Thoughts Which Should Be Leashed
I've just read the NY Times review of Anne Tyler's new book, Amateur Marriage and it quotes a line where the main character's mind is described as "a mischievous animal cavorting elsewhere."
I like that. It's an apt description of my mind this week. Holidays are over. There is work to be done. But my brain keeps capering off like a naughty toddler, mentally renovating my whole house from top to bottom, percolating madly with words like "tickle" and "uxorial" **, speculating on the current whereabouts of Scary Spice, marvelling at boggling enormity of the Queen Mary Two, frothing lustily with the desire to create sketchbooks as intimate and intricate as Danny Gregory's , wondering what exactly it is about the scent of great white lilies that makes me think uncomfortably about church and funerals when a) neither of the two funerals I've attended in my lifetime smelled like that and b) churches always smell like old hymnals and candle wax, toting up impatient lists of all the things I want to do put have been putting off for years, like getting a real actual manicure and finally refinishing and purchasing new knobs for the hand-me-down tallboy dresser (currently painted a most unlikely shade of blue) atop which our bedroom teevee sits.
It's been so hard to press myself into the firm groove of routine. And just as I was finally feeling that I was mastering it, reining in the galloping brain and focusing it with productive accuracy on the current project at hand, I got all overly optimistic about my technical skill and really bunged up my computer trying to trouble shoot a problem I've been having in Quark Xpress. Sigh.
So, once again, I forfeited more than 20 hours of precious time to flailing about in computer hell, at times rather tearfully. Ah, Well. Monday begins another week, right? A whole week stretching fresh with no mistakes in it yet.
Random Nugget of Greeny Goodness: The little green munkie up above has been crowned "Ofor", as in "Two thousand - o- four" by sweet Jess. I gave him the honour of naming my little simian friend in lieu of promising to keep the same topper for the entire duration of the year. That's so just something I cannot do, being ever so mercurial me. In fact, truth be told, I'm already itching for a major re-vamp. Not that I have any real idea what I'm going to do, mind you. But I think Ofor is a splendid moniker for a munkie, don't you?
From Merriam-Webster's Word of the day
**uxorial uk-SOR-ee-ul adjective : of, relating to, or characteristic of a wife
Example sentence:
Joe's idea of uxorial duties � cooking, cleaning, planning parties, and balancing his checkbook � didn't sit well with his coworkers.
Wee Thought about the word "Uxorial" : ugh, yuck and ewwwww. It makes me think of oxen, enslaved in a yoke. Why can't words revolving around the term "wife" be soft and pretty? And the term "wife" itself... well, it's like "wipe" or "whiff", kind of snivelling and moldy. Like an old dish rag. Why can't it be something spritely like "fairy" or "sparkle" or "twinkle". Okay, well maybe not those words so much, although I'm having a grand time trying to imagine Jack introducing me to his boss or family as "this is my fairy, Melanie" or better yet, "this is my lovely twinkle, Melanie" with a straight face. But you know what I mean.
And just so you know, I spend far more time thinking about just this sort of thing than is recommended or healthy.
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