Writing tips from those who know

I cannot pick a favorite among these "30 indispensable writing tips from famous authors." Though I'm thinking it might be #17 (pictured).

America's smartest cities

I've lived in two of the 25 cited by The Daily Beast--Raleigh/Durham and Denver.

Pictured: Duke University Chapel

Hypochrondria in the age of Google and Osama

The New Yorker nails the essence of the malady of imagined maladies with this book review.

"For example, my therapist tells me that to worry unceasingly about getting cancer is as irrational as worrying about getting hit by a bus on Flatbush Avenue. In fact, I am terrified of getting hit by a bus on Flatbush Avenue, and I think he is the madman for being so cavalier on the subject. Has he been out there recently? Belling says that hypochondria is 'always ironic,' by which she means that, despite all its convolutions, hypochondria is always right. You will get sick and die. The question is only when and how. The bus is coming."

Squeak posing

A kitty with a soul, she was. I wanted to temper my earlier post with something I wrote a while back about the dearest kitty I have known:

A cat of note that I knew and loved died Sunday. Squeakus Maximus was singular, and I will mourn her always.

She had an epic full name, though she answered to just Squeak.  She came to me when I lived in a large country rancher. I wondered whether and how she would adjust when she went with me to a small downtown condo. Such a radical shift takes the starch out of some animals. Not Squeak. Oh, hell no.

She loved life on Kiowa Street. I didn’t let her outside, but she managed to maintain a friendship with the dog down the hall, sight unseen. She raced to the door when he walked his owner by for his morning and evening constitutionals, sniffing at the threshold and sounding her call.

She took to city living, sashaying around her place. She liked to lick lotion off my hands, a ritual we honored each night. She came when I called to her when I first woke, leaping on the bed with aplomb.

Named for a supporting character from “The Color Purple,” Squeak was both catty and sweet, with a witty wildness about her. She was a flat-out card.

When I moved to a house in a small town last fall, Squeak came into her own. She won the heart of her feline housemate, a cat with a reputation for standoffishness and dominance over other kitties. But like the rest of us, Smusch could not long resist. Smusch—in late middle age—sometimes rolled her eyes at and strolled haughtily away from the little black flibberjgigit. But she loved her. We all did, every one who spent a moment with Squeak.

In her new digs, Squeak got to go outside for the first time to explore. She was stuck up a tree for a weekend, but she came down when she was ready. She sharpened her claws in the great outdoors and watched the geese next door with wonder and disdain. And she grew. I don’t mean that she simply gained weight. She grew in length from a petite cat to merely smallish, as if she were adjusting to her new, bigger world.

My partner Deborah found her little body on the side of the street Sunday morning after we went looking for Squeak. It appears a car hit her. Her spirit, though, has since visited us a few times.

I woke Monday morning and called to her to jump on the bed before I remembered she was gone.

In the movie, Squeak’s namesake leaves home to make her mark in the jook-joint blues world. When we realized Sunday that our Squeak had left us, Deborah said softly, “Squeak has gone to sing.”

Squeak, you have a place to stop and rest from your travels anytime. We are so proud to have known you.

 

 

'Oh, god. Here she comes again'

There's always that one co-worker up in everybody's business.

Time says open floor plans encourage office dysfunction.

"And indeed, several decades of research have confirmed that open-plan offices are generally associated with greater employee stress, poorer co-worker relations and reduced satisfaction with the physical environment."

In my work experience, an open-floor-plan newsroom is functional because reporters are solitary and independent. That's the nature of the work and what the "beat" system promotes. You cover the Alcoa City Council and I go to the Blount County Commission and rarely shall the twain meet.

So it's not necessarily about walls. The final five years or so of my career, I had a separate office with a close-able door 30 feet from my nearest co-worker's office. Didn't stop me from muttering some variation of my headline when I heard her footsteps.

Every workplace has some mix of these characters from "The Office." Plus Meredith. Do not forget Meredith.

Kittehs are sociopaths

There is nothing on earth sweeter than a cat when he wants to be. I adore felines, but don't doubt that my headline is true.

So sorta says this research. The University of Georgia rigged kittehs with cameras to see what they do all day while you're out earning their kibble:

"Between November 2010 and October 2011, the "Kitty Cams" captured more than 2,000 hours of life in the seedy underbelly of neighborhood fauna, revealing that Princess Fluffywuffykins and her fuzzied ilk are likely killing a lot more critters than the precious gifts they leave for you and your dustpan on the doorstep."

After looking at the LOLcat photos at the end of the above article, you should be fine with the death and dismemberment. I know I am.

(Maniacal laugh)

Phelps wins 19th medal

The most-medaled athlete in the modern Olympics is 420-friendly. Just sayin.'