Today, I offer you this funny and interesting piece–Words that really move us, By Ruth Walker: As a collective verbal tic of a whole industry, airline-speak goes beyond needless emphatic verb forms (e.g., “we do realize” instead of the simpler “we realize”). It extends to time-filling verbosities (“We will be starting the boarding process,” instead of “We will board), peculiarities of intonation (especially odd … Read More Moving Words
I have tried to learn how to identify bird songs but there are only just a few that I know for sure. One that I do know without question is the song of the Wood Thrush. Thanks to Allen’s grandmother who taught me to listen for it, I can no longer mistake it. And really, once you learn it it would be hard to … Read More Eureka!
For one more time this week, I will come back to Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life and offer you this: The body of literature, with its limits and edges, exists outside some people and inside others. Only after the writer lets literature shape her can she perhaps shape literature. In working-class France, when an apprentice got hurt, or when he got tired, the experienced … Read More "The art must enter the body, too."
Yesterday I had my five week follow up with the periodontist (those of you who read Diary of an Aggressive Brusher will remember him as the lip dancer) on my gum graft. It was quick and painless and my graft, apparently, looks great. When I got home from my appointment, my dog was so excited to see me that when I bent down to … Read More "The dentist bit your lip?"
Today for your reading pleasure, I offer you an essay from The Christian Science Monitor written by my dear friend Patricia Dunn–Cookies and 120 bookmarks: A Muslim mom shares Ramadan with the first and second grades: When my son’s first-grade teacher asked during “meet the teacher night” if I would talk to the entire first and second grade about Ramadan, the Tricia in me … Read More
I remember the first time I read the passge below from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life–it stuck with me. So much so that I heard it in my head over and over (that being a time in my life when I was being quite wasteful of time). I repeated it to people. I urged them to read it for themselvses: After Michelangelo died, someone … Read More "Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw and do not waste time."
I am fascinated with Persephone–so much so that I find myself coming back to her again and again in my own writing–whether I intend to or not. No surprise, then, to wake up this morning and realize that yet again I am writing of her–she has been abducted; she is gone; her mother searches, makes deals for her release. Blah blah blah! Can my … Read More Persephone, why do you taunt me so?
Want to read a great story this morning? Then read this one–The Odds It Would Be You, by Alice Mattison: In 1976, when Bradley Kaplowitz was twenty-eight, he took lessons and learned to drive. A New Yorker with a pocket full of subway tokens costing fifty cents each, he rented a Dodge Dart so he could take his bald mother, Bobbie, on vacation.
Feeling inexplicably anxious today. Could be that in the course of a week it has gone from 50 degrees back down to 10 again. And why is it that 50 degrees feels so much warmer in February and March than it does in October? It’s something about the blood, right? So I’m thinking of summer on the lake, going out on a boat in … Read More the farmer’s rope
Egads! I’ve been tagged again. This time it’s the “The 7-Things Quiz” and I was tagged by the lovely Sue: Seven things to do before I die: 1. travel to: Australia/New Zealand2. travel to: the Himalyas3. travel to: Africa 4. ride a horse5. Have someone say YES to me without hesitation6. surf 7. roast a duck Seven things I cannot do: 1. sky dive2. … Read More 7-things
Yesterday I was blocked in something I was trying to write. On a lark, I went to Google (in case you do not know, google is what we in the know call a “search engine” and it exists on the “world wide web” or “information superhighway”, if you will) and typed in Help Me (without quotes) and guess what the first thing that came … Read More Help Me
myfanwy collins 