HABITUAL

I recommend The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg. The book examines the science of WHY we do WHAT we do. It is fascinating how companies use our habits to market items (see article).

The "experts" say that it takes 28 days to break--or adopt--a habit.

I tried diligently to break a habit, but after 28 days, I still WANT what I gave up.

I can't find any experts to tell me how to stop WANTING.

The song Breaking The Habit by Linkin Park has a marvelous line:

"I don't want to be the one
The battles always choose."



To read the article Habits: How They Form And How To Break Them CLICK HERE.

EPONYMOUS

Writing PROUSTIAN, I once again thought about eponyms.

Below is a Sue;s News article from 2016:

                                                           JORDANESQUE

I was listening to NPR and a sports commentator said that LeBron james' playing had been "JORDANESQUE".  I chuckled and wondered aloud to my brother, "Do you imagine that JORDANESQUE will ever make it to the dictionary like FELLINIESQUE did?"

He replied, "I never heard JABARRESQUE, BIRDESQUE, COUSEYESQUE, RUSSELLESQUE, O'NEALESQUE, ROBERTSONESQUE, or even CHAMBERLAINESQUE,."
as he rattled off the names of former greats.

 I continued, "What would one do about JOHNSON?  Call it  MAGICESQUE?"

He responded, "There would be the same problem with DR. JESQUE and KOBEESQUE!"

Later, recalling one of our all-time favorites he asked, "How about HAVLICHECIAN?  That has a certain flair!"  He continued, "I wonder who decides whether it's to be an ESQUE or an IAN?  How did Shaw become SHAVIAN, for crying out loud?"

I cried out, "I must stop because this is becoming KAFKAESQUE!"

PROUSTIAN

Today, I went to pick out jeans for a friend of mine. In the store, I was surrounded by jeans on three sides. There were shelves in front of me, much higher than I could reach, and behind me on shelves and displayed on tables beside me. I was in an abyss of denim.

Ah, THAT smell! The evocative aroma immediately transported me back in time to the remembrance of the first day of school each year. As a kid, I never wanted to wear new clothes on the first day of school because of THAT smell. When I would get on the school bus, THAT overwhelming new-clothes smell would engulf me because every boy on the bus would be wearing new jeans.

Today, I felt like Marcel Proust and "the episode of the madeleines". In his classic Remembrance Of Things Past, because of a madeleine, Proust was transported back into his memory and was inspired to create his masterpiece. He coined the term "involuntary memory" and the term has been used in psychology since.

Each month, on the last page of the magazine, Vanity Fair has "The Proust Questionnaire" and it's always fascinating to read the thoughts of interesting people.

Proust's own answers, are equally fascinating.

At the age of 20, Marcel Proust put his own psyche under the microscope by answering questions meant to reveal one’s innermost thoughts. More than a century later, and as demonstrated on Vanity Fair's back page each month, the “Proust Questionnaire” continues to be a popular method of interviewing.  Recent participants have included

Takashi Murakami, Henry Winkler, and Laverne Cox.  See Proust’s own responses from 1892.

CLICK HERE to see the Vanity Fair article.

CLICK HERE to see "the madeleines" recipe (little sponge cakes). 

YOU'RE SO VAIN

Don't you just love it when people ATTEMPT to correct you by pronouncing the word just AFTER you, and then pronouncing it the way they think is correct?

When this happens, I usually confront the pathetic ploy and ask, "Were you trying to correct my pronunciation just then?", but recently, when this occurred, I was in a sensitive situation; I refrained from pointing out the obvious passive aggression. If I were mispronouncing the word, then I would want to be treated the way my brothers do and not have someone resort to such an apparent artifice. The person should have just said, "Don't you know that's pronounced..." and then tell me the correct pronunciation. Then, I would have been able to confront it or graciously accept the constructive criticism.

Recently, the word was APRICOT. I pronounce it the way Carly Simon does in her song You're So Vain.

I said the word as "APP-ricot" and the other person immediately said "APE-ricot", not only once, but TWICE, for good measure. I did not confront the issue because of where I was at the time, and because I'm also fully aware that BOTH pronunciations are correct as we have had the discussion in my family previously; I was also aware that "APE-ricot" is listed first in the dictionary (which doesn't mean that it is preferred or more correct) and that my preferred pronunciation is known as the "American" pronunciation. The person's devious device is what bothered me.

As Les said, "You know, like April."

My brothers will probably disown me for allowing the person's maneuver to pass, but to quote the Bard: "The better part of valor is discretion."

Falstaff:
To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of
a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying,
when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true
and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valor is
discretion, in the which better part I have sav'd my life.

Henry The Fourth, Part 1 Act 5, scene 4, 115–121

Almost invariably quoted today as "Discretion is the better part of valor," Falstaff's phrase elegantly redeems a cowardly act. The bragging, bulbous knight has just risen from his feigned death; he had played the corpse in order to escape real death at the hands of a Scotsman hostile to Henry IV. Claiming that abstractions like "honor" and "valor" will get you nothing once you're dead, Falstaff excuses his counterfeiting as the kind of "discretion" that keeps a man from foolishly running into swords in order to cultivate a reputation for heroism. If counterfeiting keeps you alive, well then, it's not counterfeiting, but an authentic "image of life." Falstaff confuses "image" with "reality," but we forgive him; as far as he's concerned, "valor" is an image too, and you've got to stay alive in order to find more opportunities to cultivate that image.

ADDICTION REVISITED

 

I've had several comments about my article I UNDERSTAND ADDICTION which is about my addiction to Coca Cola.

My husband and brother reminded me of a couple of other incidents to illustrate my addiction.

When I was a young married, we had a book case bed. I also had a small dorm-size refrigerator in my bedroom closet to store my Coke. I had to be able to have a Coke at any time. This is when we still bought bottles and the refund was 2 cents per bottle. I was sitting in bed reading and I had a bottle of Coke setting on the top of the bed and when my husband plopped into bed, the bottle of Coke fell off, hitting me in the face; yeah, do you think anyone believed that story of my black eye?

When I was working at Shasta Beverages, obviously, I could not be dragging Coca Cola into the plant. All the "low-fills" (product rejected by QC for any number of reasons, but still consumable) were taken to the cafeteria refrigerator and we were allowed to drink all the "low-fills" we wanted. The company also allowed us to have one case per week, of our choice, to take home.

Every day, as soon as I left work, I stopped at the Marathon Station on the corner to buy a Coke. Imagine my embarrassment when one of my employees saw me getting the Coke. I will admit right now that I told him this story: I said that I had bugs on my windshield and I had heard that splashing Coca Cola on the windshield would get rid of them better than windshield washer fluid.  After that incident, I went further down the road for my "FIX"!

COPROLALIA

My brother Neil and Gerald both worked at International Harvester and both had riders. One evening Neil called to tell Gerald that he was changing shifts and he wanted to know if Gerald would give his rider a ride to work. Gerald said that he would, but he would have to ride in the front seat as his rider Doug always slept in the back seat.

Gerald picked up the guy at his house, and luckily, it was just one street over from us. Gerald usually left at 5:30 AM. As Gerald was going into South Charleston, the new rider threw his hands on the dash and began saying "NIK, NIK, NIK" in a very loud voice. Of course, it scared Gerald and it woke up Doug. Gerald had not said a word but Doug said, "What the Hell is that?" The guy handed cards to the guys and Gerald stopped the car to read the card and he learned that the man has Tourette's Syndrome.

When Gerald told us about the incident, Les said, "Well, at least he didn't call you a douche bag!"

After I educated myself about Tourette's, I learned that coprolalia (uttering inappropriate words and phrases) among Tourette sufferers is rare.

One day in Bob Evans Restaurant, we were in a booth and in one section away from our booth, we heard a man "ticing" in a loud voice. [Their utterances are known as tics.] The Manager was going around to tables and apologizing for the situation. When the Manager came to us, I said, "It's obvious the guy has Tourette's; he's not going to hurt anybody; he just has to get the tics out of his system."

They were moving people from the section and I told the Manager, "You can move us over there, because it won't bother us."

We moved to that section and the waitress said, "You're so kind." Gerald said, "No, she isn't; she's just weird!"