Why I Love This Crazy Language

Captain Caaaave Maaaan!

It occurred to me this week that I’ve written many times lately about grammar misuse in a very negative light, basically bashing the grammar-challenged over the head with a blunt blogject. It further occurs to me that this maaaaaaaay not be the best way to lure the on-the-fencers away from the dark side that is grammarcide.

So I’ve decided to take another approach and make today’s post about why I love this kooky language of ours so much. Hopefully by the end of this piece my lovely readers will understand that my bashing of bad grammar isn’t purely out of snobbery; it’s out of an earnest desire to preserve the richness and the meaningful structure of the language. If anything, I’m a mama bear protecting her favorite cubs.

I’ll start with an example from one of my favorite authors. I love, love, love, love LOVE Isaac Asimov (Did I mention that I love him?), not for his prose, but for his story-telling, suspense-building, and his sharp analytic mind. Reading his robot novels is a master class in science fiction and analytics all in one. Last week I was reading The Robots of Dawn and came across a passage where Elijah Baley, our hero, was trying to explain the difference between the words ‘homicide’ and ‘murder’ to a robot. By definition these two words are the same and so the robot makes no distinction, but Baley has to try to explain why a human would scream ‘Murder!’ rather than ‘Homicide!’ when witnessing the act.

And why is that?

Those two synonymous words, like so many so many in our language, have evolved their own emotional value through usage, through cultural development, and through association. At some early point people may not have made any distinction between the two, but now we reserve the word homicide for describing the legal nature of the act, and murder for the emotionally charged, teeth-clenching, fear-inspiring nature of the act.

Now think of some other similar words from a writer’s POV. This is where my love of our fantastically diverse and complex language comes into play; when it comes to the thesaurus I’m like a kid at the world’s most gigantic and nerdy vending machine. For fun, I’m including a short list of other synonyms without a definable distinction. Take a look at these and think about the way they make you feel; if you use one instead of the other in a sentence, does it change the image you want to convey?

Worried, Apprehensive, Fraught

Weak, Frail, Spineless

Hungry, Famished, Ravenous

Fat, Obese, Beefy

Smile, Grin, Leer

Arrive, Appear, Pop-in

Surprise, Overwhelm, Dumbfound

Real, Solid, Absolute

Some of these are more subtle than others, but they are still the key device in the writer’s tool box and the most important part of the picture we want the reader to paint for themselves. What are your favorite synonyms to add to this list?

I have been guilty of this, too

Swashbuckling Grammar Pirate

Today’s blog might be the most important blog I have ever written. I have decided, after yet another blunder today, that I must share the annoying information in my head or suffer blow after blow to my own sanity for the rest of my natural tenure on this world as a Grammar Nazi Avenger (yeah, I’d like to see Marvel take that one on, too).

The Set Up: All names and identifying references have been changed to protect the innocent. Though, mind you, they were NOT innocent of committing accidental grammar-cide.

Person chatting in my office: “Oh, I always have someone else do that. Caulking isn’t really my forté.”

Me, sitting in my chair and cringing: “Um, you know, that word actually... oh, nevermind.”

The Anatomy of a Sword

What you have just witnessed is a shortened version of a very complex mental train-wreck of thought. As I heard the last word in her sentence pronounced as the oh-so-common two syllables, what I wanted to say was this (picture me in a tweed professorial jacket as I speak deferentially of etymology and linguistics):

“You know, what you have stumbled upon is actually a very common and interesting mispronunciation of the word ‘forte.’ You see, it all stems from a misunderstanding of the obscure French origin of the word in this use in combination with the much more frequently seen Italian musical term of the same spelling. Indeed even more so due to the somewhat synonymous meaning of the words. When you intend to use the word as a description of your strengths you are actually invoking a French fencing reference that describes the strongest point of a sword: the ‘forte,’ (pronounced like ‘fort’). Weaknesses similarly are described using the word for the weakest point of the sword: the ‘foible.’ Therefore, fortes and foibles = strengths and weaknesses. The Italian version, pronounced ‘fortay,’ is the musical reference for playing loudly or strongly, thereby explaining the confusion especially among people with a musical background. It's really quite amusing, isn't it? I said isn't it?”

I’m sure it doesn’t take much imagination to envision the blank and/or glazed looks I would get had I actually let that come out of my mouth. Hence the abbreviated version that started with ‘Um’ and ended with ‘nevermind.’ And because this pronunciation of the word is so very common, if I try to use the term correctly people give me that smug look that is tantamount to pointing fingers and laughing that the grammar nazi got something wrong. Either they try to correct me, at which point I have to go into the long explanation given above and the glaze goes over the eyes, or they just sit there looking smug, at which point I FEEL like I have to go into the long explanation given above and the glaze goes over the eyes.

So, over time, I have just made myself avoid using this term at all and even make myself choke back the lofty correction I so yearn to deliver. The phase “Blank is/is not my forte’ has been forever lost to my conversational repertoire, and sometimes I do lament its passing while cursing the English teacher who pointed this out to me in high school. Perhaps this is one case where ignorance might have been bliss.

The First Fist Pump Ever.

The Solution:

And this is where I decide that constantly ignoring this abuse of language is just as bad as condoning it (not to mention that I selfishly just want to be able to use this phrase again without entering into the above conflict). To kick off this campaign which I shall code name "May The 'Forte' Be With You", I have shared this knowledge with you, my lovely readers and fellow writers and language lovers, in the hope that you will all go forth and spread the word, educating the masses and freeing me from my vocabulary paralysis.

If we put our minds to it, together WE CAN TAKE BACK THE FORTE!!!!!!!!

Until then, my friends, May The 'Forte' Be With You.'

Coffee - The Unsung Hero of the Work Week

Today I felt like recognizing the many times that my dear sweet friend Coffee has kept me from being fired, from being slapped, and possibly out of jail. Happy rest of the work week!

Coffee, coffee, how I love thee,

Let me count the ways.

You start my mornings ever brightly

Despite the dismal days.

You give me strength to speak and smile

When I’d rather run away.

You turn monsters into people

In a cup or three a day

You fend off Armageddon

And keep it safe at bay.

But I thank you most of all

For the near impossible way

You help me cope with the masses

Whom otherwise I might flay.

What's It All About, When You Get Right Down To It?

Today's title is an homage to Sir Terry Pratchett, my favorite author, greatest inspiration, and liege lord should he ever need my services in battle. This is a question he likes to toss (albeit comically and always brilliantly) from a character's perspective when that character is forced to really stop and evaluate themselves, their routines, the world... But it is also one of my worst nightmares, leaving me quaking, nervous, and speechless in front of children, adults, and puppies alike.

The Question, so innocently posed: "So, you wrote a book. What's it about?"

This is how I picture myself scared.

What's it about?? I sweated, I cried, I struggled, I warred with editors, I went sleepless for months to write this 90,000 word novel that spans my dreams, flights of fancy, innermost conflicts and struggles, and you want me to tell you in a quick couple of sentences what it's about?  ACK!!! *This is about the point where I develop a nervous ocular twitch*

It is times like these that I realize how much I love writing and how much I hate marketing (read: detest, abhor, loathe, anathematize, scorn, curse). And, of course, this is the natural first question everyone wants to ask you as soon as they learn you're an author. I knew this was a risk when I became a writer and made the conscious decision to not use a pseudonym (and it was tempting, I'm not a public sort of gal), but despite my best efforts, I still have not been able to do more than babble off the nearly memorized text from the book jacket.

You see, I hear the question 'what's it about' and I want to tell you the story. The whole story. I can't separate an incident/person from the story as being primary any more than I can tell you that I have a duprass-mate in Steven without explaining to you the long background of the word 'duprass' (see: Kurt Vonnegut), the way our relationship developed, AND how we came to apply the word to ourselves. I suck at summarizing, I'm sick of synopsizing, and the fact that I'm resorting to alliteration should tell you how serious I am about it.

This is how I picture all salesmen.

HOWEVER, like any new author, I have to make that effort for Alice Will and figure out how to answer this question without letting my skin crawl away. That is, unless I like the idea of remaining Ashley Who the rest of my life (not so cool as the good Dr.). I've come up with a few starts so far...

The Tagline - Despite her out-of-control magic, teenage demi-goddess Trotter takes on dark gods and chatty demons while fending off the very apocalypse that everyone thinks she caused.

The Audience-Oriented Pitch - "Alice Will is a novel for every person who’s struggled with how they identify themselves and learned to define their own niche in a world that doesn't seem to have a place for them."

The Conversation Starter Pitch - “Trotter isn't your average demi-god and these aren’t your average Olympian gods. The gods of Aevum are exactly what we would be if  forced to live forever with no sense of meaning, reason, or even Prozac.”

The Dramatic Voice-over Pitch - "The lives of a demigoddess and a tiny orphan girl collide when one of them accidentally begins remaking the world according to her wild imagination."

And finally:

The What-I-Want-My-Readers-To-Take-Away-Pitch - "Alice Will is about laughing at ourselves and the empty traditions we value without knowing why. It’s about taking stock in our instincts before we let our fickle brains over-rationalize us out of the right choice. It’s about learning the hard way that maturity, at any age, is no match for experience. And finally, it’s about remembering that the right thing to do is still the right thing to do when no one is looking."

So what do you think? And for all of you writers out there, how do you go about answering this question? I'd love some advice!

Embarrassing Ways To Lose Fingers

Today was a ‘Safety Stand Down’ day at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. It is a day during which all of us are supposed to pause from our daily work tasks and reflect on our own behaviors toward safety with the understanding that all actions can incur risk, from the important decisions involving others to the tiniest and most innocuous seeming ones involving only ourselves.

One of the events I attended during this stand down was an engineering branch safety meeting. Normally during these monthly safety meetings (my MSFC friends are groaning already) we stomach an impersonal canned slideshow covering topics from road rage to chemical storage to proper stretching before reaching into those treacherous filing cabinets. This format was (thankfully) different – everyone sat together in a room and shared personal stories of accidents, foolish stunts, and lessons learned the hard way (some more hilarious than others). As a group, we gleaned the lessons that should be taken away from these experiences to try to find a way to incorporate this information and re-train ourselves to think more practically and cautiously.

And all the while I was thinking of the lesson I’d learned just the day before...

It started, as most disasters do, with chocolate. And in this I can blame one of my officemates who for this purpose I will refer to as LAM. LAM has a habit of stocking on her desk the most wonderful dark chocolate stash known to mankind. Ok, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but when you’ve had a week as bad as mine, all chocolate develops a touch of mystical enchantment. In fact, had it not been for the ethereal glow above the bowl and the angel chorus singing Barry White, I might have walked right past her door and my day, and finger, would have ended without misery.

But I didn’t, and it did.

I grabbed that delicious piece of dark chocolate from LAM’s bowl and by the time I got back to my desk I realized that I’d smeared a big brown streak of it right across my front pant leg. And this is especially aggravating considering I only have the one pair of khakis left that fit me (also partially because of LAM’s delicious bowl of chocolate). So for the next several minutes my other officemate, Mama J, got to hear a variety of cursing from me that I wouldn’t normally use in the office while fighting with the chocolate napalm stain. The dear heart had a plastic tub of sanitizing hand wipes which we were both hoping might work without leaving my leg a wet, soppy, chocolaty mess... which it almost did. Now my stain looked less like a chocolate smear and more like spilled make-up.

Yes, baby wipes are evil.

Now onto the hand wipes. *this would be a good place to cue the evil music*

This container was similar to most any tub of baby wipes that you might have seen – the cylinder with a cap and a star shaped slit in the top from which you pull the sheets individually. Well, not wanting to be unkind and leave one of the wipes half hanging out to get dried out, I did what anyone would do and what I have done probably a dozen times with baby wipes. I take my finger and shove the sheet back into the canister.

But, as I learned, this was not your average canister and it certainly wasn’t for babies. Whereas the star slit in baby wipes is a weak, flimsy sheet of plastic, this one was an industrial strength sheet that I’m surprised my finger went through in the first place. And when I realized how insanely tight it was and tried to pull my finger back out, those star shaped wedges of thick plastic became barbs holding my finger in and giving me the choice of continue to let the circulation be cut off and endure that pain, or pull at my finger and say Adios, skin.

By now Mama J is listening to an ever more inventive string of cussing from me as the pain is getting worse and my finger is turning a not unattractive shade of purple. On one hand I’m angry because I never dreamed that something that simple could hurt so badly, but second to the pain is the thought that there is NO WAY in hell that I’m going to have to go to the medical center on site to have them cut this monster off my finger and end up on a slide in one of our safety presentations.

And this is where my own personal safety lesson comes into play. As I sat there trying to wedge pens, bottle caps, paper clips, ANYTHING that would get the teeth of that star slit to let go of my poor tormented finger, I was struck with the thought of how I wished that I hadn’t left my pocket knife at Steven’s house. It wasn’t until later that I realized how LUCKY I was that I’d left my knife at Steven’s house because, in my blinded-by-pain state, I actually thought that it would have been a GOOD idea to take a knife to wedge between my finger and the plastic using I don’t know what as leverage. A vein, maybe?

Since all stories should have a happy ending, yes, I did finally get the evil hand wipe lid off my finger before the actual rot set in but yes, it does still actually hurt. So my safety lesson to share for this day is a combination lesson. On the high road, be aware of how pain clouds your judgment – you might be in trouble, but getting out of it quickly can get you into MORE trouble. On the low road, your mother was right. If you stick your finger into puckered holes, you really might not get it back...

Book Release Date, Pre-orders, and Cover Reveal!

And now for the announcement I promised in yesterday's blog post...  Alice Will, my debut novel, will be released  by Center One Publishing on November 13, 2012! I'd call that perfect time for stocking stuffers, wouldn't you?  For a special May Day treat you can head over to Center One's website and pre-order a copy now  :-)

The cover art might change slightly between now and publishing, but I'm thrilled with the way it turned out! The publisher asked me in the beginning if I had any suggestions for the cover art and, knowing that I have NO talent for creative design at all, I turned it completely over to them. Now that I've seen their fabulous work I couldn't be more glad that I kept my hands out of it.

This is my first ever publishing experience and I have to say I have been very happy with it so far. I see horror stories from emerging authors on forums and other boards and I think I have to count myself very lucky. My experience has been positive, the publisher so responsive, and the quality top notch.

But nothing I ever imagined, no fantasies from childhood, no day dreams from when I first decided I wanted to become an author, could possibly match the elation I felt when I first laid my eyes on the cover art with my name on it. I did mental back flips and pirouettes when I received the contract offer and ran around the house squealing when I signed the contract itself. Seeing the artwork with my name on it made it seem so much more real, but I think my nuclear spastic crazy squealy celebration won't officially happen until I hold my book in my hands for the first time. That will be the day that I finally feel like I've reached the culmination of a near life-long dream!

Wait... culmination? Maybe that's the wrong word. Because this isn't the last stop on my authorial journey - my next goal is to do this over, and over, and over, and over, and over again :-)

What I Learned During My Blogger Vacation

The Beginning – In Which I Apologize Profusely

I know, I know, I’ve been gone a very long time. I decided completely without warning to take the month of April off from blogging in order to catch up on projects and work at home and that was not very nice of me. What makes it worse is that during that time off I managed to not catch up on projects so much as I did on Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. Color me obsessed, I admit it freely. I’m a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person.

The Climax – In Which You Avoid The Temptation To Make an Inappropriate Joke About This Quick Climax

I can at the very least say that, while my to-do list barely suffered a dent, I learned many small lessons during my blogging hiatus; some consequential to others. There are so many things I’d love to share with you, but I’ll kindly reduce it to a Top Ten list and spare you the juiceless details:

1. Groupon in my area seems to be obsessed with Hair Removal and Belly Dancing lessons.
2. If I keep making pots of tea I’m less likely to snack at work.
3. My bladder holds nowhere near 3 pots of tea.
4. Barn swallows would make excellent guided missiles during mating season.
5. My cat, who is afraid of EVERYTHING (including barn swallows), will go exploring and lead me on a miserable week-long search when he escapes the fence.
6. I can’t trust the estimated fuel range on my car.
7. When I trust the estimated fuel range on my car and consequently run out of gas, Mary Kay ladies are nice enough to stop and help out.
8. I now have a full new complement of much-needed Mary Kay products.
9. Installing tongue and groove pine on a ceiling is slow and painful work.
10. Tongue and groove ceilings – once the aches and pains of installation have passed – are freaking gorgeous.

The Dénouement – In Which A Promise Is Made

I wish I could promise that I would be a faithful blogger from now on, but as of right now the best I can promise (and deliver, anyway) is that I will do my very best to stick with my Thursday blogs. I entered the blogging world with high hopes and good intentions, but the reality of real-life juggling set in and I discovered that though the road to Hell is paved with those Good Intentions, the sign posts are all High Hopes.

However, I can leave you with the promise of a blog update tomorrow as well as an announcement. And no, begging me to tell will not work. You’ll just have to wait to see until tomorrow, and that’s when I’ll find out if you have forgiven me for my breach and come back to see what news I have to share.

Until then, friends, I will (hopefully) see you tomorrow!

Watching Out For The 'Low Men...'

I spent a little time yesterday exploring my blog stats in Blogger’s handy-dandy dashboard and learned something interesting: I’m either going to be famous or I’m going to end up on a terrorist watch list.

A little background: I noticed that my page views were going up faster than they had been so I decided to look and see what was driving people to my humble blog. One of the first things I saw was a number of odd web pages listed as ‘Referring Sites,’ including buygenericsfromindia dot com (purposely ensuring this doesn’t show up as a link some innocent bystander can click) and baby-back-packs dot com.

Strange, yes.

But not as strange as a few of the ‘Search Keywords’ that led people to my blog. They start off innocently enough with: “little mermaid kiss the girl vocal only.” Not surprising at all, considering my blog in January, "The Little Mermaid," and Other Evil Deeds of the Disney Empire. Then I see that the terms “flash fiction post-apocalytpic best” and “post apocalyptic noir” referred people to the post-apocalyptic short story I posted. Still making sense.

I start really feeling odd when I see that the following search term has been entered:”ashley chappell Huntsville.” In other words, I have been Googled. While I waver between feeling pleased that someone bothered to look me up, I also find myself feeling, well, dirty.

But the final search phrase on the list is the one that causes me concern: “special ops mission chloroform.” Now I realize that this one must have led the searching party to my blog entitled Dietary Tactics: From Electroshock to Chloroform, but when I think about the kind of person that is likely to enter that specific search in a search engine only two images come to mind. 1) A fellow writer doing research for a thriller/suspense novel; and 2) a raving psychopath (not that 1 and 2 are always mutually exclusive, mind you). In fact, it also gives me a frame of reference for one of the other odd ‘Referring Sites’ that were listed: quiethits dot com. You can’t tell me that’s not a cover-up for a contract assassin employment service.

So now that I see the kind of searches in which my blog appears I can’t stop picturing a scenario in which I am abducted in the middle of the night by paramilitary thugs. When they finally remove the black bag from my head it’s to bombard me with questions about the secret communications I’m transmitting for the terrorists. “We have the proof right here, lady. Your blog is all over their search history. Just give us your contacts and we’ll put these rusty nails and jumper cables away.”

Coming up next week... look for an excessive amount of American flags, LOLcats, apple pie recipes, and Angry Birds tips. That ought to balance out my search results, right? RIGHT? 

Ready Read Tuesday - The Short Stack

Welcome back to Ready Read Tuesday! If you are new to my weekly book challenge, see this post for the background. In order to save time, let’s just consider this as good of a reason as any to spend some time reading with the burgeoning young geniuses in your life. To help navigate, I've added an index page for this and all future Ready Read Tuesday posts here. So what are you waiting for? Grab one of these great books and let me know what you've been reading with your kids! 

Now for this week’s book challenge – This week’s theme is “The Short Stack.”  Between our busy works schedules and the kids’ school and sports schedules, sometimes the idea of sitting down to an entire book is just daunting. That’s why this week I’m focusing on short story collections that make it easy to read to or with your child a little at a time. There is a little something for everyone in these selections and, because nothing compares to a child’s laughter, they can be counted on to show you the funny. Happy Reading!

1. The Sneetches & Other Stories  - Dr. Seuss

Where To Get It? B&N, Amazon

How It Inspires? Who among us can’t think of treasured a Dr. Seuss story right off the top of our heads? And with Hollywood giving kids a fresh appreciation for these timeless classics, it’s a great time to reintroduce all of us to some of our old favorites. Seuss was a master of weaving life lessons and tales of morality into incredibly entertaining stories, helping to build a foundation of open hearts and open minds for children.  “Too Many Daves” and “What Was I Scared Of?” are two of my favorites in this collection.

2. Ribticklers!: Funny Stories  - Chosen by Michael Rosen

Where To Get It? B&N, Amazon

How It Inspires? Some of my favorite childhood memories with my family, even those where I’m a bit hazy on the details, involve all of us in fits of laughter together. I may not remember what was so funny, but I remember the feeling – Complete and Utter Happiness. This book is intended for the middle school aged but, with stories by humorists such as James Thurber, the grown-ups are bound to get a kick out of these stories as well.

3. Guys Read: Funny Business – Edited by Jon Scieszka

Where To Get It? Amazon/Kindle, B&N

How It Inspires? For starters, everything I mentioned above about laughter creating such wonderful memories applies to this collection as well. But going a step further, this collection is part of the Guys Read series aimed at piquing the interest of young boys. Studies show that boys are harder to interest in reading, and Scieszka has done a wonderful job of putting together stories that contain all of the ick, gore, and comedic villains a boy could want in a book. It might be written for 9-11 year olds, but if you have boys from 9-91, this is your one-stop shop to get them reading.

My First Author Interview!

Today's post is a short but giddy one that delivers some of that shameless self-promotion I've promised. But at the same time, it also gives me a chance to promote another lovely blog and a lovely lady that shares my passion for writing. Ms. Vanessa Eccles of The Writer's Block hosts my first interview today on her blog.

Click here for my first interview :-)

Please go take a look at it! And while you're there, don't forget to read through her archives. Vanessa is one smart lady with a great sense of humor! :-)

Ready Read Tuesday - "Undersaurus Rex!"

Welcome back to Ready Read Tuesday! If you are new to my weekly book challenge, see this post for the background. In order to save time, let’s just consider this as good of a reason as any to spend some time reading with the burgeoning young geniuses in your life. To help navigate, I've added an index page for this and all future Ready Read Tuesday posts here. So what are you waiting for? Grab one of these great books and let me know what you've been reading with your kids! 

Now for this week’s book challenge – This week’s theme is “Undersaurus Rex!”  Since last week was targeted toward older children I’m going to give a selection for our newly developing bookworms this week. We have one book about underwear, one book about dinosaurs, and one book about both!

1. The Adventures of Captain Underpants - Dav Pilkey

Where to Get It? Amazon/Kindle, B&N/Nook

How Does it Inspire? I can’t think of a better way to sum up the reasons children (myself included) would love these books than this Amazon.com Review:

"Faster than a speeding waistband... more powerful than boxer shorts..." It's Captain Underpants! Young readers will devour this fancy new boxed set of the first five paperbacks in the side-splitting, potty-humored (literally) Captain Underpants series. These books are award-winning--but really, who cares about awards when you're reading about talking toilets and the perilous plot of Professor Poopypants?” These books are for children aged 7 and up, and if you have a child who is reluctant to read because books are ‘boring,’ just start reading a few passages and you’ll know they’re hooked when the giggles start J

2. Dinosaurs Before Dark - Mary Pope Osborne

Where to Get It? B&N/Nook, Amazon/Kindle

How Does It Inspire? This is the first installment in the Fabulous Magic Tree House series for readers between 6-8. I was a lover of all things dino when I was a child and you still won’t find a more suitable fuel for the fires of imagination than dinos for children today. If Jurassic Park were a children’s book first, the movie would have been just like this book!

3. Dinosaurs Love Underpants - Claire Freedman

Where to Get it? Amazon/Kindle, B&N (Not yet available on Nook)

How Does It Inspire? This one is a picture for the youngest readers, though I got a kick out of the story, myself. The thing I like best about books like these is it takes a mundane everyday thing and gives it a completely new, even if completely silly, story. All of us adults know that a meteorite most likely killed the dinosaurs. We also take underwear for granted. But would we still take them for granted if we knew that it really was the Great Dinosaurs Underpants War that killed them? Set a child’s imagination flowing in this direction, then ask them to come up with their own unique story about what really killed the dinosaurs. I’d love to hear what they come up with!

Political Road Rage Crashes Economy

Chapman Mountain.

There. I’ve said it. It may not mean a hill of beans to you, but if you’re in the Huntsville, AL area it’s the only curse you need during rush hour. Chapman Mountain rears its ugly head (ok, there’s actually a lovely view of the valley, but you get the sentiment) at the point where Hwy 72 meets I-565 leading into the city. Granted, this part of North Alabama is more foothill than mountain, but something about this particular one attracts wrecks like day old poo attracts flies. To make it even worse, some morbid city planner, in an apparent fit of colic rage, decided to spread his melancholy across the city by putting not one but TWO stoplights at the foot of the mountain.  Can you predict the outcome?

Gridlock. Slamming of the brakes. Honking of the horn. Flipping of the finger. Gnashing of the teeth. And, oh yes, much cursing.

At best, cars traveling up this mountain weaves a slow accordion path up the slope like an inchworm  – albeit a very angry inchworm full of road rage. When one of the frequent wrecks occur somewhere on one side of the slope or the other, traffic on both sides comes to an even angrier crawl while motorists limber up their rubbernecks (If you can’t tell, traversing this mountain twice daily is the bane of my work week). But now, on top of the commuting travesties already endured by drivers on Chapman Mountain, there is a new peril we must face.

Politicians.

You heard me. As if all of the other hazards weren’t enough, the approaching Alabama Primary has attracted droves of would-be politicians standing in front of truck-mounted signs vying for the attention of passing motorists on high-traffic corridors. And, since those motorists not consumed with road rage are already busy texting or talking on the phone, eating, applying make-up, or shaving (yes, shaving), they have to work pretty darn hard to get that attention. In fact, this morning’s politician on Chapman Mountain was jumping up and down and waving madly. Annoying as it may be, his ruse worked! Car after car slowed down to stare at him, causing the inchworm lining up behind them to contract and slam brakes (cursing goes without saying). The car in front of me even rolled down his window to pass on a thumbs up, completely ignoring the fact that he shared responsibility for the progression of traffic and therefore the mental welfare of a large percentage of angry morning commuters. *Gnashing of teeth*

The additional angry commuters caused by the carelessness of that politician probably arrived to work this morning in a worse mood than they were to begin with and probably took it out on their coworkers all day. Therefore, that politician directly contributed to spreading despair and despondency across Huntsville’s business community.

Now do you see how politics is bad for our economy?

Ready Read Tuesday - "Other-Worldly Classics"

Time to kick off our inaugural edition of Ready Read Tuesday! If you missed the introductory post yesterday, see this post for the background. In order to save time, let’s just consider this as good of a reason as any to spend some time reading with the burgeoning young geniuses in your life. To help navigate, I've added an index page for this and all future Ready Read Tuesday posts here. So what are you waiting for? Grab one of these great books and let me know what you've been reading with your kids!

Now for this week’s book challenge – the theme to get us started is “Other-Worldly Classics.” In other words, this is a selection of books most of us so-called grown-ups should remember fondly that take the reader through adventures on new worlds.

1.           The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum

•     Where to get it? Gutenberg.org eBook, B&N/Nook, Amazon/Kindle 
•     How does it inspire? The book takes Dorothy and her new-found friends farther than the classic movie that we all know and love. Did you know that there was a dangerous river in Oz that the group had to cross, or that Dorothy actually met the king of the winged monkeys? I thought not. Throughout the story, children learn how  friendship, loyalty, and self-confidence can help them overcome any obstacle they face.

 2.        A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

•          Where to get it? Amazon/Kindle, B&N/Nook
•          How does it inspire?  L'Engle, ever a brilliant story teller, gave us this masterpiece that celebrates and embraces the uniqueness of her characters. At first, the characters are shown as misfits with no understanding of what makes them special. Through their journey across both time and space to save their father, it is the extraordinary abilities of Charles Wallace and his sister Meg and the natural leadership of their school friend Calvin O'Keefe that protect the trio in their adventure.

3.         A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs

•         Where to get it? Gutenberg.org eBook, B&N/Nook, Amazon/Kindle,  
•         How does it inspire? This one is for the slightly older children and all of us who are young enough at heart to still appreciate a story about heroes, princesses, loyalty, and, well, martians. You won't find it on many reading lists for young adults, but it is a fabulous early example of 20th century pulp fiction and offers everything from swashbuckling to air-borne ship battles. It gives the reader  characters who exemplify principle, loyalty, justice, and honesty. What person, young or old, couldn't look up to a hero like that?

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A Preview for Ready Read Tuesday

See how reading makes a difference here

I've had the good fortune of meeting many writers in various stages of the careers since I began actively blogging. They come from all backgrounds; from poor to wealthy, from single-parent households to sprawling families, from all over the country and beyond. The one theme that seems to unite all of them is a simple one:


At some point in their childhood, someone took the simple step of putting a book in their hand.


Now for the parents reading this, you might be thinking that you don't want your children to grow up to be writers. You want them to eat regularly and have money for rent. Perfectly understandable. But don't neglect the many benefits realized from encouraging your children to read. 


Reading at an early age leads to enhanced language skills. That includes reading comprehension which is a HUGE factor in your child's ability to learn quickly and to foster good study habits. Reading, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, also provides a child with perspectives beyond their own experience to help them navigate those difficult early formative situations. Perhaps it's easy for little Alice or Johnny to ignore Mom's words of advice, but chances are they'll remember that Harry Potter didn't take the easy way out by lying to keep himself out of trouble. Reading gives a child other children whom they can admire and respect.


Those enhanced language skills in combination with the expanded perspective also feed directly to an enhanced ability to communicate. Communication is such an important developmental skill that is lost these days to text messaging, gaming, and the myriad of other distractions and the loss of it seems to be showing across the country. Increasing disciplinary issues, fighting, parents with children in therapy who've given up trying to talk with their child, and far worse issues seem to be normal topics of conversation among parents anymore. This is why I believe that instilling a strong ability to communicate in a child is such an important step to foster strong emotional and intellectual development. A child without the ability to communicate or even to make sense of their thoughts and feelings is more likely to act out on those feelings violently or behaviorally. 


It is for this reason that I am designating Tuesdays on my blog "Ready Read Tuesdays." Each and every Tuesday I will list three books that inspire, entertain, and educate young readers and I will challenge parents, aunts, uncles, big siblings, ANYONE with a child in their life, to get one of these books in the hands of a child. Whether you read it to them or with them, be available to talk about the story and the characters with the child and be prepared to be amazed as you see how quickly they assimilate the stories and lessons into their own lives. 

Ready, Set, Go!

And for those of you who think you're too old to get anything out of a children's book - as a fully grown-up reader of Young Adult fiction, I can promise you're never too old to learn from a child.


The first Ready Read Tuesday begins tomorrow. No excuses! I'll even make it easy for you to find all three books for cheap or even for free. Get ready!

You're in Trouble Now... She's Being Polite!

All Customer Service Employees need this book

Yes, I'm trying to stir the pot again.

I made the following statement on Facebook this week to see what reactions people would have: “There is a vast difference between being 'nice' and being 'polite.’” A few people, and I have to believe that they are among those rarities who are actually nice all of the time (yes, they do exist but I am unfortunately not one of them), argued that there is no difference between the two words. For most of the discussion, however, I found that people do tend to notice distinct differences between these two words and what they meant to them.

I bring this up for two reasons: 1) Being a word nerd, I’m fascinated by how two words meaning essentially the same thing conversationally (despite specific definitions) and used interchangeably so often can evolve to conjure such specific reactions, and 2) I realized that the ‘polite’ person that I was talking to on the phone was not a ‘nice’ person at all. In fact, I was pretty sure that she was giving me the finger while she was saying, “Bless your heart,” safely from her end of the phone line.

You probably grew up across the street from this lady

For those not familiar with southern sarcasm, ‘Bless your heart’ can sometimes be a meaningful expression of sympathy, but more often than not it’s a southern lady’s socially acceptable way of saying “Why the hell do you think I care?”

Now I’m wondering about my own responses to people and feeling slightly guilty. You know what I mean... The phone rings at work and, blast that caller ID, it’s one of those people you'd rather give extraneous body parts than have to deal with. But, since you have a job to do for which you are being paid, on goes that plasticine smile with the glazed eyes as you say, “No, you’re no problem at all, really, how can I help you?” All the while your imagination is dreaming up scenarios in which it would be acceptable for you to scream “Go away already you horrible person!”

See? Polite, but not nice.

Now that I’ve given you the set up, what do you think? What do these two words mean to you? 

The Hidden Microsoft Razzzzzberry

Sometimes I almost believe my computer at work is conspiring against me. Sometimes it’s easier to believe than others. Those are the times that I have multiple MS Office applications up at once and I’m working so hard on something that hitting a quick Ctrl + S completely slips my mind. That's when the hourglass happens.

The blasted #%@$^$ hourglass. I wait for a while, watching it taunt me with its lazy turns until it finally comes to a complete stop. With what few shreds of optimism I have left, I walk away to fix another cup of coffee in hopes that whatever process has hung up my computer yet again will have worked its way out, but it always ends up the same.

Hard reboot. And on the third hard reboot this morning I noticed something in the Windows logo that has always slipped by me before. Microsoft KNEW what they were doing to us when they sold us Windows XP, and now I have proof! And they thought they were being so sneaky...

Microsoft has been giving us the Raspberry all along.

A little mid-week treat...

Yes, I know it's not Thursday yet, but this was too near and dear to my heart to not share. I feel this way Every. Day. And though I don't mean to be a grammar snob, I do at least have the courtesy to wait until the offender has left before commencing the merciless  ridicule (though trite and self-serving it is).

Now go forth and sin no more

For my friends who also suffer from this malady: Benadryl just won't cut it for this one. But this will.

Happy editing!

Dietary Tactics: From Electroshock to Chloroform

Time for a show of hands. How many of you began this year with a resolution that sounded something like this?

"This year, seriously, for real, I'm GOING to get in shape and eat better. I mean it. For real this time."

Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Each year this resolution gets just a little bit longer with the addition of more emphatics, as if throwing in another "for real" and "seriously" makes it a more concrete vow.

So far this year I'm not doing too badly (it may be because I upped the ante with this resolution and even threw in a "no backsies" this year). I've been a pillar of strength, a maven of whole foods, and calorie counter extraordinaire... Provided that I am exposed to no temptation whatsoever, that is. Temptation - delicious chocolates on someone's desk, the smell of pizza baking, suddenly remembering that box of cookie mix in the cabinet... Well, that's where it all falls apart.

You see, my ability to resist junk food can be represented as an inverse function of my proximity to junk food. I'd even place a pretty big bet involving limbs and other appendages on the notion that this is true for the majority of the dieting population. No amount of Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, or protein smoothies in our shopping cart can protect us from the fact that the checkout line is secretly a candy bar ambush waiting to happen.

And you know exactly what I mean on this one - how many times have we finally grabbed that Butterfinger and thrown it on the belt in a hasty rush of embarrassment JUST before the last item was scanned? And that look on the cashier's face as they hand it to you after scanning, asking "Would you like to keep this in your purse?" Which is, of course, a question that is very difficult to answer with a mouth full of Butterfinger.

Another terrible danger for me is the BOGO sale. BOGOS just provide me with the opportunity to justify buying multiples of something that I try to make a once weekly treat in this way: "Well, I'm going to buy at least 4 per month, anyway, right? So it only makes sense for me to go ahead and buy 4 and reduce 50% of the cost, right?"

Right. This logic recently led to the following scenario: Freschetta Brick Oven pizzas are our weekly Date Night treat and tradition. Following the above logic, in week 1 I buy 4 Brick Ovens on a rare BOGO sale at Publix and by week 2 I was down 4 Brick Ovens and SOL on the pizza front by the next Date night.

Nothing says love like a pizza heart

Now, armed with the full knowledge of my weaknesses, it's beginning to look like drastic measures are in order. Conventional methods of dieting (ie, simply not eating crap) don't appear to be enough by a long shot. So to augment my dieting regime I'm going to institute a series of new tactics in the fight against temptation.

1.      Time-locking Freezer. This one is aimed primarily at my pizza fixation. From now on, all Freschetta Brick Ovens and other frozen temptations will go directly into a freezer that can only be accessed once per week. In the event of a violent craving and break-down of self control, any attempts to bypass the locking mechanism will result in a moderate to severe electrical shock.

2.      Convenience Store Blinders. This applies to grocery store checkouts as well. The blinders must be put on immediately prior to entering any establishment that likes to keep enticing junk food displays in the periphery of the checkout counter or, in extreme cases, on the counter itself. It works for racehorses, and I’m at least smarter than your average mare. Right?

3.      The Dieter’s Select Menu. Petition local restaurants to maintain a menu for dieters. This menu will steer them directly to only the healthiest selections by describing non-healthy foods in terms of nutritional and chemical content rather than the mouth-watering adjectives that tend to talk us out of the Garden Salad and into the ¾ lb Cowboy Burger with two slices of melted cheese, crispy golden fried onions, and delectable special sauce. On the Dieter’s Select Menu, that burger just became a Cowboy Slab of Fatty Low-grade Cow Meat with Arteriosclerosis and Possible Heart Failure.

And in the event that all of these ideas fail...

4.      Big Scary Enforcers. Hire a team of ex-paramilitary soldiers of fortune to act as full-time body guards. And since no one wants to appear pretentious enough to carry around an entourage of body guards, this mission will have to be undercover and black ops. You’ll never see them until you go to take that bite of cheesecake, or start putting that money in the vending machine... and when you wake up, just consider the headache leftover from the chloroform a good tradeoff for the fatty calories from which they just saved you.

Why You Should Send Hate Mail to Dictionary Editors

As I develop my blogging skills and decide what subjects to tackle each week, I’m noticing that my blogs tend to be largely reactionary for the most part. Whether serious or tongue-in-cheek, so far I’ve blogged for the following reasons:

1.      To vent.

2.      To revel in irony.

3.      To poke fun at some quirk of my own or of humanity in general.

4.      Some combination of all of the above.

5.      To share stories in writing, or solicit feedback to help me improve.

So far, those 5 pretty much sum up the contents of my blog to date. Now I’m going to add a glorious 6^th motivation for blogging:

6.      To keep from cringing in front of someone at their poor grammar.

Everyone needs an outlet. And today when I heard the phrase ‘A whole nother’ for the third time, I knew I needed that outlet ASAP. This is a phrase that I hear pretty often since moving to the beautiful state of Alabama (Note: That was not tongue-in-cheek. I genuinely love this state) and it seems to be pretty prolific throughout the Huntsville area, though I can’t say I recall ever hearing it before I moved here five years ago. Each time I’ve heard it I cringed inwardly and fought the response that was just begging to escape...

I want to roar: “THAT’S NOT A FREAKIN’ WORD!” ‘Nother,’ they say. Not ‘another.’ Not ‘a whole other’ as would be the correct phrase here. Or, I’d even give a person liberty with ‘A-whole-nother’ if they wanted to put it in writing. I kind of have to allow that considering the numerous liberties I take with hyphenated word creation when vocabulary fails me. And while I’m the first to admit that I’m a complete grammar snob, this is always one phrase that grates on me in particular.

Seriously, who's going to say No to a velociraptor?

So I decided to write a blog about it. And to be especially snarky and smartass, I thought I’d make a point of looking in the dictionary and symbolically pointing to the big blank place where ‘nother’ would be entered if it were an actual word and not some corruption of speech... And this is where Mssrs. Merriam and Webster failed me. In fact, I would even go so far as to embrace the meme and call it an Epic Fail.

‘Nother’ now has an entry. Granted, it’s listed as informal usage in speech, but simply having that slot in the holy book of all that is language legitimizes it while at the same time dropping the English language one rung farther down the ladder of bastardization. As a logophile, I feel utterly cheated. In fact, I’m frightened to live in a world where instead of publicly flogging those who use words that don’t exist, we add those words to the dictionary! But I suppose it’s probably easier in the long run to recognize poor grammar as language rather than hiring a squad of grammar police armed with dictionaries and parse trees to enforce lexiconian (yes, I just made up that word) law (and yes, it should be law).

I know my chances are pretty good of hearing this phrase at least once more today and I know that when I do I will still cringe internally and fight the urge to correct the perpetrator. But knowing that the lords of the dictionary have now deigned to embrace ‘nother’ into the realm of language, my typical internal roar will be little more than a futile mew: “THAT’S NOT A FREAKIN’ WORD!”  I’ll think meekly, knowing that in this argument my legs have been cut out from under me because now someone can look up the offending word and say, “But it’s in the dictionary!”

Once upon a time, words had value, they had meaning, and even the ability to use them correctly was a thing of value and pride itself. But once the words that are used incorrectly make their way into the dictionary as language, well, that’s a whole ‘nother’ ball game.

Beware the Post-it-ocalypse

*Shhhhh* Try not to be obvious, but look at that cluster of Post-its on my monitor. Does it look like more than were there yesterday? This one... I don’t remember writing this one. It looks like my handwriting, but did I really write a note to myself to “Ck Rm in AM?” And what did it mean? Maybe Check Room, or Chuck Ram, or Cloak Room – did I leave a coat in a cloak room and forget to pick it up?

Oh, no. There’s another one, and I don’t think it was there a few minutes ago. That can only mean one thing...

I know my lunch was under here somewhere...

They warned me about this. I swear I didn’t mean for it to happen.

It began so innocently... A Post-it here, a Post-it there, just a few reminders to jog my memory, maybe a few shopping lists and even a recipe or two. Then a few more notes containing ideas and then a lot of notes with questions, and a few with answers.  I think that’s when it happened. Somehow, along the way, I have transferred my full consciousness to the now thriving colony of Post-its that surround my monitor.

The Post-it Questions without Post-it Answers have begun to collaborate with the Post-it Ideas and possibly the Post-it Recipes and are creating little Post-it Answers of their own. That’s the only explanation for how the answering Post-it for “How to compress .pdf packages” became “Blend 1 cp. .pdf with 2 GB of eggs, roll flat, bake 2 hrs.”

It can only be a matter of time now before they realize their full potential and rise up against us, ever-growing as one colony meets another, absorbing new thoughts until it becomes one giant Post-it organism, mimicking life as an amalgamation of the short, punctuated thoughts that make up the cells of the beast.

The first Post-it attempt at breeding a Post-it army to subdue the human oppressors

And here I sit in the knowledge that, through my own carelessness, I was the one who birthed this beast. I have doomed us all.

*Shhh!* Did you see that new green one? I swear it said “Redrum...”

God, what have I done?