I write bad poetry.

I was going to title this post “untitled,” but that seemed sorta lame. Usually, when I settle in to write something, I have some kind of title in my mind; sometimes it is related to whatever I want to write about, and sometimes it is a word or a phrase running through my mind at that exact moment ... and may or may not have anything to do with what I am writing about.

My writing students used to agonize over titles — as if anything significant, content-wise, in a piece of writing is included in the title. I gave them a couple of rules regarding titles: 1. Keep it brief (usually 1 to 4 words), and 2. Capitalize correctly (first word, last word, and all the “important” words in-between).

Which brings up an interesting point: Who gets to decide which words are important? Technically, I guess, title-wise, this means you do not have to capitalize the prepositions and the articles in a title ... unless, of course, any of those happen to be the first or last words. But then again: Who says articles — the words a, an and the — can be considered UNimportant?

Think they don’t matter? Quick, look up anything on the Internet — preferably something from a news site, but what the hell, any old blog will do! — and try reading a paragraph or two, sans articles.

(I am serious: DO IT!)

See? The English language sounds pretty strange without those little words!

This is not the direction I expected this post to take. This is, however, a perfect example of why I am, yes, a grammar geek.

Not to be confused with the various characteristics that classify me as a dork.

“But you’re a good kind of dork,” my friend Jack told me.

(I took this, very much, as a compliment.)



I actually managed to write a page or two of fiction the other day (I think it was Friday, but I honestly cannot remember). Nothing earth-shattering or anything, but by the time I was done, I realized what I had written was basically some soft porn.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

I also realized it wasn’t very good, but ... what do I know? So, later, I reached for some Anaïs Nin.

I had never read anything by Nin until a few years ago when one of my tennis buddies recommended her writing to me. Which I found oddly flattering because the only writing of mine that this girl had read was my newspaper work, mostly sports and columns — and at that point, we had never discussed authors or books we had read or anything, really, other than life and tennis and what-not.

“I think you would like Anaïs Nin’s writing,” she told me.

I had no idea, at that moment, that Nin was known, at least in part, for writing erotica.

(My friend was correct, by the way; I mean, who wouldn’t like erotica??!)

: )

Ah, where was I going with all this?

I do not know, and now it’s too late to figure it out.