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the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
I bought a suitcase today that comes with a 15 year warranty.
Because I am a mental magician, I figured out on my way home from the store that in 15 years it will be the year 2019 and I, should I live so long, will be a few short weeks from turning 40. I have to tell you, I kind of spazzed for a second. I mean, 2019! Can you imagine? For some reason this number just astounds me. I had never stopped to consider the possibility that I might be alive in the year 2019. Try saying it out loud. Doesn't it sound like some crazy futuristic year of ...the FUTURE?! It is so bewildering to contemplate. Surely by the year 2019 there will be flying cars and robots that do all the housework and people living on the moon and world peace. And 40. Man, I can't even wrap my head around the concept of myself at 40. I wonder, in a vague way, what I will be like, since I cannot even begin to imagine. It's like that future is so big and far-away and surreal that it cannot come into focus and is just this enormous, swirling black mass somewhere in front of me that I know is there but can't really see.
While I was pondering this, it occurred to me that my amazement now at the idea that I will ever be 40, and live in the year 2019, is very similar to the awe I felt, at the age of 10, trying to imagine what my life would be like in the year 2005, when I would turn 25. 2005! I would be alive in the year 2005! Such a crazy space age time, when all things would be possible. And 25! So old! How would that feel? As I recall, I envisioned that by the time I was 25, I would be a veterinarian, and live in a giant glass beach house filled to the brim with all species of exotic and domestic animals, with a field outside for my flock of sheep and herd of goats. And my horses and giraffes. My house would be like the Biodome, essentially, except better.
As it turns out, I live in a small apartment with only 3 small windows and NO PETS. And no beaches nearby. AND, not only am I not a veterinarian, I have no desire to be! My life clearly went off the rails somewhere in the last 15 years. I hope that the next go-round I will end up less of a disappointment to my former/current self.
justified gloating
You would not believe the number of times Phil and I have had a conversation like this:
Me: Ugh, I feel nauseous.
Him: No, you feel nauseated.
Me: No, I don't. I feel nauseous.
Him: Do you feel disgusting?
Me: No, I feel nauseous.
Him: Things are nauseous; what you feel is nauseated.
Me: Well, what, I feel is nauseous. So deal with it.
Him: Well, you're wrong. So deal with that.
Me: Look. I can feel nauseous. That is something that I can do, in my dialect of English.
Him: Well then your dialect is wrong.
Me: Dialects can't be wrong! Okay? Can we just agree to disagree and drop it?
Him: I will drop it if you just admit you're nauseated.
Me: [primal scream] First of all I'm nauseous, and second of all I am not arguing about this anymore.
Him: Fine, but you're nauseated.
Me: Whatever.
[Both fume silently.]
The reason that we have these arguments so often is that Phil likes to eat really disgusting food, such as mustard and peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast and does so even when I beg and plead for him not to. And then he insists on "correcting" me each and every single time I use the word nauseous. Both of these behaviors, frankly, are obnoxious. Especially when he is a guest at my apartment.
On our road trip to PEI, after, oh, I don't remember, maybe 8 hours in the car, I started to feel a little carsick. Phil asked me if I was ok, and I told him that actually, I felt a little nauseous. Phil, because he is more concerned for my grammar than my person, immediately tells me the correct word is "nauseated." I, on the other hand, am more concerned with my stomach, so I acquiesce. "Fine. I feel nauseated." Phil beams, "Thank you!" Annoyed by his self-righteousness, I petulantly tell him that I gave in because I don't feel like arguing about it, not because I actually agree. Phil sulks. For the rest of the trip I try to remember to use the phrase "I feel sick" instead. The point of all of this that I at least try to be the bigger person. And mostly succeed.
Today, I was reading a recap on TWoP in which a recapper corrected a participant in The Amazing Race who had said she felt "nauseous." "Actually," wrote Miss Alli, " she feels nauseated." Sars then, in turn, corrected her: "Actually, she feels either." If you click on that link, you will read the following (emphasis mine):
Main Entry: nau seous
1 : causing nausea or disgust : NAUSEATING
2 : affected with nausea or disgust
usage: Those who insist that nauseous can properly be used only in sense 1 and that in sense 2 it is an error for nauseated are MISTAKEN. Current evidence shows these facts: nauseous is most frequently used to mean physically affected with nausea, usually after a linking verb such as feel or become; figurative use is quite a bit less frequent. Use of nauseous in sense 1 is much more often figurative than literal, and this use appears to be losing ground to nauseating. Nauseated is used more widely than nauseous in sense 2.
I felt so elated upon reading this, I cannot even tell you. I immediately wrote an email to Phil, to settle the matter once and for all.
dear phil,
please access the following link and read the note on usage. then maybe think about all the times you have been WRONG and also kind of a pompous blowhard despite it. i hope this teaches you something and hope that what it teaches you is not to be such a jerk to me in the future.
love,
laura
ps. in 60 hours i will be on a plane headed to philadelphia! wooohooo! i'm so excited i'm almost nauseous!
pps. i apologize for being a little mean above, but you totally had it coming.
I was trying to set a good example by apologizing at the end there. Was it too subtle?
bottomline: the driver has final say
Official Rules for Calling Shotgun
holy cheese, batman
"'After looking at it a second time, there's nothing to indicate that the seller isn't willing to give up this cheese sandwich to the highest bidder,' he said. 'We're going to allow it to stay up.'"
little. yellow. different.
"Manager: What? I mean, the whole idea that it's a whole 'circle of life.' The placenta has a lot of iron in it, you bury it, it feeds the tree. What? It's a hippie thing. (pause) Although it's funny - I had put the placenta in a box, and there's a lot of blood in a placenta, right? So I'm digging a hole under the tree and there's blood on my hands and arms, and that's when my neighbor spotted me across the fence. 'Whatcha doin there, neighbor?'"
fuck the south
"Let's talk about those values for a fucking minute. You and your Southern values can bite my ass because the blue states got the values over you fucking Real Americans every day of the goddamn week. Which state do you think has the lowest divorce rate you marriage-hyping dickwads? Well? Can you guess? It's fucking Massachusetts, the fucking center of the gay marriage universe."
flu, day nine
I'm standing in a long line at the cash of the pharmacy, holding only two bottles of cough syrup, when an older woman comes up and asks if she can butt in line in front of me. I stare at her non-committally, hoping she will recognize, just by looking at me, just how pathetic and sickly I am, and how much I need to leave the pharmacy as soon as possible and crawl into bed. I look terrible and this would be easy to see, but the woman is more wrapped up in her own issues. She starts whining at me about how she is too hot, she has been in the store too long, she doesn't feel well, and she just left the line so she could go get something, look, she left all her stuff on the shelf, here, next to me, couldn't she please, please cut in front of me? She won't shut up, even when I roll my eyes and nod, waving her in front of me. I am too meek but I don't even want to deal with her.
But instead of shutting up she cranks up her whining a notch - I think she is maybe having a hotflash - and narrates as she fishes for her money in her purse and gathers up her armload of purchases, and is all in a tizzy when the first cash register opens up and she is not ready. I am standing there thinking that probably the whole line of people could have gone through while she collected herself, and probably everyone else is thinking the same thing and hating me for being such a pushover, but I just stand there and wait for the woman to pass in front of me because I am too weak and fluish to even try to formulate an argument. Finally she makes her way to the first cash and starts yammering on about some product to the man at the register. Luckily, the second cash opens up before I can faint from frustration and I am out of the pharmacy with my two bottles of cough syrup before this woman has even had any of her stuff rung up. I feel smug and relieved, but a little annoyed that the woman has not even noticed. In retrospect, I wish I had coughed on her.
some things to cheer you up
This map of how the vote breaks down by county makes me feel a lot better than the scary all red state map.
This map is funny.
This map is funnier.
This particular pro-Kerry lawn sign scares me, but the others are neat.
The profiles of Canadians pledging to marry Americans so they can move to Canada are pretty hilarious.
The Daily Show is really the only thing that keeps me sane. It's better than the alcohol, even. And it's funny.
tea or tequila
When I told my mom, last year, that I was thinking about going to grad school in the States, she famously responded with, "You can't move there! It's dangerous! They start wars!" At the time I thought this was hilarious, and possibly the funniest thing my mother had ever said, but now I am reconsidering her point of view. I've never thought really seriously about what it would be like to live there for an extended period of time (and getting a Ph.D. is not a snap) and I definitely take for granted how good I've got it here, with the medicare and the marijuana and the gay marriage and the over-the-counter morning after pill and the really cheap public education and daycare and the separation of church and state. I haven't been able to concentrate on writing my Statement of Purpose at all today.
Also, I am still sick, and I am sick of it. I am not even interested in curing myself anymore, I just want to lie around and wallow in misery and worry about the appointment of american supreme court justices. I have lost my appetite and run out of nyquil and either I have a fever or it is freezing cold in my apartment, I really can't tell which. There is something in my lungs and it hurts to swallow, but this is starting to feel normal.
Three weeks from today I am flying to New Orleans and I can't even get excited about that either despite the way everyone keeps bringing it up. I did make a calendar/list of things I have to do before then, on a weekly basis. I am already behind on week 1. Curling up into a ball and whimpering is not on the list but maybe I will add it so that at the end of the day I can cross it off and feel a sense of accomplishment.
I will probably not show up for work at all this week, which means I won't get paid, which is also lovely, but not really at the top of my list of concerns at this very moment. I am more interested in which drink will be most effective for numbing the pain in my throat -- and in my brain. Oho! It rhymes!
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