Waxy writings..

Ear wax, as many of you will no doubt be familiar with, is yellow. It also doesn't taste very nice.

I'm sure there is a perfectly logical scientific explanation for its existence, something to do with immune system or something. I sit here today, shivering, beating off a mild bacterial infection in one of my ears. And my eye. And my throat. And possibly my chest. Anyway, I am sitting here, and my ear is really itchy, and upon inserting a finger to do some scratching, a slight coating of this wonderful substance comes out too *runs to wash hands*. Oh come on, as if you have never done that.

It makes me wonder...not just because I love biology...but also because I love English. Ear wax could be such a wonderful image to play with in writing or speech. So me, being the science, English, and procrastination student that I am, decided to learn more about it.

Yes, so ear wax acts as a cleaning agent for the ear, as well as protection from some bacteria, insects and fungi. A build up of ear wax can reduce hearing ability. The wax cleans the ear, picking up foreign particles that may have entered. Dust, dirt, bacteria etc. It then makes its way out of the ear through the movement of ones jaw. Neat.

Which brings me around to the English side of things. Ear wax could be used as wonderful figure of speech to represent someone not listening, not hearing, not caring.

I told her everything - the way my parents were always yelling, the way I wished I was noticed by my teachers, the way that I felt about her - and now she comes back with this. My thoughts, my feelings meant nothing to her. They were scum, something she had to rid herself of. I was a constant annoying hum, my thoughts left dirt in her ears, trapped by moist orange wax, forming a plug that deafened her to my trust.

Okay, so admittedly it needs a little work and a lot less whining. But you get the idea.

Which I guess brings me to a piece of advice that you may or may not wish to think about when writing. Some of the best metaphor and simile can come from the strangest places. Think about everything as something that can be used to mean something else.

Thoughts wandered through her mind, leisurely, ponderous, like the yellow blobs drifting about the retro lamp next to her."

________

She spoke quickly, a blabbering stream of noise. A scrawl on paper - understood only by its writer.

________

It was as if he was wearing a screen protector, nothing I said could scratch him. And I'll be damned if he wasn't easy on the eyes.

Just little objects taken from my desk - the lava lamp, the screen protector that used to be on my phone, the untidy note that I left myself. They can paint a vivid image, and add depth to many pieces of writing - without being overly wordy.

Try it - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Christopher.

"Language is memory and metaphor"

Storm Jameson (English writer)

Learning be fun!

Today I learnt something.

Actually, just by typing that sentence I learned something. See, I got a red squiggly line underneath learnt, and I'm like "Double yew tee eff??". So, I Googled it, and low and behold, Firefox, being the wonder-browser that it is (okay, so it was the Google tool bar that suggested it), suggested that I search for learnt or learned. It turns out that both are correct. But one is wrong.

Learned = American English = fail.

Learnt = English English = Australia English = win.

There you go.

Now then. As I was saying. Today I learnt something, and that is that my the crumpet setting button on my toaster is, in fact, only suitable for crumpets.

My toaster is a high-tech new-age wizz-bang-pop kinda toaster, only without any of the wizzes, bangs and pops. Now you might be thinking: 'But Chris! All toasters pop!'.

WRONG.

My toaster beeps, then proceeds to raise the bread out of the toaster and have it ready for you. Its kinda like having an electric garage. It even makes the same sound as an electric garage. And add a truck reversing into the electric garage, and you get both the sound of the beeps, and the sound of the toast rising. The toaster beeping is possibly one of the most disconcerting noises first thing in the morning while you are still half asleep. You hear the toaster beep kindly at you to tell you its done and all you can think of is "DEAR GOD A TRUCK IS REVERSING INTO MY KITCHEN!" and you promptly run out of the room screaming.

So as one would expect from a high-tech new-age toaster it has a crumpet setting. Now all of you that eat crumpets know that your toaster never does them perfectly and always burns the bottom part and leaves the top part un-cooked.

Actually, you know what, I have never had a toaster that has done that. The wonderful people at Breville, however, clearly have. So they have designed this feature that cooks one side more than the other, thus you have the perfect crumpet.

Now, I enjoy a slice of bread with ham and cheese on top shoved under the griller. I toast one side generally (under the griller), flip it, then don't bother toasting the other side, but use it as the side I put the ham and cheese on. This, however, is tedious, so of late I have been toasting the bread with the toaster and just melting the cheese with the griller. This is easier, but just doesn't have the right texture, but then I had a thought!

"I could use this useless crumpet feature to toast one side, but leave the other a little less toasted!"

So I did.

Turns out that it turns one side of the toaster UP in heat, and the other side down.

One smoke alarm later I retrieved the toast from the toaster, cursing the wonderful people at Breville, but also wondering at their ingenuity. Never in my life did I consider that I would own a toaster that could completely crisp one side of my bread, but leave the other relatively untouched.


Christopher.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY....MY ANUS IS BLEEDING!"

-The Cloud from Rejected Cartoons