Those maroon snapdragons in my front yard are ugly. But they’re alive. Can I rip them out? Read more.
ON THE FUNNY SIDE
Need some levity? Read on!
The Rhetorician in the White House — Or, How I Learned to Love the Passive Voice
The passive sentence gets a bad rap — it’s weak, it’s vague, it’s passive. But sometimes a neatly turned passive sentence is just what our ever-shrinking world needs. Obama’s Cairo speech is an example. Read more.
Why Meditate — When I Could Be Sweeping the Garage?
I’ve tried meditating a few times – a very few times. Why would I want to sit inside my mind when I could be out in the front yard, snapping dead blossoms off the rhododendron, or in the garage, sweeping away the cobwebs?
The Writing Room: Splitting the Infinitive — How to Boldy Go There
“To boldly go where no man has gone before.” Nitpickers and pedants take exception to that stirring old Star Trek slogan. I don’t.
A Case of the Human Condition: Would My Husband Like to Add My Name to His?
Jon and I had been married nearly 12 years. It was time to pop the question again. I had taken his last name as mine. Would he like to add my maiden name to his?
What’s Rhetoric? Let My Two-Year-Old Enlighten You
My daughter Christina discovered the art of rhetoric when she was being weaned from baby bottle to plastic cup. She’d say, “I want milk and I don’t want it in a cup” — an elegant illocutionary statement that usually got her what she wanted, her bottle.
A Case of the Human Condition: The Day She Popped the Question
Things were getting serious. My boyfriend had moved his goldfish into my apartment. I had returned from a long weekend to find that Jon had moved his dimestore pets from his place to mine. He was sheepish about this.