Take a page from Oprah

Things are really bothering me and I just have to share:

Magazines with sporadic pagination. Pagination is a nifty little word that I may have just made up, but it works perfectly. If this liberal word usage bothers you, you are free to write about it in your own blog. I wouldn't blame you. Why bother telling readers what page a story is on if the page numbers are absent? It's a mystery! A treasure hunt! W, I'm talking to you. Also, let's not leave out the ability to find the table of contents. W, it's you again. Take a lesson from Oprah. Her Table is on the second page, right where you want it to be. And, it isn't split into several pages scattered throughout the mag. It's a Table of Contents and it belongs at the beginning. Any second grader could tell you that.

Email has no tone. Why is that? It has caused frequent problems in my life. As much as I dislike emoticons, there are times when I want to be sure the person I'm writing to knows I really mean, "Good job the other day". No really. Good job. No, I'm not being sarcastic. I really, really thought you did a good job. :) When I read what I've written, I read it in my voice with my inflections and I can't imagine someone could take my comments the wrong way. Well, they do. All the time.

And to you, person whose "for sale" house I have toured. Do you really, really want to sell your house? Then don't ask me, in a note that has no tone, to take off my shoes! Really? I take this as a precursor to how difficult you will be to work with should this sale proceed, which it probably won't. In one afternoon I toured 7 houses, 5 of which asked me to remove my shoes or put on those slippery hospital booties. I gave up and decided my own house was perfect, shoes and all.