Category Archives: Snippets & Bits

A Curse

When the just-washed food storage container fell on the dirty floor I spoke to it in a measured tone above the seething sea of my rising anger: ” I hate you. I loathe you. (pause) You are an abscess on a pimple on the ass of a maggot.”

A good curse is worth documenting for reuse later.

My Grandfather Said “Arf!”

My grandfather said, “Arf!” He’d come around a corner, see you coming the other way and “Arf!” After while, this pre-kindergartener started saying it back – “Arf!” “Arf!” as a mutual greeting.

For decades I thought he was just mimicking a dog, and in fact, that interpretation of what he was doing led to a whole life of making animal sounds, weird sounds, character voices and impressions of celebrities.

But decades after he died I came across an old Popeye comic from the 1930s in which Popeye exclaimed “Arf!” when he was surprised by something. In fact, Popeye said this all the time! I suddenly realized my grandfather had been quoting Popeye from his youth and not greeting me but exclaiming surprise at encountering someone charging around the corner at him.

Imagine, a whole life of making sounds based on a fortuitous but erroneous interpretation! I wonder how many of the foundational ways we feel about life and about people, upon which we build entire life-guiding narratives are actually based on misconceptions and/or misinterpretations, for better or worse?

The Beneath Attitudes

I visited the Attitude Pages today: the CNN attitude page, the Fox attitude page, as well as NPR and the BBC. Couldn’t find the news beneath the attitudes. So, after a few minutes, I gave up and remain spectacularly uniformed, though my ignorance is completely unbiased. I’ll try again next week.

B.S. Gives You Wings

When I was 3 or 4, I reached behind my back and felt a lump on either side that I was sure were wings sprouting. “Mommy, Mommy,” I exclaimed, “I’m growing wings!”

My mother saw what I was doing and said, “No, honey. Those are just your shoulder blades. They are bones in your back and when you reach behind, they pop up a little bit.”

“NO!!!,” I shouted defiantly, and ran back and forth across the front yard trying to fly.

Years later, I have come to believe that it as always been the well-intentioned disbelief of others that has robbed me of my dreams. And I have determined I must believe even more strongly if I am to make such things real before the window of opportunity is lost and the magic has run out of my world.