I had started in an unemployment office. I had started with the refuse of failure—a reporter’s pad half-filled with notes on some soon-to-be-disgraced entertainer—had graduated to a blog written for the amusement of my father and myself, had assembled a horde of post-docs, nerds, and feminists to enlighten me, and on their wisdom had been throttled into this odd world of awards, fellowships, and praise. I do not mean to sound so passive. But my struggle is to remain conscious, to remember the gifts of so many out there, treading, drowning. And the praise will make you forget all that, will
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