2001-08-03 - 10:35 a.m.

Spent most of yesterday evening buying large quantities of alcohol for the party I am having tomorrow night. I just hope I can get rid of most of it- at least, most of what I don't like. I'm sure I won't have any difficulty do that. Everyone who is definitely coming will be drinking, with the exception of Gus' teetotaling roommate, and one of my sistas soul who just got her wisdom teeth out. (I never actually call Jess that, I just think fun with construction is just that.)

I've been thinking a lot about names and language for the past couple of days (call me a word geek.)

Like, I had to look up info on a professor named Roni Rosenfeld. Get this- Roni was short for Ronald. Doesn't it seem like he'd get a lot of flak for opting for the more "VeRONIca-esque" spelling? I mean, he had a choice in the matter - his parents obviously named him Ronald. Am I being judgemental?

There are some names that just seem much more gender-specific than others. Like you'd never expect to meet a girl named Rick. Or Richard. Or maybe you would. I wouldn't.

Today, when Lakshmi came in and asked me how I was, I had half a mind to tell her that I was ok, but behind on my work because some shit had really hit the fan this morning. And then I stopped myself.

I don't really have problems with using idioms that seem to have arrived out of some origin that's clear to me, or purely nonsensical idioms, but I just don't get the one about the shit hitting the fan. I mean, at what point in history did a significant amount of shit come in contact with a fan, creating enough havoc to warrant the coinage (not to mention the frequent re-use of) such a phrase?

And, furthermore, in what situation would it be likely for shit to hit a fan? Should we, as resposible users of the English language, go around implying that shit hitting a fan is just one of those little things that life deals out to us, along with hangnails and traffic jams.

I refuse to live a lie. Never have I seen shit hit a fan. Never have I heard of shit hitting the fan. So, never, in turn, will I brign up the hitting of shit by a fan as though I knew what I were talking about.

Because, by God, I don't. And furthermore...

who would want to?

What I'm wearing:

What I'm reading:

What I'm doing after this: