beezer

beezer adj. excellentAs you can imagine, I subscribe to the OED online. I bought a small version of the dictionary for $40 and it came with a free subscription. It's fun to play on the site and today I found a way to look up British / English words. "Beezer" is a British adjective meaning excellent and I just love it because it's so happy sounding. It really embodies "so very good" in a way that "excellent" doesn't. Excellent has the connotation of excelling or beating someone or something else. Same thing as outstanding - I feel like it has to be so great that it "out - stands" the rest of everything.Beezer reminds me of Beezus Quimby from the Beverly Cleary books that I absolutely loved as a kid. She was the next door neighbor of Henry who had the annoying little sister Ramona. However, I think it a bit ironic because Beezus was the wall flower older sister who was out shined by Ramona. So this is probably a bad reference for recalling the meaning of beezer...good books though.The problem with looking up British words is that when you say them with an American accent they sound completely un charming. I found myself saying beezer with a fake British accent which is pretty sad. But when I said it with my normal accent, it just sounded like some thug frat boy language. Imagine it in a Boston accent - beezah! (I almost want to go to Boston and start a trend.)Anyway, back to beezer's counterparts - excellent and outstanding. Does something have to stand out amongst everything or beat out all else to be considered very, very great? Do we decide what is wonderful only through comparison or can something be intrinsically great just because it is - with out reference to something else that has or had existed? I don't think it can. Which would mean if we are constantly striving for excellence we are in constant competition...and where is the day to day happiness in this?When I think about an excellent day it doesn't depend on just one element. To me a beezer moment could be a rainy morning where the Keurig machine spit out an unexpectedly sublime cup of coffee and I enjoyed hearing the raindrops hit the windowpane in such a way that they sound musical. Maybe I picked up a Harpers and flipped to a poem I didn't expect to find while sipping my coffee and found a new poet that quickly became my favorite. Even on the small scale - even if I am talking about just a beezer 5 minutes - is it not excellent because it was better than the five minutes before? Or the 5 minutes I had at exactly the same time yesterday morning- perhaps it was sunny but my coffee sucked and I stared off into space worrying about what the day beheld...Today I shall use beezer to humble my competitive nature. Competition is good...great perhaps, but it's where you set the bar. If you set it high - perhaps someday you will reach the height of beezerness. But what's the point if the road to get there is miserable and unhappy because you are constantly trying to out do yourself. It could be a century of unhappiness and disappointment before you get to your excellence.I'll take my excellence in small doses each day. Minute to minute and hour to hour...and when things get gradually more and more wonderful I'll have had a beezer journey instead of just one excellent day.