Tag Archives: sterile

Anteroom

dictionary with letter A

Anteroom (n.): an antechamber, usually serving as a waiting room.

Of course, we never call it an anteroom.

But I’ve had my fair share of being in waiting rooms. I think most of us have. Three occasions pop into my mind immediately.

When I was seven years old, my parents found a dentist about ten miles from our town who stubbornly refused to join the modern world of pain-free tooth care, and insisted that all of the chemicals and medicines that were injected into young children to relieve the discomfort of repairing teeth were going to cause a generation of sterile adults.

Of course, he had no basis for the theory, but my parents thought he was a pioneer and a patriot so they decided to use him as our family dentist.

I have two startling memories of this experience.

Number one was sitting in the anteroom, waiting my turn, hearing the moans and groans of other children subjected to the Neanderthal treatment.

Additionally was enduring both the lecture and the pain of having my teeth drilled by a gentleman who was certainly soon to be declared a medical dinosaur.

The second waiting room experience that pops to mind was when I was a mere nineteen-year-old, waiting for the birth of my first son. Having no idea of the process, and being surrounded in the waiting room by veterans of the procedure, I remember fidgeting until I forced myself to need to pee, and therefore being out of the room when the doctor came in to tell me of the birth of my child.

The third and final memory is a rather unpleasant one of being in the Emergency Room of a hospital in Mobile, Alabama, waiting to hear the status of my son who had been hit and run by a car. Being raised in the Midwest, I was filled with optimism, believing that the medical field would be able to put my little Humpty Dumpty back together again.

That night, over and over again, I was given bad news, each time deepening in darkness. Matter of fact I was so inundated with dreary reports that I nearly ran from the room, screaming, to escape the mania.

So when I think about waiting rooms, I realize that they are a perpetual paradox. First you have “waiting”–not the best profile for any human being. And then, you have a room, which normally has four walls, increasing claustrophobia and fear.

I certainly hope there’s no waiting room in heaven.

Don’t you?

 

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

Abzug

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abzug: Bella (1920-98) U.S. politician, lawyer and women’s rights activist. She helped to found Women Strike for Peace in 1961. Serving in Congress as a Democrat from New York, she fought for the rights of women and the poor.

Sometimes progress is so slow that we actually fail to notice that it’s going on. It is the short-sighted part of the human race that often makes us unsuitable for either the jungle or the boardroom.

But when I thought about Bella Abzug, fond memories returned. She was not exactly what you would call an attractive woman. Generous folks would have referred to her as “handsome,” and less gratuitous comments could have included “homely.”

I am certainly glad she was not around for this 24-hour news cycle, where her appearance would have been ridiculed in an attempt to render her words ineffective. That’s what we do nowadays, you know. When we are unable to contradict the objections of an intelligent spirit which has stormed into our presence, we make the attacks personal so as to dismiss their effectiveness by pointing out their physical oddities.

No, I am sure Bella Abzug would have been joked about as the classic lesbian, or mocked as someone’s “ugly grandmother.”

Often it takes people like Bella to come along to plant the seeds of discontent in order for some weeds of frustration to grow up in the midst of our neat little “social garden,” and bring attention to the fact that not everybody is going to be a “cute tomato.”

We need her. We actually need MORE like her.

I, for one, am sick and tired of only listening to people I’m supposed to agree with, who make sure that their language is so sterile that it can neither offend nor instruct.

Bella said some tough things. Bella was brash. Bella was angry. Bella believed that anger was a good thing when it was vented against stupidity.

I don’t know if a Bella Abzug could exist in our present society. We would probably put her in a back office somewhere and make her the speechwriter for some blond bimbo who could more easily acquire the vote. I don’t know if we would ever allow her a microphone, a platform or an opportunity to spit fire in our faces.

But it’s because Bella Abzug lived that women today have the opportunity to argue about their positions and be heard–because so many years ago, she pointed out the fallacy in a system that was convinced of its infallibility.

Sometimes we need to stop and be grateful for the people who live, breathe, fight and die, never seeing their dreams come to fruition. Because of their plantings and hard work, the garden still has a chance to grow.

Because of their lives, we still have a chance to overcome our ignorance.

Abiotic

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abiotic: adj. 1.physical rather than biological; not derived from living organisms. 2. Devoid of life; sterile

I found a definition for Congress!!  “Devoid of life and sterile!” A physical body not producing any life. How remarkable! Do you think anyone in that particular institution would comprehend it if I refered to them as abiotic?

I was thinking about other things in our society that are abiotic:

Certainly, the entertainment industry came to mind, which continues to pop out pet projects from a group of spoiled technicians who refuse to allow new ideas into their coven of interaction for fear of losing both prestige and dollars.

Certainly our religious system is abiotic. For after all, we more celebrate the death of our leader than we do his life, and even gather around his carcass weekly to grab a hunk, for old times sake.

Our educational system seems to have become abiotic, trapping us into a repetitive merry-go-round of stats and facts, which don’t always add up to the requirements of our ever-burgeoning world.

What a fascinating word!

Sometimes I’m abiotic. I see life happening in front of me and I pull up a chair instead of putting on my tennis shoes.

Abiotic–ignoring life in motion. Being present in the physical without generating any living thing.

Because after all, to live a cautious life is to have completely misunderstood the directions that came with our kit.