The New York Times is my bible. And they say that there's an apostrophe after P.O.W. so I believe them.
Last night, according to the New York Times, the "P.O.W.'s" returned home.
Apostrophes have been the bane of my existence for a long time. They bring out the worst in me.
Actually, let me correct myself.
They don't bring out the worst in me.
What apostrophes do to me is cause me to bottle up immense amounts of shock and frustration which I can never release for fear that people will think me completely controlling, bossy and obsessed with their grammar.
And the thing is, I'm not controlling. Not bossy. Not obsessed with the grammar of others.
I just don't understand why people don't understand how to use apostrophes correctly.
An apostrophe indicates a possessive relationship. If I say "Donna's Emmy Award," I am referring to the Emmy Award belonging to Donna...remember when I won that? What an amazing night.
There is, of course, an exception to the possessive relationship. I could say "It's time to leave," meaning "It is time to leave."
But that's not a difficult exception to remember since an "it" can't possess anything. An "it" is not a person. Or, should I say, an it's not a person.
Sorry, that was wrong. And I'm ruining the lesson.
I worked for someone who put an apostrophe after every s. It would have been quite difficult to respect this person had I not already been completely disrespectful of him.
Then there's loose. I've been seeing a lot of the word loose lately. I guess win and lose are popular words now because we're at war. But if we don't win this war, we lose....we don't loose.
As I write this, I know I'll regret it. I'm already regretting most of everything I write. It seems some friends and family think I'm really trying to send them secret messages through my writing.
When you wrote about your problems with Andy in Colorado, weren't you really referring to your deeper conflicts with ME?
Well, I could go there.
In fact, I could really go there.
But I won't.
Someone asked me last week about my writing. More specifically, she asked about my routine.
I explained that I write at least two hours a day. Religiously.
I explained that I'm currently trying to rewrite a book for whom the agent swears the audience would be limited to just me, my two friends and my family.
She asked about my web log entries and wondered how much editing I do.
I told her that - besides basic grammar and typos and clarification of confusing references - I don't edit the web entries. And I explained that I don't think it's honest to edit brainstorming, which is what my web entries are.
Last night I thought about removing an entry about a certain dead date. Turns out he's not dead. Turns out there was miscommunication on both sides. That's a diplomatic way of saying that I messed up. Surprise, surprise.
But it's a good piece of writing and it's what I was thinking at the time.
My writing is not my confessional or my explanation to the world. My writing is just what I do.
I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it. And I hope they take it with the light spirit in which I write it.
With that said, I will just say one more thing.
The elephant on my shirt?
That does, in fact, have a certain hidden meaning.
And it's about someone in particular.
And it's VERY important and QUITE significant.
And I'll never tell.....
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