There will be blood. Insurance information will be exchanged.
April 12th, 2008
I was going to write my first blog, but then there was a car accident.
I had just cracked open the laptop and started to write, and by that I mean I wanted to check my theory on whether Omar Gooding actually is Cuba Gooding, Jr. and he had changed his name after he stopped hosting Wild and Crazy Kids.
Sidenote: I wonder if anyone has ever opted to become a junior in the name-changing process. Would that be a way to force someone to adopt you? Maybe if you really didn’t like your own dad, but your best friend’s dad invited you on family vacations and taught you how to drive stick. Things to look into.
So as it turns out, Omar Gooding is the youngest brother of Cuba who had stopped hosting the kid’s show on Nickelodeon to go on to be sentenced to 18 months probation on gun charges in the mid-90’s.
Just when I was about to see what Brad (Kelly Brown) from Hey Dude was up to lately, we heard squealing tires with a satisfying thud from outside. Knowing immediately that we were going to see a good old-fashioned Port Richmond car wreck, I threw on my rain boots, grabbed the dog and hurried outside before the accident disappeared. As our neighbors have told us before, we live on the corner of “Gunned the Red” and “Didn’t Even Know there was a Traffic Light,” but I can’t say I was prepared for the scene 15 feet away from our house. From what we could gather, the minivan with the accordioned hood hit the car that was standing on its side with the windshield nestled comfortably up against the traffic light. All I could think was how I’d never seen the underside of a car before. Tons of neighbors I’ve never met stood on porches and gathered in small groups to theorize about the position of the cars, like someone had just won a game of pool with some impossible shot.
Maybe I should bring something to the next accident, like some chips and guacamole. We could all take turns bringing snacks and coffee. I could take minutes and volunteer to keep a white board calendar with lists of names and ask whose turn it is on the rotation to bring the frozen margaritas. Tikki torches? Things to consider before the next accident. More »
Life is no way to treat an animal. - KV
April 12th, 2008
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s death.
One thing I learned from his book, A Man Without Country, which I finished reading just days before his passing, is what he said about semicolons. Never use them. They are useless and the only people who use them (to connect two sentences, I assume) are pretentious and simply want to show off the fact that they know how to use a semicolon. Good to know. I haven’t used a semicolon in my writing since. Any writing I care about, anyway. I would like you to never use a semicolon ever again, either. I’m not sure that using a semicolon makes you pretentious or if using a semicolon is merely a symptom of pretense already in progress, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.