Thrilling Punctuation Contemplations

Just a warning, this title may have been slightly misleading...but now that you're reading this, why not just keep going?  Sometimes I write about punctuation.  You know why?  For the same reason I usually write about food- it’s something I come in contact with many times a day.  And most of the time I don’t even bother to acknowledge its existence (punctuation, not food- come on, don’t be ridiculous), but today, I decided to give punctuation its fair share of the spotlight.  Perhaps I need to find more exciting things to do…

I’m a fan of punctuation.  I use it often- at least at the end of every sentence, and sometimes even in the middle!  (See previous sentence for both examples).  That’s not to say that I always use it correctly, especially when writing dialogue such as:

            “I swear I just tossed the apple at his head for fun!  I didn’t know it was a bomb!” claimed a skittish Penelope.

            “Well you should have known,” retorted the FBI agent, “since you were the one that grew the apple bomb!”

I’m never exactly sure about punctuation in circumstances like that.  For instance, do you need all the commas?  What’s the deal with capitalization after stating the speaker?  These are all punctuation questions I wonder about, but never actually need to know and therefore never actually look up the correct formatting. 

In other punctuation contemplations (yep, love a good rhyme), I’m really a big fan of ellipses.  As everyone that follows me on twitter (aka, just my mom) is aware, I use ellipses often.  I’m a fan of trying to write as I think, and so ellipses indicate trailing off or thought, and is often how I punctuate my tweet-jokes.  (Again, thanks Mom, for reading).  …Anyway, ellipses can also be used to indicate awkwardness, which is fairly prevalent in my life. 

Other favorite punctuation techniques include comma splicing (which I overuse immensely- sorry English teachers!), parentheses (may overuse these too…sorry readers), dashes (used by me as more abrupt semicolon), and periods (they’re extremely useful).  All in all I’m a big fan of punctuation, in that it shapes the way written words are read and interpreted.  One thing I’ve yet to sort out with punctuation is how to put a (beat.) into writing.  Suggestions?  Because sometimes you just need to take a beat.  (Beat.)  Probably couldn’t come off as more of a nerd right now.   See what I said about the prevalence of awkward?...

Driving, Daydreaming and Dancing - It's How I Do

Sometimes I get creative with driving...

Driving is like flying- except it’s on the ground, there are rarely in-flight peanuts, and I’ve actually done it.  Driving that is; I’ve never flown a plane.  So I guess this is where that comparison ends.  Oh well.  Driving is great, at any rate. (<- unintentional spontaneous rhyme).  Not for the environment (sorry Mama Earth), but for transportation.  As a resident of rural suburbia, I have really never had access to public transportation until college, and as a result the only way to get anywhere was, and continues to be, by car.  (Unless you have a helicopter and are willing to take me? ...No?  Ok, moving on).  So for me driving = freedom.  I can go hang out with friends, pick up my sisters from school, drop my sisters off at rehearsal, pick up my sisters from rehearsal, etc.  Yes, the price of using the car may include chauffeuring duties, but I’m alright with that.  You know why?  Because the car is the best place for two things: daydreaming and singing/dancing.  Don’t worry, I’m not a hazard on the road as my mind wonders to the days when I’ll travel the world in a hot air balloon or be best friends with the world’s first talking monkey.*  Besides, driving in a state where only 5 other people live (and 4 of them are in my family), there’s not a lot of traffic to contend with.  Except perhaps in lake house or leaf peeping season- but that’s another story.  Besides being the perfect capsule for daydreaming, the car is the best place to sing and dance.  You think people can’t hear you (they can), and you can’t imagine that people will look in their rearview mirrors and see you (they will).  It’s the perfect place to just jam out, whether you’re by yourself or with friends.  I love rolling the windows down, blasting Avril Lavigne’s “What the Hell,” and dancing with my lil sis.  We always make sure to be considerate though, and turn down the volume when small children are nearby.  Half of the fun of going crazy in the car is just imagining the amusement that you provide to fellow drivers as they go to check their blind spot, notice your sporadic dancing, and decide on second thought, not to change into your lane. 

If you’re in the car with others and you’re not dancing (for some crazy reason), then it’s a great time to chat!  I love spending time in the car with my sisters talking about the fascinating class structure in Edwardian England (thanks Downton Abbey), if we look like bugs when we wear giant sunglasses, and how obnoxious my laugh can be in contained spaces (whoops).  This is why I like driving.  I like to use the time to think, to talk, to sing, to dance, and sometimes to practice various and sundry UK accents (yes, I enjoy doing accents.  No, I’m not particularly adept).  I would happily be a (paid) chauffer for anyone that needs to travel less than 40 minutes and enjoys in depth discussions about the different pacing of multicam vs singlecam sitcoms.  So call me up if you’re in the New England area.  Oh, and sometimes I yell at red lights.

*Note: these dreams were made up expressly for the purpose of this post and do not reflect actual car-dreams.  Although they’re pretty cool.  And they’re going to happen.