Category Archives: My Writing

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A city under siege

I feel like I have seen this movie before

Today, a man set off two smoke bombs in Brooklyn. Opened fire and spit out 33 rounds into passengers commuting to work. After the train was cleared, police found three extended ammunition magazines, consumer-grade fireworks, a hatchet and a jug of gasoline. Twenty people were injured, some critically. It is amazing no one was killed.

This incident comes as violent crimes across the city and MTA system rise. A lot of people compared what happened today to 9/11. Early reports were that it might have been an act of domestic terrorism so it really makes sense to be reminded of that awful day.

Of course, it’s something I think about often now that I am back. Growing up on Long Island, I used the World Trade Center as my point of reference to get around the city. To this day, I do that and have gotten lost more times than I would like to admit. It’s kind of pathetic to get lost in your home city.

The current crime wave hitting the city and the attack this morning reminds me of the New York City I knew when I was a kid. It was seedy and dangerous. Then, Mayor David Dinkins and Disney remade the place. I don’t think we will go back to those times but it is hard to see where we are headed.

Today, I had an amazing day walking around Stony Brook. I worked out of a cafe in the Village. I got more creative writing done than I have all year.

Yet, looking at the blue sky, I thought of Ukraine. Myanmar. The Uyghurs in China. Paul Rusesabagina falsely imprisoned in Rwanda.

Why are someone’s rights to own a gun more important than mine to stay alive? Someone told me that it was because of the Second Amendment. So the Second Amendment trumps the Declaration of Independence? Don’t I have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”

I want to think something has happened to us. Something has happened to make us hate each other so much. But whatever hatred we are seeing now it’s not new. It’s just been hidden. As long as people we had oppressed since 1619 stayed ok with it — or rather, didn’t get “uppity,” things were good. Sure we subjected millions with slavery for hundreds of years and then the Jim Crow laws for another hundred and continue to use systems made by white men to keep white men in power. Even if people in the system are not racist, it doesn’t matter because the system is. Every single white person in America benefits from white privilege.

A person I went to junior high school with commented on a post about BLM protesters with this, “We will treat you like humans when you act like humans.” When you can look at another person and think you have the right to dictate what is and is not human behavior, you are proving my point. This person is not alone in thinking that. This is the attitude we have to change.

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Email PTSD

PTSD email

Send that Email! Take it back!

One part of almost every job I have has included me sending out mass emails. This is something that happened at almost every job I have had. There was always a big back and forth with my boss (or bosses) about when an email was ready. This is the origin of this PTSD.

  • Me: Can I send out the email?
  • Boss: Please go ahead!

Then I would go back to my desk to send out the message. Five to ten minutes later, my boss/es would rush in — Did that email go out? I found a problem! Don’t send it!

Eventually, the conversation turned into:

  • Me: Can I send this email?
  • Boss: Go ahead.
  • Me: Are you sure?
  • Boss: Send it!
  • Me: Are you really sure
  • Boss: Yes! Send it! NOW!
  • Me: Are you totally sure? The last time(s) you found something later. I don’t want to send it because you can’t get it back.
  • Boss: But (coworker) says we can unsend them!
  • Me: We can’t. We have to be sure when we send it!
  • Boss: SEND IT!

The PTSD of mass emails made me miss snail mail

Sometimes, even after that conversation, I would be asked to unsend a mass email. This got to me after a while and I used to even miss mass snail mail. None of my bosses ever expected me to chase down the mailperson to get back the letters we were sending. NOT ONE!

Today, I was working on a mass email for No Business with Genocide. To save a draft, I have to save and send myself a test. When I saw that, I thought I had already sent it and nearly had a stroke. The good news is that the person who proofs and okays my emails has NEVER freaked out and demanded messages be unsent.

Will I ever get over this strange problem? I guess if Jada Pinkett Smith can survive being married ot Will Smith, I will survive this!

If you missed my missive on the English language…

You can always get it here. Every day, my heart breaks time and time again when I see typos and grammar errors. Do these people know they are making these mistakes? Is it just because the medium they are using makes it way too easy to commit one too many language faux pas? Maybe but there are also a lot of intelligent people who don’t know if you have two cats, you do not have two cat’s.

So, if you have anything written that you want to look great, contact me! I LOVE copy editing! Let me help you put your best foot forward!

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Friends don’t let friends butcher the English language

English language

The English language is beautiul.

Over the weekend, a friend gave me a book written by an acquaintance of his. Before I go into what I thought about it, writing a book is a major undertaking. I have nothing but respect for people who follow through with this. This particular book was self-published. I see no issue there. There was a day when that was a bad thing but NOT TO ME.

This book broke my heart on just about every level. I had to look up the plot online because there is so much exposition and it was so poorly constructed I couldn’t follow it. As a lover of the English language, it felt like that author took it, beat the pulp out of it, microwaved it, ripped it up, and beat it some more. Rather than make this into a rant only about how bad this book is, I am going to offer my suggestions on basic stuff:

Alyson’s writing tips:

  • They are lazy. Use a better verb. There are rare times when you can use one but the fewer you use, the tighter your writing will be.
  • Stick with one name per character. For example; if you have a character named Anthony Rebbi, call him Anthony or Tony but don’t go back and forth. Bonus: use their full name when you first mention them and then whichever name you like for the rest of the book/story.
  • Don’t be redundant. If your character has an annoying habit, for example, just show them doing whatever they do. For example, you have a character that swears a lot. You don’t need to write, “Kelly likes to swear.” Just write her dialogue with a lot of curses. SHOW DON’T TELL!
  • Learn the rules of basic punctuation.
    • Quotation marks are not a way to add emphasis. You can do that by using the bold or italic fomatting options. Quotation marks used for emphasis give the reader the wrong impression. For example, I spent the weekend acting in a murder mystery. Another actor played my “husband.” See that shows he wasn’t really my husband. If you see a sign for “sushi,” it is probably not real sushi. If you need more information on quotation marks, check this out.
    • When using quotation marks, be careful where you put commas and periods. It is “I told you I hate dentists,” she said. “They have always scared me.” Note the period and comma sit inside the quotation marks, not after.
  • Use spell check. This is the easiest thing you can do to make your writing clearer. As a bonus, you can get a grammar check which will keep you from having sentences that omit words. This is a common issue that makes your prose make little sense. You can also use Grammarly. Great (and free!) service.
  • Get your dialogue right. Can you see what is wrong here?
    • Shelley answered the phone, “Hello she said. Do you want pizza?” You can approach this in a few ways but that is not one of them. This can be, “Hello,” she said. “Do you want pizza?” It can be in the course of a total conversaion and the whole “she said” can be dopped. Including it mid dialogue as was in the book, is just wrong.
    • “I was thinking we should go to Montauk” he said. You need a comma after Montauk and before the second quotation mark.
  • Use an editor. I was emailing back and forth with a journalist who admitted that due to budget cuts, he did all of his editing and made mistakes as a result. If you are writing on your own like that, you really need to use Grammarly. If you are looking to publish a book, or something else that matters to you, get someone who is experienced at editing. You may have a best friend who “gets you” but that person is crucial for your success (or failure) here.
  • Stick with one verb tense. Unless you are going back and forth with flashbacks or maybe images from the future, you need to be consistent here.

Writing resources that rock:

And if you want, I can always help.

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If you don’t have your health…

even kitty have health issues

Never take your health for granted

Wow. Before my hernia surgery on January 21, I was expecting to go in on Friday, undergo an operation that would take about an hour, and be home in the afternoon. That was NOT even close to what happened. Instead, the surgery was like three hours and I went home four days later.

It has taken me nearly seven weeks to get back to feeling “normal.” I was sleeping like 14 hours a day for about a month. And because my mood is directly impacted by my energy level, I have been a bit depressed since this all started. My sense of self-worth is often determined by how productive I am and it’s hard to be productive when you are sleeping for 14 hours a day so I was kind of depressed from that. I am never going to have energy again. Of course, that’s not true but if you had asked me about that a week or two a go, I would have said that you are nuts.

The good news is I am feeling nearly normal now.

Random things I have been thinking about…

Of course, I have been watching what’s happening in Ukraine and my heart is with the people of that nation but there are a lot of hours in the day and I think about other things from time to time. Here are some of the things on my mind this week:

  • What did God actually sacrifice when Jesus was killed? Now, I am not a Christian and maybe I just feel like the idea that Jesus Christ is our savior is pounded into me from all sides, all of time, and that has me iritated. Maybe it is that this never occured to me before but — he came back to life, according to the myth, a few days later. So, if you really believe all of this nonsense, shouldn’t you see that being dead for three days isn’t a big deal? Please tweet me to tell me what you think (@AlysonHChadwick)
  • How do Republicans who voted against convicting Trump in his first impeachment trial sleep at night? Back in the days of Trump, President Zelensky begged him for defensive weapons and we all know now that Trump was all only if you investigate Joe Biden… Now these same fuckheads senators are all about how much they support Ukraine. Really? When did that start? I know that in the pre-Trump world, support for Ukraine was not partisan.
  • We think Congress can get nothing done but two weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, a bill is ready to be passed imposing a ban on Russian oil. Thirteen months ago, the Myanmar military took over that nation and has killed about 1,400 protesters since then. In the spring of 2021, Congress began talking about a Burma Bill. It was introduced in October. That was five months ago. Why the wait? Every day, the junta kills its own people. If you want to tell your member of Congress to support this, please click here.

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Where’s Mr. Smith when you need him?

Where's Mr. Smith when you need him?

We need more Jefferson Smiths today

This time of year, many people watch the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life. I am as much of a fan of that movie as anyone but my go-to Frank Capra movie has to be Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. If you haven’t seen the film, you should watch it as soon as possible, it is about a naive youth leader who is appointed to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat. Jefferson Smith is selected because his naivete would make him easy to manipulate.

Things don’t go as planned for the corrupt politicians who want Smith to just go along with whatever they say and he takes to the Senate floor to object.

And this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don’t get lost once they come to light; they’re right here! You just have to see them again.

Jefferson Smith

We need people like that in government. People who still believe that politics is the “art of the possible.” We need fewer people who think the only goal that matters is staying in office, getting more money and power, and think party politics are more important than doing the people’s business.

When I was a little kid, my goal was to bridge the gap that exists between people and the government. Yes, I was a strange child. While I felt that way years before I ever heard of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, that was my goal. I started volunteering on campaigns on Long Island when I was about eight years old. I went door to door, passing out literature for local Democrats. In a two to one (or three to one) Republican area, this took some gumption. In fact, one thing that has never wavered for me is my commitment to progressive causes and candidates.

It would be easy to be depressed about the state of things in our government and in politics. On the anniversary of the attempted coup, it is important to point out that storming the capitol and beating up the police there is not the way to change things. I have no idea what to do to get us all reading from the same book, but have we ever really all agreed on anything?

Half of the nation thought owning people was a good idea for centuries. In 2020, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) called slavery a “necessary evil.” That just shows how two people can look at the same thing and think very different things.

It is lazy to think that the only way to change things and make them better is through violence. The hard work is less exciting. We all need to pay attention to the government and to act when we need to. By act, I mean, protest, write letters, write letters to the editor, write op-eds, plan events that raise awareness. The most important thing we can all do is vote.

And white privilege isn’t a thing?

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Hell-Texas) got himself into trouble this week when he called the rioters from 1/6/2021 “terrorists.” Tucker Carlson was having none of that and Cruz had to go on his show and defend his comments? Huh?

Add the fact that Senator Ron Johnson (R-Stupidville-WI) had some interesting things to say about the day.

“I knew those are people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned. Now, had the tables been turned — now, Joe, this will get me in trouble — had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.” 

Senator Ron Johnson on The Joe Pags Show

What kills me about this is when people of color protest by taking a knee or taking to the streets, I often hear people — most often on the right — say things like, “They aren’t doing this the right way.” I have friends who say things like that. During the height of the #BlackLivesMatter protests in 2020, a friend posted (she was responding to a post that made it look like Antifa protesters perpetrated acts of vandalism), “We’ll treat you like humans when you act like humans.” Who gets to decide what is and is not “human behavior?”

When the protesters surrounded the White House, then-President Trump wanted to use the military to break up the crowds. He did use it to move people out of Lafayette Park (across from the White House so he could do a photo op in front of a church. Contrast that with what happened on 1/6/2021 and if you aren’t seeing the hypocrisy and racism, you aren’t paying attention.

The take-home message, as it always seems to be, if you are white, you can get away with just about anything.

Want to carry a weapon across state lines when you are a minor? If you are white (Kyle Rittenhouse), feel free! Want to carry a gun without a state permit and then drive with an air freshener hanging from your mirror (Daunte Wright)? We will kill you!

It’s a good thing that white privilege is not real.

We live in a scary world. I wrote this a few years ago about the things I think we should be scared of this.