I have a much darker picture in my head of what Trump and his followers will do if, come January, someone other than Trump is sworn in.

Well, Trump did call for revolution after Obama won in '12.

(He deleted that tweet shortly after he made it.)

Years ago, when we were doing our magazine in-house, I - as usual - edited the stories that came in. The brand-new editor saw the final version and was horrified that I had CHANGED THEIR WORDS. Never mind that some of them could have used a remedial English class, with emphasis on punctuation ....

And, since we've been talking about stinky things, the U.S. Botanic Garden corpse flower is about to bloom (predicted for Tuesday). Live feed of the plant, so you can enjoy the bloom without the smell. Or DC's weather.

The brand-new editor saw the final version and was horrified that I had CHANGED THEIR WORDS.

Perhaps that person shouldn't have been hired as an editor if they were horrified that you did what their job title describes. Sheesh.

t edit Though that did happen to me at a volunteer gig -- I was asked to edit a newsletter, so I, you know, EDITED. The head of the organization lost his shit at me, yelling that I was not allowed to change people's words. I said, "You asked me to edit; that's what editing IS." He said "I thought you would just run spellcheck." I told him that if that's all he wanted, then the people who wrote the articles could run spellcheck before turning in the articles, and I declined to continue not-editing the newsletter (which turned into a shitstorm of epic proportions, where I was called disloyal, a liar, and a quitter [that last one was, I suppose, technically true]).

I hated editing people's fiction, because I was never sure where the line was between authorial voice and coherence. I did lots of "This sentence isn't clear, perhaps focus on the action?" or "Two pages back you spent a lot of time on the opulence of the scene, several paragraphs on the luxury of the clothing seems excessive here."

Man, I love it when editors make my shit better. I love editors! They make me sound so smart.

I hated editing people's fiction, because I was never sure where the line was between authorial voice and coherence.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd want to edit fiction. STEM editing is so wonderfully clear, because its goal is: present the data as precisely as possible.

For those of us missing Cute Overload:

[link]

Ah, one of the freelance coordinators gave me a template for an icily polite letter that basically says "No, we're the fucking AMA, and we WILL edit your article, but obviously if we change the meaning, we need to know so we can change it back. Don't come for me, bro."

Just because someone else gets angry doesn't mean their anger is your problem. I have very little interest, for instance, in mending fences with the six people who twitter-teamed me about bathroom laws, and they were totally angry at me, probably because it's a strain for six people to have one brain.( I understand, and sympathize, with it being harder when it's a relationship that you do care about, but I find it hard to believe that you are always the one that's wrong.) For the record, that's why I get in fights in twitter, for principle, but also to remind myself that I don't die if people don't like me or call me some stupid name.

Because, basically, special-education prepared me to live on Sesame Street and that's about all. Or in one of those movies when we were kids where somebody loved the dork after she showed what was inside.