The Randomist

There are many things in this world that drive me into a violent rage. One of those things is stupid people. Stupid people account for the majority of my stress. They can’t drive, speak, or write well, but insist on doing those things as frequently as possible and in my general vicinity. I don’t claim to be smarter than everyone else, just the vast majority of everyone else. Ever since I learned to read, I’ve been in love with language. There are so many ways to use and abuse it. I’ve been a human dictionary and spell check for most of my life, and I am rarely wrong. Don’t let those old spelling bee videos fool you; I tend to choke under that kind of pressure. I need to get some things out of the way here. I tend to overlook a LOT of things because I am Southern and I happen to live in the South. We speak a little differently down here. I’m actually guilty of saying “It’n it” instead of “isn’t it”. But there are things that I absolutely can NOT stand. These things will send me i...

I posted the last grammar lesson and then I even went so far as to post the link on Facebook with an urgent message to all of my friends to read it, it could save lives. Not an hour after posting this, I saw this on my news feed: “I hope your well”. I’m sorry, come again? You hope their well whats? Did you mean to say, “I hope you’re well”? This is unacceptable. On to the next! To, Too, and Two. I have this friend, and the title of her blog is “Two Much of a Good Thing”. This is the ONLY time I find this abuse of grammar acceptable! THIS, my friends, is what we like to call “a play on words”. She has twins, which means, there are two children. Ha ha, get it? TWO much? Ok, moving on. To: To works in one of two ways, as either a preposition leading to a noun, or an infinitive when it precedes a verb. (Do I really need to post another lesson for “Nouns, Verbs, and Infinitives”? I will if I have to. God, just don’t make me throw in a split participle!) So, it’s either in conjunc...

Now, I’ve been known to have a typo or five thousand in my illustrious writing career, but they are just that, typos. There is a world of difference between a typo, a misspelling, and a grammatical error… Let’s not leave out “sheer idiocy”.   There have also been times, in fits of confusion and mental anguish, where I have given in and researched the proper usage of certain words and how they are spelled. I feel that God invented the Google search bar for this very purpose. My most prized source of information on all things grammar related is Grammar Girl  Typo: An accidental misspelling, addition of an excess letter, or the left out letter. ACCIDENTAL! I understand that it happens to other people too and it’s (LOOK AT THAT APOSTROPHE!) usually fairly obvious when it’s accidental. Misspelled words: There is no excuse. Your dyslexia does not faze me because you have the ability to proof read everything you write BEFORE you click “Comment”, “Send”, or “Enter”. Unlike th...

“What are you thinking about?” “Eyebrows." “Eyebrows?” “Yes.” “Why eyebrows?” “Well, I mean, have you ever just thought about them before? They’re weird…” “No… I haven’t. How are eyebrows weird?” “They’re weird because… I mean, they’re really just random patches of hair growing on your face. Why not on my cheek instead? Would we do with cheek brows? Just a random patch of fur on your cheek instead of over your eyes. What is the point of eyebrows? They’re weird, but we would look weird with OUT them, but still. What purpose do they really serve? Did God get finished with a person and then go, ‘You know what? Something is missing… on the face… that’s a good five inches of head space, four would look better… hold on … wait a second, OH! Let’s put a line of HAIR across this area… there we go.’?” “Sometimes I worry about you”. “Maybe that’s why they’re called foreheads. God decided that the five head just didn’t look right, so He gave us eyebrows; to break up ...

Every weekend I tell myself I’m going to start working out on Monday and every Monday I take a nap instead. I obviously have my priorities straight. Everyone always says really negative things about fat, so I'm going to list three positive things. 1. Loestrin (the birth control that doesn’t make me throw up on a daily basis) has made my boobs borderline amazing. - Seriously. They’re close to being what I want them to be. Stairs are a little tricky if I try to take them with any amount of speed, but my God the bounce! Losing weight will only jeopardize this love affair I have going on with my boobs. I KNOW that when I lose any amount of weight, it will come out of my boobs. Karma is a nasty hag. 2. If I lose weight, my cheeks won't be so fat and I'll lose my dimply/creasy things when I smile. - My cheeks have always been pudgy, many people think that it’s endearing and like to pinch or poke them. I think it’s cute sometimes. Other times… I wonder what’s goin...

I could use being snowed in as the perfect opportunity to do some “serious writing” the way Nora Roberts did on that fateful winter’s day when she first put pen to paper in an effort to salvage her sanity and then went on to write an entire library shelf worth of books. But… I have a somewhat irrational fear that it will involve violence with roque mallets, a smashed door, and ultimately end with my icy death in the middle of a hedge maze. I’m also pretty sure that I just mixed details from the movie and the book, but both were so awesome that I can’t seem to bring myself to care. This brings me to a point, not THE point, but a point all the same… Literacy… can sometimes be overrated. Yes, I just went there. Without books my life would be a sad and meaningless cycle of sleeping, eating, smoking, mindless internet games and hours of mind numbingly stupid television shows. Except without being literate it would all be a big jumbled mess of frustration because I couldn’t ty...

So, people are making their New Year’s Resolutions with all the sincerity their little hearts can muster all the while knowing that after the initial week of doing good or at least better things is up, that they have absolutely no intention whatsoever of following through on any of them. Knowing that I never keep my resolutions prompted me to take a stand last year. I made reverse resolutions. I made resolutions that I did not ever want to keep with the hopes that, like every other year of my life, I wouldn’t keep these either. A short list of those resolutions: 1. Gain twenty more pounds. 2. Go completely broke. 3. Get raped and killed. And you know what happened? I kept them. Obviously with the exception of getting raped and killed, but I substituted that with “Getting attacked and almost killed” which is an acceptable alternative. I gained twenty more pounds. I filed for bankruptcy. I was also attacked and robbed. I lose at the Resolutions game. My resolutio...