An Aimless Betty Once Again
Ever had one of those experiences where you had a million thoughts before reaching the screen, only to find that they vanished the moment your hands hit the keyboard? If not, that's great. Unfortunately, it happens to me quite often.
Well, I guess your host tonight will have to be Rambling Betty. Who can say if she's interesting or not, but she sure can ramble on, and she sure is mind-boggling to follow.
Question mark. This is the way my father would bring up a discussion that he wanted to talk about when I was younger. I didn't know if he was thinking topically or if he was trying to be clever. Even though I enjoyed his discussions, I would cringe when a talk was introduced in this manner. I'd wonder why he had to introduce what he was going to say. I think today I'd be a little more lenient in my cringiness.
My husband likes to preface. He might have just spent a bunch of money on e-bay buying Dept. 56 Christmas houses before the 15th of the month, and start out a sentence like this: "You're not going to like... " I think I'd rather the sentence start out: "I bought some Dept. 56 because we're going to be paid in five days, and you did say that we should collect Pine Isle stuff this year." Hearing I'm not going to like something raises my shackles for an instant. It's easier to trick me with a reasonable excuse, than to tell me I should be feeling the preface feeling.
I suppose other people might do better with the feeling preface. Who knows?
Well, I guess your host tonight will have to be Rambling Betty. Who can say if she's interesting or not, but she sure can ramble on, and she sure is mind-boggling to follow.
Question mark. This is the way my father would bring up a discussion that he wanted to talk about when I was younger. I didn't know if he was thinking topically or if he was trying to be clever. Even though I enjoyed his discussions, I would cringe when a talk was introduced in this manner. I'd wonder why he had to introduce what he was going to say. I think today I'd be a little more lenient in my cringiness.
My husband likes to preface. He might have just spent a bunch of money on e-bay buying Dept. 56 Christmas houses before the 15th of the month, and start out a sentence like this: "You're not going to like... " I think I'd rather the sentence start out: "I bought some Dept. 56 because we're going to be paid in five days, and you did say that we should collect Pine Isle stuff this year." Hearing I'm not going to like something raises my shackles for an instant. It's easier to trick me with a reasonable excuse, than to tell me I should be feeling the preface feeling.
I suppose other people might do better with the feeling preface. Who knows?
posted by Heather O'Neill | 21.9.05
3 Comments:
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Sorry. I had typos. Here's what I said:
It comes from that feeling you have as a man that you can get away with something if you admit it before you're pulled up about it. Looks like this technique doesn't work!
Heh. Or at least it doesn't work with me.
Maybe some people prefer to be warned ahead of time about how they might feel about the situation. Maybe it prepares them in some small way. I've never heard one way or the other, though.
I prefer to hear about the reasons why someone did something I might not like. I tend to match my tone with their tone. In some cases that's not a great thing. However, I'm working on it.
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