word: sound(s) forming a meaningful element of speech

I got a great compliment from a friend whose opinion I value. She likes the start of my new book. Yea. On the off chance this makes you interested, go hit the website link.

She is a good friend because she tells me stuff like: "That one gold streak near your temple looks grey in this light. Don't let your hairdresser do that again." Or, "Baaad ending for your book--too much of a cliffhanger. Of course I'll buy the next one to read it, but not good to piss off your readers like that." Or, "Shut up, you're not fat." In other words, she tells me what she thinks, and I can trust the good because she gives me the ugly.

I got this dictionary for Xmas. Dictionaries are awesome cuz I get sent on little streamlets from the word I looked up. Words are like Homer's donuts. I can freakin' live on them. Anyway, my dictionary is 996 pages long--I really like how it's not a round thousand--and I got to thinking what word is in the middle? So (correct my math if you must, but I also celebrated the new millenium on 01 January 2000 so pfft to you math weirdos, you know who you are) at the bottom of page 498, the definition conveniently split between pages, is the word:

met.ro.pol.i.tan adj & n

1 of or relating to a metropolis, esp as distinct from its environs (metropolitan New York) 2 belonging to, forming or forming part of, a mother country as distinct from its colonies, etc (metropolitan France) 3 an ecclesiastical metropolis .n 1 (in full metroplitan bishop) a bishop having authority over the bishops of a province 2 an inhabitant of a metropolis

Interesting how so much of the definition relates to religious organization.


I reminisced today with Mom about my cousin Dan who hung out with me the summer my grandpa died. Mom picked me up from 7th grade a few days before school ended and told me about Grandpa. Sorry to say I was mostly excited because I didn't have to go back to school that year, though I was gonna miss Grandpa. He always gave me a year's worth of spare change--I could keep it if I could count it--and he called me Peanut. Still, 7th grade sucked.

Grandma was, unbeknownst to us until the funeral, in full throttle Alzeimers. ("What time is it? What time is it? What time is it?") We spent the summer in Colorado with my Aunt Susie (Dad's sister) while Mom, Susie, and Dad decided what to do with her.

My cousins had a Dachsund with a great name: Pretzel. That summer we also missed this historic canyon flood because we decided, on a whim, to come down early instead of watching a movie. Hey, I could be dead today, and where would you be without this blog?

Anyway, back to Dan: He was older, had a beautiful girlfriend whom he later married, and he was just damn cool. His bedroom was in the bomb shelter of their 60's era Colorado house, and it was, appropriately enough, painted black. He was an artist and the first free-thinker I ever met, besides my brother. He took me to see movies and understood when I got so sucked in that my brain floated along with the characters and my body became a mere shell. He read my stories and discussed them with me. He hung my drawings on the black walls of his bomb shelter bedroom. He was my Jason that summer, for those of you who have read my series. He's also my cousin and he's out there somewhere.

Hey Dan! Good fortune should we meet again.

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