Virgin voyage

Or – are the proper terms maiden voyage and virgin territory?

Last night I was happily blabbing about something or other and a person in the same room said .. Nina, do you know you just said someone was “painstakingly shy?"*

I do that sometime. Wrong words, wrong meanings. Most people, when they learn a language through immersion (as I did by moving to the States at age 7), adultify it as they work their way through the school system.

Not me. I went back to good old Polska for high school and a chunk of college and so I never shed that elementary school pidgeon-toed (what the hell is that?) language, perverted at the playground and never subsequently corrected by exasperated teachers who would know better.

Ocean is written by a person who, at times, is still capable of talking “tenement for rent, inquire within, when I jump out, you jump in” talk.

A commenter notes that it does create a very distinct voice for blogging here. It’s an interesting point. I do think that I plunge ahead without heed and often without much awareness of the quaintness of my choices – words, topics, all of it. It must generate a (sympathetic) smile. As “painstakingly shy” did for the group I was with.

I read all your comments to yesterday's post very very carefully and I cannot thank you enough. No, really, they blew me away. So generous! That’s what I see – your utter generosity. And that is what shook me out of my alternately tearful and morose state of being, it’s what made me come back so quickly.

What’s with the virginity in the blog title? Ah. You could say that this is the virgin post of a new, refreshed Ocean. But actually I titled it thus because it is the first time that I am blogging from a new computer. Isn’t it wonderful when events sort of merge and coalesce and it appears that the chaos of yesterday can resolve itself into a quiet ride the next day?

[And virginity has another moment in this post: I have to admit that my last year in an American school was in 7th grade, where we graduated from singing about rental properties to belting out “...I don't want no fire truck, I want one that I can…” The awful truth is that I thought this was hilariously funny.]

* this kind friend followed up today with an email, noting: there are 43 google entries for "painstakingly shy" (in quotes) as opposed to 50,000 for "painfully shy".