Spell Check

Tuesday, and it’s both early and warm. Is that why I’m awake so early? Once again there is no relief gained by opening the windows. But it does exchange stale air for fresh, even if the air is the same temperature.

As I was circling the park yesterday morning, I had some thoughts about art and how universal it is. It’s part of each of us, though we don’t always recognize it. If we define art, as I think we should, as anything we do to create “a thing” or a “feeling” that pleases us in some way. Painting and sculpture are obvious. But what about the cake you decorate? Or the flowers you pick and place in a vase? Mow the lawn? Play the flute? Trim the hedge? Build a fence? All of those things change your environment in a personal way and that is art. So why don’t we pay more attention to the development of our artistic senses? We allow kindergarteners to play with finger paints, a very direct art form that stimulates their artistic senses; and then it’s over. School is now all about those things that will bring in the money! The government holds that financial “carrot” and art, which makes us uniquely human, has no role in securing the money.  

2,480 is a large number; it’s the total number of posts I have made to my various blogs since Saturday, March 06, 2004. That was my first posting. Since my original intention was to practice writing, I guess I can say that I have done my practice. In fact, my original blog was “private” and I was the only one that could read it. (That doesn’t even make sense now?) And I’m not a better writer but it is fun! I think bloggers have to admit that fun is part of the attraction, though most may appear to be quite serious in their writings.

Before blogging, there was only the “vanity press”. You had to pay someone to print your thoughts and plenty of people did just that. I suppose that as the public becomes more accustomed to on-line reminiscing, the number of publishers doing vanity work will decrease.

Whoa! That scared me! Boo just jumped up (in the dark) and caught the window screen with her claws. A loud meow; almost in my face…she wants breakfast and she wants it now! OK, OK. I’m coming.

Back to blogging…I believe that blogs can turn you into a poor writer just as easily as a better one. Overuse makes some of us use shortcuts and in our haste to post something, anything at all…we don’t look at the post with a critical eye. Sentence structure? Spelling? Clear ideas? Something similar happened to me when I was a Hospital Corpsman; I had to write something in each patients chart at the end of each shift. There had to be an entry, even if nothing had changed. “3:30 PM. There was no change in the patient’s condition.” With 30 or 40 patients, it became a race to get it done before the end of the day. Handwriting skills disappeared first, then writing skills. You want to know why you can’t read the doctors handwriting? Every doctor has had the same experience.

Enough mental meandering; time to look at the news.