The road to riches is lined with just nine words

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Slogging through the whelming flood of teaching and correcting student essays, I have come to two realizations. First, instructing others is not the road to riches. Second, and more importantly, daily reading the writing of people who overuse gerunds affects you.

 

If you read this blog, and if you do I both thank you and feel your pain, you know that in spite of having failed to get rich by my never-popular Dog and a Half word kit, I am still searching for the road that leads to riches. In my quest I have wandered down the wrong road more than once. Years ago, I rashly took the road to itches; another time, I crashed through the gate closing the road to stitches. After that I stumbled down an incline onto the road to ditches, which led me through a spooky forest marked “The Road to Witches.” At least that’s what I thought the sign said. Someone had scratched out the “w” and tried to write another letter.

 

 

So the other day when I read that William Faulkner, moldering in his grave these past 50 years, has directed his heirs to go after Woody Allen for putting Faulkner’s words in the actor’s mouth, my gast was flabbered, that is to say, I was flabbergasted. This pay-to-say lawsuit is over a nine-word quote. Two short sentences for a total of nine words. If that isn’t flabbergastery, I don’t know what is. Really, you expect me to believe that Faulkner could write sentences that short? If I were the dead Hemingway, I would be directing my heirs to see if I actually wrote those sentences. Faulkner, who wrote a 1,288 word sentence in one of his books (rhymes with Abs and Arms, Abs and Arms) was not exactly known for his brevity. If you have read any of his other works, such as Alight in a Gust, As I Die Lying, Arose for Emily, or The Sound in the Flurry, you know what I mean.

And what are these nine words that you must pay to say? To avoid lawsuits, I’ll give you a couple of hints.

  • The paste is never dried. It’s not even paste. (Remove one “e” from each sentence. Take out the “ri” and push an “a” between the “e” and “d.”)
  • The p*st is never dead. It’s not even p*st. (Buy a vowel. I suggest “a.”)

 

Do you see where this is going? If your words are copyrighted, or even copywronged, you can sue people and get money. If you write a blog, a book, a letter, a to-do list, an electric bill (think the date and your name!), and then put that little copyright mark on it, you can become rich! You may be able to sue for even fewer than nine words. Eight words, seven words, six words, whee! This may be the last semester I teach.

 

Mark my words, folks, (but only if you find any errors, and please use green ink because that’s what we use at school to soothe the students who have been traumatized by years of red ink splattered across their papers, making every assignment they’ve ever written look like one more bloody battlefield in their war against the English language, a language they mangle, wrangle, and tangle on their tongues every day, slicing and dicing with their verbal swords, threatening to murder their own mother tongue — she who gave them voice, nurtured, cooed and wooed them! — until they give form to those words, incarnate them into curves and lines, lettering them onto paper, where they lie in rows like soldiers in trenches, fighting a losing battle against the teacher, who enters the fray, scarred but not deterred, weary but not defeated, ready to fight through the long, lonely hours of the night, unflinching in the face of that barrage of words that scatters meaning helter-skelter, but does not, yea, cannot conquer the ink-marked soldier, armed with just a pen, marching forth, gathering the wounded words, mending them if possible, but if not, circling them in a green shroud to be carried away), if other dead people follow this trend, we will all have to start paying when we quote them.

 

You can quote me on that. In fact, I hope you do.

 

(Note to Faulkner’s estate: In no way, shape, or form am I trying to disgorge your profits to engorge my own. All quotes and book titles appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, moldering or fully moldered in his or her grave in Oxford, Mississippi, having litigious heirs or not, is purely coincidental.)

Windbreaking News: Election 2012

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In the last week before Election Day, the vote of hot air balloonists in Wisconsin is still up in the air. According to Google, from October 1 to October 21, over 750 political ads were unleashed on the Wisconsinite public every single day. Personal appearances by presidential  and senatorial candidates have gone up dramatically.

 

Will Loftus, longtime balloonist, isn’t happy. “State and national politicians have been appearing all over Wisconsin like a rash on a baby’s bum. I hate to vent, but it breaks my heart to see that amount of hot air go to waste. All I hear from the politicians is talk about Medicare, taxes, wars in those foreign countries, jobs, and this country’s future. Why do they keep speaking to special interest groups? Frankly, I’m deflated. Political hot air is a renewable energy resource, yet not one politician has addressed that. I’m just your average citizen with a $25,000 hot air balloon. What about me and my needs?””

 

Unidentified sources close to Windbreaking News estimate that capturing political hot air would provide every citizen in Wisconsin a 30-minute ride in a hot air balloon each day for one month. Identified sources confirm this, and a random poll conducted by a random pollster on a random day in Random Lake* found that voters felt “let down” on hearing this news.

 

 

(*Random Lake, WI is known for its palindromic population: 1551.)

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of Nicolas Raymond http://www.freestock.ca/view_photog.php?photogid=1

A journey and an explanation

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Late August, they gave me a map and instructions. I planned my route, studied the names of the rivers, noted the areas to avoid, and headed out. Like all of the journeys before this, I set out with a heavy backpack and a light heart.

I have made this long trek across the months before and knew I would pass some familiar places. My legs, unused to walking after the long summer of watching clouds, complained and then grew silent. My back has never ceased to speak.

I have been schooled in maps, known, and walked them. A map is the story of the road, told true from first to last, but it is not the road. Contour lines, floating on the flat surface like ripples in a lake, are someone else’s story. Your feet must walk the road and find what elevation means.

I follow a path of beauty, canopied by a wide blue sky, days lined with slow smoldering trees that light the way. I know the sun will turn soon and the winds still the fires. I have a long acquaintance with winter.

Faces wait for me at each encampment; they are why I journey. The weary climb, the bruised feet, the hours setting up the camp – all are forgotten when we meet. I offer them my strength, teach them all I know, and trust they will remember some of what they learned for their own travels.

I have journeyed often and I have journeyed long, but I have never been so tired. Mid-October means I am halfway there. In December when the earth sleeps its longest night, I will sit before a fire and rest, tell stories of my trek, and remark on the terrain I covered.

 

For now, most of my writing must be in the lives and minds of my students.

 

Why is aluminum foiled so easily?

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Before World War II, it wouldn’t have been unusual for someone at a cocktail party to uncover the canapés and remark, “Tin can’t resist being foiled.” Now we know that tin can. But back then, tin foil covered America from coast to coast.

 

After the war, aluminum rolled into town. Why, you may ask (just as my imagination does in its Dr. Watson–like voice inside my head). Elemental, I answer in my best Sherlock imitation. Ductility and malleability are aluminum’s middle names. It can be stretched and pressed within an inch of its life,  2.34 x 10-4 inches to be exact. Aluminum, nickname Al, is a one-eyed all-American element with the number 13 tattooed on its arm. If you don’t believe me (about the eye), try using the British spelling, aluminium, on my computer. If you’re like me you have my sympathy but if you are, you will be delighted that it now rhymes with potassium. Brace yourself, however, because you will also discover it rhymes with the odium of Miss Spellcheck, Microsoft’s unforgiving editor, who will scribble her furious red line at the very idea of aluminum as a two-eyed element.

 

All of this background information leads to the question: Why wouldn’t Aluminum Man make it in the top ten list of superheroes? Iron Man made it. Does he have more mettle, is he steamier, or is he just hotter?

 

Iron Man is denser than Aluminum Man, so maybe brute strength wins over brains, at least periodically. Aluminum Man resists corrosion better than Iron Man, but he tends to crumple under pressure. And although Aluminum Man is a good conductor (that’s his alterego), he’ll never play at Carnegie Hall.

 

When my imagination first started talking about Aluminum Man, I assumed that no such character existed. I looked forward to developing the character, gaining worldwide fame, and retiring some place warm and balmy. Sadly, he does exist. I know because I looked it up on the Internet.

 

And that, of course, leads to the question, Why is the Internet like a broken refrigerator? Because it spoils everything.

My adoring fans

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I hate to brag, but I have a large group of adoring fans who are Russian factory workers. From what I gather, they work day and night producing the luncheon meat loved by comedians worldwide. WordPress created a special folder for their e-mails, even though it’s misspelled. Remember, WordPress, when pork products meet in a can, you have to capitalize all of the letters.

 

Their words of admiration and encouragement fill my “spam” folder, spurring me on to garner even more of their praise. I imagine them tirelessly tinning tiny piggy tidbits, talking about their favorite TV show “Dancing with the Tsars” and their favorite blog: mine.

 

Ivan: Have you do got read yearstricken?  I discovered her web site unintentionally, and I’m surprised why this accident did not took place earlier.

 

Boris: Ivan, the terrible way you speak English! But, yes, her blog is like big accident.  She make it appear really easy together with her presentation however I find the post Why I don’t call myself a writer: part one to be actually something that I think I’d never understand.

 

Supervisor: Comrades! Work and quit stallin’.

 

Ivan: We are not stallin’, Joseph.

 

Boris: It sort of feels too complex and extremely extensive for me. I am looking forward to her next post, I will try to get the dangle of it!

 

Ivan: Oh, yes, to get the dangle of yearstricken is simply difficult.

 

Ivan: Fortunate me I discovered her web site unintentionally.

 

Boris: Her writing article, I find very useful information particularly the ultimate part. I maintain such info a lot.

 

Ivan: Its like she learn my thoughts! She appear to know so much about this, such as she wrote the e-book in it or something. I feel that she simply could do with a few % to pressure the message house a little bit, however instead of that, she has wonderful blog. An excellent read. I’ll certainly be back.

 

Supervisor: Comrades! Work or I simply pressure the message house a little bit on you! I could do have transfer you to factory of Siberia, simply place of nuclear winter.

The Flusher

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111a Private Detective Canada Dec-1942 Includes Tell It to the F.B.I. by E. Hoffmann Price

 

 

On the street, they call me Johnny or The Flusher. My father gave me my name, John Flusher. He always hoped I’d grow up to be a plumber like him.

 

 

“Pops,” I told him, “that kind of work drains me. I need some excitement in my life. You know me, ‘danger’ is my middle name.”

 

 

“Your middle name is Mortimer,” he says.

 

 

We didn’t always see eye-to-eye, Pops and me, mostly because I was six inches taller, but he taught me to go after my dreams. “Be a plunger,” he always told me. So when I left home, I plunged into a life of learning how to survive on the streets. Now, I’m a P.I., just like the circumference of any circle divided by its diameter.

 

 

And I got more stories than the Empire State Building. Here’s one of them.

 

 

I pushed open the door, noting the busted lock. I seen the dead monkey when I walked into the room. Next thing you know (which ain’t really the next thing, but to save time, I skipped the scratching of my posterior), I stepped on a big wad of gum. As I looked down at the gooey strings connecting my shoe to the floor, the squirrel says, “Hey, gumshoe, looks like you stepped into another mess.”

 

I wanted to make a riposte, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

 

“I been tailing you, Louie,” I says, in spite of knowing better. All morning my subjects and verbs had been disagreeing, and I needed more coffee to do anything about it. “Your wife sent me. She knows you’ve been putting your acorns into more than one tree.”

 

Louie smiled, pointed to his tail, and says, “I’ve been tailed all my life, Johnny.” He smiled when he said that last line and put his arm around the dame beside him. She wore a fur coat that matched Louie’s and laughed every time he cracked a joke. She had the biggest two front teeth I’d ever seen. When she saw that I was staring, she flashed them at me and said, “Yeah, they’re real.”

 

I jerked my head toward the primate, “Who’s the guy in the monkey suit? And what happened to him?”

 

Louie cracks a nut and mutters, “Just a guy with a big mouth. We called him Howler. I told him to get off my back, see, but he wouldn’t listen. Plus he was a real swinger. Kept making moves on my doll here.” He pointed to a sock monkey the dame was holding.  “I told him to get out of town and I warned him I wasn’t monkeying around.”

 

The dame seemed too classy for Louie, but I could tell she was nuts about him. “Were you here when it happened?” I says, watching her crack an acorn with those teeth.

 

“Louie gave him a chance” she says, twitching her ears. “He told Howler to make like a banana and split, but Howler came out swinging. It was self-defense.”

 

I ignored her. Dames will say anything to protect their squirrel. I looked at Louie. I start off phonetically and asks, “Whadja use to kill him? A hammer, a gun, a steel object, or a Remington?”

 

Louie pointed to a pistol on the table. I walked over to the monkey. Poor sap looked like a PowerPoint presentation, he had so many bullets in him.

 

“Whose gun?” I says (incorrectly) again.

 

“It belongs to my son, Louie Louie.”

 

“Gun of a son,” I says, “I should’ve known.”

 

I walked back to the door and looked at the busted lock. “It’s a Shure Lock, Louie. They’re hard to bust. The monkey musta thought his home was safe with that thing on the door.”

 

Louie eats another nut and says, “Yeah, but Shure Lock homes don’t always keep you safe.”

 

 

 

Photo courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cthulhuwho1/

 

Fall fireworks

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In deep summer when our fireworks splattered the night sky, the trees watched, admiring our short-lived brightness. Twenty seconds of spangled light is not bad for creatures who can’t sit still and have no roots.

 

Early October the trees ignite a firework display of incandescent reds, yellows, greens, and browns. The lucent leaves flare up, blazing in blue sky for days on end, burning memories on our callous hearts, consuming all our indifference.

 

The month ends in ashes, colors fading to somber brown, but not before the trees remind us that we are alive, that the world is full of pageantry, and that a beauty fierce enough to split the earth, a beauty anchored by desire in time and place, is here, now, waiting for us to open our eyes and look.

 

 

 

 

My year of blogging dangerously

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Few people realize the dangers involved in blogging. Since I started one year ago, I wake up with more wrinkles that I ever had before. My dentist has capped one tooth and filled another with the contents of my bank account. My teaching schedule has gone from sitting on the beach watching the waves roll in to watching sharks circle around me as I thrash and call for help to a lifeguard who is busy talking on his cell phone. Gas prices have gone up 45 cents and reality TV has not gone away. Thirteen full moons have appeared since I started blogging, something that happens only once in a blue moon. The coffee pot at work broke and in this past year, no classes were cancelled due to snow. Had I known then what I know now, I would have been clairvoyant. And had I married someone with the name Voyant, I would have named my first child, Clare.

 

 

But be that as it wasn’t and won’t be, I think I would have still started blogging. I’ve made friends with several gravatars, discovered a lot of great blogs, been mightily encouraged by people who don’t have real names, and been mistaken for a truck blog: year’s truck. My ice orchid has bloomed not once, but twice this year, something I attribute to the blogging. The orchid sits beside me as I type, patiently listening as I read my words aloud.

 

 

Starting the blog, dragging my words out to the curb, and putting up the “For Free” sign scared me. If I’m honest, it still does. But the blogging has helped me bloom in my own way. I dress up my words, wash behind their ears, and send them out. Sometimes they are well received and sometimes not, but at least they’re not hanging around the house complaining that they are bored. Now they can go out into the world and do the boring.

 

 

This past year I wrote about a time in high school when I had an overdue library book. I received a note with just my name and the title of the book on it. The book was Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. That note still describes me well, but now that I am opening up as a typist and almost writer, I feel like a blooming idiot.

 

 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your year of reading dangerously.

My ice orchid’s second blooming

The left doesn’t know what the right is doing

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It happened again. In a blatant act of partisanship, my right hand conspired against my left, made a wild grab for power, momentarily grasped it, and blocked my left hand from taking any action.

 

I was almost ten the first time. John F. Kennedy, winner of the Democratic nomination for president, chose LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson) as his running mate. Kennedy would have preferred someone else, but Johnson, a homegrown Texan, guaranteed the southern voters that Kennedy needed. The two men came to El Paso in September 1960 to campaign. I stood among the crowd lining the streets. (I have no idea who I was with, and my fact checker (AKA older sister ) doesn’t remember it at all.)

 

As Johnson’s motorcade drove by, he stuck out his hand. I rushed forward, thrust my right hand through the crowd and grabbed hold for two seconds. I don’t know what thrilled me more, that I had touched a famous person, or that I had discovered that fame resided in a hand just like my own, five-fingered with an opposable thumb. Like all famous hands, it  had a much wider span than mine, but it was attached to a man who could have been my neighbor or my teacher.

 

The second time happened last Friday, September 28. Earlier in the week I gave up all of my personal information for a free ticket to attend a speech by Michelle Obama at nearby Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. I arrived later than I had planned because I had morning classes. About 400 other people were late as well. Most of them stood in front of me, waiting to get through security and into the auditorium. About one hundred stood behind me. By the time I got out of the security area, a young volunteer directed me away from the auditorium toward a small tent next to the building, saying, “The fire marshal won’t allow any more people into the building. You can hear the speech from inside the tent.”

 

Was I unhappy? Yes. If I had wanted long lines, endless waits, and annoying security, only to be turned away at the gate, I would have booked a flight.  No one seemed happy, but we remained civil (this is the Midwest) and followed directions, mooing and lowing as we crowded into the fenced area beneath the tent. I amused myself by exchanging complaints with the others and by watching the well-dressed Secret Service men walk back and forth talking to their wrists. Forty-five minutes past the scheduled time for the speech, a group of grim wrist talkers guided Mrs. Obama around the perimeter of the holding pen. When she got close to me, I whipped out my phone, took some quick videos, shoved the phone into my left hand to distract it, and grabbed her outstretched hand with my right. Her hand felt just like mine, only more famous, and attached to a woman much taller in person than on TV.

 

Still picture from my iPhone video.

After the gripping event, I left, as did almost everyone in the tent. Watching the speech online appealed to me more than standing in a covered corral listening.

 

Later that day my husband asked if I planned to wash my hand. “Better yet,” I said, “I plan to sell it on eBay.”

 

Let me know if you’re interested.

 

IMPORTANT WORDS FROM YOUR SPONSORS:

 

I am yearstricken’s right hand, and I approve this message.

 

I am yearstricken’s left hand, and I don’t.