Reminiscing the other day about holidays past, I became a bit wistful and blue, thinking that the stuff of sparkly memories was reserved for the very young—the uncrushed, unwrecked, and unsullied by mean people, disappointment, life. Then the most amazing things started to happen.
I went shopping right before Christmas. (My cousin Melanie has all her gifts purchased and wrapped by mid-summer.) As I drove to the mall on December 23rd, I made up ways to kill Melanie that involved curling ribbon and scotch tape.
Filled with dread I swung into an overflowing parking lot and immediately found a spot at the very front, nearest to the entrance. I got out of the car and a young man walking by turned to smile at me.
“Happy holidays!” he said, tipping his hat. Full disclosure: he did not tip his hat in an old school sexy way like Bogie might have done. Or Ol’ Blue Eyes. It wasn’t that kind of hat. He was wearing a sort of Tyrolean deal with flaps over the ears and a pompom on top, but he tugged an earflap as he wished me well, and I’m counting that as a courtly gesture.
The whole shopping excursion was actually…not bad. Maybe it was because we hadn’t had a mass shooting or a new war in a few days, and people were feeling carefree, and therefor pleasant to deal with. Children behaved. Adults were cheery. Store clerks couldn’t have been more helpful or friendly. I grew worried. Had I been abducted by aliens in the moments that I blacked out as I was bleaching the grout in the shower?
My efficient and lovely cousin Melanie had organized a bowling tournament for Christmas Eve, and all the family showed up for kegeling hijinks. We’re not normal by most standards, and when I pay attention I discover that we laugh a lot more than other people. Our family crest is a set of wind-up chattering teeth.
In the sport of bowling there are winners and there are losers, and when the person who set the thing up partners with the best bowler in the Midwest, well, the fix is in, but even that didn’t derail the holiday. Everyone gave Melanie a nice pat on the back as the official “winner,” (mine was more of a solid thwack that caused her to swallow her gum) and off we went to her house for more togetherness.
Usually I am behind my camera, chronicling family gatherings for future generations, but I left my camera at home and decided to be fully present this year, instead. Watching people when they don’t realize they’re being watched tells you a lot. The faces of the children beamed with anticipation and excitement, while the adults watched them with a delicate blend of indulgence and nostalgia.
While the littlest girl gleefully opened a great big package, barely able to contain her exuberance, I noticed my mom’s fingers mimicking the tot’s, as if she were unwrapping something wonderful herself.
How I wished we could all see the world, if only for a moment, through childlike eyes again, erasing the doubts, fears and insecurities we have as grown ups.
Christmas day we gather at my parent’s—my precious-at-any-age godson Chad (who is now in his early 30s) comes with Nolene, his astoundingly wonderful girlfriend of several years, and an assortment of their friends. As a bonus this year, Nolene’s brother Andre was visiting from South Africa, and he rounded out the entourage. All of my cousins and their children, husbands, wives, and significant others fill the house with noise, hugs and laughter. We had invited my folk’s neighbors Steve and Robyn, and their friend Paul to join our loud and crazy family, and with their arrival the house was officially rockin’,
After the silly White Elephant gift exchange, in which my mom’s “The Clapper” was the gift to beat, I began gathering up paper plates, empty cups and bits of wrapping paper. Chad stood up and announced he had something to ask Nolene. My heart skipped a beat. We adore Nolene. Could this be “the big question?”
Chad reached into his back pocket and dropped to one knee. I glanced around as it became apparent what was happening. The room had fallen silent for the first time all day; the atmosphere charged with thrilled electricity. Chad produced a small box with a glorious diamond ring inside, and he asked dear Nolene to spend the rest of her life with her hand in his. She said yes. Judging from the expressions of wonder and unmitigated joy on everyone’s face, it was the closest thing to childlike awe that I could have imagined. For the moment.
(Note: always keep a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge. You never know when you’re going to need it!)
We popped the cork and toasted the young couple, wishing them well on this new chapter of their lives. There was an abundance of hugging and crying—hand shaking and pats on the back were not sufficient to this milestone at all. The children danced around like Druids, trailing bits of ribbon, and whooping their gladness for Chad and Nolene.
My parent’s neighbor Steve is a magician, a detail I had forgotten, but which became magnificently clear when he enlisted the two youngest to be his assistants for…The. Greatest. Magic. Show. On. Earth.
I could describe in great detail the fantastical sleights of hand, card tricks and voilas! that captivated us that day, but there are no words to convey the actual magic that transformed each of us into a five-year-old, to whom the world is still an enchanting, happy and profoundly wonderful place to live. How perfect then, on the very day that Chad and Nolene reminded us “love is all you need” to be blessed with a remedy for cynicism and adulthood. My blues, wistfulness, and doubts were replaced with all the wide-eyed wonder of a child, and tremendous gratitude for this great gift called life.
My wish for you all in the New Year is that you find that little bit of magic just when you need it most.
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Do you have a writer in your life who deserves a great gift? Here’s a list of goodies every wordsmith would love to have.
Books! (and gift certificates for books)
No one loves a good book more than a writer. Well chosen words on a page not only transport us emotionally, writers appreciate the author’s struggle to be published, read and validated. Indie bookstores are the most wonderful places on earth, giving visibility (and shelf space) to some incredibly talented authors you may not find at Barnes and Noble.
For an indie bookstore near you click:
One of my all time favorite books, which was a gift to me from a dear friend and from which I never fail to find inspiration and focus, is The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz (1996 Random House)
With an introduction by John Updike, The Writer’s Desk showcases Jill Krementz’s black-and-white portraits of over fifty well-known writers from the latter half of the twentieth century, such as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Pablo Neruda, Susan Sontag, and Kurt Vonnegut, at work on their craft. Emerging and established writers alike will be inspired and fascinated by the photos of the authors, which are accompanied by their own descriptions on individual creative routines and spaces.
A first edition.
If someone you know and love has a favorite author, and you’ve got a little extra money to spend, there is nothing like owning a first edition to make a writer (aspiring or pro) feel connected to their literary lion or lioness. Alibris has been around forever, and if they don’t have it they will find it! Click: 
A stand-up idea.
Kierkegaard did his best writing standing up, as did Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Nabokov and Virginia Woolf. You can put Ernest Hemingway in the standing desk club, too. If I sit at my computer for more than a couple of hours I experience a searing white hot pain in my back that distracts me from penning the great American novel.
I recently bought a WorkEZ Standing Desk – Laptop/Monitor Stand plus Keyboard Tray & Mouse Tray (pictured above). It’s lightweight, portable and costs around $130. Your novelist (and her back, shoulder and neck) will thank you to the moon and stars. (You can find WorkEZ at numerous online and brick & mortar stores.)
Balls!
A balance ball chair, that is. Gaiam does it best. For under $80 your journalist will improve stability and balance, take the pressure off his back, and work the core. Stronger ab muscles protect the lower back and promote better posture, so give the gift that’s truly fair and balanced.
Click:
Bold brewed inspiration.
Whether your writer likes to grind her own beans and French press, or she grabs the laptop and does her best work at the local latte joint, she will appreciate the gift that has fueled artistic endeavors for centuries. Compliment cappuccino’s robust deliciousness with a groovy mug, and you’ll be called out in the acknowledgements as her favorite person of all time.
For specialty writer’s coffee mugs click:
Beautiful blank pages.
I LOVE Moleskine! Elegant and affordable, these lovely little journals, notebooks, sketchbooks and diaries are sure to inspire big things. Click: 
Illumination.
What a bright idea! With choices to fit any budget, a good desk lamp is essential to the writing process. Sure, it would be nice if the sun shone upon us each time we sat (or stood) to write, but with the gracious gift of a serious desk lamp, your writer’s light will always shine.
Good grammar and punctuation, please.
The AP Stylebook is an essential tool for every writer. The definitive guide to proper punctuation, grammar and usage, this little gem should be mandatory reading for every American. And now it’s available through an online subscription, which makes it the most convenient writing resource ever. Click: 
Proper writing attire.
We never know when inspiration will strike, and if it’s 3AM and the house is quiet, your scribe is going to need something comfy and elegant in order to court the muse. The perfect robe, thoughtfully monogrammed with your author’s initials, will ensure he doesn’t look like Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys. Robeworks has the yummiest, softest, most writerly robes around!
Click the pink robe:
You.
We are an insecure, wildly overconfident, creative, wacky, lovable and neurotic bunch. When you believe in us—when you tell us that our writing made you laugh or cry or think or want to scream—well, you’ve given us life. Your support and friendship is the best gift of all.
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The holidays are upon us. Whether you’re celebrating in style or sipping a little spiked nog in front of the fireplace, there are a few things you should know before you choose to get behind the wheel.
It was nearly two years ago, when I had just moved back to Wisconsin from Los Angeles, that I was pulled over because it was 1:30AM on a Sunday morning, and was arrested for drunk driving.
Even if you’re driving perfectly, (or think that you are) the police can pull you over and administer sobriety tests on the side of the road, or throw you in their vehicle, take you to the hospital and have your blood drawn, and if they feel like it, they can demand that you pee in a cup. This is what “implied consent” means when you sign the paper to get a driver’s license in all 50 states.
There are many ways to “drive erratically,” that do not result in traffic violations—perfectly legal things such as “deviating in your own lane” and “tires touching the gravel shoulder.” Add to that the hundreds of offenses on the books, such as “failure to dim brights” and “chipped windshield” and there are literally a million reasons for the police to justify a traffic stop.
Implied consent also means that you do not have the right to ask for, nor speak with an attorney before taking a Breathalyzer, blood or urine test. So all those crackpot lawyer ads on TV that tell you “don’t talk to the cops until you’ve spoken with me” are bull kaka. If you refuse the tests, it is instant arrest and revocation of your license. Even if it turns out that you were not legally drunk, you have lost your license for one full year by refusing to take a test.
I was out with a friend the other night not drinking and he said I was being paranoid. Really? See what you think:
1. The police do not need probable cause to pull you over to find out whether you’ve been drinking. Yes, on the books cause is legally required—some reason other than it’s bar time or after a Packer game, but in reality? The policeman who taught the drunk driving class I had to take in order to restore my driving privileges told us the police will find “cause” whether it’s there, or not.
You will not get off on an “illegal stop” defense.
Example: I could prove that the police had no lawful reason to pull me over. I had graphs, satellite images, a video recreation, match box cars, a laser pointer, street maps and a lawyer in a $5000 suit. But it was 1:30 in the morning on a weekend.
The Sheriff’s Deputy who initiated the traffic stop, sat on the witness stand in court and swore under oath that every word of his report was accurate.
Then, just like on TV, my lawyer breaks out the visual aids, and says, “How is it possible that you could see my client’s passenger tires touch gravel a quarter of a mile ahead of you, on a road with no gravel shoulder, on a moonless night, on a county highway with no street lights, as her vehicle was turning away from you?” Ah ha!
On TV, that’s the moment when the audience knows the defendant will be acquitted. In real life, not so much. The Deputy turned a shade of vermillion, then said quietly, “The report is wrong.” I’m thinking they’re going to handcuff the guy at this point and charge him with perjury, but I was wrong.
The judge ruled that it was a matter of credibility, and frankly, who’s more credible than a cop? “People make mistakes on reports all the time,” he found.
2. In the State of Wisconsin there were over 42,000 suspected drunk driving arrests in 2014.
Q. How many of them did NOT result in a conviction?
A. 85.
Conviction rates around the country are closing in on the 99% range.
3. MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) is as powerful a lobby as the NRA and Teacher’s Union combined. If a judge, prosecutor or District Attorney does not succeed in securing a conviction for a drunk driving case, MADD will throw their full weight behind making sure that elected official is not re-elected.
4. Your license will be suspended for at least six months on your first arrest even if you are not convicted.
It is the one time you will be punished and serve a sentence before being convicted of any crime.
5. Here are a few expenses you can look forward to if you are arrested and convicted of OWI/DUI/DWI.
–Towing (they have your vehicle towed to a lot)
–Storage fees if it’s a Saturday or Sunday (even though the lots are closed on the weekends, you will be charged for storage. Or, they will open up so you can claim your vehicle, but that charge is the same as storage)
–Suspension of your license by the DMV
–Obtaining an occupational license from the DMV
–Special insurance to be able to get an occupational license (called SR22 in Wisconsin)
–An increase in your regular auto insurance, as well as homeowner’s and medical
–Reinstatement of your regular license after you’ve served your suspension on an occupational license
–A substance abuse assessment
–Mandatory classes, minimum 21 hours (even if the assessment shows you are not at risk and do not have a substance abuse problem, you must take the classes)
–Court costs
–Fines and penalties
–Ignition Interlock Device if you blow over .15 An IID must be installed in any vehicle that you drive. Installation averages about $150 to install and about $80 per month, per vehicle, for a minimum of one year.
Total: $2000+++
Legal fees: $3000 – $15,000
6. According to the officer who taught my class, more than 40% of drunk driving stops are the result of civilians phoning in a license plate. Yup, it’s the same people from grade school who used to tell on you for chewing gum, who are sitting in their cars outside the restaurant or bar with a Holly Hobby notebook in one hand and a cell phone in the other.
7. You will receive a check for $100 if the person whose license plate you phoned in is convicted of drunk driving. They have incentivized tattling.
8. Your first OWI stays on your record for 55 years in Wisconsin. 55. A first DUI or DWI or OWI varies from state to state, but will remain on your record for a minimum of 10 years no matter where you live.
9. MADD has closed, snapped shut and eradicated all loopholes. There is no more “wet reckless” or pleading down in drunk driving cases, regardless of what any attorney tells you. The police will not lock your keys in your trunk and tell you to walk the last block home. They will not let you call your dad to pick you up, and they will not “give you a lift.” They will arrest you, your car will be towed and you will be convicted.
10. Once you’ve been convicted of your first drunk driving offense, you can be arrested and convicted of a second OWI with as little as .02 alcohol in your system. That’s one beer on a full stomach. The police have a scanner device, like a radar gun, that gets info from your license plates. If you’ve had one drunk driving arrest and/or conviction, you are more likely to be pulled over for “driving erratically,” a chipped windshield, failure to report hitting a deer (which is considered destruction of property), and on and on. You’re doomed.
11. A second OWI offense comes with mandatory jail time, where you’ll be incarcerated with rapists, gang members and basically every kind of violent felon there is. Forget driving for at least a year after you get out of jail.
12. There is a (not-so-secret) quota system.
If you’ve just left a restaurant and have had two beers with your meal, you get pulled over and the cop smells Old Milwaukee on your breath, it is up to the cop’s discretion (even if you blow under the limit) as to whether he will arrest you. If he hasn’t met the drunk driving “quota” for the month, you are toast.
Technically, and legally, the police do not have a quota system, but “off the record,” “according to sources,” and “of course we do,” they do. If a cop fails to haul in as many impaired drivers as Officer Krupke, he’ll be pulling desk duty faster than you can say the alphabet backwards.
13. If 42,000 drunk driving convictions resulted, on average, in $2000 worth of fines, penalties and fees per person, Wisconsin raked in $84,000,000 in 2014. If the average person spent only $3000 on a lawyer (I spent three times that), the legal profession hauled in another $126,000,000, in one year, in one state.
The NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) is about to lower the legal limit from .08 to .05, which will likely double drunk driving revenues in every state.
There is tremendous financial incentive for the police to pull over, arrest and aid in the conviction of as many people as possible.
14. It doesn’t matter whether you are actually impaired or not. If you have any alcohol in your system and you decide to drive, the deck is stacked against you the minute you shift into drive. Wait! I take that back.
I learned that even if you are asleep in the backseat with the keys in your pocket you could be arrested because you “are in control of your vehicle.” For real. I couldn’t make this stuff up. The cop who taught my drunk driving class told us, “If you plan to sleep it off in your car, place the keys outside the vehicle.”
It takes about two hours for each drink to work its way out of your system, so you may want to call a cab and spend the next 6 to 12 hours in the comfort of your home.
Still think I’m being paranoid?
Since Uber and taxis are not available everywhere, I suggest either not drinking at all if you’re driving, or paying someone $20 an hour to be the designated driver, which you could split amongst your friends. I did the math on my drinking and driving.
On March 30, 2014, I paid $2800 per drink. Cheers!
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A lot of people want to be writers, or they think they want to be writers. People seem to imagine that we’re all making bank like J.K. Rowling, and lounging around a 2500sf white and ecru Hamptons bedroom/sitting room/writing space in slinky silk loungewear sporting perfect ponytails and Robert Yurman “casual” jewelry.
We earn 10% of each book sold. My books retail for $24.95 in hardcover and $16.95 for a paperback. Any good at math? I’d like to ask everyone who’s ever bought a Harry Potter book to please buy one of mine.
Movies and retellings of Hemingway’s escapades have romanticized the writer’s life. I honestly don’t know a single writer who gallivants all over Spain drinking daiquiris all day, or who owns an estate with a 2500sf white and ecru bedroom/sitting room/writing space as featured in nearly every Nancy Meyers film.
I know a lot of writers, some of whom do it as a vocation. They’re all nuts. Maybe actors face as much rejection as writers, but I doubt it. An actor may not look right for the part, or perhaps doesn’t audition well, or seem believable enough. No one tells an actor that their thoughts and ideas, heart and soul…blow. Actors may occasionally go off the rails and boast of tiger blood and winning. Writers flinch when the toast pops up, waiting for the toaster to judge us.
Writers do not generally wear stilettoes and bras as outerwear like sex columnists on old timey HBO, nor do we tramp around in an ex-wife’s pilled fleece pink bathrobe a la Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys. Our wardrobe is a hybrid between jammies and nearly socially acceptable tracksuits, assuming the athletic wear is not shiny with a stripe down the pant leg. A real writer wouldn’t be caught dead in that. We have standards.
Friends and relatives call me throughout the day while they’re taking a break from work, or enjoying lunch. They get grumpy when I tell them crisply that I am working. Sometimes they actually snicker. (I can hear you, you know.) Just because it’s two in the afternoon and I’m home doesn’t mean I’m not working. (And I never answer Skype or Face Time so there is no way you can know that I haven’t brushed my teeth or hair, and am wearing PJs with a Marquette University sweatshirt that was old and faded before the turn of the century.)
The other day someone rang the doorbell and as I was expecting a case of wine I raced to the door and flung it open. There stood the next-door neighbors—a beautiful Australian fitness instructor wife, a 13 year old “could be an Abercrombie model” daughter, and a handsome hubby who owns a plane—all dressed dapperly in what I like to call “public clothes.”
It was two in the afternoon. I had on PJ bottoms that after three days of wear stretch to the point of being a foot and a half too long. I try to roll them up, but they’re soft from age and wear, and puddle around my “house socks.” I top off the ensemble with a formerly white waffle-weave sweatshirt that I once wore to paint my dining room Tiffany’s blue.
The pretty family on the porch reared back, having forgotten why they came. I asked if they saw a wine delivery guy outside. The girl picked up a flyer for a tree-trimming service that was on the ground and she handed it to me, then they turned and hurried away. I still don’t know why they stopped by.
The writer’s life isn’t pretty. It’s not all sleep ’til noon, drink scotch ’til dawn, and crank out magic by the gigabyte. It’s fraught with anxiety, doubt, panic, and the belief that there is nothing else we’d rather be doing. I think we don’t decide to become writers. I’m pretty sure we have no choice.
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When I was a kid, on the day after Thanksgiving my mom and dad would take me to Chicago to see the Christmas lights and decorations on Michigan Avenue. I felt like a grown up in the bustling big city, bumping into ladies in high-heeled boots and fur coats, and men carrying stacks of big department store boxes and fancy-looking shopping bags. The men wore overcoats, galoshes and felt hats. I was accustomed to guys in Milwaukee being more casual, and mostly wearing hunting outerwear and plaid flannel hats with earflaps.
On State Street, Marshall Field’s had the best window displays ever, with animatronic elves, reindeer, Santa and Mrs. Claus, and princes kissing the noses of princesses in an enchanted flocked forest. Although primitive by today’s high-tech standards, the mechanical creatures moved with convincing agility. I can only imagine what I looked like from their perspective—a little girl, mouth agape, wide-eyed and mesmerized.
Inside, the store boasted the famous seven story “Walnut Room Christmas Tree.” I tried to Google the exact height, because seven stories seems awfully tall, but my mom confirmed it was 70 feet, and we are sticking to that memory story.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, we’d stop for lunch at The Berghoff, an old school wood-paneled restaurant dating back to 1898, when it began as a men-only saloon that served free corned beef sandwiches with the purchase of a stein of Berghoff beer. The place would be packed with people that looked to me to have stepped from the set of a movie—elegant, sophisticated and perfectly coiffed. I was accustomed to camo snowmobile suits and boots.
It was a rarity to see a taxicab in Milwaukee, and Chicago’s El was beyond compare. Everything about the big city—the cultivated people, the cabs, the crowded sidewalks and tall buildings, was spellbinding.
Maybe we all become jaded as we get older. I’ve traveled all over the world and seen things I couldn’t have imagined when I was a child, but I also think people have forgotten about magic. Magic isn’t getting up at 3AM for a door-buster sale. Magic is putting on your nicest clothes to go window-shopping.
We didn’t have a lot of money, and things were way more expensive in a big city like Chicago. But we went into Neiman Marcus and Saks and Marshall Fields because they had the most incredible Christmas decorations. It smelled special in those places, too—different than Gimbels and Sears, and Goldmann’s, on the south side of Milwaukee. It smelled like magic, although it was probably just Chanel #5 and Aquanet.
I realize that the world has changed a lot since I was a child. In almost all cases both parents must work in order to support a family, and finding a good deal on Christmas gifts, if you’re lucky enough to have any disposable income at all, is an essential part of the holiday season. I can honestly say that I do not remember a single Christmas gift from my childhood, but I can recall as though it were yesterday how I felt when we went to Chicago to look at the decorations.
Maybe the real “gift” was the fact that my mom didn’t have to work, and my dad closed down his business for the full four-day Thanksgiving holiday. We could afford the gas to drive to Chicago, the parking, and the lunch at the Berghoff. I’m sure someone bought something while we were in Chicago, but I don’t remember any of that. The experience, however, stays with me to this day. I can afford Chanel #5 now, and more than a love of the fragrance itself, I remain transformed by the memories it conjures, and how lucky I was when the day after Thanksgiving was magical.
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While the earth was still magma, and I was in journalism school, there were certain rules by which we lived, and much of that priceless info came from a bible of sorts—the Associated Press Stylebook. (Cue the seraphim!) This essential tome includes everything you need to know about grammar, punctuation, syntax, and life! (Nowhere does it say a writer is not allowed a little exaggerative license.)
1. Get the Associated Press Stylebook. Best investment ever if you’re determined to have people take your written word seriously. AP style, as it is lovingly referred to, is a standardized way of writing everything from dates to street addresses to job titles, and for-the-love-of-Mike, the correct number of spaces between sentences. Hint: it’s ONE!
2. Use one space between sentences and punctuation. The reason for the one space rule is explained below, from the book The PC is Not a Typewriter by Robin Williams. (Unrelated to the comedian who might arguably have committed suicide over the persistence of people who use two spaces between sentences. Too soon? Sorry.)
“Why was it necessary to have two spaces between sentences when using a typewriter? On a typewriter, all the characters were mono-spaced; that is, they each took up an equal amount of space. The letter “i” occupied as much space as the letter “m.” Because characters were monospaced, inserting two spaces after periods helped to visually separate one sentence from the next.
Computer fonts have characters that are proportional—the letter “i” takes up about one-fifth the space of the letter “m.” So you no longer need extra spaces to separate sentences. In fact, if you insert two spaces between sentences, you will see unwanted white spaces in a block of text.”
3. End a sentence with a preposition if it makes you happy. Contrary to every persnickety fusspot you have ever met who insists that you are lower than a single-celled organism if you end a sentence with a preposition, there is absolutely no such rule. It was literally made up in the 1600s by a cranky English teacher with a too-tight bun. Winston Churchill was not one to take that lying down. Supposedly an editor had clumsily rearranged one of Churchill’s sentences to avoid ending it in a preposition, and the Prime Minister, very proud of his style, scribbled this note in reply: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”
Nice work, guv’nor! Where on earth do these non-rules come from? Write.com offers this:
“In the 17th-century some literary panjandrums wanted to make English conform to Latin, which does not permit ending sentences in prepositions. Grammarians and teachers, two groups of people who love themselves some rules, latched on to this diktat—and that was that.
However, English is not Latin, so we’re not stuck with the same rules. In fact, most modern literary minds believe it’s OK to end a sentence in a preposition. As an editor from the AP style book (the official style guide for Write.com) has explained, ‘It’s something we’ll put up with.’”
Can I get an amen?
4. Do not turn off spellcheck. It is smarter than we are.
5. Use spellcheck. It’s right there where the words are.
6. Spellcheck is your best friend. Fighting it is futile. Embrace it.
7. Double check the spelling of proper names. People, products and places, like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, Wales. Took 20 minutes, but I’m 85% certain I spelled it correctly.
8. Proof read like Barbara Bush. I like to pretend I’m Babs when I proofread my work. (I met Mrs. Bush when she was FLOTUS. We spoke of things literary. She is Queen of the Sticklers.) You’d be surprised how many typos, grammatical and syntax errors a person catches whilst masquerading as the Bush matriarch. (She accused me of misusing the word “mortified,” and she belittled me. When I proofread “through her eyes” I simultaneously bitchslap myself.)
9. Use the thesaurus. It is a staggering resource, but one must administer abstemiousness, forbearance, curtailment and suppression or one will sound like a muttonhead. For real. The thesaurus is a great tool for expanding the vocabulary, but be sure the words you choose sound like they come from you and not your obnoxious brother-in-law from Sheboygan who looks pretentiously over the top of his glasses while spouting $7 words that he mispronounces in an English accent when he gets drunk.
10. Use the AP Stylebook. (I LOVE bookends!)
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Procrastinate, verb. delay or postpone action; put off doing something
We unjustly malign procrastinators. Isn’t it better to say, “I am going to wait until I can give 100% to this task” rather than being shamed because the laundry pile has moved across the room of its own accord, and the checkbook hasn’t been balanced since Birkenstocks were popular the first time? A person is more likely to be accurate to the penny, and separate colors, if she is fully invested in the task.
No one calls hostage negotiators and bomb defusers procrastinators, yet they don’t dive into action willy-nilly. Politicians, prosthetic limb fabricators and people who write books all take their time before presenting the world with their stuff or we’d be lurching about, reading the back of air fresheners, and carrying our taxes in a bandana tied to the end of a stick.
Measure twice, cut once. Is that to postpone cutting, or is it just common sense? I betcha there are people who’ve been labeled as procrastinators, who don’t hesitate before putting out a hair fire, or eating a chocolate chip cookie right out of the oven even though they know they’re going to blister the roof of their mouth.
HERE ARE 5 GOOD REASONS TO PROCRASTINATE RIGHT NOW:
1. No apologies. (Also known as jackass reduction planning)
If you take a moment to think before acting (which includes opening your mouth and flapping your lips) you reduce the likelihood that you will need to say “I’m sorry” for an ill-conceived remark that makes you look like a jackass.
Examples: “Are you wearing that?” “How far along are you?” “I never liked him.” (This usually precedes the announcement that “they” are back together and getting hitched.)
2. You won’t be labeled a flip flopper.
Rush to action and there’s a good chance you will need to repeal your decision. It’s one thing to change the date of a dinner party or angioplasty, but blue eye shadow can’t unbuy itself, and sleeping with the cute bartender at The Dew Drop Inn is not reversible. He’ll think you two are “going out,” and no decent man will have you.
3. Your lack of response can be construed as deep thinking.
Use your head on this one. No one will confuse you for an intellectual colossus if you hesitate when asked whether you’re drowning, think puppies are cute, or would like to order the Lutefisk. On the other hand, if you close your eyes and nap briefly when asked to head up the 4th grade bake sale, people will think you’re mentally tabulating the costs and benefits associated with such an endeavor. They will never know that you have “checked out” in the hopes that they will find another sucker before you wake up.
4. Time is on your side.
Similar to “deep thinking,” when you delay, postpone or put off action on a wide variety of fronts, things have a way of sorting themselves out. No good will come of you introducing a bill that makes it legal to shoot old people who watch The Voice just so they can say the word caterwauling over and over. Give it some time and they will die out before Pharrell starts buying adult-sized sweaters, and your rep as a circumspect “good egg” remains intact.
If given a few days, most ugly situations improve with the passage of time, and no action is ever required. I don’t suggest you finish reading The Pet Goat if someone is shooting at your head, but in cases of arguments, disagreements and differences of opinion—the stuff on which most of the upheaval between humans is predicated—chillax. Take a breath. Rarely does rushing headlong into a shitstorm help matters.
5. You’ll live a longer, healthier and happier life.
“Just do it,” advises Nike. An ad for Delta Private Jets tells us, “Perfect moments are often made on a moment’s notice.” This is not happiness, health or security. It’s impulse buying, which has nothing to do with longevity and everything to do with corporate greed.
Wanna live well? Take your time. Look around. Slow down. Go to Italy. You’ll avoid broken toes, spilled milk, hurt feelings, and indigestion. By all means get your homework done on time, don’t leave the kids at soccer practice past midnight, and get a mammogram. Beyond that, think before you act or speak, avoid fast food, and don’t do anything that you wouldn’t do a day from now, if you thought about it.
And now you can listen to Pam’s essay series “Wisconsin Tough” on Public Radio.
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M Train by Patti Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I loved Just Kids beyond measure. If there was a word stronger than love, I would use it to describe my feelings for the that book, so my expectations for M Train may have been a tad unrealistic.
Written in a far more “stream of consciousness” style, M Train didn’t pull me into the story–an era, a lifestyle, a heartbeat, the way Just Kids did so poignantly.
M Train takes a lot of thought and brain power to read, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I didn’t feel that compulsion I had with Just Kids to keep hungrily turning the pages. Smith’s choice of words is again, and as always, remarkably strung together to incite an emotion, or help the reader visit a place with which they are unfamiliar.
M Train is worth the read – Smith’s style is unique, and in the case of M Train it’s like looking at a complicated painting. It takes a bit of time to deconstruct the work and really think about it in order to interpret a meaning. It’s pretty cool that we can draw our own conclusions about meaning from a work like M Train v Just Kids, which tells us a story in a more traditional (but gorgeous) way.
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#1. Can be slid beneath something uneven, like a table leg that is an inch or so short, or my Uncle Ray, who due to his imagination believes one leg to be substantially shorter than the other. He has had the heels of his left shoes built up by a solid inch and a half, and thusly he now lists to the right. A funny book beneath his right foot would even things out.
#2. Can also be used to hold a window open, keep a door ajar, as a cocktail coaster or a trivet beneath a cabbage dish or a broasted chicken.
#3. Can be wielded as the blunt object so often referred to in crime scene investigations, with an almost certain guaranty that the police will not suspect the “funny book” of being the murder weapon.
“Cause of death?” asked the detective.
“Skull bashed in with a blunt object,” the CSI replied, glancing around the room. Spotting a funny book covered in blood, the CSI told the cop, “Hey, move that funny book and see if the murder weapon is underneath.”
#4. Can be displayed to show the world you are not a ghob; one who is grim, humorless, ornery and boring. (Thank you, Elaine Belling, for the perfect acronym.)
“Geez, you’re grim, humorous, ornery and boring,” said Elaine to Dan.
Dan waved a funny book in Elaine’s face. “Then what am I doing with this funny book?”
Elaine immediately removed her blouse.
#5. Is a legal remedy for anxiety, stress, loneliness, fear, financial ruin and the discovery that your teenaged son has converted the potting shed into a meth lab. (Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and the District of Columbia have an additional antidote for doom and gloom.)
A study conducted by Psychology Today revealed that nothing is more highly valued than a sense of humor, perhaps even more than looks, intelligence and money. Someone with a great sense of humor, it is reasoned, is happy, socially confident and has a healthy perspective on life.
This explains why every online dating profile known to man proclaims,
“Must have a sense of humor.”
You rarely see a Match profile demanding potential mates possess smokin’ abs and earn seven figures (although this is generally understood), but everyone wants a partner with a bangin’ sense of humor. Never mind that comedians get divorced at the same rate as coconut safety engineers, and are often as socially awkward as anthropophobics.
People want funny, and what better way to show the world you “get” funny than to be in possession of a funny book? Here are a few of my favorites:
♥Anything written by David Sedaris, but especially Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and Me Talk Pretty One Day. I tinkle a little bit every time I reread one of his books.
♥Mindy Kaling’s book is truly hilarious— Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Funny. Funny. Funny.
♥Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson. So down-to-earth and “real” that you can’t help but see yourself in the awkward situations that have defined Lawson’s life thus far.
♥A classic, Catch-22 by Joesph Heller takes comic relief to dizzying, brilliant and poignant heights. If you read it in high school, reread it again now.
♥For anyone who has ever known a child, Go the F*ck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach. I laugh just thinking about it!
♥The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde. He elevated snark to an absolute art form. You’ll find dozens of bon mots here with which to amuse and abuse guests at your next cocktail party.
♥Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. Sigh. Lurid, brash—a masterpiece. And no, the movie isn’t a gazillionth as funny.
Got a funny book to share with us? Do tell!
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The phrase ‘water seeping under the foundation.’ Thank you, Marjy Brzeskiewicz, for terrifying me with that one.
Children with big eyes. Not babies—they all have giant eyes and pretty much look like a cross between monkeys and a weepy senorita in a velvet painting. Spooky is any kid over the age of three who has “eyes the size of saucers.” They track with you no matter where you are in the room, and I feel that at any given moment one of them will scuttle across the floor and begin gnawing on my leg. Or toss me over a balcony if one is handy. I prefer sleepy-eyed youngsters who look prone to failing math.
The sound of something heavy being dragged across a floor.
Just before I moved from Los Angeles back to Wisconsin, and all my belongings had been packed into boxes and stacked in the living room, I was awakened at 3AM by the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. My four dogs would bark their fool heads off at a squirrel six blocks away, but on this night—zip. The mutts were silent.
I slept with my bedroom door locked, and only a tiny dog with me, so all I could imagine was someone—some thing had murdered my three big dogs and was dragging their carcasses back to hell for its dinner. My heart was beating its way out of my chest. I took a deep breath and listened at the door, hoping I had been dreaming. Nope. Something heavy was indeed being dragged across the floor.
I clutched Zimmerman the Chihuahua in one arm, grabbed a Louisville Slugger I kept under the bed, and dialed 911 with my nose. I whispered to the operator that someone had broken in and was absconding with all my personal belongings, which had been conveniently packed for easy burgling.
She asked if I could see anyone. Really? Like, I should go out there and look? Nuh uh. I have seen waaaay too many horror movies to fall for that nonsense.
“Send the police and they can look,” I said quietly so as to not antagonize the Manson family in my living room.
“They are on their way and they are rolling silent,” she informed me. “Stay on the phone with me and I’ll tell you when they’ve arrived, and then you will go outside.”
“What? Through the house?”
“Do you have another way to get out?” she asked.
Dammit. “No.”
Outside my bedroom door, scrape, scrape, thud, and then more dragging. “Will they be here anytime soon?” I asked desperately.
“They have just arrived. They are waiting for you. Go outside. Now. GO!”
I was in a t-shirt and underpants, clutching a one-eared Chihuahua and a Louisville Slugger when I threw open the bedroom door and started swinging that baseball bat like Britney Spears on a head-shaving rampage.
I bolted outside and into the waiting arms of a bunch of really good-looking young cops, wishing I had shaved my legs.
“Did you see anything?” one of the policemen asked.
I didn’t want to tell him my eyes had been closed the entire time I hurtled through the house, screaming like a banshee, flailing the bat. “In the living room,” I fibbed. Something was in there moving my stuff around.
About 20 officers went into the house, guns drawn. A few minutes later, “Clear!” “Clear!” “Clear!” A couple cops came outside, holstering their weapons. “House is empty, ‘cept for some dogs asleep in the den,” one policeman reported.
One of the officers shone his flashlight on the roof of the house, and asked, “Do you have raccoons?”
“What? As pets? No.”
He spoke into a communicator device on his shoulder. “We’ve got a little raccoon on the roof.”
I saw it. The thing was the size of a Buick. Apparently the giant freak-of-nature had been dragging branches into the eaves, just outside my bedroom, creating the auditory illusion of something being dragged across the floor.
“Hey, I wonder if his name is Bandit?” one of the cops joked. Sooooo funny. Another comedian with a badge asked if I needed someone to check under the bed before they left. Oh, my ribs.
Earlier tonight, during the storm, the electricity went out. As I sat in the dark I thought about the woman and child who had come to the door earlier in the day, asking whether the “old man” still lived at the place. Assured I’d been divorced for some time, the woman told me, “Old man Gein spent a lot of time in that basement. Said the earth was real soft down there, due to water seeping under the foundation.”
The little boy pulled off his cap and looked up at me with black eyes the size of grapefruit. “Just let us in,” he said. “This won’t take long.”
I muttered something about a bedspread I was baking and slammed the door in their faces.
Now I’m sitting in the dark, alone but for a rat terrier who is afraid of leaves, and I just heard something being dragged across the attic floor above me. I reached for the phone, then thought better of it. The fire department had been to the house earlier in the month for an electrical fire smell that was really a rubber band in the toaster, and the police had been summoned just this week to thwart a home invasion that turned out to be wild turkeys pecking themselves stupid at the glass sliders on the back of the house. No one will come if I call.
I stuffed my Beats into my ears, cranked up the tunes, opened a bottle of Pinot Noir, and am now locked in the bathroom with the battery fading slowly on my laptop.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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