Category Archives: A words

Amount

dictionary with letter A

Amount: (n) a quantity of something, typically the total of a thing or things in number.

Amount does not exist.

For somewhere between kindergarten and adulthood, we forget how to count.

Everyone develops their own take on any given situation, and skews the numbers to prove their contention.

Unlike our experience in the fifth year of life, when seven pencils were placed in front of us and we faithfully reported the exact number, we now will either pad the stats or limit the possibility of our seven pencils.

It is difficult to get a straight answer.

If people favor a project or pursuit, they will embellish the number to make it seem more plausible.

If they think the idea sounds boring or ridiculous, they will play down the potential and make it seem futile to attempt the endeavor.

Yes, perhaps the greatest thing we can do in life is just learn to count again:

  • If it’s seven pencils and we know we need ten, then we can honestly assess that we’re three short.
  • If it’s seven pencils and we need five, we can generously donate two of our assets to others in need.

I don’t think the word “amount” actually exists in the adult world.

We’re just too busy advertising our opinions to simply offer an accurate assessment of what we have.

 

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Amorphous

dictionary with letter A

Amorphous: (adj.) without a clearly defined shape or form.

That’s me.

I found a word that describes my physicality.

I have pretty big feet, strong legs, an ever-present belly, a plump chest and a head that is somewhere between a regal Roman senator and a troll.

There you go.

Now I have a word for it. But the trouble with such words is that if you use them in public and have to explain them, you come across really annoying.

So I guess I’m just stuck calling myself by my name, and letting it be associated with my visage.

We spend an awful lot of time worrying about body image, when all being accomplished, the most important thing we can do in life … is be interesting.

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Amoral

dictionary with letter A

Amoral: (n)  lacking a moral sense of right and wrong.

What is morality?

It has changed so many times in my lifespan that if I did not have a sense of humor, I would risk becoming jaded.

I have watched the Moral Majority peak and decline, becoming the minority.

I desire some stability. I think morality orbits a single shining sun of promise:

Don’t kill.

  • Don’t kill yourself.
  • Don’t kill others.
  • Don ‘t kill faith.
  • Don’t kill hope.
  • Don’t kill love.

There you go.

What kills me is dependence and addiction.

What kills others is alienation and gossip.

What kills faith is cynicism.

What kills hope is a lack of support.

And what kills love is fear.

So morality, to me, is living a life free of addiction, without judging others, refusing to become cynical, lending a hand to those who are hopeful, and casting out my fear.

Perhaps that will last longer than the latest critical attack against some hapless minority.

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Amnio

dictionary with letter A

Amnio: (n) informal term for amniocentesis.

Needled.

Are you familiar with that word? It refers to being chided, bugged and criticized.

I guess we want to do it to babies while they’re still in Mama’s sack. “Let’s stick our needle in there and see what you are. Discover what you’re made of. ”

Are you weak? Sickly? Disabled? Fat? Gay?

We’re not even going to give you a chance to have the benefit of overcoming or changing your circumstance. We’re gonna “needle” you.

It is the abiding misconception that if we can just make better physical specimens we will have a better world. Do away with different; eliminate weaker. And then we all will be strong.

God damn us if we are just so stupid that we don’t understand what makes human beings strong!

We become exemplary as a species when we learn to accept the different, undergird the weak and even admit there are those who are stronger, who can teach us to expand.

In a world of sameness, we invite even more nasty pickiness, because the differences will be smaller–to match our character.

Let’s stop “needling” each other.

Let’s start by leaving babies alone.

 

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Amnesty

dictionary with letter A

Amnesty: (n) an official pardon for people who have been convicted of political offenses

It is a concept beyond the comprehension of any young man living in America today.

But the reality in my youth was that at eighteen years of age, if you were not bound for college or standing around flat-footed, you could receive a letter in the mail from the Selective Service Administration, be drafted into the military, endure six weeks of basic training, two weeks back at home and then be shipped off to Indochina to fight a war that was only truly understood in the minds of aging politicians and deliberate generals.

It happened to my friend, Marty. He was a gospel singer. But because he was only nineteen years of age, he could sing Amazing Grace and slip out behind the church and tell you some of the dirtiest jokes to put pink in your cheeks.

He was fun. But he wasn’t college material.

So he was drafted.

Within a month he was gone off to basic training. Two months later, he was bound for Vietnam.

But before he left for basic training, he told me he was scared, against the war and wanted to run off to Canada to get out of the military.

He said the only reason he wouldn’t do it is because it would bring shame to his family and he did not want to be branded a coward or a Commie.

So he went.

Fifty-eight days later, they sent him home in a box. It was only six years after they buried my friend, Marty, that an amnesty was declared by the President for all those who objected to the war and went to Canada.

When the grace was offered to those who escaped across the border, I thought about Marty. Yes, he would have been returning to our country at twenty-eight years of age. And his parents probably would have gotten over the shame.

There is no amnesty from the grave.

May we all remember that the next time we’re scowling at an enemy across the pond, thinking about the nastiness of war.

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Amnesia

dictionary with letter A

Amnesia: (n) a partial or total loss of memory.

It is the sin of humanity.

How quickly we forget what it was like to be who we just were.

So the eight-year-old laughs at his baby brother, who needs a pacifier.

The teenager is critical of why her little punk sister plays with Barbie dolls.

The twenty-three-year-old, starting a new job, is baffled at why all the high schoolers are so worked up about the prom.

The thirty-five-year-old business man/father is perturbed at the lack of solvency and forethought in those twenty somethings.

The fifty-year-old, working on his career and retirement plan, cannot comprehend how younger generation gets by without worrying about an IRA.

And everybody over seventy completely forgets what it was like to be younger, as they convince themselves that life consists of finding good prices on meds, staying active and eating a healthy, early dinner.

Yes, the greatest gift we give to one another is remembering what it was like.

Without this we are not an asset.

Just an ass.

 

 

 

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Ammonia

dictionary with letter A

Ammonia: (n) a colorless gas with a characteristic pungent smell which dissolves in water to give a strongly alkaline solution.

I was a punk.

What I mean by that is that I was twenty years old, married with two children and thought I knew everything. And if I didn’t, it wasn’t worth knowing.

We were poor.

Not the kind of ditch-digging poor, but impoverished … because we didn’t have jobs.

We lived in an upstairs hovel that a dump might consider suitable to deposit its trash. We tried to keep it clean, striking an agreement with the cockroaches to only come out at night.

Both of my young sons were in diapers. This was long before the practicality of Pampers. We’re talking about cloth diapers, which we kept in a pail of water in preparation for the laundromat.

So one of my downstairs neighbors took it upon herself to call Children’s Services to report our lack. They showed up and complained that the house smelled like ammonia from the diapers.

It did.

It was very difficult to disguise it. It’s similar to the situation where people own a cat and insist that the kitty litter deters the odor, until you walk in and sniff the air.

Apparently the ammonia thing was a big deal to this lady from Children’s Services. We had to go to a hearing in front of a judge to discuss our dirty laundry.

The lady railed against us in front of the magistrate for a good fifteen minutes. She closed her indictment by describing in vivid detail the stench of the ammonia in our abode.

I have never felt such a collision of emotions. I was embarrassed, enraged, convicted,  confused and basically helpless.

When my accuser was done, “Your Honor” turned to me and asked me if I had anything to say. For the first time in my young adult life, I was speechless.

So the judge stepped in, sensing my plight, and cited, “Don’t all diapers smell like either poop or ammonia?”

Although my attacker tried to object and further elaborate on the odor, the judge silenced her and dismissed the case.

I had experienced the mercy of the court.

I grew up a lot that day. We tried to wash our diapers more often, to prevent ammonia from filling the air.

It is a rather nasty, stinging aroma.

 

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Ammo

dictionary with letter A

Ammo: (n.) informal term for ammunition.

My dad decided to take my older brother and I rabbit hunting.

I didn’t want to go but I had used up all my excuses trying to dodge attending school on undesirable days.

So I was dressing, getting ready for the excursion, when my brother stomped into the room and declared to everyone, “I stored the ammo in the trunk.”

He then posed for a moment, seeking approval over both his deed and proclamation. I quickly ran into the other room and hid in the closet so as not to suffer the intensity of being knuckled on the head by my older sibling.

Once inside, with the door closed, I giggled until I cried. What a doofus!

One thing was sure–all the rabbits in Delaware County were safe for another day.

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Amiss

dictionary with letter A

Amiss: (adj.) not quite right, inappropriate or out of place

Something is amiss.

1. Calling arguing debate.

2. Believing our egos don’t need any adjustment.

3. Insisting that men and women are natural enemies.

4. A two-party system where nobody’s having a good time.

5. A religious grammar school playground that has nothing to do with spirituality.

6. Entertainment that thinks darkness is reality.

7. Trying to find new ways to intoxicate the already-dull public.

8. Being afraid to say “I’m sorry.”

9. Being likewise frightened of “thank you.”

10. Exalting culture over cooperation.

11. Pursuing the ridiculous while desiring to appear enlightened.

12. Failing to balance tears and laughter and forgetting when to use each.

I could go on. Something’s amiss.

But I’m certain of one truth: the only thing that can be done about it is happening inside me.

 

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Amish

dictionary with letter A

Amish: (n) the members of a strict Mennonite sect that established major settlements in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and elsewhere in North America from 1720 onward.

I grew up around the Amish.

Which in turn, means they also grew up around me. But you see, there’s the problem. They really didn’t.

They came into town to buy groceries. They were civil. They were kind. They were gentle.

It didn’t bother me that they dressed differently or that they all wore beards. (I guess the women didn’t…)

I wasn’t particularly upset about them living without electricity or the comforts of the modern world. After all, I went to a church camp or two where such restrictions were levied for a week to get us all mindful of things non-electronic.

It’s just that I have grown weary of all human attempts of separation, much to the chagrin of my family and friends who would like to hold on to a nice big slice of the popular culture, so as not to abandon existing relationships with friends who have reserved a lane on the broad path. I just don’t understand how we expect to co-exist–(Oh my dear Lord, forget that. Survive!) if we continue to build smaller and smaller boxes wherein to place those we consider to be more valuable–from our strain of DNA.

I, for one, am tired of the word “culture.” Has anyone noticed that the root of the word is cult? Normally we look down on cults. We consider them to be limiting, segregating and self-righteous. But I guess if you put a u-r-e on the end it’s ok, because it denotes some kind of honor of your ancestors.

I watched a show on PBS about the Cambodian community. Many of the young transplants from Cambodia have begun to hold weekly barbeques, eating only the food of their former land. It makes for a rather bizarre bit of recipes and diet, including cow intestines, bugs and various broths. The young people are very proud of it.

But here’s what I thought: there’s a bunch of people in their graves who would like to tell these youthful adherents that they would gladly have eaten hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken, but could only afford cow intestines. They would like to encourage their offspring to upgrade.

Much of what we call culture were merely survival practices of our forefathers and mothers, who struggled to get us where we are–so we wouldn’t have to partake of their pain.

So be careful.

If you want to live on a farm somewhere, turn off the lights, grow a beard and wear plain clothes, it is America and you are free to do so. But when you include the name of God in it, who claims to be no respecter of persons, and insist that there is some special holiness in doing without, I have to shake my head.

It won’t keep me from buying your food products, though. They’re really quite good.