The Daily News

The Once-in-a-While

Daily News

1 I'm between birthdays today. It is Monday as these words begin tacking from the ends of my carpal-ridden arms.

2 Such a lot of work.

3 The above fragment turned into a coincidence (but not necessarily a Heidi trip, for those of you who follow this nonsense). Here's the reason:

4 I had no sooner written the words "a lot of work" in item 2 above when Helene said in conversation to Coley, "It's a lot of work." That JUST happened.

5 She was talking about refinishing our cabinets. I had just finished goofing on Boris Karloff's Thriller, which has episodes on You Tube, and I had also just finished goofing on birthdays. Thoughts jumble. That's what you do when you old. The two were completely unrelated. This always makes me sit up and take note. It often begins a Heidi trip, which is an instance where several coincidences come at me all at once.

6 My day began with no thesis. No wonder students often don't understand the concept of a thesis. English teachers have to rein all of this stuff in and make it clear to students, who have <ahem> other things on their minds. It triggers insta-daydreaming to even the best students. Could be anything from scrambled eggs and butter, to the advantages of skateboarding, to the best Starbuck's beverage beyond question, or to Simon Cowell's justifiable enjoyment of the next magician or low-budget dog act.

Toy Papillion.

Simon.

Judges.

Heidi.

Howie.

Simon.

7 For the layperson, a thesis statement is a statement in which you let the reader know exactly where a given piece of writing is headed.

8 Great way to think. Here is an example of a thesis statement:

"In my younger years, I celebrated other people's birthdays in several ways. It really depended on the situation, but if I knew ahead of time it was someone's birthday, I might have called them on the phone. Or, if invited to a party, I would buy them a fun gift and a humorous card, have someone else wrap it, and then take it to a birthday party. If all of that seemed a bit much, I might buy them a present to take to them next time I would see them. Either way, I would ride that wave wherever it would take me. Nowadays, it just isn't that easy. "

9 I begin the thing with a general idea, give examples (three is a good number) and move forward to my topic sentence, which was "Nowadays, it just isn't that easy."

10 Pretty simple, really. I would lay out a plan, and then write everything that would come to my head, trying to steer each paragraph in one direction.

11 The example above is a bit fun, because I'm certain that the Creator of the Universe never intended us to wish every person we ever met a happy birthday.

12 Don't get me wrong. I love birthdays, and I love birthday parties. Just had one for Isla and Maren, whose birthday falls on Monday, the 11th, the day after Grandparents' Day.

13 And which lands on one of history's most sobering days, September 11.

14 I never saw their birthday being on that date as anything but a glorious sign of hope. More on that later. I'm straying.

15 The point here is that if you have over 500 friends on social media, you probably have roughly two to five people a day to whom you should give some sort of birthday shout-out.

16 Or, as is the case with me, I have never made a list of people's birthdays, because most are family and close friends, so I have some idea of when their birthdays are.

17 I'm a geezer now. Yet I somehow gathered 153 friends on one Facebook account and a whopping 455 on my second account. The first account was originally set up for close friends and family; the second for students, former students, colleagues, and educators. That's the one that contained the whopping 455 friends.

18 Whopping. Let's see what the dictionary says of THAT monster. This is from Dictionary.com, evidently THE go-to Dictionary of the 21st Century. This is an abridged visual simulation:

whopping [hwop-ing, wop-]

adjective, informal.

1 very large of its kind; thumping:

We caught four whopping trout.

19 Sidebar: I wouldn't know which online dictionary to use in the 21st Century. Each one sounds like a realtor. More often than not I will dig around for a dusty old Merriam's. As a geezer, I no longer take all of this as seriously as I did as a strapping young teacher.

20 For the record, I was NEVER a strapping young teacher.

21 Society labels us geezers as Over the Hill. I see that target-marketing strategy in places like Party City. See all of the above.

22 It's a living. I've officially strayed so far from whatever my thesis was it's become downright shameful. Time to parachute down.

23 Moving On, Part One: I thought on Monday about the girls being born on September 11. I thought of how inevitably they would need to answer the myriad questions people would ask them as they grew up carrying this with them, especially since they are twins. I decided to set up some sort of donation (I KNOW, I KNOW) and search for articles that will help people decide on how to donate to the various victims of that tragedy. I found this particular article helpful. Hit link, not pic, then navigate back.

9/11 How to Donate

24 I will donate $100. Donate what you can, or if you don't trust any source, then your choice. I trust this site. I don't know that I trust myself.

25 Moving On, Part the Thoid: Unusual weather we're havin', ain't it?

26 SO weird.

Weather report: weird.

27 AnywayZ

28 Grammarly, the supposed guru of sentence correction, once again follows me around like a lonely puppy. It keeps me alert, but that's about it. Didn't say boo to several sentence frags, nor did it correct "anywayz" in item 27 (see above).

27. Yet it DID correct it in item 28, above.

29 It does have an "ignore" button, which is great for a guy who knows all the rules, and ignores a good many when trying to write in what they call in the business, "non-standard" English.

30 I'll stick with what I've often said: I like the grammar books that show how each word affects the other words in a sentence. But that's my tiddly-wink hobby.

31 Grammarly always sends me details about how often I use them. What it leaves out is how often I ignore them. They're great at catching comma faults. My concern is this: maybe I wanted a longer pause in that sentence. It's like a quarter or half rest in music. Makes all the difference.