there's more to life than this

Throw yuh hands in the air, and say f*ck like you just don't care...
2002-05-02, 10:12 p.m.

I'm swearing a lot lately. I go thru phases. It tends to happen when I get stressy or frustrated over something. I swear a blue streak for a while and then get over it. I suppose it's lowbrow, or a copout, but it's some form of release, verbal violence.

The truth is that I learned the f-word at age 5. And all the derivatives. For most of our lives my brother and I have been good friends, but there was one period of time, for about a year -- where we did not get along at all. There were daily fights for a while -- I can't imagine what about, but it would start with cursing at each other and then escalate into full out physical battle. I think I was 7 or 8, somewhere in there. My mother will occasionally recount those battles, her eyes pointed skyward in disbelief at the memory of her children forming a cartoon ball of fists and arms and the filthy sailor mouth streaming from us both. I'm trying to imagine what it was like for her, trying to ignore her young daughter punching and kicking and yelling "You motherfucker!" at the top of her lungs. Mom's idea was not to punish us for cursing -- rather, she employed the old reverse psychology that if she didn't react we would lose interest in doing it.

When I got a little older I would unconsciously swear a lot in front of friends -- probably to impress them. It probably developed into a nervous habit -- having never experienced any repercussions for using them, the words would fall out frequently in the midst of sentences. It was genuinely unconscious -- I was unaware of it until mom would point out later that I had been swearing quite a bit -- and although she didn't punish I could hear the disdain in her voice for my having gotten lazy and inarticulate.

I have noticed lately when driving that those who piss me off on the road are most often called "fuckwad" -- and sometimes when I realize I have slipped back into a tendency toward four-letter epithets I will revert to "Christmas Story" nonsense style swearing.

My all-time favorite is fuckface. It is reserved for special people, special occasions. It is the best and most ridiculous ever. What's your favorite? Leave me a note.