Love, Love, Love

My best gal-pal from undergrad, Amie, got married last weekend, and I was one of her bridesmaids. Ame and her new husband are hippies. And their wedding reflected that. Everything from the cake (see below) to the flowers to the music (she walked down the aisle to "Something in the Way" by the Beatles; they were announced at the reception to "Truckin'" by the Dead; their first dance was some Phish song) to the dresses (all of them, even Amie's, were 100 percent hemp) had Ame and Denny written all over it. But the best part? It all felt really organic and natural. The ceremony was beautiful--it was outdoors, and the girls all walked in bare feet. Our bouquets were simple daisies and sunflowers. Also, the pair have been together for eight years, so it felt really wonderful to watch them get married--like it was just the natural thing to do. The couple wrote their own vows, and they were just beautiful. Though I originally protested the dress (hello--is there anything in the world that's more the opposite-of-me?), I eventually got over it, because the dresses really worked. And, I was really happy to be a part of the whole thing.They had a photo booth at the reception. This is possibly the best thing I have ever seen at a wedding. Everyone loved it. They had dress-up bins with all sorts of costumes, and there was a glue stick on a nearby table for guests to glue a photo in the guest book and sign their names. Here I am with the other bridesmaid, Amanda.

The wedding cake. That's a little Denny-and-Amie figurine sitting on the side of the cake. Thankfully, it tasted as good as it looked.

The girls: me, Amanda, Amie, and Amie's sister Cindy.

10 Year High School Reunion

The weekend before my move (yes, I'm going just a bit out of sequence here), I traveled to my little itty bitty home town of Susquehanna, PA, to attend my 10-year high school reunion.

The party was a lot of fun--it was so good to see the people I grew up with and what they were doing with their lives. Here are (from left to right) Mike Medlar, Jake Lee, Justin and me.

Here's the president of our class (and organizer of the party), Adam Albert, gettin' down at a bar post-reunion. Adam's now a doctor doing humanitarian work in places like Guatemala.
And here's Justin, my best friend from high school, who is now a tour manager for Roadrunner Records in NYC. He's an exception to the rule of a 10-year reunion, though--I've been in touch with him ever since high school. :-)

Kristie's Baby Shower

My girls. . . . Kristie with a 7-and-a-1/2-month-old bun in the oven. I think Kate's still getting over the shock of the size of her tummy.

Kristie shows off some of the clothes she received for her unborn daughter.

Little Fiona (one of Kristie's nieces) helps with the presents.

Me with my new little friend Aidan, who, as I was sitting on the floor, kept on running up to me and plopping down in my lap, thus winning my heart. He's such a cutie!

Weekend Wrap-Up

(I'll start from Thursday since I haven't blogged in a while.)

On Thursday we went to the opening of a new club called Ballinger's downtown. It's a very large, well-decorated club with various floors and a huge outdoor patio, which will be great for the summer. Unfortunately, the building it's in--and the location of the building--has not proven to have much success in terms of attracting a crowd. It's perched on the corner of a street on a steep hill, and there's very little (if any) foot traffic there. We'll see how it goes. The opening was fun, though--we had some drinks and wandered and mingled. Then we went to Justin's for some late-night grub.

Here's a photo of some corner seating at Ballinger's.

Friday was dining-guide production day, which is always a merry ride to hell on wheels. Once that was done, I went to the gym and then home to relax for a little while before going to hang out with Nate and his brother Trevor, who was in town from Buffalo to hang for the weekend. Mike joined us later, and we went to the Fountain for a yummy midnight snack.

Saturday was spent sleeping for the most part--then a nice long walk in Washington Park with coffee because the weather was beeeautiful. Saturday night mimicked Friday a bit in that it resulted, ultimately, in me, Nate, Trevor and Mike eating pizza again. This time it was at DeJohn's, and the ceiling began raining on us before we left. (We learned that the dishwasher on the second floor was the cause of the downpour.)

On Sunday, we left the house at around 12:30 on a mission to find lunch. A stroke of genius pointed us in the direction of Cohoes to get some "real Texas barbecue." Unfortunately, it turned out that the BBQ joint was closed on Sundays, as is everything else in Cohoes, we came to realize. We finally ended up at Bob's Diner in Watervliet and we ate a very average but satisfying lunch. Later, we took a motorcycle ride up to the mall and walked around a bit, contemplating dinner, which we had at Moe's. It was my first time eating at Moe's, and it actually was pretty good. The rest of the night was spent relaxing and watching the tube.

Here's Mike having a grand time washing all the bird crap off his car on Sunday. :-)

In conclusion, a very good weekend was had by all.

Talk at SUNY Cobleskill

In September, I was invited to give a talk to communication students at SUNY Cobleskill on Nov. 8 about the reasons I got into the journalism/editing business. I am not one for public speaking, but I thought it would be a good experience, and I was flattered that they asked me. And I thought that the students could maybe benefit a little hearing from someone who's been in the business for a while who's kind of close to their age(s). Though I didn't use notes during my talk, I did write down a bunch of stuff earlier in the day (thank-you to my awesome boyfriend for helping me with an outline)--a kind of rough draft--to remind myself of things I wanted to touch on or make points about. I was asked to talk about three things: My academic/professional background; what a typical day at work is like for me; and what I like and dislike about my job. For anyone who's interested, here's what I wrote, and mostly what I talked about.

Hi, my name is Kate. I am a Senior Associate Editor at Metroland, an alternative newsweekly paper serving the Capital Region of New York and Western Massachusetts with a circulation of 40,000.

I’m very lucky in that I’ve practically always known what I’ve wanted to do for a living. I was in junior high school when I decided that I wanted to go into journalism. Many things contributed to my decision. I knew that my strengths, academically, were in reading, writing and English. I knew that I wanted to have a job where I felt that I was contributing to the community, but at the same time, where I would feel personally fulfilled in going to work and in believing that the work I did mattered.

So, I was able to focus my studies and my extra-curricular activities in the direction of my goal, which was to go to college for--and have a career in--journalism. In high school, I was very involved with the school newspaper, writing stories, and learning the basic process of editing a piece for the purposes of publishing. I briefly became a student reporter for the Southern Tier’s daily newspaper, the Press and Sun Bulletin. For my first two years of college, I went to Lock Haven University in central Pennsylvania. There, my major was Mass Communication with a concentration in Journalism. I excelled in my Journalism classes and could pretty much care less about my general-studies classes. I became the copy editor for the college newspaper and worked late nights making sure the paper was as grammatically correct and typo-free as I could make it.

After two years at Lock Haven, I transferred to UAlbany. I didn’t do much research about the school, so I didn’t know that it wasn’t possible to take journalism as a major. I got my degree in Rhetoric Communication with a minor in Women’s Studies. After college, I wasn’t in a hurry to find a “real” job, so I worked as a waitress for a year, which I did throughout college as well. At the café where I worked, we got Metroland delivered every Thursday, and I started reading it, and quickly fell in love with it. I liked that it was an independent newspaper and that its coverage of local politics (and its spin on issues) was different than the mainstream media. I met my current boss—the owner of Metroland—while I was working at the café. I told him that I wanted to work for Metroland, and I applied for a job. There were no positions available at the time, but I was determined to get a job at the paper, so I was content to continue working at the café while I pursued a job there. This lasted for about a year.

Finally, in March of 2002, I started temping at the paper when they needed extra help. That eventually turned into a fulltime position when I was hired as an editorial assistant. Over the course of the four and a half years I’ve been at Metroland, I’ve been promoted four times and, needless to say, I’ve taken on more responsibility.

A Typical Day
Metroland is a small, independent company, and therefore, we have a very small staff and we work in a very relaxed atmosphere. There are four departments at the paper: Production, Editorial, Administrative, and Sales. Each department kind of follows their own set of unspoken rules. There are six of us in the editorial department, not including my boss. We have very flexible schedules—we can come in late, leave early, work late, or work on weekends—whatever works best for us. A typical day for me would be getting at the office between 9:30 and 10 in the morning and leaving between 5 and 6 in the evening. My job varies day-to-day. Since we work on a weekly schedule, I usually take care of different things on each day of the week. Our production day is Wednesday, so Thursday is pretty much the beginning of our week. Thursdays and Fridays are spent planning the next week’s issue—we have meetings, make calls, make sure larger stories are where they need to be, update schedules, and pick out what events we want to preview or review for the next week. Each editor makes sure that his or her sections are taken care of. For example, my main section is music. I contact my music writers, or they contact me, about what shows or stories they want to cover. If someone’s profiling a musician, I make sure there’s a photographer assigned to the story. Think of being an editor as kind of like being a producer. You are the person behind the scenes, making sure everything goes smoothly and the people who need to get in touch with each other do, or if you have a writer going to review a show, make sure that he has tickets waiting for him at the door. And make sure there’s a photographer there to shoot the band, etc.

Mondays through Wednesdays are generally spent writing, editing, and basically producing the paper. I’d love to say that we make our deadlines every week, but we rarely do. I have yet to come across an editorial staff that’s really good about making deadlines. Wednesdays are usually pretty stressful, trying to make our 5 o’clock deadline, but I got to leave early today, so I was happy to leave the other editors with the work.

What I Love/Hate About the Job
I am extremely lucky, because I love my job. I really do. I like maintaining good relationships with my writers, I like that I work in a relaxed office with very smart people, I like that I believe in the product that we put out, and I like the freedom I have in terms of schedule and creativity. There are some fabulous perks—sometimes I get to travel for work. I get to meet really cool people. I get to work with people I admire and respect. What I don’t like? Deadlines. Having to conform to other people’s schedules. Dealing with difficult people. And sometimes, I don’t like the lack of structure.

NOW Conference in Albany

Albany was the place the National Organization for Women decided to celebrate their 40th anniversary--Ani Difranco spoke, and I went down to cover it. Read my little story here. Thanks to Alicia for taking pics.

I've Been Busy!

. . . So I haven't posted a couple pics from last week.

From Wednesday's book club meeting at Noche: Here's Melissa, enjoying a glass of sangria while we try to listen to Sarah (the blonde in the background) discuss the book over the din.

Thursday night was rockin' at Valentine's thanks to two of my favorite local bands: the Suggestions and Hector on Stilts. Here's Brodeur, being a rock star:

Perennial Event Date

Yup, that's Brodeur. He said that he didn't mean to make a face in this pic, so I guess this is what he looks like normally. Hehee! Anyway, here we are enjoying olives and wine at Elissa Halloran's 5-year anniversary party at Noche.

Thanks to Leif for sending us this pic!


*Note to Michael C., my other--but no less important--perennial event date: As soon as I get a pic of us, I'll post that too. :-) Maybe at the art opening this evening? See you then.