Tag Archives: crap

Approximate

dictionary with letter A

Approximate (adj): close to the actual, but not completely accurate or exact.

Pet peeve. Please forgive me. Example:

“How many people were at the concert?” I ask.

“Approximately 47,” he replies.

Yes, it bothers me when people say they’re going to approximate a number and then give me a specific one. You can feel free to say “I would approximate between 45 and 50,” but 47 is what I would call a hard count.

Also pet peeve, case in point:

“What time will you be there?”

“I would approximate 7:15ish, but it could be later.”

Now I’m confused. First of all, I don’t know what “ish” is doing on the end of any word. 7:15 comes around once a night, and all of its neighbors have names, which are not associated with it. For instance, 7:16 is different.

I know this is silly, which may be the definition of a “pet peeve. (All pets are silly in their own way. Anybody who thinks a hamster or a fish gives a crap about them should spend a day or two in the loony bin. So when my peeve is my pet, I feed it, hold it, pet it, put it back in its cage and hope it does not poop all over everything.)

I do try to be patient with people. I realize they don’t share my predilections.

I also try to understand some of their pet peeves, though honestly, their particular renditions always seem, to me, to be pet rocks.

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

Anoxia

dictionary with letter A

Anoxia: (n.) an absence of oxygen.

I felt like crap, if by saying that, you mean a discarded pile of useless waste lying in the corner, needing disposal.

I didn’t know why.

I knew I was sick. That doesn’t help very much. Being aware of illness only makes you clamor for a quick solution to get back to normalcy.

Sometimes that’s possible. A good night’s sleep is often the perfect elixir. But I had several opportunities to sleep and felt no better.

So I went to the doctor, who sent me to the hospital, and the first thing they did was put oxygen into my nostrils.

I felt very stupid having tubes coming out of my nose.

They explained that my oxygen level was not sufficient for me to get the air I needed to recover from my physical ailment. I tried to argue, but after a while felt silly objecting to something as simple as a breathing mechanism.

It was astounding.

Within an hour, just having oxygen put into my body and having the levels rise, made me feel so much better. It gave me the will to want to get well again instead of commiserating over a gloom of pending doom.

It was just oxygen–yet I needed it. I wasn’t getting it from the air. My lungs apparently had decided they were part-time labor.

But the introduction of the good stuff set in motion “good stuff” for my healing.

It got me thinking.

We’re so critical of people who are depressed, angry, poor or unmotivated.

  • We never consider that there’s a certain emotional oxygen required, the ability to tell the truth without fear.
  • How about spiritual oxygen? God is our God so we can find out how to be better people.
  • Certainly there’s a mental oxygen, which clears out the cobwebs in our brain, allowing fresh ideas to seep through.
  • And the simple physical oxygen of breathing, exercising and eating well can make us feel invincible.

I’m no longer afraid to be in need–because discovering the better things I can breathe in empowers me … to be made whole.

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Animosity

dictionary with letter A

Animosity: (n.) strong hostility

When does what I don’t like become that which I ignore, which ultimately is deemed by me to be something worthless?

Although I think we believe that animosity is a visceral emotion, shown forth by our actions, the real danger of animosity is the nasty dislike in our soul that causes us to disdain the possibility of anything good coming out of what we have decided is crap.

It’s not just that bigotry fills our hearts and that we were taught that certain people, events, talents, attitudes and beliefs are meaningless. It is a disregard for things we disagree with, considering them foolish.

But after all, we are all atheists in the sense that we don’t believe in everyone else’s gods.

  • We sneer at them.
  • We laugh at them.
  • We call them ludicrous.

Think of this: in the Christian faith, we look with horror on some sub-culture which throws a young virgin into a volcano as a sacrifice to a molten god, while simultaneously worshipping a Savior who died on a cross for our sins as an equally innocent victim of sacrifice.

Therefore animosity is when we fail to notice our own hypocrisy, and attribute stupidity only to the other guy.

It is why prejudice still exists in this country. With that prejudice comes a brattiness and self-righteousness that lends itself to insults instead of introspection about why we feel the way we do about others.

Even though I have worked on my soul diligently, to prune away all the branches of dead-head ideas and superstitious beliefs, I still occasionally come across a patch of withered vines entwined with my brain, sprouting the “grapes of wrath.”

Yet as long as I am aware that I am a work in progress and that I will need to continue to chop all the animosity out of my life which is based on my piety … I have a chance at becoming a decent human being.

 

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Anachronism

dictionary with letter A

Anachronism: (n) a thing that belongs in another period than the present, usually referring to old-fashioned.

One of the more rib-tickling moments in my recent life was when I overheard two seven-year-old kids discussing how Kraft macaroni and cheese dinners used to have better cheese–when they were younger.

It was both endearing and enlightening.

It made me realize that it is possible at any age to reflect back on a previous time, which you have convinced yourself contained more promise, power or purpose.

It got me thinking.

What are anachronisms? What makes something old-fashioned? Just because some individual promoting an agenda wants to claim that a particular attribute is old-fashioned doesn’t make it so, Joe.

Because the things I find to be anachronistic are the causes put forth in our society which have historically proven to be errant or stupid:

1. Drug addiction.

We may want to debate whether drugs should be a crime or a freedom, but it doesn’t change the fact that any time you suck in smoke, swallow a pill or ingest a fluid to change your mood, you’re admitting that you, personally, do not have the ability to be happy without props.

2. Cultural appreciation.

I know some people think it’s important for black children to learn black culture, Chinese children their particular rendition and Hispanic offspring to pay their respects to Cinco de Mayo, but candidly, it’s just another subtle form of racism. It’s a way of distinguishing differences in the human race which only pull us apart instead of joining us together.

3. An aversion to manners.

Yes, there are folks who insist that being a lady or a gentleman–courteous–is too up-tight or phony. What is phony is thinking that you can treat people like crap and not end up being considered a turd yourself.

4. And finally (at least for this list), there is an ongoing belief that there is a battle between God and science.

Matter of fact, we’re choosing up sides again.

If we really believe there’s a God, then His creation certainly instituted scientific fact and Earth’s physics. If there is no God, then we’d better cuddle up to science, because it’s our only chance.

So since I believe in both, I consider it intelligent to keep them friendly.

  • An anachronism is something from the past that we cling to.
  • Tradition is a practice that we continue because of reputation.

But wisdom is an anachronism that needs to become a tradition because it offers human beings a chance to overcome our jungle … and plant a new garden.

 

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Amphetamine

dictionary with letter A

Amphetamine: (n) a synthetic, mood-altering, addictive drug, used illegally as a stimulant and legally to treat ADD in children and narcolepsy in adults.

Thirty seconds to explain what it does and thirty seconds to scare the crap out of you over the side effects.

That is the construction of the normal commercial on television advertising a new drug.

We need to get away from the concept that drugs are miracles.

Perhaps they are miracles in the sense of describing the Grand Canyon if you’re only viewing it from a safe distance or in some sort of slide show.

But if you’re standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and leaping head-first into the abyss, it loses some of the glow of its “miraculous.” Then it just becomes a bunch of rocks smashing your brains.

Here’s my truth: use as few drugs as possible.

For me, this became fairly complicated when I was diagnosed with diabetes. They recommend you try to keep your blood sugar down through diet and medication. But with this particular condition, the doctors began to introduce other peripheral possibilities which they decided to pre-medicate by giving me additional drugs, which, separate from their helpful tendencies, are basically poison.

Just as ministers want to make you a sinner and politicians want to put you into a voting block, physicians feel useful when they discover ailments in you.

I don’t hold it against them. It’s their profession. After all, in the process of being paranoid, even crazy people avoid obstacles and difficulties.

But drugs are nothing to mess with–especially amphetamines. It is beyond comprehension that we pump our children full of chemicals to get them to be attentive when it used to be handled in the schoolyard at recess by somebody throwing a ball at your head and saying, “Wake up, Billy!”

It’s not that I recommend the crude treatment of children to one another. But I am not convinced that rattling the human body with deadly potions is a better alternative.

I am not an individual who places great faith in holistic medicine.

I am not against prescribing cures for those who are hurting.

It’s just that I think the truly mature human being needs to step back from any diagnosis, and before popping a pill of purpose, ask if there is any other way.

Because when drugs get done with human beings, they mostly addict us and hurt us.

Therefore, we should only welcome them temporarily … and cautiously.

 

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Alimentary

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alimentary Canal: (n) the entire passage along which food passes through the body, including esophagus, stomach and intestines.

So much like life.

That which kisses the lips and titillates the taste buds, slides easily down the throat, gains acid in the stomach, is transformed into waste and often ends up looking like crap.

It is difficult for me, as a fat person, to focus on the more negative–and may I say, final–prospects of overeating.

I am completely engrossed in the licking of my lips and the taste buds, and even somewhat intrigued by the swallowing–but avoid the repercussions of digestion, fat accumulation and expulsion.

The alimentary canal is certainly a slippery slope, as it were: everything is heading downhill.

Some people might consider this negative.

Yet maybe it’s a step of maturity–learning to release smaller snowballs at the top of the mountain so as not to create an avalanche.

 

Acrid

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acrid: (adj.) an irritatingly strong and unpleasant taste or smell

I guess we universally say something isn’t to our taste, but I’ve never heard anyone say it’s not to their smell.

Am I right?

So is it possible that folks who love jalapenos and maybe will even eat grasshoppers, still universally despise the smell of crap?

For there ARE cultures which devour things that we would never eat, but I’ve never seen any place in the world where certain odors are tolerated.

(Well, take that back. There is the Midwest, where people drive into their small towns and seem to accept the air of cow manure permeating the surroundings. But even there, if you look deeply into their eyes, most of them seem to reflect a wish that the cows would poop elsewhere…)

And there ARE certain things we will tolerate and eat and not call them “acrid” because we’re trying to impress. For instance, I have never been a drinker of alcohol. Yet if I’m in Wisconsin and someone offers me a beer they’ve made in their basement (which, by the way, SHOULD be frightening enough) I feel compelled to take a drink and somehow or another come up with an approving phrase about the liqueur. They usually know very quickly that I don’t know what I’m talking about, but ignore that in deference to my politeness.

I remember the first time I was out on a date with a girl, very early in my years, and I realized that she was willing to kiss me–repeatedly.  But in the process of receiving THAT very pleasant experience, I had to reconnoiter her breath, which was a bit … acrid.

I was torn. Two sensations tugging at my soul–the pleasure of appreciating a woman’s lips and a revulsion in my gut which was suggesting we move further away from the attacking stench.

It is amazing what we will accept if we feel the results are to our benefit.

I was watching a show last night on TV. Young women were trying to lose weight by drinking green, slimy slushes to trim off the pounds. What struck me was that these lovely ladies will probably not want to drink this concoction the rest of their lives, and that we as a human race, have not found a way to produce good-tasting food that doesn’t kill us.

  • Why can’t we have peanut butter that’s low in calories?
  • Why not a beef steak that has the nutrition of broccoli?

This might be more beneficial than curing cancer. But we’re going to continue to eat and smell acrid things and pretend they’re good for us, knowing that in a moment of slight weakness, we will run away.

Acrid is NOT in the eye, the taste buds, nor the nose of the beholder. It’s pretty universal.

I guess it’s just the common conclusion to almost everything.

Some people just lie better.

Accelerando

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Accelerando: (adj. & adv.): with a gradual increase of speed (used chiefly as a musical direction)

It was another example of one of those times when I overstepped my boundaries and in the process, slipped on my own crap.

I wrote a musical piece for the piano and was blessed that a small symphony orchestra agreed to play it in one of their concerts. It helped that I was good friends with the conductor. She thought it would be excellent if I performed the piano part with the symphony, giving it more focus.

Never considering my limitations on the magical eighty-eight keys, I quickly agreed, and gave a passive effort of rehearsal.  It was passive because I had enough arrogance to believe that I was a fairly decent pianist, and also regarded myself as being acquainted with this particular music since I had written it.

When I arrived at the first rehearsal with the orchestra, it became quickly obvious that I was ill-prepared to be anywhere NEAR the musical instrument  provided to make the melody, especially when I came to the end of the concerto. Because I was unable to the play music in the correct timing, I slowed them up, which prompted a flutist near the conductor to raise his hand and ask, “Is this passage going to be rubato?”

My conductor friend shook her head without verbally responding.

He persisted. “So — should we anticipate an accelerando?”

She frowned and once again shook her head.

It was very embarrassing–similar to being in a foreign country, and in a clumsy way ordering off the menu, only to notice that the waiter has gone back to the cook to chat in their common language and laugh at your selection.

Later on, my conductor friend explained that the flute player was asking if my playing was going to be rubato, which meant purposely slowed up by my own choice, or if there was some way she could build a fire under me to create an accelerando ( in other words, play it right).

I discovered that day that even in the world of classical music, there is still language available that says, “Hustle up your butt!”

The fact that it’s being said in Italian only makes it a bit more elegant.

It also makes it a trifle more aggravating.

 

Abuzz

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abuzz: (adj.) filled with a continuous buzzing sound.

I probably would have made the mistake of advertising the Beatles album, Let It Be, with some sort of corny phrase, like, “Let it bee. The world is abuzz with the new sounds.”

I do think there was a time in this country when such a play on words would have been considered extremely intelligent,  or at least appreciated as being whimsical and cute. Now if you would play on the word ‘abuzz,’ people groan, acting like you’re Rip van Winkle, waking up from a twenty-year-nap, into a world of smart phones and tweeting instead of computer disks and spiked hair.

What has happened? Because the word “abuzz” is really kind of nice. Matter of fact, I’m sure that sometime, maybe even in the last two weeks, I have used it or even inserted it into one of my essays. But if you become artsy in using it, you suddenly become “Grandpa,” trying to be too silly, making the kids laugh by tickling their ribs.

Wouldn’t it be important, though, to keep a little cleverness in our society, so that not everything is black and white, being chased by crap brown? Does everything have to be straight-forward, and if it isn’t, mystical or fantasy related?

I’m sure if people watch old episodes of Mary Tyler Moore, or especially MASH, their heads must spin with the rapid-fire use of language, which is laced with so many double entendres and plays on words that you almost have to have a program to keep up with them.

I would agree with the younger set–some of that scripting was a bit over the top. But I think the absence of dialogue, sweetness, gentle nudgings and even coined phrases in our present entertainment and even political scene is just downright drab.

So I will freely admit that I should be careful not to use the word “abuzz” in relationship to anything resembling a bee or a fly–that is, if you will admit to ME that describing the color green as “greenish” … is absolutely boring.

Abomasum

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abomasum: n. the fourth stomach of a ruminant, which receives food from the omasum and passes it to the small intestine.

I got really excited with this one.

Being obese all my life and maintaining a commitment to the cause, I thought how terrific it would be to have four stomachs. You see, what you would possess is a greater potential for filling up–but ALSO you could evenly distribute your  gluttony so it wouldn’t SEEM like you were over-eating.

But then I considered the physique of these ruminants. Do I really want to look like a cow? Perhaps better phrased, do I want to continue to look like a cow? That’s bull.

So I decided that having four stomachs only quadruples the need for weight loss.

The other thing that bothered me about this particular word is how depressing it must be to be the fourth stomach. Talk about being the low man on the totem pole! What would get sent to the fourth stomach?? You have three other containers in front of you vying for the better parts of the intake.

Wouldn’t it be my luck to be a fourth stomach. How would you feel? Especially since you’re down there at the end of the line, and your job is to send crap to the small intestine.

I think we all do feel that way sometimes–we are the fourth stomach in a goat, doing nothing but puttin’ out a bunch of crap.

I’m going to stop writing now. It’s too depressing…