Hiatus

Hiatus

Laurence Sterne is myne hero du jour. How great would it be to say to someone, "I was so embarrassed when I was getting ready for bed! I realized that the entire day I'd been walking around with a hiatus in the seat of my pants!" Wow. That wouldn't confuse anyone!


"And when he left me, I had a hiatus in my heart!"*
"Here, take this shovel and dig a hiatus for the dead body."


Alright enough of that. 
Uh oh. Me in trouble. 


Remember yesterday when I said that I looked silly smoking in my late teens but that it was the only time I ever did (look silly)? Welcome to Looking Silly Time the sequel. I know you're all going to laugh at me, but - oh cripes, major confession time here - I've been going through life confusing hiatuses with diphthongs. From Wikipedia:

"A diphthong, also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel. In most dialects of English, the words eye, hay, boy, low, and cow contain diphthongs.
"Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs, where the tongue doesn't move and only one vowel sound is heard in a syllable. Where two adjacent vowel sounds occur in different syllables—for example, in the English word re-elect—the result is described as hiatus, not as a diphthong."

For years I've been telling people that hiatuses were diphthongs. DAMN! I feel like I need to call my sponsor and make amends to like fifty people!!** I didn't even know the hiatus existed!! The only reason diphthongs ever came up in conversation was because when a team name needed to be created, I always suggested Esoteric Diphthong. Seriously, isn't that the best team name for anything ever?? Unfortunately, I'm evidently the only one who thinks so.

Man. I need to go now and hiatus.***


*Which is almost Shakespearean in its ambiguity, thank you very much.
**Oops, forget I said that.
***No idea what I meant by that. I'm just so crest fallen with ignominy that I can't think of a decent ending.

Recalcitrant

Recalcitrant

I'll admit, when I was going through my rebel years (and when I say years, I mean years), I never referred to it as rebelling. I referred to it as recalcitrating.

Mom: Where are you going?
Me: Out for my evening recalcitrational.

I'm not sure but I think they thought I meant to say 'evening constitutional' and just didn't have much of a grasp on the language English.*

At the time, of course, my 'evening recalcitration' was walking down to the local biker bar** where no upstanding community member's kid would ever have been seen. I loved it. I'd don a ripped up T-shirt and trashed gym shorts and go barefooted (the laws were different back then). I got called an anti-gay slur once, not directly to my face, but in a conversation he made sure I heard*** and a woman with him immediately stood up for me - I'm not even sure I knew her. I thought that was very cool.

Since I was barefooted and walking I'd get huge water blisters and bits of glass shards on the bottom of my feet. I thought digging glass out of my feet the next day was the most bad-ass thing ever. Actually I take that back. I just thought it was funny.

Oh yea, and I smoked for a few months. So silly. Now that I thought was bad-ass! Luckily the brand I chose was mentholated, and they messed me up so much I never really got into it. I'm sort of glad I chose the brand I did, though, cuz after that I had some regulars, and they were actually quite nice. Now when I see a teen thinking s/he is cool smoking and obviously doing it for effect I think back on how I musta looked. Silly.

But mind you, it was  only once in my life that I looked silly.

*See what I did there? I took liberties and reversed the words like in The Brothers Karamazov~ or The Sisters Gish. Clever, huh?
~Speaking of the Bros K, many years ago I was paying Trivial Pursuit with the siblings and the question came up, "what brothers in Russian literature blah blah blah." I gave the correct answer and the sibs all looked at me like I was crazy. "How did you know that?" quoth one of they. "I'm an English major," replied I. Shoot, while I was an English major, it's not like I had actually read it. I just figured, it's the American version of Trivial Pursuit, how many Russian brothers can there be that would make it into the game?
**Motorcycle, that is, not bicycle.
***Obviously the guy had a crush on me - they all do, you know. I mean, not just me, but on whomever they spew a slur. The bigger the slur the bigger the crush.

Tranche

Tranche

Every day I go to analytics (as you know), and every day I see the following:

The Colonies: 4
Матушка Россия: 2
Your mom: 1*

And then over to the side there's a pie chart showing the tranche.** Why they feel the need to have a pie chart is beyond me, but they do. So I was thinking, though, pie charts are so tired and cliche, I've decided that the next time I have to do a chart, it's going to be a casserole chart.***  Or perhaps a man-hole-cover chart. Or a Ferris-Wheel chart. Or heck, a Round-Up chart, or Tilt-a-Whirl chart**** Or perhaps a 33 1/3- or 45- or 78-RPM chart. That would keep the yung'uns guessin'!


While any of those are good for a circle chart, I'm truly torn when it comes to a rectangular chart. I really wanted to refer to them as blueberry cobbler charts, but then I suddenly remembered that they could be called letter-box charts. Then if I needed a square chart, it would be a full-screen chart, which would make it a duel name chart for whichever form was better suited. Man, the quandaries I have in life!!

Excuse me, but my private phone in my study is ringing, and we all know who it is!!

*Why and how it separates out my mom, I'll never know. She claims she knows none of the upper ups at Google, but i have my doubts. She used to claim the red phone in her sewing room wasn't a direct line to the Vatican either.And yet I couldn't use it because "it only understands Italian." Whatever.
**How's that for stretching that def?
***I was going use hotdish chart, but that's sort of hard to say.
****Scratch that! "Tilt-a-Whirl" is copyrighted - don't wanna get into trouble.

Agog

Agog

You know what I go agog over? Discovering new bands and singers. I discover someone and I get all out-of-control obsessive compulsive. The Lov'd One will get in the car and I'll have the CD player* going:

The Lov'd One: Whacha got on?
Me: Listening to some Sondre Lerche / Islands / Blondie**.
The Lov'd One: Ooooooooof course we are!

I can't help it! Music is just so great! I think part of it was growing up in the 60/70s and having to listen to rock and/or rock. Mind you, I've nothing against rock and/or roll, but when the '80s brought us New Wave, I knew I had finally found my music.

I used to work for a financial planning company in phone service and was talking to an advisor who lived in a town where we had gone to a jazz festival a couple times.

Me: So, you go the Bix?
Him: Naw, I don't care about music.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA???????????? 

I literally dropped the phone - and it was a headset for Pete's sake! Seriously, my head imploded to the point that the headset just slipped right off! Just slipped right off!!

Me: Sorry, sir, my head imploded and you fell to the floor.
Him: No I didn't. I've just been sitting here the whole time.
Me: I meant the headset - I was speaking metaphorically.
Him: I don't really like metaphor.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA????????????????????????????????????

Luckily I caught myself before anything happened.

Me: What about simile?
Him: Meh.
Me: Irony?
Him: Meh.
Me: What about in Moby-Dick, where Melville employs stylized language, symbolism, and the metaphor to explore numerous complex themes such as the journey of the main characters, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God?
Him: Meh.

As you can imagine, there was just no way I could help someone like that. I dumped him (metaphorically) on my boss and went for a walk. Some people. Just ain't fittin'.


*Yes, CD player. So freakin' shoot me.
**Some of you may be wondering why I didn't include Pet Shop Boys. They are so omnipresent in my life, they go without saying.

Torrid

Torrid

Surprisingly, the def I hear used the most is listed as the second. I never hear anyone saying, "I'm torrid, I need a drink!" Perhaps I'm just not hanging out with the right people. That's impossible - after all, they were all hand-picked by my parents. It's so easy having friends when they're picked out by one's parents. There's never any guess work. Will this person be a bad influence? Will this person try to get me hopped up on goofballs? No and no!!

But I digress.

I can't think of anything to write for this because my relationships have not been torrid. Sheer unadulterated drama, yes, torrid, no. And my 'sband and I, well, we first talked over a broken fax machine and on our first date went to a hole-in-the-wall Mexican dive. I suppose it could be made into a cute but (really) dumb Matthew McConaughey/Kate Hudson romance, but...

So anyway, I'm gonna let pre-code Hollywood torridate for us. Here are some torrid cavemen for you. And some torrid ballet dancing! Some red hot chorus girls with this. And just some very beautiful people being big-time Freudian.

I love that stuff!!

Satiety

Satiety

I love the second def: "the revulsion or disgust caused by overindulgence or excess." I just discovered another excuse to clutch my pearls, gesticulate, and swoon upon my fainting couch. "Ooooooh, satiety, satiety!!"

Unfortunately my Hubby (in six states) has prohibited me from donning my pearls when we dine at the Casino buffet.* The last time I was at the casino Sportin' the Strand (as we like to say in the business) I had lost nearly $8.00 and I couldn't help myself - the ignominy, the degradation, the disgrace, the dishonor - all those things! I stumbled forward, blindly, not knowing what I was doing. If it hadn't been for the cool, reassuring touch of the Gems of the Ocean - as it were - I most certainly would have withered away right there. Lucky I bumped into the High Stakes card table where I was able to thrust myneself upon it and get my wits back about me. Unluckily it was a High Stakes table and there was some High Stakes gaming going on and cards and chips went a-fluttering everywhere. As you can imagine, my emotions immediately went from near-swooning chagrin to indignation when it was obvious the people at the table cared more about their stupid card game than my mental health!! Instead of being whisked off to the nurse's office, I was whisked out the front door!! Bastards!! I did what any good American would do - threatened to sue them, but they obviously knew that the law is always on the side of the people with the money. Instead of taking me seriously, the "gentlemen"** told me to go ahead and try! See how they are. I even tried standing there shaking my fist at the front door, but it did no good. I'm sorry if this is upsetting to my reader who, like me, has a more gentle constitution, but this just gets my blood boiling. Excuse me while I go cool off.

Stupid casinos. 

*Or BOO-fay as some like to say. Or BOO-fae. or BOO-feigh. Take your pick.  
**A term I use VERY loosely.

Validate

Validate

Or as  I like to pronounce it: 
LIKE ME!!!!   
LLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE 
MMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Thank goodness (once again) for the interwebs!! Now all I have to do is post an entry, go in the next day and breathe a sigh of relief as I look at the analytics and see that all three of my friends (and my mom) still like me enough to read this thing!! And I mean literally all around the world! Or at least in the northern hemisphere. On two continents. Damn, I wonder how I could get a reader from Antarctica? Could you imagine? My next cocktail party: "I have readers on three continents, including Antarctica!" Wow.

Actually, I have really really good news. I now have an occasional reader from Malaysia, which means that at least once a week I already have readers from three continents! Take THAT Facebook!!

But I am most thankful because getting my validation validated online means I no longer have to roam the dark streets and bars of desperationville looking for validation from strangers. I used to say, "Hey, a stranger is just a one-night stand I haven't met!" Now I can say, "Hey, a stranger is just a person who hasn't increased my stats!" And instead of saying "Hey, would you like to come over and get better acquainted?" I can say, "Hey, you have a smart phone! Let me show you my blog!" I used to think when someone said they didn't wanna come over to get better acquainted it was because - poor lambs - they thought I was out of their league. Now when they don't wanna see my blog on their smart phone it's because - poor lambs - they're illiterate and embarrassed about not being able to read it in front of me.

So I'd like to thank you all 1) for being literate and 2) for validating me by stopping here and spending a few minutes on my blog. So, it's true! For learning and exploring new ideas and keeping my ego healthy - reading truly is fundamental!!