Words.

Some days words come more easily than others.  Some days they don't come very easily at all.  Or maybe they just come so easily that I can't even delineate specific topics or write in a straightforward manner.  I always had problems with essay assignments in high school for this very reason.  I'm not good at limiting the context of my mind.  Today is not an easy day for words.

When I was 5 or 6 years old, one of my favorite books was Jean Lee Latham's Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.  I'd probably read it something like 30 times by the time I finished first grade.  There's a little snippet of the book that sums me in a lot of ways...

Mr. Ropes strolled back to Nat's desk.  "Nat, run over to my house, and look up Surveying in the Chambers Cyclopedia, will you? Hetty will show you where it is.  Write down what it says about the start of surveying.  You'll find everything you need on the desk."

Nat hurried over to Mr. Ropes' home.  A cyclopedia?  What in the world was that?  Well, Hetty would show him...

Soon he was sitting at the desk in the library, with four big books in front of him:  Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.  He turned the pages.   Everything was here!  Everything!   I'd like to begin at A, he thought, and read right through to Z!  But now he must find out about surveying. 

The Next thing Nat knew, Mr. Ropes was striding into the library, calling "Nat!  What in the name of sense happened to you?  Did you go to sleep?"

"No, sir.  I'm copying what it says about surveying.  But there's a good bit to look up.  It's a little hard to tell where the start of it is.  I've looked up trigonometry  - that's the kind of mathematics they use - And I've looked up theodolites - that's the kind of telescope they use.  Then there's something about finding your position by sighting a star, so I got into astronomy.  I can't tell yet where surveying starts - with astronomy, or trigonometry or the theodolite, or -"

"Nat Bowditch!" Mr. Ropes threw himself in a chair and laughed until he wiped his eyes.  "Where did it start?  In what country?  That's all I wanted to know!  Give me that book a moment! . . .See?  Right here!  It says that surveying probably began in Egypt! Right!"

Nat said, "Oh... that's all you wanted to know?"

 I can't begin to tell you how many times I've had that conversation.

"How are you?" 

Well, I'd like to start at A and work through to Z.  No, just fine, thank you.  And you?

As a small aside, I was thinking about the statement I'd made the other day about not being able to separate the chapters of my life.  Not being able to box off or compartmentalise my thoughts.  Blogger tells me that I should be throwing labels on my posts. I assume that that's the equivalent of tagging them.  Not a concept I'm very good at, so if anyone wants to suggest tags for specific posts, feel free.