Dread

     Dread.

     Many things induce dread.

     Mondays. Maybe Tuesdays. The occasional Wednesday. Root canals. Income tax audits. Failure. Embarrassment. that look from people that seems to declare, Yup, you really are incompetent.  Large invoices. Early morning phone-calls. Everything my teens do. The bathroom scale. Spruce bugs. Turkeys. Dropping a television. Clothes shopping. Being boring. Unexpected mass home appliance breakdown. 

     I cringe thinking about these dreadful things despite having already experienced all of them and much worse. Even though I’ve been there, done that, I still dread. Heck, sometimes I even dread dread.

     Why am such an anxious person? And exactly what function does this emotion serve? Why are many human beings saddled with feelings of trepidation, dismay, and fear?

     Fear can be healthy, right? We need it to survive. Fear keeps us from merrily skipping across a freeway or trying to hug bees. None of us should hop in the elevator with the man who gives us “the creeps.” If we heed our instincts, fear prevents recklessness. 

     But fear hinders us more than helps us, doesn’t it?

     Is recorded history ripe with men and women paralyzed by fear?

     No.
     We must push through dread. Even on Monday mornings. Day by day. After all, what is there to worry about? In just two days tomorrow will be yesterday.

Wordfuse

*accidonkulously (adverb):  accidentally + ridonkulously = a word used to describe the action involved in an accidental but particularly kooky, bizarre or freakishly embarrassing mishap: Upon entering the parking space, I failed to notice the shopping cart and accidonkulously rammed it into the RCMP officer's car. See Tiger Woods for plenty of other examples.

* "Accidonkulously" sounds better than "accidiculously" for uh, obvious reasons. BTW, the etymology of the word ridonkulous (as a replacement for ridiculous) is apparently as follows: "created in the backwoods of a Mississippian moonshiner in 1968." The story goes that he was so drunk on moonshine that when he tried to mount his donkey (named Jimmy), it kicked him in the face and he was nearly killed. After regaining consciousness, he described the whole experience as "ridonkulous!" 

Wordfuse

    

     What would life be like if Lewis Carroll had never been born? No Alice. No Tweedledum & Tweedledee. And no "Jabberwocky." 

     Carroll was a word genius credited with coining portmanteau, now used to describe the concept of blending words to create new words. Like "swass," for example. (What kind of sorry state would the world still be in now if that neologism had not been invented?) 

     Thanks to Carroll, we all possess the poetic license to mash-up, mesh, and mingle words. If the word doesn't exist yet, what better way to solve that problem than create it? I love words. I'm a workgeek. I'm an amateur lexicographer. And I'm always seeking new ways to play with words. That is what wordfuse is all about....

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numbsational (adjective):  A word used to describe something both numbing yet sensational, lively yet listless, likely due to an incongruity between hype and reality or an anticlimactic and unexpected outcome or general disappointment with the overall effect: Although I enjoyed the debut episode of Conan O'Brien's new show, I must admit that after all the hype, it was mostly a numbsational experience at best. See Hulk or pretty much most of the movies directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

Things that deserve the stink eye:

     My teens eat disturbing things. Spongebob Alphagetties with brown beans and ketchup for example. Or raw hotdog appetizers followed by hotdogs microwaved so long they "sing" when they are cooked. Anyway, what follows is a recipe concocted by one of my 16 year old daughter's peeps (Abby), also 16. I tried one and I would describe it this way: like eating ground drywall.

Disturbing Teen Recipe #39
Ingredients:
~ 1 cheese puff
~ 1 M&M with a peanut inside
~ 1 real fruit (yeah right) gummie

Shove in mouth and chew. Laugh hysterically (while adults grimace). Repeat.

She said I could share.

      My daughter has been singing since she could talk. Her singing has a remarkable effect on me. There's that line from Othello, "O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear." I believe music, and all artforms, makes us suddenly more sweetly alive, suddenly separated from the day's ordinary-ness, the day's difficulties. Life just slips away. And it's doubly, doubly so when listening to someone you love sing, sing, sing....

Deodorant

Preamble: It might help to envision the following like an episode of The Big Bang Theory. You're welcome.

     My friend Grant (see here and here too) informed me that scientists are much closer now to developing ways to render things invisible. Think about that for a moment. In-vis-i-ble.

     Undoubtedly, I lack the ability to fully comprehend the science fuelling this incredible technology (something about nanoscale engineered properties, bending light and duct tape I bet) but I can provide at least one intelligent comment about the topic: whoa.

     Grant explained it well. In other words, that dude’s smart. Yet at the risk of pushing my geekness to Richter scale proportions, I must admit that his explanation lit such an imaginative spark in my noggin that it caused my brain to almost instantly "reboot." In other words, my mind completely changed direction, like pivoting on one's heel. 
     This happens to me frequently. My brain fiercely focuses on a new idea, heat-seeks the gist, and then instead of reflecting on it, my mind proceeds to access some sort of haphazard filing system searching, pruning, crafting an analogy or comparison, the odder the better. It’s like a car that pulls up along the curb to allow a passenger to enter, then suddenly makes a u-turn, in reverse. Meanwhile, someone is left standing at the curb looking perplexed.
     I believe the technical term for this might be brainfart.

     So anyway, this all transpired during his explanation, about sixty seconds max. Grant opened the conversation with "invisibility" and where was I sixty seconds later?
     "Deodorant."

     Let me explain. Do you have some odd-comment friends? Do know someone whose responses make you feel drunk? Do you have buds who say things that make you want to shake your head and nod at the same time? I'm one of those people.
     Sadly, I've grown accustomed to those awkward lulls during which I must explain to someone how I arrived at an idea. So here it is in eight easy steps. While Grant described how invisibility may soon become more science fact than science fiction, my mind went from

1. the concept of invisibility to
2. stealth plane (part of his explanation) to
3. light to
4. technology to
5. innovation to
6. invention to
7. can-opener (stay with me) to
8. deodorant.

     It all makes sense now right? 

     Okay. I'll explain. He described an exciting new invention and once I understood, I defaulted to a common invention and then to my favourite invention: deodorant. (Think about it. Would the world be even remotely as advanced without deodorant?)

     Surprisingly, Grant barely flinched at my seemingly random reaction and I know why. Did I mention that Grant began the entire conversation by noting how cool the wheels are on modern vehicles? Essentially, he segued from "sweet wheels" to "invisibility" in a matter of seconds. Birds of a feather brain fart together I guess. There must be lots of us out there stinking up the universe, right? Know any?

Things that deserve the stink eye:

Who are the six idiots who liked this?

Things that are most likely the devil:

The mud and misery of the Passchendaele battlefield.
Image from Library and Archives Canada

 During the first World War,

on October 26, 1917 

this,

this is

the field of agony

called Passchendaele

where Private 472784,

my Great-Grandfather

died,

just five,

five days

before his 27th birthday.

Just five,

five days

after,

his son,

my Grandfather,

turned four.

Four years old.

Fatherless. 

War.

War is the devil.

Remember.

Spontaneous Combustion

     “The only thing that has to be finished by next Tuesday is next Monday.”  ~Jennifer Yane

     Apparently Jennifer Yane has never heard of spontaneous human combustion. Those wacky scientists have not yet determined exactly how or why humans spontaneously melt into piles of ash, but I think I know the reason. It’s deadlines.

     Just think about the word deadline.

     Some history on that word: according to some sources, the etymology or historical origin of “deadline” may relate back to the American Civil war. During that time, armies had no proper facilities for holding prisoners, so they would create a makeshift and inadequate prison (perhaps even draw a line on the ground around a group of prisoners) then warn them that whoever crossed the line would be shot to death. Whoa.

     Nowadays, deadline refers to “the time by which something must be finished or submitted.” Despite its much milder usage, one could argue that today’s barrage of stressful work deadlines might still feel like a sniper with a big maniacal smile on his face is hiding nearby ready and waiting to blast the next person on the wrong side of some so-called important deadline. 

     Personally, I’ve never experienced many deadline difficulties. That is, unless they are actually enforced. My point is this: people aren’t robots and stuff happens. Like really good TV programs for example. (Okay, maybe not the best excuse.) Like mangled hard-drives. Or family emergencies. Even death. Those who enforce excessively rigid and unyielding deadlines should remember that sort of shit just makes God chuckle.

     Folks need lifelines, not deadlines. Overwhelmed workers are less creative, less productive. Not exactly beneficial to the workplace, is it? And although I’m clearly no scientist, I think that when faced with merciless deadlines some people just sit down in an armchair and stare blankly at their TVs and then it happens: they spontaneously combust.

     And the saddest part of all? No one might even notice until it's too late.

Things that deserve the stink eye:

     Uh, whose decision was it to employ the Facebook "like" function for this particular news item, and who are the 49 pea-brains who liked this?