Tag Archives: blue

Crisscross

Crisscross: (v) to move back and forth over

If you live long enough that you can transform your stupidities into learning experiences, and then implement fresh ideas, by the end it looks like you were really ingenious and had a great plan.

That statement truly sums up my life.

Graduating from high school, I decided I wanted to be a musician, writer and artist.

No one else agreed. Especially no one who was willing to lay down the money so that I could continue my quest.

Rather than perching in my hometown, where everybody knew me and had already drawn an opinion that I needed to “get a job and be normal,” I climbed into my not-so-worthy van with two comrades, and we began to crisscross the country.

I could probably boast that I had formulated an outline in my mind.

But basically, after a few months it all boiled down to money.

As far as I know, our little group became the first people in America to be involved in crowdfunding.

At least three or four nights a week, we stood in front of neutral, if not hostile, audiences, and made our case for our music and mission.

And then we passed the plate.

If a plate was not available, we were certainly willing to use a hat.

Through this we learned three things:

  1. It doesn’t do any good to crisscross the country if you’re going into areas that are resistant
  2. You should go back to receptive areas, continuing your work, as long as they remain open.
  3. After you crisscross the country to an area that is open, when you get in front of those people, remember the two most important factors necessary for drawing others:

Be endearing and be enduring

Make it clear that you realize you’re a human being—susceptible to the same shit they are.

But also let them know that you’ve been traveling for a good while, and you have no intention of giving up on the idea that we all can do better

When an audience is convinced of these two things, they open up their wallets. It has to be real and it has to have some proof—other than just your assertion.

I have crisscrossed this country forty or fifty times over my journey.

Through that experience, I really did learn to love America—whether it’s red, blue or sometimes even when it’s colorless.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

 

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Blue

Blue: (v) to make or become blue.

Dictionary B

Often life arrives in a very pale shade, threatening despair, and I too quickly grab the “blues” to darken it.

Yes, I have a fear that things are not going to go well. I will admit it.

To me, optimism always seems to be a trap–similar to being informed that you have a great amount of cash waiting for you in a Nigerian bank.

After a while, you stop believing in miracles, but unfortunately also lose your ability to accept reality but instead, interpret all your life through a prism of “blue.”

I know there are depressions which are caused by deficiencies in the human body, but there are also depressions we permit to settle in because the contortions of greater effort or hilarious hope are just too painful.

How much light does it take to change blue to faith?

I don’t know. And I certainly cannot convince myself that pursuing such virtue is always plausible.

Maybe I could just stop using my blue crayon to color in the pictures quite so often.

 

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Abysmal

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abysmal: (adj.) extremely bad; appalling

I was always glad it was pink. I think there’s something nice about it being pink. Blue would be weird. Certainly not green. I guess yellow would have been a possibility.

I’m talking about Pepto-abysmal.

I took it as a kid. Somewhere along the line in my childhood–about eight years of age–my parents made the transition from the old-time use of castor oil to Pepto-abysmal. Now caster oil tasted like what I imagine licking tar off of hot pavement on a summer day would be like.

Horrible.

And for some reason, they wanted you to drink it straight down, which always led to gagging and sometimes throwing up, which would convince your parents that the stuff worked, because you would feel better after vomiting, and caster oil would get the props for the cure.

I was so glad when Pepto-abysmal made its introduction.

Am I weird? I kind of liked the stuff. Matter of fact, every once in a while I would go to the medicine cabinet and take a swig. (You had to be careful, because it would leave a tell-tale pink chalk residue on your lips–a little difficult to explain to your over-scrutinizing mother why you’re “hitting the pink stuff.”)

I think my mother once gave me Pepto-abysmal because I had a headache. For a season it was the magic cure–so common in the average household that they developed this big quart-sized version. It was huge.

But if there was something aggravating, dastardly or nasty stirring in your gut, Pepto was well-prepared to go down there and do battle. My mother was convinced that she saved the life of my young nephew, who had an appendicitis attack, by giving him Pepto-abysmal. She insisted  that when they removed the appendix, they found it encased in a pink fluid. Being a kid, I never realized this was impossible. And it further increased the mystique of the magical fluid.

Now I’m not stupid–I know that it’s really Pepto-Bismol, but I thought it was cute to call it Pepto–abysmal, considering that it takes care of things–gut-wrenching things–that are abysmal.

If you didn’t find it cute, I am sorry. Maybe you need to be “Pepto’d up.”