Life must have balance. Balance is good.

After sitting at a table at the mall's center court for 90 minutes, I'd begun to smile again with the realization that I was getting paid for this, that I was working. The Phillies brought their winter tour to the area, and three members of the team joined two Lakewood BlueClaws for an autograph session at a local mall this afternoon. I went, interviewed three major league ballplayers about the surprising season they had and chatted with the BlueClaws manager and one of their pitchers from this past season. I caught up with friends in the BlueClaws front office, as well as their photographer, whom I hadn't seen since maybe October. The newspaper wanted me to be at their table, available to sign copies of the book they put out commemorating the season, a collection of photographs and stories (many of them mine) that they bound together in a hard-cover, glossy-paged coffee table book that retails for $29.95.

I laughed and joked about it, wondering who would want some lowly sportswriter to write in their book, but about a dozen people came over, some of them very enthusiastic about meeting me. And I think one quiet girl, a teenager, maybe a senior in high school, might have had a crush. She was looking at me weird and didn't say much. But whatever.

And as I thought about the season ahead, all that I'd like to do with this beat, my upcoming trip to spring training in Florida, I caught myself enjoying my job again, reminded of why I became a sportswriter, why I like covering baseball and writing stories.

And just when I'd fallen back into employment bliss, when I'd let myself believe that, were it not for the drive to work and the future plans of moving in with Casey, I was happy in my job, I went to the office to write my story.

My sports editor wanted me to check with news to see how they covered it. They didn't. So my sports story became 8 inches for the news section - not even the main news section, but the county - and nothing for sports. At least it was only 8 inches - I only talked to the three ballplayers, nothing from the fans there in line to get autographs. On top of it, I was told I can't have a night off the weekend of Feb. 22-23, when Tessa and Jon will likely visit, and I wasn't given a reason. The guy who does the schedule was all set to give me Saturday until the sports editor vetoed it, with no explanation. My guess (I just realized) is because of the Olympics, but I consider that bullshit, and I don't care. Just because others can't do the job, I can't have off? Apparently there was a problem last night with our college basketball page in that those working didn't know how to code some of the files and stories and such. Well, I didn't create the page, I didn't do all the work, so it's not my fault that they don't know. One look at last week's page would've told them what they didn't already know.

I'm so tired of this. I was there an hour longer than I'd hoped to be, and now I'm at the folks' house for a short time to finish some laundry (though it's not all done) and apply for more jobs online. This has to change, I need something better. This will not do.

I'm not even going to write about the weekend right now, because I don't want to put that in here with such a bitter entry. I'll post this, take some time to cool off, drive back to Edgewater, and maybe write then.