I have, in the spirit of fun (admittedly tinged with meanness), poked fun at myself and at the Oscars. At the sweet Tony Danza once, and the amazing Selma Hayek. I could say everyone does it, but then I’m back to second grade standing on the Brooklyn Bridge with a lecture about all my friends jumping off it, now is that what I want, too?

I don’t know why I go there, to that mean place, even with a spirit of fun. I’m no comedian, and really, the comedians I like best are the nice ones. Ellen. Bill Cosby. I don’t know many others. People who are funny and never at anyone else’s expense. I don’t want to be her. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself, maybe not hard enough. I think sometimes we take things too personally, that if someone were to come across something mean written about them, they shouldn’t take it to heart, but should instead question what’s really going on with the writer who penned the words. Are they doing it for attention? Are they jealous or insecure about their own talents?

When I turn these questions on myself, when I force myself to respond, I’d have to say, it was done, even behind the veil of good fun, because I was lazy. With regard to my Oscar’s post, the one where I didn’t edit myself, simply aired what I was thinking, it wasn’t done maliciously, or really, even for attention. I wrote it because I didn’t know what else to write. I was lazy and didn’t feel like doing a post-mortem on the night, with the benefit of morning and some good sense. It was easier than thinking. It was easy. It’s why it’s so easy in writing to be mean. I need to work on that. And I apologize for being lazy. For being mean. Because really, I’m better than that.

I need to remind myself of all the times I wasn’t lazy. All the times where really nasty things were written about me, by people who, just the same, didn’t know me at all. People who attacked me personally, pissed on my writing without being constructive, people who were unkind… and I wasn’t lazy. It would have been lazy and easy to lash back, to have a pissing contest. And it took more effort NOT to respond, to take that high road. I wasn’t lazy when I chose not to address all the assmunch cracks at my expense. So I shouldn’t be lazy when it comes to making the assmunch cracks at the expense of others, especially people I’ve never met. My unprompted apologies.