Swearing

I've been talking to my dad more recently, and I am becoming aware of how much he swears. I had never noticed it much before. I knew he wasn't a guy who didn't swear, but holy cow! Maybe this is where I learned how to express myself using a variety of four letter words.

Or maybe he learned it from me? 

Oy. I am a bad influence on my son and dad? Pedro swears like a sailor and I certainly know where he gets that from.

Maybe I really need to clean up my act and drop the swearing. That would take a significant amount of discipline. I'd rather not eat sugar, get thirty minutes of cardio every day, do my pre-ski season leg blaster exercises and lose twenty pounds before I give up swearing.

I don't swear (much) at work. When Pedro was little, I told him the key to swearing is knowing your audience and intent. 

• Swearing among your friends -- okay
• Swearing at your friends -- not okay
• Swearing with your friends during class -- not okay
• Swearing in front of your mother -- okay
• Swearing at your mother -- not okay
• Swearing in front of your grandmother -- not okay

He understood right away. He managed it so well that his paternal grandfather after a week of visiting tried to teach Pedro to swear. It was delightful. 

Perhaps I need to revisit my own audience list in general. Maybe my early New Year's resolution will be to stop swearing. I wonder how long I could go, and how I could track it. I swear so much, I don't even notice it. And I'll need to find more creative ways to express myself. I don't want to say "crap" instead of "shit," or "dang" instead of "damn." I need to say "That is frustrating" or "That is annoying" instead of "Bullshit."

Bridget Jones would start each diary entry with how many calories she ate, how much she weighed and how much she drank. (Bridget is the best literary creating since Elizabeth Bennett.) Maybe I'll do a Bridget Jones where I list at the top of each post how many times I swore in a day. 

Wish me luck!