up and down and up and down

So quickly, I'll address the instagram photos above. I started the day bright and early at a Rivets and Roses photo shoot and meeting that lasted until 1 or so. After a rough afternoon, Jamie insisted we get out of the house and attempt to have some fun, so he took me to WSK (a new restaurant in town) where I had a delicious Sangria and lamb, cucumber meatball lettuce wraps. They were divine. Then we went to a photo show featuring a GAZILLION photos from the Minneapolis underground punk scene, which was super fun and made me feel old (in a nostalgic way). Up next was a trip to our buddy Gabe's house to watch part of the Vikings/Packers game with a bunch of friends before we skipped out and made the last showing of the new Bond movie. Whew! So yeah. We were determined to have fun tonight and get good and distracted. And the photos above document that in a clockwise order.And here's why I needed the distraction.Besides being generally down about Memphis still (I know, I know, I know she was "only" a dog etc etc, but damn I am so dang sad, and I miss her like crazy), today I found out that one of the reporters (actually, he's an editor now) at the paper committed suicide on Friday night. And the news hit me like a train.We were not close. I'm not even sure I'd say we were friends. We were coworkers. We had worked on big projects together (one that won us both some big awards) and we would say hello in passing. He was always kind -- and I'm not saying that because he's gone now. I'm saying that because newsroom workers in general are not kind. We are snarky and frustrated and sometimes mean and usually funny and sarcastic and man-oh-man are we JADED. But it's rare to find many of us who are just kind through and through. Myself included (uh, obviously).A few weeks ago he was telling me about his latest venison recipe in the break room. But that's about as close as we were. What is hitting me so hard is that I had NO idea he was depressed. No clue. None. To me he seemed good. Happy even. Man, was I wrong.I said hello to this guy just a few days ago in the hall at work and he gave me a big grin. It just... It reenforces that you never ever really know what internal struggles people are dealing with. You never really know what they are going through. So be kind. Be patient with people. Don't get so mad when someone isn't driving fast enough for you. When they take that parking spot. When they are late to the meeting. When they don't email you back. You don't know what they are battling, and everyone is struggling with something. We should all keep that in mind.