new year

The year is ending; another one is starting and I feel like I ought to write something inspirational. Well, I'm out of inspiration. I checked my pockets and found a camera, a knotted Rosary, a knife, and a crumpled JoAnn's receipt with a few words scrawled in black pen, but no inspiration. Pity. I glanced at the clock a little bit ago and the hour/minute corresponded with the month/date of my birthday, but that's the best I can do. It made me smile.

For a while I've thought the idea of resolutions at the beginning of the year to be rather stupid. "Lent will be here soon enough," Fr. Tom says. And he's right.

Dr. Jackson mentioned to our class that his resolution one year was to start using flapjacks in place of pancakes. I think he's on to something. Here's what I've got:

1. Start using "eh?" the way yoopers and Canadians do. After seeing Tangie's reaction when she told us about the Canadian toll booth guy saying "eh?" I figured--dangit, I'm from Michigan, I can say "eh?" too. And considering how many pieces of my heart I've left up north, I'm going to have to work "eh?" well into my speech if I'm ever going to get them back.

2. Start saying "geez louise!" like Emily does, mostly because Emily's pretty cool. I type "geez louise!" in emails and IM, but I want to say it.

3. Start saying "dealies" for "things" like Grandpa and Dad do. "I've got five of these little dealies here."

4. Stop saying "like" as often. This will be harder because there are so many different uses for the word and for some of them, there just aren't good substitutes. For example:
a) "I opened the door and she's like--what?" This means "her general reaction was 'what?' though she may not have actually said that directly. In fact she may not have said anything at all. Maybe it was just her facial expression that said 'what?' Or maybe she said something that I can't repeat because it's inappropriate or because I don't remember it, but I know what her general reaction was."
*a) substitute: "she's," the way Grandpa says. "I opened the door and she's--what?"
b) "They had a crazy huge pile of snow. It was, like, five feet tall." This means "about, approximately." It may not have been exactly five feet tall, but it was about five feet tall. (Like me.)
*b) substitute: about. "It was about five feet tall." close to. "It was close to five feet tall."
c) "It was about five feet tall, like me." Here, "like" is just a shorter way of saying "similar to." This is fine, it doesn't bother me any, except that I should say "I" instead of "me." But that's unnecessarily awkward.
d) "We watched a bunch of different movies, like Escanaba In Da Moonlight and Wild Women of Wango." This just means "for example."
*d) substitute: just leave it out. "We watched a bunch of different movies. Escanaba In Da Moonlight, Wild Women of Wango."
e) "A deck of cards, like, to play euchre with?" This means "as in" or "you mean" and to used for clarification.
*e) substitute: as in, you mean, or just leave it out. "A deck of cards? To play euchre with?" (This one will be difficult.)

Here's the thing though. Pretty much every time I consciously try to alter the way I talk, it doesn't work. I've eradicated the obnoxious "like" a couple times and it keeps coming back. I pick up on how other people talk without knowing it. (Maybe that's why I got the accent I apparently have.) It'll be a fun experiment, though, I guess. We'll see what happens.

Happy solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (theotokos)!

And while we're speaking Greek--piana tapana stokavadi!