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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

the one about fiction versus nonfiction

At approximately 7:30 this evening, I will submit my last and largest paper of the semester (a project referenced in this post) and thereby have completed all my work for the semester. This will also mean I only need to write a thesis to get my MA.

"Only" write a thesis. Ha.

Writing and revising this paper got me to thinking about how I write, especially with reference to the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction.

When I write fiction, I give entirely too much information up front. I've been writing a novel on and off since high school (aka: a long time ago), and when I workshopped the beginning of it last summer, my instructor informed me that I don't need to put every single fact in the opening chapter / paragraph /sentence / word. I am familiar with the concepts of allusion and foreshadowing, but apparently I don't use them in my writing. I basically say, "Hey! This is important! She is sad because of THIS. Think about that? Remember how she's sad? That's going to affect EVERYTHING. Pay attention!"

This is compared to my nonfiction, critical writing. In which I catch my speed and the paper goes ka-pow about two pages before it ends. And professors think perhaps it should start where it ends. And are kind of right. 

I can revise fiction until the end of time. In fact, sometimes I revise more than I write because writing fiction is hard. Plotting doesn't come easily, and narration sometimes drivels off into inanity. Not unlike my critical work. I'd rather do all manner of unpleasant things instead of revising critical work. But Husband is a no-holds-barred editor these days--since I have recently become able to handle his constructive, useful criticism without yelling at him that he has no idea what I'm trying to say so he should stop trying to tell me how to say it--and informed me that my most recent paper, although working better towards getting to the point earlier, still lagged in the beginning. 

You see, I finish a paper and I say, "WHEEE! I'm done! Where's the wine?" I revise for typos, things spell-check misses, and to clarify word choice. I am excellent at the sentence level. I have great difficulty distancing myself from the text and understanding that time spent getting to the point needs to, well, get to the point. This does not mean starting the paper from scratch. It means tightening language in earlier paragraphs and adding sentences that directly point to the thesis (and later, the conclusion). And generally realizing that not everything I think made it onto the page, even though I can read it between the lines.

For example, I wrote about disabled siblings in disability films serving as foils for their non-disabled siblings. And spent a good page defining the disability, which the film didn't name, without referencing how the unnaming related to the foiling. You follow? Without that referent, the entire section is rendered useless, however interesting it might sound.

Whereas if I were writing fiction, I'd have said a million times how important that was to the point the story intended to make. I'd beat you over the head with it. 

Thus, I need to switch my head-beating techniques between my fictional and non-fictional writing. I've got the skills, I'm just using them incorrectly, as per usual.

Monday, December 6, 2010

the one about holiday decorations

I must be getting old. Or turning into my mother. 

I don't mean this in a bad way. I simply mean that the period from college and a few years afterward--often called "my twenties"--is drawing to a close. And at the same time, so is my rebellion against Christmas decorations.

My dear mother is an amazing craftswoman. She quilts, she cross-stitches, and she has absolutely spoiled me with her ability to make curtains, throw pillows, and pillow shams. There was even an interlude during which we make a duvet cover without a pattern. Putting the duvet inside the cover involved me crawling inside it. Obviously.
And she loves the holidays. It starts in the fall when she gets out all her leaf-pattered paraphernalia and her 99 stuffed pumpkins. There are table runners, table toppers (note the different), place mats, wall hangings, and it's all very thematic. Autumn is her favorite.

And then there's Christmas. She's toned it down over the years--she says this and I believe her due to the lack of bows on the curtain rods when I get home--but my adolescent home is still where the holidays begin for me. I have never decorated as thoroughly as my mother, so I don't really feel it until I get there.  And I love it.  
This year, as it is my second and final year in graduate school, the lead-up to the holidays coincides with finals. Also, Husband and I don't live in the same apartment. For these reasons, buying and purchasing a Christmas tree seems idiotic. (We are also those people who have to throw away their tree on, say, December 17th because we leave town for the holidays and don't want the tree to turn into a pile of match sticks and burn.)

This year, my brain is thousands of miles away from grad school, and I have rebelled from writing papers, doing research, or otherwise being productive by decorating the apartment at very spontaneous intervals.
Examples:
  • Last weekend, after getting back from Husband's parents' house for Thanksgiving, I came home and almost immediately hung up the needlepoint mitten garland my mom made for me in college. (Yep, I had decorations in college.) This was inspired by the overnight transformation from Thanksgiving to Christmas decorations in my in-laws' house. I was suitably impressed.
  • Later last weekend, when Husband and I were dutifully writing papers across from each other at the kitchen table, I got out the Christmas place mats my mother made me (gingerbread-people fabric, of course), the gingerbread man salt-and-pepper shakers that have been sitting on the window sill all year, and put them on the table. I also insisted we plug in the multicolored lights that hang over the window all year long. We worked hard, but we were festive.
  • Last Monday, I came home from a harrowing trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy a comforter (another adventure in putting a duvet in a cover--this time with 100% less of my body inside it), which involved people on stilts dressed as nutcrackers singing in Lincoln Center, and a general inability to walk on the sidewalk. Also featured: a distaste for holiday consumerism in New York. And when I got home, Husband had cracked and bought a wreath from a Christmas tree vendor, desperate for the smell of pine. As we have no over-the-door hanger for such an item, it sat on the floor for a week, but it did smell nice. Saturday night after a late dinner, I came home and said, "I am hanging that up." I looped the attached wire over the door and it proceeded to slide down the door. I said, "We need leverage. Give me my umbrella!" Yep, on the outside of our door, we have a pine wreath. On the inside, we have an umbrella. It's like decorating with Rhianna.  (Cue a chorus of "under my umbrella-ella-ella, ay-ay-ay-ay...")
  • Sunday afternoon, I cracked. I wanted a tree. Lots of friends had posted pictures of their trees on Facebook, and I was sitting watching What's Eating Gilbert Grape for the second time in as many days (for research purposes). I popped open the hope-chest-of-holiday-decor and unwrapped my ceramic tree. Husband moved the bed to plug it in. We picked a few choice ornaments to lay around it like presents. And we counted down when we lit it.
This led me to realize one important thing: Although, when starting our collection of Christmas ornaments, I had a theme in mind, another theme has cropped up unintentionally. I intended gingerbread men. Food has supplanted this. Both my own mother and my mother-in-law gave me cupcake ornaments. Gingerbread men are food. There the traditional German glass pickle. A pop-up toaster, complete with bread.

So, as our other newlywed friends post pictures of their blended decorations, we realize our greatest compromise in decorating has been the same compromise we have in cooking: sweet versus savory. Husband and I love food, and gosh darn it our holiday decor should reflect this. Someday we'll have a tree covered in cupcakes. And it will be delectable.

Happy holidays, everyone!  Once finals are over, we'll be jetting* up to my parents' house and making edible holiday items. Aka: cookies. Mountains of cookies.

*By jetting, I mean, "train-ing"  A slow, decrepit, train that is only on time 44% of the time.  Or is late 44% of the time.  Either way, I'm glad husband and our headphone jack splitter will be there. 

Thursday, November 11, 2010

the one about pie that's not really about pie

Earlier today, I informed Husband I bought him a present at the farmer's market. I can't say what it is, because then Husband will find out before he gets here. He is going to like it.

Husband informed me that he bought a gallon of apple cider. Husband really likes cider; however, he often buys more than he has a capacity to consume. For instance: today, when he bought a gallon of cider and is leaving it for a weekend. As it is not pasturized, it will be apple cider vinegar by the time he gets back.  [EDIT: Husband claims he bought the cider yesterday. This improves the situation by 0.97%, which is really small.]

Husband then started talking kind of crazy and hyper. I said, "Stop drinking cider." He informed me he'd had three glasses already. That's a lot of sugar. Good, natural sugar, but sugar all the same, and Husband complains enough about the state of his pancreas. I think his pancreas needs antidepressants or something.

One thing I bought for me at the farmer's market was two mini-pies. I'm talking two inches round, and for my snack prior to class tonight. One apple crumb, one pumpkin. I began to eat it when Husband came back from a walk, upon which he planned to buy cheese. I asked him if he had bought cheese in the following manner:

Edited for punctuation and capitalization.
Me: CHEESE is the question, and CHEESE is the answer. I think that requires question marks. Here are some: ????????????????
Husband: Um, stop drinking cider?
Me: I have no cider I have pie
Husband: Same thing?
Me: Um, one is liquid the other is solid
Husband: For craziness?
Me: Au contraire. One is pie and the other is ... not pie. Liquid goes to your brain faster. Because you swallow it and it goes directly into your blood. Pie / solid has to be broken down into molecules of co7 and stuff, and that takes longer, and there is some splitting of atoms.
Husband: Oh, co7
Bottom line: The sugar contained in apples--named co7 for our purposes, because my copious knowledge of science, molecules, and chemistry tells me that--makes you communicate via Gchat in run-on sentences, which are not really sentences, because you don't use punctuation.

co7 = punctuation depleter.

Watch out for it on the news. It's going to be all the rage.

the one about hair

Within the last three months, I went from having very long hair to a cute, sweet, easy, "reverse bob." My stylist named it that. I'm not sure if it means that my scalp appears backward.

Why did I have so much hair to cut off, you may ask? Well, I got married three months ago, and I belong to the strange group of women who consider it essential to have approximately seven yards of hair to pile on top of their heads for their weddings. Except whenever I wear a ponytail higher than say, the nape of my neck: insta-headache. And I didn't want my hair overly structured and teased and sprayed with twelve kinds of lacquer to make it stay up.

Obviously I wore it in a French twist. Requiring full-scalp teasing, root-to-tip hairspray, a combination of 30-something hair and/or bobby pins, and the feeling that I had bound my head. Like foot-binding. But a head.

I am nothing if not consistent.

Cut to after the wedding, pins out, but hairspray + teasing still very much present. And the fact that, even though I had a spreadsheet detailing the whowhatwherewhenwhyhow of my wedding, I had not packed a bag for the wedding night. I did not have a contact case, a change of shoes, or most importantly, a hairbrush. I respond to the title Idiot Bride, thank you very much.

I could not sleep without brushing my hair. I needed a shower more than I have ever needed a shower in my life. Seriously, I could need a shower less if I ran a marathon. But hairspray + teasing + water = dreadlocks. So at approximately four in the morning, I got up, used Husband's comb to painstakingly brush out every inch of my hair, watching flakes of hair spray fall like dandruff snow. I showered. I washed it as many times as the hotel sample shampoo would allow. I felt like a human.

Do you blame me for chopping off a foot of hair?

Here's the problem. Short, choppy hair requires more upkeep than long hair. This haircut goes from cute flippy-ness to side-mullet in exactly six weeks. I am deep in side-mullet territory.

Of course the person who created this hair cut, promptly forgot about it six weeks later, and then trimmed it, trimming my bangs to the wrong side, no longer works at the salon I go to. Not the first time this has happened to me. Nor the second. It is in fact the third time I have had to change stylists at the same salon. I know this happens. It's New York, stylists are always moving around, blah, blah, blah.

And now I want the side-mullet/reverse bob turned into a regular bob and I have to explain that to a new person.

Who is ironically the same person I went to the first time I ever went to that salon, although I immediately forgot her name afterward and never used her again. Obviously should have stuck with that one. I'm not even going for good haircuts any more. I'm going for the same person cutting my hair three times in a row.

I'm pretty sure the phone message I got from the salon is them yelling at me about changing stylists. Because I could have avoided that.

I'm about a mile from Flowbie territory.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

the one about research

For my film genre class this semester, I have elected to write a paper on developmental disability films.

As excellent as the best examples of these films are, they never fail to make me sob like my pet just died. I plan to compare a list of to-be-determined characteristics and tropes used in the following films:
To do this, I will have to watch the films at least once. Probably twice, considering I ordered the special editions, which all feature commentary by various parties involved in the making of the films. I thought perhaps I could listen to the commentary and not watch the films. But the commentary likely references the specific scenes, and would be rendered useless by removal of such a referent. So two viewings of each film are necessary.

Ergo, I think I should throw a viewing party. Any number of my acquaintances would happily watch tear-jerking (melo)dramas with me, I presume. I could use it as research, to study the effect on such variables as:
  • Tear production
  • Laughter
  • Popcorn consumption
  • Level of physically manifested discomfort, including:
    • Shifting positions
    • Shielding eyes
    • The fetal position
  • Requests for alcohol
  • Fleeing
I could also discuss the tropes and characteristics I plan to investigate with my test group. I mean, my friends. We could have a regaling discussion about disability, stereotyping, and Rain Man's capacity for one-liners repeated for decades.

Paper would write itself, and I would generally humiliate myself in front of people.

Fun fact: The cover of the special edition DVD of Rain Man features a terribly photoshopped picture of Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman walking down a highway. In this photograph, they each appear to be at least 20 feet tall. I just tried to find this picture on the internet. It does not exist outside the anomaly of my DVD. It is quite literally this picture on a highway backdrop, and it only serves to perplex me.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

the one about my lunch: updated

I forgot my lunch today.

Really upsetting, because I went out to dinner last night specifically to purchase a meal that would also serve as lunch. I also specifically insisted upon Italian food thanks to large portions and the joy of carbohydrates.

That lunch now sits on the floor. In the hallway. Of my apartment.

Which is, according to Google Maps, 5.6 miles away from my current location: my office. 

Side note:
Reason #1,502 living in the New York metropolitan area depresses me:
I live 5.6 miles away from my office. It takes me 50 minutes to get from one place to the other. Google Maps says it is a 15 minute drive, via the exact route the bus takes. The bus takes at least 30 minutes.

Le sigh. Side note ended.

To make matters worse, my hallway is grossly under-refrigerated. We have complained about the problem, but apparently normal people do not use their entrance hallways as refrigerators. They're missing out.

Did I mention that my lunch is/was a container full of angel hair a la puttanesca? Yep. That's a bunch of anchovies sitting in my delightfully-heated apartment. Signs point to me not emptying this container, and simply throwing it out, lest I die of anchovy poisoning.

And yes, today of all days I did exchange the aluminum leftover container for a nice, shiny, clean GladWare container, so as not to explode my entire office building by microwaving metal.

Obviously I should explode things more frequently. Although I'd still have to buy lunch in that situation. Vicious cycle.

Related: Google informs me of the existence of a restaurant called Puttanesca in New York. In case you don't know such essential bits of Italian, "puttanesca" means prostitute. Your restaurant is called Prostitute, people. Based on their web site, they know that. And knowing is half the battle.

Also: "I have a container of puttanesca" has all kinds of meanings unrelated to left over pasta. And should not be refrigerated. And perhaps should be ventilated. Or humans should not be placed in leftover containers.

Somehow, this is all moot compared to what Husband forgot enroute to his weekday home today: power cord for laptop. My lunch will cost approximately $7. New power cord: a happy, round $79.

Still looking for the restart button for today.

Update: Leftover container leaked. Hallway smells like a fish infestation. And someone gave Husband a power cord. I am indeed the bigger loser. Too bad that's not the equivalent of winning.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

the last one about baseball

Hypothesis proved.

I would like monetary compensation from the San Francisco Giants for the assistance I provided. I would also like them to retire my number. 

It's been a tough post season, realizing that I enjoy the sport of my elders. I suppose the apple does not actually fall far from the tree.

Aw, nuts.

Monday, November 1, 2010

the other one about baseball

Hypothesis proved.

Did not watch World Series Game 3 on Saturday night. (Too busy rollicking around a fun city in which I do not live and seeing entirely too many grown people dressed up as bananas.)

Giants lost.

Came home after best bus ride ever and the speediest Sunday night subway ride in history, watched the end of Game 4. Giants already winning, but continued to win due to my viewership.

Giants won.

Because of me.

Obviously.

The superstition of sports fandom plus my own abnormal of superstition does not bode well. I have lucky and unlucky outfits.

In the end, I do this for Husband. Our vows should have included, "I will sublimate my superstitions onto things that you like so your sports teams can win and I can feel responsible even though I will complain publicly about the responsibility."

To be continued...duh.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

the one about strawberries


This post is dedicated to my sistah. She knows who she is.

I frequently have bizarre dreams. No doubt they will help me to become famous on the internet. Here's a classic example.

(Note: It has been years since I had this dream. I may elaborate. A lot.)

I dreamed--(Note 2: "Dreamt" is not a word. As odd as "dreamed" looks, it's the word.)--I had entered a public restroom for the use that public restrooms are intended.  I opened the stall, and to my dismay, I found that the toilet was filled with strawberries.

And apparently this was a normal occurrence in the dream, because my response was, "Aw crap. Not strawberries again." Again. As though it wasn't the first time I had found the toilet filled with strawberries.  It seemed as frequent as finding the toilet paper empty, other other such public restroom mishaps.

Nope. Full of strawberries.

Like this:

Friday, October 29, 2010

the one about caffeine

Caffeine is important.

Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to discern whether or not you have consumed caffeine without the proper labels. Take the following example:

Husband was making coffee. (By "coffee," I mean "espresso," since the kind gift of an espresso machine a few years ago has transformed Husband and I from occasional morning coffee drinkers to people who turn into dinosaurs without a morning espresso beverages. I drink it straight. He uses milk. Wimp.) We have two identical but labeled containers of ground coffee, stacked one atop the other. For purposes of caffeine consumption, the caffeinated is always on top. I doubt I have ever made a decaf espresso for myself in my life, as it defeats the concept of coffee.

Husband: Decaf is on top.
Self: What?! 
Husband: The decaf is on top.
Self: Do you mean to tell me that I have been drinking DECAF all week?

Here's the interlude where I tell you that for approximately four days of the week, Husband lives in a different city.  Generally Tuesday through Friday I make coffee for myself. And never look at the label on the container of coffee, for obvious reasons.

Cut to me, pre-caffeine, upset-ly blaming Husband for my lack of caffeine all week. You see, Husband ground coffee over the weekend, thus disturbing the order of the containers. Containers must be moved in order to use the grinder. How, why, or even when decaf ended up on top, neither of us knows. Husband insists that I could have read the container, but I admonish this as unnecessary, because caf is always on top.

He made the coffee, putting mine in the orange cup and using the matching orange saucer just to spite me. I like to mismatch my cup and saucer. He does not. He says, "Your espresso today is sponsored by the San Francisco Giants." (Scroll down to the entry about how the responsibility of being the good luck charm for the San Francisco Giants is too much responsibility for me.) He gets a glare. I'm sorry, Husband.

I drink the coffee, managing to spill sugar all over the place, because the adorable sugar shaker we recently received is more adorable than it is efficient at dispensing the correct amount of sugar in a timely manner. (But he matches our lady grater, so he will stay. What we required was a sugar pot, but none match the grater. Grater and sugar pot must match?) I eat 90% of my cereal, leaving the rest for Husband who is eating olive bread for breakfast. I have already growled at him because he thanked me for getting him olive bread, when I had in fact gotten the olive bread for myself, but not without him in mind. But I'm really picky about word choice all the time, and lack of caffeine intensifies this.

I depart, thankfully having charged my iPod prior to its death. On the subway, I begin to worry. What if the lids just got mixed up? What if today's coffee was the decaf? How will I know? I didn't get a Metro today. If I didn't want to read, I must be lacking in stimulants. I have closed my eyes in order to better daydream to music. I may fall asleep! I could fall onto subway tracks! My anger remains completely unchecked without proper stimulant consumption! I will be unable to focus on work...or the blogs I read when there isn't enough work to do! The headache!  The headache!! There are holes in my armor!

One of the reasons I so derided Husband about the possible mix-up was the nagging fact that my office has been a steady 107 degrees all week, give or take. It's been a balmy 75 where I live; unseasonable for October, and they had already switched the building over to heat. It went from heat inside with some more outside to heat outside with no air inside and some windows open, but I work in a cubicle in a hallway, and it doesn't have windows. Rumor has it the hallway windows (all three of them) are bolted shut anyway. Cubicle dwellers more prone to suicide? 

You do the math: Heat + probable lack of caffeine = headache that doesn't go away, it just simply lets up enough to let me sleep. Thanks, Husband who rarely gets headaches.

The moral of the story is: I have no idea which is which. It's unlikely the husband removed the lid from the decaf when filling the caf with grounds. He does odd things sometimes--as do we all--but opening a container full of something he does not want to refill when refilling something else is above and beyond all oddness. My office is more seasonable today, and I have supplemented my possibly-caffeinated espresso with a cup of Lipton tea.

My head feels like it's in a vise, but the vise is loose. I am still tempted to dump all the coffee and start over. It's that important, people.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

the one about baseball

I have a rather sordid history when it comes to professional sports.

During my tween and teen years, I was a football fan, thanks to my best friend. (If you click that link, you will see that not only is she a sports fan, she is also awesome, and still my best friend. Well, you may not see that last part from her blog, but it is true.) We loved the San Francisco 49ers, but our true patriotism, my geographical necessity, belonged to the Buffalo Bills. But we adored Steve Young and had giant crushes on him. I have vivid memories of jumping up and down on my couch screaming my mother's sports epithet--"Run you sucker, run!"--at the television during 49ers games. (This epithet works for all sports. I'll share some of my new ones that are equally ubiquitous later on.)

Like a true 49ers fan should, I hated the Green Bay Packers. Brett Favre was the equivalent of the devil. He's still pretty squidgy. Steve Young retired to prevent brain damage from getting sacked too many times and getting concussions. Brett Favre hasn't gotten the memo. Maybe his defense has always been better and he doesn't get sacked.  I don't know, i don't watch football any more.

Years passed by--college and living alone--and Husband happened. Before he was Husband, he was Boyfriend who lived in Germany. In 2005. During the World Cup. To bond with Then-Boyfriend across the sea, I watched the World Cup. And got really into it. Because cheering for the USA lasts a disappointingly short length of time, I was forced to choose another country. I chose the Netherlands. They wear orange. When they were out, I chose Germany. In the final, I chose Italy, because I had to choose someone and I had France issues at the time.

World Cup time came around again this year and I realized that I did in fact just adore the sport of soccer. I sat at my desk and watched the games on my computer. No one minded. My boss came out of his office after the famous Landon Donovan stoppage time goal and said, "Not only did we win, but we also won our division!" as though I should be watching the game because it was un-American not to. After the USA was eliminated, Husband and I united for Germany. We watched games at bars, once at 10 a.m. We felt very German. Soccer is great. It lasts a round 2 hours in most cases, and there is never a dull moment.

I would call my baseball-fan mother and tell her about soccer. She would say "I watched, but it's no baseball." I found baseball tedious, although I generally enjoy watching games live.

And then there was the NLCS this year. Husband is a San Francisco Giants fan. Always has been. (We like orange.) I had arbitrarily decided to cheer for the Phillies because I like Philadelpha, even though as a supposed Mets fan I am supposed despise them with the fire of a thousand suns. Game 1, I cheered for the Phillies while Husband did GIS homework. Giants won. We weren't able to watch another game until Game 6 a week later. By then I had switched sides and rooted for the Giants. They won.

Now they're in the World Series and I have watched two games by myself. Unmonitored by Husband or my mother. Game 1 I did the "stomp stomp, slap" of We Will Rock You. I felt that helped the Giants. They won. Game 2 I had to be Husband's eyes and ears, as he was on a bus during the game. I would text him every time something good happened. My thumbs got tired during the 8th inning. Again, I watched the entire game and they won.

This is why I feel responsible for the welfare of the San Francisco Giants. The four games I have watched, they have won. Husband and I will be out on the town Saturday night and unable to watch the game. I am worried. Husband is worried. He has already spoken of ducking into bars to watch the game. We are showing friends about town, and it is impolite to force people into bars to watch baseball if they are not interested.

Husband learned this when went to his best friend's bachelor party when the US played Ghana in the World Cup. He was better off not watching that game, as no amount of "Run you sucker, run!" or "Eat it!  Eat him!" helped the unlucky US team.  Yes, "Eat him!" is my new epithet. It doesn't work as well as my mother's, and Husband generally looks at me like I'm crazy and tells me to be quiet, and this is why our neighbors play loud music.

Here are some unrelated facts: I like the Dutch soccer team. They wear orange. I liked the 49ers as a child. They play in San Francisco. I think I am destined to be a Giants fan for the simple reason that they play in San Francisco and they wear orange. And they are a former New York team, and I do live in that state.

But if they lose on Saturday, it very well be my fault. I'm sorry, San Francisco.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

the one about "to be"

The verb "to be" terrifies me.

I try to use it as little as possible. And will avoid it at all costs in this post, unless talking directly about it.

When I worked for a literary agent, he informed me that all uses of the verb "to be" constituted passive voice. He recommended I read The Elements of Style. (Yes, co-authored by E.B. White of Charlotte's Web and everyone's childhood.) I did, because I planned to become the Next Great American Author. It influenced my future writing quite heavily.

Turned out I depended heavily on the verb "to be" and needed to eliminate it from my writing, both scholarly and creative.
To this day it strikes fear in my heart. It does make writing sound boring, germane, and uninspired. Undereducated, perhaps. I worked hard to avoid it, and my already-decent grades remained that way. But sometimes I cannot avoid it. Sometimes avoiding it sounds ridiculous, or unclear. Simple sentences, such as, "Her shirt is green," substituted with "Her shirt appeared green," falter with unnecessary weight.

Last weekend I wrote a paper that didn't want to come out at all. I find it harder to avoid "to be" when in a writing rut. I depend on it. Or everything just sounds awful anyway, so I might as well use the "to be" crutch.

Husband and I proofread each other's papers prior to handing them in. He gives me concrete comments about developing points and including the information I discovered near the conclusion in earlier portions of the paper. He helps me out. Last winter, he had to submit a paper for which the professor would dock one third of a letter grade for each use of the verb "to be." Husband depends on the verb "to be" quite heavily, and had written a biographical sketch of an important figure in his field.  "To be" figures predominantly in those. Rearranging sentences to avoid that verb nearly propelled him into baldness. Thankfully my masterful verb skills prolonged his time with a full head of hair, but not without some strife.

His professor suggested he submit the paper for publication.
The story has a moral: The cranial exercise of avoiding "to be" strengthens your brain and your writing muscles, kids. You'll sound smart, too.  Verbs are neat.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

the one about spaces

It has come to my attention that the 2009 version of the MLA Style Guide now demands leaving only one space between sentences in written communication.

The 2009 version also demands that you put the medium of your source at the end of bibliographic citations.  For example:
Brown, Charles Brockden. Edgar Huntley, or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker.New York: Penguin Classics, 1988. Print.
(That's the closest book I have besides a Norton Anthology, and those are less fun to cite.)

No one does that. When I handed in my first grad school paper, desperately seeking to be the most up-to-date grad student five years out of undergrad, I double- and triple-checked my MLA formatting, and my bibliography looked like that. In other words, it looked idiotic.

I have not repeated the transgression. No one has cared.

I have been writing for...many years. I took a typing class my freshman year of high school. I know home row and used to freak people out in college by continuing to type (accurately) while holding a conversation with them (hence looking nowhere near the keyboard and/or screen). Leaving two spaces between sentences is as automatic as putting on pants. It's more automatic than brushing my teeth or washing my face at night. 

I have decided to do what all the kids are doing when writing this blog. I am attempting to use only one space between sentences (and after colons). I cannot even think of a metaphor to explain how this makes me feel. Unfinished. Like not crossing a t or dotting an i. Worse. It's like not using punctuation altogether.

It's like all my sentences are all bunched up together They are uniform and indistinguishable from one another Pretty soon there will be no capitalization like this you see you can't even tell what is a statement and what is a question forget about what is dependent and independent madness i tell you just madness

That paragraph (if it can be called that) hurts my soul. But it tells you a bit about me, without getting all boring and TMI-on-the-Internet-y. Grammar is a symphony to me. Double-spacing between sentences is part of that symphony. It's the tuba in the symphony. Tubas may look awkward, but they are a necessary component of the whole. I realize book formatting only uses one space between sentences. I also know the meaning of words like "kerning" and "leading" and "tracking." I know that books are meant to look like a block of text, and that typesetting is an art form I much admire. In well-executed typesetting, a page will look so uniform nothing stands out whatsoever. Like a page full of lemmings, really. Or teenagers.

Books are pretty. But this blog is not a book. My e-mails are not books. The papers I hand in are not books. Neither Microsoft Word nor anything created by Google has the capability to space properly so that single spaces between sentences look correct.

That completely does not explain why I'm single-spacing this blog. I'm stubborn and I want to try it. End of story. You are allowed to call me out when I mess up. But I'll correct your grammar.

the one about how i started a blog

I have come to realize that I email my friends with elaborate stories about dreams I've had, weird experiences and the like. I generally choose a friend and send him/her a giant message.

I'm sorry.

So I started a blog. That may or may not be an improvement. But maybe I'll get famous on the Internet.

Titles are an homage to Friends, the episodes of which were always called "The one with the..." because that's how people refer to episodes of TV shows anyway.

And I like a unified theme.

The end.