I just finished directing the music for my school district's musical, Oliver! It had been consuming my life, and I can't say that I am sad to see that part of my life over with. Conducting 12 professional musicians in the pit was a treat, but the entire experience was just way too stressful. When the lead, Oliver, came down with laryngitis on Tuesday, I knew that it was going to be an interesting week. He was able to speak for the opening night, but the poor kid had to lip sync while I sang his songs for him. He was able to get through his singing parts for yesterday's show, but the disappointment on his face nearly broke my heart. There were a lot of tears shed in the audience as he was making his way through Where is Love?. He got a standing ovation, and I was again reminded of why I love teaching kids to sing.
I went to bed last night thinking, "Yes, finally I can fall asleep without worrying about anything!" Wrong. My heart was still pounding, and I was still feeling anxious. It took me a moment to realize that it's because my wedding is in 3 months, and I am behind in the planning process. Once the invitations are in, addressed and mailed, I should feel better.
The good news is that Megan, Steve and Michael will be at the wedding! Michael is going to be our ring bearer, so I am in the process of securing a very pretty little flower girl to accompany him. I am very excited!
By the way, I am at a complete loss as to how I should have punctuated the first and seventh sentences of this entry. I ended up doing it two different ways because I didn't want to end the seventh sentence with a question mark. Where is Little Miss Know-it-all? This must be corrected!
4 comments:
I will stress that I would never have popped up with grammar advice if you hadn't asked for it. I am not a grammar terrorist. (Maybe I should stop threatening to behead people. I appear to be sending the wrong message.)
In this case, I would suggest that you should use quotation marks rather than italics. That would allow you to write:
...my school district's musical, "Oliver!".
or
...making his way through "What is Love?".
Normally, you can use either italics or quotation marks around the names of songs and shows (more about that at http://stevemegan.blogspot.com/
2006/11/bad-grammar.html). Both are correct, but in this case, quotation marks would be preferable because they make the sentence clearer.
Would you say that it is incorrect to end the sentence, "...making his way through What is Love?" with What is Love? in italics, thus ending the sentence with a question mark?
Those question marks sure do complicate the matter!
Declaratory sentences need to end with periods. This doesn't change when you discuss a song with punctuation in the title, so you would need to put the period after the question mark or exclamation point. If you're using italics, this would butt two types of punctuation right up against each other -- hence my advice to use quotation marks rather than italics.
Using quotation marks makes sense. I sincerely appreciate the advice. There are certain grammar points I tend to avoid rather than use incorrectly, and it limits my writing. But by all means, behead away. On a certain level, I empathize with your frustrations. I once noticed a sign in a school building (not mine) that read, "Your the best!" I went directly to the principal and had him take it down. Things like that are inexcusable and should not be tolerated!
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