throw the blog in his face, they should have done it when they were in front of him.
The blog was even more embarrassing than the bookstore, though less financially ruinous.
After being fired from Brand-New Day, it was the children that he missed most. The not having anywhere to be at 7:45 a.m. was okay, actually. But the not seeing what Viola or Gus had chosen to wear that day (a tattered Disney dress; an adult swim cap and a Mylar cape); the not being someone whom tiny people trusted—that really sucked. The thing he missed second most, however, was being the publisher, editor, and staff of the daily journal sheets. So it wasn’t even a week after the dismissal that he started a blog, republishing the paper under its new banner, I Have Shared a Document with You.
He considered going down to Brand-New Day so that he could keep reporting on the children’s lives. He reasoned that as long as he stayed out of the building and the outdoor play zone, Sharon couldn’t stop him. There was the First Amendment, after all. But when he ran this legal theory by his friend Louis, whose wife was a public defender, Louis said, “You go down there and lurk behind chain-link to report on children, Leo, and you will be screwed beyond what you really understand.”
And that sunk in, for some reason.
So what had been a take-home one-pager from a preschool was transformed into an online account constantly updated by its unemployed and oversynapsed and self-intrigued author. He was on the swoop of swoops, all the world’s connections laid plain before him. He wrote daily and linked to hundreds of articles, on solar panels and hydroponics and hieroglyphics.
But then the sad curve of his decline began to be plainly evident in that blog. When his creative imaginings started to turn paranoid and bossy and solipsistic, his friends grew concerned. Katharine, the public defender, tried to intervene.
“Some of it’s pretty good,” said Katharine. “But a lot of it is…well, it’s unpolished, and some of it’s just too weird.” They were standing on Leo’s sagging front porch. It was early morning. “It’s okay to have these patches, Leo. It’s common enough. You’ll get through it. But there’s no reason to put it all in hard copy, to make everyone watch.”
“Transparency is a virtue, Katharine,” said Leo, who had mostly heard the common part.
“Yeah, ish, ” said Katharine. “One day you might feel differently about some of the stuff you’re putting out. Actually, you almost certainly will.”
Leo considered this. Maybe she had a point. But if embarrassment was due him later, it was due him later. This here now is for this here now . It is so easy to walk through the world when you ignore embarrassment and look people straight in the eye. Looking people straight in the eye also rattles them a bit.
“Well, aren’t you afraid of the secret world government that you say keeps track of everything we do online?” tried Katharine.
“I take precautions,” said Leo mysteriously.
“ You take precautions?” said Katharine. “I downloaded Skype for you. You wrap your computer in tinfoil or something?”
Leo scanned the area. “My real name appears nowhere on the blog,” he said. It was true; Leo always signed his posts with made-up names.
Then Leo’s friends started making unannounced visits on flimsy pretexts. Then his pot dealer cut him off . Out of concern! Like pot dealers are bound by the Hippocratic oath. Probably it was one of those friends who’d called his sisters. People really were watching; even paranoids have enemies.
Katharine’s sarcastic crack about did he wrap his computer in tinfoil made Leo realize: the noms de blog were not cloak enough. The Internet was probably controlled by the other side—of course it was!—and they would shut him down, remove him from the equation somehow. I Have Shared a Document with You had to come offline; it could not be broadcast. It would have to be a
The blog was even more embarrassing than the bookstore, though less financially ruinous.
After being fired from Brand-New Day, it was the children that he missed most. The not having anywhere to be at 7:45 a.m. was okay, actually. But the not seeing what Viola or Gus had chosen to wear that day (a tattered Disney dress; an adult swim cap and a Mylar cape); the not being someone whom tiny people trusted—that really sucked. The thing he missed second most, however, was being the publisher, editor, and staff of the daily journal sheets. So it wasn’t even a week after the dismissal that he started a blog, republishing the paper under its new banner, I Have Shared a Document with You.
He considered going down to Brand-New Day so that he could keep reporting on the children’s lives. He reasoned that as long as he stayed out of the building and the outdoor play zone, Sharon couldn’t stop him. There was the First Amendment, after all. But when he ran this legal theory by his friend Louis, whose wife was a public defender, Louis said, “You go down there and lurk behind chain-link to report on children, Leo, and you will be screwed beyond what you really understand.”
And that sunk in, for some reason.
So what had been a take-home one-pager from a preschool was transformed into an online account constantly updated by its unemployed and oversynapsed and self-intrigued author. He was on the swoop of swoops, all the world’s connections laid plain before him. He wrote daily and linked to hundreds of articles, on solar panels and hydroponics and hieroglyphics.
But then the sad curve of his decline began to be plainly evident in that blog. When his creative imaginings started to turn paranoid and bossy and solipsistic, his friends grew concerned. Katharine, the public defender, tried to intervene.
“Some of it’s pretty good,” said Katharine. “But a lot of it is…well, it’s unpolished, and some of it’s just too weird.” They were standing on Leo’s sagging front porch. It was early morning. “It’s okay to have these patches, Leo. It’s common enough. You’ll get through it. But there’s no reason to put it all in hard copy, to make everyone watch.”
“Transparency is a virtue, Katharine,” said Leo, who had mostly heard the common part.
“Yeah, ish, ” said Katharine. “One day you might feel differently about some of the stuff you’re putting out. Actually, you almost certainly will.”
Leo considered this. Maybe she had a point. But if embarrassment was due him later, it was due him later. This here now is for this here now . It is so easy to walk through the world when you ignore embarrassment and look people straight in the eye. Looking people straight in the eye also rattles them a bit.
“Well, aren’t you afraid of the secret world government that you say keeps track of everything we do online?” tried Katharine.
“I take precautions,” said Leo mysteriously.
“ You take precautions?” said Katharine. “I downloaded Skype for you. You wrap your computer in tinfoil or something?”
Leo scanned the area. “My real name appears nowhere on the blog,” he said. It was true; Leo always signed his posts with made-up names.
Then Leo’s friends started making unannounced visits on flimsy pretexts. Then his pot dealer cut him off . Out of concern! Like pot dealers are bound by the Hippocratic oath. Probably it was one of those friends who’d called his sisters. People really were watching; even paranoids have enemies.
Katharine’s sarcastic crack about did he wrap his computer in tinfoil made Leo realize: the noms de blog were not cloak enough. The Internet was probably controlled by the other side—of course it was!—and they would shut him down, remove him from the equation somehow. I Have Shared a Document with You had to come offline; it could not be broadcast. It would have to be a
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