Tag Archives: romance

Abnegate

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abnegate: v. to renounce or reject something desired or valuable: he attempted to abnegate personal responsibility.

So I get it.

It’s really not a sequester we’re going through now. Like so many things in life, it’s mis-named. It’s an abnegation.

All the people who were elected to go to Washington, D.C. to make laws which will pay for the needs of our government and its people have decided to abnegate their responsibility and pretend that they never understood the job description in the first place.

Of course, it happens all the time.

I go to the store to purchase some lunch meat and my butcher refuses to slice it for me–because there is a danger of cutting off one of his fingers or that I won’t be satisfied with the width he selected for my lunch meat. What do I think he IS? A butcher??

Then there’s the mechanic who will NOT work on my car–because the grease that ends up on his hands is so very difficult to get rid of at the end of the day, and he plans to go out with his wife in the evening, and it would be a real romance killer if his hands were not pristine. What do I think he IS? A mechanic??

And every time I call my doctor with some sort of physical problem, she explains to me that she studied medicine, but in no way was prepared to put it into practice or get her hands dirty by touching people’s sickly bodies. What do I think she IS? A doctor??

So I don’t know why we are so disappointed in our politicians–when they’ve made it clear that what they are is “politickers”–not lawmakers.

What fools we are to be shocked that they have abnegated their responsibility for progressing the great notion of American freedom, and like the butcher, refused to carve up the problem, and the mechanic, would not dirty his hands, and the doctor who didn’t realize how sick things were.

It is not a sequester.

It is an abnegation.

You think I could sell that to Fox News, MSNBC and CNN?

Abnegate

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abnegate: v. to renounce or reject something desired or valuable: he attempted to abnegate personal responsibility.

So I get it.

It’s really not a sequester we’re going through now. Like so many things in life, it’s mis-named. It’s an abnegation.

All the people who were elected to go to Washington, D.C. to make laws which will pay for the needs of our government and its people have decided to abnegate their responsibility and pretend that they never understood the job description in the first place.

Of course, it happens all the time.

I go to the store to purchase some lunch meat and my butcher refuses to slice it for me–because there is a danger of cutting off one of his fingers or that I won’t be satisfied with the width he selected for my lunch meat. What do I think he IS? A butcher??

Then there’s the mechanic who will NOT work on my car–because the grease that ends up on his hands is so very difficult to get rid of at the end of the day, and he plans to go out with his wife in the evening, and it would be a real romance killer if his hands were not pristine. What do I think he IS? A mechanic??

And every time I call my doctor with some sort of physical problem, she explains to me that she studied medicine, but in no way was prepared to put it into practice or get her hands dirty by touching people’s sickly bodies. What do I think she IS? A doctor??

So I don’t know why we are so disappointed in our politicians–when they’ve made it clear that what they are is “politickers”–not lawmakers.

What fools we are to be shocked that they have abnegated their responsibility for progressing the great notion of American freedom, and like the butcher, refused to carve up the problem, and the mechanic, would not dirty his hands, and the doctor who didn’t realize how sick things were.

It is not a sequester.

It is an abnegation.

You think I could sell that to Fox News, MSNBC and CNN?

 

Abattuta

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbattuta: (adv.) a musical term meaning to return to strict tempo.

Sometimes I think life should be more musical–not in the sense of bursting into song while you’re waiting for your meatball sandwich at Subway, but musical in the sense of flourishes in timing, with exciting melodies and enhancing harmonies. Music grants you the ability to suddenly play very fast. And then … you can abattuta! Return back to your strict timeframe.

Life is not that way. It takes sixty seconds to make a minute, an equal number of minutes to make an hour, and twenty-four of them eventually make a day. Wouldn’t it be great if you had some sort of control–like a conductor’s baton–to make certain portions of your daily composition go quicker?

In other words, when you go to the dentist and he’s drilling on your teeth, you could increase the tempo–get out of the chair with a flourish. And then, as you were allowing the Novocaine to wear off and you stop at that Steak and Shake to reward yourself with a delicious chocolate-marshmallow milkshake, you could slow the tempo w-a-a-y down, allowing the ooey-gooey to eek its way down your throat.

You could speed up church services and slow down romance.

You could accelerate the interchanges you have with your children to confirm that you’re a good parent, and slow down the ending of the game, which finally, for a change, is actually close and interesting.

Maybe that’s the whole problem–life is too abattuta. Because when we try to relish moments, the clock frowns at us and continues its steady pursuit of strict formality.

Yes, clocks are like that. Still, I will search for a way to freeze moments so I can enjoy them even more as they thaw out. And I will hum songs and think happy thoughts to speed through those activities that are truly grueling and boring. Yet I know there will always be the abattuta to taunt me back to the mature notion of remaining in strict time.

I guess I never saw God as the conductor of an orchestra. To me, He’s more like the guy who plays the triangle. He lets the symphony ensue, but every once in a while, inserts his two-note passage that seems to make all the difference in the world.

 

Abattoir

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abattoir: n. a slaughterhouse

Thank God.

I will never, ever again have to nervously tell my friends that I will be unable to join them for dinner because I needed to pick up an extra shift at the slaughterhouse. I can just inform them that I am “tied up at the abattoir.”

Don’t you love words like that? Without them, our civilization might crumble in a series of offensive utterances that leave the room either confused or repelled.

For instance, how about the guy or gal who first came up with “restroom?” After all, even “bathroom” is a little bit weird and ambiguous. )It did, however,  at least give us the ability to escape crapper, pot, toilet and “take a dump.”)

Yes, because we have “civilized” our language, we are now able, as high-browed souls, to judge others on their improper usage of words.  If anyone is going to say in mixed company that they’re going to “take a crap,” we assume that they would kill baby birds and also vote for the candidate distasteful to our tender conscience.

I would love to see us resolve this with the issue of romance–because to proclaim that the previous evening afforded you the opportunity to have sex is way too blatant, conjuring images of you in the nude which are unpleasant to all participants. Equally nasty is “getting it on,” “hooking up,” “bumping uglies,” “getting some,” and even “making love.” I guess that last one, “making love,” is the least offensive, but it still invites images of movie scenes with soft lighting, air-brushed bodies and guaranteed orgasms for all parties.

Yes, now that we’ve taken care of that “slaughterhouse” dilemma, we need to work on a description of human sexuality that doesn’t leave the listener confused or completely grossed out.

What is the abattoir for romance? I wish they’d hold a contest. The submissions would be hilarious, don’t you think?

But in the meantime, I shall spend my day rejoicing that slaughtered pigs, cows, chickens and even goats are going out in finer style–at the abattoir.