A home along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The sign says, "Do not allow Katrina to steal your joy." (Photo by Andrea James | September 2005)

I’ve been meaning to write a post about how every day is a special occasion. But every time I begin, I think, what kind of cliche piece of advice is that? Everyone knows that from reading Hallmark “just because” cards.

And yet, I have to remind myself of that often.

In the past, whenever someone gave me perfume or a sweet smelling lotion, I would save it. By the time I was 23, I had amassed a solid collection of lotions and soaps and bubble bath and bath beads and relaxation oils — you’d think that I was obsessed with indulging myself amid the scent of rose and lavender.

And I think that friends and family must have seen my collection and thought, “Wow, she loves Bath & Body Works,” thus creating a multiplier effect on gift occasions.

Once, while helping me to move, my brother-in-law exclaimed, “You and all your bottles!”

At the time, I couldn’t bear to part with even one bottle. I was storing these away for a special occasion. This went on for years.

Then my wedding day came and went. I think I used one of the lotions. Once.

I gave away my collection shortly after.

This upcoming Sunday marks the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

I wonder if my newfound penchant for giving things away, and not holding onto too many posessions, comes in part from having lived on the Gulf Coast during the storm. (See my recount in the aftermath, here.)

During that time, I volunteered to help families clean out after their homes flooded. Beloved possessions became soggy stinking junk.  Items that may have been saved to honor a special occasion instead became chores — stuff had to be picked up, salvaged or discarded.

It seemed like an enormous and endless task.

I’m eager to read some of the Hurricane Katrina look backs and the where-are-we-now pieces.  Particularly from those who have a connection to the Gulf Coast.

As for how to mark this special-tragic-occasion? I will try to remember that there’s never a better time than now to drink the good wine.

More photos below the jump. Click any photo to enlarge it:

Formerly an apartment complex in Mississippi (Photo by Andrea James | September 2005)

This is me in the crowd at Pike Place Market in 2008, on the day that Starbucks introduced its Pike Place Roast. CEO Howard Schultz is signing autographs in the foreground.

While on a recent business trip, I made some coffee in my hotel using the coffee maker next to the television.

The Starbucks packets seemed designed especially for the hotel brewer. On check out, I braced myself, expecting to be charged something outrageous.

I got my bill and scanned it. “There’s no charge for the coffee on here,” I told the hotel clerk.

“Oh, no charge for that,” he said.

“Wait, so, the coffee is free?” I asked. “But you charge for drinking the bottled water in the fridge?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

My goodness, I thought, in our society, coffee is considered more necessary than water.

The first time that I met Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, I didn’t know the difference between an espresso and a brew.

And I didn’t even know enough about coffee to know that it was something I should have known.

Maybe it was fitting that as a business reporter, I wasn’t already a fan of the company or its main product. That was more than two years ago. That was before I traded in my daily Diet Cokes for daily coffees.

It occurred to me early on in my career that caffeine was more necessity than luxury if I wanted to make something of myself in modern society. In fact, coffee and tea surged in popularity at the advance of the industrial revolution. (One of the best articles I’ve read on humanity’s dependence upon caffeine is by National Geographic. Check it out here.)

By the time I was a full-time college student, spending long nights writing up physics experiment reports and spending my days working for FDIC in Arlington, Va., I was consuming 32 ounces of regular Coca-Cola per day.

One day, my boss’s boss saw me at my desk with one: My mouth connected to a giant red and white cup via straw. “Do you know how much sugar is in that?” he said. “You’re going to get so fat if you keep drinking that. Switch to diet.”

And, so, I switched to diet. It was difficult at first, because I didn’t like the taste. But then, addiction set in. Diet Coke became “liquid goodness.”

Here I am in Amsterdam in 2007, drinking a "Coca-Cola Light," which is the non-US version of Diet Coke.

I developed a Pavlovian response to the sight of that cold silver can, the feel of its weight in my hands, the cracking sound of the tab — oh, addicts, do you feel me? I would tuck a Diet Coke can behind my feet under my church pew. You’d never find me without a can in my hand. I bonded with news sources over this shared addiction.

Coffee, meanwhile, seemed gross. Who knows what they put in that?

Starbucks taught me exactly what.

Because Starbucks is a brand that must maintain a positive public image, it employs a powerful team of public relations staff. The team struck me as particularly competent at what it did — the staff works hard to educate reporters about the company, and more importantly, about coffee.

I grew up in in a working class New Jersey household. Morning joe meant pouring boiling water over a scoop of Maxwell House instant. My parents kept Sweet’N Low packets in a dish on the table, next to the salt and pepper shakers. And my mother kept a white cannister of saccharin tablets next to her purse, for her morning tea. (As a child, I thought that men drank coffee and women drank tea.)

On a day-long immersion tour of Starbucks, I learned the difference between low-quality robusta and high-quality arabica beans, I saw the labs where the company’s scientists determined which temperatures brought out the best flavors, and I learned about distribution and marketing and product sourcing. (Did you know that the Japanese are the largest consumers of instant coffee? They sell it in machines over there like they do soda here.)

Before that day, I’d thought that coffee beans came brown. I learned that they are plucked off of the trees green and then roasted brown.

For some reason, I’d always thought that coffee was engineered from man-made chemicals. I realized that coffee is as natural as salad. It’s water run through roasted beans. It fit into my decision to make simpler and healthy lifestyle choices.

In October 2009, I officially made the switch to coffee as my main source of caffeine.

I use a French press in the morning. How about you?

The second law, regarding entropy, is my favorite. It is simple to understand: It states that in any system, anything that happens tends to increase the entropy of the universe.

This is how I see it: My messy desk is not my fault. The forces of nature and mathematics are working against me.

Consider this: In the human realm of homes and offices, every object has its place. And there is only one way for each object to be in its place. However, there are  infinite ways for objects to be out of place.

So, it’s simple probability that things would be out of place. The “proper” way for my keyboard to exist is without crumbs underneath the keys. However, food makes crumbs and I eat at my desk and it only takes one crumb to ruin this proper state.

Getting something from its chaotic state to its proper state takes energy. It takes work. All of human existence is a constant battle to control nature, to bring elements into their proper places, to maintain our man-made systems, to fight back the chaos and maintain order. Much of our work is either maintaining existing proper states or creating new ones. (What is a smart phone but a collection of properly arranged elements?)

In the wilderness, the law still applies, but humans don’t try to fight it and so we notice its effect less. Say I moved a rock from here to there in the woods. Have I made the woods more “messy?” No, “messy” is a human construct. Nature is constantly changing and the squirrels don’t need to have all of the woodland objects just so.

Anyway, I spend great portions of my time either cursing the second law (like when light bulbs burn out or the toilet flush system decays) and thanking it for taking the blame off of me.

So, I was cheered to see today that the laws of thermodynamics  may be blamed for something else: Gravity.

It turns out, gravity may not even exist. It may just be a construct of these laws.

“Differences in entropy can be the driving mechanism behind gravity, that gravity is, as he puts it an ‘entropic force,’” writes the New York Times’ Dennis Overbye, who has the story about Erik Verlinde, a physicist in Amsterdam promoting the new theory.

Check it out.

Recently, I was thinking over some of the harshest criticisms I’ve received in my career, and how I’m thankful for them now.

I decided to have some fun with this idea, so I pinged some journalist friends with this challenge: “I want you guys to try to remember things that editors have said to you, that shaped you, and which weren’t very nice.”

So, here is what my friends and I came up with. I’ve changed every female name to “Jennifer” and “Lauren,” every male name to “Bob.” My friends were more comfortable sharing this way, particularly because some of them are now at the top of their fields.

I’ve also obscured the names of the publications.

I hope they give you a good laugh. And if you happen to be new to this field or any other, know that the best professionals got that way in part thanks to tough love.

Please share yours!

—-

“Hey Jennifer, over the weekend, why don’t you read the New York Times and learn how to fucking write.”

—-

“What do you do? Be a fucking reporter, that’s what.” — Editor, after I called up and complained that nothing interesting happened at a Chicago city council housing committee meeting.

—-

The editor walks over and slaps a draft printout of my “tech bits” write-up on my desk.

“You read that first sentence and tell me if it makes you want to read the rest of the story.”

I read my lede. It didn’t.

As he walked away, he said, “Don’t be boring.”

—-

“He hung up on you? Go to his door so he can slam the door in your face instead.” –Editor

—-

“Jennifer, stop bothering Lauren, she’s on deadline. LAUREN WHERE’S YOUR STORY!?” -Editor

—-

“Bob, stop checking your email and get to work.” –Editor

—-

“Sirens in The Loop.” –Editor.  This was the extent of the conversation. I was expected to find out why.

—-

“Call them back. I don’t care if it’s 2 in the morning. Let it ring three times, and if they don’t answer, hang up.” –Editor

—-

“Wanna have a one-arm push-up contest?” –Editor, during an overnight shift. (He did 10, no problem. I did one.)

—-

“There’s no news in the newsroom! Why are there so many fucking reporters in here? Get the fuck out and find what people will care about tomorrow.” — Editor to a room full of reporters on a day with a pretty empty story budget. We all left.  We all found something decent.

—-

“Did you write this lede before or after you went to the meeting? Because it sure as fuck doesn’t tell me anything new.” -Editor

—-

Editor: “I didn’t get past the third word. Too boring. Do it over.”
Me: “The whole story?”
Editor: “If you stuck your best stuff up top, I sure as hell wasn’t going to read any more. Just start a whole new file. I don’t even want to read the filename again.”

—-

Editor: ”I read your story about the sportscaster.”
Me: “And?”
Editor: “I wanted to read the story about the felon instead.”
Me: “It’s the same guy.”
Editor: “I know that. The readers won’t though. Try again.”

—-

Scrawled across a printout of a story: ”NO”

—-

Editor: ”Your story was better last night than it was this morning.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Editor: “I read three fingers into a bottle of whiskey. Write it so it’s good when I’m sober too.”

—-

Me: When do you need this story?
Editor: 10 minutes ago.
Me: I can’t make that deadline.
Editor: SHUT THE FUCK UP AND WRITE!

—-

Managing editor says to me and my immediate editor, all huffy, “What’s going on with this story?”

My immediate editor, throwing her hands up in the air: “Well, Lauren is going to write it but her toe just got grabbed by the criminal and she needs a little bit more time.”

Managing editor: Stares at us in stone-faced silence, as if getting one’s big toe grabbed during an interview is no excuse for being a little late.

—–

“If you think you have a rat’s chance in hell of getting hired as a reporter in New York fresh out of grad school, you are sorely mistaken.” — Journalism mentor, advising on career path options

—-

“I like everything about this story except the fact that the lede couldn’t have happened if you weren’t there. Don’t put yourself in it.” –Editor

I spent hours of my childhood crouched down and hunched over the backyard bugs — so much so that the adults would joke that one day I would be an entomologist.

Eventually, I chose other professions ending in -ist, but still, the hours I’d spent in a New Jersey suburb, watching the insects, shaped me.

I would pick up an ant from the red colony and march him to another part of our yard and drop him into the black colony. And he would, inevitably, run away quickly. I’d try to stuff him down the hole — the entry to the ant hill. Usually when I did this, the alien ant would run out a few seconds later. Sometimes, he never made it out.

My aim was to see if ants from different colonies would assimilate. They would not.

Many times, I saw rival ant colonies at war. The ants would lock heads with each other and pull back and forth. Eventually, the losing colony soldiers would be outnumbered, fighting one-to-three against the victors. There were dead ants all over the place. A littering of specks amid the grass.

Death and destruction, right there in my backyard. It was ridiculous and pointless and seemed, to me, a waste of time. Those ants had no idea how small  and insignificant they were.

Every time I read about the latest warring among our own species, I think of the ants and wonder, “How much wiser are we?”

If I worked for the Intergalactic Press, this would be my brief article:

Earthlings complete small mission

A rocket-powered shuttle carrying six humans landed safely on Earth yesterday, to the joy and relief of those in the species who weren’t too busy killing each other to pay attention.

Carbon-based humans are the most intelligent species to have evolved on Earth, a planet orbiting a non-descript, ordinary star in the hinterlands of the Milky Way galaxy.

“Intelligence is relative,” said Dr. Eelink Garbold, senior primitive-life studies professor at S2 University in the M51 galaxy. “Earthlings have limited exploration capabilities, but have made dramatic advances in recent decades. However, they peculiarly preserve a warring heritage, similar to other species found on the planet, such as ants.”

The shuttle spent 13 days off the planet while the humans on board performed what they call “experiments.”

-###-

This is a question that I rarely ask myself, because I’ve been poking around and asking questions since I was a little kid. And so I know the answer to my original question: People respond, or don’t. You get what you want, or don’t. And life goes on.

Though I’ve made a career switch from journalism to stock analysis, you could say that the essential nature hasn’t changed: I’m a professional questions asker.

Is there a such thing as a stupid question? Yes. When your teacher told you otherwise, he lied.

This is me in front of a restaurant in Bournemouth, England. My married initials are ASK. (My professional and maiden initials are ASJ.)

Stupid questions usually result from not being well-read, not doing one’s homework or not paying attention to your subject. And then there’s the personal prying kind, or the passive aggressive kind — both of which signify that one is in the presence of an ill-mannered dolt. Other stupid questions are the ones where the asker is really trying to show off his or her knowledge, and the question itself is preceded by at least three declarative statements.

There are times when I know my question is about to be stupid. I know that it will totally give away that I haven’t read up on the subject completely. For the sake of time, I usually ask it anyway, with an apology.

Reporters learn an important lesson early on about questions: It’s better to reveal your stupidity to your interview subject than to confirm it for 200,000 people the next morning. (And in the Internet era, your stupidity is confirmed faster, followed by anonymous commenters who don’t let you forget it!)

For the intellectually curious, (which I know you are or why would you be reading my blog?) , questions make life more fun.

For fun, here is my short list of OK to ask questions and NOT OK to ask questions.* Please add your own favorites.

OK & FUN QUESTIONS:

“How old are you?” — If it’s relevant to your conversation, and you can not be obnoxious about it, why not ask this? Reporters are forced to ask it, and are often met with indignation. It’s ridiculous that in our society, age is treated as if it were some big secret. Every year, we each get older. My husband, who suffered from two bouts of cancer in his twenties, is proud of every year he gets. Count your blessings to have made it that far. I’m 28.

“It smells really badly like feet. Can you please make an announcement?” — I asked the flight attendant this prior to departure on my recent eight-hour flight to London. In my defense, the smell filled the cabin and was just awful. (She sympathized but was unable to comply. But how awesome would it have been if she had?!)

“Are you in love?” — I once asked a co-worker this after just having met her. She’d mentioned that she had a boyfriend and, at that time, I was puzzled about the nature of love. This co-worker later scolded me for that question, saying it was too prying. However, she’s now one of my best friends, so I suppose it all worked out.

“How much do you want?” — My alma maters have a real talent for hiring poor students to call my cell phone around 5:30 p.m. each spring and fall. After the student introduces herself and asks me whether I enjoyed my time at university, I usually interject with whether I’m willing to cut a check or not. That’s right Northwestern. I know your game.

“Is it that you really don’t know or that you aren’t allowed to tell me?” — I’m a huge fan of honesty in all situations, and I respect that some people’s employers prevent them from telling me certain things. So, I’d rather just know the nature of what I’m dealing with.

“Why do you want to know?” — This is a great response to prying questions. Sometimes, people don’t know what they shouldn’t have asked. Take pity, we’ve all been there.

NOT OK & BOORISH QUESTIONS:

“When is your baby due?” — Just do not.

“Is there a vegetarian option?” — Down South, I learned that it is never OK to ask this. (Unless I wanted to be immediately branded as a clueless northern urbanite, and who wants that?) This question particularly flopped in barbecue restaurants. Learned that the hard way.

“Who is ____ ?” — I’m a pop culture dunce, and the older I get, the more names I can put in this blank. Once, I was interviewing the manager of a riverboat casino in Northwest Indiana, and he proudly told me, “We’ve secured Mike Ditka as our spokesman.”  By saving grace and intuition, I knew that asking “Who is Mike Ditka?” would not ingratiate me to this man. As it was a phone interview, I quietly Googled the famous football player and coach and merely said aloud, “Congratulations!”

“When are you two going to get married?” — Are you asking, or accusing and trying to make a statement? I often hear this asked of couples who have been dating a long time. It’s a boorish question!

“What’s an IPO?” — My very first journalism internship out of undergraduate college was at the Washington Business Journal. To this day, I can’t believe that I asked that. Asking the owner of a private company that question is like asking any other person, “What’s cheese?” (Wikipedia link for IPO.)

*I’m sure there are laws about questions that hiring managers are allowed to ask. I’ve ignored those laws.

With its spinning neon globe overlooking Elliott Bay, the printed Seattle Post-Intelligencer was a West Coast institution. It was the state’s oldest business. A home for elegant scribes and scrappy diggers. Quirky. Artistic. Majestic. Beloved. Hated. Respected. Feared.

Working there as a reporter was a personal dream-come-true. I loved that place and proudly showed off my business card to whoever asked, “What do you do?”

After years of moving around the country and seeking a home, I’d found one in the P-I. I belonged at a newspaper. That newspaper. In a major city. In Seattle.

So when the Seattle P-I stopped printing one year ago, I felt shattered. “How could they do this to this city? To us?” I wondered about Hearst Corp., the New York-based company that owned the P-I.

I felt angry and blindsided and helpless. I was one of 10 percent of the staff chosen to work for seattlepi.com — which was a blessing in that I had something to focus on and I got to keep doing what I love.

But now, one year later, I am working in finance — almost by surprise. And I realized this week: Of course. I needed to understand what happened, and to do that, I had to understand more about how business works.

Sometimes it’s hard to be objective about the things we love — even for reporters.

My new job as a junior stock analyst has helped me to see my treasured-shuttered newspaper with fresh eyes. Objective eyes.

Early into the new millennium, the P-I had become a crappy company with a business model creaking louder than the globe atop the building:

–It was losing up to $14 million a year with no future profits in sight.

–It outsourced its basic money-making functions to its biggest competitor, which also, oh by the way, was run by men who wanted to squash it dead. (The P-I’s printing, delivery and advertising sales were handled by the rival Seattle Times. This would be like if Coca-Cola outsourced its distribution to Pepsi Co.)

–It was staffed by members of a feisty union that wasn’t afraid to tussle with management.

–It was overseen by new executives in New York who didn’t put the paper into the mess it was in, and had little inclination or time to get it out of it.

–It was operating without any legal freedom to market itself.

“Shit show” is a new phrase I’ve picked up from the finance industry to describe operations like the P-I. I love the term. It’s brutally honest, doesn’t mince words and isn’t afraid of the truth: Kinda like the P-I.

The whole devastating debacle taught me two crucial life lessons:

Money matters.

Whatever can’t go on forever . . . won’t.

And that shit show reality is why you’ll never find a P-I flapping in the wind at the Pike Place Market newsstand again.

Harris quit her reporting job at the Chicago Tribune last year to pursue a simpler life. She gave up the city, the stress and the suits, and now blogs about all that she has gained in return.

At the time, I admired that she admitted in her final Tribune column that she isn’t independently wealthy. Translation: Any of us could shun the material stuff and do what she’s doing.

Part of my fascination with her blog is that she and I went opposite ways — I traded journalism in for high heels, stock analysis and finance.  She left to start a family and grow her own vegetables.

She’s also a good writer, which makes reading her blog a guilty pleasure.

Today, she has posted a guest post from me. It’s an essay I wrote about my irrational love for my car.

Check it out, and leave a comment!

Seattle P-I employees hear that their paper might close (Andrea James/Jan. 8, 2009)

It was this day last year when news of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s impending shut-down hit the airwaves.

If you haven’t heard the story before: The P-I staff first learned of this terrible news by watching it on television.

It was after 5 p.m. and the staff was putting the paper to bed. A major winter storm had hit Washington state, and thus most of our daily coverage focused on that – I believe that I wrote something about hindered truck shipments into Seattle. Overall, it had been a satisfying day — plenty of news to fill our pages and I had beat deadline by about an hour.

But I wouldn’t be going home anytime soon.

Over in the business news section, editor Margaret Santjer saw something alarming on the television by the sports copy desk.  She fumbled with the remote control to the business section’s television, trying to switch the station from CNBC to the local King-5 TV news.

What we saw on the screen was shocking: The Seattle P-I was up for sale and would likely close.

I fired off this e-mail to my closest friends and husband:

Subject: OH MY GOD WTF!!?!?!?!  

I’m shaking so bad. everyone in pi gathered around the TV. this breakign news. WE KNOW NOTHING.

Source: Seattle P-I to be sold, or closed
04:58 PM PST on Thursday, January 8, 2009
By LINDA BYRON / KING 5 News

KING 5 news has learned that Seattle may soon become a one newspaper town. . . .

E-mails came flooding into me from friends who had heard the news. Amidst the shock, my editor realized that we had to report this development.

I followed up via e-mail to my core group of friends, “Great. Now I get to report this story. Trying to keep my composure and make calls.”

Reporter Dan Richman and I could not confirm the TV report that evening. A source/friend at King-TV told me that some producers there were uneasy about the story, but that it had been approved from on high. “I hope we’re right,” my television friend said. And then he paused awkwardly, “I mean, uh. . .sorry. . .”

I cut off his apology. I understood.

At one point after several unsuccessful calls, I slammed down the phone and said, “Linda Byron better have a damn good source!”

Boeing reporter James Wallace responded, “No. No, she better have a f*cking lousy source!”

I have to hand it to King-5: It was a great scoop. Some people in the newsroom said it was humiliating that we found out externally — imagine being scooped on our own demise!

Strangely, I did not share that sense of indignity. I tried to summon outrage, but for me the whole situation was just ironic.

I felt like I’d had plenty of personal scoops. Also, even though the business of media was one of many topics on my ever-enlarging-as-the-staff-was-shrinking beat, a P-I closure wasn’t on my radar.

In fact, in the past month I had been developing sources and monitoring the finances and court filings of our rival, The Seattle Times. That paper was so saddled with debt that it couldn’t pay its bills, and thus had to restructure and put properties up for sale. The banks were closing in with demanding covenants, and it seemed logical that the Seattle Times was on the brink of filing for bankruptcy protection. (Our closure was probably the paper’s lifeline.)

Also, as a business reporter who routinely tried to beat companies on their own layoff announcements, I felt like King-5 was giving me my just desserts. (Six months earlier, I’d sort of done it to Starbucks. Here’s a similar one on Getty Images and another on Safeco.)

Because we couldn’t confirm the report, we played it down. It ran in the bottom left corner of the business section (newly moved behind sports). The Seattle Times put its version, also unconfirmed, on the front page. I later found out from my sources at the Times that the editors there were shocked at how the P-I played the story. The Times’ confidence in its front-page placement came from its respect for King reporter Linda Byron, who is known around town for her diligence.

Before going home that night, wires editor Maren Hunt and I grabbed a neglected, dying, flimsy potted plant — sent weeks ago by a PR firm — and posted a sign to it that said, “Seattle P-I Official Plant.”

The next day, we found out that the King-5 report was true. I wrote to CBS MarketWatch’s Jon Friedman, “Things are crazy here. I’m writing the business news story about us…can you believe that? I just gathered newsroom quotes, interviewing crying reporters while I cried myself.”

That day, Dan Richman, Margaret Santjer and I fashioned a lede on our story of which I will always be proud: “After 146 years of delivering news, the Seattle P-I faces becoming what it has chronicled: history.”

Three months later, the newspaper shut down.

Dan and I reported that story, too. (This wasn’t even the first newspaper death I’d covered — two years earlier I chronicled the death of the King County Journal.)

There is something about the time-span of one year that makes you look back and assess. What a difference one year makes: One week in, and 2010 is already shaping up for me way better than the first week into 2009. So far, so good.

The economy is rebounding — taking its dear, sweet time, but rebounding. A redesigned Seattlepi.com lives on and thrives toward profitability. And I personally have found exciting and fulfilling work.

(Sadly, the P-I staff  has scattered and some still have not found jobs. Investigative reporter Ruth Teichroeb’s “where are they now?” piece is here.)

During all of the closure mess, a film crew came in to use the P-I closure as its subject to compete in a 48-hour documentary challenge. They shot and edited this short film in just two days!

After a year of screenings at film festivals around the country, including at the Seattle International Film Festival, the video has been posted online. It stars me, former P-I managing editor David McCumber and P-I columnist Joel Connelly.

Watching it is what inspired this post.

Alternatively, here’s a link to the video where you can learn more about it.