Tag Archives: sickly

Bruise

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Bruise: (n) an injury appearing as an area of discolored skin on the body

He had an unusual name: Page.

He was a boy. So he took a lot of crap for it.

I think his parents thought they were clever–because his whole name was Page Unus McCloy.Dictionary B

In other words, “Page One McCloy.”

I liked him.

He was a simple little fella. He tried really hard to do everything that everybody else did, but he was sickly–that’s what the teacher said–had a difficult time keeping up.

He also had a problem when playing, because the slightest little bump could cause a bruise. So you can imagine, there were times that Page came from home black and blue. The cops would be called and then everyone would realize it was just due to his…you know. Sickly.

So physical games were pretty much impossible because he always ended up looking like he had been beat up in a bar fight.

One day we found some crab apples in his backyard, rotting on the ground. We decided to throw them at each other. Apparently one of them wasn’t quite rotted enough, and it hit him square in the middle of his forehead, knocked him down and left a huge bruise.

His mother was really mad at me, so I wasn’t allowed to play with Page for a couple of weeks.

But when I returned the friendship was as sweet as ever, and we continued to carefully carry on as young boys do–dodging injury.

Christmas vacation arrived, and I told Page that I would call him over the holidays and that I was looking forward to seeing him “next year.”

When January 7th arrived and we returned to school, I couldn’t find Page. A teacher took me to the side and explained that he had passed away over the holidays, from complications due to something called leukemia.

My first thought was that I must have killed him with the crab apple. That idea haunted me for months.

Matter of fact, it wasn’t until we were in biology class two years later that I understood the type of disease that caused Page to bruise.

Whenever I think of bruises, I think of Page.

Then I think about how important it is, if you love someone, to be tender to their condition … and try not to leave any kind of bruise.

 

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Amnio

dictionary with letter A

Amnio: (n) informal term for amniocentesis.

Needled.

Are you familiar with that word? It refers to being chided, bugged and criticized.

I guess we want to do it to babies while they’re still in Mama’s sack. “Let’s stick our needle in there and see what you are. Discover what you’re made of. ”

Are you weak? Sickly? Disabled? Fat? Gay?

We’re not even going to give you a chance to have the benefit of overcoming or changing your circumstance. We’re gonna “needle” you.

It is the abiding misconception that if we can just make better physical specimens we will have a better world. Do away with different; eliminate weaker. And then we all will be strong.

God damn us if we are just so stupid that we don’t understand what makes human beings strong!

We become exemplary as a species when we learn to accept the different, undergird the weak and even admit there are those who are stronger, who can teach us to expand.

In a world of sameness, we invite even more nasty pickiness, because the differences will be smaller–to match our character.

Let’s stop “needling” each other.

Let’s start by leaving babies alone.

 

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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?