Here’s another one of my favorite books: Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs. The book is just what it says it is—a book in which people talk about their jobs—and it is fascinating and engrossing and sometimes (in the case of the guy who cleans up after the deceased) just gross. In a good way, of course.

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Caroline Kettlewell: Journal

December 2004

OK, it's December! I'm not sure why that qualifies for an exclamation point! Except that it means we're that much closer to spring!

And speaking of exclamation points, that brings us to the writer Elmore Leonard's invaluable 10 rules for good writing, which appeared in the July 16, 2001 edition of the NY Times under the title "Easy on the Hooptedoodle."

Here is rule #5: "Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose."

Followed by rule # 6:" Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.' This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use "suddenly" tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points."

SUDDENLY ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh. sorry. just the cat knocking papers off my desk in his latest round of cunning psychological warfare.

Anyway, on the local scene, the leaves--of which we have considerably more than an abundance here in my neighborhood--have descended groundward in sufficient numbers at this point that our "river view" has re-emerged. A shiny sliver in the distance, true, but RvrVu it is, as far as I'm concerned.

I've been mowing our leaves to mulch them, one of my Save the Earth gestures that feels both rewarding and futile. I can't bear the idea of shoveling all that good organic material off the curb to be hauled off by the city when The Wasteland (that would be the slab of earth in front of my house) could use all the organic material it can get. I'm given to unseemly lust for my neighbors' leaf piles, and I'm sure my neighbors would be delighted for me to help myself, but here among The Mighty Oaks we measure our leaf-fall by the cubic football-field. I'll be mowing 'til spring as it is. Mind you, in case anyone wants to know, that's an ELECTRIC mower. I've only run over the cord once, and that incident did not, I'm happy to say, turn out as exciting as it might have.

Click here for November 2004 Journal
Click here for October 2004 Journal
Click here for August/September 2004 Journal
Click here for July 2004 Journal
Click here for June 2004 Journal
Click here for May 2004 Journal

Date posted: 12.31.04