To preface: Yes, I get emails from the AP Stylebook now. Just another perk of my new job.
In case you didn’t hear, people can now use “hopefully” as they’ve been using it for the last couple of decades and not technically be incorrect. I guess I should be happy that I will no longer waste time changing “hopefully” to “I hope that” when I edit, but I’m a little sad the times took over. Call me a dinosaur.
What’s next — “since” being allowed in purely causal situations? “Towards” being completely fine?
Fun fact: I remember being about 8 and reading a Baby-sitters’ Club book that contained a scenario of Claudia speaking with her genius older sister. She used the word “hopefully” and the sister (Janine? that sounds right) corrected her, saying “hopefully” should only be used to mean “in a hopeful manner.” It wasn’t until grad school that I offically learned she was right. Wish I’d paid more attention to that ghost writer’s grammar lessons back in the day.
“Yeah, so, this is funny. So, I drive down to Zanesville. My first interview is with Sheriff Lutz at one o’clock on a Monday afternoon. We talk for almost two hours, and I’m getting really excited about the story. I know I have one on the line, you know? So I said something like, “You know, it’d be awesome if you didn’t talk to anyone else about this.” And the sheriff said he had one more interview to do at three o’clock, and then he was done. I jokingly said, “So long as it isn’t GQ.” And he just kind of had a look on his face. I said, “Wait. Is it GQ?” And he said it was. I just about shit. I asked him four times if he was joking. What are the odds?”
Basically all I know about Lyle comes from his “What I’ve Learned” interview this month in Esquire. But I like a lot of what I know:
- I’ve always thought that writing isn’t really that hard. It’s having a good idea that’s hard.
- You don’t have to have anything in common with people you’ve known since you were five. With old friends, you’ve got your whole life in common.
- On matters of the heart, one’s reason can be affected in ways that just can’t happen in any other circumstance. The same sort of thought you might be able to apply in one area of your life you just cannot access from any functioning part of your brain. It’s completely unavailable to you. Which is sort of what’s wonderful about it.
- Here’s a question for you: Is it possible to be religious without being judgmental about other people’s religions?
- I’ve never been ready to do a single thing I’ve ever done in my life. I haven’t been prepared enough, haven’t studied enough, haven’t known enough. You can never be ready. There’s just so much to know.
Spending my Saturday night with songs I haven’t listened to since college (see: Jimmy Eat World, above) and a blank Word doc. Pretty good evening, all in all.
One of my good friends has started this blog to chronicle her Online Dating Project (with the goal of determining the best and — as seems to be the case most often — the worst of online dating in New York) as well as the unrelated but preposterous events that come from living in the city.
It’s funny. You should check it out.
(I also occasionally make cameo appearances, of sorts.)
(Source: andmonroe)
If you like music and/or writing about your life and/or reading about people and music, you should check out Rachael’s new project, Unbest. It was just conceived today, so there aren’t any entries posted yet, but I hope they’ll start coming in soon. As Rachael explains the point of the blog:
Unbest celebrates the inarguable: the music that impacted us (fans, writers, artists, publicists, listeners) in major and totally undoubtable ways this year. Music released whenever, by whomever, that crawled into our lives and lingered—for weeks, months, or maybe just one crucial/weird/fantastic afternoon. Ways that aren’t up for debate in blog comment sections or Twitter feeds or even over beers with friends. No bulleted list will do unbest justice.
It’s a pretty brilliant idea, albeit a simple one. After all, whose years are really defined by music that came out that year? Release dates don’t change the fact that I listened to Kanye’s “Runaway” on repeat every time I moved. Or that I rediscovered The Decemberists’ “The Engine Driver” (but fell in love with it for the first time) after seeing them live in February. Or that I had three songs — Lykke Li’s “Little Bit” and Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” and “Hang With Me” — on repeat for the last half of August because I didn’t really want to listen to anything else. I’m pretty happy that I’m not alone in this thought.
You’re secretly crazy, right? Tell me you’re cray cray. Beneath the grown up apartment and copious supply of band-aids and hydrogen peroxide and the lemon water you keep in a pitcher in a fridge, you’re paying your bills late or your boyfriend is a jerk or you slept through your best friend’s birthday party, right? You’re losing it. When people ask how you’re doing, you say, “I baked fresh bread today and mopped the floors and sent an important work email. I also bought a spice rack. HAVE YOU SEEN MY SPICE RACK?” You stand there holding the spice rack motionless like it’s supposed to answer the question for me. “How do you think I’m doing? I own a freaking spice rack!”
“Questions I Have for People Who Have Their Life Figured Out,” by Ryan O’Connell for Thought Catalog
