In Quotes

I remember a sign hanging in the room where my high school Sunday school class met. It had the image of a tape recorder, or maybe it was a reel-to-reel. I don't recall the exact words, but the message was something about carefully choosing what you say because God hears and remembers all.

That sounds a lot more paranoid and Orwellian than it actually was and as it was intended, but my memory is too fuzzy to give a clearer picture. (It kind of freaked me out at the time, though.) Regardless, I think it must have made an impact on me because I am careful with what I say, although that doesn't stop me from sticking my foot in my mouth plenty. That's related more to foolishness than nastiness anyway.

The reason I bring this up is because today my words from a year and a half ago were brought into the present...and in the pages of the New York Times, no less. Don't believe me? Check the next to last paragraph of this article about museum renovations. (If you have the paper, go to page H18.) Now I have ammunition for family members who don't think anyone reads what I write.

My quote comes from something I wrote on my movie blog on September 21, 2005. It was a short, tossed-off item with as short of a shelf life as anything I've written there. How the reporter found it escapes me. (OK, probably through Google but you understand.)

I was completely unaware of this until someone from the arts center e-mailed me. Seeing it was really, really weird. Since my office is in the library, I went upstairs to look at it in print. It would have been surreal enough if I knew it was coming. Being surprised by it exponentially increased the weirdness factor. I have to get a copy of this to keep. Would it have killed the Times to give me a link on their website, though? :)

So now my secrecy here makes perfect sense, doesn't it?