phth

the great thing about that word is that you can say it longer than almost any other word with consonants.

give it a try.

and for those of you who don't know what phth is -- it's the feeling on your skin procured when rubbing cordury, velour, velvet, etc...

while velvet is high culture, velour -- low, they have been related by the larger family of how my brother daniel experiences them.

i, unlike my brother, like phth.

jaelyn, like me, except more, LOVES phth. (she has a bit of a heightened sense of texture, though. She won't hug me when I'm wearing wool sweaters and sport coats. occasionally, randomly, she'll disappear upstairs and bring me down an alternate sweater. Not at my bidding, mind you. Before i even remember how offended she is by wool -- scratch wool, particularly. I wonder if someone has heightened texture awareness as part of one's DNA code or whether it can be socialized. If its the later, Summer Barry is to blame -- she used to take McKenzie to fabric stores to close her eyes and feel the difference in the fabrics. Of course I was hooked -- seemed like a good way to develop the mystic sensibiliity -- so off went Jaelyn and I to the fabric store.)

daniel, abhors phth.

I have to agree with him in the rare case that anything in the phth family touches the skin that my freshly clipped fingernails reveal.

Yesterday I walked outside, overcast, warm, drizzly, and I said this day feels like Phth to me.

I'm thinking that not enough people embrace moderate weather. there's always a flurry of conversation around "sunshine." Well what's so great about sunshine? I think its a little too, too. Like Jim Carrey's "acting."

(which I hear is completely non-stylized in Eternal Sunshine -- which I can't wait to see this weekend, and already recommend based on the praises and critiques I've heard)

Let's hear it for the Grey! Let's hear it for the Rainy! Let's offer a gentle round of applause for the gentle patter of drizzle outside. The water is almost invisible, almost not there, but there, still.

Being a pisces, i'll plunge into any opportunity to move through water...no matter how thick or coherent it is.

And the more I think about it -- the more I think -- YEAH. That underwater sequence in The Graduate -- and then sampled in so many other great movies (particularly, laudably, Rushmore) is all about phth. and grey days. and beethoven's moonlight sonata -- played ppp.

my brothers are over on the Faces of Dave arguing about whether God knows everything or loves completely.

I prefer grey days.