Cliché of the Day

What’s on my mind? Words. I wrote about words a couple of days ago, but they’re still on my mind. In an astonishing coincidence, I’m using them now!

When I was a fetching lass in crinolines and lace, tending my goat herd while singing: “The hills are alive …!” (Oh, dear ... That was someone else), I referred to stuff that was cool as “Mint!” Fifty years later, “mint” is dead and “cool” (pronounced “Kew-wel!”) is hot.

Words change - often very fast. I once heard a senator say “move the goal posts” when those words were newly crafted. I thought she was a genius. She is, but not because of those three words, which (I’m always the last to know) were already a cliché. In the same breath, she said: “level playing field.” 

“Wo-o-w!” I thought. Once again, I’m always the last to know.

It turned out the entire English-speaking world was saying “level playing field” - including people on the prairies and the plains, where every field is flatter than my Uncle Stanley’s jokes. The expression is now out of vogue, but tuck it into the back of your linguistic closet because - like that tatty old fur coat you used to wear, it may come back. 

I’m immediately suspicious when someone says: “To be honest ...” Was s/he lying before? Or was s/he relying on a cliché? 

When we aren’t falling into clichés, we’re messing with their spelling: “Yet doe I feare thy Nature. It is too full o’ th’ Milke of humane kindnesse.” 

That’s Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, kvetching that the Laird’s a softie. Today, she’d say: “Get with the program!”  Ooops! That was in the ’70s and ’80s. 

It’s comforting to know “the milk of human kindness” remains in the language 412 years later. That’s one thing about Shakespeare ... His work was loaded with clichés. 

As one writer to another ... If your work comes trippingly to the brain, take a break. You may be writing in clichés. I offer that advice without self-aggrandizement, but through the milk of human kindness.

© Nicole Parton, 2019 

Knock-Knock! Booze There?

What’s on my mind? Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. 

I’ll call him Anonymous, though he’s a real guy and this hard-to-believe story is true in every detail. For one thing, he’s still traumatized by what happened when he worked for me. For another, if I told you his name, he’d probably sue me.

Anonymous is a carpenter - an honest Jacques-of-all trades who rescued me from the incompetents and crooks I’d originally hired to renovate the small, but beautiful, apartment I once called home.

I’ll begin at the beginning. The whole thing started because I thought Anonymous was dead. In fact, I was so sure he’d flat-lined that I called the police to arrange for the coroner to remove his body ... but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

My daughter owns a Big City loft apartment. I’m afraid of heights and don’t like the idea that she scaled a 10-foot ladder to climb into bed, because I think that’s scary and I felt sure she’d break her neck.

My daughter and Anonymous are old friends, so she lent him her apartment while he renovated mine and she visited friends in New York. Anonymous is steady and reliable, but he enjoys the occasional tipple. A triple tipple, perhaps. During the time that steady, reliable Anonymous worked for me and stayed at her place, he suddenly went AWOL. 

One day passed ... then two. I called Anonymous at my daughter’s place. No answer. I called his cell phone. No answer there, either. His message box was full. Anonymous had vanished.

I began to think dark thoughts. In my mind’s eye, I saw a boozy, woozy Anonymous miss a rung of the ladder up to my daughter’s loft-bed, only to crash to his death. If not that, then perhaps Anonymous rolled over in his sleep and - WHAMMO! Either way, I figured he was a goner. 

But what if Anonymous weren’t dead? What if the fall had broken his neck, or left him paralyzed on the floor, unable to call for help? I banged on the door of my daughter’s apartment. Silence!

It’s amazing how fast the police will swarm a place when a woman reports a dead guy (“I’m pretty sure he's dead, but you’re more experienced than I am at that sort of thing”) in her daughter’s apartment (“You’ve got it all wrong ... It’s my daughter’s apartment ... I didn’t kill him ...”).  

I wondered if the officers might know of any good carpenters, but didn’t think it was a good time, given that the officers were pondering a homicide, suicide, or (Whoopsie!) death by ladder.

The officers ham-fisted my daughter’s door, yelling for Anonymous to “Open up!” He didn’t. The apartment was quiet as ... well, quiet as a tomb. 

Anonymous was the only person who had my daughter’s spare key, so the police started talking about a battering ram. I thought I’d better give my daughter a heads-up in New York to let her know she’d soon be the lucky recipient of free air-conditioning.

“Call a locksmith!” she screamed. I didn’t know a telephone could sound that loud over long distance.

The police agreed to hold off until the locksmith arrived. He showed up at the building’s front entrance at the very moment that Anonymous - in the flesh - sauntered through the building’s back entrance. 

With so much happening at once and everyone appearing at once and with my being half-crazy with worry, I pointed to Anonymous and screamed: “That’s him! That’s the man!”

Acting on instinct, two police officers sailed through the air like balletic footballers, landing squarely on Anonymous, who - with a muffled scream - went down like a sack of potatoes. 

It took a few minutes to straighten things out. The police went on their way once Anonymous explained he’d indeed had a drink, and another, and another. He’d slept it off and lost track of the time, until a couple of days - okay, call it four - slid past. 

I red-facedly paid the locksmith $110 for services no longer required. 

Anonymous wasn’t keen to work for me after that, and I had to hire someone else. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him since.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Metaphysicality (or Something Like That)

What’s on my mind? Words. 

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, 1872.

Words are the building blocks of language. Most of us use many. Some, we speak. Some, we write - whether in anger or meant as a joke or muttered while we’re asleep. We throw words around like medicine balls, hoping they’ll “teach someone a thing or two” or we’ll learn something when the balls bounce back.

As a writer, I look up many words a week - quite often, words I already know. Why do that? For the same reason every writer or wannabe writer does - to check the word’s alternate spellings, its translation to or from another language, and its shaded meanings. 

To “run” suggests speed, but not distance; to “sprint” suggests a burst of speed, with a distance implied as short. From running and sprinting, the jump to synonyms (related words with the same or shaded meanings) is quick and fun, just as meandering into the thicket of antonyms (words that mean the opposite of “run”) can also be fun.

I bury my nose in a dictionary several times a day, and thank Mr., Ms., and Dr. Dictionary Writers for the work they do.

One of the countless words I don’t know well enough is “metaphysical.” I think it means “abstract,” but then I’d need to look up “abstract” for its precise definition. No point guessing ... I turned to an online dictionary to check. 

“Metaphysical”: 

met·a·phys·i·cal

/ˌmedəˈfizək(ə)l/

Learn to pronounce

(A good start ... )

adjective

1. 1. 

   
   

   relating to metaphysics.

   
   

   “the essentially metaphysical question of the nature of the mind”

   • 
     

     
     

     
     
   • 
     

     
     

     
     
2. 2. 

   of or characteristic of the metaphysical poets.

noun

1. 1. 

   Metaphysical; plural noun: Metaphysicals; plural noun: the Metaphysicals

   
   

   ERK!
   

   
   Now that everyone knows how to define this word, let’s move on to synonyms and antonyms, shall we?
   Let’s also find whichever Mr., Ms., or Dr. Lunkhead penned this so-called “definition” and toss the word right back, like a medicine ball.

   
   PS: “Metaphysicality” (the word in my headline) is a made-up word.
   
   © Nicole Parton, 2019

Tell It to the Giraffe

Yesterday started well enough, but by the time it ended, I felt like the town fool. I was the town fool. Before I tell you what happened, I’ll preface this story by saying that I had surgery for a brain tumor, a few years ago.

In case you were wondering, I survived. But I now take the Arnold Schwarzenegger of brain medications to keep myself ticking.

The afternoon found me stuffing mushrooms (Tra-lee, Tra-la!) for a party to which we’d been invited. Happily in mushroom-mode, I realized my recipe needed walnuts, and took some from the Highly Organized Chockful o’ Nuts box I keep in the freezer.

What did I also find in the box? Two large chocolate macaroons, sitting by their lonesome, next to the chockful o’ nuts.

“Gee,” I said to myself, “When did I make these? 1952? 1983? Last month?” I’d forgotten I had.

Carrying them into the kitchen, I took a bite. It was spectacular! So I took more bites until I’d eaten the whole thing. “I must find that recipe,” I thought. I eyed the second macaroon. “Mmmm …”

But then, being the generous type, I decided to share this unexpected largesse with Himself, all the while secretly hoping he’d pass, so I could eat the second macaroon, too.

“Look what I found in the freezer!” I said, holding out the macaroon.

He looked at it and screamed: “Where’s the other one?”

(“Ahhhhh, this must be his secret stash!” I thought.)

“I ate it,” I beamed.

“No-o-o-o!” he screamed again. “They’re $6 each!”

(So I *hadn’t* made them?) “That’s a lot to pay for macaroons,” I thought.

“They’re CANNABIS!”

“Wha-a-a?” I’ve never used cannabis or any other drug in my life. Except for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daily medication.

“You ate the whole thing?” he screamed again.

“Yeth,” I said.

“You’re going to get high!”

I blinked. “As in … drugs??? I am! I can feel it! My head’s starting to hurt!”

“Not yet! It’s going to take awhile!”

“Oh,” I said, instantly feeling better.

Himself explained these macaroons were medicinal, but nonetheless contained THC or BBC or whatever it is that gives them their impotence. He said he uses the stuff to offset the headaches he still gets following an accident in which some idiot threw him 5 ft. (metric-schemtric!) off his bike three years ago.

(The driver claimed she couldn’t see him. No wonder … He was wearing a fluorescent vest, a helmet, had front and rear blinking lights on his bike, was in a marked crosswalk and had made eye contact with her. Perhaps she’d overdosed on macaroons.)

I returned to my mushroom-stuffing, fortunately finishing the job before … WHAMMO!

I was instantly 3/4s (or maybe 5/6ths) out of my mind. I can’t bear to think what would have happened if I’d eaten both macaroons. I’d probably have run downtown naked.

This would have fazed no one (except, maybe, our neighbor Mr. Harris, who tends to be the excitable kind. That’s what Mrs. H says, anyway. Mr. Harris is easily excited).

Half our neighbors are growing cannabis in their front yards, bold as brass. Mrs. H even braids it in her hair. She looks like Zeus. Mr. Harris brews cannabis tea. No one wants to drink it because they’re afraid of becoming addicts. Even Mr. Harris won’t drink it. He just wants the neighbors to think he’s “cool.”

For awhile, I couldn’t even talk after eating that macaroon. All I could do was make clicking sounds as I smacked into walls and fell down. I remember thinking to myself: “You shouldn’t sign any contracts right now …”

Said Himself: “It’s impossible to hallucinate on what you’ve just had.”

I told him to tell it to the giraffe. I’d morphed into one and was nibbling leaves at the top of a very tall tree.

I saw and heard things I tried to remember but immediately forgot. I fell asleep for what seemed hours, only to see the clock had advanced just two minutes.

I didn’t make it to the party. Himself did, as I - using some weird new Morse code I’d invented - clicked him to do exactly that.

It took three hours for my head to clear. Even then, when it was time for my evening dose of brain medication, I regressed - looking, behaving, and feeling like a total idiot. I was pretty much okay until I took this morning’s medication, when my mind slowed and my memory slipped.

Clever detective that I am, I realized that anyone on meds as strong as mine should never, ever eat chocolate macaroons.

Even now … I was trying to remember something a minute ago but have already forgotten what I tried to remember.

Worst of all, I was having a Crisis Hair Day. I lassoed an invisible stranger to put an invisible bowl over my head and snip-snip-snip. I now look like Little Lulu, buzzed on macaroons.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

Monster

What’s on my mind?
Monster.
When Himself and I recently stumbled across a grave on a windswept mountain, we also stumbled across a mystery. 
Monster. 
Like the loud, slow tick of a clock, I heard it in my head.
Monster. 
I wanted to know! I wanted to know! I wanted to know who or what this was! Mother-in-law? Pit bull? Hit man? Missing person? And then I looked closer, and stopped making jokes.
The words “R.I.P. MONSTER” were painted in blue on a heavy rock at the top of the grave.
I felt certain this was no pet’s grave. This was someone or something whose remains couldn’t be buried in a cemetery - someone deeply loved, despite being a ...
Monster.
It’s none of my business, but does it not seem unusual to find such a grave atop a mountain?  You’d probably need to know it was there, to find it. Respect for the someone or something buried there prevents my naming its location.
Monster.
The small grave is newly cemented over. Cemented over! Heavy rocks ring it - not rocks from the area, but landscaper’s rocks carried to the site, as likely was Monster himself. The rocks are also cemented in. No one does that for a pet’s grave. Whatever or whoever this was (is!), I suspect the grave diggers didn’t want it to leave, to be found, or to be dug up.
Monster.
Artificial flowers cover a portion of the grave. A heart made of cat’s-eye marbles set in concrete mark it, but the writing and symbols on the grave appear to have been done by one or more adults or teens. 
It’s unlikely an older person did this. An older person couldn’t have carried those heavy rocks up the slope. An older person wouldn’t have placed a plastic-wrapped sealed envelope (presumably containing a note) on the grave. 
The envelope reads: “To Monster.” It’s from “Facebook Freinds of Monster.” An older person might not have misspelled the word as “Freinds.” I’d never open that note. I hope no one does. If Monster’s hangin’ ’round, perhaps he’s already read it.
Monster.
Drawn on the envelope is a broken heart with a tear drop - the same image gold-painted on the cement, with the addition of  “4 EVER”.  
A part of me says: “Report this!” Another part says: “Leave it alone!” And a small, niggling part is afraid of what lies beneath.
Monster.

© Nicole Parton, 2019

PS: Although my new book, The Butterfly Box, is finished, plenty of  “technical things” remain for its submission, so I’m not writing regularly yet.