"Hmm, interesting..." muses Freud

I’ve always considered myself to have the soul of a writer. Now, before we get off on the wrong foot, I need you to know that I’m not delusional in the slightest regarding my actual ability to write. Simply having the soul of a writer does not necessarily translate to having the know-how to relay thoughts, glimpses of one’s own reality, into the written word. What I think is beautifully poignant with just the right dash of wit may be clunky and dull to someone else. What I think is an impossibly nebulous paragraph of drivel may flow seamlessly and with perfect relevancy for another reader. My point: in the world of words, it’s all about perspective. It’s a constant battle, with everyone climbing to the top of an imaginary peak (with no less casualties than the very tangible Everest, mind you) to be the first to reach the flag. It’s the most impossible game of capture the flag ever (that’s where I was going with the mountain reference; stick around, I have more convoluted metaphors where that came from); no one is on the same team, no one is looking out for anyone else’s back. Everyone seems to have a strategy, while I’m still in the corner of the field trying to figure out how to lace up my sneakers. Safe in my own little bubble I can judge others’ works, without having to deal with the sting of any reciprocated judgment. If I never put my stuff out there, I can go on believing my words are worth something because no one can tell me they’re not.

Facebook has the flu.

There's an epidemic sweeping the Facebook world. It's called "25 Random Things" and has caused 98.7% of users (don't question my statistics) to reveal 25 things about themselves in the form of a note. I was lucky enough to receive the vaccine in time, and have launched a counter-offensive. Enjoy, and for the love of God, protect yourselves!

"So... I'm bored with reading the "25 Things about Me" lists, and have decided instead to tell you 25 (or however many I get to before becoming irreparably distracted) things that are not true about me. Here we go:

1) I'm graceful. My balance is impeccable and not once have I fallen up the stairs. My brother does it all the time, and I'm able to laugh at him because I know that due to my superior coordination, he will never be able to laugh at me about the same thing.

2) I get over things quickly. I don't wallow or dissect every minute thing that I could have done differently in order to make something turn out better like some people do. I don't understand why people can't let things go. What's happened has happened, get over it.

3) I'm a math whiz. No seriously, I kick arithmetic's ass.

4) I am an amazing singer, and am not tone deaf in the least. When I was in band in high school, I could tell, without fail, whether my horn was playing sharp or flat. Now I love singing in front of people, especially at work.

5) I don't have a personal bubble. I know most people don't like other people to get too close, but I'm totally cool with it and being in close proximity to other people doesn't make me uncomfortable. For this reason, I love huge house parties. They're such great ways to meet new people!

6) I got a tattoo because I thought it would be a good conversation starter. It doesn't really mean anything, I just made something up after I got it so that I could legitimize it in conversations.

7) I don't like animals. They're gross and just get in the way. I don't understand how people can have pets because they cost so much money and require so much time to take care of. I think it's especially annoying when people whose pets die get upset about it. I mean, it's just an animal. Buy a new one.

8) My lack of self confidence is a complete charade. I pretend to be self-conscious so that people will feel sorry for me. It's a way of trolling for compliments, really.

9) I have the most boring dreams. I hear people talking about their exciting dreams all the time and I get so jealous! My dreams are always so mundane; nothing that couldn't happen in real life ever happens in them. I never have cool, fantastical dreams where a unicorn suddenly turns into my cousin and gives me an epic mission to travel across Bubble Land to save Princess Gaseous. I wish I would. Just once.

10) I love it when people read and critique my writing. Written words are really impersonal, and having people tell me how to change my writing to make it better is great. When I got a B- on a paper in my English class, I read over the professor's every comment, making sure I committed every correction to memory.

11) I hate road trips. Spending that much time in a car is horribly boring. I'd rather just fly to wherever I'm going and avoid all the hassle of having to find rest stops because the co-pilot downed 3 gallons of 7up slushy. People rant and rave about how great the scenery is, and that it's amazing to be able to see so much of the country up close and personal, but I love flying and airports, and would take a plane over a car any day.

12) I cut my hair off short because I want to stand out and have everybody look at me. I love being the center of attention, and I think that having short hair really helps with that. I'm not surprised or taken-aback when people compliment me, in fact I get kind of offended when people don't notice my awesome hair.

13) I'm really girlie. Growing up, most of my friends were girls and they were all jealous of my doll collection. My brother had a lot of cars and LEGOS, but I would never play Car City with him or help him with his Technics. I used to hate it when Mike's friends came over because they were all guys, and I've always felt more awkward around guys than girls. It's a lot easier for me to be friends with girls than it is guys, and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that while my brother was always playing outside, I would be inside with my dolls and tea set.

14) My brother and I don't get along very well. I'm really jealous of the relationships my friends have with their siblings, because Mike and I just can't seem to connect. We never played together when we were little, and now I think that as we're turning into adults, that's taken a huge toll on our relationship. I don't feel like I can tell him anything, and he doesn't trust me with any of his secrets. I just wish we could find some common ground.

15) I tell people that I love to read books, but really that's just a line I use to make people think that I'm more cultured. I think reading's boring, and I'd much rather watch a movie based on a book that read the book itself. I have the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe on my shelf because I think it would impress someone who saw it, but I've never actually read any of the works in it and I don't intend to.

16) I hate camping and not being able to shower for days on end; give me a hotel and heated pool any day. I'm so glad that my parents finally bought an RV, because it makes camping bearable! When I was little we did a lot of backpacking and camping, but I always hated it. I just don't understand the appeal of wandering out into the middle of nowhere to live campfire-style without running water.

17) I don't care what people think about me.

18) That guy? The one I helped pack up for college the day he left? I don't think about him every day.

19) I make a point of telling people where I'm from because I think they'll think I'm cooler if they hear where I was born. If someone asks where I'm from, I tell them I'm from Alaska, not Anchorage, because if I tell them I'm from Anchorage they might not get right away what state I'm from. I want people to know that, and I try to work it into all my conversations with new people I meet; I don't give my friends an opportunity to say it for me.



I'm done. 19 is all I can come up with."

It was almost poetic, the way it ended.
I was walking home from my last class of the day, a backpack's worth of knowledge bearing down on my shoulders. The sun was out, the temperature was perfect for a sweatshirt. I was plugged into my iPod, tuned out from the rest of the world. By the luck of the draw, I was getting nothing but quality tracks popping up in my earbuds. I walked down the hill, past the underage-drinker-magnet bar, past the pumpkin frozen mid-rot since October, past the beerman unloading his wares into the other underage-drinker-magnet bar. Engrossed in my own thoughts and world, I turned the corner onto my street. Mid-chorus, I hit the bricks. My world went silent, but the song lived on.




How it really happened:
I leaped out of the way of the car just in time to see the driver mutedly shrieking at me as she skidded through the crosswalk and on to Jazzercise.
I hope she spilled her latte.

Follow my rules.

Why the befuddlement over grammar? I concede that the rules shy away from being steadfast and have exceptions, but that does not warrant the blunders that abound in written English. For this fact, here are my (candid) thoughts on the most common missteps:

Apostrophes:
1) Signifying plurals: DO NOT USE AN APOSTROPHE TO SIGNIFY A PLURAL. Example: never say "These pickle's are really tasty." This just makes me want to ask you what the pickles own that are so tasty. The one exception to this rule I will accept is using an apostrophe to separate the digital portion of a decade from the "s" at the end. Example: "Excuse me sir, but were you alive during the 70's?" This prevents (though is not necessary due to contextual clues) one from assuming that the pronunciation is "seven zero ess," as in the specific part number for some gadget. I accept this exception only because English is an absurd language.
2) Signifying possessives: Pronouns (her, it, his, etc.) do not use apostrophes. You would never say "That book is her's." Nouns (dog, cat, asparagus) use apostrophes; "This is Michael's mounted deer head," or "That is the dog's bone." Those are appropriate uses of apostrophes to signify ownership. "It's" means it is, while "Its" means that "it" owns the object of the sentence.
3) Plural Possessives: This one is pretty simple, once you know the rule. With the exception of pronouns, which we've already been over, there is only one way (that I know of) to signify plural possessives. Instead of the apostrophe being between the subject and the "s," simply put it at the end of the whole word. Example: a bowl belonging to one dog is "The dog's bowl," whereas a bowl belonging to multiple dogs is "The dogs' bowl." You don't say "theirs'" however, because apostrophes aren't used to signify ownership with pronouns.

Their, There, They're/Your, You're:
1) They're not interchangeable. Deal with it.

I, Me, Him, He:
1) Mine vs. My in conjunction with a second-person pronoun: this is a rule that there is almost universal confusion over. How do I say that the book belongs to both my brother and me? Or is it my brother and I? The answer is extremely simple once we break down the sentence and put it back together piece by piece. First off, would you say that it is "My book" or "Mine book"? Obviously the first of these options is correct, so now we move on to the second-person pronoun. The only logical choice is that it is "His book", thus the second part of the sentence practically writes itself. Putting the two sections together, we get "It is his and my book." It may not sound perfect and pretty-smooth, but it's right. Alternately, if we want to put the book in the first part of the sentence, we would say "The book is mine and his" because if the first-person was the only object in the sentence, we would say "The book is mine." It's all about treating each pronoun as though it's in the sentence alone, then putting the two together to form one cohesive sentence.
2) I vs. Me: The same process from the possessive sentences we just went over applies to this idea. Most people I've encountered have been poorly taught to believe that whenever you are talking about yourself and another using pronouns, the personal pronoun must always be "I." If we break down a few sentences using the same process for the possessives, however, we see that this is not necessarily a hard and fast rule. For example, if I want to say that I went to Subway, and so did my roommate, I would say "She and I went to Subway" because separately the two sentences would be "She went to Subway" and "I went to Subway." But if I want to say my mother gave a gift to both my brother and me, I would say "My mother gave a gift to him and me" because separately the two sentences would be "My mother gave a gift to him" and "My mother gave a gift to me."

Hence:
Oh my Lord few things irritate me more that the misuse of the word "hence." Hence takes the place of "consequentially..." not "that is." Don't ever let me hear you saying "I ran out of milk, hence why I went to Wal Mart." I will hate you. "I ran out of milk, hence I went to Wal Mart," or "I ran out of milk, hence my trip to Wal Mart" are appropriate. It's a vaguely ruled word that is nearly impossible to explain to someone who doesn't understand it. If you don't get it, don't use it. It's easier to respect a person who knows their vocabulary and doesn't try to over step its bounds than it is to respect a person who picks up on words from another's vocabulary without fully grasping the meaning and proper usage.

Can anyone explain the "who" vs. "whom" rule to me? I knew for about 3 months my senior year of high school, but it completely escapes me now.

Also, I couldn't decide where to put the period after a single word in quotation marks, so I just put it within. It looks better to have the period outside the quotations in these instances, but I either never learned the corresponding rule or have forgotten it.

More to come later; I'm all grammared out. (a rant on semicolons, perhaps?)

Wine in hand

Sitting in the living room, nothing but the Christmas tree and wood stove for light. Sharing a glass of wine with my mother and brother, watching the dog try in vain to eat the firewood.
It's sub-zero outside; we're losing snow, sublimation. Moose are out there somewhere, crunching their way through the frozen forests.
Dinner is starting to smell like food - herbs and frozen meat turning into a meal in the oven.
This is home; a brief respite from the vigors of reality. Our own little cocoon in the blistery world.

"It's got wings! It's got wings!"

Around 11:30 last night I was lying in bed reading Water for Elephants (fan-frickin'-tastic), when my roommate Kori knocked timidly on my door.
"Katelin? Are you awake?"
"Yeah, I'm just reading, what's up?"
She opens the door and comes in my room, on the verge of tears.
"There's something really big in my room. Inca's playing with it."
"How big is big?" I ask, assuming it's the oft-present cricket or spider.
She wordlessly holds up her hands, indicating it's about the size of a tennis ball. I immediately start to freak out a little as I imagine the behemoth of a spider I'm about to lay waste to. As I walk towards Kori's room, I hear the jingle of Inca's bell as she bounces about, and an off-putting chirping noise I can't quite place. I open the door while Kori waits in the kitchen, and with the lights off see what looks like a frog repeatedly jumping into the mirrored closet door.
"It's just a frog Kori, calm down!"
I switch on the light and take one step into the room before I realize "It's got wings! It's got wings!"
Before I've finished with even two syllables, I've scurried to the kitchen and am huddling bravely with Kori in the kitchen. Kori jumps on the phone while I call on every bit of manliness in my body and go back into the room to pull Inca away from the bat.
We quarantine Inca in the bathroom (rabies, you know) and 30 minutes later Jim arrives, bat-catching towel in hand. He goes into the room, and in the process of his search for the bat we hear all sorts of unsettling banging going on in the room. After about 10 minutes, Jim comes out of the room and declares that he can't find the bat, so he asks that we come in and double check the places he's looked so we can be confident it's not there. At this point we're utterly flabbergasted; we both saw the bat, and there are no holes in the walls/ceiling through which it could have escaped.
Since I was the one brave enough to aid in the search, I go into Kori's room and together Jim and I shake out every piece of clothing in the closet while Kori slowly musters the courage to enter the room. After about 45 seconds in the room, Kori bolts out screaming "It's in the red bucket, it's in the red bucket!" There is, of course, no red bucket in Kori's room. It takes us a few confused seconds to realize that she was referring instead to the red bag filled with CDs, which Jim promptly throws the bat towel on and takes outside. With the help of a few of the CD cases he launches the bat into the back yard. After a few minutes of frantic thrashing about in the grass, the bat flies off into the black oblivion that is our scary-as-hell alley (though Kori didn't believe me that it was gone).

And thus concludes my first bat encounter.