Thursday, August 6, 2009

Now, as some of you may know ( and if you are reading this blog, my guess would be you're one of the ones in the know) I am one of those lucky souls who is paid money to do something that I do anyway: find mistakes in other people's writing. Call it a compulsion, call it an obsession, I just call it plain old fun.

And oh my Good Lord did I find a doozie of a mistake. I was reading "Sleep is for the Weak" and the foreword is written by the EDITOR IN CHIEF of Redbook magazine. And three paragraphs in, I caught a truly unacceptable error. The word "of" had been used when the author meant to use "or". If you don't find that as mindboggling and head banging as I do, that's okay. But just know in your heart of hearts that is such a horrific mistake that I would assume heads rolled all over the place. Whether it was made by the author or the editor, I don't know. But it's on the first page. And it's glaring.How could someone not catch that? Seriously? It pretty much kept me up last night. 

Although on the other hand, just as i was almost lulled back into the baby longing that could accompany your first born venturing out into the world, I read this book. And remembered all the hellish things I had conveniently forgotten in the face of "Babies are so beautiful! Small! Lovey! Wonderful! Miracles!"

Yeah. I forgot the whole crying for hours straight. I forgot that inevitable, inexplicable cranky period every night for months on end. I forgot the whole poopy diapers for YEARS until one day it's potty training time and you will have to dash to the public restroom if you are a)nowhere near one. ANYWHERE. b)just about to check out in a store having waiting in an excruciatingly long line. I forgot the teething. The endless middle of the night drama. The mind numbing act of pumping so that you can go grocery shopping by yourself. Their inability to tell you what they want/need. The boredom. The repetition. Exisiting on three hours of sleep for a year if you're lucky. Being unable to so much as take a shower  with the shower curtain closed without a playpen/bouncy seat/swing crammed into the bathroom with you. Oh my God. Biology man. It tricks you to keep you reproducing. But now I remember oh biological clock! And by the time I forget again, I will be too old to breed.

2 comments:

Kerouaced said...

You would think that people paid to edit would be able to edit...

Tracy said...

Definitely should have skipped your blog today. Thanks for all of the reminders... some of which I've been replaying in my mind over the past few weeks and others that I had totally forgotten. Your list was bigger than mine. I think I'll go cry for bit. :)