Dallas

Ah, what a theme that show had! I am humming it dramatically (there is no other way to hum it, really) as I shower this morning.

For some reason Dallas was one of the few prime time shows our family watched regularly — until, of course, we stopped watching television altogether when I was about eight. Sometimes, during a lull in the conversation, I will randomly ask: "Who shot J.R.?" This is usually sufficient to start the crowd edging away from me. But I am genuinely curious regarding this point. I don't know the answer and have always wondered about it, though not to an extent that has ever cost me any sleep. (We stopped watching at the end of the season before this would have been revealed.) Of course, now so much time has passed that I would be none the wiser even if someone told me an answer: I don't remember any of the characters anymore, aside from the Ewing brothers.

What a strange thing to allow to occupy space in one's memory!

verve

What is it about the word verve? It does absolutely nothing for me, and it really seems like it should do. I never use in writing nor in speech; it never even occurs to me to do so.

It is a characterful, even eccentric word. It could even be quirky. It seems, on paper, to be such a me word. So why should my mind so utterly boycott its employment without any concrete direction from me, its nominal master? It is a mystery, and probably not one worth the effort to solve.