Aug
25th
Sat
25th
Words
insouciant, paroxysm, fetor, propinquity, eponym, denude, piquant, cadre, freegan
The only remotely comparable experience in Walter’s life had been the first time he’d masturbated, in Room 6 of the Whispering Pines, following the friendly instructions (“Use Vaseline”) provided by his cousin Leif. He’d been fourteen, and the pleasure had so dwarfed all previous known pleasures, and the outcome had been so cataclysmic and astonishing, that he’d felt like a sci-fi hero wrenched four-dimensionally from an aged planet to a fresh one. And Patty’s manuscript was similarly compelling and transformative. His reading of it seemed, like that first masturbation, to last a single instant. He stood up once, early on, to lock his office door, and then he was reading the last page, and it was exactly 10:12 a.m., and the sun beating on his office windows was a different sun from the one he’d always known. It was a yellowy, mean star in some strange, forsaken corner of the galaxy, and his own head was no less altered by the interstellar distance he’d traversed.
— Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
The Nice Man’s Anger
Although Lalitha was a fast and somewhat reckless driver, Walter had come to prefer the anxiety of being her passenger to the judgmental anger that consumed him when he was at the wheel—the seemingly inescapable sense that, of all the drivers on the road, only he was traveling at exactly the right speed, only he was striking an appropriate balance between too punctiliously obeying traffic rules and too dangerously flouting them. In the last two years, he’d spent a lot of angry hours on the roads of West Virginia, tailgating the idiotic slowpokes and then slowing down himself to punish the rude tailgaters, ruthlessly defending the inner lane of interstates from assholes trying to pass him on the right, passing on the right himself when some fool or cellphone yakker or sanctimonious speed-limit enforcer clogged the inner lane, obsessively profiling and psychoanalyzing the drivers who refused to use their turn signals (almost always youngish men for whom the use of blinkers was apparently an affront to their masculinity, the compromised state of which was already manifest in the compensatory gigantism of their pickups and SUVs), experiencing murderous hatred of the lane-violating coal-truck drivers who caused fatal accidents literally once a week in West Virginia, impotently blaming the corrupt state legislators who refused to lower the coal-truck weight limit below 110,000 pounds despite bounteous evidence of the havoc they wreaked, muttering “Unbelievable! Unbelievable!” when a driver ahead of him braked for a green light and then accelerated through yellow and left him stranded at red, boiling while he waited afullminuteat intersections with no cross traffic visiblefor miles, and painfully swallowing, for Lalitha’s sake, the invective he yearned to vent when stymied by a driver refusing to make a legal right turn on red: “Hello? Get a clue? The world consists of more than just you! Other people have reality! Learn to drive! Hello?” Better the adrenaline rush of Lalitha’s flooring the gas to pass uphill-struggling trucks than the stress on his cerebral arteries of taking the wheel himself and remaining stuck behind those trucks. This way, he could look out at the gray matchstick Appalachian woods and the mining-ravaged ridges and direct his anger at problems more worthy of it.
Jun
9th
Sat
9th
From under What is Covering
Stick me in the bed of roses
and dig, dig me
up later
when the wind at your ears
cools to the rhythm
of the painstaking chain-gang
inside.
Need
Just time,
and it alone.
Mar
2nd
Fri
2nd
Binge
Had a 16-hour studying binge yesterday from 10AM to 4AM (sans 2-3:30 for class). I’m a little more than tired.
Feb
29th
Wed
29th
More DFW Reading
Voire dire
- A preliminary examination of a witness or a juror by a judge or counsel.
- An oath taken by such a witness.
Fictile
- Made of earth or clay by a potter.
- Of or relating to pottery or its manufacture
Hale
(of a person) Strong and healthy
Surfeit
An excessive amount of something
Finial
- A distinctive ornament at the apex of a roof, pinnacle, canopy, or similar structure.
- An ornament at the top, end, or corner of an object such as a post, piece of furniture, etc
Putative
Generally considered or reputed to be: “the putative father of a boy of two”
Sallow
(of a person’s complexion) Of an unhealthy yellowish color
Valise
A small traveling bag or suitcase.
Ramify
- Form branches or offshoots; spread or branch out.
- Cause to branch or spread out: “a ramified genealogical network”
Primipara
A woman who is giving birth for the first time
Accrete
- Grow by accumulation or coalescence: “ice that had accreted grotesquely into stalactites”.
- Form (a composite whole or a collection of things) by gradual accumulation: “the collection of art he had accreted was to be sold”
Perpend
- A vertical layer of mortar between two bricks.
- To consider carefully; ponder
Bailiwick
- The district or jurisdiction of a bailie or bailiff.
- One’s sphere of operations or particular area of interest
Prurient
Having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters
Detumesce
To leave the erect, sexually aroused state; to lose one’s sexual arousal
Mortise
A hole or recess cut into a part, designed to receive a corresponding projection on another part
Feb
28th
Tue
28th
Some Light DFW Reading
Triptych n.
- A picture or relief carving on three panels, typically hinged together vertically and used as an altarpiece.
- A set of three associated artistic, literary, or musical works intended to be appreciated together.
Pablumize v.
To dumb down.
Unalloyed adj.
- (of metal) Not alloyed; pure: “unalloyed copper”.
- (chiefly of emotions) Complete and unreserved
Anaclitic adj.
Relating to or characterized by a strong emotional dependence on another or others.
Gestalt n.
An organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.
Obverse n.
The side of a coin or medal bearing the head or principal design
Detente n.
The easing of tensions or strained relations (especially between nations).
Syncretic adj.
Relating to a historical tendency for a language to reduce its use of inflections; “modern English is a syncretic language”.
Spirant n./adj.
(of a consonant) Uttered with a continuous expulsion of breath.
Cognoscente n.
A connoisseur; a discerning expert.
Uxorious adj.
Having or showing an excessive or submissive fondness for one’s wife.
Mordant adj.
(esp. of humor) Having or showing a sharp or critical quality; biting.
Weltschmerz n.
A feeling of melancholy and world-weariness
Solmization n.
The act, practice, or system of using syllables to denote the tones of a musical scale.
Involution n.
2. A function, transformation, or operator that is equal to its inverse, i.e., which gives the identity when applied to itself.
Decoct v.
To extract the essence of by boiling.
Feb
21st
Tue
21st
Bolus n.
- A small rounded mass of a substance, esp. of chewed food at the moment of swallowing.
- A type of large pill used in veterinary medicine.
