Hi, I'm Nan! Just a twenty something teacher with a passion for writing. The contents of this blog are mostly pieces about myself and how I view the w...
It's a habit of mine to look up words I don't know, and I came across several unknowns today in an art gallery. I'm noting them here so that I remember what they are. aquamanile: (noun) a vessel usually shaped like an animal or a human, which held and dispensed water for hand washing (mostly for ritual purposes). I was able to parse this as the name comes from Latin (aqua: water, manus: hand), but…
There's something about mystery novels. I grew up reading them constantly. Hell, I could argue that the only books I was reading for a very long period of time were mystery novels. The Boxcar Children, Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie: these were my reading diet for a good chunk of my childhood. As I grew older, my tastes expanded to include other…
Both my brother and I have fallen into the habit of writing down what we remember of our dreams when we wake up and while not every dream is remembered and not every dream is pleasant and worth remembering, there are more than enough that are absurdly comical constructions. He is more of a natural comedian than I am, so it is a pity I do not have any of his descriptions at hand, but here are a few…
1] candid : an adjective meaning 'truthful, honest, open, sincere, impartial' candid comes from the Latin adjective candidus. While candidus can be translated as 'shining white, clear, bright,' or 'beautiful,' it is a combination of the verb candeo, which means 'shine, glitter, glisten,' or 'glow,' and the suffix -idus, which means 'tending to.' So, originally candidus meant something more like…
'My grandmother is dead.' There was no expression in her face, no emotion. He glanced up and gazed at her for a moment before asking, 'Who told you?' 'My mother. Very formally too. No feelings, just cold hard facts.' 'Are you sad?' She looked up then, and when her eyes met his, a brief smile crossed her lips. 'No, not really. I don't know.' She leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling.…
There's a monstrous bruise on the outside of my left thigh. To be fair, it is healing and it has been healing, but god, it's not pretty and I admit I'm a little self conscious about baring it to the world in all its greenish purplish glory. But it's summer and shorts must be worn or else I will die of heat stroke. I wish I remember what I did to get it though, because I honestly cannot recall what…
The book. Ah, the Book. It's actually getting written, and I shouldn't be surprised by that, but I am. It always seemed like something I was simply striving toward, working through, playing with, playing in. It wasn't a thing, fully defined, unshakeable. No, I molded, twisted, excised constantly. I was never satisfied. I'm not sure I am even now. But I was never comfortable with that. The Book…
So I recently came across an infographic which inspired me to look up people's opinions on what the most gruesome death in the Iliad was. And to my utter shock and surprise, my top answer to this question was not everyone's top answer to this question. I believe I saw it mentioned and I could see where a couple of the others were coming from, but overall my reaction was 'HUH?! What do you mean…
Shame, as defined by Merriam-Webster: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety. Shame is a funny thing to me, mostly because I don’t think I experience it all that much. The lack of it is so great that I cannot, honestly cannot, remember the last time I felt it. And sometimes I don’t really know how to feel about that. Obviously it’s not a bad thing. I have…
I'm going back on my word. To be fair, I do this often. I am delightfully inconstant, side effects of being a Gemini, I'm sure someone would say. I change my mind constantly, adapting to the current situation's demands. I made a promise to myself months ago now, maybe even a year now thinking about it, that I would not read over my old diary entries anymore. They were hurting me too much and I…