Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 188

Grammarly: I’m Just Not Sure

Krissie is the last stages of copy editing her book and wanted to know if I knew of a way to get a word frequency list in Word.  (I don’t.)  One of the things I tried was this new app called Grammarly which is being advertised all over the place. Essentially, you download it into your computer, and it lurks in the background, leaping out at you with red lines whenever you type something wrong anywhere.  I tried it on a Word doc, thought “Hell, Word does all of this already” and deleted the app.  Except it didn’t delete.  

I’m sure if I went back in, I could figure out how to get it out of my laptop, but I’m starting to rely on it because it’s not just for Word.  Turns out, it also checks the posts I write in WordPress and, even more helpful, any comment I write in any comment box anywhere.  Given how remarkably easy it is to screw up a comment, that’s a real plus.  Plus the fixes for a mistake are easy and elegant.  

For example, if I make a mistake, Grammarly underlines it in red; when I click on the red, a box opens up and gives me three choices: click on the spelling Grammarly likes, add my spelling to the dictionary, and a third choice that offers a more detailed explanation of why it redlined your word.  So I can fix a word I’ve misspelled with one click, or I can enter my version into the dictionary with a different click (which I just did for “Jeo” which Grammarly really wants to change to “Joe.”  I’m not completely sure that part’s working, but then I did delete the app).  

As I said, I really like this.  But there’s something about having this program lurking underneath everything I do that’s a little unnerving.  Plus it really, really wants me to upgrade to its paid version (the basic app is free), and I’m just not that interested right now..

Anybody else here using this app?  What do you think?

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Lennon on Happiness

That John Lennon quote to the left is famous, but I’m on the teacher’s side.  I think a goal to “be happy” is like a goal to be “well-fed.”  It’s a goal, true, but it’s unattainable without action, so how are you going to get there?  And “what do you want to be when you grow up?” is a perfectly good action goal, although a dumb question to ask children; that’s a question to ask adults, most of whom haven’t completely grown up (aka dropped dead) yet.  (Also, he really did not understand the question.)

Sometimes happiness just happens–the sun breaks suddenly through the clouds and stops us in our tracks with the beauty of the world, somebody we love laughs in joy and delight, we’re transfixed by a moment of absolute peace–but more often, happiness comes about because of something we did, something we made, something we caused to happen.  What I’m saying is that “I want to be happy when I grow up” is the equivalent of “I don’t want to be poked in the eye with a sharp stick when I grow up.”  EVERYBODY wants to be happy.  How are you going to get there?

So what did you do to be happy this week?  And as long as we’re talking, what do you want to be when you grow up?

(Also, my mother is 92 today.  Happy birthday, Jo, and thanks for those tough-as-an-old-boot genes!)

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Cherry Saturday, April 28, 2018

Today is Go Birding Day, which evidently means you’re supposed to go out looking for birds.  This seems odd to me since they’re all over the place, and you can just sit in the yard with a bunch of birdseed or bread crusts and watch the little buggers come to you, engaging in what might be called cage matches over the good stuff except they’re not in cages.  If you live in northern New Jersey, shortly after you strew the seed and bread, the bears show up, so you might as well go inside and get a nice cuppa and watch the birds flit by the window, cussing out the bears in Bird.  

Or just draw a bird (Draw A Bird Day was April 7, but nobody checks):

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This is a Good Book Thursday: What’s On Your Bookshelf?

I’ve been tossing books.  I know that seems like anathema, but I have way too many (and I left 95% of them behind when I left Ohio), thanks to my eyes I don’t read paper easily anymore, and I’d rather use the shelves for yarn.   (My iPad, however, is packed with titles.)  Still, there are books I will not throw out even though they’re falling apart.  My Pratchetts.  My ancient copies of The Uninvited and Green as Spring.  (Must read The Uninvited again to see if it holds up.)  Good Omens.  And of course a boatload of books on devils and demons and Hell, all scribbled over so now no library sale will want them.  Those will go at the end.  

Where was I?

Oh, right.  What books are permanent on your shelves, even if you’re switching to an e-library?

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Working Wednesday April 25, 2018

I’m working, I’m working.  Really.  House to clean, pasta to make, two afghans and three shawls to put borders on (borders are like sleeves, the last damn thing), a book to write (clearly now a romance which I’ve forgotten how to write), dogs to bathe. dreary rainy day to glower at (rain is good, though): I have things to DO. 

What are you making?

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The Color of Happiness

It’s not exactly breaking news that color has an effect on mood, but that’s all science stuff.  What I’m realizing is that color’s effect on my mood depends on where I am in time and space.  I had a purple and blue bedroom once that made me extremely happy.  Then I had a Zen green bedroom that made me extremely happy.  Now I have a pink and green bedroom that makes me extremely happy, especially since I have a pale green night table with a heavy green glass water goblet on it, and beside that is a green striped ceramic thingy with Q-tips and tweezers and a nail file in it.  It has a pink rose on it which makes me extremely happy.  I would not be nearly as happy if the rose were red.  I have no idea why this is,  I just know that I look at those colors and I am happy.  I think that’s all I need to know.

What color was your happiness this week?

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Cherry Saturday, April 21, 2018

Today is National Tea Day (in US and UK and possibly other places, but not International Tea Day because that’s December 15, no, I don’t why there are two Tea Days, drink up)..  My favorite is peppermint, but I am open to many others because tea is just a good thing (okay, not the fruit-flavored ones) and also with tea you often get cookies.  Even better, you get teapots, which I adore which is why I have so many.  Basically, tea is just a good thing that deserves its own day.  Let’s celebrate.  Bring cookies.    (The teapot above is a one-cup from Appletree Design.  I did not buy it.  I did buy the Sugar High Social cookie jar, though:

Full disclosure: After I wrote this post, I went to look for the one-cup on Amazon and bought it there.  Because you can never have too many teapots.  Also, the cookie jar is on Amazon, but I did not pay that price because I had already bought it on markdown at Zulily.  I’m not good with money, but I’m not insane.

 

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This is a Good Book Thursday, April 19, 2018

I read Skinny Dip again since I’d recommended it.  Still love it.  My Heyer binge is over along with my Rex Stout binge, so I haven’t been obsessively reading.  I think I’m going to skip the Comey book; I read the Fire and Fury book and that was enough, especially since the ongoing story is hard to top: Michael Cohen’s mystery client is Sean Hannity?  Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.  Sorry.  (Not sorry.  Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.)  I do have several new books I got because of Bookbub including Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About because I loved the sample and Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It because it’s time I got the basics in something besides English (my Spanish needs a lot of help and my French and Italian are pretty much non-existant).  Also The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Composting.   I have plans, Big Plans.

So what are you reading?

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Working Wednesday: April 18, 2018

I’m working on the disaster area that is my kitchen and actually making progress.  It’s not clean yet, but it’s not as horrifying as it was.  This is Kitchen Week, and I figure if I just keep at it every day, I can have the sucker clean by Sunday.  At which point it will be Living Room Week.  The problem is, I shut down when it gets truly cold and dark, so I’ve got four months of hermit slobbishness to clean up.  I can do it.  Probably.  .  And I got a lot done on the afghan I started in November of 2016,, so there’s that.  And I fixed a hole in the first act of Nita.  I worked.

So what did you work on this week?

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This is Good TV Tuesday (A One-Off Post, Not a Series)

I had lunch with my agent, Meg, Saturday, just because we hadn’t seen each other in such a long time.  Also, I love Meg.  We caught up about kids and general social stuff and then got started on TV.  Like me, she is cordless, getting her moving pictures from Amazon and Netflix and other streamers, and we got started on that “Have you seen this?” thing you do when you talk about TV.  What really surprised me is that I hadn’t seen any of hers and she hadn’t seen any of mine.  I thought we were soulmates.  What happened?

Meg’s picks were deeper and more serious, more emotional that mine.  She went for The Americans, The Good Wife, Homeland, (I know they’re good, I just can’t face drama right now)and The Detectorist (Toby Jones!).  I’m sure those are all great, but right now I want escape, not More Bad News.  So I pitched my usuals: Leverage, Life on Mars (UK version only, do not watch on Hulu), Galavant, and Person of Interest.  I figured iZombie and Legends of Tomorrow would be a bridge too far, as probably would Legion and Limitless.  Looking at the two lists, I realized that I’ve been avoiding reality, or at least realistic TV, but given that the greatest reality show of all time is unspooling right now in real life (Michael Cohen’s third mystery client is Sean Hannity; I defy you to think of a reveal this good on fictional TV, probably excepting the end of the first season of The Good Place.), I’m getting enough realism thanks.  Give me compentence porn in capers, time travel, singing serfs, and okay, PoI is not exactly a laff riot, but that community is so good, I escape there anyway.

We both agreed that we’ll have to binge The Good Place as soon as possible, so that might be a place where we’ll meet.  Then she leaned back and said, “This really is the Golden Age of television,” and I had to agree.  The storytelling on the tube right now is amazing.

So I know we missed a lot of good stuff–neither one of us watches enough to keep up-to-date plus no cable so we miss a lot–so what else is out there that’s good?  Don’t worry about us sneering at your picks; remember I’m the big Legends of Tomorrow fan.  Also, this is not a new weekly series.  It’s all I can do to keep up with four now.  

So whatcha watchin’?

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