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1998-02-04 - 10:04:53

A Day In My Life, 2/4/98

9:30 in the morning and the alarm goes off -- just like it did yesterday and will tomorrow. But it's hard to obey the BZZ-BZZ-BZZ when I have no classes today. So I'm out of bed at 10 and into the bathroom after attacking the SNOOZE button three times over the last half hour and thinking about my day ahead. Today is the day I will attempt to fully catalog in my notebook here, the great experiment. I'll record as many actions as I can, transcribe as many thoughts I can collect, and describe as many scenes as I'm able from this point until I return to bed sometime in Thursday's early morning hours. It is a difficult endeavor, considering I forgot to leave the notebook by the bed last night and already I've lost thoughts from the time the alarm first woke me to now, as I sit writing in the living room overlooking the Campus View courtyard, with Bryan's clean laundry piled high in the basket at my feet.

So now let the day begin: It's off to Loftus for a run.

It's cold outside after a few days of rather warm weather for South Bend in February. As I turn on the car, I simultaneously turn on the radio. The Beatles' White Album surrounds me. It's been in the tape deck for two weeks -- South Bend radio is weak, compared to the variety I'm used to in New Jersey. One station plays nothing but Pink Floyd, calling itself a classic rock station. Let's see -- Ooooh, it's Clapton, "Let It Rain." Some variety for once.

On the road I pass Rich, one of my roommates freshman year who now lives in the same apartment complex. I've seen him before, walking to campus with his lunch in a tiny Playmate cooler. But I've never stopped to offer a ride. Maybe because we haven't spoken in three years.

Running a mile isn't as easy as it used to be. I haven't exercised regularly since the last day of the cross country season my senior year in high school -- more than four years ago. But I make it around the track five times, still sprinting the last half-lap. Some people can't run like that in circles, seeing the same thing over and over again, alone with their thoughts. But I like knowing how far I'm going. Running is a tough workout -- it takes a lot just to keep at it. But in the end, I feel rejuvinated, awake, alive, refreshed -- I feel like I have accomplished something. This all started two weeks ago, when I weighed myself for the first time in a long time, and saw I weighed more than I ever had before -- 165. Not bad, but for someone who's 5-7 and been in the 140s most of his adolescent life, it's a little shocking. So I'm shooting for 20 lbs.

I got back in the car and drove home for a shower and lunch. Before showering, I loaded the car with the recycling -- a basketful of cans, another with newspapers, and one with glass and plastic bottles. It's just a little help for the environment, and I get 42 cents per pound for the cans. Afte ra check of the e-mail and a little Internet surfing, I showered, ate lunch and watched the noon news to see where Dennis Johnson chose to play his college football next year. Kentucky, instead of Notre Dame. So we didn't get the huge defensive lineman, but we still have the #3 recruiting class in the country, behind Michigan and UCLA. Now that I'm leaving ND, maybe the football program will return to what it was before I arrived.

At the recycling center, there was a large woman with nearly 10 plastic garbage bags stuffed with aluminum cans. She wore a jacket like mine -- blue, white and gold with NOTRE DAME emblazoned across the back. She had so many bags, the guys there didn't even weigh them all -- they weighed one and multiplied. I got $1.17 for my cans and headed to Jordan Volvo for an oil change.

A tiny little mechanic with a comb-over came out, set up the work order and pointed me to the waiting room. An older woman was reading the Chicago Tribune underneath the TV, which was showing some soap opera. I successfully ignored it the whole time I was in there. A handsome, well-built man in his late 20s or early 30s came in and selected a back issue of Newsweek before sitting down. He wore an olive green shirt under a checkered sportcoat of the same color with similar-colored jeans. He was waiting on the white Mitsubishi Eclipse I had seen out in the garage. He was married.

I was reading The Rise of Silas Lapham and the older lady closed her eyes. The cashier woman -- in her 40s and plump -- came in, apologized for waking the older woman, and told her her Lexus was ready. The two left and I was alone with the man in olive. While we read, a car commercial came on the TV, and I noticed as I looked up without moving my head that he was watching it. Back to our reading. Then the cashier came in and walked silently through the room to the ladies' room. She came out shortly, with the toilet flushing behind her. Just after that, a younger woman with platinum-blond hair came through wearing a black jacket and gray skirt. As I glanced up -- again without moving my head -- I could see she had nice, slender legs under the black stockings. As she passed behind the Olive Man, her heels click-clacking on the linoleum floor, he looked up and stared at her back as she went into the ladies' room. He resumed his reading and did not look up when she left the room.

Just after I finished Chapter 3 in Silas Lapham, the cashier came to get me. I put the $31 on my debit card, deciding that the next time I get my oil changed, it will be back at Tom Potter's. Back in the car, I headed to campus to pick up Jess and her friends to take them to get alcohol for their dance Friday. It's the first time I've taken her to get it, and I don't have a problem with it so long as I don't get caught. Six cases of Coors Light and a bottle of Captain Morgan Rum -- $90 in all. But at Meijer I was only allowed to buy three cases, and the woman behind me in line said, "You can just leave the store and come back in to buy the other three." I told her I figured that, and the cashier nodded at both of us, saying, "Yeah. I can't say that, but ... yeah." So I put the first three cases in the car and went back in to buy the other three. I dropped the three girls off near the Security Building, and they carried their luggage into the dorm -- Carrie with a suitcase on wheels handling four cases, and Jess and Liza each with one in their gym bags.

Back home again I checked the mail and received a postcard from Karen, my mother's cousin in California. The card showed a lighthouse which Karen said she'd take me to when I visit again. My family went out there in 1990, and since then I've always wanted to go back -- and Karen's always inviting me. And I'll go. Someday. Soon.

Having just read through the three applications for The Observer's new Managing Editors, I am a little disappointed. It was this time last year that I submitted my own application, eagerly awaiting the first week in March when I would become one of the paper's main editors. Looking at the applicants' goals, I am a little sad, realizing now that my time is coming to an end. I'm confident that we are leaving the paper better than we received it, but I'll miss being a part of the new changes. Ah, well, "to everything there is a season," and when it comes to The Observer, spring is the season to move out.

I sat down to transcribe the tape from my interview with Father Hesburgh about ND during the Civil Rights Movement. Wow, what a man. A true link to ND's -- and America's -- past, still alive and ready, able, excited to talk about it. Notre Dame is lucky to have had him for almost 65 years. Or maybe it wasn't luck at all ...

At 6 p.m., I entered The Observer office to help the new Editor-In-Chief with the interviews for the new managing editor. Brad, the outgoing EIC, Jamie and myself were with Heather interviewing the four candidates for four hours, with a one-hour break in the middle. We then discussed the candidates for another two hours after that. In the meantime, I called my roommate and he told me my ex-girlfriend (and near-ex of his; they never got too far past that first date) had responded to his stern response to an e-mail she sent us. She's been obnoxious and over-stepping her bounds. While we're talking, she walks into the newspaper office. I successfully -- though not discretly -- ignored her. A friend of Heather's came up with her ex problems, and we were chatting with friends and enjoying our time together while hashing out business matters too. We also had to deal with the problem of getting the list of 165 underage offenders cited for underage drinking at Bridget's last weekend. That list is public record. We have a right to it and a right to print it, too. But do we want to do that?

Once we exhausted that for the night, Heather and Brad left, leaving me to the mundane task -- though my job -- of reading The Observer to edit it for the night.

At 5 a.m., I stumbled home and into bed for the first time in 20 hours.

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