Wednesday, September 13, 2006

You Mad Dog, Shaven Head, Bottle-Boy Freaks!

The theme of the day is things you'll never be able to use in normal conversation. Such as the title phrase. It's a beautiful and heartfelt rant. But I don't really know anybody that fits the description. Alas, I'll probably never get to use it... much like Jerry Stiller's Festivus greeting in Seinfeld, "I've got a lot of problems with you people."

How about thouse big, ostentatious words (like ostentatious) that rattle around in your head while you're internally dialoging with yourself? You use them quite confidently with yourself, as if you were assured of their meaning and no other word in the human language could express your thought as well. My word is cognizant. I use it all the time to myself, as if I'm cognizant of the fact that my subconscious is screaming at me to use it in public. People would certainly be impressed by my using such a word. But the opportunity never quite seems to arise. By the way, who knew there was a "z" in cognizant?

Then there are some situations that call for a double negative, a subject/verb disagreement, mixed tense, or some other non-linear gramatical expression. Today's is, "used to was," because that is the truth. I woke up this morning and was cognizant of the fact that it is colder than it used to was. It is not just colder than it is, it is colder than it was. "Be" sort of carries the idea of something that is now. Obviously, the phrase "used to" makes up for it. But saying it my way emphasizes the fact that non-cold weather exists only in the past and was extremely transient in nature. It didn't just "used to be," it "used to was." See the difference? I give you permission to use logically incoherent phraseology at least once today.

One off topic thing to touch on before I go. If you have any dreams involving me sitting on the roof enjoying the view while on acid and hiding from society, please do let me know. I don't know how, but I fear such visions may really concern me and my wellbeing. Friends let friends know about that kind of stuff.


No sleep no sleep no sleep no sleep
And no mad video machine to eat time
A city scene I can't explain
The Seine alone at 4am, the Seine alone at 4am
Neal and Jack and me
Absent lovers, absent lovers...
- King Crimson



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I guess "used to was," like a double negative, is a double past tense. If it used to be in the past, then it no longer was, but is. You know what I mean.