My coffee machine looks like Darth Vader

Mr. Coffee, with his easy-open top and removable grounds compartment, takes on a very dark persona whenever his lid is turned up.

Indeed, the machine's 12-cup brewing capacity is overshadowed by a resemblance to what could pass for the twisted offspring of Darth Vader and perhaps R2-D2.

Mr. Coffee bears a strong resemblance to one of the best-known Sith lords. Photo | Dominick Tao

Four women in a Panera Bread

Four women sit at a table in Panera Bread.

They have a feast of soup and sandwich and syrup-drizzled frappachinos in front of them.

The youngest of the bunch, in her late 20s, talks out the guilt that comes with her meal.

"I've been eating so bad lately. Like tonight, I'm going to Carrabas," she says. "But I'm starting my plan next week. I have it all planned out, every meal, what I'm going to eat."

Indeed, there's always a tomorrow to start something new.

And then there is the homely mom, with a bland-as-butter hairdo, jeans of a generic blue and a dark tan shirt that blends with her chair.

She talks about horses, how they can be fun. How she went on vacation not long ago, but how she couldn't ride with the others on the beach, because she had broken her wrist two weeks before.

"So I just went down to where all the shops were, and I had a great time," she says.

Indeed, a straw handbag made in China and some shells to go in your scrapbook are treasures enough. Horses and white Bahamian sand and waves would simply be too much of a strain.

Then the woman in the brown capri shorts and vest-like shirt with saggy eyes atop a little teardrop head with smoke-wrinkled lips starts talking about her last vacation, a cruise on a ship called Princess Somethingortheother.

She had gone just that once, but was an instant expert.

It was nice, yes. But there were qualms. The Princess hadn't enough rails. Indeed, her ship needed many rails, so she could peer out at the ocean from anywhere and be happy. And the rails the Princess did have? Too much in the sun. It wasn't possible, she said, to get a good view without letting the Caribbean heat touch too much of her conventional little face.

And then there was the biggest problem, God forbid: the children.

"There were so many, like roving bands of kids, about 10 at a time," she said. "They were from like 3 to about 12 or 13 -- and their parents weren't anywhere. They must have met each other in the clubs or pools. If you have kids, I mean, you should go on a Disney cruise."

Then the woman in jeans with elastic at the ankles and a white shirt with beads on it and over-hairsprayed blonde hair chipped in, noting that Disney cruises are expensive.

"Yes, but you get so much," said the cruise expert.

She went on to note how inconvenient it was that the cruise line even let kids into karaoke at night -- and she really couldn't believe that they had the gall to let them sing, too.

"Most of the time, I just stayed at the back of the ship, which is 21 and up," she said with definition. "I just got up, put on a robe, went up there and drank my coffee and watched the sun rise."

"Oh," said the woman in the white shirt. "It must have been so nice."

Indeed, all of their lives were so nice. So very nice.

Why the toil, why we report

Working late. Photo|Jake May

Jake May, a colleague here at the newspaper, caught me working late in the newsroom and snapped some photos.

He asked me to write a few things about why I even bother. Here's what I came up with for his blog post about the topic:

Just because I'm Clark Kent doesn't mean I'm not Superman.
Or at least it doesn't mean I can't try.
There are too many wolves and egotists out there who simply don't care. They'll steal, and relish in that they've grown richer as their victim grew commensurately poorer. They'll ruin a life through violence or subversion, simply for the satisfaction of winning. And they'll leave a mess, a trail of destruction in their wake, and leave it to the peasants to clean up.
And it takes much talent and guile to do all these things, to scam and steal and get away with it.
It takes just as much to bring them down.
And this is my super strength and ability to fly and fight: long, dark hours working into the night. Crafting against the crafty, and backing up every word.
And perhaps in the morning when the sun hits the news, enough justice will be reflected to right the wrongs. To let empathy triumph over apathy and greed.
No, I'm no hero.
But that doesn't mean I can't aspire to be.

***
And this essay raises a question -- do too many journalists think they're self-righteous watchdogs, that they really are modern day champions crusading for truth? Perhaps. But like Batman said to the hero wannabe in The Dark Knight after being asked, what's the difference between me and you? Batman's answer: "I'm not wearing hockey pants." My answer: I'm not the 10 o'clock news. I put in the time, the sleepless nights, the self-questioning and the hours of research and interviews to be sure that yeah, I really am doing what's right by those who have been wronged.

A deep breath from two weeks ago

Gainesville smells like my history. I have more subconscious invested here than I will ever know.

The plaza grass. The student ghetto streets after a good late-summer rain. The library bookcases and Turlington hallways.

For a flood of my past, all it takes is a breath.

On earnestness...

...and why it should be more widely embraced:

Fluff, I imagine, tastes to them like cotton candy, and real, raw feelings more like just-cut broccoli.

Then again, last time I checked, cotton candy was bad for you, and greens were quite good.

And yes, I like broccoli -- and think spun sugar is too sweet.

Above: what earnestness tastes like.

So... what are your career plans?

On a scholarship application, I was recently asked: "What are your career plans?"

Huh? At first, I honestly didn't have an answer. I felt bad about that -- as a 22-year-old with just one semester of college left, that's a question to which I should be able to produce a whip-quick response.

Then I thought for a second.

Oh, right! Those career plans. Turns out, I have such a good plan, it didn't even occur to me that it was in question. Here's my response:

If you asked me what city I will be living in a year from now, I wouldn't be able to give you an answer -- simply because I don't know. If you wanted to know what I will have for lunch tomorrow, I'd say to you, "food, delicious food" because that's as much as I can divine from my current mood. I know I will eat something, and that something will be good. But exactly what that something is, it's up to the cosmic menu of life to serve up, and for me to chew. But if you asked me what I'm going to be, what I'm going to do when I grow up, I'd have an answer for you before you even finished the question.

I'm going to be a writer. And furthermore, I'm going to be a journalist. I think it's one of the noblest, most fulfilling, and necessary professions yet invented. It takes all the creativity of a novelist, the pragmatism of a contract maker, and the moxie of something that goes beyond either art or arithmetic to perform. And it's a "job" that lets you adventure, explore and investigate -- virtues of life that I feel have been lost in the career pursuits of many the modern man.

Yes, it's true. Despite a life filled with every kind of unknown, every permutation of uncertainty, I'd sooner become a vagrant than abandon the only work I've found that doesn't really seem like work at all.

So when I leave the Times (a day I don't look forward to), I intend to finish my degrees in journalism and political science, and then find a place for myself in this Brave New World of news gone wild. Be it taking over the spot of a bought-out veteran at a redlining daily, or trying to find a focused audience on a Web-bound e-zine, I'll be a reporter for someone, somewhere.

In a nutshell: My career plan is to be a journalist, the best journalist I can be, for the best publication that will have me.