News to make you snooze

I wrote the cover story. Actually, compiled would be more like it, but I guess you could say I’m to blame for any omissions, misspellings or verb tense switches.

Man, looking back on a year’s news will put you into a weird head space. Christ, this stuff is depressing. On the other hand, it kind of forced me to re-examine what news really is and the stuff I don’t like about it that got me doing it in the first place. Do you need a list? Your average news—TV, newspaper, radio, Internet—is boring, superficial, misleading, manipulative and irrelevant to me.

So, in an effort to counteract all the bad vibes I picked up while researching this story, I thought I’d offer some real-life remembrances that would never make a headline in any paper on the planet.

Last spring, my girlfriend’s oldest son, Danny, won a ribbon at the science fair.

In May, Time magazine sent me to Las Vegas to interview strippers. And paid for three lap dances. In 2002, I loved my job most of the time.

Last summer, the weather was quite nice. In fact, it was pretty nice in the spring and autumn, too. In my immediate vicinity, there was usually enough breeze for a kite, enough heat to be comfortable and enough blue sky to work in my garden.

Last fall, my girlfriend’s daughter, Amy, learned to drive without killing us. Hunter, our son, learned to write his alphabet and to sound out words.

In 2002, none of my friends were arrested. In 2002, some of my friends succeeded; Deidre got her masters, Carli got her invitation to the Peace Corps and Jimmy became editor of Tucson Weekly.

This winter, I quit smoking—again. There were no volcanic eruptions in Sparks.

Is this news? No, but it is the stuff that keeps me getting out of bed in the morning.