There is Nothing Between You and I!

How many times do I have to repeat: There is nothing between “you and I”! It’s all between “you and me”! I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. You could be using the subject form (I) to sound more erudite. However, that is just plain wrong.

Want to know why?

Between is a preposition. Prepositions require the “object” form. You can be both subject and object, so nothing to worry about there. I, on the other hand, is subject; me is object.

Don’t make me tell you again!

The Newsletter I'm Waiting For

 

Here’s the newsletter I’m waiting to receive:

            I’m about to tell the truth about the year just past. No, it wasn’t one of the better ones, and I’m not about to hide behind a bunch of lies about how great life is.

            My books aren’t selling. Most of the writers who send me holiday mail imply that their books are selling like gangbusters. If that’s so, why ain’t they rich and sitting in Palm Beach?

            The newsletters I receive tell about their college-educated achieving kids getting great jobs and promotions and even their pets making out like… well, like animals! My kids are finding they don’t need me around anymore. And their pets see more of them than I do.

            As for grandchildren, I have only one and she hasn’t communicated with me in ten years — since she was 13. From what I gather, her growth was stunted shortly after she ran off with her mother and disowned her father and all his family.

            The rest of my news is equally turbulent. I’m aging. Well, we all are, but I have a head start on you all and I’m way past my sell-by date. It’s a wonder somebody hasn’t thrown me out yet.

            Oh, the house. I don’t know why newsletter writers insist on talking about the swimming pool they added, the new homes they and their children bought, and the way some of the kids are adapting to ritzy condo living. My house is warm; I can say that amid freezing temperatures. The doors lock; the windows are double-thick to keep out the cold, and the roof doesn’t leak. I won’t talk about the plumbing or electricity or phone lines; it’s just too depressing.

            Okay, so it’s not all bad. I do get Social Security, although it’s been cut back so far I can afford only a couple of days of eating each month. See? Good news! I’ve lost another ten pounds (and about two inches in height).

            I do see my offspring occasionally, and once they didn’t fight for an entire hour — a record. They’re good kids; they just don’t listen to their mother anymore. But then, who does?

            My husband was awaiting a long-deserved promotion and raise in September, but just after Labor Day received a pink slip. He’s too old now to find another job quickly, but he’s about 56^th in line for a job at Walmart. Meanwhile, all he does is grump around the house.

            As for my work, I’m a linguist, grammarian, word person, among the most underappreciated, under-recognized, and under-utilized people in the country. France and Germany have languages that people study and work to get right. But Americans (not the Canadian or South American kind) prefer to wander aimlessly through quasi-sentences with unimaginative words, mostly misspelled or erroneously placed. And who can understand the way young people talk these days. I’m not deaf; they elide too much (look it up!).

            Some more good news: I drive wherever I want and have been lucky with finding good deals on gas. Still, who wants to drive amid the traffic that clogs pot-holed streets and causes accidents. I can’t remember the last time I drove more than two blocks from home without having some fool cut in front of me — or without having to stop while emergency vehicles go racing past, on their way to the latest shooting. I almost long for the days of horses and buggies, messy as they were.

            But my newsletter is getting too long. When I hit Page 2 of most newsletters, I want to race to the end to see who sent it to me. I don’t recognize most of the names; who can keep track of their relatives’ kids and grandkids, especially those with such weird names? And never mind friends’ offspring. Who cares!

            Oh, almost forgot. I noted the price of Christmas trees the other day. Thirty and forty dollars for trees we used to buy for a couple bucks! And the trees… are… d-e-a-d! As for Christmas shopping, I am one of those who refuses to go into a store from Thanksgiving to Epiphany.

            Yes, I’m wishing you a Merry Christmas, rather than a Happy Holiday. I celebrate (or used to when it didn’t cost so much) Christmas. If you celebrate Hanukah or Kwanzaa or Eid, I’ll wish you a happy one when the time comes. But for me, December 25 is not a “holiday”, it’s a Holy Day celebrating Christmas.

So: M E R R Y   C H R I S T M A S and a very H A P P I E R   N E X T   Y E A R!’

*(Of course you don’t know who sent this; I never signed it!)