Monday, February 16, 2009

Things You Don't Need/Want to Know about Me...

... unless I become J.K. Rowling famous someday and have my own category in Trivial Pursuit. The odds of that happening are right up there with us figuring out how to travel at light speed during my lifetime.

I can't dive. It looks so easy, but I can't make my top part fall ahead of my bottom parts.

People get my name wrong 90% of the time. Melissa, Melanie and Michelle are common substitutes. I find it weird. Melinda isn't a super common name, so it would seem to stick in the brain a little more easily than more common names, wouldn't it?

I have a thing for complicated sounding words; onomatopoeia (had to google the spelling), cockamamie, subterfuge, hyperbole, ambidextrous ...

I would LOVE to be good at artistic things: photography (no sense of proportion), baking (good taste, wonky decorating), sewing (the machine and I work against each other), and scrapbooking (looks like the dog made it).

My dancing is more enthusiastic than coordinated.

I can proofread something someone else writes, but not my own work. My brain always 'fixes' the mistakes in my head when I read over it.

I can't get into books on tape. There is something about reading at my own pace and using my own imagination for voices that I enjoy.

I just put away the last straggling bits of Christmas decoration. The box has yet to make it into storage though.

I'm a slacktart room Mom. J.T. and Abby came home with little hand-made valentines, neatly tied bags of candy, even homemade chocolates. Their schoolmates were lucky to get hastily done store-bought Transformer/Hannah Montana notes.

I love the way little kids don't quite get past tense verbs. He didded it, We swimmed yesterday, She taked my cookie. It is sweet reminder that they are indeed still little.

I abuse ... and ( ) too much. And I dangle my modifiers. And I start sentences with conjunctions. Which is a big no-no according to the English teachers who liked to bleed red ink all over my essays.

Funky music suits me right now. I am currently in love and playing incessantly: Gone, Gone, Gone and Stick with Me by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, Sea of Love by Cat Power, You Know I'm No Good by Amy Winehouse and Love by Sugarland.

9 comments:

Michelly said...

I completely understand the diving. I have never mastered the perfect dive. I am a very good swimmer but did not learn how to dive as a child and it is sooo much harder to learn as an adult. I am quite envious of good divers, it looks so graceful. I am always thinking "why won't MY body do that?"

3 Peas in a Pod said...

Cool list Melissa, um I mean Melinda. What's up with that? Your name isn't hard to pronounce or remember.

I love when little kids don't say their words properly either. When my kids finally say a word correctly, I immediately get sad.

...and () are my favs. Good thing we don't have an English teacher grading our blogs because I would fail. :-)

Much love from NJ,
Sue
xoxo

Stomper Girl said...

I don't even know what dangling your modifiers means, if that makes you feel better. Grammar was not taught much at my high school. I remember an English report that said something along the lines of Caroline needs to work on her use of commas, which is still true I reckon. Would have been good if the English teacher had done something a bit more active than pointing out the problem.

Hadded and missed-ed or miss-ered [you] are coming out of the Cherub's mouth with charming regularity. NO-ONE is allowed to correct him!

M said...

Oh, I think a preposition is a perfect way to start a sentence. And I think it can be proper.

Onomatop-whatsi was one of the spelling words on my son's Year 3 list. Scary.

You sound just perfect. Who needs to send valentines anyway.

Anonymous said...

And so do your friends...(me, that is!) (frequently)

Aunty Evil said...

Oh Stomper, I've had a couple of dangling modifiers for years. No matter which bra I choose, they just have a mind of their own.

Anyway Merline, don't worry about people getting your name wrong, I usually get Tracey, Kerry or Jenny.

I know!

Nothing like Aunty Evil, are they, who knows where they get it from!?

Anonymous said...

My name is also always mis-whatevered. Even on medical reports. I have an old fashioned name, no one gets it right.

Mary said...

I can't dive.

Alot of people call me Margot.

I like big words but embarrassingly manage to mispronounce them.

I am not a bad photographer but pretty hopeless at anything else artistic.

I think I can dance. Others may not share that view.

I can proofread others work and my own.

I too am a slacktart Mum. Enough said.

I really can't get into books on tape.

I have boxes of stuff - not just Christmas decoration- pining to be put away.

Like Stomper I am not sure of these English rules of which you write.

I am off to listen to your favourite music.

Anonymous said...

I have never managed a dive in my life - heads should not go first, even if the water is soft.

I should not have read Aunty Evil's comment. Her dangling modifiers are her own business!

(you know...you'd fit right in perfectly in our highly literate, but mildly unco-ordinated family)

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