Names and Saying Them

I have the horrible habit of, in my head, calling people by the name of what I think they look like instead of their actual name. For example, there could be a person named Butter, but I think they look more like a Jelly, so I’ll call them Jelly (not out loud, of course).

I’m making an effort to stop. I consciously use their actual names in my head were I to think of them. It’s in that brief moment when you first see someone when things spiral out of my control.

ARACHNID: “Hey, Butter… elly!!”

BUTTER/JELLY glares with the fire of a thousand flaming suns at ARACHNID. ARACHNID spontaneously combusts.

It’s a nightmare when you call one of your closest friends by something other than their name (that is also not an applicable nickname).

Except for a few mortifying instances, this issue thankfully doesn’t occur often because I tend to never use people’s names when I’m talking to them.

PEOPLE: Hey, Arachnid!

ARACHNID: Hi. (Note the lack of “People”)

I never really thought about not-saying-people’s-names until a few weeks ago. I can’t remember what prompted me to think about it. Possibly someone said my name and I thought, Huh. I never say that person’s name. Or maybe I was trying to get someone’s attention and my usual methods were insufficient and I had to scream their name, and it felt awkward in my mouth. When I usually try to grab someone’s attention, I put my sock on my hand, along with googly eyes that are always conveniently located in my pocket, and throw a spectacular puppet show. Sorry, just trying to get your attention, dear reader. Making sure you’re not yet bored out of your mind and simply skimming these words for any sort of emotion to break the predictable mundaneness of daily zombie living. When I usually try to grab someone’s attention, I tap their shoulders. If that fails, I’ll wave my hand obnoxiously in their face or simply give up and flop over like a deflated version of those dancing balloon people thingies outside of car washes.

On the rare occasion that I use someone’s name, I more-often-than-not stumble over it like a bunny leaping over a boulder the size of Mount Everest (I’ve lost track of that simile. OH WELL). It’s not how it looks. I know your name, I really do! Just… AHHHHH. I can pronounce words.

I think the name I stumble the most on is my own. You never really say your own name often, and with such little practice with it, I’m terrible at saying it. I can barely eke out the traditional pronunciation, and even then, I have to repeat it back to you; I can’t come up with it off the top of my head. But, as my name is my own, I get to decide how to say it, right?

Is it A-rack-nid, like a horrible hacking cough, or is it A-rah-ch-nid like that itchy rash?

The main reason I decided to go with a pseudonym (Yes, I’ll admit, it’s a pseudonym. My parents did not actually name me Arachnid Weaver. But I will deny it if you ever ask) is because the name on my birth certificate is a pain to pronounce. It’s not the worst out there, but whenever anyone asks me how to say it, I usually have to repeat it multiple times, and even then, it’s a fifty-fifty shot.

But sometimes even I don’t pronounce it right (according to the pronunciation I prefer. If we go the traditional route, I never say it right).

I was always trying to escape my name. When I was four, I asked my mom why they didn’t name me Golden Girl (I’m glad they didn’t. And, yes, four-year-old-me wanted a superhero name. She didn’t yet realize that they had secret identities. She thought Spider-Man’s parents named him “Spider-Man” as a powerless infant). When I was in kindergarten, I’d occasionally put a name other than mine on my papers (probably a pain for the teacher to sort, but at least I was consistent). When I was ten, I wanted to legally change my name for my birthday (I didn’t).

The Awkwardness Of Holding Hands While Walking

So I was telling a story to Arachnid about this moment… and I didn’t really finish it.

I’m going to ramble about awkwardness and hands and terribly scarring moments in my life. Be warned. Parental advisory is advised.

We were talking away under the trees as people started to litter into the building.

That’s when Fishy grasped my hand.

It was wildfire, but as the awkwardness dumped onto me, it was a bucket of freezing water. I could feel eyes peering at us like we were scum. Lightheaded with embarrassment I tried to look at Fishy, to register her emotion, but I couldn’t get past the tall obstacle of her shoulders towering over my vision.

And we were walking.

“Hey,” I asked, adding to the rather one-sided conversation I was rambling on about (how her hands were like a heater) “I’m cold.”

She put her arm around me. I relaxed due to the warmness of her hands but then realized the large lump of additional awkwardness in my throat.

“Actually…” I mumbled, “Let’s link arms.”

“Sure.”

I felt like an uneven staircase. Her elbow didn’t exactly bend where mine did due to severe height differences.

“Uh…” I started.

It didn’t take another word. She let go, then grabbed my hand, her fingers slowly interlocking.

I held back the urge to scream. The level of PDA between us at that moment changed from a slowly increasing linear graph to a rapidly growing exponential one.

My Irrational Fears #3

I am very afraid of getting hit by opening doors.

Whenever I walk in hallways, I am always very alert, listening hard for the sound of a turning knob or shuffling feet on the other side of the door.

If a knob ever turns, I flinch away. This has saved me multiple times from potential death-by-door.

Recently, I have been visiting a new facility that has discovered a way to avoid death-by-door. Their doors are all set in alcoves so they wouldn’t hit people in the hallway. The same cannot be said of people in the alcove.

But I still flinch when the knob turns.

Weird Thing I Used to Think Part 2

If you haven’t read Weird Things I used to Think (which you probably haven’t, as you don’t exist), you should definitely read it.

Well, anyway, I forgot to add one weird thing that I used to think, as I was a small person quite a bit of time ago and it’s only normal that some obscure details get lost in the back of my mind, buried under piles of other memories and such.

Eating Seeds Will Make You Turn Into a Tree

This one I know a lot of other children believed as well. I think it’s something parents tell their children to try and prevent death by choking. I think that’s a horrifying thing to tell your children. While it wasn’t my parents that told me this, I was extremely frightened of this happening.

When my fear of this reached a peak, to the point where I stayed away from cherries and the like, my father told me that it is false, but around the same time, my cousins showed me a fake website about a man who ate a seed and literally turned into a tree.

So who am I supposed to believe, my father, or a random video on the internet?

Obviously, I chose the internet.

One must always believe whatever one finds on the internet.

So this scarred me and I believed that I could possibly turn into a tree at any unknown moment whilst consuming fruit (because fruit has seeds, while vegetables don’t).

I believed this until fourth-grade when our science teacher told us that plants need sunlight, and air, and water.

Well, I didn’t know about air or water, but I knew for a fact that there was no sunlight in my stomach.

I was really angry at my cousins.

The Catastrophe

It has been pointed out to me by Spinette that I’ve never written a post about her, so I will oblige to her request and write a post about her.

Once, a very long time ago, I was a child, and as I was a child, Spinette was a child as well. But when Spinette was a child she had electric cars that would move themselves, not the plastic cars that you had to walk that I had (Spinette is a year or so younger than me).

So we were out riding her super awesome car one day in her neighborhood, having a ton of fun, but we were too close and the car was too small and too slow and I had to get out, so I got out and walked alongside the car on the way back to her house (at that point we were not neighbors).

And then Spinette ran over my foot.

It was a catastrophe.

Weird Things I used to Think

When I was a child, like most children, I didn’t understand every single aspect of the world I was in. So, to solve this predicament, I created some theories about the world I was in that I was fully invested in.

What is the Universe?

Before I start answering this question, I would like to remind you, dear nonexistent reader, that I completely believed all of this.

So what is the universe? Why does it exist? Why does space exist? Why does anything exist? Why can’t it not exist? What is existence?

There is nothing but imagination. We are actually a world inside of a world. We are the figment of the imagination of some other being we cannot see or interact with.

We are inside a crayon-drawing on a sheet of lined notebook paper, and if one were to take a spaceship to the end of the universe, the spaceship would hit the edge of the paper and stop. It would not be able to go any further because the paper had ended.

Where do Clouds Come from?

The clouds are actually made by planes. Every morning, before I wake up, planes fly through the sky, creating the fluffy wonders we call clouds.

When pilots take the day off, we have cloudless days.

This is also how meteorologists know what the weather is going to be.

 

Meteorologist: “Hey Pilot, what’s the weather today?”

Pilot: “I made some storm clouds earlier. It should rain.”

Meteorologist: “Great. Thanks. I’ll call you back later. Want to go out for some coffee?”

Pilot: “Nah. I’m good. I don’t drink caffeine.”

Meteorologist: “What about cake? Brownies?”

Pilot: “I actually do drink coffee. I was just trying to politely refuse your offer because I don’t like you and would rather do anything else than spend more time with you than I have to.”

Meteorologist:

Pilot:

Meteorologist: So cookies?

Pilot: ——

Where does Fog Come From?

When the clouds are too heavy are for the sky, they descend to Earth as fog.

Duplication

You know how when your eyes unfocus you can see double? I thought that things would actually duplicate themselves for the longest time and once, I spent the entire day thinking that I had switched my feet around.

Driving

You know how when it’s dark and you squint at lights the lights kind of spread out? I thought that the light actually got brighter for the longest time. Whenever it was dark and we were driving, I would squint to make the lights brighter and help my father drive.

Characters on TV

We had this large, boxy TV, not a flatscreen, and I used to think that the television characters lived in the TV. Read more about this here.

Magical Car

Small people today have electric cars that can move by themselves when you press the gas pedal. When I was a kid, we had these plastic cars which were like bubbles on wheels with a hole in the floor. So you were to sit in the car and stick your feet through the hole and walk. So basically, it was just walking, but less efficiently because you had to lug a plastic car around you.

Well, this was the type of car the other kids had. My car was powered by magic and moved by itself.

But this “magic” was actually my parents pushing from behind.

 

What crazy stuff did you believe in as a kid?

Nightmareish Dental Care

I went to the dentist today.

It was a generally uncomfortable experience. As you probably already know, I despise it when people touch me. Even if one brushes against me in passing, it takes a great amount of restraint on my part to not scream. So, understandably, it is a nightmare when a stranger is scheduled to put her hands in my mouth. Especially when that hand is holding sharp instruments that could potentially gouge my eyes out.

But, generally, the dentist doesn’t go too horribly for me as I take care of my teeth. I haven’t had a cavity in quite a few years.

And then I go to the dentist today.

And then I go to the dentist today.

I have ELEVEN major cavities.

For which my mouth will need to become devoid of feeling, which means that the dentist will not only have to shove sharp instruments in my mouth, she will have to puncture my gums with an even sharper instrument.

As you probably don’t know, we are working on a series of our irrational fears. My greatest irrational fear is needles.

To fix my cavities, I have to spend two entire days at the dentist (obviously I’ll be sleeping in my house, not at the dentist’s) and I cannot eat before either. I am very cranky when I am hungry. I’d assume I’d be even more cranky when my gums are being punctured with sharp instruments and dentists are stuffing things in my mouth and drilling into my teeth. The dentist will have to watch that I don’t bite her fingers off.

They have to sedate me.

So, dear nonexistent readers, floss your nonexistent teeth.