Tag Archives: alcohol

Babe

Babe: (n) an affectionate form of address, typically for someone with whom one has a sexual or romantic relationship.

Perhaps unfortunately, there is no DUI for romance.Dictionary B

If you drive under the influence of alcohol, you can be arrested and cited for your actions. But in the heat of passion, when the hormones are pulsing, all of us are susceptible to doing various actions, performing weird functions and saying obtuse things with no embarrassment or punishment whatsoever.

I, for instance, have affectionately called a woman a “babe, my baby” or “sweetie-sweet.” Even as I transport these phrases into this article, I feel silly.

But in the heat of the moment, when I was trying to be sexy in my limited capacity, it seemed righteous.

Yet I can tell you, I do not know if we’ll ever achieve equality between the sexes as long as women are referred to as “babes.” Although I know it is meant to be affectionate, let us consider what the term implies:

  1. You don’t know how to talk–you gurgle.
  2. You drool a lot.
  3. You have stinky in your pants.
  4. You need help with almost everything you do.
  5. You’re only interesting when you do cute things.
  6. Don’t inconvenience me or wake me up in the middle of the night.
  7. I don’t trust you with anything I own because you might break it.

Well, I could go on and on. I don’t know whether a woman can be my confidante, partner and equal if I perceive her to be a newborn.

I am leering over her physical attributes much more than her mental acuity.

But it seems there’s nothing that will stop the onslaught of dopiness which pours from us… as we go through the festering need to mate.

 

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Avoid

Avoid: (v) to keep away from or stop oneself from doing.

 One thing we all definitely share in common: the first word we heard that stuck in our early childhood memory was more than likely “don’t.”dictionary with letter A

Our parents were certainly more concerned about the things we should avoid than the things we could enjoy.

The acceptable objects they passed our way either looked like peas or had the appeal of a bowl of them.

The things they told us to avoid sparkled, plugged in, looked like candy or just screamed potential glee.

In that way we were immediately instructed from our diapers that good things are important but boring, and bad things are dangerous but deliriously enjoyable.

Most unfortunate.

I still have a list of things in my life I avoid–but my way of determining what to avoid is no longer based on being electrocuted or poisoned.

Here’s my test for what to avoid:

I avoid all things or objects which instruct me to avoid. What do I mean by that?

  • I avoid bigoted people because they want me to avoid people they are bigoted against.
  • I avoid drugs because they want me to avoid precious independence of choice and decisions that I treasure.
  • I decided a long time ago that I don’t need a glass of alcohol to be sociable.
  • I don’t need to take LSD to find God.
  • And I don’t need to hate people of color so I can appreciate my bleached-out complexion.

It may have seemed like a good idea to pass a law of Prohibition against alcoholic beverages, but every time we try to avoid, we end up spending a lot of time with avoiders.

And they are the ones who are disgruntled about being cheated out of fun and determined to spoil the joy in the lives of everyone around them.

 

 

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Arcade

dictionary with letter A

Arcade: (n) short for video arcade

In 1985, the average babysitter cost about two dollars an hour. Usually an additional dollar was added for each child you encumbered upon the hapless watcher.

So I had three children, and that meant I would be paying four dollars an hour to have them observed by a stranger for a certain length of time so that I could escape and regain my sanity.

What I discovered was that it became much cheaper to drop the three of them off at the new, popular video arcades with a roll of quarters, tell them to spend it wisely and that I would be back in three hours.

The arcade was a tremendous babysitter–sometimes literally a hundred machines captivating the interest of the youngsters, with no sharp edges, tobacco or alcohol temptation or any danger that they might pursue mischief instead of destroying asteroids.

It was truly amazing.

I will grant you that they would come back from this experience in more or less a catatonic state of wonderment over when the next time would arrive, when they would be allowed to enter the mystical world of imaginary enemies and victories.

But it was quite pleasant due to the fact that it was a place your offspring could go which was separate from your home, and then they would depart and you could gradually nurse them back to consciousness of eating, chores and bathing.

When these systems became portable and could be planted in your house, the whole procedure changed. Once a child was addicted to video games, all conversation ceased, meals were ignored and the idea of cleaning one’s room was eschewed in the pursuit of killing Gargons.

 

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Antifreeze

dictionary with letter AAntifreeze (n): a liquid typically based on ethanol, which can be added to water in a car’s radiator, to prevent the engine from freezing.

 

Poverty promotes poor decisions.

Aside from the obvious dangers of starvation, eviction and financial humiliation, having little money often causes one to cut corners, which leads to dumping all of your existing treasure on the ground in a big heap.

When I was nineteen years old, I purchased an old green van which had originally been used by the telephone company. It was well-worn, but I was pleased to get it for $300.

Living in Ohio at the time, I was confronted with the perils of winter. One of those obstacles was the issue of “winterizing” your vehicle by adding antifreeze to make sure that you did not literally ice over and destroy your engine.

Well, here’s the problem. Antifreeze cost $2.99 a gallon, and I would be required to purchase two such units to take care of my vehicle. That was nearly six dollars–the equivalent of the food budget for my young wife and myself for three days.

I heard through the grapevine (which, by the way, is also inhabited by some nuts) that you could add rubbing alcohol to your radiator and protect it from the cold just as easily. Now, a bottle of alcohol was only twenty-nine cents, and I felt that three of them would be sufficient to provide me with the necessary coverage.

So I poured my alcohol in. A very cold Ohio night transpired, and I rose in the morning to start my van. I decided to peek in the radiator to see how my plan had worked.

It was frozen solid.

In my late adolescent mind, I figured that the best way to unfreeze my radiator was to start my engine and let the car warm itself up. (It made sense at the time.)

After starting my vehicle, I realized that I had cracked the block.

I discovered the reason for antifreeze. It performs a function. Its six-dollar price tag saves you from spending several hundred dollars repairing your engine.

It was a very expensive mistake, and one that I never repeated again.

Sometimes you swallow a little expense … so you don’t choke on a larger lump.

 

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Aloe Vera

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Aloe Vera: (n) a gelatinous substance obtained from a kind of aloe, used especially in cosmetics as an emollient and for the treatment of burns.

My mother was obsessive.

I do not say that in a judgmental tone. Perhaps a certain amount of obsession is necessary to maintain maternal energy. I’m not sure.

But what she would often do was obsess over some idea, totally selling out her soul in that direction–until a new revelation made its way onto the horizon, which she embraced with equal fervor, although the past experience did not necessarily warrant such enthusiasm.

She went through an aloe phase.

She encountered someone who had an aloe plant and became so enthralled with the idea–that it was used in ancient times as a healing agent, and even appeared in the Bible, which gave it credibility and supernatural implications–that she decided to grow her own aloe plant.

It would be difficult to describe how much she fussed over the sprout. I thought she was going to expel a kidney in her anticipation of it completing its cycle and birthing the pods which contained the magic ointment.

Then–a problem. For you see, the aloe plant produces an ointment which is very helpful for treating burns or cuts. At least, that’s the promo. So once her plant had grown, she found herself in the uncomfortable position of hoping, at least secretly, that I would burn or cut myself, so she could try out her plant.

I’m sure she felt horrible to wish for such a difficulty to befall me. It may be my imagination, but I thought she left matches lying around more, and I can’t swear to it, but there seemed to be a few shards of glass near my toys.

But being a young boy, it wasn’t too long before I warranted treatment. Trying to mask her thrill over becoming an ancient physician of remedy, she expressed concern over my boo boo, and then broke off one of the pods from the plant and squeezed the gooey stuff onto my cut. Then, almost hourly, she checked the progress.

I cannot truthfully tell you that my finger healed any more quickly with the aloe vera than it did with some alcohol and a band-aid. But she was convinced.

Matter of fact, she brought me into the room in front of strangers, held out my wound for inspection and explained her mode of treatment. But like so many other things my mother pursued–and also due to the fact that it became difficult to plan enough injuries to maintain the enthusiasm about the aloe–she eventually dropped her care of the plant, and the poor little thing dried up and died.

We didn’t speak much about it after that. Matter of fact, she never used aloe vera again on any of my cuts. We were back to hydrogen peroxide and alcohol.

But I will never forget the first time my exuberant mother squeezed gooey-gooey from a plant onto my finger.

It brought her joy.  So I offered an obligatory smile.

Alms

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alms: (n) money or food given to poor people

Unless you’re wearing a robe and walking around Galilee with a message of eternal life, the word “alms” will probably never come to play.

But I do think it’s important to understand what an alm truly is.

We live in a society where charitable giving is funneled through organizations which take their own hunk out of the generosity for office expenses and personnel.

We like this system. We enjoy it because paper is passed on to people who do the work and we don’t have to worry about it.

We never find out the destination of our alms; we never actually have a visual of the individuals who are helped. In some strange way we think this makes it even better, so our personal prejudices or time limitations are not involved in the distribution of the wealth.

But you see–that’s not really what an alm is.

An alm is a desire to find someone every day who needs something you have, and making sure that person has a name, a face and a smell–someone directly in front of you who is given the chance to do whatever he or she decides with your contribution.

Some people have a problem giving money to the homeless because they’re afraid they’ll use it for alcohol. They might. But think how angry you would be if your employer demanded a list of purchases from you which had to be approved by the main office before you were granted a paycheck.

Occasionally someone will comment that they think I am a generous soul. I just laugh. I’m just as selfish as the next bastard–so inwardly involved that I’m greedy for the sensation that I receive when I personally impart a gift to someone, see their face light up, and realize that for that moment they believe I am not only blessed of God, but have descended like an angel to bring good cheer from supernal heights.

Yes, I lust for an opportunity to “play god”–to stand face-to-face next to folks in need, granting them a piece of their missing puzzle.

We lose something when we write a check to a mega-organization which earns its grits and gravy by collecting funds from people who would rather not make physical contact.

  • I want to be the alm-giver.
  • I want to see, smell, hear and feel the sensations of those who receive the alms.
  • I want to give–not so people around me will notice–but so I notice, and for that moment, I feel there is more God in me than ghoul.

 

AK-47

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

AK-47: (n) a type of assault rifle, originally manufactured in the Soviet Union.

It’s a big gun. That’s what I know.

I’ve never fired one of those. I have used a shotgun. That was pretty impressive.

Impressive… What do I mean by that?

I think guns are fascinating. Otherwise we wouldn’t want to play with them as children. After all, nobody wants a squirt-monkey or a squirt-hose. No, it’s a squirt-gun.

Being able to point something at somebody and dispel ammunition–even if it’s just water–is pretty thrilling. But you see, that’s the problem.

Somewhere along the line–at about the age of eleven or twelve–the bullets change from H2O to a helluva lot more deadly.

When would I want a gun?

  • If I were in the wilderness and a bear was getting ready to attack me, I think I would rather have a gun than a bow and arrow.
  • I guess if I was trapped on a desert island and was trying to track down game, using a bullet might be more effective than setting traps or throwing rocks.
  • I think if we’re going to insist on having wars, we should give our soldiers weapons to match the enemy’s, or be prepared to be enslaved by being “out-gunned.”

But I just don’t believe that guns are the answer to everything. It’s like so many other things in our society–the solutions we come up with seem to create their own dilemmas instead of alleviating conflict.

Putting a gun into the hands of a common man who, at this moment, is rational, does not mean that this person will be logical under the influence of alcohol, anger, frustration, or just dumb stupidity.

I guess what bothers me is the idea that law-abiding citizens require guns to protect themselves from non-law-abiding citizens. It begs the questions:

  1. When should I pull a trigger and release a missile of death to terminate the life of another human being?
  2. Should I do it because they have entered my home to steal from me?
  3. Should I shoot them because they are walking on my sidewalk, speaking threats in the direction of my domicile?
  4. In my frivolous and often unpredictable nature, should I be trusted to decide who lives or dies simply because I have a weapon to determine the outcome?
  5. Or are all these questions moot–because we have a Constitution that allows us to be “gun-toting,” so that’s all the justification we need?

There’s no doubt–guns are cool. I would be greatly fascinated to look at someone’s gun collection. I just wonder how we can determine how these weapons are used, or … how we can trust one another to make that decision.

 

Age of Consent

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Age of consent: (n) the age at which a person’s, particularly a girl’s, consent to sexual intercourse is valid by law.

I am thoroughly convinced that a conservative philosophy would work beautifully if those who pursued it were actually faithful.

Likewise, I have no doubt that a liberal agenda would be equally as positive if the people adhering to its tenets would not swerve from their conviction.

The problem is inconsistency–and nowhere does this show up in our society any more than in our dealings with our children–and especially with our teenagers. Let me give you an example.

Teenagers are supposed to have the wisdom to study for school, take care of their lockers, drive a car, decide what college they want to go to, study for the SAT, make good choices on not drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes, and control their hormones.

Yet by the same token, we turn right around and say they are irresponsible, childish, silly, that their brains don’t fully develop until they’re twenty-five years of age, and that they are just as capable of lying as they are of breaking out in acne.

We have to make up our minds.

If our children are able to drive a car down the street, are they not also mature enough to make decisions about their own sexuality?

We don’t want our children to be drug dependent, while simultaneously living in a society that has a free flow of alcohol and is discussing legalizing marijuana–to further deaden their personalities.

They can’t drink until they’re twenty-one, yet in every movie or television show, we see high school students freely consuming alcohol products, as if they just stopped off at the local party store and picked up a bunch.

Somewhere along the line, we need to get a handle on what we really believe the young humans are capable of achieving and what we think they aren’t.

I firmly believe that the teenagers who came through my house were capable of doing anything at all–as long as they were adequately motivated and supervised. I believe they were nearly worthless if left to their own initiative.

I don’t know whether that is a positive or a negative–it’s just my finding. To me, young humans are very similar to guns. In the hands of the right individual, who is responsible and willing to point the implement in the correct direction, there can possibly be a powerful use. But guns left lying around will always fall into the wrong hands.

Such is the case with the teenager.

So it is time for our society to realize that when puberty is striking people at the age of twelve or thirteen, to ask these individuals to withhold their urges for ten years in order to complete a college education is not only ridiculous, but may be the definition of impossible.

So what am I saying about the age of consent? I know we have to have a legal number so as to run our society in a prudent way–but I do think it is the duty of all parents to sit down with their children and candidly walk through the entire process of human sexuality–and let them know the consequences of all actions.

So what is the age of consent?

I really do not think human beings are able to consent to their own choice in sexuality until they have been taught what is destructive and what is valuable. For some folks, that means they probably shouldn’t kiss until they’re thirty. But for other kids, it could be much younger.

Our culture is desperately in need of some consistency. I welcome the concept of freedom … as long as it is intentionally and ferociously linked to responsibility.

Ado

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

Ado: (n) trouble or difficulty: e.g. she had much ado to keep up with him.

Everybody’s familiar with “Much Ado About Nothing.” It’s a clever Shakespearean phrase. But what IS “ado” and what is “nothing?”

There are two flaws in human beings that were placed there by the Creator as a means of keeping us in just enough dissatisfaction to be aware that we REQUIRE good cheer. That’s the “ado” part.

Human beings are completely capable, in the midst of a blessed life, of not only finding the fly in the ointment, but also being completely possessed with the notion that there are MORE flies than ointment.

“Ado”–a sense of discontent that rattles us even in the midst of joyous discovery and revelry. After all, even when people extol the great fun of drinking alcohol, when you actually get around those who are partaking, the brief season of levity is often followed by depressing reflections on their own inadequacies.

“Ado” is that part of us that just can’t settle on our lot without feeling nasty or bratty. So therefore we begin to focus on “nothing.”

  • We find reasons to disagree with each other instead of establishing commonalities.
  • We start political parties to counteract the political party that disappointed us on Tuesday, which had so greatly impressed us on Saturday.
  • We insist we are worshipping God and praising Him while our prayers are a laundry list of bitchiness.

Once you convince yourself that there is “ado,” then “nothing” becomes something. Things that would not normally throw us upset us or even concern us become stumbling blocks to good emotional and mental health.

So this is why I believe that true spirituality is the promotion of good cheer as opposed to “kneeling and appealing.” And what IS good cheer?

Good cheer is accepting what’s been provided, and beginning to divvy it up–and because you take the time to enjoy what’s available, you look up from your task and suddenly discover there’s more.

I’ve never seen anyone happy until they started pretending they were happy.

I know we’re afraid of pretending, but let’s be honest–some of the most joyous times in our lives were when we were six years old and made believe that we were Superman.

Much Ado About Nothing–“ado” is when I convince myself that I’ve been cheated, and “nothing” is the mythical evidence I bring to support my claim.

We are a funny creation, are we not?

Adenoids

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Adenoids: (n.) a mass of enlarged lymphatic tissue between the back of the nose and the throat, often hindering speaking and breathing in young children.

I was only ten years old so the significance completely evaded me.

Our family physician was named Dr. Livingston. To me it was just another name, not a literary setup, so when Dr. Livingston looked over his silver spectacles and told my mother and father that I needed to have my tonsils removed–otherwise I would have tonsillitis any time it was rumored to be in the area–they agreed.

They were further delighted when he told them that while he was in there yanking out the little boogers, that he might as well take my adenoids, too. It was common at the time. Tonsils were apparently so emotionally linked to adenoids that it was a given in the medical field that if you took one you had better remove the other, too, or fussiness would ensue.

Dr. Livingston? Tonsils and adenoids, I presume?

My father, being raised in a miserly German home, was excited because he felt he was getting two operations for the price of one.

So I was sent to a clinic in the big city twenty miles from our little burg, and was prepped for surgery. This was long before anethesia was perfected. It was actually barely beyond the phase of a shot of whiskey and a punch in the jaw.

What they used to put you under was ether. Now, let me explain what ether smells like. It has a distinctive odor. Imagine if a bottle of alcohol let off a big, stinky fart.

There you go.

So after they had removed my co-dependent organs, I awoke to the smell of this nasty “stinky” in the air, to spend the next hour-and-a-half doing nothing but trying to regurgitate all of my insides for public view.

About two hours later my stomach finally calmed down and they told me I could have some nice, cool Jello. (I had heard rumors that ice cream was the normal gift given to a patient, but apparently I ended up at K-Mart Presbyterian Municipal Hospital, where budget cuts were inserted to extract all pleasures.)

Unfortunately, the flavor they chose for my Jello was cherry.

When my mother and father wanted to go out and catch a bite to eat, they left my older brother in charge. The cherry jello by then had landed in my stomach, was introduced to the raging ether, and was immediately evicted. So when I threw up my cherry jello, my brother was convinced that I was bleeding to death. He ran through the halls screaming for nurses to come and save me.

The comical part (as if it isn’t already) was that it took the nurses at least ten minutes to figure out that what was in my bed pan had the unmistakable fragrance of Kool-aid.

Things went back to normal–if you call being ten years old, in a hospital, losing your tonsils and adenoids, vomiting profusely, with a maniac for a brother, only room for Jello and without the benefit of an ice cream confection … anywhere near normalcy.