Woe is I, with apologies

Wow. I wrote this a LONG time ago. And in theory I still agree with it. In practice, I've become a professional writer, so I've had to become someone who cares about grammar. But it still falls fairly low on my list when I write. so previously I wrote....

I will begin with apologies to Patricia T. O'Conner. I don't know her. I'm sure she's a lovely person. However, in this post I may have less than kind things to say about grammar, even though she's written a well-respected book about it (Woe is I). Some have even called her book, "Invigorating and entertaining..." (Publishers Weekly). Really? I believe those are two words are as antithetical to grammar as any in the English language.

I really want to like grammar. Apparently, having good grammar is a quality that makes me credible as a writer. Perhaps. If so, then I guess my goal will be to always have a really good  proofreader by my side. But I think credibility for writers is so much more than grammar. Credibility is about making your meaning understood with the words you choose. And by meaning, I mean the ability for a writer to do things like bring the reader into a different reality; let readers in on an inside joke; bring the most iron-souled reader to tears without completely understanding why; keep the reader coming back for more. Grammar has its use in the world of writing, to be sure. But does anybody really CARE whether I used a commas or semicolons as separators when I was listing how I defined making meaning understood earlier in this paragraph? I know what my answer is.

Much to Ms.O' Conner's credit, it appears that even she agrees that some rules are antiquated. Her second-to-last chapter, "The Living Dead: Let Bygone Rules Be Gone" gives me some hope. After skimming the chapter, while I agree with most of them, I'm sure the English majors (for whom I work) will laugh out loud, and I'll still get the nasty red marks on my papers. (Heavy sigh.)
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So, Ms. O'Conner, I'm sure you've had to overcome your doubters, and I will likely join their ranks. I hope you persuade me to see grammar as amusingly as you seem to. Then, perhaps, I will begin to care more about it.

Wedding preview

Getting educated

I'm doing some research for a class assignment. This video is an interesting video about social media and psychographics..

Johanna Blakely at TED conference

Harry Potter and angst

The last Harry Potter movie was a great way to spend a couple of hours with my daughter yesterday before she leaves next week to start her first "real" job. In the movie, Harry makes life-and-death decisions for his friends and the wizardry world in which he lives. There's never any doubt as to what he'll do. And true to the previous scripts, though is costs him dearly, Harry eeks out a win in the end.

Harry moves with certainty. Under the toughest conditions he makes the right decisions. I used to be like that. Perhaps age has given me a more shades-of-gray perspective than the black and white of youth. But there are times I long for that simplicity. There is no asking yourself if you made the right decision. There is the decision, its consequences and then you deal with it. When gray is involved, there is doubt, questioning, and worry. Ugh, ugh and more ugh. I'm longing for the days of black and white.

Dr. Paul Bloom,
Psychologist

Pain hurts more if you believe someone is doing it to you on purpose. - Paul Bloom, TED Global Conference

While I haven't taken the time to investigate the context of this statement, as a random thought, it sure is hitting me where I live today. I'm in the midst of a passive-aggressive, knock-down, drag-out episode with one of my children. I take my share of the blame for the initial incident. She's been really good at pushing my buttons lately, and when I let her do it this time, I said some regrettable things. It could have been resolved within 24 hours. I have reached out multiple times. But we're currently in the midst of the fourth week, and her response every time I reach out is, "I'm not ready to discuss it." Ugh.

Her usual response to pain is to try to resolve it right away. She's the one who wants to flip the switch, get it all on the table and then sweep it into the "resolved" pile. I usually need to stew, to process, to understand why it happened so I can call it finis. Because this is so out of character for her, I’m more and more convinced as the days go by, she is doing this on purpose so I hurt as much as she does. I wish I was the only cause of her pain, but I’m not. The other stuff isn’t something I can fix.

My parental-self doesn’t understand the rejection. The passive-aggressive bull is infuriating. The longer she leaves me to stew, the more I remember the sacrifice, the healing of her wounds, the celebrations of her triumphs, and the just plain love shown to her. The more I stew, the more my perspective turns introspective, and self-pitying.

In the few conversations we’ve had since the incident, she has made it clear she doesn’t want to hear about, much less admit to, the pain and hurt that is her responsibility. I can only hope and pray it is just the hubris and inflexibility of youth talking.  But the longer it takes to get to the table to discuss, the deeper I find myself falling into my own perspective hole. I hope when she is ready to talk, she’ll take the ladder she used to climb out of her hole and share it with me. And I pray my eyes will remain open to her pain and perspective as we heal – together.

Neuron insulation

What the world needs is a big filter. One running between the neurons firing in a person's brain and his or her mouth. There has to be a way to stop said electrical activity from always creeping down the brain stem and escaping through the tongue. Where's a good insulator when you need it?

I've noticed a lot of the sensational news stories today are due to this insulator being missing  - whether it's from the person reporting on the story or one of the subjects in it. The latest one I've seen is MSNBC analyst Mark Halpering calling our president a d***. Yes, the nickname for Richard, or more accurately, the euphemism for a male's member. Admittedly, I am not a fan of the president. However, I do view any person who attempts that job with a modicum of respect. Potty mouth does not apply - ever. Anyone who attempts to bear the burdens of that job upon his or her shoulders will not become the subject of trash talk in my conversations. I certainly do not want that job.

I have been known to decommission my filter and fly off the handle with the best (worst?) of them. Certain people have found the buttons I have labored a lifetime to hide, digging with abandon. In the end, nothing gets accomplished for the pusher or the pushed. Nothing is resolved, nothing moves forward, nothing moves into constructive debate. In this context, buttons polarize.The only thing that buttons seem to activate is highly sensitized emotions. Emotion is essential in story telling. But I find debate for the purpose of exchanging ideas is better off without highly-charged emotions. Personally, emotion tends to blind me to reason.

When it comes to marketing, buttons play a different role. Effective marketing requires you connect the audience's emotions with the action you want them to take. Marketers who can't find the buttons won't be able to provoke the desired action, feeling, or response. Five minutes ago I watched a commercial for Worldwide Liquidators. What I remember is "Going, going, gone!" They're pushing my "Don't miss out!" button. I'm not sure what I'm missing out on, but it made me want to know badly enough that I visited their website. In this case, being blinded to reason works to the marketer's advantage.

Motorcyles give me insomnia

My son has had some overwhelming tragedy in his life this summer. He lost a good friend in a car accident at the beginning of May. Another good friend, who helped Adam get a summer job with her father's construction company, died a week after school got out. A third, Pat, one of his best work-on-landscaping-crew-fishing-hanging-out buddies, was in a motorcycle accident, and has logged a bunch of time in intensive care. Police reports say he was going 110 mph in an urban neighborhood, definitely pushing the limits. He's lost one kidney and most of the function in the other, so it's a pretty sure bet he'll be on dialysis for life. That, in addition to multiple severely broken bones and other assorted internal injuries, ensures that Pat will always live with the repercussions of his reckless decision.

Amazingly, Pat showed up at my house last night. He was on crutches, moving really slowly, with the deliberate speech that gave away high doses of pain medication. Two weeks after nearly losing his life, he was out and about. Except for the crutches and the cast on his leg, you might not have known he was recently close to dead.

It's hard for a 19-year-old to understand the delicate balance of life. My son has had more than his fair share of examples this summer, along with an outright miracle. I hope he doesn't decide to test which category God has put him in.

Medicine is so unpredictable. One minute you're on life support, in intensive care, and then you're out on your own. I know some of this is the work of the insurance company, but the insurance companies wouldn't have much to work with if it wasn't for the miracle of medicine.