patchouli! knowledge can be acquired so fast but how much of it is actually retained? i try to keep a running list (and a co-authored blog) of words that i encounter in my everyday reading. there are lots of words that i understand, but cannot define. i can use most words in a sentence, i can provide context, i can fuzzily describe what a word might mean or feels like; at gunpoint however, i could not give you the textbook definition of most words. i realized this maybe three years ago, at which point i took it upon myself to look up any word that i didn't know the exact definition of. obviously, this task proved to be too monumental. there are too many words and only so much time in a day. so now i just look up words that i'm confused about. which still amounts to maybe ten or twenty words a day.

realize that my everyday reading consists mostly of gossip rags, online sports sites, entertainment magazines, movie reviews and random internet articles. none of these categories would be considered high brow or educational. but yet i learn so much.

for example, i learned what "patchouli" meant maybe six months ago. and now i see the damn word everywhere. in one issue of entertainment weekly, i saw the word three times. i usually read ew cover to cover -- if i can get my hands on it. take this "patchouli" example and imagine how many other words i gloss over or don't comprehend when i'm reading about life after seinfeld or the newest hbo show. i'm missing out on so much even as i catch up on the lives of our celebrities.

and to think that big fun words like "higgledy-piggledy" are escaping my attention and are somehow nestled into my lowbrow readings. do readers of espn.com or the other useless junk i peruse even know what these words mean? apparently people everywhere are as smart as hell, even if they're more into lindsay lohan's breasts than international politics.

it saddens me how many words i don't know. and how many words i look up but immediately forget. but then it's such a thrill when words finally reveal themselves to you. like you've peeled back the curtain on yet another wizard of oz. "ha, i know your dictionary definition. gotcha you bastard." and how good does it feel to learn a new word and then incorporate it into your everyday vocabulary? it feels [insert big and descriptive word of your choice].

"the surest way to spot a nonreader: someone who comes into your house, looks at your books and asks, 'have you read all these?'"