November 17, 2006
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The Daily News
1 I want to apologize for a lot of the editing errors that seem to have been permeating the DN this year.
2 It seems that I write, re-write, and then transfer it from Mozilla Firefox back over to AOL, and somewhere between that and your basic senilty, I lose letters, misplace modifiers, and dangle participles.
3 I don’t much mind the misplaced modifiers; it’s the participles that are dangling that certainly cause more than their fair share of concern.
4 Don’t hold your breath waiting for it to get better. I usually read it the night before I put it to bed, and then drift off into a sort of Care Bear dreamland.
5 In the morning I’m always fresher and more alert, crisp, and with all participles lined up and standing at full attention.
6 It’s then that I jump in and say to myself, “Self, that sentence needs the active case. Stand and deliver!”
8 AOL then steps in and jumps up and down, splits sentences, refuses to center any of the pictures, and misbehaves like a red-headed stepchild.
9 It is then that the clock begins moving to departure time for the Chill-on-the-Hill.
10 But I swear to you I’m working out the bugs.
11 I should have this little guy up and working in no time.
12 You oughta see me send e-mails to the faculty. I actually write about six test runs so that I don’t sound like the village idiot, and every single time I write something to them and send it off, there is some imbecilic thing that goes out accidentally.
13 Yesterday I sent my Camp Everytown nomination forms out to the staff. For some reason, I think every e-mail I sent all day was clipped to the one I sent. Or something. I always send one to myself just to mock myself.
14 My e-mail had a table on a second page, no reason except that I forgot to delete it. And the e-mail seemed to resemble a stack of papers that were separated by bubble gum.
15 I just figure, “Meh.”
16 It drives me crazy though, because like anyone, I wanna make a good impression on all these people who don’t mean anything to me.
17 Ever been in that sort of situation? You’re busting your chops to impress people who barely notice you and then you do something that makes you look like you oughta be put in stocks?
18 And I ALWAYS over-react, which is WAY out of my character.
19 I jump in the air, turn around, and shout out expletives. I then throw coffee cups against the wall and try to throw Post-its all over the room, but they wind up just sticking to my head and arms and stuff.
20 And then there are the 20 S.W.A.T team members surrounding the place, and the nice man with the bullhorn.
21 I’m okay though. I just calm it all by listening to the TeeVee going on behind me.
22 Elton John is on Barbara Walters right now singing, “I don’t have much money, but boy if I did; I’d buy a big house where we both could live…”
23 I swear that just happened. It’s unrelated to anything I’m writing, and sort of random, but I thought it was a nice background to all of this. Ah, maybe it was related. Who cares anyway?
24 The thing is, I always have TeeVee blasting behind me and to the side of me, two different rooms. So the DN constantly is bombarded by media. I sort of like it, because it keeps me over-stimulated and A.D.D to the max. I’m like a little kid who suddenly notices an old toy and gets distracted by it’s newfound spark.
25 Oh, and I always crank my neck to look at the TeeVee. Barbara is having a special about how terrific she is, and she asked Donald Trump something, but I couldn’t get past his combover. How can anyone take that goofball seriously?
27 You gotta wonder a little about the matron of the View.
28 She has a bunch of questions she is asking famous men about their personal lives, and seems downright probing about it.
29 Makes me wonder if she was Barbara Wallflower when she was younger.
30 A commercial for Wal-Mart just came on, almost poetically. Hard to describe but this is all coming at me so fast.
31 I actually like Barbara Walters.
32 I offer that out just in case she reads this and wants to come over for an interview.
33 And if she starts to probe, I’ll just excuse myself and tell her I’m editing the DN, and that please, I can’t be bothered.
34 And that’s the way it is.
35 Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
36 Have a great weekend.
37 Peace.
~H~
6 It’s then that I jump in and say to myself, “Self, that sentence needs the active case. Stand and deliver!”
7 I then move into my action plan, which is to hammer this out with rat-a-tat precision so that by the time it gets delivered, it is alert, humorous, poignant, and right on the money.
~H~
