jiminy cricket!

     Hi ho, readers. I'm filing this brief update on the project to incorporate "awesome" into my options for expressing enthusiasm. You'll be disappointed to hear that I've had very limited success, having spoken the word only once since the last blogpost. Rummaging through the refrigerator, half listening to a story of Laura's derring do in some faculty meeting, I stuck it in among the other well-placed grunts, uh huhs, and mm-hmms. "That's...that's awesome, hon," I managed to muster, while wrestling with a giant cauliflower stuck in the lower bin. Later, cooking up the defeated cauliflower, I graded myself on choreography, the overall challenge of my routine, and whether or not I had stuck the landing on "awesome, hon." Meh. 7 point...2.
     I can do this. I know I can. But adding in a new conversational term is not as easy as breaking a verbal habit, with which I have had pronounced success. A few years ago, for example, I made the successful shift away from "Jesus Christ!", which I would tend to emit in a moment of sudden alarm: a near fall, a car veering into my lane, a wasp on my shirt. I'm not offended by "Jesus Christ!" myself, particularly as his might be a useful presence in a moment of need. But my mom always told me that the objectionable aspect of profanity is that it shows a lack of imagination. That was a harsh judgment for her.
     It sucks that I have such a shitty imagination.
     Though it took several months to replace "Jesus Christ!" with "Jiminy Cricket!", that project came with the advantage of an immediate correction, which I willed myself to deliver with as close to equal feeling as possible: "Je--I mean jiminy cricket!" 
     I am both proud and embarrassed to say that "jiminy cricket" is now my default alarum cry.
     You don't get that same practice with "awesome"-- that immediate correction, is what I'm saying. "Fantas-- I mean awesome!" That's just plain awkward.
     I should mention before closing this report that Marilyn's mention of the superb term "wicked pissah" took all the wind out of my sails. I am merely aiming for a term long in the everyday lexicon, something everyone and their uncle can say with ease and pizzazz. If I could master the timing, nail the delivery, and stick the landing of an authentic "wicked pissah," that would be awesome.
     Hm. 8.5.