I should have been an editor (lyn)

I am great at the small stuff. 

Putting quotation marks in the right places, knowing how to use semi-colons, and even, thanks to Gail, knowing how to type an Em Dash — Option + Shift + Minus sign on a Mac, with a space before and after. 

I’m also pretty good on an Apple computer.  In fact, this week my friend Jill got a new computer, and I was her go-to person when she got stuck.  My favorite was an email she sent with the subject line, "another moronic question" — which wasn't.

This morning I get an email from M.  The subject line is:  “another moncler.” Yesterday we went back and forth looking for a nylon Moncler tote that M had seen last fall and regrets not having bought.  She is still trying to find it.

I open the email and see a jpeg.  I assume the jpeg is of another moncler tote.  I open the jpeg and instead see a picture of an old SIlkience ad.  I email back:

Kim Alexis?  A chick?  Silkience?  Headline, "another moncler?"  I'm confused.

But here's my guess....you got lazy and just hit reply from my last email, and this is really asking me to save and later upload for an upcoming post.  Do I know you that well, or am I totally wrong?

M calls.  “Did you get my email?” she asks.  “Yes, did you get mine?”  Seeing no humor at all in my email, she responds, “Ya, can you post that photo for me?  Also, I’m sending you a link to an article.  Include that too.”

I’m M’s default editor.  Smart as she is (and she is very smart), she has no patience for minutia.  M’s posts (pre- my eyes) are filled with random quotation marks.  Sometimes the punctuation is inside, sometimes it’s not.  She also hasn’t bothered to learn the art of uploading photos or videos onto the blog, even though it requires a single click.  This from a girl who’s on the Board at Harvard Med!

Sometimes, like today, I will read and edit M’s blog prior to its posting.  M is a great writer, and a great storyteller.  She also has many good stories to tell.  Sometimes I’m embarrassed by my posts (cable problems, screening reviews, customer service) in comparison to hers. 

I make the changes we discuss and call to tell her.  As we are talking, I tell her about a dream I had of her last night.  She interrupts in the middle of my description with, “You didn’t post the article itself of the link I sent you.  I  don’t know how to do that.” 

#1:  I didn’t know I had been assigned to post the link’s content. 

#2.  M is reading the post and not listening to my admittedly uninteresting dream about her.

 #3  I bet I can figure how to post the content of the link, including a photo.

I hang up and get on with my assignment.  I am successful. 

While M is out raising millions of dollars for a skating rink, or sitting on the board of important organizations, I know how to upload, quote, and use M dashes correctly. 

I think it’s time to develop a new talent.