We’re still here
Dennis, as I’d hoped, popped in Monday evening, my time, with an in memoriam for Rob Reiner. His “Inconceivable” title first elicited a wide-eyed “of course” followed by a wave of grief.
I never met Reiner, just like I’ve never met Dennis. People who don’t live online don’t get that netizens often collaborate without (or rarely) seeing each other. When I was a consulting engineer, people asked why I didn’t telecommute. It wasn’t that kind of job. This is.
Digby, gracious as always, wrote some very nice things yesterday about my morning work here. We met at a conference in D.C. in 2009. I haven’t seen her in person since Netroots 2013. We text and rarely talk. (Actually, I was so floored when she asked me to join her in August 2014 that it took me years to start even texting.) I met Spocko at the same 2013 conference and didn’t see him again until he and his wife were in town for a wedding two years ago. We had pizza. As Harry Chapin once sang, “That’s how this business goes.”
Weeks like this take a toll. When news is so bad that many people want to tune out, we have to carry on. There are rare days when Digby has a string of posts scheduled ahead of time, and I think, “Thank God, she’s getting out.” I immerse myself in morning headlines, write up my posts, then spend four miles walking it off. I watched MS Now’s Nicole Wallace Monday afternoon sniffle and hold back tears while still facing the cameras and hoping to collect herself during the breaks. Some mornings, the news is so bad, one doesn’t know where to start. But we do somehow.
Another old-school blogger I haven’t seen since 2015 lamented that lefties were helping Donald Trump claw back attention by reposting and commenting on the “Truth” he issued on Reiner’s death. Don’t do that, please. And I wish pundits wouldn’t.
Maria Shriver managed to say something substantive about Trump’s latest atrocity without reposting it. Better.
Thanks for reading our processings every day. For you, I hope it’s helpful. For me, it’s therapeutic. It would be great to see more of my remote colleagues in person on a regular basis. But we make due. The internet means that there are many “friends” I think of more as serial acquaintances. Lizz Winstead, one of “The Daily Show” co-founders, is one of those. I see her maybe once a year. Last night on FB she gave me a laugh I desperately needed. Hope it helps.
Happy Hollandaise everyone!