I enjoy lying. I can’t do it ethically very often, though. That’s where fiction comes in. If my reader has signed up for it and agreed ahead of time, I can be as convincingly false as I want.

That’s not something I can do even on April Fools Day. Taking in media on the first of April doesn’t really meet the definition of informed consent. I feel bad if someone who reads to the bottom of something I’ve written on April 1 manages to walk away fooled. That’s why yesterday’s post about Dana leaving FtB included an image so ridiculous it had to give the game away.

So my April Fools post was not as satisfying as a good lie can be to tell. Today’s truth, on the other hand, makes me exceedingly happy.

Dana has a new blog at the Scientific American blog network. It’s a geology blog, of course, aimed at lay readers who share a little something of Dana’s fascination with rocks. If you know anyone who fits that description, you don’t want to let them miss this blog. From her inaugural post:

The first thing geology ever said to me was, “Ouch!”

I was five years old, and Mount St. Helens was busy erupting all over my teevee. I made it a get well card. It looked like it hurt. Thus began an ongoing conversation between me and objects people tend to think of as inanimate until they explode, rip apart, or fall down.

You’d think, growing up in Northern Arizona, that the Grand Canyon would have been my gateway drug for geology. Not so. Yes, it’s grand. Yes, it’s gorgeous. Yes, it has volumes to tell us about geological history. But we saw it so often before I’d learned the language of rocks that it became that huge hole in the ground we had to go see every time relations from the Midwest visited. Volcanoes were different. Watching those roiling gray clouds of ash pour from St. Helens, having some of that ash placed in my thrilled young hands by neighbors who visited the volcano shortly after its May 18th eruption, connecting her to the volcano that loomed outside my back door – that hooked me. That event taught me that geology matters. St. Helens gave me a volcano phobia, and then cured it.

Dana can’t help writing a little poetry when she talks about rocks, just like she can’t help including science and she can’t help making sense. It’s a wonderful combination, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that her words will be getting the prominence they deserve on a network where they will nurture the same love of science Dana has.

Even better? Dana isn’t leaving FtB to do this. We get to keep her!

The thought may have flittered through your mind: What about ETEV? Well, it’s not going anywhere. It won’t even change too much. Rosetta Stones is a fantastic chance to bring geology to a wider audience, and I’m going to love every moment I spend there (with you, right?), but this is home. This is where we do our UFDs and Mystery Flora and songs and road trips and whatever else catches our fancy, and I love being part of this amazing network of unapologetic atheists, and even though it’s not grammatically-correct Spanish, I love En Tequila Es Verdad. Our cantina isn’t closing. It’s just that we have a posh new spot to spend a day or two every week at, with new people to meet, and new things to see and do.

That makes this excellent news all around. Go congratulate Dana and tell her how wonderful her and her news both are. It’s really about time we finished snuffing out her impostor syndrome. If this news doesn’t do it, nothing will.