Why Writing Is So Important

[Excerpted and reformatted five paragraphs of a guest essay; cut words to meet this site’s 300 word limit]

Hello fellow humans! Do you know why writing is so important in our everyday lives?

(1) Writing can save lives….you can spell out “help” if needed. People will see this message and rush to help you.

(2) You can get clues on a criminal. Someone [can write] down what the criminal looked like or did. This can help people track them down.

(3) You can write down….your address, where you put your keys, etc….If you write down your location….you will be safer because if you get lost, people will know where you went and come and get you.

(4) Expressing yourself [lets] out your feelings on paper.

(5) Write letters to other people about serious stuff instead of telling them because it’s easier and much less awkward….If you have a crush on someone, you could hand them a note saying that you like them….It is much less awkward if you get rejected.

(6) You can write a family recipe….expressing your family history.

(7) Many people can’t talk….so they have to write things down.

(8) Sometimes [written] words are simply easier to understand. Some people would rather read instructions than have someone explain it to them. That is totally [okay]. You can read [words] repeatedly….If you don’t understand [them] the first time, you can just re-read.

That’s all for now but I will see you in the next 5 paragraph essay. But tell me….what do YOU think about writing?

Zofia (Grade 4 Essay)

[I wish I had learned all of these tips in elementary school. Maybe it would have helped me get notes from fourth grade girls telling me they liked me.]

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Fatty Tumor

My high school did not offer Auto Shop or Biology. So I am clueless about carburetors and internal organs but my theoretical education taught me that carbonem is Latin for carburetor. Apparently Latinites run their vehicles on charcoal. Carbonem was easy for a teenage boy to remember but I was absent when the word haemorroidis was introduced. My college roommates called each other “butt pimples” but I never made the connection. In my late 40’s, pain and blood in a scary place prompted an appointment where a doctor offered to freeze off my hemorrhoid. I declined and raced to the pharmacy for Preparation H (Humiliation).

Many questions circulated about my health when I prematurely retired from Blogging. My wife says “many” is an exaggeration and suggests Preparation N for Narcissism. I wiped out my free time trying to schedule deferred medical, dental, vision, and skin screening appointments as far out as October. I used escalating magic words (blood, maggots, zombies) to entice one scheduler to book me in person with a nurse practitioner last week to look at the six inch diameter mound on my back. She said it was only a Lipoma and not to worry (“nine out of ten okay”). I knew nothing about Lipoma in English or Latin. The NP took celebratory pictures with my camera and hers, questioned how my wife and I were so oblivious to such a huge growth, and showed me a Wikipedia page (“oh look, there is one as big as yours”). She scheduled an ultrasound [could a baby be inside my pouch?]. When I explained everything to my wife, she opened the same Wikipedia page and read back the exact same information to me. My only question: How much weight can I lose by surgically removing the Lipoma?

Day 34 Epic Log

Whenever I retire, anticipated free time evaporates like the moisture in my skin. Worse yet, the weight of my absence has never caused any institution to collapse. I once forced Facebook to remove my site. They just waited six months and reinstated it since even death is not a valid reason to exit social media. I had no pressure to shut down my free WordPress site. It cost nothing to hit the icon and cruise around. Discovering the startling removal of a Blog I follow precipitated this first relapse. For six years, the world existed merely to provide material for my daily epistles. My head is exploding without an outlet.

My bank ejected me even though I was still eavesdropping on an old lady (younger than me) in the next line. The last thing I heard an exasperated teller say: “But why would you want to pay $35 to stop payment on a $25 check?”

Then my wife and I took our youngest son to Dairy Queen to celebrate his new job working from home. Wait, what? He is now working from our home? Fittingly, all three banana splits came without bananas. I demanded three bananas but my wife insisted DQ remake the desserts. I restrained her from removing our tip from the jar.

I attended a Paul McCartney (older than me) concert with no lines for food or restrooms but queues for memorabilia wound around the arena.

My ten year old granddaughter received her first pet for Easter. Presumably Leo the Persian Shorthair kitten can play the ukulele because he cost $1000.

The best way to quit smoking is to never start. Otherwise you go through withdrawal. I could have padded these six paragraphs into six Blogs, so I am actually making some progress on retirement.