‘Miasma’. That was the word on my calendar for today. This word-of-the-day thing sounded like a total fad when I unwrapped that present at Christmas, but it’s actually been a really fun challenge. Even if they didn’t specifically say that you should be trying to add that word to your vocabulary, I’d still take it up anyway. I’ve had some very interesting conversations with that as the basis.
Conveniently I found myself on the hunt for mechanic today because of the burning miasma emanating from the hood of my car, and just TRY to tell me that ‘burning miasma’ isn’t a cool phrase. I kept thinking, ‘whichever mechanic near Ringwood gets to hear me describe the burning mess coming from my car’s hood is going to think that I’m so intellectual’. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get that far. I was forced to stop by the side of the road after my car coughed, spluttered and refused to move. Now THAT was quite the miasma. Pretty sure they were smelling that one in the western suburbs. The tow truck had to come along, and since I was sort of in walking distance to work I chose to let them leave me by the side of the road while they took my car away to some mechanic in the area. I did try to tell the tow truck person about the miasma, but they didn’t seem interested. I suppose there’s nothing they can do about it at this stage; it’s just their job to take it back to the mechanic so they can deal with the actual problem. In retrospect, I should’ve been looking for an auto service garage from the moment I smelled the miasma, but I was so distracted by trying to use that particular word of the day (ambivalent) that I wasn’t thinking about anything else. Ambivalence isn’t quite as common in everyday life as you’d think. Am I currently ambivalent about this situation? No, I’m just one emotion: annoyed that I let this happen. Annoyed and angry. That’s not enough to be ambivalent.
-Casey