or, Soul Searching Dumpster Diving
-- What part of yourself have you thrown away?
At grade Four, I threw away a love of Math, and vowed never to do homework again; Grade Ten, I threw away a love of science fiction, and resolved never to read any more smart books.
I regret that now, especially when I try to plough through any really interesting scientific articles (to say nothing of the complicated ones).
-- What part of yourself have you found?
I was on the spot for a name for this blogsite and plucked the name out of the air... and discovered it to be a serendipitous inspiration.
And now, should anyone point a finger and sneer a lip at my frowsy splendour, I can say, "It's not messy; it's my life's work."
There's a story my mum likes to tell... it's a part of her personal mythology, and she first told it to me when I was very very young.
The first job my mum had after graduating from college the early 1950's was as a lab technician for Parke-Davis in Detroit. She was part of a whole crop of new recruits in the company at the time.
In its day, Parke-Davis was a pharmaceutical company that did drug research based on animal testing. For this particular trial, the lab was to test the efficacy of a possible anti-cancer drug. In a blind study, a number of rabbits were given cancer and then treated using the drug at various dosages and frequencies; the control group of rabbits of course received no treatment at all.
Naturally, says my mum, because they were bunny rabbits, they were picked up and cuddled every day by the new recruits in the lab.
Amazingly, and quite against the usual odds, every single rabbit recovered from cancer, regardless of dosage or frequency, including the rabbits that hadn't been treated at all.
The was test done over again; the rabbits were isolated, and the new recruits were forbidden to touch them. All the rabbits succumbed; and the official conclusion was that the drug trial was a failure.
I asked my mom, wasn't the result of the first experiment worth anything? shouldn't that have told them everything they wanted to know?
She said, no, what was important was the effect of the drug on cancer. The results of that first experiment were thrown out.
* * *
Incidentally, the former Parke-Davis complex has long since been gutted and converted into condos & office space; I think the company itself was bought by Pfizer. For more info, check out The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit and search for Parke-Davis. (SEE the famous Lascaux Cave Paintings of Detroit! SEARCH for the Lost Synagogues! FOLLOW the Detour Signs!)
Quisgillous: "made of garbage" from Forthright's Phrontistery; also, quisquillian: "Consisting of trash and rubbish" from the Grandiloquent Dictionary, or "trashy" from Luciferous Logolepsy.
Why? because I'm a pack rat. I have a fascination for things other people throw away. I am curious as to what contributes or detracts from something's worth and how this process of valuation works, whether said thing or said worth be physical or conceptual; and how this all translates into (or derives from) one's sense of "personal worth".
If I'm lucky, in my ramblings I'll manage to touch on that "aha!" moment of trash-to-treasure transubstantiation -- that fleeting glimpse of enlightenment between the status quo and the reversal in good haiku, that transitive moment between sentences in Waiting for Godot: "I can't go on. I must go on," here adapted to: "It's not worth it. It's worth it."
And if you haven't guessed, Quisguillous is also the place where I can go sprawling and lolling over my fustian word-hoard like a dragon on a particularly filthy bed of lucre.
And if you think that's purple prose, then you should check out the results of the 2002 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ("Where WWW means Wretched Writers Welcome"). Violaceous!
At the office we are already being approached regarding our company Christmas cards.
Actually, we were first approached in July; but now the traffic of travelling XmasCard salespeople is accelerating, and the deadline is barrelling down on us to get our cards chosen & signed & addressed & enveloped & stamped, and gifts selected & wrapped & boxed & consigned and finally all of it posted & couriered before the December impasse/mailing rush, and we are as usual staring into the headlights of the oncoming Season until it's too late.
Everybody has their own traditions. Ours is the annual game of chicken with Fathers Claus & Time.
Sadly, this year the sample cards look distinctly as if they have been culled from stock image CDs. I'd rather we delivered our clients something bloody original, even if it's only our company dog in a Santa hat & a smile... perhaps he could be situated within a Winterlude-themed swath of office destruction the likes of which he was wont to wreak in Christmasses past.
'Twould ideogrammatically explain its own delay, too.
Gramercy! to Mugin & Hunin for helping me take my very first blogging steps, and for being so very eellogofusciouhipoppokunurious.
Maybe some praise to the Goddess Ergasiophobia, may she watch over these workday procrastinations and not do much about it.
And acknowledgement to Forthright's Phrontistery -- http://phrontistery.50megs.com/allwords.html -- for being the source of very good words.