Have You Hugged Your Communications Department Lately?

A friend sent me this article today pertaining to an ill-advised (or utterly lacking in advisement, as the case seems be) letter from the Framingham State College alumni association to their alums. Check out the blah, blah, blah.

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Why I’m Not In Advertising

Over the years I’ve thought, off and on, about a career in advertising. Or at least branching off into the more strict marketing territory. The pace, the creativity, the vibe, writing on such a condensed scale with high-impact demands…it interests me.
But for various and sundry reasons, I always naturally drift back to what I know [...]

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Heat Rash

We’re pushing record June highs in this Mid-Atlantic heatwave, and the accompanying delirium is setting in. People are stumbling though parking lots, staggering into big-box stores and sucking in the AC like suffocating Hoover uprights.
I yearn for something cooler and sweeter and gentler to take hold and oust this humid mess; send it back into [...]

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Graves Mounatin Breakdown

I turn to my friend in the lawn chair beside me, give him a blissed-out smile that is equal parts sunburn and warm wine, and with my generally dormant mountain accent turned up to thick and dripping, sigh, “Lord, I love the smell of honeysuckle on the night air.”
And, in agreement, the band on stage [...]

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Dolmades, How I Love Thee

I’m a country girl at heart, but if I had just one reason to love the city, it would be because I can step out of my office when I’m feeling peckish, traipse to the nearest Greek deli and order up a mess of dolmades the same way I might have ordered mozarella sticks back home.
God, I [...]

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Daylight Savings

We bought our DVD player before Daylight Savings Time (DST) was pushed forward and backward last year. So it caused some serious consternation in the household this morning when a glance at the DVD clock indicated my husband was seriously late for a gig. After a yelped curse and some frantic scrambling for socks [...]

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Feed me, Seymour, feed me!

My first diary had a purple cover with tiny pink hearts, multi-colored interior pages, and was outfitted with a brass lock and a tiny key that I kept inside my kitten music box that, when opened, played “Memories.”
As I matured, so, too, did the look of my diaries…eh-hem…I mean journals. Periwinkle pages gave way hip [...]

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As found on Craigslist…

On November 12, 2005, my dad sent me this e-mail while he was traveling for work:
I bought a copy of The Elba Clipper today, a smalltown southern Alabama paper, and came across this lost dog ad in the classifieds. I was struck by the unintended poetry of it.
“Maggie”
$100.00 REWARD Return of lost dog.
Small, brown, [...]

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Even the ferrets agree…plagiarism is bad.

Either because people know I think ferrets are the source of all things funny, or they are aware of my deep ire over plagiarism, the following article landed in my e-mail inbox yesterday from several friends:
Move Over ‘Meerkat Manor’ by Paul Tolme, the victim of the Cassie Edwards plagiarism scandal.
Tolme is speaking out…with much [...]

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Taken, borrowed and lifted

Today, CNN reported an AP story about allegations of plagiarism made on the Web site www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com against author Cassie Edwards. The article gives a side-by-side comparison of a passage from one of Edwards’ novels and then a reference work, and the implications are fairly damning.
Having never read anything by Edwards*, I’m not so much concerned [...]

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