Bits and baubles

When I was a kid I thought Labor Day was the day all the babies were born. Except me. Because, you know, I was born on Jesus’ birthday instead.

Let’s all join hands and send these positive directives into the universe: Do not use the word “hate” when you mean “hatred.” Do not use the word “impact” when you mean “affect.” Do not say “regime” when you mean “regimen.”

I just wrote a long diatribe against the new Facebook picture viewer’s lack of a clickable X because I effing hate having to just click off to the side in negative space to get something to go away. Aaaaaand then I realized there is an X and I just didn’t see it because it’s way up in the right-hand corner. Internetting is so hard sometimes.

The Kids are in Portland this weekend to see Alana and Cox get hitched. I was originally going to be there but then I procreated and now my body exists in a permanent no-fly zone. Okay, not permanent, but for now I’m grounded. I’m sad to miss the festivities and the reunion. Sounds like I’ve already missed Patrick giving Cox a piggyback ride and falling and breaking his shoulder. I miss all the good stuff. Mazel tov, you crazy kids.

Does everyone do their best Words for Friends-ing and Instagram-ing on the toilet, or is that just me?

Speaking of toilets, we ran out of toilet paper but guess who had two complimentary thanks-for-setting-up-a-baby-registry packs of baby wipes in her pile of baby stuff?

I realize that sentence is not a question but it feels so weird ending it with a period.

Ray introduced me to this song last night and I cannot stop laughing at Elvis’ boats.

I can do this thing when I lie on my side where I can squeeze my knees together and make something in my hip region pop. It feels amazing.

Happiness is a Dunkin Donuts blueberry dougnnut.

Did you know that the creator of Caslon was a type designer and a gunsmith? Doesn’t that make Caslon all that much more beautiful, to know that its creator got his start engraving gun locks and barrels?

I broke my chair at work and totally tried to play it off like I meant to. Because people intentionally break chairs.

My body is looking so busted these days. The stretchmarks have woven their way across my belly, spreading from their initial parentheses shape and taking on the characteristics of a wall-crawling vine. The other day, I ran into this harsh metal piece that juts out of the side of the desk and gave myself one hell of a gnarly-looking bruise on my upper thigh. I feel like I am being smothered by cellulite. I’ve got bug bites and cuts that have carved dark scars into my skin that won’t go away. I can’t see below my waist. Scratch that — I don’t have a waist. I love that my body knows how to make another person but I am ready to get my old body back, the one where I could lounge on my tummy sometimes. Of course, I know it will never be quite the same. That’s OK. It wouldn’t have been anyway, baby or no. Because that’s just how bodies work. They start out so smooth, though …

Someone in the elevator at work asked me the other day when I’m due. No strangers had said anything about my belly up until that point. I haven’t been offered help pumping gas or carrying groceries or hauling things to my car. No one has given me an unsolicited belly rub yet, either, a fact I contribute to my chronic bitchface more than anything else.

I gushed about the Neutral Milk Hotel box set news when I heard about it but I am going to gush again. GUSH.

Much ado about an indefinite article

I do love a good copy editing/grammar squabble, particularly when it gets blown up into profane e-mail declarations like this one.

The gist: British restaurant critic Giles Coren became enraged upon seeing that the editors at his newspaper, The Times, took out the word “a” in the last paragraph of his column. He wrote a long, rambly, profane, bossy, mean-spirited e-mail to anyone and everyone who could have possibly allowed such an egregious error to happen. It delights me to no end to excerpt it here:

It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.

I wrote: “I can’t think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh.”

It appeared as: “I can’t think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh.”

There is no length issue. This is someone thinking “I’ll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best”.

Well, you fucking don’t.

This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons.

Coren goes on to outline these three reasons, indulging the reader with an explanation of Yiddish syntax and the double entendre (apparently it has something to do with cruising for a blowjob? hahahaha, that’s so awesome, Giles!!! You Brits and your superior sense of humor just BLOW me away!!!). Oh, and some wonkery about metre and stressed syllables.

Maybe he’s right — the copy desk probably fucked up by removing that little “a.” But to act like it’s the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to a writer, like some pristine work of art has been pissed on? Really?!

Anyway, here’s the clincher, where Coren takes to his fainting couch:

It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. i’ve got a review to write this morning and i really don’t feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i’m going to have another weekend ruined for me.

I’ve been writing for The Times for 15 years and i have never asked this before – i have never asked it of anyone i have written for – but I must insist, from now on, that i am sent a proof of every review i do, in pdf format, so i can check it for fuck-ups. and i must be sent it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way i can carry on in the job.

Zing! What a champ.

I’m calling for a double-fisted copy-desk monkey salute for Mr. Coren. Y’all know what I’m talking about.