Recent events have led me to believe this might be helpful.
John Watson to English Dictionary
1. "Minor", adj.
As applied to injuries: highly unlikely to be life threatening; somewhere around a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to death. Still carries the usual risks of infection, etc., and should be treated promptly if at all practical.
2. "Fight", n.
What my parents had at odd intervals when I was growing up. A sort of brief cold war of venomous looks and muttered comments, often followed by long nights at the pub (dad) and excessive baking (mum). Excuse me, I just need to get the brownies out of the oven...
L and humantales both said they wouldn't class what L and I had last night as a fight. Maybe that's fair, I don't know. Most of my personal, non-parental experience of fights up to now has been either of the physical sort (blessedly clear and straightforward) or various girlfriends shouting at me while I tried to apologize without really understanding what I'd done.
Which makes them sound horrible, and they weren't at all. Pretty sure it was me being a dick, though I didn't know it at the time. Typical example:
Her: Even when you're here, you're not here!
Me: (genuinely baffled) I'm here! I'm in the same room with you, how much more here can I get?
Her: ARGH.
Which leads us to...
3. "Relationship", n.
Up till now, this has pretty much meant The Girl Back Home, to sound horrendously WW2 about it. I had her photo, she had my email address, and we'd chat when I was away, and of course I never told her a quarter of what was really happening wherever I was - no sense in scaring her.
And if it seems like I'm writing about them as if they're all one person...I think in a lot ways they might as well have been, to me. I never looked past the surface, certainly never let them see anything of myself past the surface.
I'm starting to understand both why I got dumped with such regularity and why it never really bothered me. Everything's different now.
--
L brought me roses. Just to cheer me up. (Maybe also to apologize, though he doesn't need to.) White and deep pink, if anyone wants to look them up on that chart, which I suspect he has memorized. I'm sort of afraid to, frankly. They smell like honey.
John Watson to English Dictionary
1. "Minor", adj.
As applied to injuries: highly unlikely to be life threatening; somewhere around a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to death. Still carries the usual risks of infection, etc., and should be treated promptly if at all practical.
2. "Fight", n.
What my parents had at odd intervals when I was growing up. A sort of brief cold war of venomous looks and muttered comments, often followed by long nights at the pub (dad) and excessive baking (mum). Excuse me, I just need to get the brownies out of the oven...
L and humantales both said they wouldn't class what L and I had last night as a fight. Maybe that's fair, I don't know. Most of my personal, non-parental experience of fights up to now has been either of the physical sort (blessedly clear and straightforward) or various girlfriends shouting at me while I tried to apologize without really understanding what I'd done.
Which makes them sound horrible, and they weren't at all. Pretty sure it was me being a dick, though I didn't know it at the time. Typical example:
Her: Even when you're here, you're not here!
Me: (genuinely baffled) I'm here! I'm in the same room with you, how much more here can I get?
Her: ARGH.
Which leads us to...
3. "Relationship", n.
Up till now, this has pretty much meant The Girl Back Home, to sound horrendously WW2 about it. I had her photo, she had my email address, and we'd chat when I was away, and of course I never told her a quarter of what was really happening wherever I was - no sense in scaring her.
And if it seems like I'm writing about them as if they're all one person...I think in a lot ways they might as well have been, to me. I never looked past the surface, certainly never let them see anything of myself past the surface.
I'm starting to understand both why I got dumped with such regularity and why it never really bothered me. Everything's different now.
--
L brought me roses. Just to cheer me up. (Maybe also to apologize, though he doesn't need to.) White and deep pink, if anyone wants to look them up on that chart, which I suspect he has memorized. I'm sort of afraid to, frankly. They smell like honey.
41 comments:
FWIW, I agree with Lestrade and Humantales; but then my husband and I get grumpier than that with each other several times a week, and we're still blissfully happy after twenty-plus years (I do understand that this isn't how most people do it).
Everything's different now.
Excellent :-)
Oh, and the flowers sound wonderful - they're safe to look up, go see.
I suppose it's only fair...
Lestrade to English:
1. 'Minor'
Any injury that is impossible to hide but still leaves the injured party able to say/communicate 'I'm fine'. (Anything that no one else will find out about doesn't technically exist. Major is anything that means it's someone else telling the next of kin.)
2. 'Fight'
Frequent occurrence when growing up. Shouting, swearing, things getting thrown and/or broken (crockery, furniture, bones.) Sometimes lasting for hours. Brief respite for one or other party to storm out, both parties to imbibe in 'refreshment' (alcoholic), repeat for as many rounds as necessary. Violence often turning sexual in nature. Any children present generally cowering in one room together. The bathroom if it got really bad, because that had a lock on the door.
Short period of life where 'fight' meant brawling in pub/street/club.
3. Relationship.
See mainly first part of entry 2. Often leading to entry 1.
This entry in process of complete re-write owing to new definition. Neither entry 1 or 2 apply.
(I don't remember the whole chart! My phone does let me look these things up, though. And they do smell amazing, don't they?)
Maybe that should be part of the pre-dating agreement for all couples: you must provide a you-to-English dictionary. I guess the fact that the two of you are even bothering to become fluent in the other's language is...uh...very good.
(Perhaps I should work on my English fluency a bit...)
Nameless - I suppose it does depend what you're used to.
L - I think maybe we both need more up to date definitions.
...And maybe I should warn you that 1. as applied to me instead of other people reads more like: anything that doesn't make me an active liability to my team. Though you may have guessed that.
Desert Wanderer - some sort of full instructional manual might be a good idea too. It would avoid a lot of trouble. Well. Maybe not. How many people bother to read the manual?
Mmm. I was sort of applying your definition of 1. if it was you hurt.
I know, I know, double standards.
Sherlock is actually dying for you to take the bandage off my hand. He didn't actually put anything in me that might grow, did he? I can't explain this level of excitement in any other way.
And he's still talking about Degu. Positive sign of continued interest?
Yeah, I guessed that. And when it's you or Sherlock or Mycroft, it's a bit of a struggle not to overreact.
Heh. Nothing is going to grow out of your hand, promise. I think he just wants to see if it's any better since yesterday. He mentioned taking pictures.
We'll see about the degu. I'm having him do another report - it worked with the giant rabbits, so why not.
The roses really are lovely. I did finally look them up. Thank you.
Am I going to become his 'show and tell' at school?
Report sounds good. Dare I say they do look quite...manageable. He showed me some YouTube videos earlier.
I did want some Moonflowers, after you said how much you liked them, but they didn't have any. (And I'm paranoid about buying the 'wrong' flowers, now I know about the 'language'. We may have to have an agreement that we ignore that, because some I really like don't have the best meanings!)
L - Sherlock's interest may be that of a budding doctor/scientist, interested in seeing the different stages of healing. (I wouldn't eliminate the "putting something in there that might grow", though.) Who knows, maybe he's considering medicine as a career choice?
I have the mother's definition of minor/major as concerns injury: Minor means I can treat it myself; moderate means it can wait to see a regular/urgent care doctor; major means we're going to the emergency room. (Although I suppose those do get skewed when there's an actual doctor in the house.)
I like the idea of an early step in a couple's relationship being the construction of a "me-to-English (or whichever language applies)" dictionary. Along with financial styles, parenting styles (if that will apply), who does which chores, etc. (And now I have to ask Goofy how he defines "fight".)
(Captcha was ponoging, which sounds like something for the florist romance novel. One of the "fun" passages.)
I'm thinking if you're feeling the need to define terms in English you should really give yourselves a bye on speaking fluent flower. There's only ever 2 things I think about when dealing with flowers: pretty/not pretty and smells good/smells bad. If you've managed pretty and smells good then everything else is details.
It's entirely possible that's his plan. I'd better warn Mrs T.
Yeah, I don't know how marigolds got such a bad reputation. They're such cheerful flowers. Or peonies - shame? Odd.
I looked for them on youtube just now and found this instead...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqSGJzSiz5s
KHolly - I like your 2 things definition. I think we can agree on that.
John - God, they are cute...is your plan to just keep suggesting animals to Sherlock until we have an entire encyclopaedia of small pets via his reports?
By the way, I have plans to cuddle you later like that pot of sugar gliders. If that's okay with you?
I just wish I had a fluffy tail.
...Maybe. They can fly! A bit. Well, glide. Probably not as smart as degus though.
I'm perfectly happy to ignore all flower meaning. I'd say don't get me poppies, but they're not a common flower shop flower anyway.
I suspect the white roses were for eternal love, or perhaps humility; that seems like Lestrade's style. But I keep looking at where it says "purity" and giggling. Sorry!
(Also, I just noticed that lime blossoms are for fornication. Ha!)
Eternal love, reverence and humility, Lindsay.
And I thought it might make John laugh, if he saw innocence, virtue and purity...
They didn't have any lime blossom. Although the girl did give me a strange look when I asked. Don't know if it's because it's an odd thing to ask for, or if it's because she's read wiki too.
Sugar gliders are adorable, though I warn you, they kind of smell. My sister had two of them, and they need a lot of room, because they do like to jump and glide. Also, they're nocturnal, so they're not very active during the day.
A fun fact, though. You can tell the males because they have a little bald spot on their heads. Very cute!
That probably lets them out then, sadly. The last thing we need around here is something else that wants to stay up all night.
Sherlock informed me (in the middle of a discussion on Jack the Ripper) that the degus (apparently you have to have at least two...) will sit on my head and groom me, when I do paperwork.
I don't know if that sounds nice or disturbing. But it can't make my hair any more untidy.
...That's adorable. I can just see it.
Hmm.
I asked why they'd want to. His answer was simple.
"I'll train them, by putting oats in your hair."
So if you want me to be a cereal-covered rodent-infested boyfriend, well, you may get your wish.
Am I allowed to drag you to bed now? I'm knackered.
Absolutely.
Was that to rodent-infested-cereal-coverage, or bed?
Both?
(Brings a whole new meaning to 'getting your oats')
Only to bed! The rodents are still under consideration.
excellent.
prepare to have the stuffing hugged out of you.
By the way - did 'clearing up savaged toilet roll, set upon by large hound' feature on your chores list? I think it's a dead toilet roll that's scattered up the stairs to the boys' rooms and across the landing. I hope it was a dog, not a child that did it...
Unless Sherlock is 'going native' and living like a degu, and has used all the toilet rolls in the house to build himself a nest...which is actually perfectly possible.
If only making the dogs clean up after themselves was an option...
has used all the toilet rolls in the house to build himself a nest
Completely possible. But surely he'd start with pillow forts? Actually maybe not. The hall wasn't exactly pillow fort friendly.
By the way, I have plans to cuddle you later like that pot of sugar gliders. If that's okay with you?
I just wish I had a fluffy tail.
I missed this whole comment earlier, don't know how.
That will always be okay with me, though I'm not sure I'd want you to have a fluffy tail.
I just noticed your last entry had 69 comments. Kudos!
Is it odd that when I saw this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw4KVoEVcr0 - my first thoughts were of the two of you? I know the fighting/being uneasy with each other/being exhausted by the tricks your own minds can play is no fun at all, but it's really lovely the way you two keep trying to work things out and are unwilling to have an active or passive hand in the destruction of such a beautiful relationship. Kudos, boys, for being brave.
Becca - Ha, perhaps we ought to celebrate that in some way...
Innie - that is amazingly adorable. And as for the rest...I can't imagine doing anything else. Or rather, I can, and it's not a fun thing to imagine.
Some things are just worth fighting for.
Thanks to you, Lestrade, I now have "A Girl Worth Fighting For" from Mulan stuck in my head. Therefore I will inflict it on you: http://youtu.be/HBW-V1CxPH4
Right, won't watch it until later if it's that catchy.
I think I need some time off work. Try to find the hole in my brain that the sanity is leaking out of.
I think I need some time off work. Try to find the hole in my brain that the sanity is leaking out of.
---
I find it's always a pin hole under your ear.
Is that a comment on blokes with pierced ears, or am I totally missing the point?
See, I need some more time at work. In fact, I was asking my boss for some more hours just yesterday. I'm not taking a summer class, and I find I'm bored out of my mind just working part time and mostly doing nothing while I wait for the fall semester to start.
Join the police. Can't promise you won't be bored, but you would be busy.
Check your life in at the door, don't expect any respect, especially from the government and your superiors and be prepared for impossible targets such don't officially exist.
Lestrade - You missed the point, was merely a joke.
Right, sorry. Think my sense of humour was an early casualty in yesterday's battle.
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