&

three things:

“As I look back over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other enterprise. It is really the life of kings.” -H.L. Mencken

And this, by David Simon.

And the positively dreamy class discussion I had today about em dashes.

This is almost enough to remind me of what I like the best, the feeling of listening to somebody talk, and taking notes, and the little voice in your head going ‘This is going to be so much fun to write’ and the feeling that yeah, it will be. So maybe I’ll never get a ph.d. And maybe I’ll never be a Radio City Music Hall Rockette. But I could move to any small town in the country, I could move to Fayetteville, Arkansas or Hendersonville, North Carolina, or Sonora, California and be a newspaper reporter. I could do respectable work and live a respectable life doing a respectable craft. (That’s right, a craft, like carpentry or welding.) I could do something worthy of self-respect. I feel like myself when I’m reporting. I feel like myself when I’m editing, when I’m sitting there with my stylebook and my blue pen and my coffee and really reading and making things better. I could do this and be happy.

And that’s reassuring.