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2 de Octubre 2008
city arts
something you should know: CityArts is a new free arts mag in seattle and i like it.
here is why:
How to Write Right
Advice from our Copyeditor
Had a long day? Feel like laying down? Wait a moment. "Lay" needs a direct object (a person or thing that is the object of the verb's action). So you don't lay down, you lay something down: you might lay your firstborn child down in her crib but you lie down if you're doing yourself. We call verbs like "lay" that need direct objects transitive verbs, while verbs like "lie," which don't take a direct object, are intransitive verbs. So next time you're tired, take a deep breath, lay down whatever you are holding, and lie down.
a good friend once tried to explain this to me in the middle of a very embarrassing activity in which i told him to lay down, and he profoundly objected. but it was such chaos that i have often wondered if our entire friendship would have been different, easier, less painful had i understood just a little more, about lots of things. so there's that
(nothing like a good eight years or so to clear a few things up). but, and i'm not making excuses for bad grammar, if none of it had gone down, i would not be writing any of this. and that is what it means to have a found a true bosom friend, i suppose.
i think anyone who tells you you should find your soul mate is crazy because if you're soul is anything like mine, it probably won't end well, if it ends at all, and how long can you really deal with someone who knows so goddamn much about you?
find someone who's soul doesn't reach out across the country to touch yours. find someone who can't possibly imagine what it must be like to know all the things your heart will say.
find someone who knows only tiny little things about you; so that you are a sort of a universe, a whole system of tiny sparklers that might burn him up if he gets too close because the mystery of it will draw him close, he will get close, regardless of the danger. and he will get burned, and then he will come into the bathroom while you're crying in the shower and say something very helpful like: do you want me to come hang out in there with you?
and it will be good for him to have to ask
and it will be good for you to have to answer
but whatever you do, don't date a writer, unless, of course, you like your love life to be splayed across the page. i'll never live any of this down, my only consolation is that it will be well written, perfect grammar, every comma accounted for.
help yourself | By crymytinyflood | 8:53 AM
Comments
I date a writer. but partially it's on account of my own personal vanity, that he wooed me with poems written about me...
Posted by: emile at 2 de Octubre 2008 a las 10:10 AM
