The three years I spent outside journalism writing a book taught me that bad news didn't bother me so much if I didn't read or watch it.
I feel pretty helpless when Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris can walk into a congressional seat (as she will), Hillsborough County Commissioner Stacey Easterling can swipe my tax dollars to promote herself for a better seat, and Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney can chop up our congressional districts just so he gets one for himself.
I am so sick of those people! I'm sick of them, Al-Arian, Judy Genshaft, Dennis Alvarez, Ronda Storms, Dick Greco and crazy people supporting public access television — all of them.
I'm worn out from reading about terrorists. I've read more than enough about the Middle East and Enron. Right now, there is nothing else that I want to know about Our Lame Legislature.
I just want to crawl under a rock and ignore it all.
Really.
That is part of the reason that this is my last column in Weekly Planet. The other part is, this Planet is a little too weird for me.
I'll miss you.
After a speech in Tucson recently, I dined out with some of the women I'd met. As I dipped my tortilla chip in the guacamole, one woman informed me: "You don't like guacamole."
Huh?
"I love guacamole," I said.
"No you don't. You didn't eat the avocados in your salad at lunch yesterday."
"Well," I said, "You are not the expert on Fawn. I am the expert on all things Fawn, and Fawn loves guacamole."
It was a ridiculous conversation, but it sure showed how, once you start to stand out in front of people, they watch what you do and make all kinds of assumptions about who you are.
I've been writing this column for five months. You've gotten to know one side of me, the one who complains about the way things operate around here. You know nothing about the other side of me — the one I enjoy more.
Believe me, five years ago, nobody (including me) would have envisioned me making my living as a speaker set on helping women live bolder lives. My most exciting challenge these days is the national mentoring network I'm launching with Gen. Claudia Kennedy and marathon legend Kathrine Switzer. This is a crusade that a cynical columnist like Fawn Germer would rip apart, and yet, it is what I am all about.
What a huge contradiction. My public speaking is all about optimism and hope, and my column, the Discomfort Zone, is all about criticism and lament. Believe me, every time I read the news I wind up in my Discomfort Zone, but I wonder why I choose to go there. It is a choice.
I started reporting when I was a nerdy 15-year-old who cared only about the news and demanded my small town newspaper editor give me a job, which he did. The only thing I ever wanted to do with my life was be a reporter.
How did someone who lived for the news come to resent it so much? As a journalist, I worked hard to inform the public and expose what's wrong. As a reader, those stories wear me out. Especially in Florida, where dishonorable people hold such a lock on power that it doesn't matter what the media report. Bad people keep doing bad things.
I realized I'd lost interest in being a reporter during the 2000 election when U.S. News and World Report wanted to send me to Tallahassee to cover the madness of the Florida vote count. When I weaseled out of the assignment, I realized I was truly finished with hard news reporting. If that story couldn't grab me, what would? They couldn't even coax me back in to cover the terrorist links to Florida after Sept. 11, or the anthrax scare.
I thought column writing would be different, and it is. I love the charge I get out of saying whatever I am thinking, but the residual is still there. That same negative aftertaste I had at the end of my reporting career is back. I get great response every time I write something mean. I love response. I hate being mean.
And, really, does it make any difference?
I had to come to the Planet to figure that out. And to remember how the workplace works (and doesn't). Talk about a discomfort zone.
Still, I'll miss my voice mail, which has been filled with messages from the guy who has been locked away under the Baker Act, or the other guy who repeatedly reports a mass murderer — a computer virus — that killed several people in Pinellas County and former Hillsborough State Attorney Harry Lee Coe, and the woman who lets me know when a UFO is headed my way. I'll miss all my e-mail buddies who have helped me start my day with a dose of humor and outrage.
You all be good. I'm headed to my comfort zone.
