Author: Becky

From a reader with an English teacher inside her brain

1. If someone in your past told you to put a comma wherever you’d take a breath in saying something aloud, it was a lie. A comma is not a whimsical punctuation mark for you to use and abandon at will like that moron who had a crush on you in eighth grade. Show some respect!

2. If you put LOL after everything you say online, try reading it aloud and actually laughing out loud. You sound a lot like that moron who had a crush on you in eighth grade, don’t you? Saying stuff like, “Your car is really totaled. LOL!” and “Your baby is kind of ugly. LOL!!!!” and “Your dad is cheating on your mom–LOLOL.” or “I made microwave popcorn today! LOL!” doesn’t actually seem to merit a big ol’ laugh-fest. Your message is confusing.

3. Why are so many people suddenly breaking the rules of commas, colons, and a proper lack of punctuation with the random use of question marks? It’s weird. I’ll bet all those blaring and misplaced question marks get released into the environment where they become hazardous to birds and fish. Just sayin’…

4. However, carry on with the use of the occasional uppercased word or two to STRESS IMPORTANCE. Unless it’s followed by a ton of unmerited LOLing.

Sometime Last Century, No. 1

Sometimes when I’m feeling a little full of myself, I like to think back to the day I took Daniel to a mall to buy a baseball. He kept playing with it and putting it down and generally being a boy. I said, “Keep your hands on that baseball or you’ll go off and forget it.” 

Then I shrieked, “AIIIIIEEEEE,” grabbed his arm, and raced back to JC Penney, where I’d left my Canon AE-1 on the shelf in the bathroom stall. Fortunately, some kind soul had turned it in to the office.

Remember the days when you didn’t know your photos were crappy/blurry until you got your film developed? Then it was Sorry, sucker, you’ll never get that Kodak moment back. Digital cameras: the Ultimate Do-Over Machine.

 

Note

I love getting Christmas cards, and I save most of them in a bin in the garage. I do this knowing that one day, a van will pull up and the driver will say, “Get ready, old woman, we’re putting you in Shady Pines.”

I fantasize that I’ll have a chance to go through the card bins first and say, “Who the hell are these people?” Much like what happens when people send me Friend requests on Facebook now.

My first meme of 2011

I actually did this on Facebook, but figured I’d share it here, too. In no particular order, 15(ish) movies that almost made me stop liking movies:

1. A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon. The only good thing about this one was that Tom and I saw it at the Dollar Movie, and the tub o’popcorn was cheap, too.

2. The Godfather, Part III. You realize how thoroughly a sequel’s ruined a franchise for you when you don’t care that a Corleone daughter is gunned down.

3. The Last House on the Left. The original one. It forever killed my desire to score a joint from a stranger on an adventure in the city with my BFF.

4. Big Trouble in Little China. Sorry, Marika, but if I could have those 99 minutes with Tom, Tim, Lisa, and Mark back, anything would be more fun. Except that Jimmy Reardon movie.

5. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. You know, it may not even be Jar Jar Binks. But sometimes late at night, my mind still fumbles with the convoluted queen/decoy thing. Probably because I’ve endured this movie only once.

6. Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. I only remember this because someone else mentioned it. Though it did give Lynne and me the chance to start many, many sentences with, “You know, my old man told me, before he left this shitty world…”

7. I only watch movies with dogs if someone assures me the dog doesn’t get it. So any movie with a stealthy dog death makes this list, and I can’t name one because I probably required memory-erasing therapy after seeing it. Wait–didn’t a dog die in that movie with John Travolta as an angel? Quick! My Vicodin!

8. I think Russell Crowe must have killed my dog in a former life, because if he’s in it, I just can’t bear to watch it.

9. Nine Months. I think that’s how long the movie lasted, too. When good actors get talked into doing bad things.

10. Bedazzled. When bad actors get talked into doing worse things.

11. Queen of the Damned. Dreadful.

12. Rhinestone. Why, Dolly, WHY?

13. A Clockwork Orange. Yeah, I know. Whatever.

14. Jabberwocky. Do they take the Internet away from me if I don’t like something with tenuous connections to Monty Python?

15. The War of the Roses. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE.