Jaime B's Blog

A fine distinction, or possibly a distinction without a difference? Let's explore that...

Where to begin? Well...Frankly, the occasion for this post is probably guilt. Here I've been on vacation since our return from Alaska, over a month ago now, with only a brief interlude of attendance at a film festival afterward to plead as an excuse, and very little to show for it on my blog!

I could admit to laziness about posting, but I'm not sure that would be exactly right. After all, I've posted in the forums, and done lots of stuff around the house, and even some in preparation for next semester's teaching. So you can't say I've been lazy. For one thing, that would make me responsible for neglecting the blog. It would be put down to my lack of initiative or sense of industry, or something of the sort.

I would much rather plead languor than laziness. It makes me much more sympathetic and pitiable. If I am languid, it is because I languish, and to languish is to suffer. (I assure you, I checked all the dictionaries and etymologies, and languor, languid, and languish are all of a piece, linguistically speaking.) So you see, it isn't my fault at all! I've rather been a victim of languishment (a legit word, even if my dictionary disses it with the term archaic).

The weird thing about languor, though, is that it also refers to the oppressiveness of extreme heat, something which I cannot credibly claim, living as I do in San Francisco, where summers can be downright cold. So we'll have to ignore that side of languor, at least until I decide to move to somewhere tropical.

At one point, I felt briefly tempted to post something about galbanum as a green note. That would have been a chance to gripe that my beautiful, green and bitter galbanum is increasingly being upstaged, not by anything decently herbal, but by violet leaf, ivy, gentian,and various other largely watery and synthetic-smelling green notes. Have patience, dear readers, I may yet get there. But the research is more than my languid state can bear right now, loves. Are they using synthetic approximations of galbanum itself? Are the other ones, the ones that smell synthetic to me, really based on chem lab creations? Can one even extract any smell from violet leaves, ivy, and gentian? I'd have to find out, wouldn't I? Not really up to it. Languor, you know — you understand, sympathize, don't you? You feel me, can't you?

I could, I may — but for now, at least, I won't. I'll just languish a bit longer and try to summon up some vigor (that's the antonym the dictionary gives — the only one — for languor). Synonyms? Gobs: lassitude, lethargy, listlessness, torpor, fatigue, weariness, sleepiness, drowsiness; laziness, idleness, indolence [ignore those last three!], inertia, sluggishness, apathy.

Languor: that's what it's been that's kept me away from blog posting. Pity me for a bit longer, and I'll get to galbanum (or something equally earth-shaking) soon!

Let's see, now... I'll look up procrastination... Later, guys!