.JPG)
Why is ‘backdoor’ one word but ‘front door’ is two? Same goes for the ‘front seat’ of a car versus the ‘backseat’ of the same damn car. Maybe if you’re in the front, you get separate billing on the marquee. (Then why doesn’t work with ‘front porch’ versus ‘back porch’?)
How do you make the computer type that thing over the E as in ‘fiancé’?
Where do all the words go that I type only to look up at the computer screen and find the cursor isn’t in the little box? Do they go to word heaven? Are they stuck in the keyboard? Do they float around in Internet space only to land somewhere else? Is there enough in there, that if I retrieve them they’ll help me meet the word count for the day? Are they stacked inside and making the computer slow?
If my computer is smart enough to balance my checkbook (something I am incapable of), how come it’s not smart enough to know I’m going to misspell the same words over and over again and build a data base of those words? (And why do I always type from when I mean form and vice-versa and Spell Check doesn’t even catch that?) Why isn’t Spell Check smart enough to know I’m going to do it and fix them instead of yelling at me with red lines? My favorite thing is when Spell Check can’t guess at what I’m trying to spell. Makes me feel like I’m getting even for all those red marks (reminiscent of high school) it leaves speckled across the page.
Why can’t I remember from one time to the next, how to delete a page break? (Hit the … ah … delete button.)
I once wrote the line “and she lapped up the tears of joy his penis wept”. An editor corrected it, saying if he/it were joyful, he/it wouldn’t be weeping. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s even seen a penis, weeping or not. Same editor took a male character completely out of the scene and put him at a pool table that never existed in my version. Hello? Don’t you think if I had put a pool table in there, there would have been pool table sex instead of someone just playing with the … balls and stick. (Yes, I know it’s a cue but stick makes it sound more sexual.)
If you type alright ‘all right’ and already ‘all ready’ and altogether ‘all together’ your word count will increase … a lot.
Why is ‘bookstore’ one word but ‘candy store’, ‘grocery store’ and ‘pizza store’ are two words? (Okay, even I know they’re not called ‘pizza stores’ but just stop and imagine how great a store like that would be.)
This is one I always get wrong. I always say “why are your socks in the floor?” when in reality the socks are on the floor. (Maybe it’s a southern thing like ice (iced) tea.) If they were in the floor, molecules would be mingling and they would be ghost socks sinking into the floor (and then I wouldn’t have to pick them up but would the smell linger?). So the body is lying on the floor not in it unless it’s a ghost too.
“Write what you know.” I know if I write only what I know, it would be really boring and I wouldn’t get to spend all that time procrastinating while doing research on the Internet and learning something new (which boosts my energy level). If I write what I know, every book would be just like the book I wrote before and that would be redundant. If I write only what I’ve experienced, the sex scenes would be … wait …
I won’t be the first to say it but we need new words in our modern language to cover modern things. We still dial the phone when there’s no dial. “Excuse me, I must have dialed the wrong number.” No, you punched in the wrong numbers because at our age and our eyesight, who the hell can see the buttons. “Could you rewind and play back the tape from security camera number five?” No, because there is no actual tape but only digitally recorded data. And we all look like idiots making rolly down hand signals to the cute person in the car beside us because there is no handle to roll down the window with anymore. But if we try to make push the window button down hand signals they might be misinterpreted it as something entirely different from what we want them to do. (Although, wiggling the index finger in small circles to manipulate the knob back and forth and up and down might be an appropriate signal given the degree of cuteness of the person in the other vehicle.) It’s not a checking account anymore but a debt card black hole.
I recently had a book review request from a very conservative newspaper in the southern part of the commonwealth than panicked me. (You do realize there’s sex in there … right? … right?) The editor of a ladies’ weekly artsy insert asked that I send a copy of my latest to be read by one of their reviewers. I envisioned some poor old gray haired lady wrapped in a shawl having the vapors in her parlor while her twenty-two cats looked on. I sprinkled fairy dust (really hard to get the dust off of fairies (they don’t like it) and why doesn’t the rain wash the dust off of butterfly wings) over a copy, snail mailed it to her and spent weeks wringing my hands wondering if she had hyperventilated. Turns out she loved the book and wrote a great review (and recommended a new type of hand soap but I don’t know if it was for the dust or chafing from wringing). The moral of the story is just like our children, we don’t know what will happen when we send them out into the world to stand on their own (right oh daughter oh mine?) or the moral of the story could be that there are certain times I should ignore my imagination (if only I could).
