Despite the well-publicized tribulations of the newspaper business, I enjoy my job day-to-day. I generally get to leave the building and interact with people, writing stories and shooting video for the web. Yesterday I visited two artist’s studios at the Stutz; today the Indianapolis Zoo and the University of Indianapolis’ jazz ensemble rehearsal.

I went to the zoo to shoot video for a Valentine’s Day story about love in the animal world – how animals mate, if they do it for fun, how they procreate, the whole bit. The zoo was a bit skittish and I understand – they are in the business of species preservation and education, not letting a couple jackasses in to get pictures of meerkats humping. But I got a kick out of the zoologists’ attempts to differentiate between the mating habits of their non-human charges and us hairless chimps. It turns out that male sea lions make noises and show off to attract mates, that meerkats are prone to rape if females refuse their attentions, that dolphins ejaculate so quickly that you could watch two dolphins mate and not realize it happened; sounds so alien, right?