Haw

Haw

From Dictionary.com:

1. To utter a sound representing a hesitation or pause in speech

2. To turn or make a turn to the left

 

Jimmy Stewart.

Aphorism

Aphorism

From Dictionary.com:

A terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation

Vhatever, no anal.

Unfortunately this is not my own invention.  I was told a story about a couple who had a shower curtain with the periodic table of Kama Sutra positions on it, those they had tried receiving a check mark.  When asked why she never took the curtain down for visitors, particularly parents, the wife (who was German) replied "Vhatever, there's no anal."

I am now accepting orders for cross-stitched and framed renditions of these words of wisdom.  Hang them in the office, over the fireplace, in the classroom---it's the most versatile saying you'll find anywhere!

Catawampus

Catawampus

From Dictionary.com:

Off-center; askew; awry

 

I know I'm drunk when, upon the first of what is obviously many visits to the bathroom, I start laughing while I'm on the toilet.

I am drunk.

Attenuate

Attenuate

From Dictionary.com:

1. To weaken or reduce in force, intensity, effect, quantity, or value

2. To make thin; make slender or fine

3. In medicine, to render less virulent, as a strain of pathogenic virus or bacterium

4. In electronics, to decrease the amplitude of an electronic signal

 

Who else is sick of this month's entries?  

Ooh ooh me me ME!

Sirocco

Sirocco

From Dictionary.com:

1. Any hot, oppressive wind, especially one in the warm sector of a cyclone

2. A hot, dry, dustladen wind blowing from northern Africa and affecting parts of southern Europe

3. A warm, sultry south or southeast wind accompanied by rain

Your breath.

Torrefy

Torrefy

From Dictionary.com:

1. To subject to fire or intense heat

2. In pharmacology, to dry or parch drugs with heat

3. To roast, as metallic ores

 

With this the creme broulee I have made for you I give to you my everlasting devotion and affection.  With this--wait for it now--I commit myself to you fully and completely.  With this--no, seriously, look: I've got the blow torch and everything.  This is gong to be bomb, just hang on a second--with this sweet confection I submit unto you my entire life.  Of course I'm going to be careful.  Christ I'm not a complete idiot, ok WOAH.  Heh heh.  Hey, it's fine.  Look: this little knob here, I just twist it and down goes the flame.  No big deal.  It's fine.  Ahem.  This tiny flame is but a fraction of the passion burning inside me, the passion I have for you and you alone.  Are you ready for this, babe?  Check it: just like at the restaurant.  Heh heh.  Will you look at that?  That is a thing of beauty right AW FUCK.  Shit fuck.  Fuck fuck fuck fuck that fucking hurt.  Well I'm sorry I got it on your shoes.  I fucking burned my hand here.  SHIT.  Who cares about your shoes anyway.  Ohh yes.  Yes of course this all comes back to you being right and me being wrong.  Yes, yes, yes of course.  Fuck.  You know what this comes fucking back to?  Me being romantic as shit and you being n ungrateful frigid COW.  Oh shit I need to run this under some cold water or something.  Honey.  Aw honey.  Babe.  baby.  I'm sorry.  Don't cry.  Don't cry, baby.  There's no need to cry.  I didn't mean those things.  You now I didn't.  I love you, baby.  This just--this really fucking hurts.  No, I know, sweetpea.,  I know.  But a man gets burned and he's going to say all sorts of crazy shit.  It's the pain talking, baby, that's all.  I'm sorry.  It's ok.  No, I'm sorry about your shoes.  I really like those shoes.  You know I do.  Haven't I told you how great they make your ass look?  And you're definitely not a bitch.  Or a cow.  I know I didn't call you a bitch, but I just wanted you to know you're not one of those either.  Or frigid.  You're like the opposite of frigid.  You're like...you're like this blow torch here, babe.  You're hot and bright.  Of course I'm not going to turn it back on.  I'm not--Jesus babe I'm just waxing fucking poetic here for you.  I'm not going to AW FUCK.

Sabbatical

Sabbatical

From Dictionary.com:

Any extended period of leave from one's customary work, especially for rest, to acquire new skills or training, etc.

Yup It Up

pack

car

drive

stop

pick up more

drive

parents

Cracker Barrel

biscuits

bye

drive

Portland

mead

taste 

tour

7-Eleven

drive

1

coast

stop

gas

drive

bridge

Mount Desert

Bar Harbor

stop

bed and breakfast

check-in

dinner

Italian

bed and breakfast

blog

sleep

Jujitsu

Jujitsu

From Dictionary.com:

1.The ability to accomplish a task with no apparent effort or resistance

2.Method developed in Japan of defending oneself without the use of weapons by using the strength and weight of an adversary to disable him

 

On his back staring at clouds drifting past clear blue sky and jets trudging past clouds, he wondered at which point he could have prevented being out-maneuvered, or indeed if his own frontal assault was doomed from the moment he lurched into a sprint.

Waltz for Venus anyone?  Anyone?

Xenogenic

Xenogenic

From Dictionary.com:

1. To be completely different from either parent, or from the source of an object's creation

2. In biology, originating outside the organism or from a foreign substance introduced into the organism

 

The latest novel from bestselling author K. Bliss,

This Heart Can't Be Broken (It's Made of Synthetic Rubber)

A story of love, loss, and seriously invasive medical procedures. 

Pollulate

Pollulate

From Dictionary.com:

1.To exist abundantly; swarm; teem

2.To send forth sprouts, buds, etc.

3.To increase rapidly; multiply

 

You will know they have come from the haze on the horizon.  The wind will carry them until you are surrounded by the blizzard of their spores and the last thing you will see is the white snow falling softly on your face.

Yarely

Yarely, a list

From Dictionary.com:

With quickness or agility

A fox

My mind

Catwoman's whip

A ribbon dancer

My wit

A ninja

Parkour

An octopus tentacle impregnating a female

Virilocal

Virilocal

From Dictionary.com:

Living with or located near the husband's father's group; patrilocal

Why? Why don't you just move?

Eisegesis

Eisegesis

From Dictionary.com:

an interpretation, especially of Scripture, that expresses the interpreter's own ideas, bias, or the like, rather than the meaning of the text

What is organized religion, Alex.

Concerning the quality of the posts

I know many of you have likely been disappointed with this blog's content over the past week, week and a half.  My posts have indeed been suffering due to my busier-than-normal schedule.  But, having recently dropped my phone into a toilet after having peed in it, here is what is currently on my mind:

Has my own urine ruined my phone?

What is the potency of my urine?

If my water intake today had been higher, would my urine have posed less of a threat?

Abut

Abut

From Dictionary.com:

To be adjacent; touch or join at the edge or border

As I lie here in bed I stare down at the sheets covering the two of us and and I see his left leg edging closer toward the middle, toward the line that runs through the center of the mattress, the agreed upon border, before I feel his leg brush up against my own leg that lies squarely on its own side.  This shall not stand.

Brindled

Brindled

From Dictionary.com:

Gray or tawny with darker streaks or spots

Someone mentioned a cow and I thought to myself, I was almost assaulted by a cow in Scotland over the matter of a half-eaten apple.  True story.  I was near the fence eating an apple and he charged at me, eyes wide, and more or less put his head on my torso, or would have if I hadn't back the hell away out of terror.  He just stared at me and wouldn't back away.  Then everyone else on the tour told me to throw him the apple which resulted in my accidentally pelting him in the head with it.  He did not eat the apple.

Crotchet

Crotchet

From Dictionary.com:

An odd fancy or whimsical notion

I collect all the hair I shed and keep it in those old, long flower boxes, of which I now have 7.  How bout you?

Orison

Orison

From Dictionary.com:

A prayer

Dear God: please let this work.

Cosher

Cosher

From Dictionary.com:

To treat with special fondness; pamper

I would use it in a sentence, but I don't quite understand how from the quotes provided on the Word of the Day page.  It's supposedly Irish but it clearly looks like 'kosher,' which word I use rather liberally (read as incorrect) on a day to day basis.  

Arroyo

Arroyo

From Dictionary.com:

(chiefly in southwest U.S.) a small steep-sided watercourse or gulch with a nearly flat floor: usually dry except after heavy rains

  

Euphemism for a vagina.

Kerf

Kerf, a song

From Dictionary.com:

A cut or incision made by a saw or the like in a piece of wood

 I got myself a tree

I got myself some real nice birch

I got a saw, I got me a sander

I got all the tools I might need

Cause I'm gonna hew myself a friend

Gonna carve one right out of wood

I've been waiting a long time for a friend

I'll make one--that's just as good

First comes my buddy's body

Next come two pairs of limbs

Last comes my buddy's big ol' head

And his lovable rough-cut grin

Cause I'm gonna hew myself a friend

Gonna carve one right out of wood

I've been waiting a long time for a friend

I'm making one that's plenty good

My buddy is everything he ought to be

He's a man's man and real fit

But a great big heart and a brain to match

I made sure not to forget

Cause I'm gonna hew myself a friend

Gonna carve one right out of wood

I've been waiting a long time for a friend

I've made the best pal anyone could

My buddy and me go everywhere

We're known as an inseparable pair

We go to the movies, we go the beach

We ride the rides at the local fair

Cause I'm gonna hew myself a friend

Gonna carve one right out of wood

I've been waiting a long time for a friend

Now I've got one that'll last like he should

My buddy and me go camping

We got the tents and the smores and the lot

We got songs and stories and lots of laughs

But kindling we haven't got

I'm gonna hew myself a friend

Gotta find something better than wood

I'll be waiting a long time for a friend

One that doesn't burn so good

Umbra

Umbra

From Dictionary.com:

1. Shade; shadow

2. The invariable or characteristic accompaniment or companion of a person or thing

     "Wanna play?"

     The boy nods furiously and runs out to join the others in the field playing baseball.  He has been watching for so long.  He knows he could be truly great if someone just gave him the chance. 

     "Just you," the others tell him.  "Not that....shadow."

     The looks at the dark, cloudy figure beside him.  "He goes where I go."

     The others exchange glances.  "Is he any good at ball?"

     The boy bites his lip.  "He can hold his own."

     "I guess it's alright.  Go ahead and take first."

     The boy runs to first base.  This was it, his chance to show everyone what he was capable of.  "Please don't mess this up," he said to his shadow.  The shadow shrugged silently. 

     First batter up to the plate.  He grinds his feet into the dirt and pulls the bat far back behind him.

     The first pitch.  Strike one.

     The batter pulls back again.  Ball one.

     The batter pulls back a third time.  Crack.

     The ball goes low and bounces toward first, the batter running right behind it and cathcing up.

     The boy plants his left foot on first base and crouches low to catch the first hit of the game, what will be the first out, his first of many, many outs, what will be the beginning of his long and successful baseball career.

     But the sun shifts behind passing clouds and his shadow jumps all around in front of him.  The shadow is not really interested in the game and stares wistfully at the nearby tennis courts.  That is the sport he's always wanted to try, always suspected he had a natural ability for.

     The baseball flies straight through the shadow, followed soon after by the batter as he slides into first.

     "Why didn't you get that?" the others yell.

     "I tried, but he--"

     "I don't think we can afford to play with your shadow."

     Shoulders slumped, the boy and his shadow make their way back to the bench at the side of the field.

     "Thanks a lot," the boy says.

     His shadow shrugs silently again and watches the tennis game he is now slightly closer to. 

Lucubrate

Lucubrate

From Dictionary.com:

To work, write, or study laboriously, especially at night; what I'm doing right now, trying not to think of 'lubricate' which is what I initially thought this word was when I first glanced at it; thanks to my filthy mind, this word, which actually has a nice definition that one could do a lot with, is forever ruined because I'll always think "Ha, there's that word I confused with lubricate."

Cater-cousin

Cater-cousin

From Dictionary.com:

An intimate friend

Sitting on a bench near a park, near a harbor, I am waiting for you.  Furiously I'm writing, or trying to write something, or not really writing anything at all because I cannot concentrate on the notebook in front of me, try as I might to construct something beautiful from the sunset on the water and the greenery filled with families and couples.  I'm not quite to loathing it all just yet.  I'm too distracted to care much about the scenery at all.  

I'm pissed  I'm waiting for you to come so I can tell you I'm pissed at you.  Am I pissed at you?  I don't know why I would be, but things are definitely suggesting that I am.  If I tell you that I don't know why I'm pissed at you, would that make it better?  Is this the kind of thing we should work out together?  Everyone else we know has pissed me off today and I know precisely why.  Were you guilty of the same?  

And here you are, cheerful and unpissed because you are not me.  I am struck by how much I don't want to be pissed at you, and as much as I strive for honesty, not telling you that I am seems like the best option right now.  I'll leave it at that.

Wiredrawn

Wiredrawn

From Dictionary.com:

1. Finely spun; extremely intricate; minute.

2. Drawn out long and thin like a wire.

A new social networking site. 

What it is:  In the void you are represented by a straight white thread.  At any time you can add a relationship by entering another person’s name.  Their thread (of a different color) is then woven around yours until the point at which it leaves your thread entirely at the projected end of your relationship (accurate to within one month).

How it works:  Typing in a person’s name prompts the site to compile all available information pertaining to that person (DOB, present and past places of residence, employment history, marriages and/or divorces, all purchasing history, education, criminal records, medical history, etc.) then analyze that information, compare it to your own and then, using the most reliable psychological research and statistics, project the intensity and duration of your relationship. 

Features:  Expand or contract your threads at any point in the timeline for easier viewing.  Utilize various search options and filters to better organize and view your relationships (according to type of relationship (platonic, familial, romantic, sexual, professional), duration, intensity, location, or specific personal attributes).  Receive personalized statistics and analyses of relationship patterns and learn more about yourself.

Pecksniffian

Pecksniffian

From Dictionary.com:

Hypocritically and unctuously affecting benevolence or high moral principles

 

I could talk about the close-minded, hateful types who spout moral garbage while attacking those who live and think and function outside their very small sphere.  But instead I'll talk about how I dislike Charles Dickens.  I find his books to be long, dull, and overrated.  He also is the cause of ridiculous words like pecksniffian.  And, if I may be allowed another (related!) rant, in general the -ian suffix may be one of the worst (sorry, -ian, nothing personal, just the ways things turned out) in that it's mostly attached to proper nouns to turn them into extremely pompous-sounding adjectives whose sole purpose is to make the speaker sound intelligent by way of obscure reference.  (I will never forget the day I heard someone say "Foucauldian" (that's the adjective version of Foucault, a philosopher--I had to look it up) when talking about a professor.  I wanted to punch them.)  Speech is about communication and communication is about mutual understanding.  These linguistic pretensions (such as using phrases like "linguistic pretensions") are silly and annoying and the exact opposite of that.  I realize of course that specialized language is unavoidable.  A bunch of neurosurgeons get together or some professors of 19th c. Russian literature have a conference, of course they're going to be throwing around words that most people don't know.  But the bulk of those specialized words are just nouns, because that's what separates the different areas of specialization: things, different compositions of various parts.  It's the rest of the words--the verbs and adjectives and adverbs and prepositions--that everyone shares.  And obscure nouns are in a way simple.  Because nouns are pretty simple.  You either know them or you don't.  Object = name.  Someone at some time just slapped a title on something and you probably won't be able to break it down and figure it out piece by piece.  It's information you just have to commit to memory.  "The smeerx they've got over there is probably the best one available right now."  No clue what a smeerx is?  A little awkward perhaps, but not really a problem.  You ask and someone tells you using different nouns.  I find this infinitely less pretentious than "He is so Foucauldian, it's just embarrassing."  There's more to the word than the simple x = y relationship of a noun.  Sure, you've gathered that it's an adjective, but then you need to know who Foucault was, what his major beliefs or mannerisms were.  

I'm rambling and it's getting late, but essentially what I was trying to get to was that specialized nouns are necessary because things need names.  It can't be helped.  But generally speaking we don't need any other parts of speech to be specialized like that.  Words like pecksniffian are entirely unnecessary.  They're taking a very understandable idea and slapping an obscure reference to it.

I don't know if this counts as a "crazy long blog post" as promised in my pangram from yesterday (only promised, I'll admit, because I needed to get a 'z' in there), but it feels plenty long to me.  Let us all concentrate our positive energy on Dictionary.com's word of the day for tomorrow being something I can actually write about and so spare you all from any more of my attempts at linguistic criticism.

Pangram

Pangram

From Dictionary.com:

A sentence, verse, etc., that includes all the letters of the alphabet

Rest assured I know how lame it is to write a pangram today, but I'm exceptionally tired and I found this word quite uninspiring, so you'll just have to content yourselves with a crazy long blog post tomorrow.

It's especially lame when your pangram is just a run-on sentence.

Foist

Foist

From Dictionary.com:

To force upon or impose fraudulently or unjustifiably

I can't help but think, stuffed under this thick, itchy blanket gasping for what little warm, stale air is left, that I don't deserve this.  I didn't ask for this.  I didn't want it.  Nothing I've done, no decision made or action taken, throughout my life should have brought me to this point.  But here I am.  Under a blanket waiting to be found by the 19-month old that put me there to begin with.  Waiting to be found just so he can squeal "More.  More."

Maybe if he left the room, I could understand the thrill at finding me under the blanket he forced over me.  But he doesn't leave the room.  He tells me "Hidin'" and covers me up and then sits in the armchair and watches me and asks the others--the ones doing nothing to help me--"Where?"  They offer suggestions as to where I might be (though, having been in the same room all along, they also saw me swaddled in an old quilt) and he entertains all the possibilities, but eventually he declares "No" when, for example, I turn out not to be in the oven of his play kitchen.

It continues until all logical and totally illogical options are exhausted, save the most painfully logical and obvious, the place I've been "Hidin'" all along, the place I've been "Hidin'" most of the afternoon.  When my actual hiding spot is finally suggested as my hiding spot, the blanket is thrown off of me.  Sweet air conditioned air!  Beautiful artificial light!  Everyone is amazed and revels in their awe.  Under the blanket?  Who would have thought?!

But my freedom is short-lived.  The boy's appetite for hide 'n seek is not sated.  "Hidin'" he says, and back under the blanket I go.  Goodbye cool freedom.  Hello mothball-ridden prison.

Decollete

Decollete

From Dictionary.com:

(Of a garment) low-necked

All his loose change in his pocket, Timothy entered the shop with the ice cream and the candy and approached the counter where the pretty lady in the low cut shirt and the apron tied tight around her waist and her hair piled on top of her head smiled at him and took his money and bent over low to reach the peppermint candies on the bottom shelf and spilled them onto the scale before bagging them and giving them to Timothy, her long nails grazing his fingers and the scent of her perfume wafting toward him and lingering around and on and in him long after he left the shop and went back home and gave the candy to his sister.  Timothy hated peppermint.

Intestable

Intestable

From Dictionary.com:

Not legally qualified to make a will, as an infant or a lunatic

A familiar feeling is building inside, that of mounting, oppressive pressure and anxiety.  Except that whereas before these feelings were the result of serious depression (brought on by who can say?), this present weight comes from a deep paranoia of others.  I never thought of my tumultuous mental history as something that could in any way be of benefit to me, but it is now being used decisively against me.  They say I am not merely unhappy, I am unwell, that I am a danger not just to myself (that was never in doubt--I have endangered myself on several occasions) but to those around me, that I am unfit for normal society.  My whole life has been dragged out before me and presented as a collection of diagrams, graphs, and short narratives that together are entirely foreign to me and show conclusively that I am sick.  My committal is a long overdue but inevitable culmination of my mind's dysfunction.  I am the only one who doubts the validity of their claims.  But my stance is faltering, I am slipping.  And as I sign the numerous papers they present to me, I feel the overwhelming weight of their convictions crushing my own til, despondent (again and always), I begin to wonder, Am I unwell?

Catarrh

Catarrh

From Dictionary.com:
Inflammation of a mucous membrane, especially of the respiratory tract, accompanied by excessive secretions

We approach our final cruising altitude of 35,000 feet and I am fairly certain my head will explode.  The mucous lining my sinus cavities throbs, the flight attendant passes me a paper napkin and asks what I want to drink, my grip tightens on my armrests.  Coke please.  No, ginger ale.  No no, coke, coke please.  Do we get peanuts?  I want very much to go to the bathroom because: A) I could drip freely without shame, B) it would be a space unshared and all to myself, C) I could pee, and D) there are no windows.  I do not need to bear witness to this blatant flouting of natural evolution.  We do not get peanuts.  Icarus flies to close to the sun and he doesn't even get a packet of fucking peanuts for the trip?  Bullshit.  The bathroom is somehow already occupied.  Undoubtedly by someone else who wants to avoid looking at this deathtrap.  I am currently aware of every single sinus cavity in my head (they all are burning red hot) as well as all the emergency exits.  I have also gone through every fellow passenger and determined how they work into my projected emergency landing plans.  The two people to my left would be useless.  These people were not girl/boy scouts.  They do not possess the Survivor Knowledge or the Survivor Poise.  Their bodies don't look to have any particularly tasty meat and they aren't very attractive.  This is as troubling as the lack of peanuts.  Also worrisome is the inordinate number of persons under twelve, who of course do not actually count as persons at all.  There are fifteen children, possibly more hiding.  They will be a major setback.  The flight attendant sets a small bag of pretzels in front of me, I blow my nose, we all collectively lurch to the right.  My eyes are watering.  I weep for my sad future with all these children on an island somewhere in the middle of Lake Michigan.  If I'm lucky, most of them won't survive the crash.  If I'm lucky, neither will the two mouth breathers next to me.  If I'm lucky, the island our crash site my future home will have an overabundance of Benadryl sprouting forth from the lush foliage covering the land and the mucous will run freely from my head which has remained intact and the same relative size.  I eat my pretzels.