I've Got the Dictionary on a String

Some days you can't think of the right word to save your life. Today is the opposite. Today I successfully summoned the ideal word for a given concept - twice.

I was washing my hands this morning and thinking about Eminem. He really should be represented on this compilation cd I've been working on, but I couldn't decide which song to use. Then I thought of "Stan," the sad tale of a fan who keeps sending mail to his hero (guess who) and never receives a reply until it's too late. Each verse is presented as the text of a letter, classifying the format of the song as... epistolary. Sweet Georgia Brown, this old handwasher darn near soaked through his oxford patting himself on the back for that one.

And *then,* I was driving into downtown, coming back to work from lunch, and I noticed that the lightposts on top of a parking garage across from the post office looked just like crosses, all white and gleaming in the sky, seven stories up. "Calvary" rang out in my mind immediately, referring to the hill outside Jerusalem where Christ and those thieves were crucified. I half expected the grubby construction workers waddling out of the strip club to give me high fives and throw glitter on my car.

I don't know how brains process information this way; I just know it's awesome when it works. It's like pulling into a parking lot that's usually full and seeing an open space straight ahead, which also happened this afternoon. This makes up for the time last week when I couldn't think of the word 'fecundity.' Totally.