1000 Days

April 30, 2009April 30, 2009

I Know a New Word

I like words OK, but I really love vocabulary. Having a precise word for a grand feeling, a quaint situation, or a complex thing excites me. I don’t need to be able to use it in everyday conversation or even ever use it as long as I know I’ve safely pinned it to a corkboard and splayed it’s wings a bit.

My favorite (internal) exclamation is “They’ve got a word for that?!”

Yesterday I came across a word I’d been collecting in picture and anecdotal form for some time. Though capturing the vapor is nice, distilling the essence is much much better. There had to be an arrangement of letters into a word for what I collected, but where do you turn a definition into the term–the dictionary just doesn’t work that way. So the great thing about stumbling onto the textual form was my complete ignorance in getting there. Sure, you’re in a magic castle and you unlock a strange chest you’re going to be amazed but not truly surprised. But if you’re cleaning out the front coat closet looking for an old pair of gloves and you dump over a shoebox full of rookie baseball cards you’re going to be shit-your-pants overjoyed. I typed this word as part of a larger string of words into a search box looking for references to a bit of art I’d found. I got pages of hits with this one word highlighted–wait what?–I clicked the best of the bunch and serendipity escorted me right to the definition.

I’m certain I read none of the page, but still knew what it said.

March 20, 2009

Nearly a Freaking Month

I haven’t written in nearly a month. During that time I’ve only experienced a twinge of guilt here and there about my absence. More important to me is my utter lack of desire to write during this hiatus. I’m going to stretch my fingers with an exercise. If you’re not a fan of my minute drills then try this guy’s daily work: http://dailyfigure.blogspot.com/

Each one of the settled down into the circle. Seated and resting the bear, the mongoose, and the parrot began to talk about what had just happened in the other room.
Daylight struggled through the ragged morning clouds. It would be a better day, but for now it was cold, wet, and dreary.
Juana waited as the garage door opened. The cat darted out the left side and headed who knows where. When the door had opened all the way she pulled the empty mini-van into its spot and closed the door behind her.
Water ran from everywhere: down the swollen creek which had taken over the backyard, off the roof and over the gutters
Dova held the stretched bowstring lightly near his ear. He’d release in a moment but for now it held
Choppers, gunships really, rose over the hill like spiders crawling into view. The soldiers spun to face the enemy who’d come from the south
The indistinct but still staccato echo of rotor blades made it unclear where the helicopters approached from. And then he ended a sentence with a preposition
Smoke blasted into Darren’s face and stung his eyes. He tried to escape the fire’s breath
The figure lay down her pencil. Traced the lightly engraved line of her words in the soft paper with her delicate fingers. The darkness at her desk
Hondo sputtered the jeep to life after several turns of the key. Wrenching the old thing into second gear–because first was a mess–and easing it onto the roadway
Though alive with sound, parrots chortling, monkeys making monkey sounds, and insects doing whatever they do, the jungle seethed with
…mystery. The birds, the primates, and the insects couldn’t be located among the dense green foliage. Shiny dark leaves and opaque bright green
The couple shivered next to each other on the rooftop. Conny remarked to John that most of the other roof tops were square and not rectangular as she’d expected. They
Steam mixed with smoke grew from the stack like one of those black glow worms on the Fourth of July. Not quickly not slowly, but just regular
Also it was white not black. Huh? Oh nothing…I was just saying the smoke in the last bullet was white, but I wanted the ‘growing’ image more so I went with the worm thing. Which I know are black..
Relentless. The clock was relentless. Sure the minutes passed at the same rate as they did early, but they neared the end of there overall passing. The pace was relentless. Michael may never make it tot he finish line. Shoes torn
The bear rolled and wobbled to each feet. It had just woken from a bit of a nap in the sun or maybe it was still asleep and would wake in a moment to find itself
The slim yellow fish drifted in the pool as a group. Then darted as a group–jagging tot he left. They dove into the corner under the lily leaves
From a distance the wall looked like a unnaturally regular cliff side punctuated with a turret or large building here and there. Up close Rogers was al
…alarmed to discover the cliff side was a wall. Was a whole building. Was a made thing and not a act of God dripped with war. This wall would try to keep him and his men

Day 350

February 25, 2009February 25, 2009

My Words are Virga

I flit between various freebie writing apps to do my writing on this here blog. I suspect that it lends to my recent bout of half-assery, but may increase the likelihood I’ll write. Increase it because I have more toys to play with. The trouble is that there are part I like about each but none I like fully enough to employ indefinitely. Today I’ve lighted on Celtx.

An obscure search recently landed some floundering soul on the beaches of 1000 Days. He or she wanted to find a ‘sentence for the word depatic’. Google is aware of only three instances on the whole web that can potentially fulfill such a request. 1000 Days is at the top of the list. Too bad for the intrepid searcher that I made up a fantastical context–and no true meaning–for the real world word. It’s a dumb search. Are there many words you can search for on the web that are not in sentences?

There are two posts that use the word depatic. One is an edit of the other so no need to read both. Reading over the post reminded me when I found this daily writing effort more effortless. More free. Thanks for reminding me.

For the searcher wondering ‘what is rain called that never hits the’ [ground] I’d like to give another bit of thanks. It’s been a long time since I recalled learning and using that word.

Day 349