What's That Word Again?

I had this moment where I was trying to describe something and the word I wanted to use escaped my brain before it left the lips.  I don’t even remember what I was trying to describe, because my brain has begun to obsess over the word that I can’t remember, that I know I know. It is as if my vocabulary that seldom gets used decided to stage a revolt.  Or perhaps my ultra-hip teenage niece is right and big words are beyond me. (I doubt this is the case.)

Looking up what I thought the word was, to see if I was correct proved to be a dead end.  I think the word had something to do with morph in it, or at least it sounded like it had in it, but for all I know I could have been pronouncing it wrong in my brain.  The on line dictionary didn’t help much.

It gave me the following words with a brief definition for my consideration:

Anamorphic: intentional distortion of an image

Pathomorphology: morphology of abnormal conditions

Polymorphic: organism having more than one adult form. 

I tried composing letters to friends to see if my brain would unlock and fill in the blank, but had no luck. I am going to have some very confused friends in the next couple of days as they start getting rambling letters from me testing out vocab words.  My next  course of action is to fall asleep and hope that it comes to me in a dream, because some of my best ideas come to me when my subconscious rules, either that or I am just going to have to accept that surest way drive me to the brink of insanity is to think that I know something that I can’t remember. 

Princess Ugg

I am trying to catch up on my comics. I have a to be read pile next to the bed that if it toppled could hurt the cat. Half of the pile is comics and half books that have peaked my interest. I don't remember if I actually ever finished a post I was going to write about on Princess Ugg.  I remember starting it and perhaps I lost it in an email to myself, or perhaps I put it off until I got the second volume. 

I love Princess  Ugg by Ted Naifeh.  The art by Warren Wucinich  is superb and the story makes me smile and warms some of those dark corners of my heart. I love comics, but when you read some of the female characters, they tend to be a little flat in most areas except for the chest and fall into stereotypes.  Not all comics are this way and the female role in comics in general has evolved a lot over the years. Princess Ugg is another step in that evolution.   

The beauty of Princess Ugg is that despite the fact that it is a story that has to do with a gaggle of princesses and one princess that doesn't quite fit in with the rest of them, it is really a story about the art of diplomacy and how finding the right way to do things is not always the easiest way to do things. I think that is a good lesson to remember no matter what age you attain.  I would highly recommend picking up both volumes of Princess Ugg and adding it to your library. It is a good read for all ages. 

Hot Metal Chicken

Do you ever have one of those moments where you find something funny and you are pretty sure that no one else is going to find it even half as funny as it is to you? Yeah. I seem to have a lot of those moments. 

A Christmas not too long ago my grandmother had gifted me a bottle of perfume.  I don't wear a lot of perfume, because I hate trying to find a scent that I like and going into a perfume store is an instant migraine. I was surprised at the gift (and hoping it was a subtle hint that I stunk).   It was the name of the bottle that caused my mental funny bone to kick in.

I follow The Bloggess.  I read her blog, follower her on Twitter and I have gifted her books more than once. There is a lovely antidote about perspective that involves a six foot tall metal chicken called Beyoncé that is one of my favorite posts and one that has been most shared among my group of friends.  The only reason I bring it up, is that the perfume my grandmother picked up for me was Beyoncé Heat.  All I can think about when I pick up the bottle  and spritz it on my collar line is that I am going to smell like a hot metal chicken and then I start snickering.  I am sure that my grandmother picked it out for it's light citrus scent with a slight honeysuckle  glow, but it doesn't matter to me.  It is my hot metal chicken perfume and I rock that chicken. 

Distance

I wrote and then rewrote a post on distance. I wanted to wax poetically about how grateful I am to be able to look back on things and see how far I have come.  Every time I would sit down to write about it, I would mentally distract myself with something else.  Oh look, my Pinterest board is feeling lonely, or look I have another life in Fruit Ninja was becoming a common place thing.   It is amazing that I could have something plotted out in my head and half convinced that I want to write about it, and then when I sit down to do so, I have utter and complete writers block and just get angry and pessimistic about the words that do come out. 

It wasn’t until I was writing out post cards to my friend Steph, that I figured out how to wrangle myself in, and found the perfect way to approach the subject of distance, by not talking about distance. I have a bad habit of putting myself into a box and not knowing how to get out of it. 

My husband had given me a book of science fiction movie poster postcards, and one of the first post cards was of Bela Lugosi‘s Dracula, which made me think of my friend, Steph.  A long time ago when there were still VHS tapes that could be rented, Steph and I had grabbed two pints of Ben & Jerry’s (Phish Food & Cherry Garcia if memory serves) and rented Dracula 2000.   

I don’t really like horror movies.  Or maybe I just don’t like the suspense and anticipation and possible over the top gore unless it is funny. There is something about the music that sets me on edge and gets me all wound up. Most of my friends have realized this over the years that spooky mood music will make me jittery and horror movies tend to have a plethora of mood music.  Based on the cover, Dracula 2000 looks like a horror movie.  It is dark and broody and has a gothic Gerald Butler on the cover.  

To combat my jitters, Steph had purposed a compromise.  We would fast forward through the parts that had potential to be scary and then rewind and watch them when we knew what would happen, so that they no long held the horror factor. (Writing this out, makes me feel like a VHS player commercial, and a really bad one at that. Do people even know how VHS works now?)  It took about three hours to watch movie and we probably spent half that time laughing and rewinding. 

A week or so ago I was flipping through Netflix and Dracula 2000 came up.  I was feeling nostalgic and put it on.  The shortest distance between years is a good memory and a bad movie. Laughter bubbled out of me as I recalled how ridiculous it was to take three hours to watch the movie, and snorted at some of the stars what recent films they are in now. (Nathan Fillion, I am not sure you were supposed to be making me laugh as hard as you did, but thank you for your enthusiasm in Dracula 2000). 

The Devil Hates Kung Fu

I wanted to use February as a Month for Gratitude and talk about all the things that I was grateful for and try to mentally trip myself out of the January doldrums.  I had this master plan last week that I would start on February 1st and even had a subject that I wanted to start with. Two days ago it was February 1st and at the end of the day, the only thing I was grateful for was to be able to go home in one piece.  Yesterday was the annual Wish It Was Spring By Trusting a Rodent Festival  (Groundhogs Day) and despite the prophesies  of an early spring, it didn't put a spring into my step. It isn't that I am not grateful, I have a lot to be grateful for, but when you are seeing colors in a dreary light it is hard to see colors.

One of the things I do when I need to work stuff out in my head is reorganize the space around me, and then hope that by the time that I am done my brain will be in a better spot.  I was reorganizing the library last week since it had become a black hole of clutter and half finished projects.  In the middle of moving a cabinet I discovered a bunch of old year books and compact discs.   One of the discs that caught my eye was the one my husband made for me when we first started dating.

Before I was with my husband I had a very specific music taste. I am not saying it was good music taste or bad music taste, but it was pretty much whatever came on the radio.  I had never been super obsessive over music, but on the other hand I could listen to the same CD for weeks without taking a breather, because it just jived with me at the time.  I will admit that I get in a rut with my music.  I get in a rut in a lot of things and I don't even know it most of the time.

My husband is a constant evolution of music and has introduced me to a lot of bands that I would never have discovered on my own.  Looking back at the first mixed tape made me so grateful that he didn't call it quits when I told him that his favorite band had nasally grating voice that I couldn't stand.  If you hear him tell it, I was a hairs breathe from getting the axe, because I inadvertently insulted the band that spoke his soul.  I am grateful that he could accept our differences and move forward and give me time to change my music tastes at my own pace and not instant expect me to love everything he loves.  My husband and I are almost a dozen years out from our first date, and I still don't love all the music that he does, but thats okay.  He certainly doesn't love all the music that I do, but when I showed him that first compact disc he made, he marveled at his good taste and I was able to laugh with him over some of the songs.  Looking back and enjoying the past is one step closer to getting out of the rut.

Below is the play list for those that are interested.

The Devil Hates Kung Fu

1. The King of Carrot Flower by Neutral Milk Hotel
2. King's Dominion By Black Eyes
3. Pull My Strings- Dead Kennedys
4. Target by Fugazi
5. The Kids are Alright by Gold Finger
6. Call the Doctor by Sleater Kinney
7. Bloody Murder by Cursive
8. DatSkat by The Roots
9. Goneja by Skinny Puppy
10. Circus by Tom Waits
11. Caroline by Jawbreakers
12. Magical Colors (31 Flavors) by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
13. The Lost World by Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon
14. Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)  by Digable Planets
15. Futile Bread Machine by Meshuggah
16. Watergate by Ohgr
17. Kill All the White Man by NoFx
18. Snow Shoe BBQ by Atom and His Package
19. Turn Around by They Might be Giants
20. Can God Fill Teeth by Lard
21. Kabuki Girl by The Decendents
22. White Kids Love Hip Hop by MC Chris
23. Exploding Brains by Tenacious D
24. Hotel Yorba by The White Stripes
25. United States of Whatever by Liam Lynch