One fun thing about words is that they can have one meaning by themselves, then a different meaning when combined with another word.
Consider the words Wash and Bag. Together they are a wash bag. Simple enough. Separate and alone, they each have a multitude of meanings.
A fun and valuable exercise (for your brain), is to take a single word and see how many associated meanings you can think up containing the word.
If you started with Wash, you might get: Car wash, face wash, dish wash, washout, dog wash, acid wash, hogwash, white wash, and George Wash…ington.
There aren’t any limits to this. The point is to see how the meanings change as the one word is connected to others.
If you did Bag, you might get: Bag of holding, doggy bag/doggie bag, sandwich bag, trash bag, vacuum bag, bag o’ donuts, kick bag, punching bag, sleeping bag, tool bag, overnight bag, and bag of tricks.
The best example here is doggy bag versus doggie bag. The separate meaning of each would let you know if you should eat out of that particular bag, or not.
Here are a few words for you to try: Head—Glass—Tank—Act—Foot—Car—Net—Book.
Pick any one of these, or have fun trying all of them.
February is the time all those who fell in love start thinking about things more serious. Like what to do when that special someone finds out you don’t care for puppies. Oh sure, they’re cute—both the puppies and the special someone—but the puppies don’t excite you, the same way puppy poop doesn’t excite you. So maybe that girl or guy won’t like you so much after she or he finds out you can’t deal with the poop. That’s serious.
Love. It takes a whole lot of love to deal with some of the things other people like, especially if you don’t like those things.
Love keeps us together even when we find out we have differences. Said a different way: if the differences tear you apart, then you must not be in love. If you’re in love and that one you love confesses they don’t love puppies, you’ll give the puppy up for adoption.
The differences are what make us remember each other, too.
Without differences we’re all homogenized and that’s dull and immemorable—like watching soccer.
If you happen to be a male personage, you might do well to learn what the female half of the universe does and thinks and feels. Likewise, if you are a female, you would probably like to solve the mystery of the male personage.
When females have a bad day, they often like to get some shopping done. If you know her, she’ll tell you it’s “retail therapy” or “the giver’s high.” She’ll say she’s shopping for someone else, and nine times out of ten that will be true.
Somehow shopping cures what ails her. So, dudes, just let it happen.
Females also enjoy things that smell good. If you’re a female, raise your hand. Oh, WOW! Did you smell that? Even her hand smells good. She has a working nose, which is another way of saying she can smell things you dudes can’t. So, yes, when you buy her a flower, it really is a thoughtful gift. She will enjoy the flower’s scent as well as the color.
Photo by Olia Gozha
Women see colors a little differently than men see the same colors. This doesn’t mean either one of them is wrong when they say the color is more green, or more blue, or whatever. It only means they each see it from their own perspective. You men should take into account, though, that when she says she thinks a certain color is beautiful, and you don’t particularly like that color, it’s because she is seeing it as a slightly different variation than the one you’re seeing. Believe her that it’s beautiful. Simply believe.
Notice, too, if she wears a particular color a lot of the time, it probably means she really likes that color.
This doesn’t mean you should wear the same color if you want to be the special man in her life. In fact, don’t go letting her pick your fashion. She’ll never respect you. How could anyone respect a clothing store man-ee-kin? Don’t be a man-ee-kin, be a man. Let her wear her own colors, and you wear yours.
The same advice applies to the women: Don’t let him dictate what you wear. Not even if you have a difficult time making decisions. He won’t give you any good fashion advice. Trust that his fashion sense is as good as his sense of smell. When the day comes that he can smell rotten leftovers without opening the fridge, that might be the same day you can trust his sense of fashion, girlfriend.
Then again, it might not. One sense doesn’t heighten another.
When you’re thinking of getting him a simple gift, don’t think flowers, think food. What kind of food would he buy himself? Get that.
But if you’re thinking of marrying this dude, don’t go cooking the food gift for him. No woman should set that kind of precedent. In fact, it might be extremely valuable information, for you women, to know if he can figure out how to cook anything. If he doesn’t have those sort of survival skills, is he worth much time?
While you’re judging him, you definitely should be that nosy girlfriend, and find out what kind of music he likes. Can he listen to the same kind of music you like? Or does he force you to listen to what he likes all the time? It’s okay if he can’t dance. It’s even okay if he doesn’t enjoy danceable music. But if he doesn’t ever listen to it when you want to hear it, you might have a problem child rather than a man. There is one exception to this, ladies. If you already heard the same song three times and try to give it another listen, he isn’t the problem child, you are. Three repeats is the limit. After that it’s no longer music, it’s a torture device.
Men enjoy sports too, so don’t be afraid to watch him playing whatever sport he plays. If he’s the one watching sports, well, you might want to go back to that question of whether he can survive on his own cooking. He doesn’t play his own sports—can he do his own cooking?
Men aren’t the only ones who enjoy playing sports. Women should be bold enough to invite the men to play—and bold enough to win! Dont hold back!
Recently, I was told, by someone who was objectively observing me, that I’m “one of those people” who must have evidence. I accept. I agree. Show me the evidence.
Evidence comes in two main forms. There’s empirical evidence, and there’s empyreal evidence.
Empirical evidence is temporal, tangible, often visible. Chromosomes, for instance, are evidence which will tell you what gender you are. XX: you’re a gal. XY: you’re a guy. There are other evidences for gender, such as hormones and the effects of those hormones, menstrual cycles, and the ability or inability to squash a spider with your finger. Yes, there are technical and less-than technical levels of evidence, aren’t there? Empirical, all of them.
If you tend to enjoy the more violent sports, such as hockey or jai alai, then you’re probably a guy. If you want to personally join in those sports, rather than watching, you’re a guy. If you don’t even care to watch, you’re a girl. Stereotypes, of course, are evidence of a bias.
As mentioned before, if you can see a spider and not squeal, you’re more likely a male person. If you see a snake and don’t squeal, but suddenly look around for a stick to poke at the snake, you’re a guy. Careless and inconsiderate and not too bright are only a few of the attributes of males. When something is poisonous, the male person doesn’t usually care until he’s been bitten.
Which brings me to the next question: Why in the world would a girl ever want to be a guy? That’s like a major step down. It would be like owning a Jeep Hurricane but wanting a Ford Pinto. A major step down.
Females are smarter, faster, more careful, more caring, and definitely better looking. Females are also quicker to see and feel and hear empyreal evidence.
Empyreal evidences are things like intuition, angelic visitations, messages from the Holy Spirit, and guilt.
Guilt is the one I want to focus on right now. Where does it come from, or in other words, where does guilt originate? Where do you feel guilt when you feel it? Is it in your chest? Is it in your head? Is it both? When you feel guilt, is that a tangible sensation? Does guilt cross the line from empyreal evidence to empirical evidence? If so, does that mean it’s both?
When people don’t seem to feel guilt, we call them psychopaths or sociopaths, so it’s obviously a good thing to be able to feel guilt. People who don’t are broken in some way.
There are those who deny their guilt. There are those who try to suppress it. That action usually comes back to make things worse. The guilt builds up and the person who tried to suppress it ends up cracking, losing their mind, bursting into uncontrollable whining sobs.
People, male or female, who don’t suppress their guilt but who admit fault, come clean, ask for forgiveness, these are the healthy ones. These are the people who can move on, past the guilt, past the mental issues that afflict others.
Everybody but those with broken mental capacities feels guilt. So, is it important how we deal with it? Is a healthy society dependent upon guilt, or more directly dependent upon how citizens deal with guilt?
Evidence for that question can be found in our prisons. Not necessarily by who ends up in prison, but by who repeatedly ends up in prison. How does the repeat offender deal with guilt? Do they deal with guilt in a healthy way, or in an ignorant way?
One sad statistic, but an opinion-supporting statistic, is that the majority of those in prison are male, and the majority of repeat-offenders are male. Guys are often careless and inconsiderate and not too bright. Is guilt a poison to some? Is guilt a poisonous snake? Well, that’s metaphorical, so there’s scant evidence…
Regardless of what analogies may apply to guilt and snakes, we can’t deny someone else’s feeling of guilt. So, if someone ever comes to you and says, “Sorry,” just give them the benefit of the doubt and expect your turn will be in the not so distant future, when you’ll be the one asking for forgiveness.
And right there’s one more aspect of guilt that needs more study: Is guilt something we need, but something we want to get rid of fast? If it’s so necessary for a healthy society, why is it something we have to cure with apologies and forgiveness? Hmm. Well, that is something we all do—try to solve the problems. When we encounter body dysphoria, we look for a way to fix it. When we encounter a poisonous animal, we call it a problem, and we look for a way to fix it.
Writing your name on a friend’s cast would be “cast spelling.”
Writing your name under a table would be covert vandalism.
Writing your name in the snow is whizzing.
Writing your name in a tree is woodcarving.
Writing your name in clouds is skywriting. Writing with paper and pen while on an airplane is not skywriting.
Writing someone else’s name on a bathroom stall is graffito. Writing a lot of names on a bathroom stall would be graffiti.
Smacking the keyboard with a stick would be: q3targh’ankmvz.
Writing the governor is petitioning.
Writing 256 characters is tweeting. . . or at least it used to be. Now it’s probably called Ecksing, or X-ing, Musk-ing, or whatever they’ve decided to call it now.
Writing alien characters is science fiction-ing.
Writing poetry could be rhyming, while writing poetry to a beat would be rapping. Rap stars love chromed cars, eat rich like Russian tsars, poets trip on a lip, their muse a whip to keep them hip, tuning in to get a grip, rocking like a hurricane, nothing is real if you drug up your brain, smack the keys with a stick, why would you want to be a—poet, if they never have a payday?
Writing a eulogy would make you a “survivor.” Therefore, writing a eulogy is surviving. If you feel like surviving, get writing those eulogies.
Writing while stargazing is Carl Sagan-ing.
Writing on a rocking boat is sea-sickening.
Writing a message and putting it in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean is littering—unless you’re in distress somehow, then it’s SOSing.
Writing while fishing is Jacques Cousteau-ing.
Writing from the belly of the whale would be Jonah-ing.
With stereo vision you can find a lot of things. Do you have anyone in your life who loses things? Or do you have anyone in your life who asks you endlessly where things are?
I love this game and hate it at the same time. Especially when it involves the refrigerator. It seems like such a finite space that the finding can’t possibly be so hard. Can it?
We just found some grapes in the drawer that apparently no one knew was there. Is it so difficult to open a drawer? And if opening the drawer is so difficult, the drawer is clear, why not just look in there?
I can understand how a package of tortillas can hide in the fridge because they’re flat. Other items might end up on top of the tortillas. It must be asked though: How in the world does the block of cheese hide in front of anybody’s face? Unless it’s a sliver of its former self, then it’s definitely a three dimensional mass and often a color which does not work well as camouflage. How does it hide?
Someone recently asked for the peanut butter. I said, “We don’t put that in the fridge.” They gave me the look that says, “Don’t you know peanut butter absolutely has to go in the fridge.”
I’ve got a look of my own that says, “Don’t you know peanut butter doesn’t have to go in the fridge, and even if it did, it wouldn’t last long enough around here to need the extra preservation of refrigeration?”
Photo by Calum Lewis
One of the personages living in my domicile has a bet going that he can eat somewhere near 700 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the next two years. He’s not the only one who eats the peanut butter either. I gotta have a peanut butter and banana sandwich every so often. It makes my complexion smooth.
No one ever asked me where the bananas are. We keep them on the kitchen counter. Of course, no one ever told me the bananas have to, have to, have to go in the fridge—like peanut butter. Yeah, right.
The other thing that apparently gets lost in the big, old fridgerator is asparagus. We end up finding it when it’s less like vegetable and more like liquid. This may not be by accident. There may be a certain someone who enjoys hiding the asparagus to ensure he doesn’t have to eat it.
Perhaps it’s ironic, but the one who is suspected of hiding the asparagus is the one who never asks where things are. He just digs in to everything. Everything with the exception of stringy, green vegetables.
Xenosthesia.com 