Tuesday, June 21, 2011

It didn't stay in Vegas...

Alright, readers, I want to start (yet again) with an apology.

I apologize. I realized the other day that it has been an unreasonable amount of time since I have regaled you with my rants and bitchy tirades. Honestly, I have way more than what should be a realistic amount to whine about, but I'm going to try and change my pace...at least for now, that is.

Life for the past couple of weeks has been something of a...(family, please excuse the foul language) clusterfuck. Beyond "work" at the magazine, I have kept fairly busy with friends and traveling and an overtly ridiculous amount of some kind of drama or another.

But you know what? Things aren't bad. I'm actually happy. I'm feeling fulfilled and loved and needed. I'm meeting people, I'm traveling to places I've never been and, thank God above, I'm not fretting over classes.

....Ah, screw it, I'm just not as good at being all touchy and sentimental as I am with being negative and bitchy. I may be happy, but there is plenty of things to complain about.

People. Are. Difficult. Readers, I don't know what to do about a lot of things. There are people who have been my friends for a very long time who just don't act like I mean anything to them anymore. I feel like I have done and said a lot for these people. I feel like I have been as good a friend as I can possibly be.

Why aren't I being commended for that?

You know, I have a problem with those who deem it necessary to make a potentially wonderful friendship into a one-way street. To hell with that. If I can't rely on you when my problems are so relentlessly stressful that I break out into hysterics in the middle of the night, then maybe you aren't worth my effort and time.

In a matter of three days, two of my best friends have called me crying. In a matter of three days, I have done what I can to calm them down and reassure them that despite the harrowing nature of their situations, they are both strong, capable, intelligent people with the ability to overcome the most difficult of obstacles. If I were able to, I would be a professional friend. By golly and sunny cheese wiz, I am AMAZING at being a friend.

I make it a personal priority to remain as accessible and loyal and viciously protective of my friends. Think of me as that ratty, scraggly junkyard mutt with the spiked collar and a set of teeth that would haunt an orthodontist for weeks. You mess with my pals, I will have your throat.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE.

I promise I will update soon.

The past couple of weeks have been hectic, to say the least.

Give me a couple of days to put on my big girl panties and deal with a few things.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

If you can...

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!