Late last month, I had really let the Man get me down, and all the petty voices in my head, and my left eye had developed a twitch. Mum and Aunt Mary swept in, scooped me up out of that nasty bog of angst, and took me camping at Crater Lake National Park. (more…)
I may have died and gone to heaven, for I’ve found Devi in a little strip mall a few mere blocks from our new home!
Paneer! Gulab jamun! And Bollywood! Yes, kids, dreams really do come true.
Meanwhile, before I go and gorge myself on all the goodies Devi has to offer, it’s perhaps time again to indulge in some tasty bites of Bombay TV, all thanks to lovely L. Claude. Bollywood, here I come!
Once upon a time, I got paid to watch television and movies and to represent their dialogue and sound effects in text form with accuracy and precision. I was mentored in this work by a real editor who tapped my propensity for second-guessing myself and validated my dictionary worship. I was encouraged to embrace my anal-retentiveness and to apply it in exciting new ways. The job was a kind of English major’s refuge, nay, a little chunk of paradise. (I majored in linguistics and Italian, which is close enough.)
But I left that desert oasis for the greener pastures of Oregon, and now I sometimes feel bereft of an editorial outlet. In my current position (at an institution of higher learning, interestingly), my timid, unsanctioned efforts to raise the quality of our textual output are often met coldly by colleagues who probably disdain me as a grammatical Goody Two-shoes.
Thus I lamented to Scott during a Friday-night rant, and he sweetly and thoughtfully wished that I might harness my verbal prowess to some noble cause. How such gentle encouragement from someone you love can inspire confidence and creativity! Around town yesterday afternoon, I began to see the possibilities: a flyer by the Corvallis chapter of the Northwest Earth Institute deploring “the Wal-Mart affect,” a street sign tagged to read “Stop driveing”…
