Bad words

Well, not really "bad" words. There is no such thing as a bad word, as far as I am concerned. From my perspective. As I see it. This is more in the category of leftovers that simply will not tolerate any further mutations and which cannot be set on the table any more for a very very long time. These are the creamed eggs on toast of verbiage.

(We ate a lot of creamed eggs on toast in our early marriage ... I am not allowed to serve it ever again in this house. You don't know what it is? Oh. Well, it's a white sauce flavored with herbs (or not) and into which one cuts up hard boiled eggs. Serve on toast. What? Well, go eat something else then! I like creamed eggs on toast! And searching for a picture has revealed to me that this dish might also be called Eggs Goldenrod (fancy!) or "Nun's Toast" -- and I think that's funny. Also ... this picture is far more appetizing than our plates ever were. Go to the post at Debbie Does Edmonds, and you'll discover something else I find amusing. Her husband put up a fight over this dish. Maybe it's a woman's food? After all, its other name isn't Monk's Toast.)

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah. Bad words. Don't serve these words to me anymore. Just cut it out! Stop it! Do not say this stuff any more for a long, long time. This is the annual Banished Words List. Take heed, parrots. Expunge this verbiage from your vocabulary.

Lake Superior State University "maverick" word-watchers, fresh from the holiday "staycation" but without an economic "bailout" even after a "desperate search," have issued their 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. This year's list may be more "green" than any of the previous lists and includes words and phrases that people from "Wall Street to Main Street" say they love "not so much" and wish to have erased from their "carbon footprint."

"Staycation" has my vote for most egregious hodgepodge of nonsense.

And for a Perfect Storm of Cliches, read this from toledoblade.com. Because, after all is said and done, at the end of the day, we do without a doubt too often hit the ground running, trying for that win-win situation, forgetting to think outside the box. And where does that get us? Back to square one, obviously. And probably without a paddle.

What job would you not like to do?

You know the questions, right? The famous Bernard Pivot questions James Lipton asks his guests on Inside the Actors Studio?

1. What is your favorite word?
2. What is your least favorite word?
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
5. What sound or noise do you love?
6. What sound or noise do you hate?
7. What is your favorite curse word?
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
9. What profession would you not like to do?
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Well, not only would I hate it, I would be lethal at it. I must never, never, never take up the care and keeping of animals of any kind.

Today,
1. My dog walked off, and I have a strong suspicion she's gone into the woods to go to the big (safe) dog kennel in the sky. After having gotten too close to the wheels of the truck, she rolled into a ditch and has spent the last day and a half on the back porch, not eating or drinking anything.

2. The white horse (not my horse, but pastured outside my window in my field) found his way out of his fenced area again. Now I don't see him any more. (Why didn't you put him back? He's not my horse and he doesn't wear a bridle. Why didn't you call his owner? I did.)

3. The danged cat is making me nuts. She "caught" a mouse or shrew or something and now we can't find it. We can't find the rodent. We see the cat. The cat is completely uninterested in finding the rodent.

I'm just not an animal person. I'm just not.

sigh ...

When something dies

This is about the tenth attempt at getting a post written. Or anything else written, for that matter. I have been trying to figure out how to put words to the small litany of things that are pulsing at the back of my mind.

The unifier - the Idea of all of them - has finally come to me.

It's about Death.

Yeah. Death.

Ever watch Houseboat? There is a scene in which the dad says to the son that yes, he (the dad) will have to die -- to make room for the son and for his sons and for his son's sons. Every year we watch the truth of this. Every year, the old year dies to make room for the new. Every year, we become separated again from every attachment and everything we have loved and everyone we have known. We cannot step twice in the same river. (Heraclitus) The river is not the same - water flows on. And we are not the same. Time flows on.

Every day must die at the setting of the sun ... or there could be no tomorrow after the night. Every year must die. And every relationship. Over and over and over. Whether it will be a new relationship tomorrow is never certain at the death. But the death happens. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies. This makes crops. The death happens, and sometimes, the death is the seed of new life. Not always, but sometimes.

What happens to us as we get older? Do we forget to grieve over the dying wheat? Do we decide that it's silly? Or useless? Or wrong? I am starting to suspect that we should be careful about this issue of death and grief. I am starting to wonder if we inadvertently build a back log of grief, and then, far out of proportion to the thing that breaks the dam, great and overwhelming devastation happens. Our sludge buries us because we saved it up. We were making power. We thought that the pile of fly ash was just a fact of our productive lives. And then one day the dam bursts.

And if we stop so long in grief at our losses at the close of our years? If we stop and stay and begin to feel that grief is our most natural state?

Then we are too intent on grieving to notice it when the sun comes up again. And the sun does come up.

So, here, at the close of this year, I bring my little grains of wheat to the edge of the trench I dig, and I bury them. First, I bury my fertility of body, and pray for the gentle sun and rain of spring to bring fertility of soul. Personal reading and personal Rule of Life to water, school to feed and tend, the warmth of brilliant mind and silly conversation at home to germinate, and the hope of a crop is in the soil.

This year I will also put some relationships and affections into the ground near the fence where they cannot invade the garden. I am at a loss as to how to tend them, and experimenting with them has not gone well. These seem to be wild plants. I have no ability to handle them without doing damage to them - or to me! I keep getting stung. Nothing for it, but to let it go.

All these little deaths, and a few big ones. I plant them in the ground. I thank them for their lives. I kiss them good bye, and I remember to feel the sadness. I owe them that much at least. And in their honor, I wait for the spring.

Education

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aritstotle

You just GOTTA TRY this!

www.literature-map.com

This is just about the coolest little toy I've seen in ages!

Literature-Map - the tourist map of literature
Find a writer in the map:

Name of the author:

And then ...What else do readers of ______________ read?

The closer two writers are, the more likely someone will like both of them.

Click on a name to travel along.