Judith Warner has been one of the bright stars in the polluted blogosphere. Her blog, Domestic Disturbances, didn’t initially appeal to me: I thought it was all about motherhood and midlife crises. But then I skimmed a few paragraphs and wanted more. Warner knows how to concoct that remarkable blend of funny and smart that’s instantly addictive and incredibly satisfying. And her deft turns of phrase are never just for show; like poets, she knows that sometimes the best way to express something is to approach it from an unexpected angle. On the path she paves with her glittering vocabulary, delight and insight walk hand in hand.

Here’s one of my favorite Warner pieces: We Are the Dog. But if you read that and love it, don’t go looking for more: it’s all over now. Warner published her final Domestic Disturbances post last month. I was so saddened by the announcement, and then so impressed by yet another great piece of writing, I initially overlooked the tragedy hidden in her farewell. The really heartbreaking news is that the internet — specifically, the cacophony of id-driven blurting we call "community" and "interactivity" and "comments" — made Judith Warner second-guess her mighty pen. Here’s the pertinent bit:

The back-and-forth of our conversations changed me. I have learned to be more aware of the effect of what I say….

I am more cautious now, both in print and in real life. It is a strange thing, after long having been a bit too emotionally loud … to now find myself the kind of person whose hand other people grab, panicked, in mid-conversation, as they gasp apologies for their own effusions of opinion or effervescence.

“Not at all,” I have to say.

It is not necessarily a bad thing to have become more aware of other people and more tuned into how they feel. After all, when you write, alone and in silence, you are addressing real people, and you ignore their feelings and sensibilities at your own risk.

It’s true that this kind of awareness is not necessarily a bad thing on a human level. We could all stand to be more considerate and compassionate, especially online. But I think it’s a very bad thing for a writer to become so aware of her readers. Caution thwarts creativity and blocks inspiration. And Warner’s own message on this issue is a little mixed; earlier in the post, she seems to long for the good old (comment-free) days:

… it’s probably no accident that the greatest sense of community I’ve had in recent years has come from sitting alone, staring at a piece of paper (I write by hand) and shutting out the world.

I think that’s the only time a writer can truly hear her own voice. She should still hear echoes of other voices, of course, and I think that’s the sense of community Warner refers to: the community of knowledge and experience and just being a person who’s alive in the world. But online, that larger context shrinks and contorts. Some commenters haven’t even read the thing they’re commenting on and probably never will. That’s not really a community; it’s more like a mob.

I know what it’s like to be overwhelmed by the rabble, so I’m not really criticizing Warner for feeling cautious. I too have found myself unable to take action without considering (and usually fearing and eventually obsessing over) the possible reaction. When I first started writing for AfterEllen.com, it wasn’t possible to comment on the site. There were forums, and I got plenty of e-mail (most of it wonderful). But there was no opportunity for readers to fire off unedited gut reactions, or use an article as a soapbox, or otherwise spray impulsive, irrelevant, destructive digital graffiti on my wall of carefully tended words. When they started doing that, even just occasionally, it started to seem like all my late-night searches for the perfect phrase just weren’t worth it. A single spewing of vitriol could eat at me for days.

The decline of that so-called community was one (just one, and not even the biggest one) of the reasons I decided to leave AfterEllen, and it’s the thing that really makes me miss the old internet. I remember the heady days of Yahoo groups and message boards like Drop the Chalupa. That internet fostered a true sense of community. Remember moderators? Remember when people got banned for starting flame wars? Remember the feeling that you had found your own kind? Those days are mostly gone, just like that weekly dose of Judith Warner’s opinionated, "emotionally loud" charm and wisdom.

I probably sound bitter and butthurt, not to mention old. And obviously it wasn’t all bad: I truly cherished the readers who lingered over every word (and there were so very many words), and I formed some lasting friendships. As Judith Warner puts it, "the moments of real connection have been many, and powerful, and they will stay with me." I’ll always be grateful for those moments.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Judith Warner and I — and plenty of others who have braved the web waters, only to find ourselves not waving but drowning — are now cautious and hesitant, not sure whether or when to write again. I think that’s tragic. I hope someday the real writers and real readers of the web will unite — especially the women, who are perhaps more likely to take thoughtless comments seriously. The next time the crowd gets unruly, let’s crank up the volume of our own voices until we drown them out.

In times of such upheaval, I find myself turning to movies for comfort and commiseration (this is also true in times of joy and times of boredom and … just all the time). But guess what? They don’t really make movies about moving, or about the other mundane things that have been consuming my energy. I had to think long and hard to come up with this handful of pictures of the prosaic.

1. Packing/organizing: Housekeeping captures the futility of tidying up when you yourself are a bit of a mess. I mean that in a good way; as Sylvie the itinerant, Christine Lahti is delightfully chaotic. But she’s certainly no Martha Stewart: when her stodgy neighbors disapprove of the state of her heaven-for-hoarders house, the best Sylvie can do is stack up the crush of newspapers and scrub out the clatter of tin cans. She ends up torching the whole damn thing, which sounded like a fine idea to me the night before the movers arrived.

By the way, the "trestling" scene in Sunshine Cleaning was totally stolen from Housekeeping.

2. Movers and moving yourself: When I was younger and cheap(er), I insisted on moving my own stuff, like Alice in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Get outta my way!

But now I’m a big fan of the big men with trucks, even when they scratch the edges of my pristine LCD TV (dammit). Next time I’m going to let movers actually pack up my stuff, too — or maybe I’ll use elephants and trains, like Karen Blixen in Out of Africa. She had more (and finer) stuff, and it all survived the trip.

3. Dog trauma: I think my pup is fine now, but for the first few days in his new home, he growled and barked at everything that twitched. And who would make a movie about canine neuroses? There’s The Dog Problem, but the problem (loving a rascally mutt) turns out to be no problem at all.

And there’s Pink Flamingos, which I mention only for that scene in which Divine devours a doodie sandwich (because it came to mind the day after the move, when my dog took an anxious dump on the doormat).

Oh, wait — how could I forget about The Year of the Dog? Dogs and trauma to the max. Poor Pencil the pup.

4. Back pain: Nobody wants to hear about, let alone watch a movie about, the aches and pains of lifting boxes and hefting furniture and flaying your own finger with a pliers. And the pain of moving is like the pain of childbirth: a few years later, you’re certain it couldn’t have been that bad and you’re ready to try again. So all I can think of for this category is Fast Food Nation, which portrays a workplace back injury (and which we happened to catch on IFC shortly after moving). But that’s not really a film: it’s more of an extended bit of vegetarian propaganda (I can say that because I too am a vegetarian), and Richard Linklater should be ashamed of himself. (But look: Chrissy Seaver is all grown up!)

5. Second-guessing your moving plans: We didn’t seriously reconsider our move, but we did have a few outbursts like “How can anything be worth all this effort?!” And then, while happily doing laundry for the first time in our new building, we saw a few minutes of the best movie ever in which people spend the whole time planning to move and then, at the last minute, decide to stay put: Meet Me in St. Louis.

It’s cloying at times (like, every time that little kid speaks), but Judy Garland is gorgeous and in very fine voice. Just be prepared to have "The Trolley Song" in your head for a few days or weeks afterward.

6. Apartments and elevators: I’ll end on a high note: The Apartment, in which Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine fall in love amidst misunderstandings. I’ve always run hot and cold about Ms. MacLaine (I’m sure she’d like to forget those crystal/chakra/psycho years too), but her savvy-yet-goofy elevator operator is delicious.

Pitch-perfect comedy and a flawless script make The Apartment a must-see even if you’re not moving to an apartment on the Upper West Side (ah, if only I could claim a fantastic brownstone like the one in the movie). And the story follows an immensely satisfying arc: life takes a strange turn, then flies completely off the rails, and ultimately lands you exactly where you want to be. If only every apartment tale — and every life event in general — could turn out so sweet.

Postscript: IMDb tells me there really is a movie about moving, and it’s even called Moving. It doesn’t sound great, though. Some things just aren’t cinematic.

But over the last few weeks, I certainly have felt grateful. I generally feel lucky to be living in New York City, but the theater can make me feel downright blessed — especially when I end up breathing the same air as Meryl Streep, Tyne Daly, Jane Lynch, and Anna Deavere Smith.

I can barely wrap my head around this embarrassment of riches, so I’m just going to relive them in chronological order. First, Meryl Streep. On Nov. 2, she appeared with Kevin Kline in The Lover and the Poet, a benefit for The Acting Company.

At first I couldn’t believe I actually shelled out the money for this one — I am not in the same tax bracket as people who go to these things — but now I’m glad I did.

They acted out some choice scenes; took turns reading sonnets; and sang — sang! — a few standards and show tunes.

On the surface, the whole thing was a tiny bit slapdash and a lot too short. Streep seemed unrehearsed, and Kline got lost in the sound of his own voice. But these "flaws" only made it all feel more real; they only deepened my appreciation for that Streepy something that has dazzled audiences worldwide. She has that thing, whatever it is, even when she hasn’t fully prepared or when she’s relaxed and just having fun — she has that thing that makes you feel like you’ve just been hugged or healed or had some important understanding imparted to you.

And then there’s her beauty and sensuality. It too is "flawed" — she’s not always graceful, not always picture-perfect. Her hair fell into her eyes; she made an awkward gesture or two; and, again, all of it only made me love her more.

I guess the "thing" is honesty. Sometimes she’s honestly channeling something, taking in unfiltered pain or joy and radiating it back to us with some finer thread weaved into it, and sometimes she’s honestly struggling or shrugging. She’s true.

A couple of weeks later, I bought last-minute tickets to Love, Loss and What I Wore, the Nora Ephron play that’s sort of like The Vagina Monologues but centers on clothing instead of on, um, coming. I didn’t think I’d like the material much, being an average lesbian who favors comfort over fashion, but how could I resist Tyne Daly and Jane Lynch?

(Meryl saw the same cast — here she is with them, but not the same night I saw them. That would just be crazy.)

The show turned out to be much funnier than I expected. Tyne was head and shoulders above the rest dramatically, and Jane was head and shoulders above the rest physically — wow, is she tall! I’m glad they were sitting next to each other, because it was really difficult to decide which one to watch.

In an interview with New York magazine, Jane sounded thrilled to finally be making her (off-)Broadway debut. I think we’ll probably see her on the boards again, because she seemed to belong there. At the same time, she too seemed more real — not always quick with a joke, not always getting the last word. And she seemed perfectly OK with that — even slightly relieved.

A mere three days later, I saw Anna Deavere Smith’s one-woman show Let Me Down Easy. I’ve been a fan of hers since The West Wing, but I’m a little befuddled by her current role on Nurse Jackie: is she supposed to be the comic relief? If so, whose stupid idea was that? Surely not hers. So when I bought the tickets, I was hoping the show would redeem that silliness, or at least let her be silly in her own way.

The show is based on interviews Smith did with 20 people who were dealing with illness or age or death — end-of-the-road stuff in general. It’s an impressive piece of work: 20 people brought to life by one woman. But as the review in The New York Times notes, "Ms. Smith is not the kind of performer who wholly disappears into the people she is portraying; she is too forceful a presence for that." (Though even her forcefulness can’t subdue that goofy character on Nurse Jackie; the stories do matter as much as the storyteller.)

Just as with Love, Loss, I didn’t really expect to like the subject matter of Let Me Down Easy, but I was wrong again. It rattled around in my head for days; once you start thinking about how you’d like to look back on your own life, it’s hard to stop, especially when you find yourself staring at cubicle walls or otherwise wasting your precious time.

And there was the "real" factor again: Smith worked hard on that stage. We don’t get to see the labor behind film and TV, so when all the sweat and exertion of acting is right in front of you, it’s kind of astonishing. Combine that with the whole contemplating-your-own-mortality thing, and you end up feeling more grounded, more aware of what your own senses are telling you.

I wouldn’t have expected these three shows to have anything in common, but for me they did: each woman, up there under the lights and yet not so very far away, conveyed (intentionally or not) a simple, profound message: we’re human. So are you. And isn’t that great — shouldn’t we be grateful?

So at the risk of tempting fate, I’m giving thanks for the theater this year. And even for what Shakespeare called "this wide and universal theater." I’m happy to be a "mere player" these days.

(Click for the giant version, which may make you hyperventilate)

I mean … wow.

Mitchell has been doing a lot of press for V, which starts Nov. 3. She’s been saying some delightful things, too.

In Entertainment Weekly (Nov. 6):

[Kissing Angelina Jolie in Gia was] pillowy and fabulous. Honestly, you got lost in her lips. It was almost overwhelming, like a peach.

I cried for a couple of days [when Juliet died on Lost]. Evangeline Lilly and my sister came over and we drank until we fell asleep on the couch, which was not good, because none of us are big drinkers. We woke up and said, “Let’s do ice cream next time, okay?”

I’m a dork and a nerd.

In Time Out New York (Oct. 29–Nov. 4):

I’d compare Erica [her character in V] to Athena and Hera, because she’s both the mother and the warrior. Back in popular fiction, she’s like Sarah Connor in The Terminator a lot. And of course you’ve gotta have a little Ripley in there.

Every time I think I couldn’t possibly love her more, she shatters my expectations. She is somehow both ethereal and earthy. And she calls herself a nerd?! My head is spinning; I really do need to sit down.

I still think it’s a pretty good holiday as holidays go, but the ratio of drunken stupidity to fun spookiness is not so lovable sometimes. So when something kooky or bizarre comes along — without all the sinister mischief — I’m glad.

At first I thought this was going to fit the "kooky and fun" bill. But then it started to scare me. This morning on the Today show, Wanda Sykes stopped by to talk to Hoda and Kathie Lee.

Um, I mean, Elmo stopped by to talk to Yoda and C-3PO.

Where to begin? That’s more awkwardness than I know what to do with. The costumes are ridiculous, unless you think of them as costumes for Opposite Day. Goofy, off-the-rails Kathie Lee is a snooty robot, and down-to-earth, statuesque Hoda is a mystical midget. Shrug. At least Wanda just wanted to be Elmo because she thought the costume would keep her warm.

And then there’s awkwardness around the gay stuff. Kathie Lee isn’t quite sure what to call Wanda’s better half. She stammers, "well, you call her your wife!" Yeah, she does. Maybe someday the law will call her that too.

Wanda herself is awesome, of course, so there’s that. But (as Wanda says) the whole thing is just so weird.

Sigh. I think I need a popcorn ball. And maybe I need to watch Wanda’s HBO special again. I’ll definitely be tuning in for her new talk show.

Happy Halloween, everyone!