Tuesday, January 13, 2009

PRO NUNTZ EEE AY SHUN

With Jennifer's permission (and a provision that I allow her to make fun of my driving and the fact that I frequently fall on my ass in parking lots for no apparent reason whenever she pleases), I am going to post a little pronunciation guide to help her out with a couple of problem words.

1. WHORL: Pronounced "wurl" or "worl".
A whorl on a spinning wheel determines how many times the flyer turns per one turn of the drive wheel. Although it is not pronounced, as Jennifer would have us think, "whore-ell" or "whore-thingy," I think Jennifer's way is better and I intend to use hers from now on.

2. CTHULHU: Pronounced "kuh-thoo-loo". A fictional character by H.P. Lovecraft, Cthulhu is a high priest of elderly gods, according to dictionary.com, and his name is not pronounced "CHALUPA."

I was so confused when Jennifer asked to borrow my Creepy Cute Crochet book so she could make a chalupa. I cannot tell you how delighted I was when I discovered she was trying to say Cthulhu. I may have squealed.

I am sure she is on her blog right now, telling all of you about the alarming number of interesting maneuvers I executed while driving at lunch today and describing in detail the time I spontaneously "sat down" in the parking lot of Jason's Deli in front of hundreds of stunned onlookers.

Friday, January 9, 2009

What Pisses Me Off About Dug

What pisses me off about Dug is that he can spontaneously belt out a rough draft of a piece of fiction he's only halfassedly committed to, and it's better than most of the stuff you can pull off the shelf at the bookstore. Whereas, I've always wanted to write and I struggle and struggle and struggle and write and rewrite and after five drafts my drivel is just utter crap compared to Dug's first draft note-writing. The words just fall out of his brain, perfectly composed, seemingly without effort, ready to be published.

Well, "ready to be published" except that he never, ever finishes anything, despite his undying passion to become an author. He passes a computer screen, projectile-vomits brilliance onto it and moves on, completely unaware that he's done something incredible. (Whereas, I'll never finish anything simply because I'm just not that freaking good at it and oh, look, yarn!)

I would like to express my displeasure at the unfairness of this, but it would involve a stream of very unladylike words, and you all know I'd never say anything impolite. Instead, I'm going to get a posse together to encourage Dug to finish a book, any book - he has three in the works, that I know of - and submit it to a grown-up publisher. (I'm going to call it the Finish Your #$#$## Book Posse.) Dug's writing blog, where he's posted some infuriatingly clever off-the-top-of-his-head first drafts of various things, including a working series entitled The Eternal City, can be found here: http://poeticsmoke.blogspot.com/

Monday, January 5, 2009

At last!

The day I thought would never come is upon us: Jennifer has started a blog. http://anythingbutsocks.blogspot.com/

Not only has she started a blog, but she's awaiting her very own spinning wheel.

Victory is mine!