Tag Archives: adolescents

Classical

Classical: (adj) standard, classic.

I have worked for 22 years with an oboist.

She’s a little bit Mozart; I’m a little bit rock and roll.

When we teamed up, I think she was concerned that our musical tastes might be ill-suited for one another. She had played in symphony
orchestras, and I had bopped around with gospel, blues and pop.

What she did not know was that as a boy of eleven years of age, I got hooked on a record series called “The 25 Greatest Melodies of All Time” and “The 50 Most Influential Classical Music Pieces.” So along with listening to rock and roll and some gospel music, I played my recordings of Strauss, Wagner, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Rachmaninoff.

It was perfectly produced–the records didn’t have so much of each composition to bore me, just the highlights. What you might call the Cliff notes of the masters.

I loved the music. To this day, I think my partner is a little surprised when I insert a bit of understanding (or sometimes misunderstanding) of the music of that era. Matter of fact, she and I joined together to write some symphonies–our tribute to the styling, with the addition of our original juice.

It’s too bad we have to call something “classical.” It scares off the best market–young humans. After all, why would they want to listen to any music their parents might enjoy?

But what they don’t understand is that these composers who wrote this dynamic material were just a bunch of radical, rebellious, rag-tag and reckless adolescents.

 

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Aquiline

dictionary with letter A

Aquiline: (adj) like an eagle, esp. referring to the nose. EX: “hooked like an eagle’s beak.”

It arrives at about age twelve, and hopefully, by the grace of God, disappears on one’s eighteenth birthday. Honestly, it will not disappear if we allow its friends to come and shack up.

“It” is insecurity.

When I was twelve years old, I was convinced of the following:

I believed my nose was aquiline because my dad was German and had a hooked nose. I failed to realize that my mother’s genes were also in there, so my hook was not as pronounced. (I once referred to my nose as a “hooker” until my Aunt Minnie explained that the term was inappropriate.)

I also believed that my lips were very large and that I possibly was the love child of my mother with a black man. (There was no basis for this since there were no black people within thirty miles of our community. But I chose to believe my mother had made some sort of journey.)

I also thought my eyes were crooked, and began to tilt my head to the left to compensate for the poor horizon of my peepers.

Keeping up this craziness was the notion that my B were “pinned to my head,” which I assumed was the sign of some sort of mental retardation.

Moving along, I totally was possessed with the frustration that I had horribly chubby cheeks, so I tried to elongate my face by holding my mouth in the shape of a small “O” all the time.

This insecurity is present in all adolescents, and is only dangerous if it’s allowed to link up with intensity, culminating in a bit of insanity, which in adulthood can lead to plastic surgery, therapy sessions and late-night heart-wrenching honesty with your mate, drenched in tears.

I know we think the answer to this question is to convince people that “we are all beautiful just the way we are.”

But since none of us really believe that deep in our hearts, wouldn’t it be more logical for us to come to the conclusion that we’re all ugly in our own way?

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Abed

by J. R. Practixdictionary with letter A

Abed:  adv. in bed

Every once in a while I give it the good ole’ college try. Usually it happens when I’ve had a particularly busy day. I ease myself under the covers, making a promise to the surrounding furniture in the room that I have no intention of emerging from this sleep chamber for several days, if not weeks.

It doesn’t make any difference. I always wake up the next morning around six o’clock and have a growing sense of worthlessness from hugging my pillow instead of pursuing the day. It’s not that I am especially energetic or have a massive work ethic. It’s just that I’ve never been an excellent “lie-abed.”

Candidly, it was possibly one of my greatest difficulties in being a parent to adolescents. It was always beyond my comprehension how folks in their teens, who possessed such immense nervous energy just hours before, twitching, leaping about or shaking their leg like a flea-ridden dog as they watched television, could become comatose and unable revive the next morning– passing over the glory of breakfast and early morning television, not to mention the rising of the sun, to finally trip down the stairs at the noon hour, barely able to audibly inquire what might be available to eat.

I don’t often share this with people because there’s a certain self-righteousness about getting up early in the morning that I find distasteful. I don’t do it because I want to go out and talk with the birds like St. Francis of Assisi. Nor is there seed to plant in the back forty with my Amish brothers and sisters.

It’s just me.

There are only two things to do in bed, and once you complete one and the other’s not available, well … it makes me fidgety.

So, to all people who ARE lie-abeds, I tell you that I am not judgmental whatsoever. Actually, I come just short of admiration for your ability to doze back off instead of staring at the ceiling, wondering about the asbestos content in the tiles.

No, you will not often find me abed. But you’ll probably outlive me, too.

Isn’t it funny that we humans are so intent on getting our sack time that we refer to death as “the eternal sleep?”