Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things

This afternoon, I was at my desk, working at my computer (the desk and computer that my blog readers have come to know as "Extractions Plaza"), and I heard my mail man pull up. "Good," I thought. "I'm expecting a package." Then I heard him talking on my porch, saying something like "Hey, how're you doing?" Hmm, who's he talking to, I wondered. "You've got a package." He was talking to me, through my open window.

That's what I love about my mail man, and the fact that my mailbox is on my front porch, rather than on the street. Growing up, I always thought of mail men as the people who got pissed off if you parked your car too close to the mailbox. Now I have a friendly mail man with whom I've developed a pretty congenial relationship. Because he knows I'm often home working in the afternoons, he took the time today to look into my window to see if I was, in fact, at my desk.

What sort of package did he deliver? A book called Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff (well known, I think, as the "metaphor guy"). This book's about the language of catagorization and what that tells us about cognition. Fascinating.