego-crushing hits to get there.

Come on. Get up. You can do this.

Speaking of dead trees...

A hulking box of boxes is parked in the middle of our living room. A label on it says it weighs 75 pounds. The UPS guy didn't even unload it from his truck before knocking on our door yesterday. He was afraid we might not be home and he would have to lug the beast back down the stairs.

Alas, here it sits. The undeniable.

We're moving back to the Heartland. City living is just too pricey for an out-of-work journalist, a struggling screenwriter and their three young children. So we're packing up, and we'll greet the New Year in another place.

The crazy thing is, the Internet is partly responsible for the demise of the life we've known, yet it also provides our best hope for keeping the dream alive.

Strange times, these.

It's 5 a.m., Do You Know Where Your Newspaper Is?

Most likely it's on the front step -- or in your bushes, or in your neighbor's hedge, or in your dog's water bowl, or lying forlornly at the far end of your driveway. In any case, it's there for you. But for how much longer?

Upheaval is the name of the game these days. And I'm about to be neck-deep in it. After 10 years at a major metropolitan newspaper, I'm being cut loose. I'm one of the lucky ones. I held on for years while watching talents far greater than mine get the ax -- always feeling that gun cocked at the back of my head. When the bad news came, it was almost a relief. I didn't have to worry about that anymore. Now it was reality. Now I could deal with it.

But what of the beloved newspaper I'm leaving behind? Will the ink-stained wretches of the world slink off into the darkness, never to be heard from again?

Don't count on it.

We'll figure this thing out. And the World Wide Web will be richer for it.

Let's just hope we can make a living in the meantime.