First Yardwork De-Brief & More Word Nerd

First, I'm posting this to call attention away from the prior one so as to temper any dreary effect you might be left with had that been your only offering for the day.

I mowed the lawn all on my own for the first time yesterday. That Craftsman riding mower has an amazing turning radius. And the horsepower is impressive as well. (By the way, what's horsepower?) I think I scalped the yard. Here's a tip. You can cut the grass better if you engage and lower the blades. I covered half of our small front yard before I realized I wasn't cutting anything. Also, fill up the tank while the mower is still near the gas, so you don't have to lug the gas can across an acre and slosh it all over yourself on the way. I was fortunate to have had my dear friend Ginger in town and at the ready with a camera to provide proof of my newfound talent. Here's the casualty list: one sprinkler head (that I'm aware of), one rock that I turned into gravel, a garden hose (just kidding, Mike), an Otter Pop wrapper, a small frog, my right thumbnail, and my left cornea. Stay tuned for a soul-stirring weed-eating report.

I'm sorry, but this whole words-I-like or words-I-dislike thing has taken on a life of its own. I have kept it in my head for so long, and now it's out on display for public consumption as if anyone cares. But apparently, many of you do care because you have offered up some of your own favorites. So again, please indulge me and, as always, feel welcome to offer any of your own, albeit probably inferior, suggestions.

More words I like: shenanigans (which really belongs with my earliest list from March), amalgam, conglomeration, antithesis, mercurial, ethereal, karma, dharma, stigma, stigmata, quagmire, pallid, buoyant. More from Kundera: hobo (which I should really attribute to John Hodgman because of his absurd and hilarious hobo obsession in his book Areas of My Expertise), didactic, milieu, Kafka, Balzac, Flaubert, Rabelais, Bovary, Bovaristic, apparatus, Quixotic, Sancho, clairvoyant, burlesque.

Words I prefer not to hear or ponder: slut, menstruate, flaccid, nausea, yearn, spurn.

Again, procrastination break over. Back to work before I get slammed with more of the deadlines breathing down my neck. Not to mention the drippy faucet and weed-eating worries eating at my gut.