Monthly Archives: April 2016
Clearing the Clutter
I have spent the past few weeks trying to clear my space, starting with my office, which is the worst mess of all. It’s where I keep my library (a jumbled pile of books), my overflowing file cabinets, my writing desk, sewing area, stuffed curio cabinet, craft and art supplies, etc. (And this is not a large room). My reasons for clearing are many. Lack of space, for one thing, it is too hard to keep the room clean and dusted (this can cause health issues with dust mites and mildew), safety (tripping over stuff), frustration (not finding stuff that I truly need), and the feelings of overwhelm just looking at the mess.
The room looks better than it did a few weeks ago, but it still needs work. Ironically, underneath the mess of it all, I found two books that I need to study more carefully “Clearing the Clutter for Good Feng Shui” and “Feng Shui Demystified.”
“Clearing the Clutter’s” table of contents offers chapter titles such as You Are Your Clutter!, Clutter Hotspots, The Bedroom: where the spirit rests, The Car: clutter on the move, etc. You are your clutter! Yikes, that’s a scary thought! I’m taking special notes on the chapter titled: The Office: Creativity and Prosperity. Could my cluttered office be the reason that I’m not as prosperous or creative as I would like to be?
The book “Feng Shui Demystified,” offers a more spiritual or energetic approach, and talks a lot about chi, and the placement of items in the room for better “chi” or energy flow. This will come later for me. I need to do more clearing before I can think about rearranging the furniture.
I have also been following Stephanie Bennet Vogt and her website: spaceclear.com. She addresses the problem of clutter as being an emotional issue and offers her kind advice and support on working through the clearing process. Her book: “A Year to Clear: Spacious Home, Spacious self: A Daily Guide to Creating Spaciousness in Your Home and Heart,” is on the top of my want to read list. And thank you, Stephanie, for giving us a year to do it. I’m going to need it!
P.S. (something that popped up on Facebook this morning)
NOTE TO SELF:
Less stuff REALLY means
Less to clean
Less to maintain
Less attachment
Less to store
MORE FREEDOM
Less is MORE!
P.S.S.
I guess spring-cleaning is in the air. A friend just told me about a book she is reading on decluttering called “Spark Joy.” (Love the title.) In a nutshell, the method involves getting rid of anything in your life that doesn’t spark joy. Starting with clothes, you go through each item and decide what stays or goes based on whether or not it sparks joy when you hold it. Joy is the only criterion: ‘If it makes you happy, then the right choice is to keep it. This is another book that I’m placing on my want to read list. (Now, I can only hope that I don’t start cluttering my life with books about decluttering!)
The Controversial Comma
A famous quote by author Oscar Wilde reads:
“I have spent most of the day putting in a comma and the rest of the day taking it out.”
I can sympathize. The comma is said to be one of the most misused punctuation marks, and I have spent many an hour contemplating commas in my writings. So where do you place those little worm-like squiggles?
I had been a creative writer for many years. I knew the basics, but it had been awhile since I attended an English class. I knew I had some gaps in my knowledge and wanted to brush up on my punctuation skills before I began to publish my books. Thankfully, I found Mignon Fogarty (A.K.A Grammar Girl), a young hip grammarian and writer of grammar guides, who explains all parts of speech and punctuation in a fun, clear, and concise manner.
My two favorite books by Mignon “Grammar Girl Presents the Ultimate Writing Guide for Students” and “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips” can be used by beginning students to learn the basics or by more advanced students as a refresher course. (Or those like me who were busy daydreaming in the back of class.)
So, back to the comma. Sometimes the misplacement of that little mark can drastically change the meaning of the sentence, such as the case with the Oxford comma (oh my, such a big name for such a little squiggle.) But do not be intimidated by its prestigious name. The Oxford comma is just another name for the serial comma or the final comma in a list of things.
For example: Please bring me a pencil, eraser, and ruler. The Oxford or serial comma comes after eraser.
Interestingly, use of the Oxford comma is still considered stylistic, meaning that some style guides demand its use while others don’t. AP Style—the style guide that newspaper reporters adhere to—does not require the use of the Oxford comma, thus adding to the confusion of “to comma or not to comma” (if that is the question).
Whether or not you use the Oxford comma is generally up to you or your teacher—some require it, some don’t. But whatever style is chosen it should be consistent throughout the document. However, omitting the Oxford comma can sometimes cause some strange misunderstandings as in the example below.
I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty.
Without the Oxford comma, the sentence above could be interpreted as stating that you love your parents, and your parents are Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty.
Here’s the same sentence with the Oxford (or serial) comma:
I love my parents, Lady Gaga, and Humpty Dumpty (three strange but separate entities.)
Therefore, I choose to use the Oxford comma! However, there are some sixteen other comma rules, some of which I am still a little shaky on. So please forgive me if you spot any wayward or missing commas in this post.
www.zeehuxley.com
Nickel and Dimed
In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich, a successful writer and social critic was challenged by her editor to enter the low-wage workforce, much like an undercover agent, to investigate how people survive on low-wage incomes. She was inspired in part by the talk surrounding welfare reform, which promised any job can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on minimum wage? During this social experiment, Barbara sought out work as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aid, and a Walmart clerk. She ate cheap fast foods, lived in rusty trailer homes and old motels, seeking to survive the best she could on her low wage earnings.
New York Times Bestseller, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich is a true story and one that is close to my heart because most of my past employment was in the low-wage service industry. My first real job was working for less than minimum wage as a motel maid (the underage wage). For several years following, I worked at motels, hotels, as a janitress, a cook, and later in private housekeeping. I have worked as a busgirl in a casino restaurant for less than minimum wage because of supposed tip earning, wage, which at the end of the day still amounted to less than minimum wage.
But with all of that, I can understand and empathize how hard some people work to survive as Barbara found out during her time spent in the “unskilled” labor market. Not only did she discover the real struggles that millions of low-income Americans face each day, she soon discovered that no job is truly “unskilled” and that even the lowliest occupation usually requires a great deal of mental and physical stamina.
I found this book to be an engaging read, filled with insight and understanding, grace and wit, and with the strong message as to why things need to change (better wages and working conditions).
The back cover sums it up:
Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity — a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich’s perspective and for a rare view of how “prosperity” looks from the bottom. You will never see anything — from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal — in quite the same way again.
Liverwurst Sandwiches on Mars
Liverwurst Sandwiches on Mars?
One of my favorite science fiction novels is by author Ray Bradbury. “The Martian Chronicles” was published in 1950—his collection of stories about the first human expeditions to Mars.
In Bradbury’s book, he writes about the colonization of Mars beginning in 1999. Part of the low-tech charm of this book for me is his 1950s view into the future.
The Martian Chronicles is a story about people and their passions, and the incredible beauty and terror they face while discovering a new world. Many of the tales are timeless and familiar to the human experience, which Bradbury develops in a sometimes eerie, sometimes humorous, and in an often poetic prose.
FEBRUARY 2002: The LOCUSTS
The rockets set the bony meadows afire, turned rock to lava, turned wood to charcoal, transmitted water to steam, made sand and silica into green glass which lay like shattered mirrors reflecting the invasion, all about. The rockets came like drums, beating in the night. The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke. And from the rockets ran men with hammers in their hands to beat the strange world into a shape that was familiar to the eye, to bludgeon away all the strangeness., their mouths fringed with nails so they resembled steel-toothed carnivores, spitting them into their swift hands as they hammered up frame cottages and scuttled over roofs with shingles to blot out the eerie stars, and fit green shades to pull against the night. And when the carpenters had hurried on the women came in with flower-pots and chintz and pans and set up a kitchen clamor to cover the silence that Mars made waiting outside the door and the shaded window. . .
And Liverwurst sandwiches?
APRIL 2003: THE MUSICIANS
The boys would hike far out into the Martian country. They carried odorous bags into which from time to time upon the long walk they would insert their noses to inhale the rich smell of ham and mayonnaised pickles, and to listen to the liquid gurgle of the orange soda in the warming bottles. Swinging their grocery bags full of clean watery green onions and odorous liverwurst and red catsup and white bread, they would dare each other on past the limits set by their stern mothers . . .
At the end of my 1960s edition of “The Martian Chronicles”, Bantam Books wrote a blurb about science fiction, which I found comical and, again, dated. It reads: SCIENCE FICTION: It can be so great that it can almost drive you right out of your mind. It can be so horrifying that the memory of it will linger long into the night. It can be so nightmarishly, ghoulishly humorous that your laughter seems like a cry from hell!
On his death in 2012, The New York Times called Bradbury “the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream. So in honor of Ray Bradbury, and for the fun of it, I am throwing in a twist of sci-fi into my next cozy mystery novel (the sequel to Bon Voyage, my Love: Ticket to a Mixed Plate Paradise). Stay tuned. . .
www.zeehuxley.com