Free Tongues
I spoonerize words all the time. All. The. Time. Good spoonerisms and bad. In my head. (I worderize spoons all the time. Tall. The Lime. Spoon Gooderisms band ad. Hin my ed.)
I was reading the above quote from Neven Mrgan's blog in the midst of a long week which turned into a long month which is still dragging on toward eternity. Ahem. The whole article got me thinking about a number of things, like the first time I heard the word "spoonerisms" and what a great-looking Tumblr page Neven has and how I should really get around to reading through his archives some day. (I went traipsing through the archives five minutes later.)
But the actual content, the story about how he has been intentionally spoonerizing words for years, has been stuck in my head all these long weeks. I just can't fathom someone who intentionally does what I try so hard not to do.
When I get really stressed or if I find myself surrounded by people who intimidate me or somehow make me nervous, I leak spoonerisms. They don't stay in my head for my own amusement. They spill out in awkward gushes in the middle of conversations, so my tongue tries to do a U-turn, and hi, is Rachel channeling demons? Maybe we should take our punch and cookies elsewhere.
It's one of the many things I had hoped to outgrow after childhood, but here I am at 26 and still unable to match syllables together in the right order. And even if I can get the words right, my brain starts jumbling up colloquialisms until I sound like a foreigner trying to repeat jokes I heard on informercials. For example, "ruffled her feathers" and "got her undies in a bunch" join forces to become "ruffle her undies" or "got her feathers in a bunch."
The worst part of it is that people just nod along with what I'm saying, the only hint that they caught my mistake being the glimmer of pity in the corner of their eye. Sometimes, it takes me days to realize what I've said, and I then get an instant replay of the pity and the glimmering and the silent nodding that I should have known was for me.
Anyway, I guess this is just one giant warning to the people who will meet me at VidCon and other shindigs in 2012. I'll try to wear a name tag, but you can also just wait 'til someone says, "Oh, you know what they say! 'A fly in the hand is worth two thousand words!'"
Sigh.
The 2011 Skirts Awards
Best nickname given: POOPKLOUT McGOOG
Best nickname received: Burrito
Best Twitter name squatted: @Catladriel
Best store: Sephora has all of my money now.
Best purchase: Plane tickets to and from Longview, TX, so I could see a lot of my favorite people at once
Best worst purchase: MacBook Pro
Best song that isn't actually a song: "Every Day I'm Tumblrin'"
Best album that I'm surprised to own: Watch the Throne
Best concert: Dave Brubeck and sons, performing at Ravinia
Best TV shows: Doctor Who and The Sing-Off
Best movies: The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which came back to theaters this summer!
Best reality TV show character: That Irish kid who tied as the winner of The Glee Project
Best video game played: World of Warcraft
Best video games watched: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 & 2
Best video game for Lord of the Rings references: Dragon Age
Best worst iPhone app: The "Talking Gina" app provided two whole days of laughter when my cousins and I first bought it. You wind up playing patty-cake with a giraffe's face, so you should maybe give it a whirl.
Best gift received as a surprise: I got a lot of really great things in the mail this year, but the TARDIS salt and pepper shakers from Chris are really sort of the best things in the world. But I also got the Lord of the Rings PEZ set that I've been wanting (from Sexy Beast! aiee!), so basically don't ever let me complain about anything ever again.
Best gift received on my birthday: The Lord of the Rings trilogy on Blu-ray (extended edition). Duh. Thanks, Adam.
Best gift received at Christmas: I'm strangely obsessed with my new Thermos. It keeps coffee hot for five hours! It takes me roughly four hours to remember that I poured myself some coffee, so this is neat.
Best shower idea: Mad Libs Monday
Best worst shower experience: Getting stuck in Phampants' bathroom while getting ready for the second day of the 20SB Summit. (Nico did the same exact thing twenty minutes later.)
Best meme: Steven Moffat killing Rory
Best meme that never really caught on: Tiger Thursday
Best fashion trend: Bow ties
Best beverage: Guayaki Yerba Mate cans, Revel Berry flavor (thanks, iJustine)
Best meal: Pizza as a vegetable
Best book that I haven't actually read yet: Yotsuba&!, Volume 10
Best punctuation marks: Semi-colon, ampersand, and em dash
Best word I finally stopped saying: "Umm."
Best word that made me laugh myself breathless for thirty minutes: "Tadaaaaaa!"
Best sentence heard on the radio: "It's a big cluckin' deal!"
Best list ended abruptly: This one
Angry Cache
Sometimes, geocaching is pretty in the weirdest way.