This week, I’m writing in #hashtags. A #postitnote I scrawled on last week led to yesterday’s tip of the day which made me think about how we use them.
Are there #grammarrules? What would #strunkandwhite say about them? Is there a space between a hashtag phrase #likethisone or is it only attached to the #word it connects? If you need #punctuation, (like this comma next door) do you attach it or skip it? So, the boldfaced sentence I just wrote would look like this if I skip it:
If you need #punctuation (like this comma next door) do you attach it or skip it?
But now it #doesntmakesense above because I took out the comma.
Oh, hmmm, what do you do with #contractions? Do you use them or skip them as in the previous #singlesentenceparagraph or #singlesentenceparagraph?
#doesntmakesense
#doesn’tmakesense
#doesnt #make #sense
#doesn’t #make #sense
Perhaps this is a great time to understand and observe how #grammarrules are made and why they exist. Are we now the future #old #cranky people who invented these #dumbrules? Don’t even get me started on #citations…
Way back in my #college days, there was a sub shop, or was it a pizza place? Taco joint? Anyhow, this place advertised #twofer Tuesday and you’d get two for the price of one. I figured since it’s #SOL Tuesday and March SOL #challenge, I’d write two posts. As if this challenge isn’t enough.
Here’s to post #1, my introduction to making myself squirm in my writing seat a little (#alot) more than usual.
#funny how #writing happens. #solchallenge has ideas swirling in the universe. they were bound to #collide with mine. i moved a #postitnote to one side of my desk this afternoon. last week, i #jotted a #sol draft using #hashtags! in full form, i left it at work and #cantremember anything that was on it.
It's 8:45 a.m. 7:45 for my body as if getting rushed through the weekend door pushed through it isn't enough this time thing had to happen today last night my body lives in two time zones I get to wrestle with for a week even though we already know which one wins hello, spring where's the snooze button?
I don’t remember learning how to read. I also don’t remember anyone reading to me at home. My first book. Finishing a book. I know someone read to me though, probably my mom. I had books around me from early on.
I do remember tracing my finger over lower case and upper case glitter letters, one letter per workbook. Aa Apple. The letters on the cover were dusted with red glitter. Each day before we opened it, we traced. Inside the pages we practiced writing each letter, matched letters to pictures and whatever else is blurred in my mind. When we finished the book, we took it home and started the next one. Bb Ball.
I do remember meeting with our teacher in groups. Reading about running and dogs and a kid named Jack. Easy words like tip and tap and hat and bat. Certificates with scented stickers awarded milestones, whatever they may have been.
I do remember listening to Mrs. Jones read Charlotte’s Web in second grade. She cried at the end. What did I read? I don’t recall anything, except for the book I received the last day of school for perfect attendance. The Ghost of Windy Hill. My own book to keep forever and read over summer break. I went home, finished it, and figured out the mystery before the story ended.
I do remember reading Little House on the Prairie (all of them), Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books, Encyclopedia Brown,Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, nonfiction books about Amelia Earhart and Annie Oakley. Since then, I’ve been known to be the one who is always reading.
I can’t imaging not knowing how to read. Since I can remember (or not), I’ve read whatever came my way. Cereal boxes, junk mail, JC Penney catalogs, magazines, books, dictionaries, the phone book…
March 6, 2025
Tpyos
“Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren’t distracted by the total lack of content in your writing.”
–Randy K. Milholland
Tpyos bother me, mostly when wen they're my own mistake, not anyone else's although I do notice them in porfessional settings, such as formal publications online in a book an email form someone important
I take a second look how did it make it past editors? did anyone proofread?
I'm the type who usually proofreads most days including fly by the seat of my pints text messages and yes, I resend revised messages
auto-correct I HATE it! Fixes words that didn't need fixing and changes the enteir meaning is there a name for that?
Small town life puts a special bubble around you. We didn’t get out much as kids, except to run errands with our mom in a larger, but still small-ish town. Orthodontist appointments, groceries, Pizza Hut buffet, and if we were lucky, a visit to the music store.
Contests from cereal boxes, Columbia House subscription forms, magazine inserts for free Banana Republic catalogs, and addresses from Teen Beat to swoon-worthy heart throbs were our way to connect to the world. Except, we weren’t allowed to send any Columbia House cards, ever. Don’t you dare was warning enough. I filled out my selections and address anyway, but it never went in the mail. I’d imagine life with endless cassettes.
Any letters that were exchanged were slipped to friends between classes in that fancy 80s wrap around fold. If we sent anything, it was lost forever, but it was fun imagining winning a lifetime supply of corn flakes. Little Debbies. Willy Wonka candy.
One day, there was a surprise. I arrived home after school, dropping my backpack on a chair at the kitchen table. Everyone else gathered around the buzz of the kitchen, willing dinner to be served, hot tortillas flying off the griddle and onto a cloth dish towel to keep them warm.
“You got something in the mail,” Mom mentioned between the rolling pin sliding across the counter, flattening balls of dough.
“Me?” I looked through the stack and found something with my name on it. I didn’t request anything. Perplexed, I flip the envelope over and retrieve a letter. Brochures I ignore are stuffed in the envelope, but I place them on the table in favor of the letter.
It’s addressed to me and I start reading aloud.
“…bedwetting is not a problem you should be ashamed of…”
“BED WETTING?! I don’t wet the bed!”
“Bed wetting?” Mom asks.
I look at the brochure full of resources to rectify the problem. People of all ages…
“Where did this come from and why does it have MYNAME on it?”
I hear giggling. It gradually grows into full-blown laughter. My younger sister can’t contain herself. “It was me; I did it!”
“What did you do?” Mom asks.
“I filled out the card,” hysterical laughter.
“At the orthodontist’s office, when you had an appointment. I didn’t think they’d send anything!”
“Thanks a lot!” I scream only like a first-born annoyed by a sibling teen can scream. And then I started crying of embarrassment. Someone, somewhere, sent me mail because they think I’m a bed wetter. How humiliating.
Everyone else laughed. Mom kept making tortillas and brushed it off. “Throw it away, it doesn’t matter.”
If you were to have a superpower, what would it be?
I like to think flying, teleportation, or the ability to predict the future might top my list, but no. The ability to go a whole day of teaching without going to the bathroom might top my list. I think most educators have that one built in, so there’s no need to wish for it. I think about weaknesses that come with superpowers and the downside to having something special so I can’t ever answer this question because I take it way too seriously.
However, I do have a superpower.
I can smell weird things. Weird things other people can’t smell. When I was expecting my first kiddo, I smelled cow manure. My husband and I were driving on the highway and I smelled it. Odd though, there aren’t many cattle trucks around here. Sure enough, a few minutes later, we passed one. I smelled it from about a mile away.
Last week I kept getting a whiff of some grandma smelling perfume. At work. I checked my desk. Is it my lotion? Everything I use is unscented. What could it be? Valentine’s Day flowers are long gone. Did a student leave something? I forgot about it until I sat at my desk this morning.
“Do you wear perfume?” I ask work bestie.
“No, the scent gives me headaches. I haven’t worn it in years.”
“Same,” I agree. “But don’t you smell something perfume-y? Like old perfume? Grandma perfume from when we were kids?”
She comes over to my desk and starts sniffing. “Is it your lotion?” she asks.
“No, it’s unscented, but it does have a cosmetic type smell. Wilhelmina, stop messing with me,” I announce.
“Wilhelmina?”
“Yeah, my class ghost, remember?”
We both start sniffing, like those cartoon hound dogs that put their noses across every surface, going up and down every object on and around my desk. The computer monitor and keyboard. The drawers, open and closed. A stack of papers. Dog man book marks still sealed in the packages. I reach for the ones in the acrylic holder and sniff. Nope.
Sniff, sniff, whiff, sniff…
A stack of books. Maybe it’s a book? One by one, she goes through a stack I’m working on, opening them and moving them to the counter as she eliminates each suspect.
“Aha! This one smells funny. It smells like powder. Is it this that you’re smelling?”
I take a whiff…BINGO!
Never suspecting the book, it never occurred to me to sniff through the stack. I move it to the cart of new nonfiction books, far away from me.
It may take a little longer to nail the culprit, but I’ve still got it.
I’m scrambling for a topic like I’m scrambling to find my shoes in the morning. I didn’t think I had much of a problem, but yeah, I do. I buy too many shoes and I don’t keep a lot of them. I always find something wrong with how they fit. Must’ve gotten it from childhood.
My mom would fold too-large socks under my toes. The extra fabric drove. me. crazy! She didn’t want me wearing them with the heel seam poking out above the shoe. To rectify the problem, she’d put my socks on, make sure the heel seam paired with the heel of each foot, pulled the fabric over my toes and voilà, perfectly fitting socks. I always yanked my shoes off, pulled the socks so the toe seams matched my actual toes, peeking heel seams puckering over top of the back of my shoe be damned. Such a rebel child.
Friday, a new pair of shoes I ordered arrived on my porch. This is after a week’s delay. I found them a while back, but didn’t purchase them because I opted for a pair of boots. Of course, when you’re looking for great shoes, they’re usually sold out. Should’ve bought them when I first tried them, but I may have not purchased these great boots.
I unboxed my new arrivals to wear them out to lunch. They’re the perfect athleisure shoes to complement an outfit of khaki shorts, t-shirt, and sunny spring weather. I’m sure they fit, but you never know. Something is bound to poke my feet, squeeze my toes, or cut at my ankle.
Shoe number one: there’s a security tag.
Shoe number two: another security tag.
I toss them back in the box and dig through the closet for something else. I have to send them back, how in the world can you get those things off? If I take them to any shoe store, they likely won’t remove them because I purchased them online. Surely there’s a way, I mean, we’re smart enough to send people to the moon.
A quick search and I find more than one way to remove the pin and tag. A plastic bag handle. A hammer. A knife (or saw)–nope. Not going there at all, I know my limits. A magnet.
A magnet? Do I have a strong magnet?
Affirmative.
I fool with it, to no avail. I mop floors instead. I’ll call some shoe stores and ask about removing the tags before I waste time driving all over town. I check the shoes to purchase another pair in the same style and color. Out of stock. Sheesh!
I try the plastic bag method. If I keep twisting, I’ll slice through my hand.
I try the magnet again. I listen for a faint click. Is that it?I pull, keeping the magnet on the tag. The pin slipped up one notch. I gently twist. There it is, another little click. I pull. Twist. Pull.
Out comes the pin and the shoe is free. I successfully free the second shoe; I did it! I try on my shoes and they’re keepers. Of course, I had a cart full of alternatives in case these had to go back.
Words of advice: keep a strong magnet on your fridge for pesky security tags that make it past security.
My work bestie and I closed the library Thursday for lunch. I had a full day of lessons with eighth graders and another teacher was scheduled for checkouts. We rarely have lunch together because we try to keep the library open all day. I needed a breather and it’s nice not to have to eat alone.
I taught three full days of research lessons with this particular class and my anchor research topic was AI. I mentioned how we’re embracing AI every day (hello, MagicSchool, Chat GPT, Gemini and all you other invisible bots) and moving toward a Wall-E world, which creeped me out the first time I watched it years ago when E-now 22-was little, which led me to reminding her Wall-E is pretty much Number 5, the robot from the ’80s movie Short Circuit and did she ever watch it? which led to “Who was in that movie anyway, Matthew Broderick?” which led to a Google search (hers) while my brain search recalled Matthew Broderick in War Games, and “Did you ever watch that one?’ which led to an answer: Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg (not how I’d spell it)–Steve Guttenberg? Wasn’t he older? Which made me stop to recalculate how old I actually was when I saw it (we lived in a rural town so that meant I watched it about two years after its release on HBO) which also reminded me I was still a young teen, so anyone over 18 was old in my mind’s eye, which then led to reminiscing and going down the 80s Week theme we’ve been tossing around for the library, ending with an 80s dance party. In the library. Before school. Which led to “Do you know how to dance?’ and I reply “If you call standing in one place bending your knees and swinging your hips to the beat actual dancing. 80s style dancing, so yeah, I know how to dance,” which led to the next class coming in and my brain trying to contain herself because in walked a student wearing…
a Wall-E t-shirt.
Today, it’s year 5 five for me. Number five is definitely alive, although my thoughts might short-circuit every now and then, which leads me to ask, anyone want to join me for an 80’s themed virtual dance party after 31 days of slicing?
Nerds Beget Nerds 