blerg!

the title of my last post is reminding me of my poetry class this past winter when we got our first assignment - to write an original poem following specific guidelines - and i thought mine was so great but my teacher tore it apart (rightly) and picked out all the weird metaphors that made no sense and had a billion and one cliches. for someone that purports to love words and language, i use cliches sooooo much. not just in writing but in my everyday speech. i think it's because if i find a ready-made phrase that i think is funny, it becomes easy to pull from my brain at any moment, and it usually works to make me smile pretty easily. here are some examples of how i am stuck in word ruts: and not all of these are necessarily ready-made phrases to everyone, but even still:
i'll say things like: "nutso", "freaky friday", "bummerwolf", "goodnight nurse", "oh, hell", "poop" as an exclamation, "whatthup" and "yeth" - always with the lisp. and i put R's into words a lot, for example: my roommate Whitney becomes Whiterney, hello > herro, etc....

in retrospect, it's funny that i thought some of those were cliches. also funny that those are the words i realize i say most often after claiming to love language. BUT STILL - i overuse words. i should be more creative.
it's weird how the sayings/vocab we use everyday comes together. my past and future roommate madeline was ALWAYS quoting movies. we would laugh all the time at borrowed/ appropriated phrases - "farging bastiches!" - "speak engrish!" - "go away, read some books".

living in close quarters with people almost makes you the same person because you develop inside jokes, or you just listen to them and pick up on their idiosyncracies and adopt them. it's fun! and creepy.
i am at work and my friend jacob just came by and i told him what i was writing about and he said one of the exclamations he always uses is: "H. Peterson!"

???!!!