Year: 2018

To begin anew…

December 31, 2018 2

In The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo encourages his readers to “use the old to build the new.” And so “A Reader’s Story” continues, with daily quotes and “mini critical responses” instead of daily words. My love of the humanities as […]

Small Hiatus

October 1, 2018 2

I will be taking a small break until approximately the start of December 2018. I am preparing a conference paper and academic book review in the upcoming months. This weekend I depart for the writers’ retreat I attended last year. […]

Gnathonic

September 27, 2018 0

Sycophantic, fawning. Gnathontic attitudes can get in the way of accomplishment.

Blellum

September 26, 2018 2

Scottish. Obsolete. An idle, indiscreet talker. A blellum would have been ostracized.

Toyetic

September 25, 2018September 25, 2018 0

Of a character or object from a movie, potentially marketable as a toy. Most children’s movies have developed toyetic characters.

Sibilate

September 24, 2018 0

To utter or pronounce with a hissing sound. To hiss. Cats are known to sibilate but only heard Caesar do so once in almost three years, out of fear.

Emerson at Loyola

September 23, 2018 1

Yesterday, as the week closed at Loyola, I stumbled across a part of campus I had never been to before and found the following quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson painted on the wall: “The great object of education should be […]

Coup de foudre

September 21, 2018 2

1. Love at first sight 2. A thunderbolt Love at first sight has been compared to a thunderbolt.

Dandle

September 20, 2018 0

To move lightly up and down in one’s arms or lap. To pet, pamper. Children and pets are to be dandled.

Psittacine

September 19, 2018 2

Of or relating to parrots Certain speech is psittacine, especially in relation to the African gray parrot.