What Have I Done to Deserve This?

I've written two blog entries in two days and both times, when I finished, a chance stroke of a key wiped out both of them in a flash. Ironically the entries were already about exasperation and hating everything. Where do I go from there? How to pick up the pieces and move on?

I will simply sidestep the subject of my miserable ennui and move to an editorial issue. Yesterday I was reading the Voice and there was a mistake so bad I was shocked. In an article about "the new sobriety," a writer wrote "Adam has drank..." "Has drank" is appalling. The correct form is "has drunk." Only ignorant people say "has drank". The Voice is getting a new editor, apparently, and boy do they need one. The writing in the Voice is terrible. Not just grammatical mistakes but an overall straining for cleverness that creates a turgid, constipated tone. The prose has been tinkered with by maniacs on too much caffeine, I guess, because it's been tweaked and pared down to just a few hip signifiers until it communicates only with itself.

It would be laughable if it weren't so damned infuriating. No, correction. The writing is laughable. But it's irritating because for some reason I still pore over it trying to figure out what's being said. Last night, reading a review of The Break-Up, I not only had to squint to see the crappy, tiny font they choose to review mainstream films in just so we know they consider them nearly beneath contempt, but I had to reread the opening sentence three times and it STILL didn't make sense. Neither did the rest of the review. When I was done, I had no idea if the movie is fun to sit through, whether there's any wit or truth to it, or if Vince Vaughan is funny or wasted as in weak material (Dodgeball). I don't know what the Voice writers are doing but communicating is not one of their projects.

Arrgggh. Everything sucks. And if this entry is mysteriously destroyed by my own clumsiness, I can't answer for how angry and hate-filled my next entry will be.