Turn Off The VCR

Do you suffer from Vocabulary Correctness Readjustment? This is the syndrome that describes the particular type of confusion, blended with personal embarrassment and panic that one experiences when faced with the sudden realisation that a word, phrase, cliche or proverb that they took to mean one thing, actually means something else. VCR specifically only applies to that exact moment and not to the process of incorrect use of language prior to the realignment. I once went out with a girl who would mix her cliches in delightful fluidity like "don't burn your bridge until you come up to it" and "the early bird is better than two in the bush".  She has never experienced VCR, for, still to this day, she believes those tellings, those usages of language, to be correct. Her vocabulary has never been realigned and she has never had to suffer the reentry pangs of such.

But, to those of us who have experienced the rug of correctness-security being pulled from under our feet, the debilitating symptoms of VCR are well known. In a shifting flurry across the memory storage areas of the brain, the sufferer of VCR scans in harried, mental desperation back over the past for all the times his or her vocabulary was misappropriated. At the same time, he/she stares madly off into an imagined future, creating supposed instances where vocabulary is used with more accuracy and relevance, in a bid to reconcile these new requirements with their goals, dreams and visions for their life to come. Its a frightening moment, akin to the seemingly endless increasing peak of a panic attack, but, because attacks of VCR subside and pass with less visible impact than other social mental syndromes, many would not even know it exists or existed and choose to not even acknowledge it - just like the piece of outdated technology it shares an acronym with.

The Word and You

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Panama. All I wanted to do out there, was sit on a beach and immerse myself in The Pacific - some sort of quasi-metaphysical quest for cleansing and recharge. So I packed light. A few shorts and T-shirts, the obligatory couple of white button down shirts and some underwear. I packed it all into the overnight bag I had borrowed from The Luxembourger, and threw it on the floor next to my bed, where it sat half empty and projecting a depression at it's unfulfilled potential. It was still in that pose, slouched over and deflated by emptiness, when I arose at 4:30am to head to LaGuardia Airport. It called for more contents. Dazed by the premature rise from slumber, I scanned my room looking for what void in packing I had left. Of course! I had only thought of clothing, but I had forgotten to preempt for other requirements of eventualities. In the muted shadows of the early dawn, I danced around my bedroom gathering a couple of F. Scott books, a Hemingway and even a Saul Bellow. Then I tossed in the iPod, followed by all my writing gear. In went a half dozen varieties of pencils, a couple of sharpeners and the black Moleskin. Ontop of all that, went a copy of Vanity Fair and the bag was now full;. my luggage was now complete. I had packed 'Distraction'.