At Times I Am Downright Maniacal

I love words. I love clichés and colloquialisms and all those little phrases that scurry around through the English language. But damn do I ever hate when someone fucks them up.

Imagine this, if you will. You are a writer. You may not be an actual published writer or anything, but it’s how you classify yourself. Maybe it isn’t but you still care about grammar and such. Now imagine someone says “James and me went to the store.” Or writes “Don’t forget you’re appointment on the eighth.” Makes you cringes a little, right? I know! Now I hate those things, too. I saw that I’d used the wrong form of “your” in an old piece and I was actually a little mad at myself! But I digress.

The problem with the colloquial phrases arises from a lack of knowledge in etymology and the issue of homonyms. People use these phrases every day, but they might not know where they come from. And they know what they sound like so they transfer them to paper incorrectly.

I know people who do this sometimes and it doesn’t make me hate them or anything. Hell, I quite like a girl who frequently uses “u” instead of “you” and has, in fact, written “your” instead of “you’re.” But perhaps I can better teach through example.

Say, for example, I am sitting with my friend and they look out the window and say “Man, it is raining cats and dogs out there.” I would look over and say “Damn! It is!” If they were talking to me online, though, and said “Man, it is rain in cats and dogs over here.” I would say “it’s raining.“

If a friend were preparing for a debate, ran it by me, and said “that’s the basis for my argument. What do you think?” I might say “sounds good to me, man.” (If it were a good argument.) If they said “that’s the bases for my argument. What do you think?” I’d say “basis.”

I am cool with using these phrases. Really! I like them too. But if you aren’t sure how to write them down… just don’t.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. My door is always a pin. You’re wishing my command.

I have a little brother. He’s little only in the technical sense of the term, as he’ll be 21 this fall and he’s probably more mature than I am. I also have a sort of little sister.

She’s not related to me. Not by blood, marriage, adoption, or any other methods through which one usually gets a sibling. She just sort of showed up. A bit more explanation may be in order.

When I worked at my very lucrative, challenging, and fulfilling role in an ice cream store (cue laugh track) I worked alongside, and then above, a lot of people you could refer to as kids. I was always the oldest, the next oldest being my assistant manager, aged 21. Most workers were high school students. They liked me, I liked them- we were all buddy-buddy. I didn’t hang out with most of them outside work except maybe for after-work trips to the diner for pie. Little Josie being an exception.

Josie became good friends with Katie, the aforementioned assistant manager. When I became good friends with Katie, the transitive theory of relationships meant I became friends with Josie. Then we, too, grew close.

She doesn’t have it easy (on top of being friends with me) and still she’s usually bright and happy. The more I learned about what she was dealing with outside the setting of work or just hanging out, the more protective I felt of her. Things such as jackass boyfriends were now things I found wildly intolerable. However, I didn’t realize the extent of these feelings until two things happened just a few days apart.

We were at Katie’s playing the Wii and having a few drinks for Josie’s birthday. (She wasn’t drinking of course because she was turning seventeen) She was exhausted from work but stayed awake long enough for midnight to pas and for Katie and I to be the first to wish her a happy birthday on the actual day. Josie then almost immediately curled up next to me on the sofa and fell asleep. As Katie and I continued playing Wii, I couldn’t help but glance over and smile once in a while.

The other event was much more dramatic. This morning she vanished. Katie’s brother, Mark, works with Josie and drives her to work every morning. Apparently he called her this morning and she didn’t answer. He drove to her house and knocked and there was no answer. She didn’t show up for work. When I found this out, I called her and she didn’t answer. Needless to say, Mark, Katie, and I were concerned. We couldn’t find her mom’s home phone number. We had no way of finding her. I was close to driving over there myself until Katie told me they’d found her. She had put her phone on silent to ignore persistent calls from her huge idiot ex, Kenny. Then she accidentally slept in. Now I would be worried if any of my friends went mysteriously missing, of course, but maybe not to the extent of driving over to their house and pounding on their door.

If a friend was dating a complete jackass, I’d probably bite my tongue. Kenny, though, makes me furious. I’m hoping that Josie gives me the go-ahead to call him up and have a little chat. Nothing overtly threatening, of course, just a tête-à-tête between two dudes, one who hates the other with a fair amount of intensity.

What can I say? I love my little sister.

I have a good vocabulary and am a fairly good speller. Therefore, I tend to murder people on the Scrabble board. How fitting, then, that the best way I can describe my faltering memory is with a key component of my favorite game!

The doctor has me on a few meds. It’s cool, I admit it, no shame. But they have side effects. Whatever. As of right now the cure is better than the disease. One of the most notable side effects I’ve found (of the ones that I’ll talk about on a site read by my mother and father) is the deterioration of my memory.

I never had a great memory to begin with. It’s not a big loss. But the way it works now is silly. And that’s where Scrabble comes in. These days, each time I experience an event, it becomes its own isolated little thing. Like a letter tile. My memory is like the little velvet bag, stuffed full of these tiles. I can’t always remember which came first if both events are several days ago. Everything is jumbled together and it’s all I can do to puzzle out how the letters relate. The big problem is remembering who I talked to about what memory. My new catch phrase is “Did I already tell you that…?”

Sleep. You fickle bitch. I don’t need you! You’ve been a bit of a flake lately anyway. You don’t come over til way late, for starts. Where are you all night? You’re off someplace and I’m sitting up at home waiting for you. You finally traipse in around three or four in the morning and then you bend me to your whims until the next afternoon? Bah! Whatever!

So you didn’t come over last night. Where were you? Don’t answer that, I don’t care. I don’t NEED YOU. I had a lovely evening (morning) of video games and movies. I must have watched three or four movies already today and it’s only eleven! Ok sure I can’t remember what all the movies were. I think I watched something before Knocked Up, but I’m not sure. But who cares! I can have a good time without you. I’m fine without you! I don’t need you!

…please come back.

I used to be a cartoonist. Kinda. It’s not like I was a cartoonist and retired or anything, I just don’t do it as much anymore. I rarely just draw for my own enjoyment. It’s sad, but only a little.

Depending on who you ask, I was great. If you ask someone who isn’t my mom they might agree. I think I’m ok. Just ok. And then one day I started clacking out words, stringing them into sentences, those into paragraphs, and soon I was spinning yarns almost daily.

For me, writing is more fulfilling than cartooning. A finished (by my standards) piece takes me a long time. Something like a crisp comic strip takes me even longer. When I write, I can get down more story, more detail, more everything in less time. And I feel like the writing is a lot better, quality wise.

Others have expressed concerns that I’d totally given up on cartoons and drawing. And honestly, outside a few doodles, I was starting to think they were right. But today, for no really great reason I can figure, I started to draw. I didn’t finish the picture, but it’s done enough for right this second to make me happy. I haven’t done a really finished cartoon for my own personal enjoyment since about February.

I don’t think I’ll ever make my own comic book or webcomic or anything, but at least I’m not totally out of the game yet.

And that makes me just a little bit happy.

Spurred on by a friend, I decided I’d try my hand at blogging. At first I edged away from the idea. Me? A blogger? In my mind, bloggers are all hip twenty-somethings clacking away in their local Starbucks injecting the internet with their unique brand of sarcasm and pithy observation. That’s not me! I mean, I’m a twenty-something who enjoys sarcasm, pithy observation, and the internet, but coffee upsets my stomach!

Disregarding this huge shortcoming, I have indeed started up a blog and I’ll be damned if I can think of a great way to start it. So I’m doing what I always do, making things up as I go along.

My name is Jeff, I’ll be twenty-four this month. I’m tall, I have dark hair, I’m strikingly handsome, charming, amicable, funny, and quick as a whip. I’d have to say my best trait is my modesty. I pride myself on it.

I am a full time writer. I say that because “full time writer” sounds far more impressive than “unemployed.” I’ll resume the job hunt soon enough, I’m unemployed under my own volition, I can survive on the money I have saved up. I’m fine! What are you, my mother?

Hopefully, my meager offerings into the “blogosphere” (Do we still call it that? I hope not) will be well-received among other blogosphereonauts and the public at large. Buckle your seat-belts, this may be a hell of a ride.