How Much?

I’m so excited that my blog finally hit an awe-inspiring 20 subscribers. I expect I’ll soon be hearing from NPR to interview me for one of their radio talk shows. I’ve been binge-listening to our public broadcaster to study the tone and timbre of a typical NPR conversation – you know, just to get ready. I think I’ve got it nailed. Oh, how I have imagined that call from my favorite on-air personality. I just know that call is bound to come any day now. I can hear it all now:

TG: Welcome back to “Fresh Fair” on NPR. I’m your host, Terry Grass. Today we’re talking with the writer of that wildly popular blog, “Brave Neuf World,” from Dayton, Ohio, birthplace of the original humor writer, Erma Bombeck. Here’s Lesley Neufeld. Welcome, Lesley.

Me:  Thanks very much, Terry. I’m very much pleased to be here.

TG: Hm. Yes. Well, tell us what your blog is all about.

Me: Well, Terry, it’s very much all about the odd, (pause) goofy things that go on (pause) day to day.  Very much about the quirky way (pause) that I (pause) view the (pause) world.

TG: So, would you say there is a fair amount of irony in your writing?

Me: Oh! Oh, yes, very much so, yes! It’s very much about the sardonic and the satiric, and (pause) sometimes (pause) very much about satire. Also very much about a touch of historic (pause)because I very much like to dig into Wikipedia to find out (pause) about the origins of things. My blog is very much about, mmm (pause) paradoxes and (pause) incongruities between how things are (pause) and very much about (pause) how things very much got started and where they very much went off the rails.

TG: OK. So, do you do very much, uh, I meant to say, a lot of research?

Me: Yes, very much.

TG: Uh huh. And how did you get started? Was there someone who was influential?

Me: Oh, very much so! Yes. I was very much influenced by a very good friend who very much enjoyed the emails I wrote to her when I moved away from the city we both (pause) very much lived in. Then I very much started reading blog posts by someone here in Dayton who very much wrote (pause) very funny, very much humorous material. I thought, “Wow! I very much want to try that very much!”

TG: Right! Well, then. Tell us how you got the name for your blog, “Brave Neuf World.”

Me: Well, Terry, that was very much about me being all (pause) “Am I brave enough to put my writing very much out there in the public eye?” and saying, (pause) “Hey, (pause) how about very much using the title “Brave New World” but very much switching out “Neuf” for “new”, because it is very much about my last name and the English translation of the German “neuf. ”

TG: Very, uh, yeah….good.  Alright. Let’s talk about Erma Bombeck.

Me: Oh, yes! It is all VERY much about Erma Bombeck, because you know she was very much about the day to day conundrums and so we humor writers are oh, so, so VERY much about honoring Erma, very much so, yes, oh, yes, very much. Because, you know, she was very much all about being the first woman to very much give a voice to housewives to say, “Hey, housework is not very much what it has very much been cracked up to be,” and she was very much funny about it. We humor writers very, very much are in her debt for very much breaking ground.

TG: OK. That’s it. Have you noticed that you’re saying “very much” a lot? And in all the wrong places? And why aren’t you pausing anymore?

Me: Well, Terry, I am very much not pausing because I’m very much warmed up by now.

TG: Could you please stop saying, “very much”?

Me: I very much doubt it, Terry.

TG: Agh! Why are you saying, “very much” all the time?

Me: Everyone interviewed on NPR very much does it, Terry. It’s always, “very much about” something or other.

TG: No, it very much isn’t! Aaaaghh! Now you’ve got me doing it!

Me: See?

TG: OK. We have to go to news now. Thanks for being here. I guess.

Me: Very much my pleasure, Terry. Thank you. Thank you, very much.

 

I’ll let you know when I’m on the radio. You’ll very much want to catch it.