What do you LOVE to talk about? What gets you passionate? Cats, family issues, politics, poetry --whatever.

Politics is a big one. Music. Women's issues, espeially healthcare. Travel. Food. I've always thought that if I were to work for a newspaper, I would want to be a cops & courts reporter -- it's sick, but I love that stuff. There's just so much human drama in the law...

Curiosity leads me to the question of what you would consider a sufficiently "lofty" motivation for writing?

Oh, you know, the ineffable desire to Create! and Be! and Make Your Mark Upon the World!. Starving-artist-in-the-garret motivators. I feel like because most of the reasons I want to do this stuff are practical, they count less, somehow.

Jesse, who do you know at CP? Patrick used to do layout for them. It's not a bad paper, even if it is sometmes infuriatingly focused on "Urban good, suburban bad; Poor people good, gentrification bad," when all their writers live in Adams-Morgan and Arlington anyhow.

The really funny City Paper story is that guy who went on a date with Monica lewinsky, freelanced a piece about it, and ended up covering politics for Salon. (I think; I am forgetting his name.)

My friend hasn't worked there in years. And I forgot about that jackass guy, who now reports for freaking ABC News! And whose name is currently escaping me.

Jake Tapper.

My friend hasn't worked there in years.

Patrick left in '99 -- it was a freelance thing, and he got a grown-up job that made laying out personals until 2 a.m. less appealing. Seriously, you should email me who it is, just because I am all curious.

now reports for freaking ABC New

Really? I missed that development.

Well, at least he made the most of his 15 minutes.

Incoming to your profile.

I would like to be a cops and court reporter Sister! Alas the hours are so not compatible with disability, it's to laugh.(Bitterly, of course) But I don't blame any attendant I would have for not wanting to work at four because I've gotta follow the fire truck. But I still have a (mental) hard-on for it. So, I'm stuck in the Features ghetto. No, let me amend, I'll have to work my way into the features ghetto. But, see new tag.

Oh, you know, the ineffable desire to Create! and Be! and Make Your Mark Upon the World!. Starving-artist-in-the-garret motivators. I feel like because most of the reasons I want to do this stuff are practical, they count less, somehow.

Ah, yes, the "If it ain't grand it don't count" feeling.

While I'm all for large circulations seeing my funny/trenchant/wise/timeless words the fact of the matter is the big effect is more often the accumulation of increments. Some of them so subtle as to be nearly invisible to the reading eye until they're combined with something else.

You can't build the Great Pyramid without first making the bricks.

Hmmmmm.

Tomorrow night's writers group at my house may well have a neat guest sitting in: my friend Danyel Smith may be coming over. I hope so - Danyel rocks the house.

Speaking of career weirdness:

I'm speaking, and maybe reading, at a Sci-Fi convention at Harvard on Jan. 31st. I read poetry in Worcester the next day.