Yesterday, as i was riding the bus home early because I was coming home sick, a young man got on the bus. He handed the bus driver a ticket, and then made some gestures like he needed to say more.

After trying to understand him for a moment, the bus driver said, “I speak six languages, but I do not speak American Sign Language.”

The young man gave up and sat down.

He had been motioning that he wanted to write something down. But he didn’t have any paper. I happened to have a pad on me.

I took it out, and wrote down:

What do you need?

I handed him the pad and pen:

I told him that I did paid ticket at the metro rail transfer to bus should give me ticket is some

You want another transfer?

I gave him my ticket need to change a bus ticket. also i paid ticket at the metro rail machines

You need another tranfer or what? a ‘transfer’ is a ticket that lets you get on the next bus.

I need a ticket because my grammar isn’t good. but most of time I using on american sign laguage.

Well, if you need another bus pass, you need to pay for it. He will give you one.

I did gave him of my ticket. I was paid a ticket machine at the metro rail, can rail transfer to bus don’t need I another to pay a ticket just I gave him give me one a ticket. if I not paid only metro rail it mean i can’t get another a ticket

Do you need something else? You are riding the bus now

Just forgot about that I’ll pay other but I knew depend on the people force to the people to pay but i knew about rule MTA

Then it was time for him to get off the bus. He blew me a kiss and held his hands to his heart, mouthing the words ‘thank you.’

He was very nice, I thought. A nice deaf young man.
I really wish I could have understood what he meant.

All this, I write, to illustrate the
IMPORTANCE OF GRAMMAR

There are times when it is very important to be understood. Constructing sentences with subjects, objects, verbs and prepositions really helps out with being understood.

I wish that boy luck, but man, he needs to study his grammar.

I have not been writing so much on my blog lately. I feel dully guilty about this.

But not too guilty, because I have been trying to write a lot in other places. Places like my hard drive, which are not published.

I like publishing my writing, and I like my blog. Before I had my blog, I spent a huge amount of time writing emails. Emails are at least read by ONE person, I hope. I enjoy the attention, I have to say.

My email style tends to the ponderous, however. I think what I say is generally interesting, but it can get really long.

I guess I’m an e-conversation hog.

A few years ago, I noticed myself getting embroiled in long and involved, complicated e-conversations. I found myself composing the emails in my head as i went about my life: “…and this illustrates my previous point…”

This began to worry me. How much of one (or two or three or four) people’s attention could I monopolize? I thought that my emails were no longer really working well in the medium I was using.

But I was impressed by what I had written, I felt that I had reached some new understanding through the discourse. I didn’t throw them away.

But I realized that the effort I was putting into these writings was inefficient. I should put my creative energy into something a little more universal than a RE: subject line could encompass.

I thought I should spend time writing for real, not emails.

But I missed the audience. I missed knowing that it would be read.

It seemed empty, words not read like a tree falling alone in the forest. Did they really matter?

I was very pleased with the arrival of blogs. I have tremendously enjoyed my blog. Recently, I have been pushing really hard to write and post and post. I enjoy posting. And I really like posting on Blogcritics, because the readership is even larger there.

But I am brought up once again. I have the same problem with the blog that I had in email. My blogposts are somewhat ponderous. The popular blogs, it seems to me, are not as wordy as mine. People don’t want to spend a half and hour reading something on a computer monitor.

Well, it depends what it is. Maybe if it’s REALLY GOOD, then they might.

So. Then I have to be REALLY GOOD if I want to follow my inclination to ramble on and on.

Or maybe ( and here we are at the same place again) the blog is not the proper medium for some of the things I feel like I need to write.

Blogs seem to be an Extrospective kind of writing. People are commenting on politics, on popular culture, movies, TV, music, whatever. Toss off an opinion, a fact, a perspective, this seems to be what blogs are good for.

I can do that. I throw out my take on various subjects, books and movies especially. I think I do it reasonably well, although one commentor recently gave me the distinction of writing the worst movie review ever (it was for Waiting for Guffman).

But what about introspective? This particular posting is introspective. I’m not apologetic about it, but I realize that it invites a different readership with a different mindset than the extrospective stuff.

And maybe that mindset is not engaged by the computer screen.

AND

maybe the type of writing that I am trying to do needs a little more room than a blogpost can comfortably give me.

Interesting tangent:
I wonder how large MT allows posts to be? Hmm…

Blogposts have to achieve some kind of completion at the end. But writing, the kind that you get up and do for 2 hours every morning, does not need completion before you stop. The point is, it’s bigger than you can accomplish at one sitting.

And maybe that’s the next rung.

I admit, it is very satisfying to write a blogpost and finish it. It takes more discipline and organization to work on a long story and finish it.

I’d like to write longer stories though.

And I’ve been trying to work on it. Which is why my posting has slowed a bit.

It’s a shift of focus.

In this new place I life, LA, appearances seem to be pretty important.

Homes are a part of that. Here’s an article for the LA times about the zeitgeist:

Keeping Up With the Jonesing

“Having the time and money to build your own home used to be one of the perks of wealth. McMansion buyers, by contrast, are the working wealthy. Many of them labor long hours to pay the massive mortgages on their massive houses. For them, it’s more practical to buy a previously designed place that projects an aura of wealth, prestige and personal achievement—off-the-rack opulence, if you will—rather than create a unique architectural symbol of high culture and refinement. If you want individuality, you can always sink some bucks into unique landscaping or remodel that useless formal dining room into a private pool hall.”

This makes me sad. Individuality is important. It’s one of the things that makes a neighborhood charming. Heck, it’s what makes people charming.

It seems wasteful to have a huge rattley home that doesn’t suit your family’s needs. You shouldn’t live your life for other people, and you shouldn’t buy a house just because other people will be impressed by it.

Especially the cost is so high, it takes you away from your family.

It’s important to pop your head up for air once in a while.

I remember a friend saying that people will spend a lot of time reducing discomfort, but don’t spend very much time increasing comfort.