Cliches Gone Scary

To be honest, I can't really picture what it looks like for someone to gnash their teeth. It's the "g" in "gnash" that throws me off, possibly, but when I saw the phrase "literally gnashing her teeth" in a book recently, I tried to approximate what it would feel/look/be like. Is it biting? grinding? chewing? A forward-and-backward movement, or just side-to-side?

It was only after 48 seconds of this attempt to literally gnash that I remembered I was on the F train. I got off at the next stop and went to another car, so that no one would have to step away from me, terrified of my angry teething.

Times I have fallen down stairs...

Times I have fallen down stairs: three times
... in May: twice
... in heels: once
... while tipsy: once
... within a week of my birthday: twice
... while working: once
... with witnesses: once
... with bruising and soreness: all three times
... in my own house: once
... in a restaurant/bar: twice
... while on the phone: once

TNT Knows Emoticons

Emoticons do not make your lack of Mac-compatibility better.

Talking Dirty 2

I'd propose quim as another one of those words you see in books, but never, ever hear said aloud, except that Urban Dictionary informs me that the phrase "quim doctor" is slang these days. Consider yourself informed.

A few tangential notes:

• Do you think it confuses Google's tracking of me as a person and purchaser that my major searches today have been "vintage pyrex" "is pyrex worth something" "pyrex microwave?" "jo malone perfume" "bond no 9 perfume" "deep water highsmith movie" "stop kittens from biting" "out loud aloud" and "quim doctor"? I live in fear of my searches being exposed like those poor AOL users.
  
• I like that this antiquey slang word has been transformed into a modern-day slang term. Sort of like how Slate was able to connect Britney to Joyce & Shakespeare in less steps than you might imagine that would take.
  

Internet fact-checked again.

I was all set to proclaim that Patricia Highsmith's Deep Water should be made into a movie with the speed and the quickness. As if the movie-optioners were reading here, and would offer me the opportunity to write the script, despite a total lack of knowledge about script writing. Turns out, it's already been made.

Now I've shifted gears into a concern that the movie will be a disappointment. I'm not a visual person (see below; evidence) and it's rare that I read a book and have clear & specific images of the characters and events. Perhaps the movie won't match my internal visions? Here are some snippets from the book....

The first paragraph of the book:

Vic didn't dance, but not for the reasons that most men who didn't dance give to themselves. He didn't dance simply because his wife liked to dance. His rationalization of his attitude was a flimsy one and didn't fool him for a minute, though it crossed his mind every time he saw Melinda dancing: she was insufferably silly when she danced. She made dancing embarassing.

And then this, after Vic tells one of Melinda's would-be lovers that he'd killed one of her lovers in the past. It's a lie, but the would-be lover turns would-not:

The waltz had always been his favorite dance. He waltzed very well. He saw Melinda notice him and stop short with surprise. Horace and Evelyn were looking at him too. Vic shortened his steps so that he would not look silly, because a joyous exuberance had filled him as if a long-repressed desire had burst forth. He felt he could have flown with Mary, if it had not been for the other couples that cluttered the floor around him

"Why you're a wonderful dancer!" Mary said. "Why've you been hiding it all these years?"

The curse of being a bad recognizer...

Katherine & Elizabeth are the same person to me. If they're ever cast in the same movie, I'm doomed to not follow the plot and be that annoying person whispering "Wait, so is that...?"



In fact, I almost uploaded two pictures of Katherine -- or was it Elizabeth? -- when writing this.

Talking Dirty

Here's a word that people say in books, but have never once said in real life: loins (referring to masculine & feminine sexyparts).

Learned a new word

I learned a new word from last week's New Yorker: abecedarian. I had a hard time looking it up (on the internet, not a paper dictionary, obvs) because I wanted to spell it "abcedian." It means "one learning the rudiments of something" which I think you could likely figure out just from looking at the word. Here's the paragraph where I read it:

The custom stringing of tennis racquets is abecedarian compared with the subtleties that have developed in the stringing of lacrosse sticks. Nobody over nine uses a factory pocket, or so it seems. Some players carry around with them as many as seven heads. They bake their heads and reshape them. They carry different heads for different weather, because moisture changes the webbing....

Note to the (design) world: Please add "salsa jars" to the list of things that need to be redesigned. Why create a container that won't allow you to partake of its substance without getting salsa-coated fingers?

2 things

First: I originally read the blurb below the image as "After Aretha Franklin wore one of Luke Song's hats at President Obama's inauguration, the internet exploded."

Ha.

Second: I'd really thought we all didn't like that hat. But maybe that was just the exploding internet.

announcement

It's been a few weeks, and now I'm sick of both the Phish reunion and the Phish reunion backlash.