What’s The Meaning of All This?

You may have noticed that I’ve been M.I.A lately. If so, you are awesome and amazing because that means you were observant and missed me. (The former is good, but the latter is more worthy of praise…) I meant to write, I really did. I meant to write about my Grandma’s 93rd birthday on August 31. (She had a rockin’ good time and my mom and I made a cake that was EPIC.) I meant to write about the weird dreams I’ve been having. (A few nights ago, I dreamed that I was eating tomato soup in my car. That’s it. Nothing else happened. Tomato soup.) I had plans, I tell you. Plans!

However, I’ve been busy. I’m not going to go into all of it because I subscribe to the superstitious belief that I will jinx myself and the universe will punish me for sharing too soon. This sounds very doom and gloom, but I’m pretty sure there’s something to it. Of course, it’s not unlike the reluctance of J.K. Rowling’s characters to speak the name Voldemort. This might mean that if I do talk about certain decisions that have been made and actions that have been taken, they will lose their ability to inspire fear and self-doubt.

Meh.

Well, I will tell you that I am taking the GRE in a little less than a month and have been trying to study. I was never very good at studying, and I hardly had to do it in college. I was an English major. We mostly had essays instead of tests. When there was an exam, it was on a book or something we’d read…and we wrote an essay. (Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, that’s all I’m essay’n.*) You either knew the material, or you didn’t. For four years of higher education, I rarely had to memorize anything. (Rote? Is that anything like “wrote”?) I watched my friends and roommates study and recite formulas, dates, chemicals, economic principles, Chinese vocabulary. It looked hard.

While I don’t want to bomb the math portion of the GRE, I don’t care all that much about it. It’s important that I do well in the verbal part because it’s generally assumed that an English major should know that crap section. I’ve been doing some vocab exercises, and I’d like to share with you some words I got wrong:

hoary
What it seems like it should mean: difficult and sketchy
         ex. When she found herself surrounded by skanks with no way out, she knew she was in a hoary situation.

What it means: White or grey from age. 
         ex. My neighbor’s fourteen-year-old golden retriever has a hoary muzzle. 

somnambulist
What it seems like it should mean: A person who speaks loudly, incessantly, and without recognizing his/her audience.
         ex. Her boyfriend was such a somnambulist–droning on and on–that he reminded me of a car alarm.
What it means:  a sleepwalker
         ex.  Oftentimes, a somnambulist will wake up in another part of the house, having no recollection of leaving his own bed. 

cozen
What it seems like it should mean: a dozen covens? A cozy oven?
         ex. 1 I worry that Michelle Bauchmann has a cozen of followers ready to do her bidding.
         ex. 2 Spooning in the two-person sleeping bag, we were as warm as a cozen.

What it means:  To deceive; to cheat; to act deceitfully.
         ex. Sometimes I jingle the leashes and stomp my shoes to cozen my dog to come out of hiding. Yes, she is probably smarter than me.

perigee
What it seems like it should mean: A type of falcon
         ex. If Cory was an animal, he would be a flying perigee–the hunter of all that is fuzzy wuzzy.

What it means:  The lowest or closest point; the point of a satellite’s orbit that is nearest to the earth.
        ex. Tonight, for the first time in a kazillion years, the moon will be at its closest perigee. 

picayune
What it seems like it should mean: A particularly spicy pepper native to the southeast region of Peru
        ex. Before our trip to Machu Picchu, we decided to eat a picayune. Santa Maria! I still can’t feel my tongue!

What it means: Small coin; something of little value or importance.
        ex. If I had a picayune for every time hour I spent studying–wait, this feels like math…

Just to warn you, my posts will probably be sporadic and shorter than usual in the coming weeks. Go ahead and miss me, it will warm my vocabulary-filled heart. Oh, and don’t any of you mention that I could have used this blog-writing time to study and review. This is a vituperation-free zone.

*essay’n? Oh man, I apologize. I have no excuse, except that it’s nearly 2 am and my brain is toast.