buttons

Ideas, those unconnected snippets of language that swim through our brains faster than we can catch them and absorb.

Today i started out with the word button.

Button...an object attached to a garment that is used to close an opening created when the garment was made so the eventual wearer could drape it over his or her body and close the whole darn thing up. Before i could read the definition of button in the dictionary...the above is mine...i was distracted by the word.....Babbit metal—which according to my dictionary is an antifriction alloy of copper, tin and antimony, used in bearings.

Antimony...hmmmm thinks i...lets go read about that.

Quick to the Wikipedia site where i type in antimony. Lordy, lordy there is all sorts of information about antimony.

First off i have to tell you that antimony is a chemical element and this piece is really supposed to be about buttons.
When antimony is stable(i keep writing alimony) it is blue and white and when it is unstable it is yellow and black.
It can vaporize and it can expand.
It can make some things hard and it can act as a flame retardant.
Some of it can even be used for medicinal or cosmetic purposes.
Muhammad said it can clear the vision and make the hair sprout.
Pliny the Elder claimed there were male and female forms of antimony(which must be why i keep writing alimony)
and it can be toxic (poisonous) which leads to an interesting parting shot.
The final entry at Wikipedia states that antimony may be leaching into bottled water from the PET (plastic)bottles but the concentrations may not be high enough to harm humans.

Now to get here from starting with the word button just boggles my mind. Mostly because every time i wash a plastic cup, dish or utensil (which is usually every day) i wonder if it is leaching some chemical into our bodies.

i now have one name that i discovered quite by accident which is probably leaching into us. It probably is...its leaching alimony into my body ahhhhh!

Is this important?

Yes!

It is! We need to pay attention to that which we put in our bodies.

Another thing to note here is that i really tried to write a piece that had a word starting with a different letter than A. If you've noticed, there has been a preponderance of essays with words beginning with A. i never planned it that way it just kept happening. When i noticed it was getting a bit much i decided to find some other topic and i thought of buttons. This was supposed to be about buttons and their ability to bring two things together, but antimony just dominated.

So there you have it. Antimony, a chemical element, known to be poisonous that may be leaching into your body from your water bottle or your plastic plates and cups. i have to say that i love plastic and am hoping my antimony levels are low and that yours are too.

Oh! To still be residing in that naive zone of unknowing, i could go on eating and drinking off of plastic forever not ever thinking of antimony.

i imagine i will write that other button piece sometime in the future.

By the way that century plant is just incredible. It has sent out another shoot and its blooming again. It does not give up.
Don't you give up either. Keep fighting for peace.