Ode to the Informal & Rocks of Remembrance

I am beginning to feel better. My joints are almost normal sized, my abdominal pain is now only intermittent. Fatigue, dizziness and general malaise are still kicking my ass. I'm still suffering with my Prednisone speedbrain. I had to see my doctor today because of a sudden mysterious fever. But, really, it's amazing how much better I feel than last week. I even ventured far afield today, to the grocery store, with my husband. It was slow going and I felt like I had run a marathon afterward, but I also experienced a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. I mean, I got dressed. I went somewhere. I bought my own peanut butter this time.

There were other events:

My Husband: I don't think I know what "country" means.

Me: Yew mean ya ain't never known nobody who's just country?

My Husband: I don't get how screaming at people in the grocery store is "country." I'm sure some of the good people of New York City also scream in grocery stores.

Me: Oh, honey....screaming in the grocery store is country no matter where you're from. Okay, okay, I forget you folks from Southside aren't really ej-aw-cated on some things...let me translate. Country: [adj.] expressive of crude or unrefined manners, descriptive of inability to assimilate into public society due to lack of concern toward holding oneself accountable to social standards of public behavior, specifically with reference to making a public spectacle of oneself due to an unfamiliarity with the protocols of urbanity. See also: "country cousin" or "country bumpkin."

My Husband: I don't get why "country" is the word for that.

Me: You see this? This is my English major trump card for that definition I just made up. I hereby declare myself correct.
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This conversation, one I shared with my husband as we left the grocery store, where we went for peanut butter and bananas and left with peanut butter, bananas and front row viewing of a countrified screaming match, led me to some reflection on dichotomy. Now, I appreciate words. If I could fill up a bathtub with words like "re-appropriation" or "hegemonic" or "ignominious" or even "antidisestablishmentarianism," I would take baths three times a day. I'll take my sentences any way I can get them: short and sweet or long and formal. But most days, I'll dine on Vonnegut and consider Melville my dessert.

Having said that, Imma be real honest and tell y'all somethin': there are few things more precious to me than informality. Sentence fragments are my favorite fragments. Colloquialisms might as well be the language of angels. I love the ability blogging affords me to just write like we're talking in my living room. I used to feel the need to be "ON" all the time. Like, people were going to think less of me if I used a comma splice. Then one day I realized I knew more of the trailer park than cotillion. I would be a snarky, pretentious, overwhelmingly disingenuous douchebag if I only ever spoke or wrote in complete sentences. It would be paramount to the abandonment my native tongue. I don't care if some high school English teacher taught me that my accent, in context, is a social liability. Lightning Hopkins and Sookie Stackhouse are more credible sources. So, I'm not going to edit this blog for lousy almost sentences. I love lousy almost sentences.

I should be writing papers instead of blog posts. Unfortunately, the speedbrain makes that scenario nearly impossible. So instead, I've got notes from which to build sentences. Speedbrain notes are Brilliant. Capital B. Speedbrain sentences are...more trouble than they're worth. [Once again, I'd like to thank Prednisone and my immune system for continuing to complicate the previously uncomplicated, mundane processes of my daily life.]

In other news, as soon as my weight has plateaued, I'm getting a new tattoo with my birthday money. I already have one tattoo. On my right wrist DON'T PANIC is printed in large, friendly letters. There are two other patches of skin marked by that sentiment, in that font. One on a foot and one on a forearm of my two oldest dearest friends. Every time I see it I hear us echoing that sentiment to each other; the sentiment which stretches across a decade of alterations to our lives, the thing we've said to each other millions of times, no matter what words we were using, the sentiment Douglas Adams gave us as a guide and Arthur C. Clarke declared the best advice given: DON'T PANIC. I could not say all the Things it means...

My new tattoo is going to look something like this: This is AURYN. It's a symbol from The Neverending Story, which, is, in and of itself, pretty boss. I watched that movie probably once a day for ten years when I was a child. But, that's not why I chose it. It means Things to me. Today, while I was reflecting on the Things that it means, I realized that tattoos are like poems: if they can be explained or, if the explanation can really adequately describe the meaning--if they have to be validated by others, then they never meant any Thing to start with.

"A work of art is good if it has grown out of necessity." --Rainer Maria Rilke