A Rule for Life.

As a responsible citizen, I must ask Terpsichore to clarify before I begin wildly neologizing. I would like to set this forward as a rule for all responsible creative brainstorming as well as for any discussion and debate.

Define your terms! Shout it, if you’re talking quietly, and whisper it if you’re yelling. It will catch the attention and you’ll have a much better time communicating. Define your terms.

So, darling Terpsichore, in this instance, preceding a hilarious evening at the word mint coining, do you want a word for:

A) The act of breaking beautiful things as experienced by villainous Cumberbatches

b) The feelings of the mayor of the town/potentate of the principality upon beholding the fair things gone.

3) The feelings of the Hero who couldn’t save the breakage from breaking.

iv) Something else entirely.

And then shall we begin. mwahahaha.

De Primavera

People in the North say people in the South have no seasons. I’ve lived in Wisconsin and Kentucky and Georgia (among many others, but that gives a cross section) and I will say this.
Wisconsin has WINTER-(spring)-((summer))-Fall-WINTER. People say to me, “No more snow this year.” but they mean, please-no-more-snow-this-end-of-July. They mean, let this be enough for the 2012-2013 crossover. The mean, no more until October.

Kentucky/Ohio/Indiana may have the most even distribution of time per season. Along the Ohio River, the first day of spring often actually coincides with early flowers. Funny thought, both in the North and the South.

Because in Georgia….you can’t find the season line. Georgia goes Nice-Hot-Nice-Rain.

Back to Wisconsin. There is still some snow in piles lying about. It’s raining in the capitol today, but other places are renewing their acquaintence with shovels. Again. So Spring, when she deigns to come, is a precious and beloved gift. In the sheltered crook of a house’s arm, there are about 6 crocuses state wide. But the beauty of their bravery springs tears to the eye. Soon it will be on to daffodils and tulips and thence to irises, sunflowers, goldenrod and mums. But for today, let me tell you, the sight of a crocus considering full bloom is enough/

A Word for Jeeves

A few weeks ago, Terpsichore and I shared around some invented words, and one, as you may recall, was Splendorkling.

A Splendorkling is an endearing, splendid, dork…basically. It’s a word for those of us who are more like Bertie Wooster than anything else. Or a word for those moments when we spill hot tea onto the white flannel trousers of our former headmasters. (How Right You Are Jeeves)

But Melpomene has requested a word to indicate a general Jeeves-ian outlook. Rather than sleep the other night, I lay awake working out the perfect word for Jeeves. When I hit upon a line of promising line of thought, I fumbled for a pen and an odd business card and wrote them out in the dark.

It was hard to decipher in the morning, but I was on to something. Here are a few candidates, and I throw open this forum for debate.

Benecognizant
Benecogitation
Benecognition

Magnicogitarian
Magnilocogitation
Magnilocogitarian

Magnibenefactation

Magnibenecogitarianist. That deserved punctuation.

The Banjo

There’s a fellow in the laundry room just waiting for the dryers and playing his banjo. He’s not striving, he’s not driven, he doesn’t seem concerned about posture. But he’s making music, and that’s making him happy.

In another mood, that would thrill me. But today it makes me jealous and discontent. Where did I step from the road I was on and start berating myself for what I don’t do and hating what I do…do…? This banjo player is reminding me that I too, once loved playing the violin. Why do I now sigh patiently over it as if it were a querulous lover? Maybe we need counselling. Maybe I need to practice more. Maybe ‘practice’ is the last thing I need, and I should learn to play some bluegrass. Maybe I’ll go out there and ask this banjo-er…banjo-ist… banjo man, if he’s up for a jam with a heart sick violinist.

And maybe I’ll stop making all ya’ll listen to me whine. But this is the Egotist’s Club, after all, and if an egotist can’t whinge a bit about mooning around and missing a sense of purpose, what can an egotist do? I suppose I could discuss my dreams…but…that’s too far… After all, no one can relate to nocturnal wanderings, but in mentioning this particular sorrowful circumstance, perhaps you can see yourself. And perhaps, recognizing that all love (of people and things) takes care and thought and work, we can drag each other up by the bootstraps and try again tomorrow.

illiterecy, illiteracy, iliterasy.

Just a shocking and hilarious note on the mental mush of modern minds.

Kings Cleaners!

We clean anything! Even addicts and garages!

So. Do they get points for spelling the very wrong word very accurately?

Beau Hunting

I was chatting with my friend Maura yesterday, and she announced her intention of wedding the perfect man. Perhaps not an original plan, but a sound one, nevertheless. I followed her reasoning….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maura: Yeah, to someone just like Mr. Darcy, who will love me in secret… even though you say that’s not a good way for love to be….

Thalia: Ohmmm… that could be a difficult search. And I only object because secret love has so much potential for…..staying potential and never….. welll….. never becoming kinetic.

Maura: No, but see, it will become kinetic because, well let’s face it, I’m a doll and he’ll have to admit that he’s madly in love with me!

Thalia: HAHAHAHAHAH! goodus luckus… As they never said in Rome

Maura: Now you see my plan!

Thalia: It is cunning. It is devious. It is masterful!

Maura: Yes it is!

Thalia: Teach me, oh wise one….

Maura: It involves a lot of eye contact, just like in Pride and Prejudice

Thalia: ah. That’s mostly eye contact. And a great deal of smooouuudering.

Maura: You’re right, oh observant one.

Thalia: Lots of wit, a smattering of spirited self possession, and heaps and heaps of eye contact.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And then it hit me. Of course, it’s a noble art to study, that of obtaining a beau, but we were being silly. Or were we? It would seem, through this intelligent, if only half intelligible conversation, that we struck upon a vein of truth. Later, thinking it over, I realized that there is a great deal of human understanding and truth in Jane Austen.  Not just in the plots and the society and all the things people who make her their research project study. But in the….oh… the character of her characters. To ponder Elizabeth, and discern what it was that drew a good man to her. What about the personality of Jane was actually really appealing to … that funny looking dude with the blond curly hair. In great literature, you may trust the author to create people who act and react according to their natures and characters. What lessons Maura and I learn from this may not just be the frivolling of silly girls. Perhaps we too shall wed a Mr. Darcy. Or that other guy, whichever suits our nature better. (I hope the 21st century has shorn that sweet man of his bizarre locks. It would put me off my stride, and it would be sad to miss out on perfection because of a wierdly placed curl.)

Dim Jimmy

In the always apt thoughts of Terpsichore, comedy is tragedy + time, but sometimes tragedy can be comedy + time. This is a sobering thought, but for now, shall I give you a moment’s laugh?

I work with a varied lot. Some are silly, some are driven, some are very much not. Some are snide, and some are gregarious. And some are smarter than others.

The other day, I was standing about and one young man said to another “There haven’t been any pineapples today.”

Intruiguing!

I turned about and about in my mind what this could portend. Easiest to ask, even though it was someone else’s conversation. The best I could figure was that pineapples were some kind of gauge or test of something.

I said “Are pineapples some kind of litmus?”

And Dim Jimmy said “No, Thalia, they are a fruit.”

With scorn. He said it with scorn. Derision, had he known the term, played around the edges of his smile.

It’s a punch line, I know. No, it’s a fruit. That’s the comedy.

In a few years, there could be a problem.

Later:

“I don’t know if you want to trust Jimmy’s definitions.”

“Jimmy? He’s the smartest guy I know! Jimmy is in law school.”

I did laugh. I laughed and laughed. I actually don’t believe it yet. I’m still laughing. (now add time… see what I mean? All this is about to get Sophoclean on this generation of dim jimmies.)

The Lost Art of Decorative Drooping

I’m feeling quite melancholy. Blame it on the taxes and the impending flu. So if sickness or Spring Money Madness gets you down, go droop over a flower somewhere. Most places have an arboretum.

Drooping is a forgotten art. Since it’s been out of style for about a hundred and fifty years, here’s a quick tutorial on Drooping.

Find a flower.

Lean in

Cradle the flower in your hand

Stare vacantly at the flower

Contemplate mortality

Say something Poetic* (originality a plus, but quote a master before succumbing to driveled cliches)

Sigh repeatedly

Repeat as necessary.

There you go. Very cathartic. Much better than shouting off mountain tops.

*in case you need something poetic, brief and easy to remember to droop with.

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay.

~Robert Frost