All the pregnancy books in the towering stack I checked out from the library indicate that memory loss and absentmindedness are common among expectant women, but for a perfectionist, it’s disconcerting. I’m accustomed to receiving phone calls and e-mails at my job thanking me for my accuracy and thoroughness, not jibes and snide comments because I got something wrong.

It all started yesterday afternoon when I found it difficult to concentrate as I put the finishing touches on my story about the public library.

“Hey, are you feeling all right?” asked Beck, the lifestyle editor, as she peered over the top of her glasses. “You look a little peaked.”

I assured her I was fine.

She’s not that much older than I am, but she’s got a kid, which means she’s got that maternal/nurturing thing going.

“Why don’t you wrap it up and call it a day, Ellie?”

Figuring the haze surrounding my brain wasn’t going to lift, I agreed. After running spell check, I sent her the completed piece and turned off the computer before heading home.

This morning I arrived at work before anyone else and savored the sun streaming through the windows as it formed patches of light on the carpet. There’s a unique serenity attached to a newsroom of blank computer screens and silent phones—a stark contrast to the chaos and edginess it takes on after everyone arrives.

After inhaling a final bit of peacefulness, I booted up my computer and checked my voice mail. To my surprise, I had twenty messages waiting—a lot for an innocuous features writer. I became really concerned when the computer screen indicated that I had at least three dozen e-mails. As I scanned the subject lines, I dropped the phone and bolted across the newsroom for a copy of today’s paper.

To my horror, Beck and the copy editors failed to catch that I had left out an “L” in “public library.” There are two “L’s” in that pairing of words, so why, oh why, did I have to omit the one in “public”?

Any print journalist with any amount of experience knows to live in fear of the public. Not the masses, but the word itself. With the omission of a single “L,” public transportation, public broadcasting, and public education become new things entirely.

As do public libraries.

Tito, one of our photographers, heard about my gaffe as soon as he arrived (we do, after all, work in a newsroom) and wasted no time straddling a chair near my desk so he could razz me between sips of his favorite roasted blend. Meanwhile, I painstakingly went through each wise-acre message inquiring about the hours and location of this heretofore under-reported investment of taxpayer money. I even received an e-mail that began, “Sorry to split hairs….”

It's times like these that I am so thankful for this private, personal blog that Chip set up for me. It's nice that I have a place where I can write whatever I want with no worries about scrutiny from the public.

P-U-B-L-I-C.