No Day But Today

Besides the researcher job that I'm getting paid for, I've been doing all sorts of things at work today in the free moments when nothing has come out to final layout. To try to find out more information about this interview with American Media, Inc. next week, I contacted a previous Life & Style employee who now works as copy chief for Star magazine (an American Media title.) She told me in her brief e-mail that we should meet after my interview next week, that her desk is located near the HR office and that Elana Bloch is indeed the HR queen at American Media, Inc. Well, that doesn't really help me figure out which magazine I'm interviewing for but I did get to chat with an old journalism friend who is looking forward to seeing me!

I've made this a productive day despite being bombarded with two or three proofs when I came in this morning. I read the coveted Jennifer Aniston Vanity Fair piece (our magazine used some quotes from the story so I obtained a copy for source verification, stories about the revealing article have also been everywhere on the gossip pages, but now I finally have the article itself within my grasp, before its even hit newstands!!) I also wrote to a journalism mentor, who happens to be founder of Ed2010.com and deputy editor of CosmoGirl! for advice on applying to Human Resources at various publishing corporations (another Allure assistant editor was not so helpful and rather harsh in her responses, I don't think I'll be asking her for advice anymore.)

The mentor led me to a fellow journalist once at YM and Allure and is currently freelancing, and from the Highland Park area! (Who knew an experienced magazine journalist lurked within my own local confines?) I contacted her and am waiting to hear back; it would be nice to share stories about where we grew up (I in Metuchen, her in HP, I think she also went to Rutgers and her last name says she's a fellow Jew!) and of course advice on the journalism field (and how she got to so many magazines at such a young age is of course appealing to me!!

I sent my cover letter and resume to Conde Nast Publications (home of Vogue, Lucky, etc. etc) and pray to G-D that they'll give me a call back for an informational interview. Later, I'm going to read more of the Parsha and Rashi's commentary on it and study Hebrew letters (I know how to write my name!) It's a lot to do and you're all probably wondering how I have all this time to do all of this and get the job done but in reality, not all of it will get done (it will be mixed in with doing layouts of course.)

It's hard for many to believe I have this much free time, but such is the life of a fact checker. We wait and wait and wait for layouts to come out so we can fact check them and move them along in the editorial process. We wait long hours until we go home at 7 and 8 and 9 and 10 o'clock at night. But in the mean time, we do our own thing.

I'm not in such a great mood today, and it seems to be my mindset as of late. It's been a while since I've been this sad about nothing but its just the way I woke up this morning.

Despite the fact that nobody really cares to hear about my life or what I have to say, I find writing this blog a cathartic experience, among other things. I know that it is public and so I am careful about my choice of words (and I rarely use names except in a good light of course) So I will continue on this path of self-revelation.