A story I could tell, but won't

An e-mail arrived in my in-box today that was so curious, so full of true-crime novel drama and oblique references to a murder-suicide involving a famous romance novelist that my prior history as a muckraking journalist almost sparked a Jekyl-and-Hyde war within me. Part of me wanted to just publish the whole damn thing, in-flight martini vomit and all. The other part of me knows better.

There are many reasons I left my post in the media. One of them was the complete and utter disregard that the "profession" has for the stories people tell, the things they experience and the trauma they suffer. Your average person will occasionally utter the phrase, "No news is good news." But your average journalist turns it around: "Good news is no news."

I recall (somewhat fondly) how Dr. M's eye started to twitch when she heard I rarely watch the news, don't subscribe to any newspapers or news magazines, don't have cable TV and haven't typed MSNBC.com into a browser window in several months. (We've become friends, but I think it's against her better judgment.)

You know what it is? I'm on the wagon when it comes to "the news." After working as a reporter and editor in my previous life, I know how decisions are made about what to play up, what to play down and what to completely ignore. I realized a long time ago that I could learn as much as I needed to know about what's happening by listening to a Letterman monologue as I could by watching the evening news. Most of what's in the news is total crap that has no context or meaning for those who watch or read it. I've also realized that when something "important" happens, I find out about it without even trying.

It used to be that I paid attention. And all I got for my efforts was ... anxiety. (Hence, the News-Related Anxiety Recovery Group proposal I did for Mr. Hand's miserable little class earlier this term.) It got so bad, I had a problem walking past all the newspaper boxes downtown. Don't look at the headlines, I'd tell myself. You'll just get sucked in again.

But somewhere along the line, I got off the juice. Hurricane Katrina almost pulled me back down into the muck again -- but didn't. (Sure as hell did piss me off, though, what with our inept president and his "Silent Bob" routine. Didn't ask a single question in the briefing! But don't ask me how I know this -- I must absorb it from the atmosphere or something, because I haven't read shit about that topic, I swear.)

I pretty much live in a media never-never land, and I couldn't care less. Eight years ago, I would've said such a thing was *never* going to happen, just wasn't possible. I would have called someone like me "an ignorant fool who's fucking up our democracy." Nowadays, I just think I'm smarter than everyone else. (Either way, I'm still smug!)

Still, there's a part of me that wants to "report" the murder-and-martinis tidbit that arrived in my e-mail today. But I won't. It will be my little secret. And the world will never know the fucking difference. Nor will it care. Which is pretty much what you could say about 90 percent of the stuff aired on CNN. Without the big cameras and the bright lights, a pile of bullshit is nothing more than something that stinks and attracts flies.

Don't waste your time with it, people. Be like me! It really ain't that bad. (Except for the part where I'm going through a breakup, haven't had great sex in a long time and recently lost a treasured necklace I brought back from the Amazon with me. That all pretty much sucks. But the part where I'm ignorant of "what's happening" is sweet sweet sweet. Like dulce de leche, I'm telling ya.)