The Broadway hit Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Jeffrey Lane, features con artists who charm oodles of money from unsuspecting wealthy women while singing snappy lyrics and playing a bevy of deliciously “rotten” characters. We laugh and cheer for them every step of the way. But were the con to happen to us in real life, we would wonder why we didn’t see it coming. So, how do you spot a con? By proofreading, of course.

March 4th marks a day that brings me great joy: Grammar Day! So, don your t-shirts and raise your mugs with sayings that only those of us with passion for good word usage find humorous!

Our daughter, Abigail Zhen, (or Abby, as we call her) is adopted from China, and about this time every year, we enthusiastically wish everyone, “Gong xi fa cai!” It is one of the traditional Chinese greetings of the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, offering blessings of wealth and prosperity to everyone. Of the many ways to celebrate, our favorite tradition is writing new year couplets and hanging them on the door. That and eating lots of spring rolls, dumplings, noodles, steamed fish, and rice cakes. But mostly writing couplets.

Why is there a day dedicated to handwriting? Why not? Many days are dedicated to less practical pursuits. Talk Like a Pirate Day falls on September 19 (Arggghhh!), National Grouch Day claims October 15 (Grrrrrrr…), and January 21st is reserved for Squirrel Appreciation Day (Aww, nuts). I, for one, am more than happy to dedicate January 23rd to the art—and science—of handwriting.

Happy New Year! ‘Tis the season for giving and resolutions, and my resolution is to share more of my time and my discoveries. With that in mind, I share the lyrics to Tom Lehrer’s “Without an S.” “WHAT?!” you say. “How can you print someone else’s material? Isn’t it copyrighted? Call the cops!”

Some of the best times of my life were my years performing with Laughing Matters, Atlanta’s Premiere Improvisational Comedy Troupe. Lifelong friendships were formed, and lots of life lessons were learned. One lesson that has stayed with me is to always have a vegetarian option when hosting a dinner party. The other is that it takes true mastery of a skill to do it wrong on purpose.

The Broadway musical Company by Stephen Sondheim features a song performed by a trio of women, Kathy, April, and Marta. Each of them has a relationship with the leading character, Bobby. In the song “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” they sing about the ways Bobby constantly leaves them hanging, leads them on, drops off the face of the earth, and generally spins their heads around trying to guess his next move. As the title says, he drives them crazy.

At my recent college reunion (notice how I’m not saying which number this one was…), we were lucky to catch an art exhibition by current students about gender identity. The entrance to the exhibit packed a powerful punch: a wall of participants’ spectacular self-selected headshots and bios. On the bottom corner of each artist’s panel was the student’s name, a bio that included the artist’s thoughts about art and gender, and, finally, the artist’s personal pronouns.

Years ago, I was an instructional coach for STEAM and arts integration at a DC Public Charter School. Many of my colleagues hailed from Jamaica, and I flat-out adored listening to the musicality of their voices. The accent entranced me.

As intense as I can be about punctuation and grammar, one of my Jamaica-born, -raised, and -educated DCPS colleagues could best me any day in the “Grammar Queen” category. And she proudly shared her thoughts on this topic with all of us at the school.

Roxy Hart and Velma Kelly bemoan the loss of civility in their song “Class” from the award-winning Kander & Ebb musical, Chicago. They sing of how “kids these days” use disrespectful language and treat others rudely and impersonally, all the while using crass language themselves to sing the story. The musical irony of ruing the loss of civility in an uncivil tone has tickled audiences for years. What is this civility of which they sing?

My first non-babysitting job was running a snack bar at a small swim and tennis club. An opening weekend task was to write the menu on the chalkboard, and in my best block printing I wrote “ice tea.” The club manager swooped down, erased the entry, handed the chalk back to me and said, “It’s iced tea, not ice tea. You don’t make tea out of ice; you put it on ice.” I made the correction and chalked it up to a learning experience. (See what I did there? Chalk? Chalked it up? Okay…)