The only month that's also in the following sentence.
March: an anagram of 'charm'.
The only month with an 'arch' in it. Unless you count the letter 'n' as an arch. In which case, January and June also have arches. (But not November. An upper-case N is not an arch. Only an idiot would say that.)
March.
***
Well. I think that lemon has been thoroughly squeezed, juiced, and zested. Put it to one side and move on.
Here's a little insight into how my brain works.
As I wrote the above sentence about a figurative lemon, I was listening to my playlist songs on random and a Zombies track came up. It was this one:
I thought about posting it on this post. It's a nice song. But as I looked up the details, I realised that the Zombies compilation I have (The Original Studio Recordings, Vol. 1) didn't have the correct release dates for the individual songs on iTunes. So I looked up the dates on Wikipedia and, one by one, filled them in.
Ten minutes later, I remembered that I was writing this blog post.
I'm quite easily distracted.
I'm slightly obsessive and anal, but not to a satisfying extent. If I was truly obsessive, I'd have already corrected all of the release dates on my music. I haven't done that. But I have done quite a lot of them.
You really either want to be totally obsessive (and get everything done) or not obsessive at all (and not worry about pointless details). I'm some way in between. It bothers me when things aren't 'right', but not enough for me to make them so.
A combination of laziness and neurosis means I'm always aware of my (imaginary) problems, but never have the wherewithal to solve them.
Hey, wherewithal only has one 'l'. Who would have thought that? No-one. Not even James Murray.
(I genuinely didn't intend that to be a segue, but it reminded me of something else I've thought about writing. I can't pass up this opportunity. Don't look a gift horse in the eyes, and back away slowly.)
James Murray was the man behind the Oxford English Dictionary. I read a book about him once.
Lucy works on the OED too, so she feels part of the same lineage. Or she might do. I don't know. I could ask her - she's sitting in the same room as me, making jewellery (by the way, you might want to visit her Etsy shop, where you can see and buy her beautiful creations).
I could ask her if she feels part of that lineage, but I don't think I'll bother. Vocal communication is tough. So let's just assume that she feels part of a long chain of etymologists and linguists that starts with Murray and ends in some kind of sci-fi dictionary (science-fictionary?) maker who looks like Judy Jetson and uses anti-gravity ink.
Every morning, we walk to work past Murray's postbox on Banbury Road. Here it is (I found the photo on this interesting-looking blog):
It's not his exactly, but is near his blue plaque. But let's not split hairs: it's HIS.
A couple of years ago, we walked past it and joked that touching it would give us good luck. We might absorb some of his word-skills. This isn't important for my job (which doesn't involve any thought or skill of any kind), but might benefit Lucy in her research work.
So we touched it. Ha ha ha. What fun.
I don't think we received any blessing from it, but it was a nice bit of silly superstition. A meaningless diversion on a workday morning. Harmless.
We've touched that postbox every day since then.
Neither of us are particularly superstitious. I'm certainly not. Lucy might wave to a magpie here and there, but we're generally quite rational and reasonable.
But we continue to touch the postbox. I suppose it just became habit. That must be how all superstitions start. Someone suggests something stupid, other people go along with it for a laugh, and then they just get used to it. You do it by habit, and habit becomes instinct. Before long, you forget why you're doing it. It's just the way things are done.
The next thing you know, you're burning a witch or clubbing a homosexual person to death in an alley, and if someone was to ask you why you're doing it, you could only say: "don't walk under ladders".
There's probably a clever satirical point to be made there somewhere. But I don't want to spoon-feed you. I'd rather fire the food into your mouth using a tiny cannon.
Touching the postbox has just become a thing we do. It stopped being a silly, ironic, "what are we like?" thing a while ago, and it just now a part of the commute.
People must see us doing it and wonder why. Sometimes, there are people in the way. If possible, we'll get around them. If it's not possible, the postbox goes untouched and we resent it for the rest of the day.
That's not true really. We don't have to touch it. It's just a silly, nice tradition. A private joke. A harmless bonding ritual.
Like Christmas.
(POW goes the tiny food cannon)
Anyway, I'd better get back to correcting the dates on some of my songs, and then giving up and watching Garth Crooks exaggerate.
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