Entries from July 2005 ↓

When I was a cheerleader most of the girls on the squad were really mean to each other. Big shocker. It was one of the reasons I decided to only do it for two years. They were all dating from the same pool of football playing boys, so that didn’t help inter-squad relations much.

I remember that the captain of our squad had it out for one of the "climbers" (aka those on top of pyramids). The captain just happened to be the person on whom the climber’s life depended. One time as we were about to send the climber flying into the air for a basket toss the captain said, "You better hope I catch your ass."

I was like, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" and moved to make sure the girl in the air didn’t come crashing down on her neck. I didn’t have to, because the captain was just fucking with her, but threatening murder or major bodily harm was fucked up, we can all agree.

I remember that that same climber’s mother had a problem with me. Isn’t that fucked up? I can’t even remember the reason now. It doesn’t matter. I was 14! I distinctly recall climber’s mother approaching me at a basketball game in this floor-length fur coat. God, I wish I could remember what her problem was now, thirteen years later, but I can’t. Something ridculously petty, no doubt.

There was always such drama. Once at practice I was being punished for something–not going back handspring, I’m sure–and was required to jog one mile for each transgression. I was up to about 6-7 miles, but I couldn’t force myself to do the flip. I’d jogged about a mile and half when I gave up. I was tired and beaten, and I quit. I grabbed my jacket, the one with my name embroidered on the front just above a stitched megaphone, and headed to a pay phone to call my mom. I had wussed out and just wanted to go home.

As I waited for my mother’s sedan I cried. Tears fell and I reached into the pockets to look for a tissue or something when my hand hit a small box. It was a hard pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

I’d grabbed the wrong jacket. The coat in my hand belonged to that captain I told you about, the really vicious one, the one I’d probably pissed off the most by walking out just before we were about to compete at nationals. I stood there another five minutes, maybe, contemplating just keeping the other girl’s jacket. But she was bigger than me, and three years older, and I think she had been in a few fights before. As I’ve made clear in this story, I was a big ole baby. I knew I had to give that jacket back.

So, I did what I had to do and marched back into the gymnasium. I opened the double doors with my head held high and walked to the pile of belongings on the bleachers. Twelve pair of eyes glared at me as I strode past, nothing but disdain and disappointment. For whatever reason the silence was too deafening, the sound of my sneakers on the gym floor and the sound of my beating heart was all I could hear.

"I TOOK THE WRONG JACKET," I said too loudly and too emphatically. It was obvious I’d taken the wrong jacket. Why did I say that? They all laughed. All of them. Not all at once, but like, one by one. That made it worse. By the time I made it out those doors hot tears were splashing onto my t-shirt.

I still regret never mastering the back handspring. I gave up. I failed. I let my fear keep me from doing something I really loved, despite all the cattiness I had to put up with. I haven’t let fear prevent me from doing too much else since.

In September I’ll take six days off from blogging at Nashville is Talking to train as a video journalist. WKRN, the station by which I am employed, is moving to the "VJ model" wherein current photographers and reporters and editors are trained to write stories, shoot video with small digital cameras, and edit their footage on laptops. This gives the station the ability to send more cameras out in the field (20-30 vs. 3-7), which provides for breadth of coverage. There is a lot of debate, particularly online, about whether WKRN (and San Franisco’s KRON) are making a good decision in moving to this model. But that is not what this post is about.

This post is about how excited I am to have the oppurtunity to train for this. I mean, I can understand how people who have been in the business for 10-20 years would be hesitant about the transition, but for me it is nothing but beneficial. My journalism education didn’t include a single course about television. When I arrived at WKRN I’d make lists of jargon I heard and look them up later. For me, this six-day training week (with 12-16 hour days) is going to be a crash course in how to tell a story with a video camera and a computer. I’ve long known how to tell a decent story with my fingers, on this keyboard, but I’ve dreamed of being able to tell a story in vsual way. I am a major film buff, you know.

I mean, people pay good money for training like this and I’m getting paid for it. As my momma always said, you can’t beat that with a stick. And I’m totally up for the challenge. I used to get off on 16 hour study days in college, cramming for tests, beating that looming deadline. I miss it in a way.

But I’m a little nervous I’m going to suck at it. I mean, a few of my digital photos are pretty good, but I’ve never held a video camera except at parties. My family never owned one. I think my Dad bought one later, but I never used it. I have been told that I have "a good eye," and I wouldn’t disagree with that. But that may be a whole different kind of eye than the one you need to shoot good video. We’re about to find out.

Writing the stories won’t be a problem so much. I’ve heard scary things about how tough the editing software is, but I am slightly more technically advanced than some of those going through training already, so maybe it won’t be so hard.

Anyway, I just wanted to say how stoked I am to acquire these new and hugely useful skills. I look forward to storytelling in an entirely new way, a completely foreign medium. And I wouldn’t mind saying, "For News 2, I’m videojournalist Brittney Gilbert."
That would be okay.

Here ya go.

I played softball for almost nine years, but I never was any good at it. My sister and I both played, but not only was she good, she was exceptional. I never hit a homerun in my entire softball-playing career, yet Amy was often purposefully walked by the opposing team because she could drive it far over the fence.

We are two years apart in age, which meant that every other year we were on the same team. The league was divided as such: 6-7 year olds, 8-9 year olds, 10-11 year olds and so on. And our teams were always pretty good. I remember one year when I played for the Ashland City Bankettes we won every game but one, I think, and we’d routinely beat our opponents by 30 points or more. That year we went to the state finals and came in fourth. But I certainly wasn’t the reason.

It’s kind of weird how I continued to suck for so long after so much practice. I was really scrawny when I was growing up, and clumsy. I was an eager batter with a weak swing. But once I was on base I was good to go. I was, at the very least, fast. I was always about the 7th or 8th batter on the lineup, and I played catcher. In a slowpitch league. I think everybody knows what that means.

Then all of the sudden our league became a fastpitch league. All of the counties surrounding us had been playing fastpitch for a couple of years before we finally made the switch.

Needless to say, catching for a fastpitch softball team is a little more, shall we say, challenging. For one thing, fastpitch allows base stealing. That meant my main objective was to never, ever drop the ball. Also, softballs flying at your face at 50-60 mph is frightening. You feel a little safer behind the mask and chest pate and shin guards, but you still go home with bruises on your palms.

But I loved stealing bases. Like I said, I was never a good batter, but fastpitch rules said we could bunt. I was a badass bunter. That ability, combined with my propensity to safely steal bases, meant I moved up in the batting order and saw a little more play time. I practiced hard when I began training as a fastpitch catcher, because it was rough to lose to those surrounding counties after winning for so long. My coach hauled in a pitching machine, cranked it up to 70 and stuck me in front of it. He made me run laps in all my catcher’s gear.

Despite all the hard work, we still sucked. Our competition was too far ahead of us.

I quit softball to be a cheerleader. I was a way better cheerleader than a softball player, but fear of a back handspring kept me from trying out for the squad my junior year, so I thought I’d go back to softball. I was too old by that time to go back to the city league, but my high school had an accomplished fastpitch softball team. I knew it would take some work, but I was incredibly fit after two year of competitive cheerleading, so I thought I could hang.

The first day of practice was tough, but I did okay. We went out on the field and ran drills, grounded balls, did some batting. The second day it rained, which is something I hadn’t planned on. I only brought my cleats to practice with me that day, but practice had been moved to the gym where only sneakers were allowed. Most of the girls trying out were also on the basketball team, so they had permanent lockers in their locker room which gave them access to tennis shoes. I wasn’t allowed on the gym floor in cleats, so I had to borrow a pair of sneakers from one of the basketball players. The only girl with an extra pair wore a size 9. I wear a size 6. But I had to make do.

They were hightops, all-leather basketball shoes, and they barely stayed on my feet at all. I had to tie the laces super tight around the ankles and wear two pairs of socks. The coaches showed up and divided us in to teams. Team one, my team, was to run one mile–18 laps–around the gym, and anyone that didn’t finsh got sent home. The team with the least number of people to successfully finish had to run an extra mile.

So I took off. And it was ridiculously hard. We used to run a mile every day before cheerleading practice, so it wasn’t the distance that got to me, it was the big ass clown shoes. Running in shoes three times too big makes things exponentially harder. It felt like I was climbing a mountain on skis. I had to lift my legs really high as not to trip. The shoes felt like heavy oversized bricks on my feet. But I made it. I ran the whole 18 laps in boat shoes.

But I forgot to tell you this part: I was sick. I hadn’t gone to school that day because I’d been puking. I tried to call the coach ahead of time and sit out, but she had no sympathy. I had to show up or I couldn’t play. I tried to eat, but couldn’t. I drank as much Gatorade as I could stomach and went in anyway.

The lack of food combined with the presence of a virus made me incredibly weak. After running my face was flushed crimson, and the skin around my mouth was pale white. I thought by lap 17 I was going to vomit or pass out, but I trucked on. I was dizzy and nearly in tears by lap 18. I made it ten yards or so from the finish line when I did it. I tripped over those big fucking shoes. I hit the gym floor with a thud and a squeak. My bare legs smacked against the waxed floor. I saw tiny lights, thousands of them in a sea of dark, but I heard one thing very clearly: "DRAG HER ACROSS!"

It was the coach. He was instructing my teammates to pull my limp, defeated body across the finish line. And so they did. I remember it so clearly. It was humiliating. The big shoes bouncing along as two girls skinned my knees trying to appease the coach.

But it was over. I sat there, a pile of failure in big ass shoes. We were told to move into the weight room while group two took their run. There was no way. I couldn’t even get off the floor. I crawled over to the female of the two coaches and asked if I could come back tomorrow. She said if I left then I couldn’t come back the next day.

I did the only thing I could do and slowly made my way out of the gym. Once safely in the hall I found an out of the way spot. I collapsed on the carpet and closed my eyes and tried not to hyperventilate or throw up.

I have no idea how long I’d been lying there when Mr. Angevine found me. He was my Latin and German teacher. He was surprised to find me in a red-faced, sweaty heap, and he offered a piece of candy to raise my blood sugar level. Mr. Angevine was a diabetic. He bought some water and took me to his classroom, and I rested at a desk until I could call my mom to come get me.

I say this because Channel 2 has a softball league that plays against the other stations in Nashville. And I wouldn’t mind playing; I think it would be fun. Besides, I’m sure it is slowpitch. Then I remember the Big Shoe Distaster of 1993 and I think otherwise. These people have cameras.

I once met a young boy at the laundromat who wearing a too-small Spiderman suit. He didn’t know any English, and I don’t know any Spanish, so we just played with our faces while the whites dried. His young mother seemed appreciative that he was occupied. I helped him pull down a comic book he’d thrown high atop a washer. His sweet smile and lack of chatter warmed me to him.

I saw him again many months later the same laundry spot looking older, more manly with longer hair, maybe seven now. I tried to catch his eye. I even waved. But he didn’t remember me.

I was interviewed by Christopher Parks of TheBizCast (along with Chris McIntyre of Podcast Alley) for a podcast that is now available online.

The Nashville City Paper did an article about coporate blogging and part of my interview with the writer is included. I haven’t seen the print version yet, but a photographer came and took my picture, so maybe I’m cheesing it up in there, who knows?

It is still cold where I work, but it is not the complete and total arctic blast that it once was when I sat with the anchors. And the televisions. I used to have this roomy desk with a row of televisions behind me and the remote at my disposal. I had my back to the newsroom and I thought perhaps my new co-workers were staging elaborate skits mocking me. This irrational fear, I suppose, is left over from high school. Anyway I would sit and blog and try not to listen and to all the conversations around me that didn’t concern me, which were most of them. But now I have a new desk.

I was moved into the conglomerate of desks in the center of the room. It is where the producers and assistant producers and reporters sit. I’m within earshot of the steady stream of news that comes in throughout the day and I sit next to the webmaster who feeds me handy links and press releases. (Note to self: Send Dana baby pictures.) My area is smaller, but I definitely don’t need a lot of room, and as a bonus benefit my desk is too low to allow me to cross my legs under the desk. Which is great because ten years of waiting tables (and a heavy dose of heredity) has left my claves flecked with tiny purple veins. Crossing my legs only makes this worse. I’ve resorted to popping my wrist with a elastic band everytime I catch myself doing it. The desk is helping this a great deal. That doesn’t mean I don’t shove one leg under my ass and sit all curled up in the chair fucking my back up for life. But I try not to do that too often.

The best part about my new desk is that is about 20 degrees warmer over there. There is no longer a draft so strong I had to cover my face and nose with a knitted scarf. Now merely two sweaters is enough.*

What else? Oh! The boyfriend and I are moving. Move date: September 1. We have until then to find what we are looking for. We’d like to rent a house with a fenced back yard. Pets allowed. Hardwood floors would rock, but we aren’t gonna be that picky. (If there is a dishwasher in this new home I might throw a party for it.) We want to get a dog, and we can’t get a dog without a fenced back yard. We’d also not like to get shot at it we take a walk, which is rough, ’cause we are somewhat poor and can only afford to pay less than $700-$750 a month. Preferably less. (I just realized how crazy that is going to sound to you coastal folks.)

We’ve been around East Nashville but everything is either ghetto as hell or hip, gentrified and overpriced. You know we’d love to live in Sylvan Park but who can afford it? I’m in West Meade now and the traffic sucks, but it’s really safe. The boyfriend is worried about our safety. I guess if we get robbed the saving money on rent thing is sort of for nought.

So, if you locals know of any sweet rental deals on a house with a yard that will allow pets then by all means let me know. If we get the place based on your lead you can come over and help us move!

I’ll be seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this weekend. I’m trying to go in with a clear mind but I still have the sour taste of Big Fish in my mouth. Luckily Johnny Depp is a damn genius, so there’s that. I prefer independent films because they are more often different and well-written, but I also love seeing a highly anticpated, major studio release the weekend it opens. I succumb to the hype, get butter on the popcorn and hope to like what I see. No pen and paper, just hand in bag.

I took this great video outsdide with the camera. It is footage of our neighbor’s dogs. One is a little fluffy thing and the other is a weiner dog named Tino. Our neighbor is an effiminate fella and so when he says Tino it sound really queeny. Anyway, I had gone to this video class thing this weekend and was trying out the tips I learned. The fluffy dog is all jumping up into the camera, but the weiner dog gets camera shy and runs off. I finally spot him standing on top of atall pile of brush rooting around. About that time my neighbor comes out and so I say, "Hey, I’m filming your dog, I hope that is okay." He says yeah, so I go over and film Tino licking a wrapper that once contained food.

My neighbor said, "Tino, what are you doing?" And told him I thought he found some food. And my neighbor said, "Tino. He’s a hound dog."

That is where my video ended. I think it is so funny the way he says "he’s a hound dog," because no he’s not! The video is like 23 MB long or something or I’d upload it. If you want it email me and I’ll see what I can do.

And now, I leave you with this: When you aim shoot for the moon, so if you miss you’ll fall amongst the stars. (I wrote that on the folder I took with me to Girls’ State in high school.)

I decided on two columns.

Well? What do you think?

Give it to me straight.