'Frisson'

Dragon Mood? -- thrilled and trembly

Words. I've had a lifelong love affair with them. I'll never give them up, never get over them. What can I say?

Here's one that I enjoy rolling around in my mouth before I release it to the world:

frisson: A moment of intense excitement; a shudder; a thrill.

As in,"The story's ending arouses a frisson of terror."

I don't know why I like this word so much but there's definitely an arousal factor there. Oh yeah! As the old saying goes, "There may be snow on the roof, but there's still a fire in the hearth." No truer words were ever spoken.

Frisson. YOU try using it just once and see what happens to you!

Psychopomp

Dragon Mood? -- elated

Scanning an old, familiar website, I found a new one, Wordsmith, which I think I will be revisiting frequently!

The word, psychopomp, caught my eye:

PRONUNCIATION:
(SY-ko-pomp)

MEANING:
noun: A guide of souls, one who escorts soul of a newly-deceased to the afterlife.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek psychopompos (conductor of souls), from psycho-, from psyche (breath, spirit, soul) + pompos (conductor, guide).

USAGE:

"Harold Bloom here presents himself as a mystagogue and a soothsayer, a psychopomp of our times, conducting souls into unknown territories."
~ Marina Warner; Where Angels Tread; The Washington Post; Sep 15, 1996

I AM excited!

Jejune in August, not June

Dragon Mood? -- curious

Do you know the meaning of the word, jejune?

I heard it Friday evening in Woody Allen's 1975 movie, Love and Death. He and Diane Keaton 'riffed' on the word. I looked at S, she looked at me. Do you know what that means? No, do you?

Jejune means "empty of food, hungry, meager." Here's Merriam-Webster's definition.

New & scary word

Dragon Mood? -- curious

The last time I met with my doctor, Dr. Wendy, we talked about environmental factors in peoples' various illnesses. She mentioned a word that was unfamiliar to me: phthalates. I asked her to spell it, which she did, but I still don't know what she was talking about.

This morning phthalates was in the headlines: "Are phthalates in toys truly dangerous?"" But before reading the article, I decided I need to know how to pronounce this darn word. "Thal-ates" with the 'ph' silent. Actually, "THAL-ates," with the emphasis on the first syllable.

I Googled it and here's an excerpt from one source:

The chemicals are used to make plastics soft -- but what are they? ... There are dozens of types of phthalates, which are oily, colorless liquids that "have been used for about 50 years to make hard plastics softer and more flexible in such products as vinyl flooring and seat coverings, raincoats, shower curtains, garden hoses and even sex toys," as the L.A. Times put it, as well as in hospital equipment, nail polish and "new car smell."

Here's more from a non-U.S. source:

What are they used for?

Phthalates are primarily used as ‘plasticisers’ to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC or ‘vinyl’) plastic flexible. Ninety percent of global phthalates use is for this. Phthalates are a principle component in flexible PVC products such as toys, clothing, flooring, wallpaper and medical products.

They are used in cosmetics to add flexibility, to give an oily ‘moisturising’ film and help dissolve and fix other ingredients. They are also used as solvents in fragrances and to ‘denature’ the alcohol content of cosmetics (make it unpalatable so people won’t drink it). Alternatives to this potentially harmful phthalate addition, such as lavender oil, exist.

What is the problem with them?

Phthalates are the most abundant industrial pollutants in the environment, and are widely present in air, water, soils and sediments. Some have been measured in virtually all fresh water and marine environments including Antarctic pack ice and deep-sea jellyfish. Phthalates are released into the atmosphere during manufacture, can leach from products that contain them, can contaminate food and can be ingested, breathed or absorbed into the body.

Now that I've learned a little bit about this chemical, I'm going to pay more attention.

Maybe we should all pay more attention, huh?

wailing "... Ju-u-ulia JUNE ..."

Dragon Mood? -- feeling like I could use a little bluegrass energy, a la Alison Krauss

Hokey SMOKES, Bullwinkle, it's June the first and I've decided to write in my blog. It's been a curious couple of months: work consuming all my Monday-to-Friday energy with the weekends busting in for serious rest and relaxation.

As for the resumption of blogging, it's all Caroline's fault. She's writing in her blog ... AGAIN. While talking on the phone (as I was driving back to the house-of-the-pine-trees), she revealed (somewhat fearfully? trepidatiously? sheepishly?) that she had begun blogging again. I was surprised at her demeanor. Blogging, like bathroom time, is your OWN business.

But, I was glad to hear that she's writing again. She is, as the proud and TOTALLY OBJECTIVE mother that I am, a writer deserving of superlatives. Wonderful! Awesome! Articulate! Engaging! Conversational! Informative! Passionate! I love reading what she writes!

That's all I gots to say.

Oh, except that this post's title is a reference to some lyrics on the outstanding CD, Alison Krauss + Union Station LIVE

Happy Wendishday!

Dragon Mood? -- positively moody

And on a slightly more positive note, I just wanted to say

H-A-P-P-Y

W-E-N-D-I-S-H-D-A-Y-!-!

...otherwise known as Wednesday.

My new word

Dragon Mood? -- etymologically creative

It's Monday night, S and I are both back here at the pied-a-terre ... and I'm just PER-PLUNKED! My new word. It's derivation makes no sense, but it rolls nicely around in the mouth and the tongue, so I'm stickin' with it. PER-PLUNKED!

What does it mean?

Hmm .... (thinkin')

Kind of Monday-night tired, a mite crabby with the heat and looking forward to swishing my feet around under cool, cotton sheets.

That's PER-PLUNKED!

At least for THIS day!