Is There an Art to Bolding?

I’m supposed to be working on a memo right now. I even “rewarded” myself with pizza for lunch for working so hard on the memo before lunch. But there comes a point in memo writing where you’re supposed to bold things. Maybe not in all memo writing, but in memo writing here.

So, I write this ridiculously long thing that includes every possible scenario under the sun all of which are very unlikely to pass and I spend all day crafting it and then I feel like I bold the ten sentences anyone actually needed to read and… so… why didn’t I just write those ten sentences in the first place?

And, if I had just written those ten sentences, would I be asked to bold key phrases?

Hey, you know, I could whittle it down to Do blah blah blah what blah blah blah I blah blah blah say.

No, but the point I wanted to make is that I don’t understand the philosophy behind bolding things. Do I bold the important points? Do I bold only the things I want people to not be able to claim they didn’t read? Can I bold a whole sentence?

And some people make their bold words difference colors. Is this just showing off or is there a difference between a word bolded in the color of the rest of the text and a word bolded in its own color?

Are there people for whom bolding comes naturally?

I’ll Just Be Over Here, Laughing in an Unbecoming Fashion

1. It never fails to surprise me how many people are like “Oh, poor Marc Smirnoff.” Though, you know, folks, maybe we’re the only people in the world–beside that poor intern–he was a raging asshole to? Let’s feel special.

2. It’s a long story that I won’t get into out of respect for the fact that the people I care about have changed a great deal in the intervening years, but let me just say that I feel about this the way Daisy Duke might feel upon learning that Boss Hogg had bankrupted Hazzard County. If the Duke boys were running pot not moonshine.

3. Okay, so I learned something–I think–yesterday. The Necronomicon was NOT written by Lovecraft, as I’d always assumed, but was written by some Ed Smith dude. So, Lovecraft made up a book. And then the book appeared and everyone who didn’t think it was written by the “Mad Arab” assumed it was written by Lovecraft but really, it was written by some other dude, who seems to have hoped people might mistake it for Lovecraft. That, my friends, is so great I cannot stand it.

Back to 2, for a second. It will be weird, if there’s wide-spread legalization of marijuana, to realize how many people I know will be able to tell stories of their youthful days as our equivalent of rum runners.