Idon't like people who force it. Yesterday I sat near two women at a cafe. They were determined to out-vocabulary one another. I thought it was hysterical, and actually started scribbling down fifty cent words as they spewed them at one another. Here's a short list:
pedantic paradigm (several times) psycho-social(misused at least once) hermeneutics (oooh, I know this one!! I know this one!! only they didn't) abrogate ennui (I hear this a lot, actually) rapacious
I'm sure they were terribly pleased to slip that one in. But I have a new flash... using vague, stuffy, language does not make you sound smarter. It makes you sound like you are trying to sound smarter. Trust me when I say this... I have been to two of the snottiest learning institutions in the world and graduated with honors from both.
The only people speaking that way are the insecure over-achievers.
It's actually much more impressive to phrase something simply, cleanly, and in accessible vocabulary.
My father's sister passed away this morning. Dorothy was a wonderful sister, mother, grandmother-- simply a genuinely good woman. I had very little time with her over the years since most of my Papa's siblings stayed in southwestern Virginia, where they grew up. Because my own world was so different-- a small town in Massachusetts that was still a short drive from the city-- my awe of their mountain life has always been deep and tinged with magic.
If you have never been to the Rich Valley area of Virginia, you should consider it. The word "breathtaking" doesn't cover it. It is misty-blue, a water-color painting at a distance and a slice of Americana up close. My father is very much a product of this part of the world that was his home until he enlisted in the service. These are country people in the purest sense: both bone-deep honest and gleefully cantankerous at the same time. You might be teased or stared at because there are Massachusetts plates on your car, but a stranger will stop to help you with a flat. (Then make fun of the way you talk as you drive away.)
Aunt Dorothy was one of those women who inhabit their space on earth with quiet, domestic miraculousness. I didn't have enough time with her because of geography, but my sense of her-- as a strong, warm force of familial power-- goes to the bone. Memories, though they are far too few, come to me in a soft blue whirl of chocolate cakes, big pots of beans, hand-me-down clothing to take back home after a visit that was never long enough. As with all Olingers I think of laughter... a head of dark red hair thrown back, a deep throaty chuckle, the characteristic Olinger voice, filled with smoke and hickory and good humor.
My father had 11 siblings: 8 sisters, 3 brothers. Some of them I knew or know only marginally. Dorothy was quite a bit older than my Papa and I believe that sheer necessity and birth order predestined them to have a relationship that was as much of a mother and child as sister and brother. Poor Granny only had two hips to prop a little one on. I think large families-- particularly those who have little to go around-- create parents who are "naturals." Dorothy was certainly that way. I never entered her home that she didn't have an eye-twinkling smile and "sum'teat" for me. Like all the Olingers she had news, and the news was delivered in sparkling, humorous conversation. Story-telling comes with the bones we are built around. It's a parrion of great joy in my family.
I was an adult before I realized that my father had grown up without simple luxuries. To me, his childhood had been magical-- a grand adventure in a distant mountain kingdom that was one part Huckleberry Finn and two parts Waltons. In a way, I suppose, the alchemy of time has transformed it. This has always been the way of his family. They might remember a hard time, but the memory is softened with humor, packaged in acceptance. Soon enough even the hardest memories-- of losing their father when they were very young, or of going without in the meanest times-- always gives way to better stories. Always, after the sigh of remembered pain, come tales of rascal-exploits and belly-deep laughter.
But woman-grown, seeing my father stiffen with age and feeling the deep ache of this loss, I can appreciate the hard edges that had to be smoothed by time. I admire him, his siblings, his parents so much more knowing how hard they had it. It makes their characters even more miraculous. It has made my love for them deepen from something warm and gleeful. It has made me fiercely proud. From humble and harsh beginnings in the mountains 12 children emerged to create small tribes of their own, and passed on to them-- to me, my brothers, my cousins-- the ability to accept adversity, embrace it, melt its hard edges down with a warmth that comes from knowing we are always loved, will always be loved, and can ride it out until the laughter comes.
Dorothy leaves behind her remaining siblings, children, grand-children with that gift. She is missed. She always will be. But she will also always live in the echoes of their laughter, in the magic of their stories, and in the misty blue magic of the land itself, grown up from bones that are always anchored there.
Go rest high on that mountain, Dorothy, and thank you for the gift of your life.
Ihave an illness. I don't deny it. I'm a handbag addict. And my latest crack? Makowsky's Nassau Tote in Shiitake.
This past year I have rejected everything but leather and made a serious commitment to buy and carry NOTHING but leather, good quality, heavy-duty bags. I have (as some may recall) a drop-dead gorgeous Michael Kors bag in black that has been my constant companion for about a year. I also own a really nice saddle brown bag made by Marc Jacobs. But I was in the market for something I could wear with navy, some of the more earthy colors, etc.
I got a cute Coach wrist clutch in hunter green from my SIL for Christmas. So I looked at Coach. I looked at Rampage and VanZeeland... but it was her husband who stole my heart.
Bruce Makowsky knows how to make a damned handbag. For serious. This thing is a piece of art. His leather is amazing. The hardware is amazing. The leopard print lining is amazing. The color-- which he calls "shiitake" officially-- is half way between burnt gold and putty.
Don't tell Michael. I still love him. He's just... not what I need right now. We'll always have Cambridge, Michael. Always!
I don't know where this notion came from... that if you don't have children there is something very wrong with you, or you are incredibly sad about it. My childlessness is deliberate and a source of happiness. I didn't want kids. I didn't have kids. Mission accomplished.
I have friends who are very aggravated by this. They have kids, and their kids like me. I know... what the hell gives there? But not wanting to bring rugrats into the world by way of my own brat-chute doesn't mean I hate kids.
Although... it's kind of fun to answer the question that way. And I do. When stupid people coo sadly at me and say "oooh, can you not have them?" Well yes, I can take birth control and damned well not have a whole brood of demons. Or I get "don't you want little ones of your own?" Umm... they don't come with a return slip. No. But what I say is, "I hate children. Can't stand them. Babies? Nope. Hate em. Would leave them in snowbanks if I could get away with it."
There are usually kids around when I say this crap, and they are very reliable about laughing. Because kids like me. Not sure why.
And I do like kids. I like the ones I can return when they get on my last nerve. I like buying them stuff their parents can't afford. I like taking them to the movies when mum and dad are a heartbeat away from something that would result in DYS intervention. It's a good excuse to see Tooth Fairy, drool over The Rock in a tutu, and pretend it was all for the kids.
Plus I love that the kids are smarter than the adults asking the stupid question. Like the other day, my five year old nephew was with me when I threatened him. He knows I'm kidding, but I think the lady at the theater was trying to dial social services in her pocket so I couldn't see her. I think I scared her a little. The rugrat was making me nuts, so I told him to knock it off. It went like this:
Me: Cut it out or we're leaving. Brat: You already bought the tickets. Me: I'll leave anyway. Brat: Noyawon't. Me: Willto. Brat: Noyawon't. Me: Willto. Brat: Noyawon't. Me: You want me to put you in the garbage disposal when we get home? Remember what happened to Kitty? Brat: Shut up. Me: YOU shut up. Brat: No, YOU.
Yeah, the uptight lady was a little freaked, I think. But the kid snickered at me. I've rotted his brain... he thinks like me now. May explain why, when we were trying to leave two hours later, he yelled at the car in front of me "GIVE US A BREAK AND GET YER NOSE OUT THERE, MAN!!"
I'm not going to be taking new work on WebSong for a bit so my fingers can recover and I can focus hard on writing. I had four really pretty templates hanging around that got passes. They are $40 each WHILE THEY LAST...
A broody angel dude Lovers in gold and tawny colors Masked woman and her lover Cool Anime woman on a book in red
