[If wishes and buts were clusters of nuts, we’d all have a bowl of granola]

The job is still going well. Tonight I got to lay out some live pages. It was a little stressful, suddenly trying to remember all the stuff I’d been told while the people who told me the stuff stood over my shoulder. But that’s sort of what you do when you’re new: sweat a little bit. Anyway, by the middle of the night, I pretty much had the hang of it. And everyone was helpful, which makes it that much easier.

I work with a lot of interesting people. There are at least three married couples who work within feet of each other. And the husband of the mayor of Germantown works on the copy desk. He made me a map of people’s desks labeled with their names, which was really nice. The editorial staff is pretty huge, and it’s hard to remember who everybody is and what everybody does. I remember feeling overwhelmed at first in Birmingham, but by the end of the first two weeks, I knew most everyone and their major functions. So this time around will probably be the same. And I’m so excited that people curse freely in this newsroom. It was rare that I ever heard anything vulgar waft through the cubicles in Alabama, but now I hear lots of little obscenities throughout the night. And that, folks, is a comfort to me.

My mom called tonight to tell me that my 94-year-old great-grandmother is in the hospital. She’s not doing too well, but mom said they’ve moved her out of the emergency ward and into a regular room, so I guess she’s improving. I visited her in the nursing home while in Savannah, and she was pretty vacant: just looking at me with her mouth open, making throat noises but not really speaking. I couldn’t tell if she knew who I was or not. She’s extremely frail and can’t sit up or eat solid food anymore. I remember last year she was living with my parents and they took care of her. She didn’t get around much, but she certainly shared her opinion on matters and smacked the dog when she got a chance. She used to get really discouraged and complain about not being able to just go ahead and die, since she was so miserable. Now she shares a room in the nursing home with her sister, my great aunt Thelma. Their other sister, Dorothy, died a few years ago, but the remaining two Newman sisters just aren’t tired enough to let go yet.