All My Gettings

Word crushes are completely inexplicable.* Some words just reach out and grab your heart and refuse to let go. But, like all crushes, the attraction evaporates eventually. You may have been sweet on the word despondent for months when you suddenly hear it again and realize it's just a sad that's been to finishing school. Or maybe you've spent the last year telling everyone why they need to make sure their vocabulary includes ignominious, only to become slightly embarrassed by it.

Of course, these crushes can wax and wan. Or you can just smile wistfully when you hear a word that you were enamored with and had forgotten. Like when you suddenly find yourself in the perfect situation to use quidnunc. Even still, these are former flickers of the intensity of your passion. Fond memories, nothing more. Which is sad, as it reminds me how fleeting everything really is.

But, one of the things I learn about studying languages is that you get to have all sorts of crushes. For some reason, these ones stick around longer. I still love normalerweise just as much as I did at first. Then, there's אבדוק (evdoke)† in Hebrew which will not be moved from my attentions. And, today, I hit upon my first crush in Greek. Well, my first real crush. I had a bit of a flirtation with ἐπειδή (epayday)‡, but it's not lasting. The word that's stolen my heart is ἁρπαζόμεθα (harpazohmaytha). It means “we snatch for ourselves” or “we are being snatched”. I've been saying it over and over again to myself. Fortunately, not aloud. Sadly, I doubt I'll get nearly as much use for this once and I will for either normalerweise or אבדוק, both of which are in my everyday speech. But here's the fair warning: I may start making up situations in which first person plural passive snatching is required. After all, love is a verb, isn't it? I've got to let this word know just how keen on it I am.


*What's that you say, you don't have crushes on words? What, are you some sort of normal human being that doesn't think about these things? Whatever. Words are important.
†"I'll check"
‡Since, because, when

I'm pretty sure that, if Death has a taste, it might be something like the following recipe:

Sauerkraut And Clam Juice Cocktail

2 Oz. Sauerkraut Juice, cold
2 Oz. Clam Juice, cold

1 Teaspoon Grated Horse Radish
Salt to taste

What, precisely, is sauerkraut juice? And why, exactly, would anyone ever drink this?

I am absurdly competitive. This might surprise some people who don't know me all that well. They're thrown off the scent by the fact that I'm almost cripplingly adverse to conflict and by the apparent lack of anything resembling drive or ambition in my life. But, put me in a game, doesn't matter what game, and I want to win. Badly. I don't cheat, but will do anything within the rules to be the one wearing the laurels at the end. And, I talk a lot of trash, even when said trash has been proven to be a totally inaccurate depiction of reality.

I have three things that save me from being the kind of win-hungry jerk you hate to play games with. First, once the game components are packed up, the emotions from the game are gone. My push to win doesn't spill over into other aspects of my life. It stays neatly on the shelf to be unpacked the next time we play. Second, I'm a good loser. I don't mope, break egg timers or come up with my lame reasons why I lost. Usually, I just make fun of myself. And lastly, I'm nothing approaching a master of games. I lose. A lot. And often. Winning is by far the exception. In fact, my sister, brother-in-law and I have a theory that it is impossible for me to win a game in their house. And we have quite a load of data to base that on. So, you see, this aggressive streak of mine is all in good fun and rarely harmful to relationships.

At any rate, my competitiveness explains why today, instead of reading the approximately 300 pages I need to polish off before Monday or even getting started on my math and literature paper that has me paralyzed or devoting as much time as I should have to planning my sister's cocktail party, I spent a half hour besting Twirl's score at Bejeweled Blitz. Of course, now I have him to accuse when I fail my classes. Since, after all, the most fun game of all is the blame game. And, I'm dashed cunning at it.

I support nasal irrigation. Pretty much entirely. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with mastoiditis. This, naturally, led one doctor to ask me where in the third world I contracted it and several others to not really believe me when I told them. It's basically periodic sinus infections in the behind the ear cavities. Though, that doesn't really describe the pain brought on by it. It would sneak up on me, this pain. At its worst, I would be struck and be brought to tears. Tears! By a sinus infection.

Various remedies were undertaken to make me not burst into tears in the theatre while watching a romantic comedy (which really happened). I took large doses of antibiotics (and probably created some various super bugs of my own). I got my deviant septum repaired. I had CAT scans. I started taking absurd amounts of garlic and vitamin C at the slightest hint of infection (which was better than my previous approach, which basically consisted of moaning and cursing and hoping it'd pass soon*). None of these really worked. I mean, the antibiotics cured the infection, but after a couple of weeks. And the surgery, as far as I can tell, was sort of a wash.

But, the magic of squirting water and salt up your nose cannot be overestimated. It's great. Sort of weird at first, but the benefits (almost one-day turn-around on sinus infection), are great. There is one really unfortunate side effect, though. Turns out, the sinuses are sort of circuitous. And, they can hold water. So, after irrigating, the next two hours result in my turning my head one way and water gushing out my nostrils. And then, I bend over and more water. And not a little. I can't believe how much one cup turns out to be when it drips from your nose.

Fortunately, I do this at night. So nobody sees the Niagara that results. And, even with the awkward, unexpected drizzlings, I still get behind nasal irrigation. Everybody should do it. Everybody.


*Which is pretty much my approach to all personal problems.

I am not on the top of my game today. I left the house without my wallet. Which isn't too much of a problem, except I need it to clock in so that I get paid. Moderately important. Plus, what if I need food between school or lace or lace and home? or what if I get pulled over? and so on and so on.

But, the mere forgetting of my wallet isn't what suggested to me that today might need either a fast-forward or a do-over. I rushed home instead of going to my institute class in the one flexible hour I have. I pull into my driveway and, then start frantically looking for my keys. I unzip my bag. They're not there. I unzip the larger pouch. Also not their. I feel in my pockets. I start wondering where I could have possibly put them.

Then, I realize, uh, they're in the ignition. Yeah, that's right. I'm awesome sometimes. Good thing I'm not in charge of something important. Because I'm pretty sure I'd lose it or kill it. Or both.

I love being back in school. So much it takes my breath away. I mean, basically, I get to spend my days reading really cool things and then sitting around discussing them. Yes, I could do with fewer insufferable types in several of my classes (though, the line between insufferable and interesting is a hair's breadth of difference*). And yeah, I could live without the feeling that I'm a naughty ten year old which I daily experience in my Hebrew class. But overall, I can't get enough of it. I love learning that Ancient Greek lacked fricatives. Or that African-American churches were among the first to ordain females. Plus, I can't get enough of ridiculous things like hearing "that depends on your reading of both Bush and Aeneas" or "that is why you should never agree with anything".

The stories are great, but the actual content, that is what I'm learning, is much trickier. My friend Twirl asked after one of the first days of school what I learned that day. I was completely at a loss. It's not that I'm not learning anything, it's just...well, it's complicated. I mean, I could jump into a discussion of how Paul shows evidence of an afterlife where only the good survive. Or one about the nature of symbolic math. Or maybe about dageshing verbs because nuns want to disappear. The problem is that these conversations can't really just start and end like that. The things I am learning are not, sadly, sound bite worthy.

I imagine this is how all fields are when you get to near-graduation levels. But, other fields are more reality-based. That is, they map onto the world in a way that makes learning new things about them actually useful. Us humanities types, though, are ivory tower at its best. We talk about things seemingly for the mere reason of talking about them. We don't care if we can actually do anything, just that we can think about things. And, bonus points for the person who thinks the strangest.

It's nice being back in a place where my obdurate desire to find a context for every minority reading, my ability to soak up new vocabulary words like a sponge, and my skills in deconstructing are pretty much signs of absolute success. Sure, as my sister pointed out to me this weekend, I'll probably be in school until I'm in my mid-thirties, but really, why shouldn't I be? It's all I'm good at. I think I'll stick around as long as I can, thank you very much.

*and it's difficult to see a hair a midnight

Look, I get that road construction is a complicated matter. These roads need fixing. Any sort of work is going to impinge on traffic. I am not, at least yet, the center of the known universe. However, don't you think you could have planned slightly better? Timed your project a bit differently? Maybe over a semester break? Or during the summer? Or not at the same time that you, or a cooperative agency*, has made 13th East into a disaster? Because, I'm not sure if you know this, but there are a lot of people who daily make a trek to the University of Utah. Y'know, that big group of buildings sort of east of downtown? The place that employees more Utahns than all but three other entities? And has about 28,000 students?

I only ask these questions because you made me late to class this morning. It had absolutely nothing to do with my sleeping in slightly and then dragging my feet to get ready. Also, if you continue said project, I may have to switch buses on the day that I ride public transit. And the thought of having to get up at 6.45 in order to catch a 7.15 bus makes me want to cry a little bit. Plus, I need that extra sleep to adequately deal with the hour-long scolding that my Hebrew class turns into.

But, since we're in this mess, please hurry.

thanks!

alea





*Who actually is responsible for non-interstate road construction? Is it the city?

I'm not the kind of person who generally, as a rule, enjoys change. Usually, even something minor like my parents junking the car that I drove all through college or painting the walls of my childhood kitchen bright blue is enough to make me more than a touch despondent. These sorts of things bother me, the uneasiness and lack of consistency. If things change, it means they're not stable and, if these trivial things change so easily, what about the bigger things? I mean, it's ridiculous, obviously, to compare a hunk of metal or a design choice to anything major. I realize that, but still, there's a worry that sets up shop at the back of my head every time even a minor difference appears.

Which is why I'm even more disoriented by the last couple of months. I have undergone a dizzying number of alterations over that time period. Even the most dramatic-appearing ones (that of quitting my job or of going back to school) are just a part of what appears to be some sort of drastic life overhaul. Some things, naturally, aren't my choosing (not that I'm opposed to them, but more I didn't have the only say in the matters, if you will). But it's not the nature or even the number of changes that makes me feel uneasy this time. Rather, I'm out of sorts precisely because I'm not out of sorts. Quite the contrary: I'm remarkably happy.

I don't do content well. I do discontent and malcontent splendidly. I'm also pretty adept at unsatisfied and unfulfilled. And I can suck it up or grit my teeth with the best of them. But, to crib Michael Cunningham, against all odds and expectations life has burst open and given me pretty much everything. I should probably just, at least for this moment, allow myself to enjoy what's going on. To not fret about how it'll all fall apart, or worry about what will happen when suddenly a different set of changes sends me spiraling in a direction I never intended or even want.

I can't do that, though. I haven't the practice. And it disrupts my whole personal narrative. But, for the moment, I'm going to try. Really hard. And just accept that things can, in fact, work out for me beautifully.