An Open Letter to Allie Brosh

Dear Allie,

We've got an issue here.

You see, I've lost all sense of actually having a life of my own, and have been reduced to an internet–wandering lost soul.  (Interspersed, of course, with a few hours of Wii here and there.)  Anyway, my point is that I can only read the headline "A News Update, A Dramatic Montage, and a Video Animation" so many more times before I go insane.  The fact of the matter is simply that I (and I'm sure I speak for other faithful minions here) am dying to hear, perhaps in excruciating detail, the engagement story.  That twitter post was like a mean advertisement for a show's season finale airing 2 months before you get to see it, only for there to be a writer's strike.

....Okay, that's a bit dramatic.  But I feel like I'm watching Christmas ads on TV and there's no snow yet.  WE MUST KNOWWWWWW!!!!!!!

Anyway, all melodrama aside, much congratulations.  If it strikes you, please address the subject of "boyfriend's" pseudonym.  Will it remain "boyfriend?"  Will it change?  Is this going to be like introducing Darrin #2 on Bewitched?

Thank you for your consideration in this pressing and urgent matter.  In the meantime, I will just keep hitting the refresh button on Hyperbole and a Half seventy-two times per minute until it changes.

Sincerely,

Matt Walton
( http://nothingcleverishere.blogspot.com )

(P.S.  I'm willing to negotiate a grace period extension due to your recent move.  I'm moving in two weeks and it sucks the most.  But once I'm unpacked, I'm going to assume that there will be a new blog.  The fine is assessed at  15¢ per day after this point.)

Literally. Like, litchrully.

"Literally" is such a funny word.  Well, it's not LITERALLY funny, but when the meaning of it is taken out of proper context, it cracks me up.  It LITERALLY cracks me up.

See, I'm the kind of person whose mind will manage to imagine improper imagery in almost any situation.  Like, if I sit and ponder the fact that someone is a mom, I, for some reason, can't help but imagine them screaming in a birthing room with nasty hair and cursing all men.  Does this make me so, so sick?  Probably.  But that's just my cracked-up brain, I guess.  So when people go throwing the word "literally" around all willy-nilly amongst metaphors, I can't help but imagine the LITERAL imagery of what they're describing.  (On a separate, but related note, I can't STAND it when people pronounce "literally" /'lɪ tʃɹə lɨ/, or for my non-IPA-inclined friends, "LI-tchra-lee," with an obnoxious and unintentionally exaggerated emphasis on the /tʃ/ "ch."  If you're going to make a ridiculous metaphoric reference, please pronounce the word right.  *Gets down from soap box*)

I understand that "literally" has become more or less commonplace as an intensifier these days, but I still can't help but TAKE a given scenario "literally" literally when it's given to me in that context.

Here are some examples of "literal" scenarios that I've heard people toss around: