My Mission Statement

I write to serve, to unite, to educate. I write to share literature and flesh out ideas that may be of interest to others. I write to document an emotion, experience, or a blip in time. My mission is to write in such a way that the reader is reminded that we can find humor in all situations. It's one of the great blessings of life.


Monday, March 24, 2008

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Thank you, my friends, for joining me yet again. I just checked my little ticker (okay no raunchy jokes here) and saw that last month I averaged fourteen guests A DAY with a record 29 guests this past Saturday! THANK YOU for joining me here. Please comment sometimes, so I can welcome you personally. I feel so humbled and honored that you would take the time to join me.

I'm cleaning out drawers and other spring-like things today. I've learned that my girls had great hand-me-downs to share with the fam, but the boys--yikes! They seem to wear EVERYTHING out. It's amazing how tattered their clothes are. What are they doing in them, anyway? It looks like they've been crawling around on sandpaper, using nail scissors to cut the hem of their pants, then pulling strings from every available location. THEN they take sharpies and make permanent stains all over their shirts. They must pull their shirts over their heads and out at the neck CONSTANTLY for them to be that stretched out of shape. Honestly, I could wear a boys size 4 the way these clothes look. Apparently,to get us back for sending our kids to school, the teachers cook up good ways to ruin clothes.

Well, I've eaten so much wonderful, horrible Easter food and candy that I almost threw up. No kidding. I'm almost forty and I can no more control my constant eating of whoppers (my favorite!) and Reese's easter eggs (my other favorite) that I nearly vomit? How ridiculous is that? I mean, when I picture myself doing this, it makes me sick all over again. It seems like I'm shoving them in my face nonstop, but I'm actually just grabbing one each time I see it. Okay, well that doesn't sound a bit better, does it? The good news is I'm so sick of it now that I don't want to touch it (for at least an hour). What I really need to do is eat it all today, so it's gone. Do myself a favor and get it out of the house, without WASTING it, of course. (not like it's not going to waste--ha ha) Okay, this is ridiculous. My apologies to the fair readers.

What I really wanted to know today is this: What Punctuation Mark Are You? Ruminate on that a bit. Have you ever envisioned yourself as a perky punctuation mark? Now some of you may be saying, Donna, my perky punctuation mark days are behind me. I'm too old to be stopping grammar traffic, or even slowing it down. BUT THAT'S NONSENSE. Embrace your inner language-controlling self. I KNOW all you writers out there would LOVE to yield the kind of control brought on by, say, a comma. Imagine, making every reader PAUSE. JUST MAKING THEM BECAUSE OF HOW YOU LOOK. I have to say, I LOVE the idea of being a punctuation mark. Imagine, if you're a question mark, people have to inflect, all because of you! An exclamation mark--they stand up and take notice. The power is dizzying. So everyone take a moment and imagine just what role in the English language you'd like to play, then go take a quiz to see who the almight quiz-maker thinks you are.
Go to www.blogthings.com/whatpunctuationmarkareyouquiz/, THEN report back to me in comments. What punctuation mark were you? Were you who you think you should be? (I SO wasn't) And who do you think died and left this darn quiz-maker the king of punctuation marks anyway?

Can't wait to hear from YOU. I'm back to drawer cleaning. xoxox

6 comments:

Steph B. said...

I'm an exclamation point. I am not surprised there, but I do have a point of irony. I really don't like that people overuse the exclamation point. Also, the quiz stated that I would get along best with a dash. If I had to guess, I would picture my husband as a dash. It was a bit of fun during my busy day. I have a suggestion for the Easter candy. Get a bag together & bring it to the office at school. We put it out & the teachers walk through and grab a piece now & again. It really makes their day!

Dorothy said...

Me, too, Steph. I'll be interested to see if anybody I know turns up to be a dash.

Liz said...

I am a comma, pretty accurate I would say. It says the question mark is my best buddy. My husband did the quiz and guess what? A question mark. That was fun D, thanks! From the non-writer yet avid reader.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Diane said...

I'm a comma too -- I'd agree with almost all of it, but I hardly consider myself fascinating -- pretty strong word!

Donna Jones Koppelman said...

I'm a colon. Isn't that gross? My first reaction was, "I sound like a real ass" Aren't any of you a semi-colon? (supposedly my best bud) I don't know what my husband is. Some kind of punctuation mark who won't take quizzes like this.

Diane said...

My husband wouldn't take the quiz either Donna. But I think he may be more like a string of punctuation marks. Something like this "?;!:" - HA!


Isabel by Donna Jones Koppelman

Isabel by Donna Jones Koppelman

Major Bear at the Grove Park Inn by Donna Jones Koppelman

Major Bear at the Grove Park Inn by Donna Jones Koppelman