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A Thesaurus + pandemic legends + Christmas movies
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A Thesaurus + pandemic legends + Christmas movies

Amy Tector
Dec 5, 2021
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Share this post
A Thesaurus + pandemic legends + Christmas movies
amytector.substack.com

May I recommend

a thesaurus

I’m on the hook to do a lot of writing quickly and so have been experimenting with productivity hacks… I’m trying out Scrivener, which is a word processing system specifically for writing long works, like novels or dissertations. It’s a lot like Word, but with more flexibility. It, like Word, or Google Docs, has a built-in thesaurus.

This is important because you don’t realize how much you like certain words (I am weirdly partial to “foray”) until you’re striving to write some clean, interesting prose and you find your characters constantly going on forays.

For many years I used the thesaurus provided by Word. It is quick, convenient and gets the job done. It always felt a little too transactional, though. It was a bit soulless and while the words that were offered up to me were serviceable, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there were more and better words out there.

Rummaging around our bookshelves, I came across this guy.

It was a blissful reunion. I’m a youngish Gen X. I did all of highschool and most of university without owning a computer. At Acadia University (Stand up and cheer!) I spent time in the computer lab… Ostensibly to write and print papers, but mostly to play a lot of PipeFitter. An extremely satisfying early computer game where you were a space plumber (?) who had to fit pipes together… Think a proto-Tetris without as much drama.

All that to say, my formative years relied upon dictionaries and thesauri. Don’t get me wrong, when the joys of spellcheck became apparent to me, I dumped both with alacrity and embraced Bill Gates’ world domination.

Only now, 25 years later, I find myself returning to the thesaurus. Firstly, it’s fun to use. The pages are tabbed in a dictionary way and the reference system is a tiny bit confusing, which makes you feel quite smart when you successfully look something up. Also, I don’t care what our computer overlords claim, I think you get a better, more nuanced word selection from the analogue version.

Sure, it takes a little longer to find your word in the back and then flip through to the front to find the correct reference numbed, but you have the satisfaction of using those little notches and the joy of running your finger down a page, selecting the perfect word.

In this world of ease and speed, there is something gratifying about doing something less efficiently.

Do you still use a dictionary or a thesaurus? Let me know in the comments!

Our legendary pandemic

The Plague Legends

This is a beautiful and painful recounting of our plague years. Worth a read!

Yesterday, I found my son, his nose bloodied, holding a fistful of his sister’s white hair. I yell and my husband yells. The children also yell. We howl like a pack of wolves, and we are caged, all together.

If we are wolves, I think, then we will go to the woods. This is on the scroll-schedule anyway. Every morning: Walk the dog. It is a trick of the mind. We are the dogs.

Guys, the Christmas movies are so deliciously bad

An attempt to make sense of this year’s Netflix Christmas movies

Having just watched a baaaaaad one last night, I particularly appreciated this.

If you’ve never seen one before, it’s important to know that Netflix’s Christmas rom-coms are not meant to be judged on a spectrum of “good” to “bad.” They are only to be understood on a spectrum from “surreal approximation of human behavior” to “perverting the physical rules of our known universe.

New spin on why we’re so tired

The Seven Types of Rest

I’m a champion napper, but I think I need more rest in some of these other areas…

Her fatigue prescription is to incorporate seven types of rest into your life: physical, mental, emotional, social, sensory, creative and spiritual. I am dubious. Sacred Rest has a classic off-putting self-help book cover (a jetty shrouded in mist), talks about the “bread of self-disclosure and the wine of community”, and focuses heavily on God (there’s a clue in the title). Then there is the fact that any attempt to take a break over the past 18 overloaded months has left me feeling miserable and unmoored. I confess this when I speak to Dalton-Smith over Zoom.

“I don’t like resting,” I tell her. “I get listless and sad and feel a failure.” She is not surprised.

Twitter

Twitter avatar for @NotRollergirlDaisy Buchanan @NotRollergirl
I just smiled idiotically at a tiny puppy that a woman was carrying under her arm. As I got closer I realised it was a salad.

December 3rd 2021

176 Retweets3,945 Likes
Twitter avatar for @SketchesbyBozeOwl! at the Library 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze
instructor: and what does the green light represent? me: the decadence and futility of the American dream instructor: this is a driver's exam

December 1st 2021

4,084 Retweets30,804 Likes
Twitter avatar for @CSMFHTClassical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens @CSMFHT
It's that time of year again
Image

December 2nd 2021

1,215 Retweets7,775 Likes
Twitter avatar for @abmcelroy1Alex McElroy @abmcelroy1
yesterday I accidentally venmoed my therapy payment to someone I went on a date with

December 1st 2021

60 Likes
Twitter avatar for @juliamoserrrrJulia Moser @juliamoserrrr
i asked my gentile boyfriend to explain the point of advent calendars to me and he said it's for kids to "microdose christmas"

December 1st 2021

10,259 Retweets145,614 Likes
Twitter avatar for @mk_lobbM. K. Lobb ⚔️ @mk_lobb
It has come to my attention that some of you don’t know my English teacher in high school was my own father, on the first day of classes he said “I want you all to know I’m only sleeping with one (1) of your mothers” this is my villain origin story

November 28th 2021

5,393 Retweets38,735 Likes
Twitter avatar for @farfromalloverRich Tipple @farfromallover
Just a FYI, George Jetson is going to be conceived this weekend.
Image

November 27th 2021

43,728 Retweets256,874 Likes
Twitter avatar for @CatWorkerscats with jobs @CatWorkers
Image

November 27th 2021

6,889 Retweets74,537 Likes
Twitter avatar for @kingstonwritesHelen Kingston @kingstonwrites
Men who are after a quiet woman with an entirely hairless body who smiles all the time may be looking for a dolphin.

November 27th 2021

2,626 Retweets25,950 Likes
Twitter avatar for @nemerevermoreMicah Nemerever ❄️ @nemerevermore
a delightful thing I learned a while ago is that basically every language's name for "raccoon" refers to the fact that they wash their lil hands

November 26th 2021

7,384 Retweets82,951 Likes
Twitter avatar for @islaisreadingIsla McKetta, MFA | #DreamBigFightHard @islaisreading
This is not how I wanted to learn the Greek alphabet

November 26th 2021

14,163 Retweets109,388 Likes

TikTok

I love her

The EYE

Have you seen my keys?

As I said, I love her

Oh my God, this is so satisfying

Excellent content

Wot they gonna do?

I’ve discovered Archives tiktok

Correct

Chances of your cat killing you

Don’t take unnecessary risks


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Amy Tector, The Honeybee Emeralds (March 2022)

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