TKM

You know that urban legend that says if you’re out for a pleasant night drive and you see a car with its lights off, DON’T FLASH YOUR BRIGHTS AT THE CAR, because, the legend goes, it could be a gang initiation wherein thugs drive around in the noir until they encounter a driver courteous enough to signal them, at which time THEY WILL KILL YOU DEAD!

The frequency with which that cautionary tale is circulated and cited as fact speaks volumes about the American psyche: Think twice about drawing attention to yourself among strangers, however friendly your intentions, because you may be singling yourself out for attack!

Well, I flashed my brights at the Episcopal Church via a December 19 Advocate.com commentary praising the gay- and lesbian-inclusive platform its leaders and members have embraced over the last several decades, a movement that reached a boiling point with the 2003 consecration of V. Gene Robinson, an openly gay and actively partnered priest, as bishop of New Hampshire. The church has since been wracked by conflict both internal—several dozen conservative U.S. congregations and one entire diocese have left the national body in protest—and external, with the worldwide body to which the church belongs, the Anglican Communion, threatening in fits and starts to cut the whole darn U.S. province adrift. Much more detail can be read in the essay itself, should you be so inclined.

Mine was meant as a friendly flick of the brights, a little shout-out to the church’s presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, who has held the progressive line despite enormous pressure to back down, and its beleaguered members, the majority of whom favor an inclusive church even if such a platform visits uncertainty and strife on their denomination. In recognizing and praising the national church’s vanguard position, of course, I noted its fallout, including the recent secession of that aforementioned diocese (in my own home state of California, no less), an unprecedented event within the church that underlines the recalcitrant position of Anglican traditionalists, many of whom habitually drive about with darkened headlights and a frank willingness to lash out at those who threaten to illuminate the world beyond their frosted windshield.

Given the Advocate.com audience, I anticipated a largely LGBT readership, thus vastly underestimating the Internet’s powers of dissemination. Remarking on the commentary’s Web traffic the day after it was posted, our digital media director said that the piece was logging the kind of numbers we typically see only on breaking news of, say, homophobic Republican senators caught in flagrante delicto with gents in public toilets. And you can’t just make that shit up; we have to wait—sometimes months between occurrences—for such gifts from the news gods.

Happily, most of my traffic was of a friendly persuasion. Plenty of nice Episcopalians, both gay and straight, clicked through from links on progressive blogs; several even took time to drop me an e-mail noting how gratifying it was to see a story acknowledging a straight Christian voice in matters of LGBT social justice. But links to my commentary inevitably also landed in a couple of inhospitable Web neighborhoods, the kind of places where we dykes and faggots had best drive through quickly if at all, lest the thuggish local holy men shoot out our headlights and smite us under cloak of darkness.

When my commentary came to the attention of members at a certain conservative Anglican blog, I was subject to much disliking. (I’m given to understand, courtesy of the aforementioned conservative Anglicans, that gay and lesbian folks overuse the word hate because, in truth, we relish victimhood. So chastised, I won’t be throwing that word around here, nope, not even when speaking of the only emotion I can think of that could possibly inspire random heterosexuals to spend such significant amounts of their limited time on this earth contemplating and communicating the kind of vitriolic hate not-liking speech that springs from the mouths of homo haters dislikers—other than that stultifying fear among certain types of their own inclination toward the love that dare not speak its name.)

What surprised me about the response among conservatives was the personal chord struck by their hatred disliking. Of course I knew when I published the piece that at least a few traditionalists would see it, and of course I knew they would like it not one bit; the commentary lionizes those very stances of the Episcopal Church that make its detractors go absolutely nuclear. But I think I did a fairish job of presenting the facts as well as my opinions without resorting to personal attacks, so I suppose I expected an in-kind response. If any. I mean, really, who the hell am I that those concerned with the serious work of calibrating the nation’s moral compass should waste energy shouting me down?

It took just four comments at the aforementioned blog for its readers to regress from parsing my text to parsing my appearance. From there, nearly half of the 31 comments to the link were concerned with, first, whether I was a boy or a girl, and second—after they deftly worked out that my first name, Teresa, and my self-identification as a lesbian indicated girlness—how much I didn’t look like a girl. Friends, I have met the enemy, and it attends junior high school.

The emphasis on my appearance seemed especially odd since I didn’t say one word about what John-David Schofield, the bishop who led the secession movement in central California, looks like:

But why go to town on a man’s appearance when there’s so much to say about his actions? Namely, that he has betrayed the will of his own denomination by refusing ordination to women, railing against gay and lesbian inclusion in the church, and operating an “ex-gay” ministry through his cathedral—naturally, he is himself a closeted homo (another factoid I didn’t mention in the commentary), having gone on record as an “ex-gay” years ago in an interview his followers now deny exists. But really, isn’t it more of a surprise these days when a virulently antigay leader isn’t a great big closet case?

Regardless of whether parishioners in crystal cathedrals ought to throw stones, they did so with delight—during a week in which I hope they also found time to celebrate the birth of their lord and savior. At one point the discussion addressed the likelihood that my appearance and orientation indicated a history of sexual abuse, an incredibly popular trope among the religious right—Google “childhood sexual abuse” and “lesbian” and your top hits will be “studies” conducted by fundamentalist organizations showing that a lesbian orientation is practically a gift with purchase of molestation. Was the poster asking the others to lay off discussing my appearance in deference to that probability, or was he gamely making sport of sexual abuse survivors? I’m honestly not sure, but I’m certain that the only time it’s appropriate for a stranger to bring up the possibility of my or anyone else’s sexual abuse history is never.

I responded by flicking my brights again, helpfully providing the Anglican blog community with a link to my earlier essay about gender, seeing as how they were so very interested in sussing out mine. Then a funny thing happened: The comments sort of petered out. Oh, sure, there was the peanut gallery member who countered with a link to an article about female aggression and lack of maternal behavior among spotted hyenas, appearing to suggest that, like the hyenas, women like me might be successfully treated with anti-androgen drugs to curb our masculine aggression (omigod, if they only knew how not aggressive I am) and cultivate feminine behaviors. A second poster brought up another popular conservative trope: that they don’t so much hate dislike homos, they just don’t understand why we always have to run around flaunting our relationships.

I know, right? It’s nearly impossible to go to mainstream movies or read popular books without being subjected to same-sex love story after same-sex love story. We lucky homosexuals grow up in environments where our sexuality is constantly reinforced as the norm.

To add homosexual insult to heterosexual injury, a person can’t go anywhere without seeing us engaged in acts of explicit physical affection!

If only we homos could just step back for a moment, we might recognize that ours isn’t the only valid kind of relationship.

Hey, your god just called. He hates dislikes disingenuousness.

Despite the aforementioned couple of stragglers, about 15 minutes after I announced my presence at the hateful dislikeful blog, the theretofore spirited commentary on my androgen-laden hyena-like ways ceased. Were the sanctimonious creeps turned off by the idea that their words didn’t appear to hurt me? Were they legitimately embarrassed to discover that I was privy to their ugliness? Or were they simply not interested in having an actual conversation with participation not strictly limited to those who completely agree with them?

Among many brilliant things le domestique has been heard to say, one of my favorites is, “The Internet slices people too thin.” Whatever personal inclination we want to feed—liberal or conservative, gay or straight, secular or religious, cat or dog, Mac or PC—there are scores of blogs and discussion boards online where we can get precisely the information and resonance we think we need. Such a sense of belonging is truly wonderful. But as the ease and abundance of access draws communities of common interest closer together, it pushes camps who disagree ever further apart, because increasingly, if we don’t want to, we don’t ever have to talk to anyone we don’t already completely agree with. It doesn’t bode well for the promotion of an open society. (For an accounting of 21st-century regressions of liberties and attitudes in the United States, read Naomi Wolf’s essay “Ten Steps to Close Down an Open Society” at the Huffington Post. It’s a chilling reminder of how far we’ve strayed from what most people think of as incontrovertible U.S. ideals.)

My flirtation with the Episcopal Church had consequences both expected and unexpected. While I have made much of the negative reactions by traditionalists, the positive response was tenfold the negative. Never has my writing been so profoundly rewarded as by the gratification and fellowship I’ve felt with Episcopalian readers these last couple of weeks. Confronting that same firewall of depersonalization their conservative counterparts sought so lamely to penetrate, many progressive Christians simply flicked their brights back at me to acknowledge that my gesture was well-received. Those who pulled over to invite me to their churches did so not to pressure or proselytize but to let me know that their doors would always be open.

To clarify, I have not had a religious epiphany. Nor can you expect me anytime soon to gift you with a New Testament—or even an Amy Grant album. This secular humanist doesn’t expect to undergo a faith makeover in the foreseeable future. But I have experienced a shift in my attitude toward Christianity. After a decade of static from the religious right, I had developed a bone-splintering knee-jerk reaction to the ecclesiastically inclined. I didn’t cultivate it, but I didn’t deny it oxygen either—like most people I seek online resources and news stories that reinforce my worldview, and, well, being an atheist sometimes makes me feel like a freak, like I’m missing something that everyone else sees, and feeling like a freak can make a person a little defensive, especially when religious organizations are actively distributing free bumper stickers condemning my right to equality.

Like the conservative Anglicans I encountered, I too had become a bit blinkered to the idea that a monolithic concept—in my case Christianity, in theirs homosexuality—is best viewed in full light of the individuals who give it life. I’ve since been reminded that for every Christian who dims his headlights to get a bead on his enemy, there are many more who understand that true humanitarianism is contingent on communication with people outside one’s immediate faith and social circles. In this age of increasing polarity I’m grateful that such people exist at all, and even more grateful that so many of them flicked their brights back at me to signal that my message was well met—and perhaps also to let me know that those shadowy thugs in the next car, for all the dire warnings we’ve heard of their quick and powerful wrath, are only threatening if we give credence to their legends and thus snuff our own lights.

“Stop Googling yourself!” le domestique commanded when I told her the two-faced kitten had died.

How could she know that having become Googlable represented for me the realization of a hastily conceived eleventh-hour backup dream? Indeed, how could she even understand the singular thrill of finding herself online when she can’t even effectively Google herself, her full name being far more common than mine and therefore returning more hits—72,800 in a quoted search—than are worth sifting through for the little nuggets of self-referential celebration contained therein.

“Teresa Morrison” isn’t such a rare name, of course, returning 1,590 hits of its own, and in searches past I’ve had to sift through my own share of more notable women who share my name—Teresa Morrison the bog turtle expert; Teresa Morrison the Nova Scotian soccer midfielder who, along with her identical twin, plays in a Canadian national women’s league; Teresa Morrison the racing yacht skipper; Teresa Morrison the second-grade teacher whose class collected 1 million buttons for a history project—to find even a single genuine reference to Teresa Morrison the copy editor—that would be me—as listed on the online masthead of The Advocate. Listen, I’m pleased as punch to work on the magazine, but finding myself on its masthead online isn’t as thrilling as all that; I know that I work there, and even what I do, and I can see my name on the masthead in real paper issues any old time.

Then again, I’m not sure the Teresa Morrison in Lake City, Fla., who grabbed headlines in March 2005 as the owner of a cat who gave birth to a kitten with two faces—two sets of eyes, two noses, and two mouths that mewed in unison, side by each like a little domesticated Janus—was herself all that thrilled with her peculiar status on the World Wide Web.

The two-faced kitten TM has long been the most prolific source of hits for all us Teresa Morrisons. So many were the mentions of her mother cat’s queer little anomaly—the first such birth on record—that like a tree lost amid a forest, the follow-up story reporting that the kitten had died just two days later had completely eluded me in my past searches. So it was with some sadness that I recently passed that news along to le domestique, prompting the suggestion from her that I was perhaps spending too much time searching for myself online.

All this self-Googling started a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed a precipitous spike in hits to my blog, including a wealth of click-throughs from a piece I had written for Advocate.com, “The People vs. Loving,” on California’s Assembly Bill 43, which but for its veto by Governor Terminator would have removed references to gender in the state’s marriage laws, clearing the way for same-sex couples to wed—and clearing the way also, by dint of an exceedingly slippery slope prophesied by the collective lurid imagination of the religious right, for polygamy, incest, bestiality, rampant public sex, the death of the American family, and the crucifixion of all that is holy and good.

Even Belgian dogs reject our advances.

The curious thing about this spike was that it came weeks after the commentary had been posted, and therefore weeks since it had been at all prominent on Advocate.com’s splash page. So I Googled the title of the commentary and solved my little mystery quicker than you can say “Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective.”

An article on the subject at The Washington Post’s Web site had linked to my AB 43 commentary, along with other recommended related reading. Let me say that again. A newspaper that is regarded among the top half dozen or so papers in the nation—that little rag that broke Watergate—pointed to my silly old commentary on an LGBT news site that likely sees 1/100th the traffic commanded by its own online maw. And some of the readers who followed the link and read the Advocate piece came, in turn, to my silly old blog!

Good golly, if The Post is tapping my genius, can The New York Times be far behind?

Yes, it turns out, it can be, as I have yet to find evidence of any notice of ME by the newspaper of record. I have found one other news site link, this one from a blog at the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman-Review pointing toward my latest piece, “Boy, Interrupted,” a commentary on our societal gender baggage as seen through the lens of LGBT infighting over the scope of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

That piece also prompted a number of links from sites that aggregate transgender and gender politics news, which is kind of cool considering that I feared just the opposite might happen: that transgender rights folks who read the piece might say, “Who the hell are you to speak out about gender issues?”

For the record, I’m just another voice in the wilderness. And thank you for not yelling at me.

My online proliferation—proliferation being defined here as anything less than complete anonymity—comes not a moment too soon, as I can practically feel the heat of 40 candles lighting up a trans-fat-free birthday cake even as I write this. Depending on whom you trust—me, or the federal government—I entered the world four decades ago tomorrow, or maybe yesterday.

Am I the only person with a Social Security birthday that differs from her actual birthday? I didn’t realize this until several years ago, the first time I tried to file my income tax return electronically. My return was rejected because the birthday I entered differed from my birthday of record, which was apparently entered as November 13, not November 15, at the time my Social Security number was issued. This was news to me, so I naturally called my mother, who had filled out the application for my SSN when I was still in grade school. After I explained the confusion, she expressed a moment of doubt (!) and suggested I check my birth certificate. I did, and it confirmed the date I’ve always celebrated: November 15.

For simplicity’s sake, I changed the date on that year’s tax return to November 13, thinking I would iron it out later, but in years since I’ve been both (a) too lazy and (b) too disinterested to go wait in line at the Social Security office to disabuse the feds of the notion that my birthday is any day but what I say it is. Besides which, when it comes to the Federal Bureau of Misinformation and Wrong-Headed Opinions About Me, date of birth is very low on my list of correction priorities.

So if you think our government is never wrong, my birthday was yesterday and you totally missed it. Otherwise it’s tomorrow.

Whenever you personally celebrate my birthday, I will this week enter my 40s, which is high season for a midlife crisis reflection as to who we are, what we stand for, and how life thus far stacks up against our lifelong goals and dreams. I could overcomplicate this, but for once I won’t:

Failure: I haven’t published a book.
Accomplishment: I haven’t killed myself.

The latter is an ongoing goal that can’t technically be called an “accomplishment” until my death is achieved via any non-self-inflicted means, but I feel confident in declaring victory on that front because I now know of a place I can go where condescending but well-meaning people will keep me away from the knife drawer and ration my pills in little paper cups.

On the other hand, the former goal can’t truly be labeled a “failure” just yet. In life’s marathon, I’m only at mile marker 13, maybe 14 (if you have reason to believe this is an erroneous assumption, please notify me immediately). I still have time to write my masterpiece minor-key memoir, and even if I never publish a book, that goal seems more mutable to me now than it did when I was 12 and first conceived it. In 1979, the World Wide Web was more than a decade from fruition. There was no way for me to conceive then of a future network through which I could pass school notes on a grand scale, reaching 10s, even scores of readers, many of whom aren’t even in my homeroom! Had I known that, would I still have dreamed of one day publishing something as tiredly old-school as a book—an object of heft in the hand, one with pages, whether rough or smooth, that propel the reader through setup, conflict, and, with any luck, a satisfying resolution, after which we may close its covers with some small ceremony, taking a moment to reflect on the just-completed journey, perhaps reading or rereading the author’s bio and gazing at his or her jacket photo with simultaneous deep admiration and slight jealousy?

OK, I might yet be suckling at the teat of that dream. But had I known at 12 what wonders lay just over the Commodore 64 horizon, surely I would have conceived a backup dream of one day being Googlable. And had I been so prescient, that backup dream would seem nigh on the eve of my 40th birthday!

I’ve been inching up the Google chain these past few weeks, and have made significant progress even in the last few days. During a search this weekend, my earliest Google hit was at number 25, with subsequent citations at odd intervals. But a search just conducted in the moment before I wrote this sentence yielded my first hit at number nine! I have entered the Teresa Morrison top 10! High-five me, bog turtle expert, even if my second mention slips all the way to number 61 (!), after which many of me can be found hanging with my homegirls in the 80s and 90s.

It’s fascinating, isn’t it, watching the notoriety of non-famous people—and even famous bog turtle experts—rise and fall like stock market shares?

The Teresa Morrison with the two-faced kitten, once so dominant on the Googlescape, has now fallen behind me. She’s also lost ground to folk musician Teresa Morrison of the duo Up River, available for weddings and your more Celtic-themed bar mitzvahs; New York chanteuse Teresa Morrison, who can be seen and heard on YouTube singing “Easy As Life” from Aida to a noisy-to-the-point-of-rude lounge audience; and, of course, Nova Scotian identical twin soccer stud Teresa Morrison.

And don’t count out that second tier of Teresa Morrisons—the group with whom I identify most strongly, even if I’ve temporarily slipped toward the head of the pack. Many of us are making our case for first-page status even as you read this. There’s the Teresa Morrison of Kitchener, Canada, who in a formal complaint to her district laments that excessive truck noise and traffic on her residential street limits the time she spends in her garden and her outdoor enjoyment of her property. There’s the Teresa who owns the Morrison Inn and Holiday Bar in Morrison, Colo., whose 450 residents fancy theirs “the most haunted town in America, per capita.” There’s the Teresa Morrison of Nassau County, N.Y., who, as a losing candidate for the Farmingdale Village Board of Trustees, campaigned on a platform that pleaded “for people to be happy to live here and for the bickering to stop,” a sentiment I think we can all get behind. There’s the Teresa Morrison who as a lab tech at the University of Georgia School of Veterinary Medicine founded a now-20-year-old pet visitation program for homebound seniors.

In the end, though, I think there may be one way in which I’ve affected the Google fame of every Teresa Morrison out there, and I’m not sure how they’re going to feel about it. Due to the nature of my appearances and citations on LGBT-oriented sites, our name has become a keyword that will generate hits on bottom-feeder porn sites, whose little spiders go out Web crawling and collect captive phrases resulting in nonsensical hits like this one, which, if clicked, will make your monitor erupt as a pornographic house of mirrors with new windows opening faster than you can shut them:

Gay Squirts: Most actual news about hunk fucking and gay surfing; civil unions; gay-friendly; Teresa Morrison!

Or, even better:

Gay Canadians: Best Gay of Mexican hunk information source! By Teresa Morrison

At last, I’ve achieved gay porn search term status! And to all those other Teresa Morrisons who never did nothin’ gay to nobody, “You’re welcome!”

With my backup dream accomplished, and my not-killing-myself goal making steady progress, I can put foolish dreams and cares aside and turn 40 without a worry in the world as to what this second act may yield. With one eye focused bravely on the future, and one lazy walleye retrospectively surveying the detritus strewn about my beaten path, I will move through life with the courage and the pride of a woman who has no need of worldly huzzahs.

Life, I am told, begins at 40. Well, all I’ve got to say is that that’s one fucking lame time for life to start, given all the preamble and muck we have to go through to get there. But seeing as how I’ve arrived and all, bring on the dancing ponies. I’m ready for the good bits.

Reality shows learn ourselves alot of stuff. Like, myself has learnt “myself” is alot better then “I” or “me” when myself talks about I. Of course myself’s English “teacher” learnt myself wrong, or efforted to, when myself was little, but myself never liked herself!

Myself was messed up by “school,” so when themselves on reality shows—their so way awesomer then wrote ones, and whom cares about a dumb “writers” strike anyways now because ourselves just say ourselve’s own words on TV and stuff—were all like “the alliance is Lance, Brett, and myself,” myself was like “whoa!” because myself’s English “teacher” was all like “the alliance is Lance, Brett, and me (or I?).” But now myself knew herself was wrong! “Myself” is alot righter then “I” or “me,” unless myselves are talking about myselves, then myselves are all like “Myself is so full of me (or I?).” Know what myself mean?

Let ourselves review:

“I am only concerned with me, myself, and I.” Wrong!
“Myself is only concerned with me, me, and me.” Rite!

“Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.” Wronger!
“Like a bridge over troubled water, myself will lie I down.” Rite!

Maybe next time myself can learn yourselves about “lay” and “lie,” if myself is all like wanting to write and stuff.

I have long harbored fantasies that I will one day publish the funniest book ever written about bipolar illness. I know, right? It’s about time. And I’m not just talking about the good times to be had with party girl hypo- and her edgier cousin mania—they’re already laughing at their own jokes, most of which aren’t funny unless you’re in their head space. No, it’s depression I want to make fodder of, if for no other reason than the self-serving one: so that I can bring the funny wherever I go, even on a long walk down a dark corridor of indeterminate length, with bottomless cliffs on each side, yawning infinity straight ahead, and an entry point some ways back that sealed itself shut even as I stepped through.

Comedy seldom throws down with depression in a way that’s at all successful or satisfying—at least to those who have done lockdown time in its super-max cell block. That said, props to Avenue Q’s awesome Bad Idea Bears who, finding the lead male muppet Princeton bereft in the second act, suggest in a voice reminiscent of Snuggles the fabric-softener spokesbear, “Well, you can always hang yourself! Yayyyy! We found this rope!” at which the cuddly yellow girl bear proffers a noose.

Seriously, I laughed my ass off.

For the record, I’m basking in the sunshiny light of day right now. Truly. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that here, and I really ought to set aside space to honor it. Having felt despondent through damn near the entire 21st century to date, I am now entering my seventh straight month of largely unbroken fine mood. Neither up nor down, I am simply and blissfully well, and believe you me, I don’t take this gift of stability for granted.

Still, I never know whether I’m out on furlough, parole, or straight-up time served, and I’m forever on the lookout for the warden, ’cause that bitch hates me. So it is that, while I don’t plan on returning to the big house anytime soon—and the first commenter who suggests I can avoid such by embracing the awesome power of The Secret is on my lifetime shit list, very much like the friend who once told me that people who wear glasses only think they can’t see without them—I am realistic about the chance that I will be thrall to depression’s long arm in future. That’s why psychologist types call this thing a disorder, not a silly old patch of sad.

Therapists tell folks like me to put together survival kits during these up times, when we have the clarity of mind to select entertainment and mementos best turned to in a crisis—because the depressed person will reliably reach for the worst possible companion to her mental state. The ice cream that feeds my depression comes in a variety of drably irresistible flavors, including but not limited to: documentaries about down-and-outers; nonfiction on subjects like genocide, addiction, and prison; memoirs by people with mood disorders who may or may not have already tried to or managed to kill themselves; and, perhaps the worst influence of all, my own racing thoughts. In short, I reach for that which reflects my world view.

Say, doesn’t this post cry out for pictures of baby animals?

At times I’ve sought solace during dark periods by reading about the disorder and the workings of the brain in general, trying to get the lay of the land, as if one can rationalize the irrational and thus disempower it once and for all. But a visit to any bookstore’s psychology section will leave a person feeling more pathologized and diminished than before: The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide, Surviving Manic Depression, Surviving the Crisis of Depression and Bipolar Illness. The ubiquity of this word survival in the bipolar literature presumes a couple of things: that mortality is my primary concern, and that survival is an end in itself. I appreciate all the parachutes, but I’m looking for something beyond living through each episode.

Depression can be fatal not so much because it just makes a person so sad they want to die but because it brings meaninglessness into high relief, taunting its host that the past is empty, the future is hopeless, and nothing can ever change those “truths.” And no matter how many missives I write to myself in better times, earnestly telling the depressed me who will eventually read them that it gets better, that I’ll get through this episode just as I’ve gotten through dozens before, my own words of encouragement fire as blanks when I’m in-country. The dialect of wellness is inaccessible.

That communication gap affects humor as well. Most things that are funny or uplifting when we’re in a good place simply deflate in the depressed brain, as if a different language is being spoken, stripping comedy of any meaning. Yet there is great meaning to be found in humor, and funny is possible in depression. I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed harder, inwardly or out, than I did during my last couple of days in the psych hospital. I didn’t laugh in response to any intended entertainment, whether on TV or in the book I was reading while there—Special Topics in Calamity Physics, a work of pure fiction which, incidentally, two of my nurses took to be a physics textbook and noted how very smart I must be to read such a thing for pleasure. (A minimum deduction of 50 I.Q. points is assessed all who enter the clink, as though mental illness is but a euphemism for mental retardation.)

I laughed on the inside when my intake nurse—amid her recitation of about a thousand rules as to what patients are and are not allowed from home, as related to my partner when she came to visit me that first surreal night—said in the direct company of my somewhat addled but nevertheless conscious self that “they can’t have caffeine because it stimulates their brains.” On being relegated to third-person status in such a situation, especially when the stimulation of one’s own brain is under discussion, let me just say that the ability to laugh is the only mechanism that’s going to save your ass from the eight kinds of crazy you assumed in the staffers’ eyes the moment the medical transport dudes wheeled you through the door.

I laughed audibly not at our actual “movie night” entertainment but at the fact that the films came from a distributor that edits videos exclusively for exhibition among institutional populations—primarily prisoners and mental patients—omitting all depictions of violence, sex, nudity, profanity, drug use, drinking, self-destructive behavior, mental imbalance, and anything else that might be deemed disturbing or stimulating to their brains. What was left, you ask? I’m not sure; I retreated to my room to read instead.

When I earned a promotion to ward 3—the lowest-security unit, housing all us high-functioning types; my stay had been initiated on unit 2, where they keep the low- to medium-functioning patients as well as folks on suicide watch—I at last found some gals I could relate to and laugh with, the camaraderie and normalcy of our interactions helping to defuse some of the feelings of stigma and self-doubt that inevitably come with having traded freedom for safety, having committed one’s own care at the most basic level to the discretion of others. It is, readers, a head trip of the most explosive sort, a virtual tear-down of the psyche through which one’s foundation may emerge reinforced or compromised—but the change itself is inevitable. Those unit 3 girls, together with my amazing partner—who was there every minute of every available visiting hour to laugh at my jokes and stories about this Jabberwocky world I found myself in—helped to ensure my essential soundness on release.

My less corporeal savior was writing. Every day, whenever the grid didn’t command my presence elsewhere, I wrote. And every night I processed each day, lying prone on my tiny institutional bed, by scribbling random thoughts with a felt-tip coloring pen I had pilfered from the day room—the grown-up rollerball pens my partner had brought me on night one were segregated as sharps, contraband, and sent back home with her, though I was allowed to keep the writing tablets she’d thoughtfully packed.

While I have on occasion looked back on events in my life with slight regret for having experienced them more as a journalist than as an intimate, my mad detachment skills came in pretty handy in the clink. The ability to become a wry observer was not just useful but necessary in maintaining a measure of dignity and self-respect. So long as I was noting the weirdness of my situation, I could assure myself that I was still me, that I wasn’t that subpar being reflected in the staffers’ eyes, the wild-eyed mental patient who needed to be reminded to groom herself (right there on the grid, between breakfast and group therapy). “Who, me?” I could say when the patronizing air of the nurses got too thick. “Oh, I’m just here for the material.”

Happily, I probably won’t be returning to the big house. Studies of mental hospital recidivism—interestingly, the same term used to describe repeat trips to prison—find that only around 30% of those who have ever checked into a mental hospital, voluntarily or not, will return. (Perhaps that speaks more to the non-luxe accommodations than improved mental health, but we’ll gloss that for now.) On the other hand, I remain realistic about the fact that hope is a tenuous, intangible thing—ebbing and flowing with the tide of my corrupt brain chemicals—and when its absence coincides with my mind’s ruder machinations, well, commitment is a far better choice than that offered up by the Bad Idea Bears.

As it goes, finding the funny in humor-averse situations is quite a lot easier than articulating it—unless one happens to live on Avenue Q. But those takeaway memories of transcendence lend us strength and give meaning to the rudimentary act of survival. Of course there’s more to life than the comedy therein, but that other stuff can be a devil to access when we need it most, whereas laughter has never, ever failed me. Funny takes the edge off when we’ve been unfairly judged, and it restores that measure of respect and integrity so rudely wrested away when we acknowledged a weakness and asked for help. It’s not for nothing that we’ve coined the term gallows humor: When our hands are tied and we’re face-to-face with our would-be executioner, the refuge of the mind is our only irrevocable freedom, and in that moment, when the mind can’t help but race, I’d rather dwell on life’s absurdities than on what it’s going to feel like when the rope catches and my neck snaps.

If you’re thinking right about now that this whole post about humor really isn’t all that funny, I agree with you. It started with a couple of funny ideas, then, as with so many of these posts, it grew quite beyond its author’s control—in this case, my rangy, wisecracking teenager matured into a somber adult who rather insisted on talking about this difficult period in her life that she’s still trying to make sense of. Because even as it’s just about impossible for me to initiate any serious conversation without cracking a joke, it’s fairly inevitable that the truth lurking therein will eventually break through to sternly ask what the hell everybody’s laughing about. And I guess that’s my quandary. The reason I’m almost certain to fail in my effort to produce the funniest book ever written about depression is this: Humor builds a bridge to what’s real.

That also happens to be why I find it essential.

Primary among my goals here has been to exercise my writing voice after many years of sloth. After about 15 months in the blog business I feel ready to see what I can do in the long form. Some say my blog entries are already novel-length, but my longest post to date was only around 2,000 words, which would amount to approximately eight print pages. Most publishers are more amenable to novels in the neighborhood of 80,000 words, and truth told, they’d prefer that at least some of those words reference topics of more universal concern than my boob(s), my hair, my dog, my neuroses, etc. In fact, it would probably be best if I abstained from first-person pronouns completely, but that would be impossible for me.

So I’ve been writing lately, though I haven’t so much been blogging, and I feel neglectful of my little blip on the Internet, so I thought I at least owed it a gone-fishin’ sign to acknowledge my awareness of that neglect. All of this is not to say that I’ve retired to my study and please quiet the children as I mustn’t be bothered. I’ll still be posting here. I’m just freeing myself of blog guilt so that when I do post, I’m doing so for all the right reasons, up to and including my desire to talk about and your need to know about my boob(s), my hair, my dog, and my neuroses.

Until we chat again, be well.

Once we leave high school, our composition skills are unlikely to see further instruction. Sad, that. Even we English majors seldom see significant improvement in our core knowledge of sentence structure and grammar post–K-12. Sure, we exit college with a wicked ability to talk smack about Joseph Conrad’s use of symbol and TS Eliot’s meter, but the actual verbiage of our essays? Strictly high school.

The miracle of e-mail distanced us further still from our practice of composition. Even as it encourages greater and more frequent communication, it also prompts faster, less structured missives, its deconstruction of language aided and abetted by the shorthand adopted by users of Internet discussion boards and text-messaging.

But just as the Internet taketh away, the Internet giveth back: Enter blogging, the 21st-century savior of written language. If that seems like an overstatement, consider this: Other than a blog entry, what’s the last thing you wrote that qualified as a composition, with a main idea, reasonably formal sentence and paragraph structure, and a general sense of wholeness? Blogging is good for you!

Sure, there are bloggers who post word vomit, but I don’t read their blogs and I suspect that you don’t either. You’re a discerning reader, a well-versed blogger, and a better person for your attention to detail. It’s that attention to detail I hope to engage here.

I thought it might be fun to occasionally write about something other than myself, but I can make just about anything about me, other than subjects I don’t know anything about, like nuclear physics or golf, and who wants to hear the pontifications of someone who lacks any authority on the subject under discussion—other than Bill O’Reilly’s estimated 2.5 million daily viewers?

Hey, I thought, with a snap of my fingers, maybe I should natter on about instances of grammatical misuse that are so prevalent they have very nearly overtaken correct usage, the kinds of mistakes I routinely encounter among not just casual but professional writers.

Presenting the inaugural entry in what I hope will be continuing series, a sort of Grammar for Anti-Dummies. Read forth and be edified, then flaunt your correctitude proudly. And please don’t fret over whether you’ve personally made the kinds of mistakes cited. In the case of today’s subject, misuse is as epidemic as that crystal meth I hear so much about. And even if you have made such a mistake, no one noticed except the odd English teacher or copy editor, and, really, how many of those types regularly read your blog?

Without further ado, I present today’s lesson:

When using the phrase “more important” or “most important” to give weight to an item in a list, reject the common instinct to write “importantly.”

The boring English-teacher reason is that “important” is an adjective and is used to modify nouns, of which your list items are almost certainly composed. “Importantly” is an adverb and is therefore properly used as a modifier of action and circumstance.

Take the following:

The primary tools of my trade are a computer, a red pen, and, most important, a good dictionary.

While “most importantly” might sound correct in this instance, the subtle addition of that “ly” would imply thought or action on the dictionary’s part, and while dictionaries are important (sayeth the copy editor), they cannot think or do anything—though if they could, they would certainly do it in a self-important manner.

Also note that if you reframe the sentence*, it wouldn’t make sense to say, “A good dictionary is most importantly to my trade.”

*This is a handy tool when questioning usage in your own writing (especially when you don’t have an English teacher or grammar handbook nearby): Try reversing noun and verb order in your head to see whether your sentence still makes sense.

In general, an introductory “more” or “most” will call for the adjective “important.”

Reserve the word “importantly” to color a character:

President Bush strides importantly about the room, knowing as he does that Jesus is on his side.

Take out the word “importantly” and the tone of the sentence is ambiguous, leaving it up to the reader to decide whether the author means to characterize Bush as heroic or arrogant. Inserting the word solidifies the tone as dryly sarcastic and disparaging, a tone one should always employ when discussing the current administration. Instances are few in which you might describe a person as acting “importantly” without conveying mockery.

The adverb form can also color the significance of an action or perception:

Sexy CSI Sara Sidle kicked open the door to the crack den and noted, importantly, that the abandoned warehouse smelled uncharacteristically of bleach and cleaning agents.

Sure, Jorja Fox is a total lesbionic babe, but the more important point of the sentence is that her character has perceived something amiss in the crack den (even more amiss than are crack dens’ general wont).

Pretty simple stuff, this “important” vs. “importantly” distinction. If you’ve read this far, I hope it was worth your time, and, more important, I hope you feel like a total grammar stud. Blog fierce!

(OK, that should properly be “Blog fiercely,” but the proper form just doesn’t have the rat-a-tat cadence I want. Secondary lesson of the day: Never let boring old rules get in the way of your self-expression.)

This may be the most important blog entry you’ll ever read.

I received an e-mail message Monday from a gentleman named Andrey Vladimirovich Popov. Rather, it was forwarded to me by a friend whose hard heart blinded him to the purity of Mr. Popov’s motives in pleading for financial assistance to save his little niece Elina’s life. Elina, he says, suffers from tetarado fallo, a rare and fatal congenital heart disease.

A bit of a skeptic myself—it’s the human condition, I’m afraid—I Googled Elina’s illness only to find Mr. Popov’s claim to be absolutely true: Tetarado fallo is in fact so rare the search query returns not a single hit on Google! Poor Elina, who is too young to understand, in Mr. Popov’s words, “that her life can be stopped suddenly in the absence of money.” (Mr. Popov’s awkward, foreigner’s grasp of English isn’t the least of his charms!)

Sure, I could have sent Mr. Popov the $1, $10, or $100 he requested—whatever I’m comfortable sending, his humble hat-in-hand tone conveyed. But, as is so often the case, I found myself wanting to do more than could be achieved with my own humble finances.

In a moment of pure inspiration I hooked Mr. Popov up with Dr. Bisi Odum, a Nigerian friend (pen pal? How are we to refer to letter friends in the age of e-mail?) I’ve been corresponding with for some months. Dr. Odum is in contact with someone in the employ of a government official who desperately needs help in transferring a great fortune he acquired while helping a disgraced dignitary to flee the country. When I first heard from Dr. Odum in June 2005, I wondered why on earth someone so remote and with such riches to share would contact me, and now I finally have my answer: because I was fated to act the catalyst for two needful men, one in need of a fortune and the other in need of someone (with a bank account) with whom to share his fortune. Serendipity, thy name is Scout!

I share with you this heartwarming tale to illustrate my sincere belief in the awesome power of humankind when united toward a common goal. Together we can do anything, from saving little Elina’s life through the largesse of opportunistic Nigerian government officials to enabling each other to actualize the greatness we harbor within, which brings me to my own humble story.

When you visit your local bookstore you may ask yourself, What do all these published authors have that Scout doesn’t have? More talent? More drive? People skills? Better ideas? Interesting lives? Connections? Agents? A contract? All are respectable answers, dear readers, but each fail to address the core issue: financial freedom.

Friends tell me, “Say, Scout, that Nicole Richie published a book, and she’s a complete moron. How come you don’t write a book?”

Well, Nicole Richie doesn’t spend eight hours a day fixing other people’s writing, does she? No. Her family is wealthy, because her dad was a Commodore and still gets residuals every time you hear “Three Times a Lady,” and I think he also had a solo career, and she therefore has plenty of money and plenty of time to write a novel, the content of which someone like me must fix in order to make her appear literate. Do you see how unfair the world is? Just because my father worked at an oil refinery instead of joining the Commodores—and my dad totally could have rocked “Brick House”—my voice is silenced.

You may be tempted to minimize my plight by insisting that I can write in my off hours. If such rationale makes you better able to ignore the sound of my soul screaming, that’s your demon to wrestle, but I would be remiss in not telling you that patrons of the arts sit at the right hand of God in heaven. (Unfortunately, everybody nowadays claims God promised him or her a seat at his right hand. To accommodate the influx of do-gooders, individual seats have been torn out and replaced with Astroturf for a “festival seating” atmosphere. Left-hand-of-God seating is still available, with preference given to American Express cardholders. God apologizes for any inconvenience or seating arrangements otherwise implied.)

When I come home from work I’m bone-tired. Some speak of “desk jobs” as though we office workers are just a bunch of lazy clock-watchers. Ha! Until they sit a spell in my ergonomic desk chair they simply can’t appreciate the challenge of reading sentence after clumsily executed sentence, a red pen poised just above the page, ready to correct any offending text. And as if that isn’t stressful enough, I often must contact informants to ensure that they’re represented accurately and that their names are spelled correctly and such, and those informants aren’t always cooperative with us journalistic types; sometimes they don’t want their names spelled correctly, but I press on in the service of accuracy.

As far as my weekends go, there’s so much to catch up on: laundry and grocery shopping and petting my animal companions, plus watching quality television like Meerkat Manor and Intervention. In other words, it’s simply impossible to write the great, great novel that lurks within me while working a full-time job. And that’s where you come in.

For a limited time, I’m offering readers of my blog the opportunity to support me in the lifestyle to which I aspire as I make the leap from anonymous copy editor to renowned author. Before you say “yes!” to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, read what the critics have been saying about Scout:

“As with real gems, I find myself not so much thinking, as just feeling dazzled.” —hopskipjump

“Can I get an ‘AMEN’?” —slangred

“Orgazzzzzzzzmic.” —eb

“The more I learn about you, the more fascinating you are.” —wordsrock

“God, I’m so turned on.” —wenwhit

Convinced? Don’t commit yet; here’s what you’ll get with your sponsorship:

• Lifetime membership in Scout’s fan club
• A personally inscribed copy of the novel you finance (impersonally autographed copies available on request for enterprising sorts who wish to sell theirs for big bucks on eBay)
• One or more characters in said novel named after you
• One insertion in said novel of something—an item, place, person, etc.—personally meaningful to you, so long as your requested insertion does not alter the plot. For instance, a request to incorporate your dachshund, a favorite café, or Cheetos® would be cheerfully granted, whereas a request to insert the poem you’ve written about your dachshund, favorite café, or Cheetos® may be refused if said novel is not amenable to a poet character
• Bragging rights
• Everlasting self-satisfaction for having enabled art to flourish

Ready to commit? Well, hold on to your girdles, because you haven’t heard the best part: All of this is available to you at the introductory Founders Circle™ rate of just $10,000! Not only that, but for every Founders Circle™ sponsorship sold, I will donate $1 in that member’s name to Elina Popov. This offer is strictly limited to those who accept it; once Founders Circle™ sponsorships have been issued to all who respond, there will be no more sold. Act now by sending your personal bank account information to neurotranscendence@gmail.com.

Remember: The greater the number of readers who respond to this unbelievable offer, the better my lifestyle will be.

I was asked recently what my favorite element of punctuation is. Really, copy editors are asked these kinds of things, and good golly are they glad anyone cares! OK, in truth, it was my partner who asked, but when I replied she asked me to flesh out my answer for possible use in a language course aimed at adorable little freshmen. Pretty cool, huh? Since writing about my favorite punctuation derailed me from writing the blog entry I was planning—which, by the way, might’ve been about boobs!—I’ve decided to instead post my punctuation piece. Punctuation, boobs: It’s all good, right?

This is an em dash: —. Isn’t she beautiful? While her uses are many—introducing attributions, signifying interruptions in quoted speech, setting off lists (as used here)—her most heroic function lies in eliminating confusion in long or complex sentences, particularly when a writer wants to signal to readers a shift in thought, tone, or pace. Take the following:

1(a). When asked to name her favorite element of punctuation, the copy editor thoughtfully considered parentheses, the semicolon, the colon, at once deftly delineating and joining sentences, complete and otherwise, and the em dash, fairy godmother to the overworked Cinderella of punctuation, the comma.

Decipherable, perhaps, but such sentences cause readers to stumble or even reread them in trying to understand their meaning. A confused reader is an unhappy one—of this you can be sure—so the primary aim of good writing is always clarity, whether ideas are expressed in simple or complex sentences. In the sentence cited, a simple set of em dashes accomplishes that aim:

1(b). When asked to name her favorite element of punctuation, the copy editor thoughtfully considered parentheses, the semicolon, the colon—at once deftly delineating and joining sentences, complete and otherwise—and the em dash, fairy godmother to the overworked Cinderella of punctuation: the comma.

Replacing a set of commas with a set of em dashes not only breaks the monotony of example 1(a) but signals a shift in emphasis between the main idea of the sentence—a list of favorite punctuation elements—and the secondary information contained therein—an aside about the particular appeal of the colon (perhaps honoring its runner-up status?).

In the sentence just above I used em dashes to emphasize detail—signaling that the phrases contained within are meant to illustrate the points made in the body of the sentence—and parentheses to deemphasize a tangential thought (an aside that may otherwise serve only to confuse the reader). Setting such details off instead with commas creates minor chaos:

2. Replacing a set of commas with a set of em dashes not only breaks the monotony of example 1(a) but signals a shift in emphasis between the main idea of the sentence, a list of favorite punctuation elements, and the secondary information contained therein, an aside about the particular appeal of the colon, perhaps honoring its runner-up status.

Looking back at example 1(b) for a moment, bonus points for anyone who noticed one other minor change: the replacement of the final comma with a colon, lending more emphasis to the phrase “the comma” than it might have enjoyed were it set off by, well, a comma.

The comma’s greatest strength is its versatility, which also, sadly, can be its most frustrating weakness. Just because the comma can be used doesn’t mean it should be used, not when written language is so rich with options: Adopt a couple of neglected but eager parentheses. Employ an out-of-work colon. Dust off a pair of em dashes. Go crazy! But not too crazy—keep this rule in mind:

In general, em dashes emphasize content while parentheses deemphasize content, with commas steadfastly maintaining the middle ground. Thus, choose your punctuation with care.

It would be silly, for instance, to write:

3(a). It would be silly—for instance—to write this.

Though it would be sillier still to write:

3(b). It would be silly (for instance) to write this.

Save em dashes for clauses you wish to highlight—at which time they’ll spring forth as eagerly as a puppy, ready to lend energy and character to your writing—and let parentheses serve in their own parenthetical way (though they’ve been known to grouse, with a sigh, “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride”).

And don’t assume that em dashes must occur in pairs (though, for your readers’ sake, please don’t open a parenthetical statement without ensuring that it is properly closed). Employing a single em dash in a sentence commands your readers’ attention, enticing them forward—c’mon, readers, let’s go see what’s over here! It can also lend particular force to a short, terminal phrase—really, it will!

Steve Martin wrote an essay for The New Yorker in 1997 in which he announced a worldwide shortage of periods and, indeed, used only one period in the entire essay, resulting in a knuckle-cracking demonstration of skill with alternative punctuation.

Were a comma shortage afoot, how would you do your part to conserve? If you say, “Use more em dashes, of course!” thanks for listening, but I’m not so biased toward her seductively long sweep that I would forsake other useful elements of punctuation.

My best advice for fellow writers is this: “Listen” to what you read and write, and train yourself to “hear” the flow of the language. Clear, concise writing flows swiftly, while confusing, unnecessarily complex verbiage stammers and leads readers aground. We rarely notice when language is wielded with precision—it’s the jarring jangle of the wrong that gets our attention: That’s good! Notice the wrong in everything you read, and then ask yourself, Why did that sentence make me stop reading midway, sending me back to the beginning as though it’s MY fault it was constructed poorly? If it was in fact your fault, fix it! If not, fix it anyway! Sharpen your punctuation skills to a steely point and unleash your sense of all that is elegant and fine on a disorganized world. If you’re not part of the punctuation solution, you’re part of the problem.

OK, I’m just this geeky: One of my favorite discoveries of late is You Don’t Say, the blog of John McIntyre, manager of the copy desk at The Baltimore Sun and former president of the American Copy Editors Society. Yup, we have our own society, one in which sensibly attired men and women meet annually to guffaw over misplaced modifiers and such. The society even runs an online discussion board, but I can’t bring myself to post there for fear that I’ll make a grammatical error and become the forum goat. I’m strictly a bush-leaguer in the copyediting ranks, and I can only aspire to the speed and grace with which ACES types can turn around flawless copy. I bow at their temple.

But I like McIntyre’s take on copyediting precisely because he’s damn near democratic in the exercise of his craft. He never insists upon a rule of usage simply because it’s a rule, and he’s given to a fair amount of flexibility when it comes to our evolving language and conventions. Sure, he wears a bow tie, but he’s not a stuffed shirt: In a recent entry he says, “Copy editors tend to be strongly binary. Everything in usage should be reducible to a rule. But experience is messy, and language mirrors experience. In reaching for precision, it is easy to overreach.”

How great is that? It reminds me of the day I realized math could be creative: It’s not like I then ran out and changed my major, but my worldview shifted slightly and resettled in a more pleasing manner.

An evolving language is necessary to keep up with the speed of invention. Our copy chief only recently gave over to “blog” as an acceptable, stand-alone term in place of Web log. “Web log” itself wasn’t such a cumbersome term to use, but the outlawing of “blog” made “blogging” and “blogger” verboten as well. “The blogger blogged to her blog” became “The writer of the online journal added an entry to her Web log.” As ridiculous as the former sentence sounds, the latter is downright stiff. And we copy editors are always on the defensive about that s word.

I am pretty rigid, as my partner would no doubt attest, and the most difficult lesson I’ve had to learn and am still learning on my job is when to exercise restraint. I came to copyediting from a creative writing background, and despite that word creative, I had definite ideas about how words should “flow.” How to convince me, then, that a sentence that reads like an out-and-out dog’s breakfast to me could seem positively poetic to its writer? That that could be the one sentence the author reads in the finished magazine that makes him say, “Hey, that’s not the way I wrote it!”

(I’ve wanted to employ the phrase “dog’s breakfast” ever since I first noticed its entry in my desk dictionary. I was intrigued enough then to stop and read its definition, and it’s one of those terms I always notice as I flip through the pages. It’s evocative in the way British slang so often is—meaning “confused mess,” just as you might expect—and I’m pleased to have been able to deploy it here. Thank you for indulging me.)

Books and articles I edited early in my copyediting career were awash in red ink, and I was secretly pleased with myself for having made them bleed. If I were being paid by the correction, I could have taken an early retirement. But I’m mellowing with experience, even if to hear my partner tell it I’m an inky tyrant. This weekend she asked me to look over the c.v. and cover letter she’s submitting to apply for the job she already has: She’s hoping to get that pesky “interim” excised from her title. I was making my way through her pages of degrees, publications, and honors—the kind of academic cred I’d be hard-pressed to fill a single page with myself—when she looked over my shoulder and said, “Oh, my God! Is it that bad?”

I didn’t think it was bad in the least, though when I looked at the page before me there were quite a few red marks. “That’s just punctuation stuff,” I said.

“But I’ve been showing that to people!” she said, a little panicked.

“Believe me,” I assured her. “This is the kind of stuff only a copy editor would notice.”

That’s the thing about copyediting: It must be a labor of love, because the work is invisible to all but a handful of people. A book I worked on about a year ago just won an award, and I had a quiet moment during which I patted myself on the back, but I don’t expect to be thanked by the author. If I do my job well, the author won’t see my footprints: When she reads the final draft she recognizes every word as her own, every sentence just as she arranged it, and that’s as it should be.

So we fight the good fight quietly, because what it would take for copy editors to get noticed is unconscionable: putting our pens on strike and flooding the world with the typos, gaffes, and confusing punctuation of a nation too proud to proofread and too rushed to care. The horror…the horror…

Besides, you have only to read McIntyre’s You Don’t Say, or Capital Idea, by Nicole Stockdale of The Dallas Morning News, or Blogslot, by The Washington Post‘s Bill Walsh, to understand that these folks do what they like and like what they do, and is there really anything more life-affirming than that?

Hey, kids, want to make your own bogus newspaper clipping? Click here. It’s way superfun!

Regular visitors to this blog may notice that I’ve only recently posted a picture of myself. This brings me more or less full circle: Having revealed my bloggermost thoughts a few months ago to friends who know me offline, I’m now showing my face to friends who met me online. I’m hoping that in neither case is it too much information.

I had always thought that if I ever published a novel, I’d politely refuse to supply an author photo. I’m not sure which notion is more far-fetched, that of me publishing a book, or of me, in the giddy throes of publication, not putting my face to my work. I mean, c’mon, we all want our pats on the back, don’t we? And while it seems romantic to be a Salinger or a Pynchon, living off in the woods without a PR care in the world, given the recent spate of literary shams—the unmasking of reclusive cult darling “JT LeRoy,” who turned out to be a middle-aged woman rather than a teenage prodigy who was rescued from a life of drug addiction, homelessness, and prostitution by the middle-aged woman who invented him and assumed his identity; the debunking of the more sensational details of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces—it seems best to keep one’s hands where everyone can see them, if for no other reason than to assure the public that you’re real.

Not, by the way, that I imagine even in my wildest thoughts that anyone has any reason to think I’m not real. Good gravy, if I were making stuff up, I surely wouldn’t pretend to be a middle-aged copy editor with a mood disorder. We’re precisely the kind of people who need to make up personas in order to be at all intriguing to the marketplace.

Anonymity is a funny thing. We crave it mightily, some of us, but once granted it takes on a certain weight, flying in the face of the lightness we’d hoped to achieve under its protection. I recently edited an interview with Rauda Morcos, a lesbian of Palestinian descent and Israeli citizenship. When a national magazine outed her she became the most famous lesbian in Israel and Palestine—not an easy kind of notoriety to live with—but since the outing she’s agitated for LGBT rights in ways that would have been impossible from the safety of the closet, and she’s pleased as punch about it.

This is a pretty lofty example, I know, to illustrate the simple act of posting my picture on my blog. I mean only to say that while I once thought it would be easier to talk about my life from a far-ish remove, I’ve come to understand that truth equals freedom. As I’ve begun to talk about subjects I once thought taboo, like mental illness and sexual abuse, I’ve felt my personal shame about them lifting, leaving me to marvel at how silence twists events so fundamentally that we grow to hate ourselves over events quite beyond our control.

Realizing that I have nothing to be ashamed of, and therefore nothing to hide, is so thoroughly exhilarating I want to start proselytizing everyone I meet. I’m not sure how well people will respond, though, to my accosting them on the street and imploring them to tell me their deepest, darkest secrets. “You’ll feel great!” I’d promise, a slightly feral look in my eyes.

Of course, there are still topics I’ve discussed only with my therapist and my partner—so far. But I don’t know that the silence accorded them here is about shame so much as my not quite having worked them out in my own head. No use cracking open cans of worms just to see them wiggle about. If you know anything about me, you know that I like to get my worms in order before I let them slither about in public. Especially now that you can pick the owner of said worms out of a lineup.