When I was in college, I somehow wrangled my way into the position of Features editor of the student newspaper. This dubious triumph was accomplished without any previous experience or strategy for moving forward. As was the case with most of my rises to power, I was in the right place at the right time, and no one else wanted to do it. Once on the job, I simply made things up as I went along (my editorial responsibilities, not the news stories, as so many journalists appear to be doing these days).

I readily admit that I was a terrible Features editor, both in arranging the scope of my section’s coverage and in getting anyone to do the work. My scant staff was so unreliable that I ended up writing everything myself in the hour before we went to press, and those of you who are witness to my love affair with grammar today would be flabbergasted to learn that I did not proofread a single one of the slipshod articles and columns that I published. I was too busy writing the horoscopes that extrapolated my dire predictions about my friends’ convoluted lives to all of the unlucky souls who shared their birth signs.

In fact, I wrote several regular columns under bizarre pseudonyms; it was lucky I was schizophrenic or it would have been difficult to keep track of so many different personalities and points of view. My favorite of these was called “The Campus Curmudgeon,” by “Mr. Misanthropy.” A precursor to this very web log, that column gave voice to the facet of my psyche that loves to complain but is continually mystified by the vagaries of human nature. Everyone found this so depressing, however, that I was forced to invent an alter ego named “Señor Sunshine,” who would merrily swoop in before things got too far out of hand. (Goblin Foo Uvula fulfills quite the same function today.)

My dreary tenure lasted a semester; subsequent embellishments about my responsibilities and the prestige of the newspaper danced across my résumé, but I was quick to put the actual experience behind me. Lingering questions remain, however, from that bygone era. These are psychologically intricate but boil down to the familiar (and somewhat huffy) demand: Who the hell do I think I am, anyway?