Hickering

Cover image for the Hickering word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Hickering

n.
the habit of falling hard for whatever pretty new acquaintance happens to come along, spending hours wallowing in the handful of details you can gather about them, connecting the dots into elaborate constellations, even imagining an entire future together—images that have no particular purpose, except that they’re kinda fun to think about.

Hebrew (hikrín), to project an image + hankering, craving. Pronounced “hik-er-ing.”

On Tenderhooks

Cover image for the On Tenderhooks word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Backmasking

a woman's face with a double exposure

Achenia

a close-up of a bottle with an organic object inside

Walloway

water faucet that seems to emanate from the ground

Kadot

a person looking at an abstract spiral

Appriesse

a blurry image of a person looking at mounted images