No Book Review

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries - Kory Stamper

I spent a lot of time writing and editing a review for Word by Word because I wanted to be eloquent in my expression of admiration for both the book and its author. Before posting it, though, I looked at other reviews of the book and immediately found many of my words and phrases in them, so I decided against posting mine. I had nothing new to offer in terms of praise for this book that I'd so enjoyed reading. If you read all the raving reviews posted online, you'll know what I mean.

All I will say is this book resonated with the nerdy word-loving grammarian that I am. I recommend it to all my fellow writers and word lovers. I took my time reading the book, savoring every word, enjoying every chapter, and delighting in the author's sense of humor. Some passages and footnotes made me laugh out loud.

Reading Word by Word also brought back many memories of my childhood and adolescence. As the daughter of an etymologist and lexicographer, I spent fifteen years of my life in the middle of stacks of books and piles of paper and boxes filled with index cards. From that period of my life, most memories I have of my father involve him sitting at his desk, a red pencil in his hand, either underlining words in books or reviewing semantic variations of words based on evidence.

I'm glad Kory Stamper “authored” this book (see the footnote on p.187 of the book), and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Living in the Woods: 10 Fun Facts

Living in the woods requires certain behaviors that can be unfamiliar to people such as myself who have never had the experience and have never even gone camping. These new behaviors become habits after a while, of course. I've been living in the woods for over sixteen months now. I've learned a lot and I'm still learning about the changes in the weather, all the animals around here, and even the language used by locals. It's true that culture affects language. I haven't moved to a new country, but I'm learning so many new words. My first year here, I was writing daily in my journal about life in the woods. Early this morning, I was looking for a piece of information in my journal to add to my WIP and I came across a page I'd titled “10 Fun Facts” and it's dated June 29^th, 2018, which is exactly one month after I arrived at the cabin.

1. No matter who the president is, here, the insects rule.

2. Cortisone has become my new body lotion.

3. I have to inspect my body for ticks at least twice a day, every day. If a tick stays on a human body more than a few hours, it can be deadly. I have to check the dogs every night before they go to bed.

4. I'd never seen ninja squirrels before.

5. These tiny frogs are so very cute.

6. I have learned about insects and reptiles a lot more than I ever wanted to, and now I have to unlearn all of it just so I can sleep at night.

7. I have to be careful not to step on snakes or they'll make me regret it in the worst way, and they're hard to see.

8. Fireflies make the evenings beautiful.

9. At night, the only sounds I hear are those of nature, and they're loud.

10. A beautiful cedar tree has been my carport for a month now, and I haven't seen a single bird poop on my car yet. Either the birds here have manners or they are constipated.

Four hundred and fifty five days later, all these facts remain true. I have, however, learned to reduce the number of insect bites by covering myself better, so although I use Cortisone regularly, it is, thankfully, no longer my “body lotion.”

Before & After

Before I moved to the woods in the Natural State, I was a college professor in California, a very active one. My typical day consisted of teaching and driving. I was teaching three classes, three hours each, every day, at three different colleges, and the total commute time between each college and home added to about four to five hours a day. I left the house at 6:30am and got home at 10pm, but I also returned home after each job to take the dogs out and give them something to eat, little treats during the day and a meal in the evening. I felt guilty every time I left the dogs, but it was inevitable. When I got home at 10pm, I spent every minute with the dogs: no work, no phone. After their evening walk, we wrestled and played, and then we went to bed together.

Now, living in the woods, I tutor a few students online, working no more than an hour a day. I also do some proofreading when I get an assignment. In between these jobs, I read, write, cook, clean, mow and treat the lawn, and watch movies. I go to town once a week to buy groceries and pay a visit to the library, where I borrow lots of books and movies. I'm never apart from the dogs. They are always with me, everywhere I go. I only leave them inside the cabin when I need to mow the lawn because they'll get in front of the mower and it's not safe. When I go out to mow the lawn, I see their three little heads in the window frame watching me through the screen. If I leave their range of sight, the three of them start howling like little wolves and they only stop when I reappear, and this goes on until I've finished the whole area around the cabin.

Being a workaholic, I loved my active life in California. My schedule was set for me, but I loved teaching and I enjoyed every minute of my job. Reading a book for pleasure only happened in the form of listening to it during my commute, though, and all the rest of my time outside the classroom was spent planning lessons and grading papers. I never had enough time to sit down and write. I could only write if I stole five minutes here and ten minutes there from my very busy schedule.

Now, I have my own schedule. I don't have to feel guilty anymore; I can spend all my time with my dogs. Also, I'm glad I have time to read all the books I want, and I can set aside a couple of hours to sit down and write every day. It's a completely new way of living for me, and it took me a whole year to get used to it, but looking back, I realize that, since I moved out here, I have read more than a hundred books and I'm close to finishing the first draft of my book that seemed interminable before. I make time to do all the things my previous lifestyle didn't allow me to do, and I do everything when I want. I'm enjoying every minute of my new life and feeling grateful.

Hoppoo

My dog Hoppoo is really afraid of thunder, and we live in an area where there are several thunderstorms a week, all year round. The first time he experienced a thunderstorm, Hoppoo started shaking and wouldn't stop, no matter how tightly I held him and hugged him. A nine-pound Terrier Chihuahua, he's tiny and very delicate. Eventually, I found out that walking around while holding him seemed more effective than just sitting down. My other dogs aren't afraid at all. Sure, that first clap of thunder may startle them, as it does me, but it doesn't scare them. Sometimes, they get uncomfortable and pull a blanket over their head or crawl under a pillow, but it's just to muffle the sound; sometimes, they sleep through it. Hoppoo, on the other hand, starts to show signs of fear as soon as he hears that first rumbling sound. His tail, always up like a perfect question mark, goes down, and he starts to walk around to find a corner where he can hide. We live in a cabin in the woods, a tiny home of 196 square feet, 225 if you count the porch, so there's really no room for him to walk around or hide. Hoppoo ends up in my lap, begging me with his eyes to hold him, get up, and walk. Since there's no room to walk, I put some dance music on, as loud as possible, to cover the sound of thunder, and dance with him singing along really loudly. That works a little better, and, usually, by the third song, he calms down a bit. I sometimes turn on the air conditioner and the fan if we have power; I do anything I can do to stop the loud thunder sound from reaching his ears. After about forty-five minutes of dancing, I feel exhausted, and start to slow down, but, sadly, the thunderstorm doesn't go away just because I get tired. The only thing that keeps me going is the fear I see in Hoppoo's eyes when he feels I might sit down, so I keep dancing, thanking the universe that the other two dogs, much more Terrier than Chihuahua and therefore much heavier than Hoppoo, aren't afraid of thunder. Finally, when the storm is over and we sit down, Hoppoo starts licking my hands and giving me kisses to show his appreciation. His tail goes up again and forms a question mark. He's happy again, maybe because the thunder has stopped or maybe because I've stopped singing.

Book Review

When I Was Lost: A Mother's Struggle with Bipolar Disorder, by Glenna Gill, is the story of a woman whose life falls apart when her husband announces he's leaving her. What makes this memoir so powerful is the author's honesty in describing everything she goes through: her feelings during her depression, her ignoring every red flag when she knows better, the way she justifies her every decision, how she sees herself, her awareness of her own dishonesty with herself and with others, the realization that she is burning every bridge as she gets in deeper, and recognizing where she is headed if she doesn't change her ways. The author takes the reader through it all and shows the impact of her choices on others, her relationship with her loved ones, and the kind of strength and determination it takes to get out of a hole that deep. Every character in this true story teaches the reader something about life.
This book should be required reading for all high school students. I recommend it to everyone, teenagers and adults, both male and female, because it shows how easy it is to lose your way and how hard it is to find it again.

Blogs Worth Reading... #9

Today's blog...

Meet Deanna Molnar, a member of the #WritingCommunity.

She is an environmental activist and created her blog "to bridge the gaps between environmental issues and culture."

Check out her blog: https://naturemeetsmind.com

Thanks for sharing your blog with us, Deanna. 💙

The Very Ugly Mr. X

I recently had the opportunity to chat with the writer of a movie that a friend of mine had directed, and by chat, I mean exchange short text messages via Messenger after my friend the director, D, introduced us to each other. “X, my friend Noosha has some questions about the film.”

I'd been very impressed with this movie, so I'd googled it, curious to know who else, besides my friend, had helped bring this to the screen, and I'd noticed everyone involved was around my age. Cool, I'd thought. This is what happens when a bunch of creative people get together.

As someone who's always been fascinated by movies and written half a dozen unfinished screenplays, which are now safely tucked away somewhere, I felt honored to be able to ask this genius, this talented screenwriter, some questions. As soon as he sent me a message asking how he could help, I greeted him and typed my first question; he answered it. Then I typed my second question, to which he also replied. As I was typing my third and last question, this “genius” asked me if I wanted to sleep with him. What? I read the message again, almost sure I had misread it the first time. Nope! I hadn't.

I suddenly felt angry, not at him, but at myself and how I'd given him so much credit and idolized him in my mind for being so creative and writing such a powerful screenplay. Of course, being creative has nothing to do with being a gentleman, but I'd built this person up in my mind and created certain expectations. My first thought, of course, me being my sarcastic self, was Do you not own a mirror? When's your birthday? I'll buy you one.

So you can imagine how shocked I was when his next sentence started with the words, “My birthday is tomorrow... ” Crap! What's happening? Is Messenger reading, typing, and sending my thoughts to this guy? Thankfully, he continued, “My date had a family emergency, so she won't make it. I'm looking at your Facebook photo right now, and you look even better than her.” Creepy! What a pig! No offense to pigs.

And here I'd imagined him as this great man, this great philosopher who'd come up with a wonderful way to illustrate his thoughts on the screen. Silly me! I realized he was waiting for an answer. So I deleted my half-typed third question and, instead, replied, “No. I'm sorry you misunderstood. I only have film-related questions and zero interest in anything else.”

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but is this how people are? Mr. X didn't know anything about me, except maybe that I'm a film nerd, and I know that my friend D, having known me for several years, hadn't told him anything implying I was easy. He knows me too well. This man didn't even know whether or not I was in a relationship, and this was his behavior? I'm not saying people shouldn't show interest in someone they feel attracted to. I'm just asking: Do they have to do it in such a distasteful way?

Flashback to 2002, when I'd been in a car accident and I was sitting at home with two broken ribs and a paralyzed left hand talking on the phone to a lawyer who was telling me his office being far didn't matter because he would come to me, take me to dinner, offer me wine and flowers, and then take me home. This was when I had just greeted him and asked him if I needed to go to his office, concerned because I didn't have a car and was in no condition to drive. I hadn't even given the lawyer my name yet, and he was taking his clothes off.

Back to my chat with the genius... At this point, I didn't even care if I got an answer to my next question. This talented screenwriter had already lost my respect. I just wanted to end the chat in a polite manner, given that he worked with my friend, … my friend who would never hear any of this from me. A new message came from him. Maybe an apology? It definitely wasn't an apology: “If you sleep with me, I'll let you ask me anything.” Wonderful! The more this guy wrote, the uglier he got in my mind. I need to end this now! I thought. So I wrote, “Thank you for your time. I'm being called into a meeting. It was great chatting with you. Happy Birthday! Thanks again.”

I immediately put my phone away, feeling uncomfortable and disgusted. I had thought so highly of this man before I chatted with him, and now he seemed so ugly. I tried to focus on the fact that some of my questions had been answered and that I had just learned that how people act has nothing to do with how talented or artistic they may be.

I occupied myself with other things to avoid thinking about this bad experience and soon found myself focused on my writing. A little while later, I went to check my Twitter notifications, when I saw I had an unread message on Messenger. I opened it. It was from the now Very Ugly Mr. X. It read, “Your loss!”

Book Review

Norma Nikutowski, a member of the #WritingCommunity, sent me a digital copy of her book Turn Your Happiness ON in exchange for a review, which I agreed to... somewhat reluctantly. It sounded like a self-help book, and I've read many of those, very few of which I've found helpful. I'd given my word, though, so I started reading it. I admit I was immediately drawn to the author's honesty about her own feelings and the simplicity of her suggestions.

The author shares stories about her upbringing and her life experience. She draws conclusions based on the outcome of her own trials and errors. She also uses her professional experience and research to discuss happiness. She starts each chapter with a quote, and, after sharing an anecdote, gives the reader practical advice, a checklist, and a chapter summary, all of which make her approach effective in its simplicity and practicality.

Everyone is always looking for happiness like it's lost. Some believe it's hidden in unreachable worldly possessions; others look for it in high positions of power. And then there are those who believe there's no hope for happiness given “their” particular situation. This book shows the reader how happiness is a state of mind and can be attained very simply by making small changes, step by step, toward more joy in life.

I've always had the good fortune to feel content with very little. My lifestyle shows it: I have very few possessions and live in a tiny home. My hobbies involve taking walks with the dogs, watching movies, reading books, and writing. Therefore, many parts of the book, mainly about decluttering, which I know can be helpful to many of my friends, or gratitude, which so many people I personally know can benefit from, don't help me much.

Also, positive thinking and developing a positive attitude, are not, in my opinion, as easy as the author makes it sound, or maybe they are but take a long time to reach, so the results of taking small steps may not be immediately visible and verifiable.

However, some parts of the book resonated with me. I especially liked the chapter on decision making. I also liked her views on failure. I have paid more attention to my choices and decisions since I've read this book, and I can honestly say reading this book has been beneficial to me.

Turn Your Happiness ON is an easy read, filled with heart-warming stories and feasible action steps. I find it worth reading. Once you read it, you'll know which parts can be effective in your life and help you personally. I recommend giving it a try... because how often can you say you got closer to your goal in life by spending a couple of hours reading an affordable book?