Just a thought archive


 

November 2006
You know your place in the world when, in the course of the day, your spam e-mails outweigh your legitimate e-mails 87.463 to 1. In fact, in the time it took me to think of and craft the first sentence of this "missive," - okay I did have a few interruptions so it was probably 20 minutes or so - I received four e-mails, and not one of them was from a real person.

But, instead of letting it get me down, I have learned to embrace the absurdity of it all. In addition to getting many, many daily e-mails from Ralph and John and Nicholas and Hugh and Peter and Robert and Reginald, who keep asking me if I want to be healthy, or if I'm looking for medications to cure myself, every once in awhile, I get the errant letter from Carola or Natasha asking if I’d like to date her. But the most interesting one of late has been one in which a "co-worker" sends an e-mail to give me a heads up about how everyone is talking behind my back about my noticeable weight gain, and how this "co-worker" has found the cure, and if I just "click here" all my troubles will be solved.

Call me crazy, but the curious side of me is often tempted to click on these bogus links, just to see where I would end up. Thankfully, the rational side of me - as small as it is - hollers, "Do you really want to have to explain to the computer fix-it person how you just couldn't help yourself and HAD to click on the 'all your troubles will be solved' link?" So. What have we learned so far? That only embarrassment keeps my curiosity in check.

Maybe it's the word nerd in me, but I get a giggle when I see what these spammers do with the language. For awhile, I was receiving e-mails from such interesting personalities as Said C. Almond, Fraction O. Gaps, Platelet D. Transpositions, Foxhound A. Palefaces, Copter I. Policeman and clogging Sherman.

Clogging Sherman? Isn't that a great name for a punk rock band?

But the thing that really intrigues me is that there are spammer programmer - spammer spammer programmer, bona-na-na momammer, fee, fie fofammer. Spammer - oh sorry, I digressed. There are spammer programmers out there who really think someone is going to respond to a weight loss pill ad from Unlearns K. Discouragement. Or an investment strategy from Harasses P. Couch. Or inside news from Hester Slaughter. Maybe there are people out there who don't have the super-charged embarrassment gene that keeps their curiosity in check.

My all-time favorite spam e-mail had a subject line that read "Re: Private" and in the body of the message - I'm not making this up - read:

"The mitochondrial power drill wisely competes with the usually highly paid globule. The skyscraper of the bartender flies into a rage, because a precise girl scout throws a phony chestnut at a spider."

And that's only part of the first paragraph. The second paragraph talks about such scintillating topics as carpet tacks reminiscing about lost glory and how a tripod will often throw a wedding dress toward a grain of sand at a blithe spirit. And I didn't know this, but "The linguistic hockey player is usually Spartan." I don't know about you, but I think that's good information to know.

The point is, spam e-mail can be fun, if you have a twisted sense of humor.

Oooh. Gotta go. I just received an e-mail from Marissa who is wondering if I would have an interest in part-time employment as a receivables clerk with their company. In Russia. All I have to do is give them my bank account number. I'll get right on that one.

October 2006
I'm going to make a confession that will probably cement my fate as a certifiable weirdo, but I thoroughly enjoy reciting movie lines adnauseam. I also have been known to watch particular movies over and over so I could get the intonation and inflection of the lines that tickled my fancy just right.

I'm not sure when my penchant for repeating movie lines actually began, but I do know that it was cemented in college by one of my Prowler bandmates. He was really good at mimicking Bill Murray's character in "Caddyshack." And for some reason, I just took to it and made it my own.

It would seem I have influenced my children in this area as well. There have been several occasions where my son has recited lines from "The Cat in the Hat." We have been known to say, when we actually do see a Rhode Island license plate while driving, "Hey, look, Rhode Island license plate. You never see those."

When we do this, my husband just shakes his head and says, "You all watch too much T.V." That may be true. I have a different theory, however. I think that those of us who have a proclivity to recite these lines are frustrated performers. I figure that I'm really a frustrated stand-up comedian because most of my favorite lines are funny. At least they are funny in the context of the movie.

Amazingly, there are people out there, believe it or not, that do not - I repeat DO NOT - think that reciting lines from movies is funny. Since I am I am not one of them and this is my column, I'm going to share with you my favorite lines from movies. Of course you will notice most of these are from a looooong time ago. That is because most of the movies I see these days are more kid-inspired, but I have to admit that a line from my daughter's "Mermaidia" DVD in which a couple of Fungi are saying, "Lefting! Lefteroo!" to describe the direction they are heading is finding its way into our daily speech patterns.

So, here are my most favorite lines, in no particular order.

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." - Inigo Montoya, "The Princess Bride." This is particularly good if you can use Inigo's accent. Otherwise, it might fall flat at the company picnic.

"The fish is talking." - Sally, "The Cat in the Hat."
"Sure, he can talk. But is he saying anything? No, not really." - Cat, "The Cat in the Hat."

On particularly windy days, I will say, to no one in particular, and sometimes just to amuse myself, "Will the wind be so mighty as to lay low, the mountains of the earth?" - Peter Cook in "The Secret Policeman's Ball." (In my single days, I actually had this, complete with the weird voice, as the greeting on my answering machine.)

"Everything's under control. Situation normal." - Han Solo, "Star Wars." You have to say the line kind of sing-songy, and only when things are totally out of control.

I have found that the original "Ghostbusters" is a treasure trove of one-liners, that I have been able to use quite frequently in everyday life. For instance:

"Listen! Do you smell something?" - Dr. Raymond Stantz. I found this works well in a house where two kids talk over each other most of the time.

"Where do these stairs go?" - Ray Stantz
"They go up." - Dr. Peter Venkman

"Human sacrifice. Dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria." - Peter Venkman

I have also managed to use the line "I figure all I need is a lobotomy and some tights." - John Bender, "The Breakfast Club" - on a number of occasions that made perfect sense to me.

But of course, my all-time favorite line is, "So I got that going for me, which is nice," uttered by Carl Spackler in "Caddyshack" after the Dalai Lama tells him that he won't get a monetary tip, but on his deathbed, he will receive total consciousness. You can pretty much use that line any time you feel the futility of a situation getting the best of you.

Why do I find it necessary to utter movie lines? I wanted to make sure I wasn't like, a freak, or something. So, I did a little Internet research. I found that reciting movie lines is done quite frequently, but it is more of a "guy thing." One dude on a blog site commented that he and his college buddies were constantly reciting lines from "Stripes" and "Caddyshack," and he noticed that most women did not join in, but rather rolled their eyes and labeled the activity as "immature."

Well, there you have it. Here all this time, well at least for the last 8 years or so, I thought I was a middle-aged woman and really, I'm an immature, college guy.

I suspect both my children will be immature college guys as well. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

September 2006
It's back to school time, and that means that people like me - parents who are glad they are old and have absolutely no desire to go back to fourth grade - have to relive fourth grade so they can help their children with fourth-grade issues. You know, things like math, girls, reading, girls, writing, girls. Nah. I'm just kidding about the girls. Well, as far as I know, I'm kidding about the girl thing.

I have to admit that getting back into the daily school routine is probably just as tough for me as it is for my son. While assisting him with spelling and sentence structure is a cakewalk for a word geek like me, math is another story. Granted fourth-grade math should not be a challenge for someone of my age, but trying to get your fourth-grader to remember multiplication facts that were largely forgotten over the summer can be a bit, hmmm, shall we say frustrating?

I know we should have been practicing all summer, but just so you know, I just read about a study that said kids typically forget between one and three months of what they learned in school over the summer. I consider my kid typical, so I'm not feeling a tremendous amount of guilt.

As long as we don't have school all year around, and I don't make my kid do multiplication facts over the summer, I suspect this "relearn what you forgot" dance will continue until he has to take geometry or calculus. Then I will just throw up my hands and say, "No habla English."

I can hardly wait, however, until he gets to those essay test questions. I always loved doing those myself, because, well, being a word geek, I found I was able to expound profoundly about absolutely nothing. That's why, when I recently read a collection of what are supposedly real answers to test questions, I felt compelled to share. Here they are, in no particular order:

"A town purifies its water supply by filtering the water, then forcing it through an aviator." - Now I know why I never had a desire to be a pilot. Well, that and the fact that I have been known to get sick whilst riding a Ferris wheel.

"Crows eat the farmer's grain and soil his corpse." - It's true. Being a farmer these days is tough!

"Cows produce methane, which smells. The problem could be solved by fitting them with catalytic converters." - That, of course would require that the catalytic converter be converted itself, since they are supposed to convert hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides into harmless compounds. Converting methane into a harmless cow-pound?

"One result of raising cattle is calves." - And you thought raising cows was all about creating methane.

"The liquid is composed of 2 gins: Oxygin and hydrogen. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water." - Now, this kid is using the language creatively.

"One of the main causes of dust is janitors." - Wouldn't it be great if this were true? You could just outlaw janitors and voila, no more dust!

"The tides are a battle between the Earth and moon. All water routes toward the moon, because there is no water on the moon and nature abhors a vacuum. The sun is like the referee in the fight." - Nature is not the only one that abhors a vacuum. So do husbands.

"A fossil is an extinct thing. The older it is, the more extinct it is." - Using this thought process, I must be a waaaay extinct fossil.

"Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a cat's tongue could kill the world's toughest man." - Okay, so my question is, "Is this kid saying that killing a cat would make the world's toughest man so sad, he'd die, or is he saying the world's toughest man is a cat?"

"When a singer sings, he stirs up the air and makes people's ears feel good. And if he's a great singer, he knows how to keep it from hurting." - And if he's a bad singer, he knows how to keep it hurting.

"We say the cause of bottled water disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on." - Put the cap on the toothpaste, put the toilet seat down…hmmmm, did a mom write this answer?

"Respiration is composed of two acts: first respiring and then expectoration." - Breathe deeply, snort a little, then hock a good lougy! Now that's respiration.

"The residents of Moscow are called Mosquitoes." - It was so dry here this summer, there wasn't a resident of Moscow in sight.

Baa-dum-bum. Ching.

August 2006
I think the Internet homepage a person chooses says a lot about them. Okay, to be more precise, I think my Internet homepage says a lot about me. A lot of people probably just don't care, but as the resident Web administrator, I am often on the Internet several times a day updating this Web site. (So come back every day, pretty please with sugar and honey on top.)

But, as with anyone with an attention span of minus 15 seconds, having a homepage that can get you off track and take you to such places as Webster's word of the day (yes, I AM a word geek, although you wouldn’t know it from my inability to use a synonym for the word "stuff"), the latest in media and marketing strategies (a must for communications-types like myself who are supposed to be on top of all this technology and strategy stuff), a daily Calvin and Hobbes cartoon and how to make stuff from duct tape is invaluable for, well, writing columns like this.

For instance, today's Webster word is mellifluous. That’s muh-LIFF-luh-wus. An even better way to remember the correct pronunciation: " 'My knoephla was' " spilling all over the floor. Quick, get a rag!" Of course, mellifluous has nothing to do with knoephla, and you have to say "knoephla" like you have rocks in your mouth and a slight slur, but that's beside the point. Actually there is no point, other than mellifluous is a cool word that I had never heard before, but will now use on a regular basis. Okay I probably won't use it, but at least I will now have the option, if the right time ever arises. By the way, the definition of mellifluous is "having a smooth, rich flow" which means you cannot use this word to describe the writing style of this column.

And if you didn't already know this, Calvin and Hobbes are the coolest comic strip characters to ever hit planet Earth. How can you go wrong with a precocious 6-year-old that has a stuffed tiger that "comes alive" when nobody is looking? I have actually passed my love of C&H to my son, who can be heard emitting these outstanding belly laughs whilst reading the five or six books he stole from me. (Okay, I gave them to him, and bought him a couple more.)

But, by far the most useful information I have ever run across is the wiki that has instructions on how to make stuff from duct tape. Duct tape, is after all, what binds the universe. It is also good for making all kinds of useful things like wallets and rabbit catchers. There are instructions and pictures of how to make your very own duct tape wallet at http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Duct-Tape-Wallet. Even better for all you men out there, I guarantee women will be falling at your feet if you give them a single, duct tape rose http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Duct-Tape-Rose. Maybe I better just guarantee that you'll get a reaction.

So to sum up this particular column:

July 2006
July 8 marked a pretty darn important event in the Smith (my maiden name) household. It was the date that my mom and dad, Reuben and Shirley, were married 50 years ago.

50 years. I can hardly believe it. First of all, a marriage that lasts 50 years is something to celebrate, big time. That means that, at the tender age of 20, my mom knew she wanted to marry this guy who lived down the road, and spend the rest of her life with him. I just helped a high school buddy celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary, which means she was only 18 when she got married. These days, people are putting off marriage and kids until they find good careers or find themselves, or maybe find themselves in good careers.

All this anniversary celebrating got me to thinking about how people "find the right person" to marry, and it reminded me of an e-mail that has been circulating for awhile that asked kids the question, "How do you decide whom to marry?" I don't know who penned it or even if kids actually did say these things, but I bet if I asked my daughter that question (and she's only four) something similar would spew from her mouth. I can't help but think that those little sponges we call our children are a better barometer of what makes marriage work than any counselor or therapist.

So in honor of Shirley and Reuben's 50th anniversary, I'd thought I'd share a few words of marriage wisdom "from the mouths of babes."

How do you know whom you should marry?
You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming. -- Alan, age 10

No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. -- Kristen, age 10

What is the right age to get married?
Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then. -- Camille, age 10

No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married. -- Freddie, age 6

How can a stranger tell if two people married?
You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids. -- Derrick, age 8

What do you think your mom and dad have in common?
Both don't want any more kids. -- Lori, age 8

When is it okay to kiss someone?
When they're rich. -- Pam, age 7

The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that -- Curt, age 7

The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do. -- Howard, age 8

Is it better to be single or married?
It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them. -- Anita, age 9

How would you make a marriage work?
Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck. -- Ricky, age 10

How would the world be different if people didn't get married?
There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there? -- Kelvin, age 8

Mom and Dad, congratulations on liking the same stuff, yelling at the same kids and, doing the right thing.

June 2006
It's about time! Someone has finally answered the question that has plagued parents around the globe. The question that makes parents cringe and try to divert their youngsters' attentions to something less risqué, like the weather. The question that gets us wondering why we didn't ask that very same question when we were young: "So just why do those little rice-shaped cereal pieces crackle when we pour milk on them?"

I honestly can't believe someone didn't get around to answering this question before. Am I the only one in the whole world that has had to tell my 8-year-old son, "Honey, it's just one of those strange, wondrous mysteries of the universe that is better left unanswered." I mean, I've had to dodge this question so often, I think I've burned up enough calories to justify an aerobics instructor's license for myself. I finally had to quit buying the cereal, just so it wouldn't come up anymore.

Thankfully, LiveScience.com has come to my rescue. I recommend LiveScience.com to anyone who has ever wondered why the ground is brown or why frogs are green. In fact, my son just asked the latter question a couple of weekends ago while we were visiting relatives and he found a little frog by the lake. If you don't know the answer to this one, I'm not going to explain it to you because there are a bunch of big words like "melanophores" and "iridophores" that really are best left for another time, or better yet, a link, which is, by the way, http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060403_mm_frog_green.html

But anyway, getting back to the rice-shaped cereal pieces. LiveScience.com reports that cereal scientists, like Ted Labuza of the University of Minnesota, figure that the reason those cereal bits "talk" to us, is because, the high temperature at which the cereal is cooked creates ultra-strong bonds between the cereal's starch molecules, which at the same time create a bunch of air-filled tunnels and caves within the crunchy little grain.

When you dump milk on them, the liquid forces its way into the openings, further pushing on the little air pockets. Eventually, the little air pockets lose their tempers and blow up the starchy connections, making that popping sound that we hear.

So what are we to learn from this? If you don't want to hear your cereal pellets lose it every morning, just drink the milk and leave the cereal pellets alone. However, if you're an old crony like me, and need to watch your weight and worry about staying healthy, you might want to add a little of the high fiber cereal – you know the stuff that tastes and looks like twigs – and some fruit to your milk.

And, if you are out of creative ways to answer questions your children ask, like, "Why is the sky blue?" go to LiveScience.com and print out the explanation for them. Then make them explain it to you. Oh, and parents? You can thank me by sending me a small gift, preferably some rice-shaped cereal pieces.

May 2006
It's time for my yearly ode to mothers. I've only done this once before (that would be last year at this time) so it isn't like this is a time-honored tradition, but I guess if you are going to start a tradition, it may as well be something about mothers.

Last year, I talked about how I am from a family of women suffering from "Show Tunes Disease." This "affliction" leaves us incapable of being in any situation that doesn't remind us of a song from some musical. And of course, we have to break out into said song, just like they do in the musicals. (And you thought musicals were unrealistic. Ha!)

Another way my mother, my grandmother and I are the same is that we are incapable of remembering our ages. I always have to do the math (at least I can remember the year I was born) but just the other day, my mom was telling someone how she celebrated her 80th birthday. She's only 70. And my grandmother is often telling people she's in her 70s. She's 93. Either we're just a spacey bunch of broads, or age really isn't a defining characteristic for us. I, of course, have chosen to believe the latter.

We also share something I like to call Immense Utterance Syndrome (a.k.a.: Big Word Syndrome). Instead of saying something like, "Stop being so crabby," we'd articulate in a manner something akin to: "Your negative attitude is becoming increasingly alarming to me, and I would like you to desist posthaste." Now, I don't know about you, but the second sentence, while not an all-time winner in the economy of words contest, is inherently more specific in both explanation and expectation. I could brush off, "Stop being so crabby" but I would definitely check my behavior if someone told me to desist my negative attitude posthaste.

We also share the enunciation gene. You can't have Immense Utterance Syndrome without the enunciation gene. Imagine how difficult it would be to string together, "My sufficiency has been serensified" with mush mouth. You would have to repeat yourself so much, by the time you were done, your sufficiency probably wouldn't be serensified anymore.

One characteristic that I did not inherit from my mother or grandmother is their sense of direction, or rather the lack, thereof. Interestingly, however, even though they may leave a public restroom and head the opposite direction they should be heading, they are always walking like they know where they are going. Maybe I'm a little biased, but I truly believe that, as long as you look like you know where you are going, you don't actually have to know where you are going, because believing that you know where you are going is half the battle to getting to where you are going. Now, you may not understand what I just wrote, but I bet you my grandmother and mother will understand it.

And quite frankly, that's the best part of being your mother's daughter, and your grandmother's granddaughter. Emotional shorthand. They understand me. They "get" what's going on in that big old cluttered cavity I call a brain. Even though I may sometimes find the rest of the world completely confusing and utterly chaotic, I can always take comfort in the fact that mommy and grandma will kiss my boo-boos and make it better.

So, once again, in the time-honored tradition of profusely thanking our matrilineage for shaping our attitudes, our beliefs, our sense of direction, I’d just like to say, on this Mother's Day 2006: "Mom and Grandma, you guys rock."

April 2006
Good news for type As. Retiring early is not necessarily the key to living longer.

That's right. Those of us who actually wouldn't know what to do with ourselves if we weren't trying to juggle 12 balls at once actually will live longer if we keep working. And speaking of juggling….

Can someone actually juggle 12 balls at once? Turns out the answer is, "Well, kind of." According to a page on the Juggling Information Service Web site, which was last updated in December, the record number of balls juggled is 12, by a guy named Bruce Sarafian back in 1996. If you read further, however, you find that there is a little controversy about that record, since he juggled 12 balls and caught them 12 times, which means he is only "flashing." Apparently flashing involves catching the balls at least 10 times. The generally accepted rule is, to truly be juggling, you have to catch the balls 20 times. This Bruce guy successfully juggled 10 balls (catching them 23 times).

While I'm a pretty good juggler of tasks - some call it multi-tasking, some call it an inability to focus - I never was any good at actual juggling. It requires too much hand-eye coordination. I'm the one who can't even go around a corner without running into it. I blame it on my astigmatism. Gets me all off center. (It couldn't possibly be that I go barreling through life at 100 miles an hour because I always have something that I think I absolutely have to do.)

But getting back to this retiring thing. This study, conducted by Shell Oil Company in Houston, Texas, indicated that you probably don't want to retire when you're 55, because those who did had a significantly higher mortality rate than those who retired at 60 or 65. In fact, the death rate for those who retired at 55 was nearly two times higher in the first 10 years than with those who kept working.

If these early retirees are anything like me, they probably thought that if they got out of the rat race early, they'd go sit in their beautiful overgrown flower gardens and read and drink coffee. But what actually happens is that they sit there for about two minutes, then notice all the weeds and think, "I better get rid of these weeds," so they spend the next four hours weeding in the hot sun, with no sunscreen. Finally, they decide they better take a break and get a drink, so they go over to the garden hose, turn it on, but notice that there are a bunch of spider webs on the side of the house. So they go into the garage to get the spray nozzle and realize that the work bench is a complete mess. So they put away all the tools and notice that the good kitchen scissors is on the floor. So they take the kitchen scissors inside and put it in the drawer, turn around and see a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. So they wash the dishes, but while they are doing that, they hear what sounds like water running someplace else. So they run outside, only to find the hose that they forgot running has now completely saturated the ground next to the house and the water is leaking into the basement. So they have to call the water and sludge sucking service to suck up the mess in basement.

That restful little sit in the garden ends up costing $1,500, which in my book is a lot more stressful than going to work. Something to think about, all you type As, as you prepare for your golden years.

March 2006
It's amazing how a story that's destined for the Ick Hall of Fame can induce nostalgia rather than health concerns in an old fogy like me.

So I read the other day that a science fair project by a 12-year-old Florida girl has indicated that ice from fast food ice dispensers is more bacteria-laden than the toilet bowl water from the same restaurants.

After the initial gag reflex subsided, my next question was, "How in the world did this kid think of this as a science fair project?" When I was 12, science fair projects were about dioramas of how the dinosaurs lived and magnetizing stuff with your hair and other less than scientific science fair projects.

Don't get me wrong. I loved science and had a big interest in everything from dissecting frogs and learning about Australiopithicus Afarensis (also named "Lucy," which is also, coincidentally my Springer spaniel's name, although the two have absolutely nothing in common) to astronomy and blowing stuff up in the chemistry lab. But I really stunk at science fair projects. I'm not sure why. Either I didn't have the scientific competitive spirit or I was just lazy. Either way, when I got old enough, I opted out of the science fair competition, instead using my ability to write and make stuff up into a "paper" on how humans would evolve and look in the future.

My apologies to my science teacher, Mr. Koch, but I must admit that I was largely influenced by a particular episode of the original Star Trek series (which is a big indication of my "old fogy" age) that involved big-headed, bald people who spoke through telepathy and wore cloaks.

Holy cow! I just had an aha moment about myself. I am positively superficial and always have been. Pop culture rules my thought process. While I think Albert Einstein was the coolest guy to walk the planet, it's not because he was responsible for revolutionizing science. No, it's because he looked cool with his white "professor" hair and mustache. I told my kids the other day that my next vehicle is gonna be named Albert, or Einstein, depending on what fits best. But I digress, which I'm guessing is a normal trait of superficial types like myself.

Anyway, my "paper" included a long dissertation on our evolutionary process, and based on history, I extrapolated - using paint an overlays - a view of the human cranium of the future. If I remember correctly, I got an "A," although I never got my paper back, so I'm not positive.

And this kid from Florida? While there was some suspicion about the validity of her tests, she won the science fair.

I'm betting we'll see a plethora, a surfeit, a glut, a superfluity, a flood (don't you just love built-in Thesauruses?) of copycat projects.

As for me, I'm going to keep using the ice machines and dream about the day we'll all be big-headed and bald.

February 2006
Duchenne smile, anyone? For you non-French speakers, that's Doo-Shen. And know that, if you want to be truly happy in life, you better have a Duchenne. Well, at least if you are a woman.

I have alluded to it before, but I'm kind of a human behavioral study junkie. So when I run across one that appeals to my junkie mentality, I starting "Googling" to find out everything about the topic that I can. And according to my latest Internet research (Dawn's personal disclaimer: Don't go believing everything you read on the Internet!), Duchenne smiles (named after the French physician Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne), are genuine smiles. These are not to be confused with Pan American smiles. You know, the polite, insincere smiles that say, "I'd rather be sitting naked in a room full of army ants than talking to you." And just so you know, further Internet research indicates that army ants will pretty much eat anything in their path, including dogs, cats and people. So you really don't want to be sitting anywhere near a bunch of army ants, naked or fully clothed for that matter.

But getting back to smiling: Apparently if you do a lot more Duchenneing than Pan Aming, you are a happier person.

A couple of psychologists from the University of California at Berkley studied pictures of women from old Mills College yearbooks. (http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=4307) Mills College is a private women's liberal arts college that has been in existence since 1852. The researchers examined the photos using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which is a set of specific visual criteria used to categorize facial muscle movements. This is where it gets really fascinating.

The researchers were looking for facial cues associated with positive emotion, specifically "contraction of the face's zygomatic major muscle in addition to the angled, upward movement of the corners of the lips." Another factor of positive emotion that was examined was the movement of the orbicularis oculi muscle. That's the muscle around your eyes and apparently if you are smiling for real, the muscle raises your cheeks, gives you crow's feet and bags under your eyes.

Bags under your eyes? Crow's feet? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't those all the things that women these days are trying to hide with those new and revolutionary face revitalizing creams or by plastic surgery? If being happy means you have bags and crow's feet, why is everybody telling women that they won't be happy if they have bags and crow's feet?

Anyway, after the photos were categorized, the psychologists followed up with the women at different stages in their lives. The women who were categorized as sporting Duchenne smiles reported being happier than the ones with the Pan American smiles.

The conclusion was that women who have genuine smiles are happier and better adjusted than those who don't. Although I didn't see any follow-up research on men, the researchers figured that they would find similar results if they studied men.

My knee-jerk response was, "Well, I better pull out the old college yearbook and check my photo." Then I remembered that I couldn't do that because I never bothered to sit still for a college yearbook photo.  (I did, however go to college. I even graduated from one.) "Curses!" I said to myself. "Now, how am I supposed to determine if I'm happy or not?"

Well, being college educated and all, I extrapolated thoughtful reasoning from the study's supplied inferences. I took a hard look in the mirror. I have great crow's feet and superior bags under my eyes. My conclusion? I don't need a yearbook from college to tell me I must be a supremely happy person. I have the face-wear to prove it.

January 2006
I have a "skaper" girl living in my home. I did not know what a skaper girl was for a very long time, so I often just nodded dumbly when the words were intoned. It turns out, a skaper is one of those girls that glides around on the ice. This is not to be confused with a "skater" girl. You can't tell her she’s a skater girl. She will correct you. She will get mad at you and stomp her feet and yell if you don't pronounce it "correctly."

The she in this little drama is my daughter, and she's three, so the use of a "p" for a "t" isn't so unusual. But, as it turns out, she may be ahead of her time. It appears that everyone is making up words to describe one thing or another.

For instance, "blamestorming" is a meeting in which the sole purpose is to discuss who is responsible for a missed deadline or a failed project. Who's to say a skaper girl isn't a girl who pretends (as in, "p" for pretend) to be a skater?

When my son was young, he told me he was Willy Slense with a messy face all rainbowed up. He is now eight, and has no recollection of being Willy, or how he got rainbowed up, but I suspect it was a lot of fun.

Even though I'm a writer (I use that term with a smile while holding my nose between my thumb and forefinger) and I feel like I should be a linguistic purist, frowning on made up words and the degradation of the English language, I think made up words are fun. In fact, I have made up a few of my own words over the years. Most have been forgotten, but one sticks with me.

Before the current wild Springer spaniel, Lucy, graced our household, and B.C. (that's "before children" for those of you who have not yet had children and don't realize that children are a "life marker", hence "B.C." and "A.C.") we had a slightly less wild Springer spaniel named Apollo. Actually we had him for 11 years, so Apollo and the children did overlap. But that's not really pertinent to this topic, so I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, Apollo had a penchant for making stuff yucky with his slobber. So I called him a googer. (First "g" hard, second "g" soft.) And the stuff he left behind whilst googing was called googe. The word just came out one day and really seemed appropriate.

At some point though, the words just didn't flow anymore. I became what is known as a lingweenie. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary people, a lingweenie is someone who can't make up neologisms. (A neologism is a recently coined word, term, or phrase.)

In fact, now that I mention the Merriam-Webster dictionary people, I should trot out a few more of the "best words that aren't real" from their top ten list:

Ginormous, which is an adjective, means bigger than gigantic and enormous. Use it in a sentence as such: That gin bottle is ginormous.

Woot is an exclamation of joy or excitement.

And my own personal favorite is cognitive displaysia, which is "the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway." I suffer from this condition and it appears to be getting worse with each passing year. It's probably why I have become a lingweenie.

But, at least I have my daughter to provide me with a wealth of neologisms. Not too long ago, she informed me that she and I are Fashion Weese Club Girls. I'm not sure what a "Weese" is, or how you get to be one, but we have "power" to get rid of monsters, which is cool, so if you have a hankerin' to demolish some monsters, you might want to ask her how you too can become a Fashion Weese Club Girl. I don't dare, for fear I will get kicked out and miss out on the next, cool word.