The Bungling Editor

She Bungled Up. Behold:



"Treats you Special This"

Treats You Special This What?!!

The "summer" that ran away. The case of the missing word. The bungling editor.

Wow. I made a boo-boo. I should really proof-read more carefully. This is a feature in my magazin'es July issue tht just came out. Hot off the press, my boss shows me the typo and then silenty leaves the office.

He has chosen to let me be alone with my oversight, rather than admonish me for it. i admire my boss in so many ways and one day, I will dedicate a blog entry to him.

But today, we will skim over my inability to proof-read my own work: it's just that it gets darned boring when I have to reread what I've written over and over again.

I remember a time - some ten years or so ago - when seeing my words in print was a rare novelty and a blessing unmeasurable. Clippings would be collected and filed by date. Two photocopies would be made and also filed in separate places.

I remember someone once telling me roundabout then that they had stopped collecting their clippings a long time ago - that if they kept ALL of their published work, they wouldn't have place to keep anything else. I marvelled and balked at that at the same time. Balked at the attitude of being so 'couldn't care less' about once published clips and marvelled at the ..well, marvellousness of being able to be in such a situation where one couldn't careless about one's clips.

Somewhere down the road, I became Them: that person I balked/marvelled at.

I can't recall the last time I religiously clipped/filed my published work. I am almsot quite certain I have some of my recent work aorund ... just not sure where, or if at all.

Over the years - I now realize - I have become the person I looked upto or looked at from afar so many years ago.

The fumbling teenager with a little pink diary who used to worry about exams and talk on the phone for hours has become the confident, yougn woman who gets up at 8 everyday and drives to work in a shiny red car and worries about paying her bills and insurance/pension payments on time.

Life is funny: it confronts us with realities that were once a fantasy and brings us face-to-face with what we observed from afar.

If we're lucky, it turns us into what we admired.

If we're not: we become the victims and minfestations of our own fears and prejudices. We become the abominations we once abhored.

I am not quite sure whether I should marvel at my indifference to my printed work or balk at it.