only words survive

i want to write about words in a moment. quick mention first to an update in "my blog family" on the right.

i have written often about my daughter in this blog. you can search the blog top left for "jourdaine," "cartoons," "nonconforming," and "nonconformity" and read some of it. her cartoons are cool. some of my favorite stories are here, here, and here.

she's had some great influences in her life, my twin primary among them, as well as being slapped pretty hard for being an individual. every time the latter has happened, the girl stands, dusts herself off, and says, "is that the best you got, a'hole?" remarkable endurance and depth for a 16 year old.

she bailed on some previous blogs when The Others impugned Satanic Rituals in sentences like, "for my 16th birthday, i want strippers and cheap vodka," and "if i could be any kind of tree, i would want to be a dead one, because i think trees take up too much space and they annoy me." The Others saw potential rape and pillage in a cartoon that depicted a girl scout about to be executed because she brought the wrong flavor of cookies. some guy even left a comment on my post about it that he would have his kid in therapy if she drew like that.

really? therapy? and when you discover that your kid smokes pot (which mine don't), you'll consult with a dozen people, practice in front of a mirror, then sit with her and say things like, "where did we go wrong? don't you like me? i try so hard? how could you do this to your mother and me?" whereas i would stare intently and occasionally say, "wtf?" and then glance down at the cattle prod and do-it-yourself-at-home-like-an-expert-frontal-lobotomy kit on the coffee table, adding, "choose your poison, little girl." lest you dismiss my approach, remember it is your kid doing weed or lifting your wife's prozac, while mine is merely writing about them. yeah, funny, your wife is on prozac - does that tell you anything?

alright, enough of you. my daughter has returned to posting - check it out here.

i want to talk about words. twin says this morning - people use the same words, it is just that some people treat them like treasures found on a beach, while others only collect them from the dollar store. what a great point.

i am not thinking of somebody writing, "i am writing you myself because i want to insure that you understand." really? you want to financially underwrite this issue? methinks, grammarian, that you mean "ensure." that is just someone that doesn't read often enough to see words in proper context, so they rely upon their hearing and false intellect.

i am thinking instead of those people that say, "i guess this is it. have a nice life." oh. and such an epitaph to the most casual of relationships joined only by a mutual friend that was thereafter moving to Away. "have a nice life?" how utterly presumptive. beyond the obvious - maybe i don't want a nice life - how about the dimissive statement wrapped around a presumed complete knowledge of the rest of her life and its interactions? i frankly don't care if i ever see her again - and i haven't in the three years since those words were so flippantly tossed out. but what an abuse of language!

words have a way of lasting - they explain the look on someone's face, they accompany an action. the same precise act coupled with two sets of words can have diametrically opposed interpretations. people put more faith in, "did you hear what he said?" as opposed to, "did you see the look on his face?"

all i have left of my dad is one pic i refuse to look at because it is too close to the image i carry of him in his casket, some fishing flies, some shirts, and his words. the flies only mean something because of a story we shared. his shirts carry the meaning of dinner table conversations when he came home from the factory.

so people need to treat the words they utter more as if they are sharing a found treasure rather than having just filled the basket with seven items for $7 plus tax. when you are dead, only your words will survive - your choice: remembered as a treasure hunter or common trash?