I wrote about an ax murder! It still remains my favorite thing about living here that you can read about stuff and the just go see where it happened. Not that there’s much to be discerned from going to see where this ax murder happened, but whatever.
On the Scene‘s facebook page, someone complained about the graphic image, which made me laugh, because I thought there was never a more chocolate-syrup-y looking bit of blood in the history of stage make-up.
Also, a reporter from the Washington Post is working on a piece about Isaac Franklin. I know this because a Franklin relative told me and the reporter contacted my editor to ask where the portrait of Franklin we used came from. I then contacted the expert on Franklin to see if she had contacted him. She had.
So, this isn’t about her. I’m looking forward to reading her story and it sounds like she’s contacting the right people. It’s really about my own ego, because y’all, I was so butt-hurt yesterday that she didn’t contact me. Like I’m some Franklin expert or have ownership of his story.
And the thing is, I want more people to be interested in history. I want more people to talk about the ways the past still influences the present. I want people to feel like history is available to them without them needing to go through gatekeepers.
And yet, my feelings were still deeply hurt and I was mad and insulted.
There’s no lesson to be learned from that, I suppose, except one we already know–which is that wanting to be recognized and valued and important are some of the wants that most easily cause you to get in the way of your own better impulses.
Tiny Cat Pants 
It’s very possible she didn’t contact you because she didn’t want to come off as derivative–she wanted to talk about the story in her own voice. I might do that, if I were her. Go to the sources and try to write my own take from my own perspective. Also to avoid being accused of plagiarism, maybe. Just speculating. But I know how you would feel, also.
Yeah, when I get outside of my own feelings, it’s clear she’s not doing anything wrong and, yes, is avoiding being tainted by my voice and my conclusions. But my feelings are not so rational. Which sucks.