the whirly girl

Beware of gravity.

  • : splooting explained :

    The British call it pancaking. Squirrels call it life enhancing. Others call it heat dumping. Most of the big dictionaries don’t define it, yet. However, it is thought to be of recent coinage, which is nice. Etymology is such a gas. I, myself, stumbled across the term in, of all places, the Washington Post. Apparently, […]

  • : blame it on corn sweat :

    It’s a real, honest-to-goodness thing. Corn, the kind that grows on tall, spindly stalks in endless rows of dirt, sweats. It stands quietly in the sunshine exhaling water into the atmosphere through a process called evapotranspiration. Less scientific types call it corn sweat.  One measly acre of ripening corn (there are millions in Illinois) can […]

  • : better days ahead :

    Yes, we’re on the backside of summer. Yes, upsetting nonsense keeps happening. And, yes, we’re weary.  But, cheer up, buttercups.  Better days are headed our way. A whole bunch of them, one right after another, like a convoy of happy. They’ll be here any day now — or soon, at least. I promise. Look at […]

  • : to recogitate :

    On first sight, I read recogitate as regurgitate and winced. There’s something truly off-putting about the word regurgitate, don’t you think? But, come to find out, there’s something equally off-putting about the word recogitate. The meanings are frightfully similar.  Regurgitate = to spit something out that was partially digested. Recogitate = to think over again.  In […]

  • : who should I believe :

    My eyes or common sense? I’m suspicious of both, since neither one is reliable. See, I recently received a couple of ‘likes’ on my twitter account from someone purporting to be David Letterman. Remember him? The guy from Late Night — Stupid Pet Tricks, Top Ten lists, Larry “Bud” Melman — that David Letterman, the […]