Seriously_.I'm Kidding - Ellen DeGeneres [10]
May 25, 2011
Dear Journal,
Today was the very last episode ever of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Wow. I can’t believe it. I don’t know how her show got canceled. So many people loved it. But you know what this means? Now that Larry King retired, Oprah’s moving on, and Regis quit, all of television will be mine! Hahahahaha!
June 24, 2011
Journal,
I’m about to turn my new book in to the publisher. Writing a book is hard. I thought it was mostly going to be journal entries like this, but it turns out they need more to fill a book. I wish it could be all journal entries. Anyway, I’m gonna send the book in and then probably head to the movies. You know what comes out today, Journal? Cars 2. Isn’t that great? A sequel to a hit animated movie. I’m so, so, so happy for them.
Important Words
Now this is a very difficult chapter for me to write. This chapter, chapter ten, is my favorite chapter in one of my favorite books so I feel an enormous amount of pressure to make it spectacular. There are other books I’ve read where chapter ten was not that great at all. But I prefer not to tell you to which book I’m referring. Maybe the author of that book failed to read the chapter in the book I aforementioned.
I don’t know if “aforementioned” is a word or if it’s correctly used here. But whenever I feel stress or pressure of any kind I try to use big, important words. It makes me feel better and more powerful. Like, if I get pulled over for speeding I usually say something like, “Mr. (or Mrs. or Ms. depending on the situation, of course) Gentleman Enforcer of the Legal Government Principles, I am en route to my appendectomy.” And then they usually say something like, “License and registration.” And then I say, “Cacophony!” And then they usually write me a ticket.
I don’t know why bigger words seem like they’re more important. Really all words are important, even small words like “the” or “it” or “a” or “or,” for that matter. You can’t form a sentence without those words. Let me try to make a sentence without using any of those words just to make a point.
See? I can’t.
Well, I guess technically “I can’t” is a sentence that doesn’t use “the” or “it” or “a” or “or” but you understand what I’m trying to say. All those small words are just as important as big words. I say it all the time about words and only words—it’s not the size that counts. It’s the way you use them in sentences, paragraphs, and slam poetry.
Some authors try to be all show-offy with fancy sentences. And I could do that if I really wanted to. It’s not like I don’t know all those rarely used big, fancy, ostentaneous words, too. Of course I do. And if that’s what it takes for a book to win a Pulitzer or some grand literary prize I guess I could throw a sentence or two in. Why not? I’ll do it right now.
One day my domesticated feline Charlie was unequivocally euphoric. I deducted this based on my astute observation of her level of loquaciousness while she hurriedly pursued her high-pitched squeakable toy rodent of the species Mouseous.
See? Easy. Here is another example:
Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel. They need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making pudding and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
Okay, that was from Jane Eyre. I can’t keep this charade up for a whole chapter. That Jane Eyre is really good, though, isn’t it?
Family
We are family. I got all my sisters with me.
We are family. Get up everybody and sing.
—Sister Sledge
A few years ago I received a letter from a genealogist at the New