And I smote them with my mighty pen

You might accuse me of being a bit of a media slut after this. You might be right.

I got my knickers in a twist yesterday when I was riding the bus to work, reading the morning paper. (Editorial aside: morning paper almost as much a source of mischief as search engines.) There was an article about how the city is considering eliminating the “express” routes that run directly from the suburbs to the core in favour of a system more like Toronto’s, where local buses run to hubs on the outskirts and secondary buses bring commuters to the core from the hubs. The only route specified in the article was the one I happened to be riding.

So when I got to work I was good and fired up, and cranked out a letter to the editor and sent it off and promptly forgot about it. Late in the afternoon, the photo editor from the Citizen called and asked if they could run my letter, and if they could send out a photographer to take my picture to run with it. They’re coming by the house after work tonight, where I assume they are looking to get a nice picture of me freezing my ass off in front of a bus stop sign. I’ll post a link if they publish it.

The need to share my opinions through the media is a thread that runs through my life. Maybe it’s because I wanted to be a journalist when I was a kid, and this satisfies an unfulfilled part of my psyche. Or maybe it’s an approval thing. My first published letter to the editor was in Grade 12. My teacher promised to upgrade my A to an A+ if I got published by the end of the semester, so I did.

I’ve had a few letters published since then, most notably with a picture of then-four-month-old Tristan and Beloved when I replied to another letter that had equivocated the embryos lost through in vitro fertilization to abortion. IVF also played a part in us getting interviewed on CBC Newsworld, once before we cycled in 2001 and again on the day I was due with Tristan. Poor Beloved, a quiet and shy kind of guy, has had the most private parts of his life examined in the national media because his wife can’t control her exhibitionist compulsions.

The blog seems like a natural extension of my exhibitionism. And heck, there is no editor on the blog to censure or censor me! No matter how inane or relevant my thoughts, I’ve got a forum to bounce them around. I guess I’m still that kid in school, hand in the air waving to get the teacher’s attention while she tries to ignore me and choose somebody, anybody, else to comment.

Related posts (automatically generated):

1. Strollers on buses – my letter to the editor Every couple of years, I get my knickers in enough of a twist to fire off a letter to the editor of our local paper. I’ve got a pretty good record of getting them published. I’ve got another one published this morning. The back story has to do with a...
2. It’s official: I’m a writer! Long time readers and friends (hmmm, that may be redundant) know that I have always harboured not-so-secret dreams of being a “real” writer. You might argue that I already am a writer in that my day job (in that other life that still lurks outside of maternity leave) since a...
3. Strollers on buses revisted Today, OC Transpo is issuing new guidelines on the management of the priority seating on buses. The guidelines will no doubt be both controversial and divisive, because the gist of the proposed guidelines include a new “stroller policy” that “limits the size and number of open strollers on board at...