Tax time loometh

We're nearing April 15, and although I've filed my taxes, I'm still on the search for a job. For the first time, I applied for a job somewhere and had to explain the "gap" on my resume. Talk about adding insult to injury.

I'm trying, though. If it's out there, I'll find it.

In the meantime, I added "free-lance sports writer" back on my resume. I'd e-mailed Phil of Michigan Hockey fame during March, his busy time, to see if I could help out. Almost immediately he promised me four stories, which I officially got Thursday.

I totally forgot how much fun reporting and writing is. These are 800-word features and I tell you, I just love doing them.

It's almost unfair, really. Although I'm waiting for two callbacks to add to one story, I'm essentially done. I probably averaged three contacts for each and got pretty lucky on them being home. And they're hockey stories, so of course the people are talkative and friendly. Hockey people are always awesome.

The scary thing is these stories do come so easily, yet they pay the same as those state championship tournament ones I would do each March up until I went to Morocco. Those were equally fun to write -- let's face it, I love writing -- but wl-luh (that's "by God" in Arabic) the research for those was a bear.

On a given tournament story, it'd be something like an hour commute one-way, anywhere between 3-5 hours at a rink, at least four interviews as well as time spent tracking down the frazzled tournament director and scoresheets for the games up until the championship game, then getting back home, transcribing the interviews and writing a game story, then going through each of the 15 or so scoresheets to write something about each of those games.

So that took forever. The ones I'm doing now, though, haven't been more than three hours each, which includes everything from calling to writing. It's awesome.

The book is slower, though. Man, it's slower, but I think there is a final format now. I've turned in eight chapters and hope to finish the ninth tonight. Since there are 16, reasoning would be that I'm half done but the reality is some of the chapters were a little more pulled together than the others, and I did those first. I think the last half of the book will be more time-consuming, but I'm in it for the long run.

In other news, I dug up my old Red Cross cards, which means I don't have to re-take some classes to certify as disaster-trained. Realistically, I feel I should because even though they don't expire I don't remember squat. Most of the classes are offered at night, when I can't do them since I'm at a park, but I did just take a humanitarian law class yesterday, which was intriguing.

Last night, my dog showed her age. She leaps off the bed in order to go out for her last run (and she tends to stab me with her claws) and she returns with a cookie or rawhideand plops back up beside me.

I heard her nails clicking as they picked up speed and then I heard and felt a THUD. I looked down from the bed, and there she was, standing and looking more dazed than usual. My poor baby girl had smacked into the side of the bed.

But she did keep her wits about her. She still had a good grip on the cookie.

That's my girl.