If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?
Hi, word troll here.
A ban on words? Yikes.
“It was a pleasure to burn.”
That’s my favorite opening line of any of the books I’ve read, and the book itself is really good. Google it. Read it. Then answer this question. Look up Newspeak while you’re at it. If you are already familiar with the idea and it doesn’t terrify you, that’s a little scary, too.
The dystopian genre is my number one favorite, but that doesn’t mean I’d like to live in a dystopian society. Or are we just looking to replace the words we don’t like or find appropriate?
Words are powerful. All of them should be used with great care and some kept to ourselves. But take one away from societal use and it will be replaced. Shoot, they get replaced all the time, then the new ones get demonized, then replaced, and on and on.
Es un circulo vicioso.
As far as warping the usage, I’m not a fan, but the evolution of language is inevitable outside of tyranny.
I woke up this morning with a familiar feeling of contentment. When I was a teenager, aside from the typical tug of war with my parents over my growing need for freedom, I was happy. Waking up on a Saturday morning was invigorating. The day brimmed with potential. On crisp winter mornings I would don my Guess jeans, leather boots, and cute sweater and head to the shops to buy more fashion accessories. The first drag off my cigarette as I took off down the road was my first step toward the freedom I craved, and the nicotine hit differently in that moment than it did all the next first drags throughout the day. I don’t smoke anymore, and Giorgio perfume is only a conduit to my memories rather than a part of my current beauty routine, which is limited to washing my face, brushing my teeth, and putting a comb through my hair. The need for freedom no longer exists because as an adult, I have it. The money not so much. But the potential for a great day met me this morning like it did all those Saturdays long ago. The feeling of having no responsibilities with a blank slate ahead of me brought on the nostalgia and made way for the Christmas spirit to finally hit. I’m going to make some cider, decorate my tree, and wrap presents for my grandson. I think I’ll put a few tunes on the record player and make new happy memories to wake up to.
My life experiences have lead to the moment soon approaching when I will have to demonstrate great resolve without emotions clouding my view and polluting my words. I have endured by the grace of God. But now, having been given a precious jewel, I have let my guard down. I find myself standing in a doorway to a room I’ve been in before. It’s a room of fear and misunderstanding. A room of desperation and attack. But I don’t have to step inside. I can shut the door. What good are my past experiences if I let myself relive them? The art of learning defines my life. I owe it to myself to reframe the picture I see before me because I have earned the stripes.
I will not step through that door again. I will be resolute. And regardless of the outcome, the words that will have mattered are the ones I will have told myself.
3) that I’m okay with the evolution of language as long as reflexive pronouns aren’t tampered with and extra vowels aren’t shoved into places they don’t belong
Bonus) that bad grammar irks me when I’m not qualified to judge
But, honestly, why bother sounding educated if ignorance squeezes itself into dictionaries? Maybe that’s my greatest pet peeve. This willy nilly misuse of words cheapens the genius rebellion of great wordsmiths.
I like the middles of things. Middle of the cake, middle of the day, middle of the night when time disappears halfway between sundown Saturday and sunup Sunday—the black hole between last week and next when the world sleeps. It’s the things between the things I like best because those are the things that are least noticed. One of the perks of being a middle child, if you like that sort of thing. Of all the middles of things, I like summertime most of all, because the sun gobbles you up and hides you from the world for a little while. July is smack in the middle of Hidden and is where all the least noticed things live. July is boss.
What a drab, barren place the moon must be. Cold and grey. Black skies. I’ve always wanted to visit the salt flats and the tundra and look out onto the vast emptiness. I would pay money to see Mongolia or Siberia and ride a horse through the meadows and sled through the snow and ice. Ride the Bering Sea until I’m lost, or walk the endless white sands of a Pacific island. To stand on the edge of a plateau looking over a red, clay canyon. Climb the green, rocky mountains in Peru among the ruins. All under an ice-blue sky with the willful wind trying to blow me over. You can have the moon.
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
It’s not to say that I haven’t tried to grow up, because I have on several occasions. The best I can do is pretend, and I’m super good at pretending. There is only so far I can go with it, though.
The world is just going to have to deal. But honestly the only complaints I’ve had are from my immediate family.
What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
Lately I’ve been acutely aware of my timeline: where I’ve been and where I’m headed. The frame is so small when I step back far enough to look at the span of my life. Small and sparse. I thought I’d be more accomplished by now, or at least have more experiences under my belt. More tales to tell.
Alas, there are no new tales to tell <insert rest / repeat>. Certainly not enough old ones to fill a book. I asked my 90-year-old dad where I go from here. He told me to write a book about my life. The problem is that much of what would go in that book is not shareable,.
I have a reputation to uphold.
He also said that the book didn’t have to be about my life but of some made up one, which is interesting because I would have to make much of mine up to fill the gaps between the acceptable moments. He appears to know more about me than I thought.
School wasn’t terribly hard, so that doesn’t count as a particularly difficult goal. I enjoyed pushing a lot of weight when I had a trainer, so that wasn’t difficult in a psychological sense. Physically, yeah, but I was so motivated by the idea of pushing more that I didn’t feel each personal record to be something nearly insurmountable, which is what I interpret “the hardest personal goal” to be.
I’ve experienced awful, difficult things, and I suppose I set a goal to overcome them. But those sorts of things are not a choice to overcome, hence not really a goal to reach. I guess I could have given up. That’s a choice. But I didn’t see it that way. It was sink or swim. Survival was not only instinctive but necessary.
My greatest goal is likely ahead of me. What do I do with my life now that my kids are raised? Teach? That’s it? Teaching is a lot, I know. It’s a noble profession. I know, I know. But I need something more, and I need that thing to be meaningful.
I thought this would be a semi easy prompt to answer.
What details of your life could you pay more attention to?
I work too much. But I have to do a good job to earn my pay (and, let’s be honest, their respect).
I had a dream two nights ago that I walked into the home I grew up in. The floors were torn out and the walls were stripped. Everything was concrete and dry wall. White and bare. Workers sat at a table near the door and ate their lunch. They didn’t know who I was. I looked over and saw my dad sitting in one of the chairs on the other side of the room. He was staring into space with a look of gloom and despair. He built that house. Even laid the wood floors tile by tile. And now all his work was gone. The home was gone. He was totally alone. I haven’t felt so deeply saddened in a long time. I frantically asked, “What is happening?! Dad!”
My alarm went off in that moment, and I didn’t get to hear his response. I didn’t get to comfort him.
He’s 90 now, and he lives in a different town. He’s sad and alone, and it makes me sad thinking about it. So I took off work Friday, and I’m going to stay with him a couple of days.
What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?
My dad is into genealogy, so I know a LOT about my lineage. Interesting stories, mostly, and all the famous people that all of everyone is also related to. His work has opened my eyes to how connected we actually are. All of us. Looking up the line is overwhelming, as looking forward from the past shows an exponential spread of DNA going down and out that becomes diluted with each generation, mixing of this talent and trait with that one until maybe a spec is left of a person that history counts as legend. But I like to think that somehow certain gifts have escaped the hundreds of years of watering down that led to me. I am not a pure bred anything, but no one is. Empires conquered empires, and the influences of some reached every corner of Earth, which in turn spread to other corners and so on. I have learned a lot of history from my dad in his quest to connect the dots, one fact being that time is rife with brutality but displays evidence of hope and beauty and love. Humans are complex but predictable, as is the trail of history left in their wake. And we are all part of that history. We descend from it. We are the sum total of those who came before us.
But none of that answers the question. What am I most proud of?
My dad. My mom. Their parents. Who they are and were and how I inherited the things I love most about them. There’s bad in there too, which I cannot deny. But I am also proud of how we all learned to overcome the darkness.
What fascinates me maybe even more than the past is how someday my own talents and traits will pop up down the line. Someone might look like me or share my affinity for literature and general frivolity. I imagine I will pass on the passions I got from those who came before me.
My heritage is an amalgam of many, and I’m fascinated by each one and how they combined. My pride is of the people who formed and reformed that heritage. I might be molding it some, and I’m proud of that, too.
This is such a serious prompt, but I’m inclined to answer because I feel like writing.
I do not, nor have I ever seen myself as a leader. I certainly never wanted to be one. I’ve always fancied myself a fly on the wall. But then I step out of my car at work and my alter ego takes over. Or maybe disappears. Whatever the case, I become an entertainer and speaker of truths. I don tiny plastic hands and greet my subjects at the door before inundating them with knowledge they never thought they wanted to know. I fill their heads with thoughts that wake them up in the night in fits of anxiety. And they come running to me —the source of their agony—for comfort.
¡El edificio se calló!
So I was told once.
Then he made a 4, and now the building stands strong.
Growing is scary and painful, but somebody has to guide them through. I shove them through. With my tiny plastic hands.
I guess what I am saying is that if I have to do this thing, if I have to teach, if I must lead, then I will do it with as little seriousness as possible. The subject is hard enough.
Kerfuffle instantly came to mind, which is odd since I neither use the word nor ever think of using it. When I was young, I liked the way the word “Ledbetter” sounds. It’s not really a word but a name, except it is the name of a street, which is where I first saw it, and a street name could be a word. Not that names aren’t words, but they have no real use. I could write a book of words without ever stating a name and still be able to clearly distinguish between characters. Prince didn’t have a name for a while, and Shakespeare didn’t think much of the idea. Frankenstein’s monster was nameless until someone decided his name is, in fact, Frankenstein and unwittingly passed along the lie, which I suppose isn’t really a lie since the mistake was likely just that: a mistake. Now look. Order a Frankenstein costume and you’ll get the mask of a ghoulish undead rather than a mad scientist. But I suppose the lunatic doctor, himself, was a monster in his own right,
I am fully aware of my digression.
I might have a favorite word, but I think I like how the words are put together better than the individual words, themselves.
Wild sea money. That’s a favorite of mine. I don’t expect anyone to know the context of that phrase. But if you do, we should be friends.
Tonight I am eating leftover cake, which i bought on the way home from work yesterday after a particularly difficult day. Yesterday’s cake was medicine. Today’s leftovers are simple joy. Today was good.
Oh, well, I used to have the urge to write. Something in my core burned red-hot for it, but I seldom feel that way anymore. I like the community, though this go-round I haven’t connected with anyone. Just as well. I don’t write often enough to maintain that sort of thing. But when I did, boy, that was nice. I had amazing writers to write to and to read from. One in particular was a mentor kinda. He didn’t know it, but I learned so much from him.
Now it’s like yawning. I have a sudden urge to fill, write a little something about nothing, and then move along.
I should read more.
I was perusing FaceBook last weekend while getting a pedicure, and one of those novella ads (is it an ad?) rolled over my screen. I clicked on it, which is something I never do. I read 11 chapters of this crappy story because I couldn’t put it down. It was so bad, but reading it was like watching a bad movie that you can’t stop watching. Then at a climactic moment, I was informed that I had to pay to read the rest. I didn’t.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with this post other than to say that my love for writing and for literature has degraded into something far from passion. But I can’t put it down.
Interview someone — a friend, another blogger, your mother, the mailman — and write a post based on their responses.
She sauntered into the room as though she owned the place. In truth, she owned every room she entered. Her presence commanded attention. At this moment, I had the honor of sharing her space. She sat on the sofa across from me, grooming herself.
I greeted her.
“How do you feel about all the attention you get? Pardon my candor, but you are aloof. Does the fawning ever get to you?”
She glared at me for a moment, shocked by my forthright accusation, at the get-go, no less. I felt my aggressive approach would catch her attention and maybe even impress her enough to grace me with a response. I succeeded only in not offending her. I took that as an acceptance of my dare to entertain her ego. After a moment of sizing me up, she returned to her grooming as though I had never said anything. I scooted closer, risking her departure. A person’s proximity was usually not tolerated unless she approached, herself.
I continued.
“May I ask, what is a typical day for you? For someone so self-absorbed, you seem to prefer being elusive. People often comment on your mysterious disappearances. Would you mind sharing what you do while avoiding your subjects?”
She paused.
“That’s my business. How does my hair look? The shine is beautiful, is it not? I maintain a strict diet of the highest quality on the recommendation of my doctor. He prescribes only the best for me and insists I eat the most expensive food on the market to give me this healthy glow. He says the diet will increase my longevity and keep me beautiful. My hair is my most striking feature, and the food I eat helps keep it that way. Perhaps I will let you touch it before you leave. It’s irresistible, don’t you think?”
“Indeed, it is. Speaking of physical features, you have a distinct look about you. I’ve done research and found you may have Norwegian roots. Would you care to comment on your lineage?”
“I come from nobility, as you know. Though I, myself, will not contribute to the bloodline. I have siblings who already have. They expect to continue in that endeavor. My oldest sibling has the obligation to do so”
“Do you have plans to find a mate and settle down someday?”
“I don’t kiss and tell, my dear. I keep my private life private. Besides, the mystery increases the attention I get when I step into the limelight. I am missed. I am told so daily.”
I could tell she was getting annoyed by my prying. But I continued.
“What did you do today?”
“I slept most of the day. I prefer spending my busy time at night. I am quite tired at the moment, to be honest. Here, touch my hair. I want my visitor to know how luxurious it is.”
She leaped over to my chair and snuggled for a brief moment before biting my hand. Her teeth were sharp.
“That’s enough,” she said abruptly, and promptly left the room.
Her servant approached me and thanked me for the visit. She offered me a refill on my tea, but I felt no reason to stay now that the job was finished.
“Did you get everything?” She asked.
“Not nearly enough, but I imagine she prefers to keep people wanting. She is a princess, after all.”
“She is here, at least,” the servant added.
As I left, I caught a glimpse of Tinkles peeking at me from around the corner.
“Goodbye, cat. Thank you for your time”
I reached down to pet her once more, and she bit me again. I reared back in pain as she scurried away.
“That will scar,” I said to myself with a smile of gratitude. “A souvenir.”
Most of my life I have had a love affair with the late-day sun, watching it dance on the sheers with the shadows of the leaves against the window, following rays of light from one room to another to see how far the reflections go, and tracing speckles across the bed after a nap. The amber glow puts me in a dream-state until it fades, and I mourn its transition to twilight.
But then, there’s twilight. That fleeting moment when a deep blue hue embraces the atmosphere, drenching the air until fading to indigo. Sometimes the moon rises so bright you can see the green on the trees. And the crickets chirp and the lone mockingbird sings. The cat sees you in the moonlight and winks a wink of mutual understanding that life awakes when the world is asleep.
Cozy in my corner chair, in the dark, listening to the mockingbird play a tune just for me, I write until I feel the magic pass. Then I drift off to sleep in that same lucid dream-state as in the late-day sunny window when the light seeped through the blinds and spilled all over the floor.
With my eyes still closed, I hear lawn mowers and leaf blowers and smell the fresh cut grass of morning. The day ahead brims with potential when no plans are made.
And then the amber light streams through after an adventure found, lulling me back to sleep for a late-afternoon nap.
How would you describe yourself to someone who can’t see you?
I saw a meme once. A man in an interview is asked by a group of people if he can perform under pressure. The man replies, “No, but I can try Bohemian Rhapsody.” In a similar meme, the man is asked how he would describe himself. The man replies, “Verbally, but I also prepared an interpretive dance.”
– – – – – – –
I want to raise bees and chickens and grow a garden. I would have a room void of everything but helium balloons on the ceiling if the people I live with would allow it. I want to go back to school and learn all the things and become fluent in all the languages. I want to learn kung fu, but I’m good at pretending I already know it.
Perhaps I could prepare my descriptions in Esperanto to increase the probability that the person would be able to understand what I am saying.
I have a ukelele that I could play once, and I used an app to learn Latin. When I reached the level “I would like thirty cookies, please,” I was satisfied and moved on to painting rocks to leave along the trail near my house. The rocks are gone now.
I would describe myself as Helen of Troy painted in the cubistic style. This would possibly suffice if the person were simply not looking at me and had in fact seen a Picasso in color and read the Illiad.
I would prefer the person to be blind, however, having been born that way so that he or she would not miss having seen. Then I would have a long conversation with him or her, learning how he or she perceives the world. Then perhaps I could find the words to properly convey who I am. I would read to the person Ulysses by James Joyce.
But the truth is that I cannot be described. I am anonymous and only sometimes tell the truth.
Except for the kung fu. I’m pretty good at pretending I know kung fu.
If you could bring back one dinosaur, which one would it be?
I don’t know much about dinosaurs, but if they really did exist, and if the ones we have been made to be familiar with were of those, I would most definitely want a brontosaurus for my own.
Let me digress a tad and clarify my opening statement. I am not a scientist, but I do have an inquisitive mind. I do think the world is what we believe it is, what we’ve been told it is, and what we’ve been shown in pictures and museums. But what we consider to be factual is a matter of faith. Faith in our history tellers. Faith in what we see in pictures and videos and learn from big brains in big auditoriums for a fee comparable to a mortgage. Faith in science. Who knows, maybe Copernicus really was right. Or maybe we live in a shoebox with little holes cut in the top, like I thought when I was a kid. I believe the math works out. But gosh, the math is vastly different for different scales. Life -size things act differently than the things too tiny to see. The basis of our reality is what we see and touch, etc., in the now. And even that must be taken on faith.
To begin to understand my perspective, you must consider that I practically live in my head. I have two degrees in physics, and yet I take much of what I know on faith. In an odd sort of way, I have been trained to approach everything with a clean slate and consider that alternative possibilities to the standards that have been set could very well exist. The best explanations win until others come along to replace or modify them.
A brontosaurus was, from what I have been told, a vegetarian, gentle giant. I would provide land and trees for him (or her), and he (or she) and I would be friends.
What’s the oldest thing you own that you still use daily?
My brain.
I could say any other part of my body, but sometimes I do nothing all day and make little to no use of my legs. I’ll go an entire weekend without muttering a word if I have the house to myself. I have the autopilot mechanisms that my body uses to stay alive, like breathing and pumping blood, but I don’t think it makes sense to say I use my lungs or heart. Those get used. Se usa el corazón. They use themselves.
Even to say I use my brain daily is a stretch. Some days I just watch TV. Often I misuse it. Abuse it. Se emborracha.
I do use my pillow to sleep with. And I use my cats for entertainment. Pero ellas son flojas. And cranky.
And now I will use the muscles in my face to close mis ojos y dormir.
“Notable things” has a positive connotation, I believe, and perhaps that means I’m an optimist. “Notable” is another way of saying “noteworthy,” which is in fact neither good nor bad. To me, if something is worthy of recalling, a positive implication is arguably the reasonable assumption. This quality of distinction is important for the sake of this post because today, which is now yesterday seeing as it is now after 3 am, there were only two things worthy of note among a plethora of bad, unworthy things. I got to spend more time with my family than I would have had I not driven to Dallas at all. I had planned to stay for two nights, but an unfortunate situation came up that required me to drive home today instead of tomorrow, and upon arrival I discovered my cat’s face is swollen, likely from being stung by a wasp or something. She’s been in the house for two days, so hopefully she killed the thing in the process of being stung, lest I lie here in danger of being stung, myself. I also received a disturbing text on my way home and another unsuspected, unrelated delay in seeing my husband. And I don’t feel well. Fortunately, a second thing “of note.” meaning a second positive thing to write about, is that I came home to a clean house and a cozy, made bed.
I started a book (two, actually), written by Richard Feynman. They are audio books, which I’m not sure count as books, but they should. I listened to them on my drive.
When I was a young physicist, I worked with Nikola Tesla’s great nephew as an analyst. He asked me once about my thoughts on Dr. Feynman, of whom I had to admit I knew nothing. I felt humiliated, undoubtedly the most humiliated I have ever felt—and I’ve spent much of my life humiliating myself. I was a good analyst, and I knew a lot, but I did not know anything about the most prolific scientist of the twentieth century. And I had to meekly admit this dreadful lack of knowledge to Tesla’s great nephew.
I have been doubting myself quite a bit lately, and yesterday, while dwelling on my self-doubt during my long drive across Texas, I was reminded of that horrible moment that solidified the fact that I have good reason to doubt myself. I asked myself why I never took the time after that encounter with Dr. Tesla 2.0 to educate myself on Feynman and his work. So I searched a bit and found that he wrote a few books, one appropriately and rather ironically titled, What Do You Care What Other People Think?
I listened to him speak through the voice of some random voice-over guy, and I was comforted. I also listened to a couple of lectures he gave and discovered that he is probably the most knowledgeable person I have ever learned about. Ever. Though he was a theoretical physicist with a strong background in chemistry, he lectured on the role of physics in all other sciences. He explained how specific enzymes determine physical traits of all living things and how quantum particles determine the enzymes. I should have been fascinated by the content, but more so I was fascinated by the man. His approach to science in general was so simple. So practical. He made me feel that not knowing things is more interesting than knowing things…something he actually stated again and again. I still need to know more. I still have much to learn. But I don’t feel inadequate anymore. There were many things he claimed to not know, not because those things were unknown at the time but because he hadn’t learned them yet.
This from a Nobel-Prize winning physicist.
My peek into the mind of Richard Feynman today was most notable, and I feel vindicated in some way. What I knew nothing of, what humiliated me most of all, actually made me feel worthy of being a physicist. Not because I learned more physics but because I was told to not worry about what other people think of me and my not knowing.
After considering my terrible day, I now see how good the day actually was. I let the many bad things overshadow the few good things. And I’m now realizing this is my cozy, made bed.
Don’t run from things that scare you—I said that once. What scares you likely doesn’t exist and probably won’t come to pass. And if it does, this great man I met today told me not to care what other people think about my shortcomings. So don’t do that, either.
Life is full of notable things if you pay attention.
I imagine my tagline would vary depending on the day, the time, and of course who is referencing me. I have been called Jessica Day, Leslie Knope, and on occasion batshit crazy. Once I got a mom award from people who aren’t my biological children. I’ve been called inspiring and at times exhausting. My favorite, however, is “so weird.” I also like hot mama, but no one has ever called me that. Combined, these adorations might add up to:
“An oddball empath with a tendency to go overboard for the good of others as a guise for overcoming boredom, she plods along with staff in hand leading the masses in a claim to victory over the ordinary.”
That’s a bit much, but even this commentary proves the point.
My dad asked me once why everything had to be so extreme with me. Well, Dad, there ya go.
When I was a kid, there was a chocolate bar that had holes in it. They advertised it as being a chocolate bar that was like Swiss cheese. I guess it was Swiss chocolate? Seems dumb now, which is maybe why that bar doesn’t exist anymore (I haven’t seen it), but when I was young I wanted one baaad. I never got to eat one, though.
What I did get my hands on was a Zero bar. I ate one with a Pepsi after every swim lesson when I was 7 years old. I would drown in sugar while waiting for my ride home.
My favorite now and forever is a Skor bar, though I settle a Heath bar when I can’t find a Skor. I like toffee. A lot.
Snickers will do when I’m hungry, but those are too sweet. Nougat makes my teeth feel like they are about to fall out from instant cavities.
In truth, I haven’t had a chocolate bar in a really long time. I save my calories for ice cream.
My favorite book from childhood is Helen Keller. That isn’t the actual name of the book, but it was something similar to it. Or maybe the name was completely different. Whatever the case, the book was an autobiography written, I think, by Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher. Or was it written by Helen, herself? I really need to look this up. The point is that this book was a game-changer for me. I must have read it a thousand times. On the back cover was the alphabet in braille. I tried to learn it to no avail. (To no avail…that is an odd expression.)
Helen Keller was a miracle. What she overcame is beyond what I can put into words. The book served me well in adulthood, as I discovered, not by choice exactly, that I am able to connect with children with disabilities, particularly severe autism. I was direct support for a nonverbal, often violent six-year-old. He and I bonded quickly, and he responded to me better than anyone else. Why this happened, I attribute to Helen Keller. Or perhaps my fascination with her had something to do with my natural ability to connect with people who cannot connect with the world.
I was a loner as a child, always off in my own little world. I guess on some level, I related.
Must I choose just one book? The Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling was one of my favorites. The cover of the book had an illustration of a jungle with eyes peering through the darkness. I remember a tiger climbing out of the page. This image was ripped straight from a memory I had when my family drove through the southern countries of Africa. Mostly, the landscapes were savannahs, but there was a place (Botswana, I think) that looked JUST LIKE THAT COVER. Obviously, there weren’t any tigers, but in my mind there could have been. Everything scary lurked in the dark behind the tangled branches. I read some of the book, not all, but Rudyard Kipling, I felt, was a kindred soul.
Busy, Busy Town was another that I loved. I liked how all the different kinds of animals played different roles in the town. Everyone had a job to do, and they all did it with smiles on their faces. Indoctrination? Eh, maybe. In any case, I was introduced to societal norms in a utopia. The colors were bright, and everyone was happy. I wanted to live there. In a way, I still do.
I also had a record player and a vinyl that had all the Peter Rabbit stories on it. The Tale of Benjamin Bunny was my favorite. But I’m not sure that records count. I think they should.
Books that have the greatest impact on me do so mostly because of how they are written. How some authors play with words makes me feel more than their stories do. I can say these books or those books are my favorites, but truer to my answer to this prompt is the authors, themselves.
James Joyce made the greatest impact. Ulysses is so brilliantly written, I feel lightheaded and a bit euphoric when I read it. Joyce was an eccentric when it came to writing. He refused to use quotation marks because he didn’t want his words to be closed in by upside-down commas. For that alone, I love him. He liberates me to break the rules. In Ulysses, his timing is brilliant, his wit is genius, and the way he crafts ideas is untouchable. I read the book for how it reads; how the story plays out is secondary. The impact? He made me love literature more than any other writer could.
Kurt Vonnegut, specifically his book Mother Night, digs deep inside me. Vonnegut is crafty and smart. He is the guy you want to drink a beer with at a bar and talk with until dawn. How he shoves into the light the absurdities of the human race is beautiful. Political correctness is not a blip on his radar, which allows him to highlight the ugly truths of the human condition. Why Mother Night in particular? Because of how the message cuts me. The antagonist cares nothing for anyone but his true love and his craft (which comes in first is hard to say), to the point that he accepts the honor of doing a patriotic service in secret to satisfy his lust for admiration by the enemy. In the end, he wins his freedom in his trial for committing crimes against humanity when the secret of working undercover comes to light. He convicts himself for caring only about what he loves, however, and commits the execution he feels he deserves. His last words and the final line in the book, “Auf wiedersehen,” could be for anyone, but are likely spoken to the Nazis he kept company with for his own gain, who he likely feels he will meet again in hell. Or maybe they are to Helga, his love, who disappeared in the war. Regardless, one can’t help but feel sorry for the guy, nor conviction for one’s own selfishness. That conviction hit home for me, and the story could not have been conveyed so brilliantly by any other author. Vonnegut is a cynic and an idealist rolled into one, much like I am. He, however, is the clever one, and I have not seen his equal in that regard. I look upon his voice to guide my own.
Margaret Atwood made an impact on me, not only for the terror The Handmaid’s Tale violently stirred in me but because of the purpose she gave the book. Atwood paints a picture of bondage and fear that I could not shake. Not even now as I type these words can I think on the book as being simply a good read. Within the tale, she opens the door for her readers to tell their own stories. She encourages her readers to write in the end. I intend to.
Another Writer, Another Blog 