Ramblings

A few things are on my mind today. One of those is an annoying little habit I have in my writing that I’m noticing lately. I probably would not have realized I do this if it weren’t for spell check and grammar check on Word. I leave out verbs. For example, when I typed the first line of this post I originally typed, “A few things on my mind to day.” Now this makes sense I know, but the degree to which I’ve noticed it lately bugs me.

I’m sure it’s just the English teacher in me, but I’m annoyed when others use words incorrectly. In addition to the good vs. well, I make my students say “may” instead of “can” when asking permission. I make them say “finished” instead of “done” when they complete a task. They are “angry” not “mad”. I’m also a real stickler for pronouncing the word “ask” correctly. The “s” comes before the “k”. Why is that so difficult?

I had a meeting with someone the other day. This is a professional woman who has more degrees than I can shake a stick at and who by all appearances is elegant, refined and classy. But when in the midst of the conversation she said, “Can I “axe” you a question?” I wanted to scream.

When my students do this I reply with something to the effect of: No. Please don’t axe anything, especially me. It’s messy, painful and bloody. I’d prefer if we skip that just now, I don’t have a mop handy. The word is a-s-k. The “s” comes first.

As I said, I find this annoying. What I find irritating beyond belief is if I catch myself making the errors. I have never axed when I meant to ask, but I have done other things. Like dropping my verb. I actually caught my using “fixin’ta” the other day. I nearly bit my own tongue.

It’s a constant battle every day when you are surrounded by young teens who have the good grammar of toads. It will slip into your vocabulary. I use the slang on occasion for affect, but when it slides out unintentionally, it makes me angry with myself.

The second thing on my mind today is truly a personal crisis. My body has betrayed me. I have learned in the last couple of days that it has gone and aged normally and I by golly won’t have that! I’m supposed to age as my family does. But noooo, I have to get my father’s genes.

Let’s start with my grey hair. Yes, I have grey hair. At 42, I never would have imagined it, but I do. And I don’t mean one or two stray greys, oh no, I have really grey hair.

You see, for years I lightened my hair. It was a white blonde when I was little and darkened to a honey blonde when I got older. It stayed that color until I was in my mid-twenties when, inexplicably, it began to darken. It is now an medium brown if I do nothing to it.

A few months ago I decided I was tired of maintaining the lighter color and had it died to match my roots. I thought I’d just grow it out so I didn’t have to worry about such silliness. Wrong. As it grew out I noticed a few strands of grey at the temples and a great deal of grey coming in on top. Most of my bang area (if I had bangs) is grey.

I immediately panicked. No, really. You don’t understand. I’m not being silly or vain. You see I never expected to be grey at 42. It seems my father’s genes have risen to the surface. I never knew my father and was raised by my mother’s family. My identity has always been tied to them. And they don’t age like normal people. I swear, they’re like vampires.

See the two women in the photos? My great-grandmother, Anna, was 99 when that picture was taken. Do you see all the black hair still left on her head? My grandmother, Elizabeth, was in her mid 70’s. Do you see anything but a hint of grey? And no, no one has been dying their hair.

So I ran off today to get my hair colored again. It’s my natural color, sans grey. I also got it all chopped off for summer. Hey, I figure it works for my cocker spaniel…

But that’s not all of it. My body has been in revolt the last couple of weeks. Nausea has kept me from eating anything before noon for over a week. I now have developed some sort of respiratory virus and have a stuffy head, sore throat and crooping chest. Add to this that on the first “walk” my SO and I decided to undertake as part of a new and regular “get healthy because we’re going to need it when the baby comes” program, I was an incredible wimp. I got winded going up the hill that leads out of our subdivision. Of course the blessed thing is at a 60 degree incline, but I’ve never felt so rotten.

It totally sucked out any good feelings I’d have at being able to buy two new dresses at a lower dress size and a new pair of jeans, two sizes smaller. I’m trying to watch what I eat and do something about the excess weight I carry. For the first time in my life I find it matters to me if I’m here in twenty years. I mean, I have a blueberry that depends on me.

Yep. I just read that at 7 weeks, it is the size of a blueberry. We have names picked out but my SO is completely superstitious and refuses to let me plan too much. That’s probably for the best. If my OCD gets a hold of this, we could be in real trouble.

Are faeries gender neutral? Probably not. A friend suggested books and faeries with books as a theme for the nursery. Probably not gender neutral.

Okay, I’ve meandered all over the place. So tell me, what’s up with you?