Obsidious scatter

I’m thankful for this guest post by Johanna Fenton.

“Few things make you feel as helpless as trying to find your glasses, because the very thing you need is the thing you seek.” -James Lileks

I’m a sucker for deep, philosophical statements packaged in the ordinary. And this one helps me dive into a memory that presented itself to me this evening, out of the blue. As I was brushing my teeth, I was remembering the time I slept inside a sleeping bag near the base of a mountain in Oregon. (Sort of out of the blue, yet now I remember my sister wondered aloud the other day what it would be like to see a mountain. There are few–oops, none–in Minnesota.)

It was the first time I had ever woken to view a mountain before me in the bright light of morning. When I opened my eyes and turned my head, it was … glorious and majestic … no, fuzzy.

Imagine if you will: every morning you wake, you fumble for your glasses, and in the mere seconds before you put them on–or contacts in your case – you’re only really looking maybe 10 feet tops in the farthest direction. But a mountain, I mean, come on! There are miles involved! Plus the glare of the morning sun hit every obsidious boulder (made that word up), producing more brain scatter.

Anyway. It’s just a strange experience to recount. On second thought, maybe I didn’t make the word up:

Obsidious, it turns out, isn’t in the free Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, where you just searched.

However, it is available in our premium Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary. To see that definition in the Unabridged Dictionary, start your FREE trial now.

Would anyone like to look for me? (Thanks.)

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6 Replies to “Obsidious scatter”

  1. Hi Paul,

    I was trying to think of a similar situation to looking for glasses. Maybe someone accidently buried their shovel in the dirt somewhere or (like in MN recently) lots of snow fell on the left-out shovel. You have to dig to find the tool for helpful digging.

    Dropping one’s false teeth into a bowl of cottage cheese might fit, but only really strangely.

    Enjoy your day,
    Tim

  2. I left my shovel under the cottage cheese one time.

    I read a story about the guy who built the Taj Mahal. Supposedly he was quite nearsighted, and he offended the king (caliph, emir, sheikh, whatever) so as punishment he was locked up in a room within distant eyeshot where his myopia would not allow him to contemplate his glorious feat of construction. According to the story, the builder had a mirror installed in his room, and he could look at the mirror and see the Taj Mahal clearly.

    Mirrors never worked that way for me. I had about the same vision with them as without them. Maybe it was a curved mirror he had.

    After I had my ALK, one of the most immediately notable changes (and I heard this from others as well) was that I could read my alarm clock in the morning.

    1. I am *still* enjoying the post-ALK being able to see the alarm clock in the morning. Or the middle of the night (though less so for the latter).

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