genius in the age of verbosity

.
it's been a while. i had promised myself that i would write everyday and THEN i got this awful comment from a reader of my work (elsewhere) that i'm too self-conscious. well, that sent me for a tailspin, writing wise.

so, i've been holed up in my head thinking about whether or not that's true, whether or not that matters, and whether or not i should give a rat's patooty what this guy thinks. and then i read a david sedaris book - naked. at first i said (in my head to my friend), "yeah, then, you go to hell you hater" cause mr. sedaris seems pretty self-conscious to me and people LOVE him. and then i thought, well, can there be more than one david sedarisey kind of writer? now, i imagine you may be rolling your eyes, sniggering that "you may be decent, but you ain't no d.s. so the anology is moot," and fine, fine, i thought that too, but i'm just wondering what the "market" will bear in the case of compulsive confessional writing. has the internet, blogging, watered down writing so that everyone's a genius, rendering no one a genius?
**

Gimme a "V" Gimme an "A"....

.
I love valium!!!! Finally a full night's sleep - and no grogginess. YEEEHAAA!!!
_____________________________________________________

During my fitful evenings this week, I've been thinking about the word "fuck" and how much I use it. It's actually my favorite word, but I'm conflicted about it.

Papa always told me that the use of profanity signifies an inability to properly use the language - ignorance, he suggests. I disagree. You see, sometimes the word "fuck" is the proper word for a situation. It has power, shock value, cathartic value. It communicates the importance of the point, the humor of the point, the humor of the speaker....and it feels soooo gooood to say!

I used to love the section of Reader's Digest called "Toward More Picturesque Speech" which detailed interesting linguistic flourishes and turns of phrase. It is something I think about often as I write, and speak.

I say, what's more picturesque than the word "fuck?"

I will warrant that there are appropriate times to and not to use the word - and I'll admit that it's often difficult to know, in advance, whether a particular time is, in fact, appropriate. (Every time I'm in sunday school class at church there's a running tape in my mind: "don't say fuck, don't say fuck, don't say fuck." So, I end up saying "shit" D'oh!!) In my case, too, I'll admit that I could stand a bit of the "less is more" philosphy in the application of my license to use the word - but, fuck, what's a passionate, loquacious girl supposed to do?

and anyone who disagrees can just go fuck themselves...

Towards More Picturesque Speech

Stupid, Silly, Pithy or Whatever Things I've Overheard During the Last Two Weeks:

• "Overheard" at the airport (about 500 times): "Maintain control over your carry-on items to prevent introduction of dangerous articles by unknown persons."

Ok, so much is wrong with this! A) maintain control? is your carry-on likely to jump up and flail around? B) introduction of dangerous articles? just too silly! C) unknown persons? this seems to imply persons that cannot be known, like, uh, aliens (of the the ET sort, of course, not Mexicans or Arabs), and if they're unknown, would you know they had made an introduction? How about: "Don't let strangers put shit in your bags!" This gobbledy-gook is likely the product of some over-educated, under-employed creative writing MFAer getting her rocks off at her stupid and disappointing technical writing job.

• Overheard standing in line to get my cap and gown, spoken by a fellow soon-to-be-college-graduate: "Yeah, I kicked him out on his butt last week, but he said he had a right to see his children and anyways his parents own the house, so I can't really say nuthin'. And so I told him to get his ass up off the couch and fix the kids some dinner and maybe vaccuum the fucking floor or something. He better have not drank up all the beer before I get home. I'm gonna drink a six-pack on the way so I'll be drunk enough to deal with him when I get there."

Ah, nothing like a college education to separate us from the brutes!

• Spoken by my sister the house-sitter: "I think those two bottles of bloody mary mix were expired - it made me puke all afternoon."

Do you think, just maybe, it was the gallon of vodka in the bloody mary mix that made you sick?

• Spoken by same sister: "I didn't tell you that Mother's cocker spaniel would also be staying the weekend because I knew you wouldn't like it."

Um, if you knew I wouldn't like it WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BRING THAT NASTY BEAST INTO MY HOUSE TO RUIN MY COUCH?????!!!!!

• Spoken by the friend driving us around Philadelphia (to which none of us had been before) while I got progressively more and more carsick: "No, we didn't get a map, and I hate to ask directions. I just have a feeling this is the right way to go."

RALPH!!!

• Spoken by same friend who brought her nine year old daughter to a party to which we arrived at 10:30 pm (after, of course, having gotten completely lost): "She was quite well behaved, don't you think?

I'm not a big kid fan, and this was almost more than I could handle. They let her run amuk and just chit chat with everyone at the (very adult) party for several hours - easily convinced that she wasn't bothering anyone. I nearly had a nervous breakdown because our arrival at said party with said nine year old implied our complicity in and approval of this situation. Egads!

Can I Get An Amen?

I honestly don't know how to solicit, elicit or attract commentary, or commenters - I really, really hate the 'word' commentator because commentate is not a word so the doer of said non-existent verb, also does not exist: non existence by non association - ok I looked it up and commentate is in fact a word, but I'm willing to bet, though my inadequate etymology reference leaves me wanting, that it is a malapropism, if not a pandering instance like the addition of 'ain't' to the dictionary - to this blog (you forgot that I was in the middle of a sentence, didn't you?). I don't know if I really care (not about your forgetfulness, but about the comments).

I'm not about to e-mail my friends (the two or three that are computer literate enough to find a blog, or know what one is) and say, "please, please come read my rambling musings (a newly overused and somewhat contrived word, I think), and give me your thoughts...." It's hard enough to get people to read my shit when I print it out on clean white (bright white, I like bright white) paper.

So what do I have to do? Show my tits?
******************************************************