Want to Keep Your Creative Flow Going? Stay Off the Emotional Rollercoaster
It’s been a topsy turvy, roller-coastery sort of week.
My son finished his final scheduled round of chemotherapy, hooray, and is awaiting followup tests, scans, etc. to have a better idea of what to expect going forward. I’m very proud of him and his wife for getting this far in the cancer battle with grace, good humor, and fantastic attitudes.
In wider news, of course, one of the candidates in the US Presidential race has just dropped out, resulting in a fair bit of chaos and uncertainty.
Now, I have to tell you, I’m not good with roller coasters. Not since I was about 15, when I visited Paragon Park, a beachside amusement park in Hull, Massachusetts, with my sister and our respective boyfriends.
One of the park’s big attractions was a wooden coaster — tame by today’s standards, but plenty exciting back then. They had a height requirement, and I slipped on despite being just a teeny bit too short. I was excited about riding my first roller coaster.
We clanked slowly and painfully up the first big hill, crested the top, and then whoosh, down we flew.
Except I didn’t exactly. You see, back then there was a lap bar, but no actual safety restraints, and gravity did what gravity always does. My boyfriend realized what was happening and yanked me back down into the seat just as I felt like my hips were going to sail up and over the bar, and held me down until the ride ended.
That was the end of my relationship with roller coasters. I don’t do physical roller coasters, and I’m bad with the emotional ones as well.
What I’m Reading
This week I’ve been blasting through Sarah Graves’ Death by Chocolate series. Her writing style is amusing, to the point of making me laugh out loud pretty regularly, although the events in them are often horrendous.
First in the series is Death by Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake.
Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree and her best friend Ellie White have opened a bakery together. They specialize in — you guessed it — chocolate. Their fledgling business is doing well, and they’re looking forward to raking in some dough over the town’s tourist-attracting Fourth of July celebrations.
And then the obnoxious guy who’s been filing bogus health complaints against them for months shows up dead in the back of the bakery and Ellie becomes the prime suspect.
Oops.
There are seven books in the series. I just downloaded, number six, Death by Chocolate Marshmallow Pie.
Notable Quotes
Once upon a time, Ma Bell ran the phone system with ruthless, utterly monopolistic efficiency. Now any fool can start a phone company and provide the kind of high-class personal communication service once offered only by two tin cans and a length of string.
- Death by Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake by Sarah Graves
Remember I said her writing was amusing? Here’s the first of many examples.
Because as I have mentioned, Bob may not look much like an effective police officer, what with his thinning blond hair, plump pink face, and general air of being the Pillsbury Doughboy’s long-lost twin brother. But Bob could make a dead bird sing like a canary with that steely-blue gaze of his…
- Death by Chocolate Snickerdoodle by Sarah Graves
Or how about this one, which made me laugh out loud. Anyone who’s lived in New England, especially along the coast, will relate to this.
Winter in Eastport is a cheery, life-affirming combination of sleet, snow, wind, ice, and the kind of dense, energy-sapping gloom that closes in on you at three in the afternoon and doesn’t let go again for sixteen hours.
- Death by Chocolate Chip Cupcake by Sarah Graves
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Wise Words
Last week we posed the following fill-in-the-blank. Which word is the better choice in this sentence? Is it manner or manor?
On the contrary. . . he was to the _____ born, even wore an Old Etonian tie, which I knew was the Lord Chamberlain’s alma mater.
- Traitors Gate by Jeffrey Archer
This one was interesting, and took me down a few rabbit holes before I found what seems to be a definitive answer on a site called The Word Detective.
I have always assumed the correct answer to be manor — it makes sense, after all, since the phrase is almost always used to describe someone who comes (or who think they come) from a superior social mileu.
Turns out, it’s not that straightforward.
According to The Word Detective, “to the manner born” was first used by Shakespeare, way back around the year 1600 AD. In Act I, Scene IV, Hamlet says, “But to my mind, though I am native here / And to the manner born, it is a custom / More honour’d in the breach than the observance.”
It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that manor was substituted, within a context of the aristocratic lifestyle. Shakespeare’s manner was used to describe customs and habits, rather than elevation of rank.
So there you have it: both manner and manor have been used for the past 150+ years, but 150 years before that, it was manner. And interestingly enough, half of those who responded to the question chose manner, and half chose manor.
Archer used manner in the sentence above.
Turns out the definitive answer is not very definite at all, but hey, that’s the English language for you! I hope you come back and play again next week.