Monday, January 31, 2011

Same Words, Different Meaning

Have you ever read an article or column and then discussed it with a friend or acquaintance only to find that you absorbed such different information from the written words that you question whether you both read the same article?

It is true. We draw from the written words what interests us and the rest often fades away to be picked up by someone else. Sometimes the very same words give different meanings to different people even without the voice inflections when spoken. Again it is probably because we are applying the information to what is familiar to us. Or to what we are seeking.

So just when you think you are writing clearly and precisely, the words can send out messages that readers are reading differently. This can be extremely dismaying when you are trying to send a particular sentiment that you don’t want to be mis-construed. Ah.. …. Language.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Cats Sleeping

When I look at my girls, Mz. Lizzie and Lady Jane, curled up on the bed next to me while I write on the computer, I wonder about all this sleeping they do. They are perfectly content to curl up cozily for an hour, awaken to stretch; look over at me, ho-hum –she-is-still-there and then drift back to sleep. They may purr as if they were happily spending time in deep dreams that they refuse to share but if I stand up to get some herb tea, they are up on their feet with the expression “What is going on?”

When I think about it, maybe my girls had a rough former life and are catching up on their rest in this one in order to energize in preparation for the next one. H-m-m-m. I wonder what their last lifetimes were like. Was their past life working nights? Were they cats then or different animals or people?

Email Forwarding

I am sure my friends think that they are including me in their joy by sharing a Forward message they received from 49,000 other people before them. All with their email addresses listed. This makes it easy for hackers to gather Spam email lists easily, adding mine to their list.

And I wonder what goes through their minds or if even they read all the way to the bottom of the message where it states: You have ten minutes to forward this message to ten people (or 100, or 1,000.) If you do not forward this message in that time period you will be cast down, given bad luck, walk under a rain cloud, be tortured with nightmares for ten years, etc. You get the picture I am sure.

So out of the goodness of their hearts, thinking they are sending me the good luck to win the lottery, make Cinderella wishes, prayers to protect all my family and friends from disasters, and so on, they are instead condemning me to hell.

I have them all fooled. I no longer open any of those forwards. But I would love a simple "hey, how's it going?" email.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Reading On the PC and more.....

Knowing my inflamed reaction to women not receiving equal rights and probably because so much of my writing is of the past when such laws were outrageous, a friend recommended the e-book of Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement by Sally Gregory McMillen. It just so happens that I was also reading Nike is a Goddess, the History of Women in Sports edited by Lissa Smith at the time. Some stories in that book relate the difficulties women suffered while trying to participate in their favorite sports. Connected-ness. That happens all the time. Just like Google, one thing leads to another which leads to another, etc. All connected by an unseen thread. Because then I came across the E-book, the biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eighty Years and More. Immediately I downloaded it into my folder titled BOOKS lest I lose it somewhere.

I love reading from my computer while I’m sitting in bed –which is the only warm spot in my house these nights. It’s easy and restful on the eyes, while reading a hard copy book late at night tires my eyes and puts me to sleep before I’m ready to give up absorbing these printed words.

All this means, is that I’m ready to move, again, into the 21st century and look for an E-reader to buy, to expand my reading experience, to take advantage of ‘out-of-copyright-books to download, so they will not be forgotten just because they are old and out of print. These treasures have so much information in them that should be read and saved and then passed on to someone else.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Late New Year Resolutions

It’s a bit late in the year to be revealing my New Year’s resolutions but here goes: The first and the one that I completed immediately lest I weaken and fail is the reduction of time and work put into volunteering. In short this means my serving on Director’s Boards and committees. I loved what I was doing and the people I was serving with and felt this was a big part of responsibility. But it was taking me away from writing and that is like draining all blood from my body. And who can live without blood?

It isn’t easy to resign from organizations that are important to the area I live in. Feelings of ‘letting people down’ crept over me, sitting on my shoulders and adding weight to my body/mind that I don’t need. But it had to be done. I thought long and hard on the subject, holding the thoughts of serving suspended on a platter like Lady Justice and in the other suspended platter, lay writing counter balancing it. The writing won making my decision necessary.

Still I mourn the loss of these activities as I fight the word ‘guilt’ and knowing that there is always someone to step up and fill that void.