{I've been talking a lot more like Frank lately. He would be so proud.}

I noticed earlier this week that I have recently begun prefacing a lot of sentences with the word "frankly.". Frankly (like just there. Didn't even realize it was done until I typed it.) it's a word I have always disliked.  There's nothing pretty about it, and it's not really the kind of inaesthetic word that is okay because it's descrbing something nasty. It's just not a likable word. "Candidly" is much nicer.

Using "frankly" so often has led me to feel like something of a more vindictive person. As if I judge things more often (and always feel the need to somehow ameliorate my harshness by prefacing it with word that says "Hey, I'm telling the truth, so get over it, because it's straight-up fact." (Which, actually, is usually true, because my sentences usually, rather amusingly, start with "Frankly, I think…" So it could go either way.)

But my real question is, is Frank really the one I want to be paying homage to? I need truth but not snarlinginyourfaceblunt.  Even if I'm only talking to myself, because…frankly…it sort of freaks me out, just a little.  I like being non-confrontational, and most of the things i preface with "frankly" can be very unnecessarily confrontational, if I actually said them to someone's face.  Does that just mean I'm not really that bold of a person, either? 

Star-crossed freight trains, E. coli, hummingbirds, and a lame duck who may have stepped on a land mine.

How not to use figurative language:

• "John and Mary had never met.  They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met."
• "The politician was gone but unnoticed, the the period after the 'Dr.' on a Dr Pepper can."
• "The shot rang out, as shots are wont to do."
• "Long separated by cruel fate, the two star-crossed lovers raced across the field, like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at a speed of 55 mph and the other having left Topeka at 4:19 p.m. traveling at a speed of 35 mph."
• "He was as tall as a six-foot three-inch tree."
• "He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like  a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high school about the danger of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it."
• "His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling-Free."
• "McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup."
• "The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil.  Unlike Phil, however, this plan might actually work."
• "The little boat drifted gently across the pond, just the way a bowling ball wouldn't."
• "It was very confusing, just like when you're out of state and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 instead of 7:30."
• "It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing children around with power tools."
• "The young fighter looked very hungry, the sort of look you get after not eating for a while."
• "He was as lame as a duck.  And not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something."
• "He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River."
• "He was deeply in love.  Whenever she spoke, he fancied that he could hear bells, just like a garbage truck backing up."
• "He grew on her like he was a colony of E. coli and she was room-temperature Canadian beef."

...This is what we spent the majority of my English class studying this afternoon.  Real creative ridiculosity from real college students.  Don't try this at home, kids.

Also, the fire alarm went off today.  Not the most fun of adventures.  I also witnessed the magic of an erasable pen, which was a fun adventure.

O geekdom, how would you survive without the internet?

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2dBqr0/savethewords.org/

Genesis of a Blog

I decided, around 28 hours ago, that I was going to start a blog, which is something I've been considering for a while.  Difficulties arose when I was trying to decide upon a name for said blog.   I considered using lines from songs, but those could be too easily misinterpreted, especially if I didn't even know what they meant.  Poems?  Quotes?  There are good ones, but I just couldn't find the right one.  Finally I tried to delve into the reaches of my own vocabulary to invent a phrase that would perfectly describe me.

The problem with being a writer—one tends to over-think everything.  The corner of my brain that takes control in moments like this is convinced that the cosmic balance of whether or not the world will end in 2012 (I'm positive it won't; the Mayan astronomers are rolling on the floor of their graves laughing at our misinterpretation of their calendar) hangs on the word I choose.  Oh, the lexicographical drama.

Yes, twenty-four hours later I had returned to my shiny white polycarbonate MacBook, having still not decided on a title.  One might imagine that for a poet/aspiring novelist, naming a blog would be cake.  But, like I said to someone earlier, naming a blog is "a weighty opportunity for creative license.”  I mean, this is ME I’m putting out there.  And  don’t know who ME is.  And I'd prefer not be one of those teens who wastes a good blog title/URL by dashing off one quick, badly punctuated post and leaves it to float, alone and forgotten until a neurotic 18-year-old starts typing random phrases into the blogspot URL and stumbles across it.  And dozens more like it — it saddens me. I intend to carry this blog on indefinitely, which means it really has to have a good name.  

The dictionary definition I have of rhapsody is "an effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expression of feeling".  I love that.  I love it!  And it seemed at least somewhat fitting.  "Whimsical" can mean 1) "playfully quaint or fanciful, esp. in an amusing or appealing manner", or 2) "acting or behaving in a capricious manner".  People have used this word in both fashions to describe me before (thankfully usually in a positive sense), and it's just a fun-sounding word.  So I used a different form, and lo—after five solid hours of thought, my blog title was born. After the fact, I found out I could actually change it anytime I wanted, which would have been nice to know before I agonized through all that.

So now I am embarking on an adventure to share at least a portion of my obscure musings with the online universe.  I've kept a pencil-and-paper journal since I was four.  I spend several hours a day talking to myself because I have no one off which to bounce ideas, thoughts, and random weirdness.  So, here I am.  Read it if you like.  I can guarantee that at least some of it will make sense, especially once I start school (Nineteen days until my first day of college!  That is not right).  My brain tends to make more sense the crazier my life gets.  You'll probably be exposed to a mishmash of spontaneous observations, potential life philosophies, accounts of my stress, quotes, bits of poetry, rants at the many things that prove problematic to my wellbeing and happiness, funny tidbits of the oddness in my life, plans for the future, and peeks into my devotions (maybe a blog can my sort of accountability to myself.  Hm).  Some days my typed thoughts may ramble on for miles and some days they may be a few sentences.  
Anyhow, for now, farewell.  "Goodbye, trolley people..."  I will be back.   


"And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father." – Colossians 3:17 (NLT)