At the risk of exposing myself as the immodest asshole that I am, I’ll let you in on a little secret … I have a way with words. It’s preternatural. What I mean is I haven’t done much of anything to earn this talent. Didn’t start really reading for pleasure until I was in my teens. Even now, I read less than you might imagine. I don’t workshop. Well, you get my point.

I bring this up only to say that I realize my verbal voodoo is not a hard-earned skill. It’s … well, something akin to a freak of nature. And what I am about to do—rip someone else’s writing without pity—is a classless thing. Nonetheless, here we go.

Now, I’ve never mentioned exactly what it is I do all day in my deluxe, non-Copley-facing, non-window cube. That’s because a) I like to cultivate an air of mystery around myself and b) I do a little of this and a little of that, none of which I am what they call “passionate” about.

At the moment, I am copyediting a textbook on broadcasting. It is bad. Poorly written, poorly punctuated, poorly organized. Bad. This is not unusual; in fact, it’s my bread and butter. Don’t misunderstand. I grouse about shitty writing, even when I’m being paid handsomely to fix it … what it says about the state of education, the world, the very survival of our species. I rant about all the reasons why people … even those without my god-given talents … should be able to avoid a comma splice.

Still, it’s highly usual. The banality of bad writing is precisely why when you come across an example of stunningly ill-conceived writing it is cause célèbre.

Yesterday, I was slogging through a chapter on copywriting for radio. I broke up the monotony by periodically bitching to Em Em about the maddening suckiness of it all and my unspeakable misfortune in having to expose my eyes to it.

Then it happened; I saw it. The thing all editors wait for: A phrase so exquisitely misshapen it transcends bad and loops back around again to something resembling the divine. A phrase that, without intending to, turns meaning on its ear … day into night, black into white … well, you know.

Avoid choppiness. Use transitions.

Corny as it may sound, as it may in fact be, at that moment the phrase was manna from heaven … a validation of my misguided career choices, my pathological ability to spot errors everyone else misses, my very being. I may be an aggressive driver, a bad singer, a mediocre dresser, a fair-weather sports fan, and a very, very [Ed. VERY] sore loser at Scrabble, but I can string words together better than this poor fucker and that’s not nothing.

Many thanks to the Uninvited Editor for accepting my invitation to edit this post.

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• A Case of the Mondays
• Long Night’s Journey Into Day
• Vilification Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery … or Something

• If one (me) lies perfectly motionless in a warm, darkened room for long enough, one (again, that would be me) will eventually fall asleep.
• That will happen precisely 20 minutes before one’s alarm is set to go off.
• The ankles and labia were never intended to become intimately acquainted with a razor … even one with so-called extra moisturizing strips.

Now, for god’s sake, stop acting like this blog is anything but highly educational.

People who read this post also read …

• Long Night’s Journey Into Day
• That Thing You Love
• Small Women
• Love’s Not
• Welcome to My Humble Abode

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• I Want All That Stupid Old Shit (Like Letters and Sodas)

I hope you’re sitting down. This year I’ve got two:

• stop spending the bulk of each work day looking at my long, lustrous hair in my cubicle rear view mirror

• stalk, meet and fuck Kevin Smith … now THAT is a manboobs story worth having

I know, I know. I set goals that are perhaps a bit too lofty. I’ve always been an ambitious and earnest soul. I mean, you don’t get where I am without a rigorous plan for personal development. (Please forward all inquiries about motivational speaking engagements to my agent.)

Thanks to Hammer Uncut for unearthing the Kevin Smith footage.

People who read this post also read …

• See You Next Year
• Small Women
• Wee Wee Wee, All the Way to Bed
• Love’s Not
• That Thing You Love

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• Home, Sweet, Bed
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• See You Next Year