Shit. It's been over a month since my last post. Sigh. Well things got a little busy after Christmas, then I started back at school, blah blah blah. Anyways, here I am. I figured I'd write a little blurb about the title of this blog--Sassafras--and explain it.
The idea came from an Aerosmith song, "Love In An Elevator," where one of the lyrics is "kiss your sassafras." That line always stuck out for me, no idea why. Steven Tyler comes up with a lot of funky, tongue-in-cheek, sometimes controversial lyrics, which just demonstrates his cheeky and sometimes flippant personality. In other words, he can be a little shit. And I love it. So maybe that's why I chose it as the title? I'm not really sure, but perhaps on some subconscious level I chose it because it reminds me of being cheeky and a little defiant, which I probably will be like in some of my posts depending on what I write about.
On the other hand, I was curious to see if "sassafras" was even a real word or if it was just something Steven made up in the midst of spitting out lyrics. Apparently, a sassafras is a type of tree found in eastern North America and eastern Asia. It's main uses were to add fragrance to perfumes and soaps by distilling the bark to produce an essential oil, consisting mainly of safrole. Sassafras extract was also a primary ingredient in root beer, and the roots and leaves could be steeped to make tea. The use of sassafras oil and safrole in commerically-based and mass-produced products was banned in 1960 by the FDA, based on lab reports that it caused cancer and liver damage in test animals. In 1994 the ban was lifted, but only sassafras extracts which did not contain safrole were permissible. Interesting. FYI, this is all according to Wikipedia.
Now that I've given you a brief and probably boring biology lesson, I also found articles/posts that explained slang or alternative meanings to the word sassafras, which I'm guessing is the reason behind Steven's use of it. One blogger (http://www.oneyearintexas.com/2009/01/love-in-elevator-living-it-up-or-going.html) suggested that it was another term for weed, and "kiss your sassafras" meant go smoke some. Urbandictionary.com says that its:
1. slang for MDA--a "psychedelic stimulant"--which I'm assuming is somewhere along the lines of E.
2. a sassy or feisty girl
3. the act of being a smart-ass or, derived from the root word "sass," has come to be associated with heavy amounts of sarcasm, sardonicism, facetiousness, witticism, or any other form of swarmy behaviour
So basically, it's either drug-related or smart-ass-related. Of course. This couldn't be a more perfect term to be associated with Aerosmith and Steven Tyler. Personally, the last one is my favourite. That's what was in my mind when I thought of the title. Sometimes I thought he was singing "kiss your sassy ass" so it makes sense. Plus, I love sarcasm. I am a sarcastic person. It's kind of funny when I think about it, how it all falls together under further investigation. Sassafras, then, is a very fitting title to my blog.
So I'll try and post sooner rather than later, if I don't, and someone cares, they can kiss my sassafras ;)
