declivity

\di-KLIV-uh-tee\

noun

1 : downward inclination
*2 : a descending slope

According to raptureready.com, there is a clear path following the DECLIVITY of one's downward spiral that can be observed in these eight stages:

1) All-the-Time-in-the-World Syndrome

2) Overconfidence

3) Denial

4) The Lack of a Foundation

5) The Tolerance Factor

6) Unsuccessful Attempts to Stop a Habit

7) Emotions are Stronger than Reason

8) "I Don't Care Anymore"

Of course, raptureready.com's solution to one's DECLIVITY is obviously a renewal in the reliance on God's grace.

According to NIN, "God is dead and no one cares; if there is a hell I'll see you there." This concept probably fits under stages 4 and 8. NIN embraces the so-called downward inclination. And, in all fairness, I would put my faith in NIN as the authority on the downward spiral.

Sorry, raptureready.com. You should stick to "ecstatic joy or delight." DECLIVITY is not your forte.

conn

\KAHN\

verb

: to conduct or direct the steering of (as a ship)

In 1963 the USPS instituted the use of two-letter state abbreviations in order to make room for the new and exciting zip code. Prior to this rule, the name of the state was often entirely spelled out, or abbreviated according to the list in the Associated Press Stylebook. As in the APS, Conn. = Connecticut, my home state. I always remember writing "Conn." in my return address, until one day I was told otherwise. This may have been in 1987 when the U.S. Secretary of Commerce approved the use of two-letter codes within government documents, thereby making it more widely used. Or maybe not. Maybe I just didn't know any better and somebody made me feel foolish for writing out Conn. when I could have just been writing CT. That's entirely possible.

I'd like to admit something about Connecticut: I actually like the place. Of course it's common to harbor some level of animosity toward where one grew up, but the longer I am away, the more I enjoy every return visit.

Here are some things I learned about Connecticut in the last five minutes:

- The name derives from the Mohegan word quonehtacut, meaning "place of long tidal river." I don't know what river to which this name refers. Housatonic?

- It is known as The Constitution State (I did know this) because it developed the first constitution, apparently, EVER (I did not know this part).

- Home of the first: payphone, can opener, firsbee, and (according to CT.gov) the first hamburger, served at Louie's Lunch in New Haven.

Okay. Enough of that.

Let's get serious about CONN here. According to Robert A. Heilein—"the dean of science fiction writers"—a human being should be able to "change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, CONN a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly."

This is a tall order. I feel pretty confident about 11 of these 21 demands. Another 5 I could do with a little help. And the last 5 would be a challenge, including the CONNING. But I won't reveal the rest. That's for me to know and you to...not know.

barmecidal

\bahr-muh-SYE-dul\

adjective

: providing only the illusion of abundance

BARMECIDAL: the reason behind plastic fruit, the wonder bra, and anything made out of iron pyrites.

This is all I can muster on three hours of sleep. I will add more in the near future.

agita

\AJ-uh-tuh\

noun

: a feeling of agitation or anxiety

Surprisingly, this word derives from the Italian acido and not the Latin verb agere, which inspires the English agitate. Agere means "to drive or urge" while acido means "acid or heartburn." Leave it to the Italians to emphasize the effects and not the cause of anxiety.

I woke up this morning with a bit of AGITA, not literally heartburn, but agitation. I'm inclined to say something like "the wrong side of the bed," as though that saying means anything. There's only one side from which to dismount my bed as it is, unless I did something weird like slid down to the bottom, but who does that. I didn't do that.

I just noticed that I was unusually irritated. I hated that the cats were meowing and that I knocked over the precarious container of serrated knives and chopsticks and that nobody but myself takes the initiative to refill the water jugs. I want to take the easy way out and blame hormones, but I usually think that's a cop out.

cop out : an idiom meaning to avoid taking responsibility for an action or to avoid fulfilling a duty

Maybe it was because I had a weird dream that I got arrested for confessing to having intentions to vandalize a Church. Not even actually doing it, just intending to. The cop threaded a fish hook connected to a chain through the roof of my mouth and hooked the other end into my inner thigh. They had a name for this binding in my dream, but I can't recall. I was trying to think of who could bail me out, and I had no idea. All I could think about was that on job applications I would now have to say I had a criminal record.

Cooked peppers. That's what causes me heartburn. Not in salsa, but in hot dishes and such. Too bad.

I need to turn my AGITA around, otherwise it's going to be a long day.

burgle

\BER-gul\

verb

1 : to break into and steal from
2 : to commit burglary against

If someone were to BURGLE my home right now and take everything, here are the top ten items I would miss, in the order of how they occur to me (assuming all my personal effects [wallet, glasses, etc] are on my person]:

Tubby

a ratty blue briefcase full of old writing

my laptop

any original artwork by anyone

my AutoExpo tee shirt

some cute old miz mooz shoes that are irreplaceably comfortable

a necklace I made out of a shell someone dear gave to me

my address book

a jar of four years worth of guitar picks I collected off the floor while working at Guitar Center

a video tape of my eighth grade band concert

That was actually really, really hard. My method was visualizing my bedroom (I'm currently writing downstairs where the internet ACTUALLY WORKS) and my belongings, considering their worth and what would be lost in their absence: art, evidence, sentiment, connections. None of these items are worth any money, with the exception of my laptop, which is four years old and boasts a broken disc drive and a jenky wireless antenna.

So, what am I trying to say? Nothing new. My most valuable possessions are full of sentiment and not monetary worth, blah, blah, blah. Welcome to everyone who matters. The point is that my house is totally not worth BURGLING (Merriam reminds me this is the more British term to our American BURGLARIZING) and this makes my life one degree easier than those who fill their homes full of expensive and useless crap. It's just one less thing I need to worry about.

Famous last words?

Maybe.

bandbox

\BAND-bahks\

noun

1 : a usually cylindrical box of cardboard or thin wood for holding light articles of attire

2 : a structure (as a baseball park) having relatively small interior dimensions

The BANDBOX is one of those things with a practical beginning and a metaphorical future. It began as a container to hold ruffs—the excessively frilly, starchy, and grandiose collars snapped or tied around the necks of 16th and 17th century men and women. The BANDBOX was usually constructed out of flimsy plywood, and the word soon came to describe anything of flimsy construction. The term also went in another direction, to connote a place from which something fancy—like the ruff—emerged. Three hundred years later, the word is used mostly as an adjective to describe anything neat, tidy, or ordered.

I like the conflict among these definitions—specifically the flimsiness inherent in the construction of a place to house something of greater opulence. There's a certain humility about this, like a prince trapped inside a frog. I motion that the definition of BANDBOX move in this direction, emphasizing the irony of that juxtaposition.

Updated definition of BANDBOX : any receptacle or house far less extravagant than what it is intended to contain

Done and done. Rewriting the dictionary, one word at a time.

ab initio

\ab-ih-NISH-ee-oh\

adverb

: from the beginning

It's amazing the difference a preposition makes. Here are the results of several google searches and a lack of inspiration:

FROM the beginning: Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, the construction of NASA's Orion spacecraft, and an animated primer on the basics of DNA.

IN the beginning: a fabric store in Seattle, creationism, and a TV film starring Martin Landau and Jacqueline Bisset.

AT the beginning: Richard Marx and Donna Lewis on the soundtrack of Disney's Anastasia, architecture at the turn of the 21st century, and myths about women from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary.

ON the beginning: Carl Sagan, the start of the English novel, and several prepositional misuses of "on" when "in" was really more appropriate.

OF the beginning: mostly a whole lot of "End of the Beginning" and "Beginning of the End."

*

When I think "from the beginning," I think "from the top," as in musical terms, although despite the influx of Latin in my school band experience I don't remember the term AB INITIO being thrown around. Merriam-Webster tells me the term is mostly used in legal contexts (i.e. things I would never read) and occasionally now as an adjective to suggest "starting from first principles." Think: initial.

Poor Latin. It's the basis of everything but now only makes cameos, like William Shatner selling airfare for priceline. A friend of mine in junior high school took a Latin course. She kept referring to it as a "dead language." If that was the case, I didn't understand why they still taught it, or what use it had for those who could speak it (outside the realm of S.A.T. preparation). Still, I was envious of her. I thought she was in on some secret form of communication that was beyond my fourteen-year-old intelligence.

The extent of my verbal Latin usage is probably et cetera and M.O., which doesn't even really count because it's an abbreviation. Maybe I should start integrating some more. I'll try to take AB INITIO outside of the blog today. Seriously.

Okay, I just said the word out loud to myself and it came out abnetio. A rough start—AB INITIO a rough terrain to my usage of AB INITIO—but I will recover.