encomium \en-KOH-mee-uhm\, noun; plural encomiums or encomia \-mee-uh\:

An often formal expression of warm or high praise.

Encomium derives, via Latin, from Greek enkomion, from en-, "in" + komos, "revel."

An often formal expression of warm or high praise.

Weekends always dissolve in the same pulsing miasma of encomia and red wine from the periphery.

quidnunc \KWID-nuhngk\, noun:

...One who is curious to know everything that passes; one who knows or pretends to know all that is going on; a gossip; a busybody.

Quidnunc comes from Latin quid nunc?, "what now?"

Her quidnunc tendencies were barely slated by the drunk and confessional woman; though the woman was certainly the best of her kind, a kind of perfect binary for voyeurs. Often pairs like this become quite close friends, until they approach that singularity of honest expression and empathy, where identities necessarily break down.

sough \SAU; SUHF\, intransitive verb:

1. To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind.
2. A soft, low rustling or sighing sound.
...Sough comes from Middle English swoughen, from Old English swogan.

Things I wish I hated:

The sough of breath and blood.

construction workers and women in high heels

A large yellow machine with a bucket on crane, resting against the ground. I can't remember what they're called.

Only, for a minute, I thought it was a woman's leg with a high heeled shoe.

daedal \DEE-duhl\, adjective:

1. Complex or ingenious in form or function; intricate.
2. Skillful; artistic; ingenious.
3. Rich; adorned with many things

...Daedal comes from Latin daedalus, "cunningly wrought," from Greek daidalos, "skillful, cunningly created."

The key is not to let her speak; her daedal explanations can warp reality around them. Trust me, once she begins there will be more that lies - she will assault your ability to perceive.

facebook pseudonym

It was all about my best friend's family from when I was a teenager, but they weren't really like themselves. I slept over because her sister was upset about another miscarriage. Though she was a very young woman in the dream, the miscarriages were the fading out of some great, lifelong hope.

There was some kind of fight. I screamed and railed and cried at my best friend and her mother in the dream.

At one point I suggested folic acid from dark greens for the barren sister, and claimed that this is what I was doing to protect my childbearing ability.

We all made friends again. It was the morning. My friend's Facebook newsfeed showed a post from me that I couldn't remember writing. It was a long poem about the miscarriages directed towards the sister. It was encouraging various paths of action for the sister to take to become pregnant again.

That's when my friend told me that her mother liked to write poetry using my name as a pseudonymn. The poem was embarrassingly bad, but probably pretty close to the poetry I would actually write. There was a line about a large vagina turned upwards to accept the rain.

pule \PYOOL\, intransitive verb:

...To whimper; to whine.
...Pule is perhaps from French piauler, "to whine, to pule," ultimately of imitative origin.

There could be no puling or pulling faces. The keening that she clamped her teeth down upon was more like the air leaking from a birthday-party balloon, releasing stagnant time and pressure into the atmosphere.

copse \KOPS\, noun:

...A thicket or grove of small trees.

...Copse derives from Old French copeiz, "a thicket for cutting," from coper, couper, "to cut." It is related to coupon, at root "the part that is cut off."

On my land there is a copse you keep of care for you, and plunder with large fires where you move your inflated shadow and tell stories of yourself. It's growing thin.

tutelary \TOO-tuh-lair-ee; TYOO-\, adjective:

Having the guardianship or charge of protecting a person or a thing; guardian; protecting...

For the first time she considered that her recurring nightmares may be tutelary, a not-so-gentle subconscious nudge to recognize that her choices, which so infused both her nightmares and waking life, were at the centre of her persistent unhappiness. If the dreams had a message, it might be: see!... avoid this, and avoid the one person around whom dreams and daytime life revolved.