Just now, I was working on an email that includes a lesson about when to use "awhile" and when to use "a while." And after... well, a while, that "while" and "awhile" business started to look mighty weird. Almost like they weren't words at all but just a meaningless collection of letters.

If you've ever experienced such a phenomenon, then you've felt semantic satiation. Instead of paraphrasing the Wikipedia article, I will simply point you there, should you want to learn more about it.​

​If you didn't know the sensation of semantic satiation before, I'll bet you do now. :)

That's the name of a 1935 song I've listened to a zillion times—sometimes as a recording by Fats Waller or Louis Armstrong, but most often, belted out by my father, who (as I've mentioned before) adored that sort of music.

Unlike the protagonist of the song, however, I'm not inspired by romance. My goal is sanity. Or perspective, anyway.

See, I've noticed that, depending on circumstances, I can regard the world in drastically different ways.

When I'm approaching the deadline a large writing project, I can be filled with dread, self-doubt, and self-recrimination (for procrastinating). But then, at some point in the writing process, I find myself thinking, "Say! This is really good! I actually love this!" See the discrepancy there? Persona A: pained, fretting, reluctant victim. Persona B: fortunate, fulfilled, happy professional.

Similarly, when circumstances in my life get troublesome, I catastrophize. I am preternaturally talented at this. I can envision loved ones in prison or dead; I can enumerate all the ways my health might fail. It's not that I truly believe the worst is going to happen, exactly; but I sure can picture it. I have a terrific imagination, which can also be a terrible imagination. Eventually however, when my circumstances improve, I can recognize how silly I've been. I'm flooded not only with relief, but optimism. I admonish The Worrier in me and my whole outlook brightens.

So here's what I'm thinking. Why don't I write myself a letter?

When I'm feeling like a self-possessed copywriting pro, why don't I write a letter to the neurotic, tortured incompetent who will certainly show up at some point? I might set down assurances like, "I know you're nervous. But I promise you with absolute certainty: You are going to be fine, and this project is going to turn out great. Just keep on writing. Every word you type will get you closer to a finished result that you love. Go on."

Similarly, at one of those moments when my temporary troubles abate and I see my way out of doom-filled concern into sunshiny rationality, I should write my former (and future) fretting self: "Just cut it out, worrywart. First, it doesn't do you any good. Second, what you're envisioning is truly preposterous."

If I write to myself, I could help myself.

Come to think of it, though, maybe I don't need to write a literal letter. I believe this blog post will do the trick nicely.

Yours sincerely,

​Sara

The good news is that I've been busy lately.

The bad news is that I haven't had time to do all the stuff I love to do, including writing for me. I've started a LinkedIn article called "Don't Write Like a Psychopath" that I can't wait to finish. I've been invited to write a blog for the fine folks at CreativePro.com but haven't had a chance to do it just yet. And I want to put together the Ignite talk I'm giving at CreativePro Week in June, but that's not happening just yet.

But dangit, I'm going to write a blog right now, and everything else can wait. I'm going to make this quick—and hopefully compelling and/or informative.

• I attended Crop last week in Baton Rouge, and it was FABulous. I'm so glad I went. In addition to learning from and meeting some amazing designers, I got to spend several hours in New Orleans eating a great meal at Atchafalaya and walking up and down Magazine Street.
• I've been binge-listening to My Favorite Murder, the wildly popular true-crime comedy podcast. I'm not sure I'm ready to call myself a murderino, but I may be getting there.
• I've gotten involved with a great freelancing group in Denver. We're going to host Freelance Business Week in Denver September 30–October 4, 2019, should anyone want to speak, attend, or volunteer.
• I got help from Drew Hornbein and I now have sign-up pages for two emails I send out. One is a listing of events in the Denver-Boulder area that freelancers, graphic designers, and other creative types might appreciate; the other is an email that includes the little grammar/spelling lessons I've been sharing on social media. Feel free to sign up!
• I attended the Ad Club Freelancer Fling this week, and it was a great opportunity to share my wonderful new business cards, designed by my friend Michael Reardon. Each card has a different fun word and definition on the back, including "sesquipedalian," "collywobbles," and "hornswoggle."
• I've been volunteering a lot lately, not only for the aforementioned freelancers group but for the wonderful Sister Carmen Food Bank, AIGA Colorado, and The One Club for Creativity Denver. 
• This weekend, I'm getting together with 11 of my friends from college--an event I look forward to every year.

​
Those are the highlights. Consider this weblog updated!

We live in a time when I need to say this: Nazis are bad.

And I could use this space to analyze when the word "Nazi" has managed to qualify as amusing, and when it hasn't, and why. But that's not what I want to focus on.*

Let's leave the word "Nazi" aside for a few minutes and instead talk about the common prototype of  a dictatorial, hairsplitting, pedantic, shrill, strident curmudgeon who haughtily corrects everyone around her. Call it a grammar cop. Or a grammar dominatrix. A grammar fire-breathing dragon.

I'm none of those things.

What I am is a language lover. I'm a fan of clear, well-crafted sentences. And yes, I've been known to cringe when I hear or see errors of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and the like. But I'm not going to push anyone's nose in their mess and shame them for making a mistake.**

Instead, I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume that all of us are doing our best. We've all had different upbringings and educational opportunities, and we all have different kinds of brains. (Some people, for example, are predisposed to utter spoonerisms or misspell words. You can blame your genes.)

For those who want to write and speak more clearly and correctly, I will happily share what I know and try to provide assistance. Almost daily, I post little spelling and grammar hints (many of which you can see here) on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I want to help people distinguish between "me," "myself," and "I" and know their "they'res" from their "theres."

Essentially, my attitude toward language is one of fascination and appreciation. I want to share my enthusiasm. I want spread the love. And there's nothing Nazilike about that.

I'm so sorry, whoever you were.

I suspect it happened during a game of Spin the Bottle at somebody's bar mitzvah. I'm sure it involved insecurity and mortification on my part. I'm certain it was a boy I kissed. But honestly, that's about all I can report.

My childhood memories are... spotty. I can remember the physical layout of my childhood home in great detail, inside and out. I remember the name I gave a cactus that sat on my bathroom windowsill (Horatio), probably because I labeled it with a machine like the one shown here. ​I'll never forget the aroma of the disinfectant powder that got sprinkled on kids' vomit at school. I remember my friend Amy's port wine stain birthmark and my friend Stephanie's phone number. I remember a time I saw a huge white rat in our backyard that turned out to be a possum. There are scenarios and personalities and happenings I can pull up, vaguely. But as for recalling exact sequences of events? No way.

So now, when I read (or listen to) memoirs, as I often do, I am just *astonished* by authors' abilities to recall precisely what they lived through. Currently, I'm listening to Small Fry, by Steve Jobs' daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. She recounts in great detail specific conversations she had, when and where she had them, and what each of the interlocutors were wearing. How? How?

Well, she kept journals, which can certainly help. If you read David Sedaris's Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977–2002, you can see that his meticulous (obsessive?) record-keeping is a big part of his skill as a memoirist and raconteur.

I do have a box of old diaries, so I suppose I might be able to jog my memory and recreate a few series of events. But for now, I'm just going to keep enjoying—and marveling at—other people's stories.

P.S. If you love good memoirs as much as I do, let me know your favorites. Some of mine are The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner, and The World's Strongest Librarian: A Book Lover's Adventures by Josh Hanagarne (about growing up with Tourette Syndrome in a Mormon family). Oh, and of course Educated by Tara Westover is great. And all these memoirs by comedians. And so many more.

As a freelance copywriter, I hear this career advice over and over: "You have to have a niche." To which a voice inside my head whines, "But I don't waaaaaaant to have a niche." (I can't even decide whether I want to pronounce that word "nitch" or "neesh." Please don't make me commit my entire career to one skinny vertical.)

Here's the thing. When it comes to effective advertising and marketing, it's really all the same: You are communicating with human beings. First, you identify what your target customer cares about: What do they yearn for? What are they anxious about? What hurdles do they face? You figure out how [insert product or service here] will improve this target customer's life. How will it eliminate their headaches? How will it save them time, money, or effort? And how will they know that it's the best solution, both before and after their purchase? And how can you get your message across to them in a way that resonates?

I've advertised mutual funds and wedding cakes. I've marketed private schools to discriminating families and washing machines to laundromat owners. B2B, B2C, healthcare, software, décor, travel—you name it, I've probably done it. And if I haven't, I feel certain that I could.

But recently, I do keep asking myself: What do I enjoy working on? And who do I enjoy working with? And here, I'm beginning to sense some discrimination.

With such musing, I experience a certain kind of delight: the same one I relish whenever I have my eyes examined at the optometrist's office. "Which is better," the doctor asks me as I peer through various lenses at the letters on the eye chart. "This? Or this?" "Is it better now? Or now?"

I absolutely LOVE that part of eye exams. I love considering the two competing options, occasionally asking to see them again, and then announcing my answer with confidence. And I love knowing that with every honest, accurate declaration, I am getting one step closer to a vision prescription that is going to improve my life.

Similarly, I may be narrowing my freelancing focus just a teeny bit. My interests remain broad, admittedly, but I'm beginning to ask myself the question "Which is better?" more frequently. And giving more consideration to every answer. I can't wait to see what kind of career prescription I end up with.

I was just visiting a website and a pop-up window gave me two choices. I could either click on a big orange button that read, "Yes, I Want Access!" or I could instead click on grey, unembellished text beneath it that said, "No, thanks, I don't want the FREE online course. I'll let my competition watch instead."

I just couldn't bring myself to click on the "No thanks" text. I searched for the discreet little X to close the pop-up. Thank God for that nonjudgmental little X, because anyone who chooses the "No thanks" text is clearly a rube. A boob. A chump.

Now, I'm sure that such pop-up windows are effective—I see them all the time these days. But they're just so... heavy-handed. They're like a salesman who leaps directly in your path, thrusting himself into your personal space, demanding "just a minute of your time."

"Hi, there, friend," he begins, uninvited. "I have just a quick question for you. Do you want to be happy, healthy, and sexually fulfilled? Would you like to eat all the fried foods and desserts you crave but never gain an ounce? Would you like to double your income, your physical endurance, and your lifespan? Would you like to eliminate fatigue, wrinkles, and anxiety? Would you like to regain your youth, double your salary, and bring back your favorite pets from the dead?"

"Or would you instead like to ruin absolutely everything? Would you prefer to live in incessant pain and regret, weeping yourself to sleep at night only to be plagued by a stream of harrowing nightmares? Would you like to be kidnapped and tortured by bandits, infested by intestinal parasites, and covered with an itchy, unsightly rash?"

"The choice is yours, friend. You can enjoy boundless pleasure and fulfillment, or settle for crushing disappointment and despair. So: What'll it be?"

I'll opt for the little X, please.

I keep several lists of words.

One is called "words I can never remember," and I reach for it when aphasia strikes me. (One time, I couldn't remember the word "aphasia," and I knew the universe was mocking me.)

One list is called "words that sound good." This includes "Kinshasa" and "calliope."

My "words I like" list includes "hobgoblin" and "calamity."

My "more good words" list has "perfidy," "calumny" and "shamble."

Then I have this list that I add to when I read. It's for all those times I encounter a word and think, "I should use that word! It's so great." ​

Notice anything about the words I appreciate? Lots of them are negative in some way. Contempt. Depravity. Pernicious. Degrading. Debauchery.

Is this proof that I'm twisted?

I don't think so. I believe that negative words tend to be powerful. Dramatic. Amusing. They tap into the darker side of life, where all sorts of visceral emotions lie.

I think "diabolical" beats "angelic." "Dastardly" is better than "upright." "Malevolent" wins over "innocent."

​What do you think? What are your favorite words?


​

 "Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

I grabbed the previous statement from this article, but you can find countless similar passages online. Most of them have a congratulatory angle about how "You msut be a gneuis if yuor'e albe to udnretsnad tihs srcamelbd txet."

But you're not a genius. You're doomed.

Because when your brain automatically makes incorrect words seem correct, then how the heck are you supposed to identify misspellings? And don't say "autocorrect." Autocorrect is a conniving backstabber. If you write, "Libraries serve the pubic good," for example, autocorrect will just whistle nonchalantly and look the other way.

I am a professional copywriter, and a perfectionist by nature. And yet, I overlook spelling errors quite often. Too often. And I hvae olny my gneuis brian to blmae.

My memory of my childhood is a little on the foggy side. So I thought I'd take a look at an old diary and see what the hell went on when I was a kid.

Here's what I notice about  my nine-year-old diarist self: I was either not very expressive about my emotions, or I was a stone-cold psychopath.

​Shortly after my ninth birthday, we see the demise of my goldfish, in two chapters (and some very confusing date-recording):

Shortly thereafter, it was Freddie Prinze whose demise I recorded. It seems that my spelling, capitalization, and pen choices were all affected, but that may have been it.

Next to kick the bucket: my filthy cur, Ralph. I had stolen him and his brother Floyd as puppies from my neighbor Lisa Perez (I guess I do have some childhood memories—I'll save that one for another blog), and I swear I really did care for him. But my diary entry looks like it was written by a plagiaristic, robotic narcissist. "Kitty" is what Anne Frank called her diary, so I had to rip that off. Then: "Ralph has died of heartworm. I wish he hadn't." And finally, we get to the real news: that the mosaic I made from wallpaper might make it to the state fair, tra-la-la.