An ode to the english language

My friend Becca posted this today, and I couldn’t help but share, what with my fascination with language and words and all. Thanks beckaroo!

An ode of English Plural

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Let’s face it – English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing,
grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship…
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop?

“blog me, hillary! Blog me!”

Emily and I had a rough day at work. Although we should
probably have one of those joint married blogs, I decided to speak
for us today. So, sprint is a terrible terrible company. Simply
because working for them today equalled a slice of my soul being
extracted from my body. No lie. As a friend said, “thank you for
calling sprint. Please hold while I stab myself in the eye with my
pen.” So what did we do when we returned home from a terrible, long
day at work? No, we didn’t use the restroom. We didn’t take showers
or naps or watch tv. The first thing we did was bust open a bottle
of wal-mart $5 wine that tasted of sparkling grape juice, wine, and
beer. Hit the spot for sure. No, we’ve already finished that
bottle. We are halfway through our second addition of an octagonal
box of wine. (equivalent: 3 magnum bottles of wine) We have been
watching reruns of Jersey shore for the past three hours and
drinking ourselves into a mindless stupor because simply everything
(like that pun? No? Oh I bet only people who work at our
godforsaken place of employment would get it) is better when your
mind stops pumping out useless jargon and negativity about life.
And all we have to remember is…FOUR MORE FUCKING MONTHS.

Of fear and death

I fear death. But not just dying, the absolution of eternity. But not just hell, the idea of no afterlife. Of infinity, regardless of its whereabouts. Of not leaving a mark or a legacy or a masterpiece. I fear forgetfulness, disappearance, an unfinished work, a lack of love and success and fulfillment. An empty ending with no satisfaction. So yeah, I’m afraid to die, but dying requires so much baggage. Its hard work to live, but I want proof it was worth it.

Questions of words

How can you elegantly and eloquently put words into lists and sentences and expect them to cooperate with the frayed wires in your brain? How do their meanings and definitions and backgrounds and synonyms coincide with what we think we know and what we do know or what we maybe wish we knew? How do outer influences counter-influence what our own distinctions could possibly influence? What makes your filter better than mine?

Why do words even matter? Who died and made them so important? We certainly can’t live without them, but when do we stop listening and start speaking? When do we use our own words? When do our own words begin to mean what we want them to instead of what someone else wants them to mean? When do words start listening to us?

But then why are words so weak? Why can the words one person says completely succumb to what you want them to mean? Or why can what someone says completely alter and twist into what you think it could be?

What makes you think you deserve to give anything meaning?

How’s this for inspi-fucking-ration?

I don’t know why, but the only time I’m ever moved to write is when my heart is hurting. Call me Taylor Swift.

You shovel and shovel and shovel, trying to amount your heap into a mountain
But the one coaxing you to pursue is the same who burns it down
Crushed at such a high elevation, simply to remain right at sea level,
The flames lap at the fraying line as the exact same eyes watch you drown

I think that I’ll truly never learn. I really won’t. I have utilized the trial and error method far too much to blame life exploration. I have to start taking responsibility, I think.

I want what you have. I want to be what you are.

When can you make the decision of whether it’s better to feel or not to feel? Does it depend? Should you be empathetic and not sympathetic? Should you care about the blood of others more than your own? Is it ever too late to change your mind?  Should it be? Do we deserve another chance? Do we GET another chance? What happens if we can’t fix something after an explosion? What if our words become meaningless, and letters apathetic? What if God grows tired of us? Wouldn’t you?

You say goodbye, but I say hello

So I’m taking a break from life.

Okay, that’s melodramatic, but really. I ran away from home after graduating college. I’ve completely loved interning in Washington, D.C. I’ve learned a lot about being on my own, the inner workings of my mind, networking, responsibility, ownership, and establishing the necessary means to get by while learning and allowing myself to fully submerge into the media system I’ve wanted to understand since I was a kid.

I’m walking through a turnstile and deciding to take a step back and evaluate this time I’ve spent. I wouldn’t trade any of my decisions in for anything because the amount I have learned and constructed has fully prepared me to understand what most people can’t ever fully grasp: what I want in life.

I have come to realize how important my career is and how different my outlook is on life as I knew it before. Such shortsighted goals seemed so obviously within grasp, but now I have developed and painted my own full picture of what I seek to do and change. I want to have an impact, and for that, I have to have patience.

Kind of, I want it all….(or NOOOOTHING, AT ALL). Is that so much to ask?

So I’m moving home. Regrouping, if you will. Trying to grow up a little bit before my next step. Gathering means and support. Changing my views. Appreciating the beauty and the life that I so quickly was willing to shove in my back pocket without ever turning back.

And I’m ready.

Hot Springs, AR

Peace now, freedom now

How can people be so heartless?
How can people be so cruel?
Easy to be hard.
Easy to be cold.

How can people have no feelings?
How can they ignore their friends?
Easy to be proud.
Easy to say no.

Especially people
Who care about strangers,
Who care about evil,
And social injustice.
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend.

How can people have no feelings?
You know I’m hung up on you.
Easy to give in.
Easy to help out.

-HAIR.

I drink to live

One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don’t drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.
But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren’t entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one’s risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers’ mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2014332,00.html#ixzz0y71baGXr

Good thing! Although I’m sure my liver might have a little something else to add to this article, I’m completely okay with drinking to aid my health. I mean, honestly, what of health surveys can ever truly be correct without completely assessing a full health background? But still. I’m glad to see a little something to buffer the usual negativity constantly thrown toward drinking as a general occurrence. I think that people will always have their opinions, and close mindedness will always linger, but hey, it’s a start.

I think I may have to make a stop at the liquor store on my way home from work.

News in surround sound

Spending 8-5 four times a week researching news articles makes me feel incredibly (and often disgustingly) up to date with the world. From rallies to Gaga to technology, I am thoroughly wrapped up in society’s web. And I love it. I just hope I can pop the bubble once I walk out the door.

I’ve already gotten to that point of this kind of conversation:
Friend: Oh my gosh, I was just reading about John Mayer’s…
Me: I know.
Friend: Oh but what about that Amish perv…
Me: Yep.

I mean, I guess it’s a good thing. It’s almost like a rebirth, if you will. You know when you’re just rooting around the interwebs, and you come across about 8 things you wish you could text four different people about to tell them? Anyway, that and this article are what sparked my newfound interest in blogging:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20014642-36.html

“‘The Social Network’ offers a despairing snapshot of society at the dawn of the 21st century, so advanced, so ‘connected,’ yet so closed and constrained by all the centuries-old prejudices and preconceptions about how our heroes and villains are supposed to look, sound, and act,” Foundas wrote. “For Mark Zuckerberg has arrived, and yet still seems unsettled and out of place.”

SERIOUSLY. it’s insane how interconnected we are. As I type this, I am keeping an eye on my iPhone, which keeps buzzing with text messages and emails from the gmail account I am NOT logged into on my computer. On my computer, I am logged into my work gmail, with gchats open to people IN MY BUILDING, FaceBook and Twitter are open and periodically checked, I am talking to someone in France on Skype, and I am constantly researching news articles to be posted on the Daily Caller’s website. In the background, I am awaiting phone calls to set up meetings with the outside world and the television is constantly going with news updates. It’s ridiculous.

“Whether it actually is as good as a handful of early reviewers say it is, “The Social Network” could really be the first major, zeitgeisty film that portrays the “digital generation,” or Generation Y, or whatever you choose to call it, as adults–the film that will be evoked for decades as emblematic of the climate that caused whatever generational neuroses that the “millennials” experience down the road. That’s something that the film’s excellent theatrical trailer, scored with a haunting choral cover of Radiohead’s “Creep,” starts to drum up with its emphasis on social status, the enormous amount of deeply intimate information shared online through social networks like Facebook, and a snippet set in a nightclub in which Justin Timberlake, portraying former Facebook executive Sean Parker, declares confidently, “This is our time.””

AHH. I really can’t wait to see this portrayal of society and see exactly how our generation appears. I love that window of what you and your friends know in relation to what the world knows. I have been doing some serious internalization lately, and I’m really excited for an outlet of release. THE WORLD IS SUCH AN INTERESTING PLACE.

The Male/Female Paradigm

In relationships with both males and females, maintenance and perception is difficult. Everyone always keeps you guessing. You expect your best friend to know why you’re pissed at them. You expect your boyfriend to know why you’re just pissy. Expectations never conclude.
When it comes to male and female relationships, the general rule of thumb is that girls are the ones who get too attached and wear down the relationship, and boys are the ones who back off and worry about the girl falling in love.
Bullshit.
I may be part dude in this, but I am plenty capable of being friends with someone and steering clear of the awkwardness that can occur in many situations; however, every boy I hang out with tends to pull that card even if I’m not the pursuer. I suppose a complete reassessment of my personality would be in order if I were to fully understand the circumstances, but I truly don’t get what I do to twist the situation every time. Frankly, I wish the boys I hang out with would grow a pair, but seeing as though this has become a complete cycle, I suppose that is impossible. One cycle is enough to deal with. I just want to know when I get to be the girl again.