Verbosity

I was somewhat startled the other day when I read someone complaining about the needless words in English. It's true that English has a ton of words, and even more true that I recognize many more of them than I use.

I think it's been decided that the old saying about Eskimos (now Inuits, I believe) having twnety-seven words for snow is a myth, but some group has many. I know that the Greeks had a few different words for love, and I've heard the Indians have over fifty. This, I thnk, is a good thing. It would keep lovers on their toes and could possibly help keep those less literate from breeding.

The first girl I ever dated got sick right after she dumped me. I think we were still on speaking terms, and I remember mailing her (through the US Mail) some sort of funtime sheet of puzzles, silly games, and things like that for her to mess with while she was ill. Although I'm pretty sure it must have contained a connect the dots thing, the only thing I can vouch for is a "complete the poem / fill in the blank" type of thing. I don't remember it all, but it ended like this"

blah blah blah
....something above
I know now that the one is you
The person that I really _____

She wrote back (she completed the page and sent it back, and I guess I'd asked her to do that) "Isn't that leading the witness?" and filled in the blank with the word wuv.

I don't know if teenagers use the word wuv anymore, and I certainly never heard it again in my life. It's a good one, though, and probably better describes the advanced nature of my most intense feelings than any other word. There's an innocent, playful quality to wuv that distinguishes it from the mature, responsible love most everyone around me shares with their partners. It may capture pretty well the cartoonish aspects of my attempts through the years, my copying what other people do when they're in love while having no good idea of how to do so myself. There have been some women who returned my romantic inclinations, but I have a hunch many more found them amusing.

Oh, if you want to read a dream I had, check the "more" section.


I was home with my laundry scattered between my bedroom, the front room, and the kitchen, and was busy putting away clothes and ironing a shirt. I was going to meet a girl I knew at a park, and as I was sorting my clothes in turned into my meeting two different girls I knew. I was getting dressed up for them, and found some gold and blue dress socks which would go well with the blue chambray shirt I'd ironed. I was wearing old, floppy white athletic socks, but put one of the dress socks on over it.

The sock was inside out, so I turned it around and it became a silver and blue sock. It looked very nice, and I put them on knowing that the white socks beneath them would somehow help make the background silver color stand out more. The dress socks, as I pulled them up and tight, came all the way up beneath my knees, like the socks Ed McMahon always wore, and I was afraid that it would look like I was wearing women's stockings.

Then I was standing by myself on some sort of platform overlooking a train ride at Disneyland. Both the ride and Disneyland were fictions, but that's the where I felt I was. I was standing on the platform when a strange girl in her late twenties or early thirties came up to me, and I guess I was around 35 in the dream.

The young girl stood close to me, looking at me, and was joined by a friend of hers, another girl of about the same age who I also didn't know. They were interested in, and eventually picked at, something near my lip. I was never sure if it was a crumb or a pimple, and never sure if they were teasing me or if I felt bad about it.

Another unknown girl, extremely tall, came up. She was a head taller than me and seemed attracted to me. I wondered if it was because she couldn't find anyone taller than she was and I was the best thing she could find. She and I exchanged small talk, with me teasing her by asking Б─°How's the weather up there?Б─² and she replied Б─°Not very crowded.Б─²

They were all going to go on the ride, which was headed to Louisiana. Oddly, Louisiana was located somewhere closer to Michigan than in the South. I got in line alone but the small train, only about four cars, pulled out right before I could get my ticket. I was told by the ticket guy that another train would be right along, and I got the impression that the trains came about twenty minutes apart, but only once every day or so.

I was shuttled to the side because they owed me a ticket, and was standing on the platform again, this time looking down at the ticket counter. I saw a line forming and was near a pair of guys working the ride and using a tin cash box to store money and tickets, which were blank red ones, like I see for raffles. A supervisor came by and was talking to the ticket guy about hitting some phenomenal amount of ticket sales, $500 worth, at $10 a ticket. I got the impression this meant the train would stay in business and was hoping the two guys in front of me would give me my ticket.

I was worrying about that when a girl I recognized from my real life showed up (the others were unknown to me). She didn't have a ticket, either, but was going to get on the train and as we watched the people below us get tickets I fell in love with her and we kissed. She left to get her ticket while I waited for mine.

The other train showed up and filled with happy people. I could see them laughing and holding balloons and things, and it was like a party train headed for Las Vegas. I became panicked, couldn't find my friend, and didn't have a ticket. The supervisor returned, this time talking about $600 worth of Б─°recreational allowances,Б─² a term I understood to refer to ticket sales. I could tell she didn't want to say that out loud, since then people would know how much money was in the little metal box.

The train started to leave, and no one remembered that I was owed a ticket. The ticket seller somehow let me know I was okay, or could buy a ticket from the conductor, and I began chasing the departing train. He gave me a ticket, which I held in my teeth, and I saw the doors on the train close one by one as I ran after it. I ran to the head of the train rather than taking a chance with having a door slam shut in my face.

The door in the head car, the locomotive, was open and exposed a ladder that ran up the side into the cab. I leapt and grabbed hold of the ladder, my feet dangling above the wheels. I had no trouble holding myself and hung there for awhile, thinking that I'd have to call my sister and explain I was in Louisiana when I got there. This would surprise her. Eventually the engineer saw me and called for someone to help me, and a young black guy poked his head out of an opening at the top of the ladder and grabbed my arms.

I had no strength to hoist myself, and kept looking down for something to put my feet on. If I could do that, I could lift myself and he could haul me into the safety of the cab. All I could see was the wheels and a red light, and I couldn't get my feet on the light and knew that if I touched the spinning wheel that I would be pulled off the ladder and onto the track. I hung there without trouble, but the guy wasn't able to do anything except hold my arms until the train stopped.

I got down and saw that the car I was holding onto was the only one. The engineer told me that they'd dropped the other cars, the ones with the party goers, and that another engine would pick them up. I asked and was told the car I was with, the one I'd been hanging onto, wasn't going to Louisiana.

The back of the car was a refreshment stand, with something like a cotton candy machine in the center along with a small area where someone could stand and run it and handle the customers. Around the machine, forming a sideways U that extended back from the cab, was a shelf with an assortment of candy, but no one was in the center to sell anything.

The engineer, recognizing that I couldn't get to Louisiana, felt sorry for me and handed me a twenty dollar bill, one of the old ones with the small picture. I pulled my ticket from my teeth, and carried it wrapped up in the bill. The train was parked near the back of Disneyland, a place away from all the people visiting the park.

I wanted to go back in, but didn't want to spend any money to do so since I'd already done that. There was a nearby hill, streaked with railroad tracks, and I began climbing up using the ties like stairs. I passed some guards who paid me no attention, and there were some other people getting in the same way. I felt if I got caught sneaking in, the ticket for the train would prove I'd already been inside, and the guards seemed to know we could pay somewhere inside.

As I was climbing the hill in the middle of the track was a dummy with a POW sign, and it looked just like the Disney dummies always do. There was a voice coming from some speaker describing something about POWs, so I felt it must be part of some ride. I got to the top of the hill and it was like a Gettysburgh scene, but without any bodies. Just scrap land, without any green, and covered with dry dirt and some pebbles.

Then, I woke up.