Still confused about the whole “me” or “I” thing, I see.
Listen, just slapping “I” in every sentence where there is a need for a pronoun for you isn’t going to make you seem smarter, my friend.
It will make you seem just the opposite to those who know the rules…
So what is the rule when it comes to “me” versus “I” usage?
Grammatically speaking, when you are the subject of a sentence, use “I.” When you are the object of a sentence, use “me.”
Yeah, I know… so what that means for you and me in plain English/American:
Simply take out the other name(s), noun(s), or pronoun(s) listed in the sentence with you and use whichever pronoun for you (I or me) you would normally use in the same sentence without them.
For instance:
A copy was given to Rick, Steve, and (me/I).
Copy is the subject. The people are the objects.
Without Rick and Steve in the sentence we would easily know to say:
A copy was given to me.
So, the correct sentence would read:
A copy was given to Rick, Steve, and me.
Another example:
Betty, Jane, and (me/I) are going to the library.
The three people are the subjects.
Without Betty and Jane, we of course would say:
I am going to the library.
So, the correct sentence would read:
Betty, Jane, and I are going to the library.
Piece of cake, right?
Of course it is. But that means you’ll have think (to do the grammar math) first before you speak so that may continue to cause you/us some problems.
Anyway…
Follow this simple grammar hack and you and me will get along just fine, my friend.
I’ve never heard of Canadian folk singer David Francey before yesterday but apparently he has heard of my boyhood hometown of Ashtabula, as he sings about it in this lovely song of his.
I also learned yesterday that his tour will bring him to my Southern Pennsylvania manhood hometown in October. How cool is that?
So, as I discussed at length in the first post in this series, I had vowed to never vote for a family member of any former president.
However, with John Kasich dropping out of the Republican Primary race (to hell), I no longer have any choice but to vote for the Democratic nominee, who, of course, will be Hillary Clinton.
For I will never, ever vote for the Donald Trump de Drumpf.
I saw a report the other day showing that 30% of Bernie Sanders supporters vowed they will never vote for Hillary Clinton.
I assume them to mean, then, that if Clinton wins the nomination, they will not vote at all in the general election because my mind simply cannot comprehend someone who is such an avid supporter of Socialist Sanders voting for the Orange Megalomaniacal Menace.
But make no mistake about it, not voting in the general election is essentially voting for Trump.
So, even if you are as disappointed as I am in that Trump and Clinton are the best my country can offer up for presidential candidates, I passionately urge you to plug your nose, close your eyes, wipe your tears and vote for Clinton by all means.
You will only feel dirty for at least the four years she is president.
It is better to feel compromised than to be culpable for completely destroying our country (a destruction begun with Dubya) with a Trump presidency.
I really believe that if Trump becomes president my country will become forever alien to its historic ideals.
Speaking of Dubya, I would say I am proud of him for announcing he will not support Trump.
However, as badly and distasteful as Trump was toward both his presidency and his brother’s candidacy, he had no choice but to not support him.
Sigh…
What a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in, America…
If the clouds could come & give me a ride
I would sit on them & sway away in delight
And ask them to take me in their cozy coat
Covering me all in the softness galore
Ask them to take me in the world up away
High up in the clouds where they say fairies stay.
As I reach there, I will learn a few skills to tap & whoosh & fulfill some wish
Wishes of all those who are in need.
Those wishes of cute eyes of kids crying for help.
The ones who are lost in war, with no one to help.
Those unanswered prayers of people with disease, the ones suffering & asking for relief.
Those hard to be fulfilled wishes & prayers with which are linked the needy’s care.
Wishes of such kind seems impossible in today’s time. There is so much going around in those with dirty minds,
Those who cause chaos & all the mess.
& are killing ruthlessly & causing much stress
I may sound kiddish to dream of fairyland & bring glitters of kindness with me in my hand
However it may sound, but I don’t mind
As long as I wish to bring some good in Mankind.
Often I wonder where does the “kind” go from man.
Maybe I’m thinking too much, what can I do, I’m a woman.
I was born to think,
That’s what many say.
Woman think a lot
They are made that way, and I think again, “Thank God that I think.”
It’s my thinking that makes me ponder, to be a better being.
Everyday I think & try to reach my soul.
And
today my thinking wants to take a tour
In the world of clouds, where they say Angels live.
With a hope to bring in my palm, some glitters of bliss
So I have few powers to whoosh away the pain
That causes chaos often unexplained.
I’m not the smartest or greatest dad there is. Not even close. I have many faults and made many mistakes over the years that I regret.
However, I do think I’m pretty good at understanding my faults and I work hard to minimize their impact to myself and others, especially to my family, as much as possible.
Even still… just because faults were minimized, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t impact from them from time to time. There was. I regret that.
But… we live and learn and live and relearn and one and on.
My daughter is my first child and when she was born I didn’t have a clue as to how to raise her.
I found out quickly though, that having children, and especially having the first child, is kind of like going to war.
No matter how much you plan for it, once the first shot is fired the best you can hope for is a campaign of organized chaos.
Fortunately, not long after she was born, I happened upon some useful information — probably from articles in a newspaper (remember those things?) — about the results of a couple of different studies.
I don’t remember the newspaper — probably the Stars & Stripes.
And I certainly don’t remember the studies or who conducted them so I cannot attest to the veracity of the reportage.
However, based upon my life experiences, what was reported seemed to speak the truth.
And from these apparent truths that I happened upon long ago, I was changed — or at least I sought to change — from their insights.
And from this change, I hope I became a better father to, not just my daughter, but to my sons as well. For I also hope that when my sons, too, have daughters– and based upon the make up of my lovely and loving wife’s family and mine, they probably will — they understand how their beliefs and, more importantly, their behavior can have such an impact on the outcome of their daughters’ lives.
The first thing I learned that changed my behavior as a father was…
The more education a father has the less the chance will be that his daughter will find herself in an abusive relationship as an adult.
The second was…
Girls with high self-esteem tend to have less sex during their middle and high school years and girls with low self-esteem tend to have more.
The inverse is true for boys.
It’s Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.
We’re going to be promoting our first Reward Package on Friday. If you would like to help me help you then please consider donating to help me make a movie and I will help you promote your book or other project. Huh?
Yeah.
So… I’m not going to be posting much for the next few months so please submit your work to one of the Relating to Humans features so I can post it to the blog in stead of my rambles and blather.
Can ya dig?
Anyway, here is some music that will make your toes tap and ears wiggle.
I may be mistaken, but it is my belief that we’ve all been to that dark, lonely place at least once or twice in our lives where we, and the lives we have led, seem…
Insignificant.
Less than.
Pointless.
It’s a scary place and one which I suspect, and hope, the majority of us visit only infrequently and fleetingly because our lives are fulfilling and rewarding enough to steer us clear from the depression that can lead us there.
However, I also suspect that there is a significant minority of us who visit this dark, lonely place more often and for longer periods than most since, according to NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly 19% of the United States’ adult population experience some degree of mental illness throughout the year [1]. And, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, major depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the United States [2].
I, myself, became a frequent visitor of this dark, lonely place not long after I began taking high doses of the steroid prednisone to combat a deadly disease that was destroying my lungs, and one which I was given little chance of surviving.
It was a hard enough to mentally process that my life may soon be ended by an aggressively fatal disease — pretty tough for anyone to process, I would imagine — but couple that bummer news with a steroid that induces psychosis-like side-effects and, yeah… double bummer.
Consequently, it wasn’t long before I found myself spending nearly as much time in that dark, lonely place as I was out of it.
It’s hard to explain what I and my mind were going through whenever I visited there. I’m not sure there is a way to describe it wholly in just a few words. It is both a tangible and intangible feeling. A cold feeling sometimes. A heavy feeling other times. But it was almost always a feeling of pointlessness. A feeling of… Why bother?
I was dying. My body had failed me and I had failed my family. The only thing I felt I was good for now were my less than adequate disability checks. Were I gone, my life insurance payout would have been much more rewarding and helpful for those whom my absence would release from the burdens my illness had placed upon them.
Yeah… I was down there in that indelible darkness of depression pretty deep.
Fortunately for me I had a saving grace — several of them, in fact.
One, the primary one, was a support network of family and friends who loved me, cared for me, and prayed for me.
Another, was that I like to write.
The Writing Hand
I began blogging shortly after my leukemia diagnosis. Nothing too deep or introspective — though scared, I was completely confident I was going survive — just updates to keep my friends and family informed of my health and happenings during my treatment.
But months later after learning my lungs were slowly dying away as a side-effect result from my bone marrow transplant, and having to begin a hefty prednisone regiment in an effort to slow the dying process down, my positive perspective on things changed significantly.
Though the drug-induced and drastic mood swings made it difficult to focus, I began to blog more often and about more personal matters. And while I regard my blogging experience during this difficult time as a very beneficial, therapeutic activity — an activity I presume many others regard beneficial as well, for a simple Google search of the term “writing therapy” resulted in around 259,000,000 results — it wasn’t helping me to shake the persistent feeling of irrelevance; of feeling that I others would better off if I were dead.
Fortunately for me, since I was spending more time thinking deeply about my life for my blog, I eventually began tinkering with my blog’s “About” page.
And this tinkering proved to be yet one more saving grace; for it led me on a path to try to discover things about myself that others might find interesting enough to inspire them to read more of my writing.
And once I began thinking in more of a self-promotional, third-person kind of way about my life, I began realizing and rediscovering things about myself that I found to be very special and unique.
For the next week or so, I stopped blogging altogether and, like a gold digger after finding his first valuable nugget, I worked passionately on mining through my past to dig up and write down all the meaningful nuggets I could find.
And when I was finally satisfied that my life was properly represented on the page, I began to craft the long, meaningful list of me into a voice that, when others read it, would be heard distinctly as mine.
When I was finished*, my “About” page was more than just being about me… it was me.
And even now when reading this long and winding written documentary of me, I am filled with a sense of gratitude and purpose so powerful that, even if I were to once again visit that dark, lonely place, I could never do so feeling as if my life were pointless and without meaning.
WARNING: This post attempts to make a bit of humor over various religions’ garb requirements
When I joined the US Navy in 1983, sailors were still allowed to wear beards. However, with the military, prompted by the dictates of its Cold War Warrior Commander-in-Chief and President Ronald Reagan, in a fast-paced process of snapping out of its ragtag and drug-laden Vietnam WarPolice Conflict low-standards hangover, the navy outlawed full beards in 1984.
After which, many o’ Old Salts requested to Go Ashore permanently, as they would rather quit or retire from service than retire their beards.
I was just a young “Boot Camp” of a wog at the time who could barely grow even a little patch of peach fuzz let alone a full beard, but I still remember how passionate my Senior Chief was about keeping his beard.
And this passion of his and other bearded Old Salts like him was stirred simply over a style choice and tradition, so I can only imagine how one must feel about the importance of keeping one’s beard as a religious requirement, which is exactly the passion three enlisted servicemembers who are of the Sikh religion must be feeling right now as they petition the military for exemptions to be allowed to wear their religion-required beards and turbans.
If I remember correctly, I believe the primary reason the Navy gave for no longer allowing full beards was that they did not allow for the proper donning of gas masks, which created a health and military readiness risk. Another, and probably a more driving reason, was that beards did not allow for the professional military appearance that the Top Brass was striving for.
My position on this has evolved over the years, as it has on many social issues.
Now I’m like, meh… the military makes many exceptions for many situations so why not these?
For example, many servicemembers are allowed to wear beards under a doctor’s order. This is common when, typically a male, is prone to get in-grown hairs from having to shave his face so often.
And as for turbans and other religious requirements…
Now, I’ll admit, all the various grooming and wardrobe requirements that all our various religions place upon us is, in my opinion…
Stoopid.
I mean, c’mon. All the goofy hats the Pope wears (hence the sarcastic saying in response to a obvious/stoopid question: Does the Pope wear a goofy hat?) is enough to outfit a circus show, not to mention all the goofy hats all the other religious leaders and religious wannabes insist on wearing.
CLICK THE IMAGE FOR ATTRIBUTION
Obviously I’m a bit skeptical about any religion that requires one to dress a certain way in order worship its god, so obviously I sympathize with the military and its position of restraint when allowing exemptions for, what I’m sure are way too many, all of the various religions’ various garb requirements and impositions.
Besides, the military, and especially the navy, is doing just fine with all its goofy hat requirements, as is evidenced by the hat that young “Boot Camp” of a wog who can barely grow even a patch of peach fuzz for a beard is wearing in that ancient picture on found on the sidebar…
However, as our nation is, and is quickly becoming much more, diverse, I can foresee it becoming harder and harder for the military to not allow for more and more exemptions in the future.
Besides, doesn’t this Royal Air Force officer look striking and professional in his militarily accommodating military garb?
These four words flew into the forefront of my brain along with what felt like gallons of blood as I was bent over the floor around my son’s desk retrieving his crumpled up artistic attempts. He is nearly 7 years old and a truly gifted artist. I do not say this because he is my son. A sharp pencil or pen and paper is his chosen medium and from the depths of his soul he creates beautiful and intricate abstracts and hilariously haunting caricatures. We are a homeschooling family therefore he is privileged to practice and delve deeper into his art every day for hours on end. I encourage it, I love it. This is what I want for my children, why I homeschool, so passion can arise organically and be nurtured.
As I am in his room tidying up and thinking “your dreams are dead,” I shout out to my husband “is this it for me, is my life over?” “Yes,” he says. He always answers my nihilistic questions nihilistically. To a large extent, he is right. In a permanent way that you cannot change your mind about like you can the dream of wanting to be a successful blogger or to own a Louis Vuitton bag, bringing children into the world is a dream all to itself. The dream of children trumps all other dreams. I remind myself of that anytime I despair about not having an aspiration to call my own or even an uninterrupted shower to call my own. I wanted this. These children were and are my dream realized. It is exciting to watch the unfolding of these beautiful human beings. And I am their mother. I am honored to be their safe-space, the place-holder as they venture in and out of their artistic worlds through play and meaningful work.
However. As I near my mid-30’s, I find myself being less and less content with this idea. I still have something to offer, I have ideas that flood my head nightly once everyone else is asleep and the silence settles in. There have been times when I felt disgruntled about life and have thought about this character that I have seen portrayed in television and movies of the overbearing mother who regrets that she never did anything with her life so she nags, meddles, cuts-down and eventually alienates her children. It could have been different if only she had made a life for herself outside of her role as wife and mother. This persona would top the list as the worst version of myself. I don’t want to envy my children and begrudge them of their dreams.
There is another way. And I already know where to start. I have been cultivating hopes and desires for people in my family for years. For a passion to bloom, a person needs tools, space and opportunity to create. My children deserve that. I deserve that. You deserve that. As adults, we have to make that happen for ourselves. There is no mother or father around to do it for us now, or maybe, ever. We are creative-space incarnate. No. More. Excuses.
Our vision for our short film LEAVE is to create a cinematic work of art that both entertains and inspires positive change. If you are a #WomeninFilm Los Angeles-based Director interested in captaining our production, please contact me.
It was my first encounter with the city of love and I was fortunate to stay with an aunt and uncle, who both being workaholics, left me with oceans of time to explore. I hurried out the door to experience the vast world of Paris with its majestic architecture, its towering cathedrals, its world-renowned art collections, its peaceful parks, and its crowds of people.
The air was spring like, mild and sunny, although I was spending my Christmas holiday away from my home in Denmark. Traveling by myself in a foreign world filled me with a sensation of pure freedom. I remember how my breathing felt different: effortless and silent but steady and consistent. It was breathing devoid of depression and anxiety. I breathed without past or future and let the air be present.
Walking along grand boulevards beneath a blue sky sporting white clouds I felt my loving heart circulate blood through my veins.
On my way past one of the many cafés lining the wide sidewalk, my sway caught the attention of a street performer playing his violin. As I danced by him he let go of his instrument and started to sing Ne me quitte pas. I stopped, turned around, and listened to his chanson. Was he performing especially for me?
My youthful disposition was romantic and I was attracted to him. At the same time, I could hear my mother’s voice: “I’m so proud to have brought up a good girl!” I didn’t move. When he was done with the song, he waved me over. I blushed but followed his hand. He grabbed mine and kissed it. I felt the touch of his soft lips. My skin everywhere reacted by turning prickly and my breathing intensified.
“Ma Cherie,” he whispered.
All of a sudden my body felt heavy and I pulled away. Caught between wanting to leave and wanting to stay, I sat down on a bistro chair.
“Please, I need a minute,” I uttered.
“Bien sûr!” he smiled.
He put his violin to his neck once again and with closed eyes, he played the sweetest melody riding through the air and penetrating the toughest disposition.
Paralyzed, I tried to think. Should I leave or should I stay? My sense of freedom had slowly vanished which made the decision so much harder. The guy was cute, romantic and talented.
A waiter came over and I asked for a café au lait. As more people gathered around to listen to the soft music, I started to relax. He didn’t sing again which made me feel special.
Immersed in the music, I let go of time. Slowly, the morning faded, noon hour came around, and with his violin case full of money, he sang out:
“La dernière chanson!”
From his slender body came Que je t’aime and I didn’t know where to look. My gaze fell on a young woman advancing hurriedly towards us and embodying a sense of pure joy. She stepped right up to my singer and kissed him on the mouth.
