My Problem with the Word "DESERVE"

DESERVE: do something or have or show qualities worthy of (reward or punishment).

Even after reading the definition, I'm not sure what "deserve" means. I think that, no matter what, it's reductive and one-sided.

You DESERVE a big birthday party. (For being born?)

He DESERVES to lose his job for what he did. (And you've never stolen office supplies?)

I don't DESERVE this parking ticket! (You don't? Who parked the car?)

It's something women say to each other when they want to freely enjoy forbidden sweets/alcohol/new shoes.
It's something men say to women, alongside giving a gift, that distracts from something about which they're guilty.
It's something parents say to children who have just barely managed to keep quiet in the car for an hour with the promise of a drive-thru on the other end. 

It's a cop-out. 

What each of those deserve, in order, is: 
therapy (of the non-retail variety), 
an apology (paired with the truth) 
and a bleeping sense of who's in charge. 

The only people in my experience who ever deserve anything are those who never take advantage of their just desserts. 

They're mostly unknown, fictional and/or dead. 

Look at Mother Teresa*, if anyone deserved to take a sick day it was this chick. But she worked her nunnery like a boss even after pneumonia, a heart attack and a broken collar bone. 

I'm not saying girlfriends can't enjoy pedicures while gabbing about the struggles of a long week.
Or that a spouse shouldn't dote on their partner for no reason at all.
Or that kids can even remotely stay quiet for an hour - unless they're asleep. 

I just think people need to let go of the idea of "deserving" something and call a spade a spade. 


*I must have Motha-T on the brain lately. Maybe I've been abducted by Catholicism. 

Writing Requires Some Degree of Apathy

When I write to a fork in the road, I get the urge to pick one at random or turn right around. Taking  careful thought and filling your choice with reasons, arguments is the hard part. Anyone can take up chance or take up giving up. But to defend yourself!

Once choosing, I either love it or hate it. I'd rather erase the whole page and start fresh or erase nothing and stand behind misplaced comas and vague words. Stubborn, take-my-pen-and-go-home game.

Writing requires some degree of apathy. You have to care enough to keep going, to keep in what's really meant there. And, more importantly, you have to be willing to slash with a machete and a sweaty palm what is common, cumbersome or cliche redundant.

Grown-Up Advice: How to talk like a lady and Mr. S's Birthday

Lady's don't swear. I'm working on this one as the sailor mouth has gotten really brine-y.

As I can't advise you on how not to swear (maybe insert another word like "AhKellyClarkson!" - like from the movie 40 Year Old Virgin), but I can give you a list of other things you're saying that make you sound like an unprofessional, 14-year-old  idiot.

- Stop saying "like" as a space-filler in conversation. Have someone write down every time you say "like" or wear a rubber band on your wrist for one day and snap it every time you say "like".

- Don't misuse the word "random". Definition: proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern. "Random" is not a cool buzzword to make you seem different or hilarious. Your night was not "so random" last night. That email was not "so random". Your Facebook album from the lake house weekend was not "random".

- I get it, pronouns are hard. Learn when to use "I" or "me", "She" or "her". Correct: "They are going to help her and me." Incorrect: "They are going to help she and I." 


Think grammar doesn't matter? It may matter to your boss. It might be the make or break skill that decides your future. Think I'm being dramatic? Read this.

That said, let's not all become the grammar police. If we know what people are saying (and we aren't their superior), it's best to let mistakes slide. If you are in the position to use someone's grammatical mistake as a teaching point, make sure you doing it gracefully. No one likes a know-it-all.

And for Heaven's sake, don't use proper grammar and then point it out to people. If using correct grammar requires clarification, maybe you should change or simplify your sentence structure.

I'll admit that I get hung up on lie/lay (people lie down themselves, people lay down objects) and hanged/hung (again, one for people and another for objects), but I try to sort it out each time I use these words to make a new, correct habit out of it.

Do you stumble over any particular grammar rules? Are you a stickler for grammar or do you think grammar may be becoming less relevant?

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This past weekend it was the Mr.'s birthday. His paternal family hosted a wonderful celebration at a lake house on Lake Gage near Angola, Indiana. It was in the 80's, sunny and quiet. Such a good time!

Lake house. Lake hair. Per usual, I didn't wash my hair all weekend. 'Twas pretty gross by the end, but the schmoutz helps you need less hairspray to hold your hair together with the wind/wave runner/lake water variables.

Local wine. Only sold in Indiana. Made in Steuben County. This one was pretty good. The red was just so-so in my opinion (too sweet).

The birthday chair. He's 28 going on 8, so we brought out the child in him.

I made brownies...

And his aunt got a lovely cake from a boutique baker in Ft. Wayne. He got to blow out the candles on two desserts for twice the birthday wishes!

He really got into it the second time around.

If you follow me on Instagram, you already saw these. Sorry for nothing new!

A Web-iquette Love Story Continues: Grammar Check

Don't let the love story fool you. I'm in a bitchy mood today, so I'm gonna grammar check like a bia. The only love I'm feeling today is for my self-righteous grammar, overuse of ellipses and this french press coffee. Bam.


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Let's get down to brass knuckles tacks.

Possessive pronoun lists are hard. Boo. I know. Have a cry


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and then do it right, like so:

It was his and my wedding...

NOT:

It was S and I's wedding... (dumb)
It was him and I's wedding... (dumb)
It was S and me's wedding... (just plain ignorant... say it out loud... do you hear that? That's ignorance...)

And certainly not any other dumb combination you can think of that doesn't solely consist of "his" and "my" in that order. Certainly don't bring "your" into it. Certainly.

Yes, we are all human and make mistakes and typos. I make mistakes and typos. There, I said it. But the difference is that if you re-read your own blog article/heard your velociraptor voice on a tape recorder, you wouldn't spot the problem.

This is ironically how you sound and also how you make me feel. Enjoy.



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