iyam whadi yam except when i yamn't

[anastrophe]

i doubt i have anything interesting to say. nevertheless, i do have possession of your eyeballs right now, so perhaps a few words are in order.

anastrophe
epergesis
hyperbaton
hysterologia
parenthesis
tmesis

get it? a few words, and they're in order. har dee har har.

the above words are all terms of rhetoric. it's a funny story how i came to have the word anastrophe as my domain name, and my most common online name.

shall i tell it? shall i tell a story?

sit back, put on your toasty jammies, dim the lights, and i'll tell you a story.

[anastrophe]

this little story is formatted in an odd way, but that's due to the nature of the story - it was actually a narrative, written to a friend, in an IM session. i've edited it only to clean up typos and syntax, and to mask the identity of my interlocutor who isn't relevant to the story.

[anastrophe]

anastrophe: so 1979.
anastrophe: i was at a friend's house, we were packing up stuff for a
group trip to yosemite.
anastrophe: i got a call from my father.
anastrophe: my mom had been climbing up the "ladder" that consisted of
wooden planks nailed between wall joists in the garage, which was how
we accessed the attic.
anastrophe: she reached for one, and it pulled loose.
anastrophe: she fell backwards, landing on the concrete garage floor.
anastrophe: the back of her head hit the concrete pretty sharply.
anastrophe: she went into convulsions. my dad took her to the
hospital.
anastrophe: i didn't realize how serious it was, and actually asked my
dad 'should i not go on the camping trip?'
anastrophe: he was understanding, and simply reiterated that she was
pretty seriously hurt and in intensive care. i didn't go camping.
anastrophe: she nearly died that night.
interlocutor: how old were you?
anastrophe: i was 19.
anastrophe: she developed a bruise on the back of her brain, and there
was risk of a clot.
anastrophe: they said it was 50/50 if she'd live.
anastrophe: she was in a coma for several days.
anastrophe: i visited her in the hospital. it was very scary and
creepy.
anastrophe: it was the evening, and they kept the ward quite dark.
very low light so it was like being in a store after-hours.
anastrophe: she was just laying there, tubes etc running all over.
anastrophe: i sat next to her and wept for a while.
anastrophe: the thing that made it most disturbing was the smell.
interlocutor: yes.
anastrophe: it smelled like she'd lost control of her bowel. which was
likely the case.
interlocutor: oh
anastrophe: and those other smells too, mixed in, so yeah.
anastrophe: i told the nurses, and they nodded understandingly.
anastrophe: when she came-to a week later, we learned that she
couldn't speak.
anastrophe: after many tests, it was determined that the speech center
of her brain had been destroyed by the bruising.
interlocutor: oh no
anastrophe: it was also connected to other cognitive functions. you
could write things down for her, she would understand them,
but when she wrote things in reply they were deeply disassociated from
what was written and apparently from what she was thinking.
anastrophe: after a couple of weeks she came home. still unable to
speak.
interlocutor: could she walk?
anastrophe: yes. no problem.
interlocutor: was she able to get around etc...
anastrophe: no other broken bones or anything. bruises of course.
interlocutor: function?
anastrophe: most day to day things, yes.
anastrophe: as time passed, her ability to write down what she was
thinking got better.
interlocutor: how long did that take?
anastrophe: not sure. over several months.
anastrophe: she also could utter sounds, but usually it was total
halting-ness, as she didn't want to say gibberish.
anastrophe: but as time wore on, she was able to say words more and
more, and string them into sentences, however short.
anastrophe: the doctors were still adamant that her speech center had
been destroyed. essentially, she was teaching another
part of her brain to take over speaking.
interlocutor: i have heard about that
anastrophe: it took a few years before she could speak full, long
sentences without significant pauses and 'hiccups' in them.
anastrophe: but after i guess it was a good five or so years, she was
completely back to normal.
interlocutor: WOW
interlocutor: incredible
anastrophe: now, you may be wondering what this has to do with
anastrophe.
anastrophe: no, she didn't speak in anastrophe.
interlocutor: oh yeah!
interlocutor: Speak in anastrophe she did not?
anastrophe: when it first became clear after she came out of the coma
that she could not speak, i tried to figure out what
that was called, losing the ability to speak.
interlocutor: uh huh
anastrophe: "anarthria"
anastrophe: now, i love words.
interlocutor: uh huh
anastrophe: i really really love words.
anastrophe: my father's degree was in english, and he had a wonderful
command of language, and fostered in all three of his sons
a love of clear speaking and thinking.
anastrophe: so any time i look up a word in the dictionary, i can't
help myself - i start looking at the other words on the page.
anastrophe: and about seven words down, there was anastrophe.
anastrophe: which i thought was a pretty cool word.
interlocutor: ah!
anastrophe: and when it came time for my own domain, back in 1995,
that's what popped into my head.


...

[anastrophe]

[this is actually just a linked page off my personal site, but i got tired of my journal sitting here all lame and distraught.]

I know what you're thinking. "This guy is not just nuts, he's toasted-golden-brown nuts!" Well, no. Well....okay, maybe I'm a little nuts, but really, this is based on fact.

Why on earth would someone who is lactose intolerant need to avoid sushi - raw fish - of all things? I mean, only mammals produce lactose to begin with, so how can fish possibly have lactose in them? Well, the fish don't, obviously. There is no lactose in raw fish, or cooked fish or eel, of course. In fact, there's no lactose in the rice, the seaweed, the sesame sauce, the soy sauce, the carrot, the avocado, or any of that.

So where's the lactose? In that constant companion of sushi, the Wasabi! Wasabi - which is made from an asian variety of horseradish, is very frequently "bulked" with lactose, much as many medications have lactose added to the pill to give them enough size and shape to be easy to handle. I've never noticed a hint of sweetness from wasabi, but then, lactose is not a very "sweet" sweet, really, having about half the sweetness of sucrose (if i remember correctly). But wasabi can be chock-full of lactose, and while it's true that one doesn't usually eat handfuls of wasabi (unless one is into a peculiar form of masochism!), there's enough there to cause some definite rumblings from below if one doesn't watch out - and take a lactase pill before indulging.

So that's my story. Watch out for that wasabi, in more ways than one - and let's be careful out there!