RUDE AWAKENING

I've got to readjust my sleeping schedule.

Once again, I set the clock radio to go off at 6:30 a.m. so I could get up for work, figuring listening to the local radio station was a lot more pleasant way to wake up than the shock of that dreaded buzzer.

Maybe not. First thing I hear is the news -- and it certainly isn't good news. This guy's dead; this child is kidnapped; the economy is in the toilet and they are marching on Wall Street. What happened to a little motivational good news that might prompt me to feel good about life and actually make me want to rise from my slumbers?

Instead, I just pulled the pillow over my head as I dreaded getting up and facing the day.

As both a feature writer and an editor, I am always looking for some good news to write about or place on the page to offset the bad. Laying out pages in the newspaper, I look for fun stories to balance out the grief ... but sometimes I can go through the entire AP wire without coming up with anything. I know it's like any good novel and conflict makes for an exciting story, but come on, people. There must be something good happening out there.

Maybe I should plan getting up so it's not on the half-hour and right at news time, or maybe it's time to put that old clock radio back on the buzzer setting.

It can't be any more harsh than the news.

New Year's Resolutions Fail!

Now that the three-quarters point of the year has passed, I am evaluating my New Year's resolutions and realizing that I really haven't done a good job of fulfilling my obligations to whatever New Year's fairies oversee that stuff. But I did get the most important one accomplished -- getting Gabby off to college. Even though I had to go back a week later to bring her home for a funeral. I think it was a good learning experience for her, especially when she arranged the train ride back to save me from the three-and-a-half hour return ride to Niagara University.

I'm sure I'm in good company among people who make promises to better themselves at the beginning of the year, but then fail miserably. Let's skip right over the weight loss thing and examine the "more positive outlook in the workplace" resolution -- with only a couple of slips and one major blowout, that might be my second closest-to-accomplished resolution. I think the "Attitude Adjustment Seminars" (aka wing nights) with my co-worker buddies have helped that one. Sipping a beer and eating wings with the boss makes for a happy work environment when we get back to the office, I think. I prescribe that for anyone feeling the workplace blues.

Well, I suppose I still have three months left to lose my age in pounds by my next birthday, and it's only a pound every other day. And if not, there's always another New Year's Eve right around the corner to make new (or remake the same old) New Year's resolutions ...