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:

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.

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.

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.

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.