If you’ve spend any time thinking about gender and pronouns, go and read what I wrote here, and get back to me with your thoughts, arguments, and insults! xo

Last night I couldn’t think of Billy Holiday’s name when I heard one of her songs, and tonight I talked to my Keurig machine.

It won’t be long now, I’m thinking.

Observing one’s own senility as it progresses is probably a lot more fun than observing someone else’s. My trouble with names is the worst feature so far, but other words are now becoming elusive. Sometimes, in the middle of talking, I have to say “you know, the word that means the opposite of ___.” I find this pretty interesting, because it implies that words are stored along with their antonyms, or at least, in my brain they are.

I am also fascinated by my husband’s skill at retrieving names. He hates me to start a sentence with, “You know that guy in that thing whose name I can’t remember..” He has no patience with this but I keep telling him to get used to it. Soon, I will know nothing but old Dylan lyrics, as I have predicted here many times over the years. I’m great at playing music in my head, probably because there’s so little other cognitive action going on there.

I can’t follow Bosch any more. I have given up trying. I just concentrate on whatshisname’s cocked head and try to predict the dialogue. Every night when we watch TV, I can barely recall what happened in the previous episode. This might be the pot smoking or the late hour, or watching too many Netflix series at the same time, but it’s like, Didn’t that character die already? or “Do we know this guy or is he new”?

Do you believe that the more words you know, the more disturbing it will be to see them go? Maybe if you had a limited vocabulary, it wouldn’t be as frustrating to flail around in the black hole of your memory bank. Meanwhile, I am thrilled when someone uses words or phrases beyond the ones we all hear daily. My sister described walking in a sun-dappled field and I wanted to kiss her for being so descriptive. I’m still enjoying “contemporaneous,” as in “Jim Comey’s contemporaneous notes.”

What if senility lets me keep my old memories but not the words to communicate them? That will really suck. Wait. What happens to people who use sign language??? Oh my god. Do they just wiggle their fingers???

I intend to marvel at the process of losing my mind and to report my findings. If at some point I forget who I am, I’ll have my blog as a kind of dossier. I wonder what I will think of me.

Along these lines, or maybe not, today while we were out walking the dog, I asked my husband what he thinks is important in life besides hair. His answer was “manners.” I’m not sure if he was serious, but I agree that good manners are nice to see. Later, he came up with “food.” So now I have three things, or four when you add “love.”

What am I forgetting?

The Daily Mail online is the world’s most popular newspaper website, and yet they struggle to use English.  How can we help them understand that nonplussed does not mean nonchalant?

This is apparently a common misunderstanding but I don’t know why. When I worked as a script reader, I often came across this confusion. A character who reacted with indifference would be described as “nonplussed”.

Do people think there is a state called “plussed” that means excited? So when you fail to act excited, you are nonplussed?

So Chelsea Handler made some outrageous public comments about Brangelina, but was later observed by the Daily Mail looking not only nonplussed but completely nonplussed.

They show another photo and note that she looks relaxed. BETTER, Daily Mail writer and copy editor! Now you’re making sense!

I feel like I’ve understood the meaning of both nonplussed and nonchalant my whole life, with no temptation to confuse them They are practically antonyms! What the fuck is so hard about this?

Is this going to be a thing like “literally,” where a word starts meaning its opposite due to public usage (i.e., idiots)?

God, I’m annoyed.

ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?

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Just because people say it, is it a ‘word’? This is becoming complicated, thanks to the internet and all its attendant evils, which are now too astronomical to count.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has just added 150 new words, making official words out of shit like ‘gamification’ and ‘freegan.’ Remember how upset we were about ‘selfie’? It will never end. Soon, there will be no real words in use, just gibberish.

Every time I learn one of these new ‘words’ my world gets a little bleaker. I just recently learned ‘YOLO’ and ‘MLIF’ although one hopes that such acronyms aren’t considered words by the forces in charge. Oh god, is ‘snapchat’ a word? Here is some trending internet slang, by the way, if you’re not sufficiently discouraged.

Awful words are one thing, but awful usage can be even worse. For example, why have people started using the word ‘so’ to begin a sentence? I read that it was started by Mark Zucherberg, as if he doesn’t have enough to answer for.

How about the ‘because‘ thing. Because idiots.

It’s so hard to keep up.  By the time I find out about a horrible new word and object to it, it’s already in common usage and people will just shrug and defend its existence. (Most of these people are my husband but I assume he speaks for Everyman.)

Any words or word usage bothering you right now? Jump in.

Oh god, political correctness. Now, They want us to ban the word ‘bossy’ because it inhibits girls from ‘leaning in.’ I would much rather ban ‘lean in’ if I were Minister of Language.

The new Ban Bossy campaign is predictably strident, sanctimonious and victimmy. Its stated aim is to encourage girls to become leaders. But how can they become leaders if they’re not bossy? Should they lead by manipulation instead?

‘Ban Bossy’ is brought to you by Lean In, the organization founded by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and author of the bossy best-seller that made ‘lean in’ a trendy and divisive concept for the media to feed on.

Lean In has managed to get the Girl Scouts in on the ‘Ban Bossy’ campaign, as well as bossy women like Condi Rice and Beyonce.  You can go to the website and take the pledge to stop using the word ‘bossy.’

Or you can use whatever words you want. I want to lean out or at the very least, lean back. I don’t want to be treated like an idiot by some pseudo-feminist figureheads and business groups.

I wish I had been a lot more bossy when I was younger. I’m making up for it now, though. Tell me what you think. And that’s an order.

There are so may feelings and situations for which there are no words in  English.

1. What about the feeling when you want to kill your ex-husband? I have that right now.

2. What  about  that tingle you get when you swallow some LSD – a mixter of anticipation and “Oh no, 8 hours of madness up ahead!”

3. How about the feeling you get when you know  someone  is lying to you but you can call them on it?

4. Or what about a word for when you ate all the ice cream   you vowed not to eat, plus 3 more  servings?

5. The frisson of irritation when characters on TV gratuitously   say ‘vagina’ every fifteen minutes?

The list is endless.  Submissions  or suggestions?

I LOVE the text at Stylebop.com, a high-end shopping site based in Germany.   Maybe it’s the person who does the English translation, or maybe it’s silly in German too.   There is always something to delight. For example:

“no worries, this black leather top looks luxurious, expensive and noble and by no means cheap or slutty”

At $965, I should hope not!