It’s Quality Maintenance Day!
Okay, first matter of business. I’ve just gotta get this off my chest. I’ve been seeing this dreadful problem all day, moreso than usual, and I want to claw at people’s faces.
ITS: The possessive form of “it”, as in “Take a moment to learn the language you speak, and to grasp its nuances and subtleties, or at the very least, its incumbent rules of grammar.”
IT’S: The contraction of “it is,” as in “It’s important to know how to write your own language with clarity and precision so people don’t think you failed your GED’s.”
That is the rule, and there is not one instance where the rule does not apply. Regionalisms are no excuse — it’s the same in UK, US, South Africa, Australia and Kenya. I know it’s a tricky one, that it’s a little backwards, the possessive “its” losing its apostrophe, which goes against every other possessive rule of grammar duzzn’it, but it’s not that difficult a concept, is it?
If you can’t speak and spell correctly, then you’re not sexy. And if you’re not sexy, then go away from me please. Go over … there, for example. Away. Allez-y! Scoot. Scat. Skeedaddle. Hyahhh!
Tune in next week for an equally vituperative p’tit leçon on the usage of Your/You’re. “You’ll be amazed!”
Second item on the agenda: if you are, like me, an online journalist, or if you are thinking about becoming one, there are just a few things you might want to consider.
The authoritative piece is called “Why Web Journals Suck: An Essay” by Diane Patterson and can be found here:
Right. On we move then.
Today’s entry is all about what a blubbery mess of a momma’s boy I can be, even under all my partyboy rocknroll überaloof Marquishood, as I continue to leave childhood in the dust and plough my way into my 30’s, machete in one hand, a chilled cocktail in the other.
So Xmas is in, like, a few minutes, right? And I’m so excited! Though not for the usual reasons. Xmas day marks the end of this bloody awful season and I will not mourn its passing. If I sound Scroogerifous by saying, “Bah! Xmas! Hooey!” then perhaps I am. I hate it. The only good thing about December are the lights. And then only the white ones. (And I contend that white xmas lights are non-seasonal and should be left up all year, but that soapbox is for another day, my chickens.)
I’ve received a few boxes from immediate fambly members and they have been lurking by my bed like harbingers of doom. I was reading in bed this morning and the boxes kept distracting me so I said, fuckit, who’s the naughty boy! as I got the scissors and began to dissect the boxes two days early (against mother’s pointed directive to wait until Monday, goddamnyou!)
Soz, mum.
I’ve been thinking of mom a lot lately. Maybe it’s just this bloody ubiquitous December stuff that one cannot escape, but I gotta give props where props are due — mom does know how to do xmas right. Always has. Like Martha Stewart, but not so bloodless and cold as that dreadful woman.
And here’s a little bit of mom, sitting in box form by my bed. And I miss my mommy who’s thousands of miles away. And so I sat in front of the box and meditated for a while. Examining the UPS sticker, her handwriting for my address, and most of all the chipper little stickers she put all over it. Little silly gingerbread things and some candy canes and a weird scary duck girl in a velveteen babydoll dress. A star here. A peppermint there. And I conjured the scene, mom taping up the box, smiling and maybe laughing to herself putting these silly stickers all over the box. Probably listening to Barbara Streisand sing xmas songs in the background. Cinnamon potpourri in the air in her house.
And I miss mom. So I was getting a little teary over these ridiculous stickers and envisioning her applying them.
I cut open the tape and removed some packing peanuts and began extricating what seemed like a hundred little thinnnngs, all individually and beautifully wrapped, lining them up along floor by the bookcase.
Staring at the line-up of gorgeous little packages, delicate ribbons here, sparkly-warkly wrapping paper there. Always picturing mom doing each little thing up with her deft hands and immeasurable care.
First thing I looked at was what seemed to be a miniature body bag. A semi-translucent plastic zippered bag containing some sort of fabric and a note. I pressed the note up against the plastic and read the blurred writing:
Marquis:
I think you should have this. After all, it is yours. Knit by Pam before you were born. I thought I’d give it to your first born, but… Anyway—I’ve always loved it, and you. —Mom.
And I just lost it. It was sudden, and I wasn’t expecting it. I nearly swallowed my tongue on the first unbidden sob. I went blind from the sudden deluge of tears, fumbling feebly at the zipper, extracting the little blanket. Pressing it to my face. Inhaling the smell of 30+ years of mom’s fresh, clean linen closet. Sitting there, shaking with silent sobs for twenty minutes. Going over the story as I recalled it:
…of a young Pam, heartbroken, giving up her first born, waiting until I was born, determining It’s A Boy! Hastily basting in a blue ribbon around the border. Imploring some frosty, bitch nurse, please, make sure this blanket goes with my baby, please!…
Bang. Gone.
Twenty-one years later, I met Pam during a trip to Seattle. And brought the blanket. “I got your message.” More tears.
But that story, for another day. I’m too ripped up to go into it now.
Back to our 31 year old Marquis, sitting on the hardwood floor in New Orleans, sobbing quietly into an ancient, sweet-smelling bit of personal history. Folding the delicate thing. Putting it back in the body bag, zipping it closed gently.
<HONK!> into a Kleenex. Onto the next thing:
I was jarred out of the Blanket Rêverie and into a bray of laughter so quickly I think my transmission was stripped.
Attached to the note was a black fuzzy sock. And I laughed, and cried some more, and howled, and was perplexed because the other day, all my socks matched and now I’ve got an odd number again.
Life is hard like that.
Picked up the next little thing. A bag with a note attached: “From Mimi [grandmother] — do you know what it is?”
I cut open the delicate ribbon and took out a cream-coloured felt pouch. In it was a bizarre silver Victorian slotted spoon/ladel thing, probably an olive spoon or some such turn of the century implement, etched with the family initial of my dear, departed and much-missed grandmother “Mimi,” who also did up xmas with an inimitable flare for most of my life. I know where mom got her talents.
“Mimi” died almost two years ago now, but I think about her every day. Can’t help it really, since much of the furniture in Château Bimbeaux came from her house in Virginia, including the piano.
I began a reminiscence of Mimi. Of driving down to Washington from Philly to see her. First thing out of her mouth, without fail, “Hello darlin’. I want to hear all about your trip down, but now you just sit down over there and play Chopin’s first and twenty-fifth Préludes for me and we’ll talk after that.”
And I’d always play for her. “Okay Mimi, here’s a piece by Rachmaninoff I’ve been working on. It’s pretty squirrely, but I think you’ll like it.”
“Oh lovely! That was just lovely! Thank you darlin’. Now play Chopin’s first Prélude again. And then I think I will have my bourbon. Just one, darlin’ Some ice, and just the smallest splash of water…”
I pressed the strange olive-strainer (or whatever it is) to my lips. It was cold as the grave.
More great silent shaking sobs, surrounded by grandmother, Pam, and mom, mom, mom all over the place.
I abhor xmas.
But I love my mommy.
Because she always manages to melt my stony, jaded, charred little heart.
No Crush o’ the Week today. My Heart Belongs to Mommy.
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