Literature of the Vapid

If dreams are like movies
then memories are films about ghosts

At the risk of sounding too "wah wah, poor me *sniff* *sniff*", I typed this up last night. I just want to note that I don't consider myself to be all that liberal or "damn the man". If you know me personally, you know I don't tolerate slack-asses and I have no respect for those who just sit on their asses, smoke weed, complain about the world/society, and do nothing (whatsoever) about it.



I’m taking a document processing class online as many of you know. In this class, we have to do a lot of timed writings (which I absolutely hate, by the way) and a lot of typing out of “office” documents. While I was plugging away in the usual fashion tonight, I noticed a disturbing trend. Of course I’ve noticed it before, but it had never gotten to me as much as it did tonight.

It’s absolutely horrible to type words like “effective” and “procedure” and “analyzing” and “productive” and “benefit” over and over again. You just want to yell at the copy, “TRY SOME DIFFERENT FRIGGIN’ WORDS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!”

I got to thinking about business English and newspaper English and “teacher” English and the dreadful entity that is Word Grammar Check. I realized that these vapid, irritatingly PC uses of English are becoming the norm. Why? Because the beauty of the written word has been replaced by the easiest way to write and understand the written word. Long, heart-felt, beautifully penned letters have been replaced by staccato e-mails. Thought-provoking stories have been replaced by flash fiction. What happened, English speakers?

Granted, I do it too – I send those choppy e-mails and have made attempts (poor ones) at flash fiction. It all comes down to time. Nobody has the time to spend on eloquent turns of phrase. Even those of us who really WANT to spend the time aren’t able to because we have become obsolete. We’re forced to work at jobs we hate and to move with the folks in the fast lane – because it’s the only way to survive these days. We know we could do so much more with this time spent keeping up, but we never seem to get it, so we end up just like everyone else. Is this the reason for a recent lack of true classics?

How many would-be novelists, painters, musicians, playwrights, dancers and actors are too busy keeping their heads above water to work on their true calling? How many creative children aren’t allowed to create in favor of classes that only help them pass standardized tests (and don’t truly teach them anything)?

I don’t have a solution to offer on this subject. All I know is that I don’t mind staying up until 2 a.m. and being a little late for work for the sake of my art. And I know that it disturbs me that I’m forced to do that.

This is not to say that I don’t believe in hard work or that I’m lazy. I do believe in hard work – very much so. And I’m only lazy when I feel the strain of all this “keeping up.” I just feel like a lot of folks would be better off (and the world would be better off) if our society had a little more respect for those of us of the right-brained persuasion.


"Mrs. Potter's Lullaby" Probably the best Counting Crows song post-August and Everything After

"I Sing the Body Electric"

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
from "I Sing the Body Electric" by Walt Whitman

It's one of my favorite poem titles ever, but now when I read it, it'll bring a whole new meaning.

I actually like my Anatomy and Phisiology class. I knew I would be interested by it, but it's turned out to be absolutely fascinating. And it all makes sense to me. The only class I ever absolutely ACED in college was my biology class, which is weird for an English major, but really, grammar and anatomy/phisiology are very relatable and have similar rules.

I was thinking about it last night, and I decided that the two subjects do translate easily. Cells are like letters. Tissues are like words. Organs are like phrases. Organ systems are like sentences. An organism is like a paragraph. And they make sense. A certain combination produces a certain type of sentence or a certain type of literature. For instance, the heart is really the poetry. The brain is like a novel. It all makes perfect sense to me now.

Wikipeodia has a great entry on Medical Transcription, and I looked over it today. Under the "As a Profession" section, I saw that I'm just about right for this job. I'm really detail-oriented, I am the grammar queen (I just have to work on my spelling), and I'm learning the medical lingo really well. So needless to say, I'm pretty excited about all this.

My sister-in-law said that this might be what I was meant to do, and I'm beginning to believe her. But don't worry - I'll always be a writer and I'll continue to work on my novels. That's what keeps me alive. But this new career prospect will keep me fed and sheltered and happy enough to allow my writing room to grow.

I always did like Operation.


And here's the video for "Sleepsinging" by the Damnwells....well....just because. It's a weird video, but the song is remarkable.