Madly Mel

zeug·ma ˈzo͞oɡmə/

noun

a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (e.g.,John and his license expired last week ) or to two others of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts ).

I will tell you about the great cheese poet of Canada!

First, I must introduce you to one of our family’s sacred texts: 

This slim volume, edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras and published in 1997, was given to us as a thank-you gift because Mrs. P did a reading at their wedding (Mrs. P being, like the couple, a former Classics scholar and thus able to read it in the original Greek). It is the gift that keeps on giving. Now, you may be thinking, this is not very nice, mocking bad poets. I myself have written bad poetry; indeed, few of us have not. How can you countenance such an outrage?

Because: a) all of the bad poets included are long dead, most of them having done most of their fell work in the nineteenth century b) several of these bad poets were mediocre white men so convinced that they were great poets that they have waived all right to our respect and c) no matter how bad your poetry has ever been, it was never THIS bad. The Petrases scoured the world for the very crappe de la crappe of truly awful verse, and these things are…inspired. In a very demonic way. 

In this forest of awful, there are three artists who really stand out. One is Theophile Marzials, who is given the honor (by the Petrases) of having written The Very Worst Poem in the English Language (”A Tragedy”), and deserved it. Another is William McGonagall, whose Tay Bridge trilogy is a masterpiece of wrong. I read this sequence out loud in Mrs. P’s family’s kitchen and her dad literally laughed until he wept. Good times, good times.

And then there is James McIntyre, Canada’s poet laureate of cheese.

He wrote about other things, but he seems to have conceived of cheese as a truly epic subject. Of the two cheese poems included in full in the Patras’ collection, I am undecided on which is the greater: “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese (Weighing over 7000 pounds)” or “Prophecy of a Ten-Ton Cheese,” which begins with the lines, “Who hath prophetic vision sees / In future times, a ten-ton cheese,” and which uses cheese as a metaphor for an idealized futuristic kind of One-Ring-Unified version of the British Commonwealth: “So British lands could confederate/ Three hundred provinces in one state,/ When all in harmony agrees/ To be preserved in one like this cheese,/ Then one skilful hand could acquire/ Power to move British empire.”

Tempting though “Prophecy” is, I’ve decided my favorite is the Ode. Here it is:

ODE ON THE MAMMOTH CHEESE Weighing over 7,000 pounds

by James McIntyre

We have seen thee, queen of cheese,

Lying quietly at your ease,

Gently fanned by evening breeze,

Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

All gaily dressed soon you’ll go

To the great Provincial show,

To be admired by many a beau

In the city of Toronto.

Cows numerous as a swarm of bees,

Or as the leaves upon the trees,

It did require to make thee please,

And stand unrivalled, queen of cheese.

May you not receive a scar as

We have heard that Mr. Harris

Intends to send you off as far as

The great world’s show at Paris.

Of the youth beware of these,

For some of them might rudely squeeze

And bite your cheek, then songs or glees

We could not sing, oh! queen of cheese.

We’rt thou suspended from balloon,

You’d cast a shade even at noon,

Folks would think it was the moon

About to fall and crush them soon.

Intense background and criminal background checks and anything violent automatically disqualifies you.

Make getting a gun/gun permit more like getting a driver’s license:

permit to learn

includes an exam with 18 or more questions on the policies, laws, and etc of guns and gun ownership

if you get more than 8 questions incorrect you must retake it.

30 hours of practical experience at a gun range with a licensed teacher

Must take a 5 hour class on the dangers of guns and how to use them safely which will then yield you a certificate that grants you to take the practical exam and lasts for one year. If you don’t gain the license within the allotted year you must retake the class.

A practical exam with a licensed instructor who will grade you on various skills. If you pass you may be granted a permit on the weapon of your choice, the exams may differ on the type of firearm you want.

Follow the Japanese model where you must have two gun safes in different areas of the house, one to store the gun and one to store the bullets and you must provide the police with information on where those safes are.

No concealed carry and only handguns may be allowed to be out in public.

If transporting a weapon, it must be in the trunk of the vehicle, in a bag or some other case, safety on and unloaded and may not leave the vehicle until you are at the destination.

If you’re a hunter or some other gun hobbyist that requires a functional weapon other than a handgun then the gun must stay on the premises, whether that is a gun range or the Fish and Wildlife facility.

If you live in a rural area where police (and people, for that matter) are few and far between, something akin to a deer hunting rifle should provide plenty of protection from predators and poachers, you still have to follow the aforementioned steps.

It was simple, effective, and meant that the only guns in civilian hands were on farms a fuckmillion miles away from the cities and were actually being used for constructive purposes, not just collecting dust in a closet, waiting for some curious five year old to find them and blow their own heads off.

The other day a rifle was discharged in my street.  It was used by a volunteer wildlife rescue worker to euthanise a badly injured kangaroo.  He kept it in a locked case in his truck until he determined there was no way to save the animal.  He retrieved it, fired it once, returned it to its case and then phoned the local police department to let them know that he had discharged a firearm and why he’d done so, because it’s a semi-rural area and most people are like me.  It was the first time, in my 20+ years of living in Australia, that I’ve ever seen a gun fired for anything other than practice.

@littlexolotl

If he dies

I SAY WHAT THE F 

WHAT WAS HAPPENING !??!

@castiel-saved-me-from-myself

And so do you.

On June, 20th the JURI of European Parliament approved of the articles 11 and 13 of the new Copyright Law. These articles are also known as the “Link Tax” and the “Censorship Machines” articles.

Articles 13 in particular forces every internet platform to filter all the contents we upload online, ending once and for all the fandom culture. Which means you won’t be able to upload any type of fandom works like fan arts, fan fictions, gif sets from your favourite films and series, edits, because it’s all copyrighted material. And you won’t also be able to share, enjoy or download other’s contents, because the use of links will be completely restricted.

But not everything’s lost yet. There’s another round of voting scheduled for the early days of July.

What you can do now to save our internet, is to share these informations with all of your family members and friends, and to ask to your MEP (the members of the European Parliament from your country) to vote NO at the next round, to vote against articles 11 and 13.

Here you can find more news and all the details to contact your MEP:

https://saveyourinternet.eu

Also, sign and share this petition:

https://www.change.org/p/european-parliament-stop-the-censorship-machinery-save-the-internet?recruiter=50668942&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial

We have just a couple of weeks to stop this complete madness, don’t let them dictating the way we enjoy our internet.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52016PC0593

https://creativecommons.org/2018/06/20/european-parliaments-legal-affairs-committee-gives-green-light-to-harmful-link-tax-and-pervasive-platform-censorship/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitterfacebook&utm_content=JURI-vote-june-20

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/article-13-european-parliament-internet-censorship-copyright-a8408531.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/20/eu-votes-for-copyright-law-that-would-make-internet-a-tool-for-control?__twitter_impression=true

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/eu-meme-war-article-13-regulation

Also ao3 has spoken out about this

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/10637

Hey sweetie, I’m so sorry it took me so long to answer this, my brain has just been [car that won’t turn over noises].

First of all, I need you to sit down and really, really acknowledge that you have a) a disordered eating problem, and b) a body dysmorphia problem. Just start there. You need to understand and accept that this is a problem. Not a problem with you as a person, not a character flaw, but a mental illness. Your relationship with food and with your body is not where it needs to be. I need you to sit with that and realize that it’s true.

Okay. You know that these thought patterns and this binge-restrict behavior is unhealthy, but maybe you can’t see just how unhealthy it is. I think you’ve had so much propaganda poured into your brain since literally before you could speak that you can’t even find the bottom of it, and that isn’t your fault. Hating yourself isn’t your fault, it’s the fault of a society built heavily on misogyny, fatphobia, and making money off causing women to hate their bodies. Since you were a child you’ve been told that your worth lies in your physical attractiveness and that being fat is the worst thing you could ever be.

None of that is your fault. But it is on you to start on the hard work of peeling back the layers of shit, digging to the bottom of that hole of propaganda, and finding yourself underneath it all. The only way you can ever be happy is to learn how to drop these burdens off your shoulders and realize how much better life is when it doesn’t matter what size you wear.

I need you to really, really listen to me when I say this, dear. Ten pounds isn’t going to make you happy. An ass that doesn’t jiggle isn’t going to make you happy. No amount of feeling in control of your body is ever going to make you happy.No amount of skinny is ever going to make you happy. 

The only way you will ever be happy is if you fight against the mental illness and you find peace with your body at whatever size it decides to be. As long as you are ruled by the number on a scale, you will never know peace. Once the illness has sunk its teeth into you, it will never let go until you’re dead. Do you hear me, sweetheart? This illness wants you dead. It doesn’t want you happy, it doesn’t want you pretty, it wants you fucking dead. You can’t negotiate with this illness. You can’t restrict just until you’ve lost ten pounds or just until those love handles are gone, and then be done with it. It doesn’t work that way. This thing will eat you alive and spit out your bones. 

It fucking sucks, but you have to confront what’s going on in your life or your head that’s driving you to control your body, what it is you’re trying to avoid or solve by convincing yourself that if only you lost weight, everything would be okay. You have to face those emotions, that pain, because nothing you do to your body is going to make it go away. 

Your value as a human being has no relation to your weight or your size. Do you hear me? It doesn’t matter if you weight 100lbs or 400lbs, your worth doesn’t change. It doesn’t matter how much body fat you have. Your body needs fat on it, because you aren’t a doll, you’re a living creature and fat keeps you alive. Your body doesn’t exist to meet any standard of beauty, it exists to keep you alive, so please stop hating it for just doing its job. Your body is not your enemy. Your body isn’t making you miserable, the eating disorder is making you miserable.

Darling, you need help. You can’t fix this on your own. Even with the best of intentions, you’re going to fail if you try to get up and not have an eating disorder anymore. You have to get help in order to get better. Getting help doesn’t make you weak, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed; asking for help is courageous, it’s strong, and it’s good. You deserve help. You don’t have to earn it, you just deserve it.

Please go through as much of my eating disorder tag as you can, and pursue the resources in it. Please go through my whole body image tag, and keep coming back to it. Choose to put those messages in your head. Choose to unfollow any thinspo blogs you follow, and stop looking at triggering content. Train yourself to look at body positivity and to turn away from self-hate. Practice.

This is hard, hard shit, and you’ll relapse and you’ll slip up, and you’ll hate being in recovery sometimes. But the cold truth is you either fight to recover or you slip-slide down towards losing your entire life to this. I know that you have it in you to fight. 

A lot of people use semi-colons wrong because they know there’s supposed to be a pause in their sentence that they know isn’t quite a comma, so they think it must be that mysterious semi-colon. Usually, it’s actually supposed to be an em dash (—), which in some ways is more mysterious!

The em dash is the longest of the three dashes and most often used for interruptions. Interruptions in speech, in action, in thought. It’s also a great syntax addition for fight scenes, since it makes the narrative seem quick and unexpected and jolting from side to side like a fight scene should be. Read your em dash sentences out loud until you get a feel for how its pause compares to the pause of a comma. It’s a heartbeat longer. If a comma is one beat of pause, then I see an em dash as two beats of pause.

In this first example, the em dash is used to give an aside to the reader. It’s like a btw sort of moment, which can sometimes be replaced with commas or parenthesis. I think the em dashes are most suitable when your aside is decently long.

Her neighbor, Frank, is always blasting music.

Her neighbor—the one who always blasts the music—is named Frank.

My mischievous neighbor, Vince, seemed to have a knack for graveyard cavorting.

Vince—more often called (in a raised and angry voice) Vincent Price Ramsey—seemed to have a knack for graveyard cavorting.

Next up, here’s the em dash as a replacement for the semi-colon. Kinda like a slang or shortened sentence. Semi-colons have to connect two independent clauses—meaning each side of the semi-colon could stand alone as its own complete sentence. If you don’t want to do that, try an em dash:

I thought hanging out would be great—a chance to finally see the city, just like Aunt Lillian wanted.

I thought hanging out would be great; it would be a chance to finally see the city, just like Aunt Lillian wanted.

There was a headstone hardly a foot from where I’d emerged—dark grey stone a few inches thick and maybe as high as my knee.

There was a headstone hardly a foot from where I’d emerged; it was made of dark grey stone a few inches thick and maybe as high as my knee.

Sometimes, you can use an em dash to have a speaker correct themselves, or interrupt themselves to amend their sentence.

I could see the blur of the graveyard behind him—through him—

Similar to the last example, it can be used to interrupt a sentence in order to add additional information about the sentence. Often you can use a comma in this situation, too, so try to think of syntax and how that additional beat of pause changes things. In this case, Alice has just seen a ghost for the first time, so her mind is a bit too shocked for the normal pause of a comma. Read both. Doesn’t the one with the em dash sound more shocked or surprised, while the comma makes it sound like a simple observation?

He was glowing pale—almost tinged in cold blue.

He was glowing pale, almost tinged in cold blue.

Of course, it could be an interruption. It could be someone interrupting another in speech, one action interrupting another, or a character’s thoughts interrupting themselves. Here I’ll include the sentence with the em dash and the sentence following, so you can see the thing interrupted and the interruption.

You can have an action interrupt a character’s thoughts. For the first one, Alice is in a creepy situation and completely focused on something else, so when something touches her elbow, she’s shocked out of her thoughts. For the second one, Tristan is listening for an enemy when the enemy makes a move and startles him into action.

As far as I could tell it was some kind of berry—

An icy contact on my elbow broke my resolve, and I screamed until an equally cold hand clamped over my mouth.

The night was still, and yet—

Something whistled through the air. Tristan jerked backwards, narrowly avoiding an incoming dagger.

Here we have one character interrupting another in dialogue. Pretty self-explanatory.

“I’m not going to—”

Mom’s voice in the receiver cut me off. “At least consider it.”

“After all, you’re only a—”

“If you even say girl,” I interrupted, “I’ll stab you, I swear.”

The next one is part of a fight scene, so Alice’s thoughts are interrupting themselves as soon as she thinks them. She throws up an idea, “iron,” but interrupts herself from further exploring that idea, and instead casts it out. In a fight, you don’t have time to think out long, eloquent ideas. Your thoughts should come in fragments. Stab. Punch. Dodge. Swing. Would this work? No. How about this? Maybe. The em dash can help get across this uneven jolting of thoughts.

Iron—no use. I’d dropped the knife when her damn vines ensnared me, and the nails were in my pockets and out of reach. Blood—there were possibilities there.

Continuing in fight scenes, em dashes can have action interrupt action. Don’t just throw them in willy nilly, but if you have a chance for an em dash, jump on it. Instead of a word like “suddenly,” it makes it feel suddenly. Ups the tension. Em dashes are about interruption, and what is a fight scene but two people interrupting each other’s attempts to kill the other? This is especially useful for the last line in a paragraph during a fighting scene, because it’s a nice place to have one action interrupt another.

I snatched it—slit across my hand—

And stabbed her through the heart.

His swords whistled through the air—

A clean “X” appeared on the imp’s back, severing its body into four neat chunks.

So yeah, I’m basically obsessed with em dashes and I use more of them than the majority of writers. (At 72k words, my current project has 22 semi-colons and 344 em dashes. So. Yeah. Not to mention the length of this post…) Em dashes are way cool and can add a lot to your writing even though they’re just another form of punctuation. Syntax helps your reader into the mindset you’re going for, and em dashes can be a great, powerful part of that syntax!

This isn’t just my opinion but that of my agent, who warned me about my over-use of ellipses and (probably with a roll of eyes) told me a year or so later that over-using em-dashes instead was not in fact an improvement.

It’s a long time ago, but one of his reasons was that “too much eccentric punctuation looks unprofessional”.

Times change, as these (2009) articles (2012) suggested about exclamation marks, though the second finished by hinting that the tide of excess was already turning.

YMMV, but apart from casual writing like Tumblr, private email etc., I never use exclamation marks outside of dialogue. Doing so feels like adding a label that reads FUNNY! or EXCITING! or INTENSE!

Choosing the right words for the sentence should do that without needing labelled, in the same way as a character is made funny by being funny, not by being described as funny with no further evidence.

Like I’ll be watching some movie and all of a sudden, some miswired synapse fires off and a bunch of neurons in the cerebellum go “MINE.”

And I’m like “no, guys, this is mediocre at best,” but it’s too late. They’ve adopted these characters and this universe and there’s no turning back.

I’m going to be thinking about it every hour, of every day, for somewhere between two weeks and five years.

This is my cat, Brigitte.

24 hours after I brought her home, I got a mindblowing job offer.  Since I adopted her nine years ago, my life has become an amusement park.  She has brought me good luck ever since I took her into my home.

I’m telling you, there’s something about this animal.  Good fortune follows her everywhere.

I don’t want to be selfish.  I have everything I need and then some.  So, I’m sharing her with you.

Reblog Brigitte and you’ll receive fantastic news in the next 24 hours.

And when you do, please remember to help your local SPCA and support them in the difficult work they do for wonder animals like Brigitte.  Any donation helps your SPCA, even if it’s just five bucks.

Kitties like Brigitte are counting on you to give back when they bring you good luck.

                               Maybe it’s because                                we can relate. 

To a goddess?

“Look, just stay on your side and I’ll stay on my side. We can make this work.”

“That’s all very well for you to say, you’re not facing the wall.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Oh nothing, nothing at all. I’ll just let you get on with all the prime ankle grabbing shall I?”

“Oh for…look, do you want to switch sides?”

“No, no don’t trouble yourself. I’ll just lay here, and maybe pull on that blanket corner for a bit. That ought to really inconvenience them.”

“Right, I’ve had enough of this, come here.”

“Here! What are you doing?”

“Just shut up and give over. Just, give me your claw.There, see, now we can both grab an ankle if we get a chance.”

“…Right, yeah…okay…”

“Okay then…”

“Uh…“

“Yes?”

“Uh, could you maybe not, wiggle…with your tentacle it’s…it’s in…places…”

“Oh shit sorry, didn’t realize, is that better?”

“Y-yeah…”

“….”

“….”

“Dave?”

“Yea?”

“Is that your tentacle?”

“UhhHHM.”

“Oh my god.”

“Look I’m sorry but you’re the one who started it!”

“I most certainly did not!”

“You did! You’re the one who wanted to spoon!”

“Because you wouldn’t stop whining!”

“Look, just…just ignore it okay, it’ll go away if we don’t think about it.”

“…fine.”

“Fine.”

“…Dave?”

*sigh* “What?”

I live in NYC and I see homeless people every day, and I don’t know what lawmakers expect from them.  Our lawmakers make legislation that essentially criminalizes being homeless, but being put behind bars repeatedly for small infractions makes it impossible for them to hold down a minimum wage job.  Consider this scenario.

Jane has been living paycheck to paycheck and is behind on her rent when her employer downsizes and she’s out of a job.  She misses a paycheck and is evicted from her apartment because the landlord feels she’s fallen too far behind to ever catch up.  Now Jane is homeless and looking for a new job.  Shelters have waiting lists, and the better/safer the shelter, the longer the list. Rolling the dice and running the risk of being assaulted or robbed in an unsafe shelter is an option, but the weather is decent, so Jane decides to take a chance on the street. She uses a friend’s address on her job applications and lands an interview which leads to a new minimum wage job. She needs to save up a few paychecks before she can afford the first month, last month, and security deposit, but she’s getting by, hitting the local soup kitchens and  dumpster diving for food while sleeping on the subway, on bus stop benches, in the park, etc.

The police fine Jane for sleeping on a park bench — $250 for being in the park after closing time. She obviously can’t pay it because she’s saving up for a place to live, and then Jane gets another ticket elsewhere in the city for sleeping on the subway or peeing in an alley, but this time there’s a warrant for her arrest since she failed to pay her first fine. She’s taken to jail and can’t post bond and has to wait until her case is heard in front of a judge. Meanwhile, she loses her job and has $750 in fines and court costs to cover once she’s free again.

How exactly do we expect Jane to get on her feet without major assistance from social programs who see their budgets slashed every year by the federal government?

The government finds creative ways to cut funding for shelters and welfare programs every year. There are always more homeless than there are beds in shelters and lawmakers want to give fewer and fewer funds to support the less fortunate with every budget discussion. It costs taxpayers less money to provide food, shelter, healthcare, and job training to homeless people than it costs to continuously cycle them through the judicial and penal system, but we’d rather punish people for being homeless than “give a handout” to people who desperately need help.

But how exactly do we expect homeless people to just pick themselves up by their bootstraps and make a better life? It’s hard to get a job without a place to live and you can’t pay for a place to live without a job. People have to sleep, eat, and relieve themselves in order to live, but when you have no money to afford a place to do that, those functions are criminalized. The natural processes of your body are illegal because you don’t have enough money to afford to do them.

I’m a liberal socialist because this makes no sense to me. I see homeless people sleeping over subway grates in some of the wealthiest zip codes in the country.  People who routinely spend $35 for one lunch draft legislation to cut budgets for soup kitchens that can feed fifty people for less money than that. Your worth as a person should not be contingent upon your credit score, bank account, or 401K, and America has bought into this lie that rich people deserve to be rich, which means poor people deserve to be poor.  And homeless people deserve to be homeless because of some character defect or flaw in their moral fiber which has forced them into homelessness, and their inability to rise above is confirmation of what terrible people they must be.