an extraneous word
For the longest time, I didn’t realize it wasn’t spelled “cancelled.” I still furrow my brow and everything when I see that squiggly red line under it in Word.
It’s ‘canceled,’ with one L only.
Admit it, fellow English speakers—you thought so, too. And you probably made the same mistake I did all these years, throwing that extra L in there. But it just looks so much better balanced with two L’s—as if it fits in with all its other soft-consonant cronies -
refeRRed,
caNNed,
laPPed,
reVVed,
And most convincingly! -
repeLLed! and compeLLed!
“Cancelled.”
It just looks right, you know?
Well, it turns out “cancelled” is UK spelling. No wonder I like how it looks! Because I also like “grey” over ugly “gray.” And though I could never pull it off in my papers and emails, I secretly love that unnecessary U in colour, favourite, neighbourhood. And Elisabeth with an S. Realise. Chastise. Wait that one has an S already doesn’t it.
G-r-a-y makes me think of dumb, fumbling, elephant knees (true story),
But G-r-e-y makes me think of… hmm. Sir Earl Grey Tea?
runaway grape
Not sure why, but this new earthquake in Chile (and apparently its 51+ aftershocks??) is really tearing me down. Guess you could say it’s had a particularly greater magnitude of a shock on me… ha ha ha. (Sorry. Too soon?)
Anyway, I just got off the phone with my dad. Lately I’ve had an inordinate amount of opportunities to be reminded of how I can communicate only crap in Chinese/Taiwanese. It’s not with just my parents, but also the lao ban (boss) - which cost me a job… with other people at that job - who I can feel are auto-judging me for lack of ability to communicate… and even in my dream just now: I was accosted by the parents of this boy I was crushing on. Ridiculous, right? No wonder I woke up in bad spirits. And then the added insults to injury: more news of the Chilean earthquake; the convo with my dad; bad hairday…
So. This calls for a terrible poem to cheer us up. Ready?
RUNAWAY GRAPE
runaway grape
you rolled all the way to the
refrigerator
cold!
i don’t want to get out of my chair so
forget you
you can die there old and wrinkly,
a pruny raisin.fin.
breaking things (in)
By now, I must have seen a thousand ads about thousands of starving people.
Either as a truly American citizen or as a college student indulging in the most selfish time of life, I have cared very little. In fact, in the last two days alone, I’ve cared/felt/blurbed or Tweeted a whole deal more about
- my robot pen running out of ink mid-Physics-homework
- my Physics homework
- my Physics TA
- my friend knocking my granola bar out of my hand
- my comb breaking
- that the barista at the coffee shop just a couple hours ago told me I needed to put my shoes back on; and then kicked me out for not purchasing anything
Haiti, Japan, Chile,
7.0, 6.9, 8.3,
I apologize. So far, it looks like I know very little of what to do beyond logging onto Twitter and getting scared for my own skin at all the pre-tsunami tweets coming from Concepcion -
- Tweets that I don’t even notice until I’ve gotten off my own 140-character soapbox about mean ol’ baristas asking poor ol’ me if I would please get my bare feet off their comfy furniture and buy a $5 coffee or leave.
