Sometimes when I’m feeling down, which has happened a lot lately with all the bad news about the virus and investigations that aren’t going fast enough and my own personal economic crisis, I find it helps to put myself in perspective. I don’t mean that I’m only one of billions…
Former English professor ponders life, love, and how to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
I majored in languages because I was good at them. I learned to read on Sunday mornings, when I sat on my father’s lap, and he read the funnies to me. After a while, I started noticing patterns and recognizing small words. According to family legend, I started talking at…
Before, during, and after I spent four years in college majoring in Spanish and minoring in French, I worked in offices. I ran a switchboard in a bank — I mean, a real switchboard with wires and holes, like the one Lily Tomlin had on “Laugh In.” (Google it, youngsters.)…
I’ve been trying for months to figure out the huge differences in this nation. 73 million people voted for a man who, in my opinion, was the worst president we’ve ever had. He knew nothing about the Constitution he took an oath to defend and protect. He filled his cabinet…
Although slightly loony and a little macabre
When my niece Emily was six years old, her father gave her a talking dog named “Wrinkles.” Wrinkles scared the crap out of Emily. He had a deep voice, made growling noises, and said things like, “Pet me…NOW.” He was, in the words of everyone who saw him, creepy. …
Time again for that wonderful appointment
It’s the appointment we ladies all look forward to.
We’re supposed to get one every, what, two or three years? How does the time fly by so fast between those appointments? Didn’t I just have one recently? It’s time again? …
Where is it?
“I’m staying home for Thanksgiving.” “I’m going home for Thanksgiving.” Okay. Both sentences are constructed correctly, but they say the opposite of each other. So what exactly is “home”?
It’s a good question, and one that most of us never give a thought. We know what we mean. “I’m staying…
Brought to you by a 34-year veteran college English Prof
Use this as a reference guide if you have questions about punctuation or anything else it occurs to me to write about this round. This is not critical; it is informative. If you’ve been taught differently and can show proof that you were taught it, use your way, by all…
And beautiful, seen through a window, not a windshield
I was born on December 6, 1951, in Fulton, New York, about twenty miles north of Syracuse, and about twenty miles south of Lake Ontario.
Lake Ontario is one of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior: you can remember them because the first letters of their names…
I should just call my 8-year-old grandson for help
“In just two easy steps, you’ll be ready to start using your new phone!” the directions say. I don’t think people in technology can count. Either that or they are deliberately lying to me, trying to convince me that those 106 steps and missteps will be “easy.”
First, you have…
