FWD: "Deviant" Septum

We all get them. Those dreaded e-mail forwards with miles and miles of address headers. With instructions to "Scroll down. No, scroll down further, idiot." All underscored by dire warnings for you and your household and all generations to come if you are foolish enough to ignore them.

As a general rule, I hate these internet intruders. Delete them unread. Scold the friends who send them. But, once in a while I am tempted to click one open. I am a word whore after all.

Remember this one? English is a crazy language...

In what other language do...

• ... people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?
• ... people play at a recital and recite at a play?

And why...

• ... does night fall but never break and day break but never fall?
• ... is it that when we transport something by car, it's called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it's called cargo?

I have always marveled that someone took the time to think about such things and put them in a list to be circulated throughout the reaches of the world wide web. I guess I figured it must be someone who had far more time and far less responsibility than I did. It never occurred to me that the material might have been "lifted" from a reliable source.

Last week during a forage through a favorite used bookstore, I found a thin, yellow paperback written by Richard Lederer. Anguished English, An Anthology of Accidental Assaults Upon our Language. It is a collection of modern day malapropisms, mangled modifiers, misspellings and mixed up metaphors. I think material from this book and the 30 others he has written may have spawned the electronic multitude of English language missives that march madly through my mailbox.

I read a couple pages every night, and smile myself to sleep.

A few excerpts :

"I have a deviant septum." and "You're in for a shrewd awakening."

"Yoko Ono will talk about her husband, John Lennon, who was killed in an interview with Barbara Walters."

"Running is a unique experience. I thank God for exposing me to the track team."

If you like words at all, I would advise you to find this book. Read it. Paste it to your forehead. If you quote it, don't forget to attribute the fine collection to Richard Lederer. And above all, DO NOT forward it to me.

"Grape" Expectations

"Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."

~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Pass the Lexicon

I used to go to a storytelling group on Tuesday nights in Cambridge. The following is a story written and told for the forum.

A few years ago I had a chance to go to NYC with my girlfriends. We were all in our late thirties and early forties. And married. Very married, I might add. Sex and the City would not be an appropriate description for the weekend we spent in the Big Apple. We were definitely more like: Abstinence and the City.

But, even though we were practicing abstinence, AND WE WERE, the subject of sex entered our conversation many times. Who knew that this was what thirty/forty somethings talked about? On their weekend away? OUT LOUD?

I kept waiting for my mother to arrive and tell us to quiet down.

I squirmed in discomfort while my friends talked about all the really wild places and ways that they had done IT. In alley ways. On steps. Probably without flossing.

Not wanting to be left completely out of the action, I finally admitted that I had done IT --with the lights on--ONCE.

We also talked about SEDUCTION. Could we be seduced?

Which led us each to confess the ONE THING that made us vulnerable. The ONE THING that would make us lose all sense of reason and decorum. The ONE THING that could make us send traffic cones flying to the left and right like Diane Lane in Unfaithful.

We were in agreement on this ONE THING: IF we ever actually met a man who could make a plan. That included DETAILS. A man with a plan with details and FOLLOW THROUGH. Wellllll…we pretty much would be crumbs in the bottom of the marital toaster.

It is either a man with a plan---or chocolate-- for me. I KNOW that I can be seduced by all manner of chocolate. M & M’s with peanuts or without peanuts, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups…creamy, smooth, delicious…see even talking about chocolate makes me weak in the knees.

In fact, I know so deeply in my heart that I can be seduced by chocolate that I make it a point to go through the candy-free check-out at Shaws. I cover my eyes when I walk past the candy aisle and I know better than to leave myself alone in a room with anything even resembling a Cadbury egg.

Seriously though, one friend thought she could be seduced by a man who could dance. A man who could spin her around and trip the light fandango. A man who could match her steps to his. And, if this man could look like Denzel Washington, then she would toss all caution to the wind.

The other friend thought maybe she could be seduced by a certain tone in a man’s voice. I don’t know a lot about exact nature of this “tone,” but I think that it is safe to bet that Lenny and Squiggy will never seduce her. And neither will Michael Jackson.

That night I joked about the chocolate. And I might have joked a little about Sean Connery, (WHO wouldn’t be seduced by Sean Connery?)--but I know, whether I admitted it to my friends or not, that I am seduced daily by words.

Words. The grand and glorious mongrels of the English language. For years, I have collected articles, quotes and bits of poetry. I am voracious when it comes to words. I cram little snips of this and pieces of that into the corners of my mind. A clever phrase. A touching sonnet. Fragments of life.

Words like obstreperous, diaspora, divagation, gerrymander, naif and viff all twitterpate me faster than you can say, "Bob's your uncle." I am guilty of word adulation, adulteration and alliteration. Words. All shapes and sizes. All denominations and ethnic backgrounds. I am pretty much a word whore.

There. I have admitted it. I will be faithful... until you pass the lexicon.

Passing the Mantel-Restated

It originally came from the Shiloh Proper. Or maybe it came from Olivet or Bethesda. In any event, I found the mantel with its raised scroll and carved legs in the attic of the women's dorm at Fairwood. I like to think I rescued it from its place among the rafters and the heat that had dried the finish to a fine powder. Parched and forgotten it waited until the day I discovered it.


I hauled it down that summer day in three pieces and set it up against the wall in the living room. I squared its corners, and I nailed it into place. To my great joy, the linseed oils I rubbed into the woodwork raised new life and luster from the sleeping grain.

In my home it held candles. Always candles. Sea glass. Lavender. Bells from Jerusalem. The bottles the kids and I found digging in the bottle dump. Each fall I would clip a new bunch of hydrangeas and stand them in a pitcher on the mantel to dry. The full white flowers blushed pink on the ends, and they always pleased my eye.

At Christmastime, I would twist live evergreens into a long rope to loop from one side to the other. I arranged the nativity scene across its length. The shepherds peeked out from the branches, and baby Jesus sat at its center. Jayna and Jared hung their stockings on hooks in hopes that St. Nick would ignore the fact that there was no real chimney and visit us through the side door instead.

When I polished the wood with love each week during Friday cleaning, I would imagine the women before me who had done the same thing. As the sun set, I lit the candles on the mantel and called my children to rejoice that the Sabbath had arrived. We would sing and clap our hands. We made up songs. We practiced saying what we were thankful for. And, the kids always waited for Jim to say: "Good things happen on the Sabbath." Then he would pull a treat out of his pocket for them.

I still have the mantel.

A few years ago, when one of the former Kingdom churches on the west coast closed, there was a certain amount of money from its sale designated for distribution to those who had given their lives without pay to the work of the movement. There were those who were supportive of this, and those who were against it. In the end, a committee was formed to oversee its fair distribution.

A per year formula was applied for years of service rendered. Jim and I had worked six years. The catch, however, was that workers could not count their first five years. I suppose that was to sort out the folks who drifted in and out of Kingdom centers a year or two at a time while they decided what to do with their lives. For our family who had sold a home, made a substantial financial contribution to the Kingdom treasury, and given our lives to a cause we believed was headed in a positive direction, this meant $372 for our efforts and disillusionment.

A Biblical principle that could have been applied instead came from the story of the day laborer who was hired to work in the fields for a set amount. As you recall, throughout the day additional laborers were enlisted to complete the work. In the end, each was paid the same amount regardless of the length of their duty.

Am I bitter? Naw. Well, maybe just a little. Although, it doesn't bother me as much as it once did. Because it was never about being compensated in the first place, I guess I would have liked to have had the contribution of my life, family and talent be weighted a little more equally than they were.

I am third generation Kingdom. If you look closely, my blood, sweat and tears can be found on the door posts and in the stairwells of more than one Kingdom center. It was my life, and it is my legacy.

Am I owed something? Probably not.

Have I made my own compensation package? Absolutely.

I reserve the right to sit on the front porch at Fairwood and look at the mountain. And, I still have the mantel.

The Hundred Acre Memory

Sometimes I miss the Hundred Acre Woods. The simplicity. The wonder. The innocence of it all.

“Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave.”

Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh

Hello Operator

In addition to helping me solve the mystery of my maladies, Google has freed the phone lines that run from our house to the outside world.

You may ask, "How can this be?"

Once upon a time, if I had a question about anything such as "How long do you boil green beans?" or "Where is Malaysia?" or "What was the name of the actress who played opposite Robert Redford in Legal Eagles?" or "Who was the seventh president of the United States?, " I would call the operator. If the operator did not know, there were rows and rows of other operators seated around her (or him) who could be tapped for the answer. It never failed that someone held the knowledge.

It occurs to me that there might be a new form of operator/Google available to me in the resources of my collective readership. Can anyone tell me the correct attribution for the quote, "When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." (or some variation thereof) Both Nietzsche, the philosopher, and Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness have been given credit.

Even if you don't know the answer, please feel free to say "hello" when you pass through.

She is not a quitter

Sometimes you find someone who says something for you better than you can say it yourself. I feel this way about my friend, Karen, when I read her blog. She sure can write that slice of life stuff and serve it ala mode.

Dispelling any false notions

Karen and I met in an online writing group nearly five years ago. She was smart, funny, and ever so sassy. She kept forum discussions coiffed and "skorted." From the first time I read a short story of hers that included Jesus buying Band-aids at a convenience mart, I realized that she was brilliant in that unoffensive way that so few people can carry off.

We only knew "of" each other until we formed a smaller writing circle with two other women. We called it The REALLY Cool Club. The four of us began to share the bits and pieces of our lives that had been knit together with the tears of time to make us into the women we were. Kids and love and God and moms and dads and husbands and dogs and, and, and...

I learned to love the gentle way she could dissect a story--somehow rearranging the parts to make them bigger than the whole. She could nudge a missing word into a sentence adding the strength it needed to stand at attention.

She became a friend during a period of my life when I had grown certain that I didn't need friends. And, it just happened--like Aristotle's slow and ripening fruit. I was able to talk to her about things that needed an ear that could listen without judgment. In our space, I found a place to rest. I grew to value the wisdom she offered when I asked, and the silence she kept when I didn't.

About six months after we formed, our little group decided to meet in person. This was a sign of the times--friends brought together by pixels on a screen. And, it was the moment of truth. The masks drawn by our words would be lifted to reveal who we really were.

We met in Mystic, CT. And, it was so very, very strange and so very, very wonderful at the same time.

We mixed martinis in our mouths, laughed loud, talked much. It was Karen, though, that I found myself watching the most. The way she carried herself. The words she chose. I waited to hear what she would say next. I was delighted when she talked about "the triangulation of desire" and used the word "trajectory." As we drove around Mystic, she wondered aloud if the winters were "punishing." We teased her about that for the rest of the weekend. As well she should have been teased for such a comment.

The next year she came to stay for a few days with me and the family. We saw the sights, went to lunch with friends, and she visited the Pee-body Es-sux Museum. I even took her to work with me one day. I think her favorite part was poking around the thrift shop finding little treasures and what-nots. It was an easy kind of visit. The kind where you don't worry about your guest. I was sorry on the day I drove her to the 128 station to catch the train that would speed her back towards home.

In the months and years that followed, our friendship went through those kinds of contortions that friendships go through. Friends, like flowers, get a little wilted if you don't water and tend them. We got limp around the edges, but I have never forgotten the friend I found when I least knew I needed one.

The stuff she writes on her blog is not her real writing. It is, however, a sampling of the mind that weaves stories with one of the truest voices I have ever had the fortune to read. I believe with all my heart she will be published one day soon. And, I am glad she is not a quitter.

I also believe we are overdue for a good catching up.