Well damn. See, I took Ra at his word and decided to go along with the theme, DESPITE having a fictional column almost finished. So I flipped through my trusty thesaurus with my eyes closed, spun it around, flipped some more pages, jabbed a finger down and got: hanker.
Fuck.
OK, the first thing I get is the song from the "Schoolhouse Rock" cartoons about eating good snacks or breakfast or something, and having a "hanker for a hunk of cheese." The little ditty is accompanied by a nice visual of cartoon wedges of cheese dancing across a table. Ah, they don't make cartoons like that anymore. Everything's all anime-ish now. (I've noticed that I've unfortunately gotten used to anime with all the slash that I read, and don't even notice that I HATE IT anymore. Those big glassy eyes are just fucking SCARY, no bones about it.)
Back to hanker.
Next I get a cowboy kind of mood-feeling from 'hanker', and a thought about 'hunker'ing down next to a campfire, but mostly, what I get is 'handkerchief,' which I should have cheated and said is what my finger landed on, but I'm just too honest for my own good apparently. But not so much that I have anything else to say about 'hanker.' So.
Handkerchief… My dad always has a cloth handkerchief in his right back pocket. White ones for work-days, and red or blue or whatever color bandana-type-print ones for weekends. Since I am the Mucous Queen and have been since birth, I think I used his handkerchiefs more often than he did. I have no idea why he uses cloth ones; all I can guess is that it's a holdover from his childhood of poverty, when Kleenexes would have been too expensive.
There's nothing quite so odd as the moist-cloth feeling of a used handkerchief, unless it's the feeling when they get dry and crusty and stuck together, and you know they're going to have to be washed. Sometimes they get stained from blood and other icky fluids. Most unpleasant. I, for one, am glad for the invention of Kleenex.
Handkerchiefs also remind me of camping/fishing/hunting trips with Dad and using them to bind wounds, wrap up delicate things to carry back somewhere, strain water, and use as a washcloth. Recently I used one as a nose-mouth cover while "mowing" the sand outside our house, and my husband accused me of looking like a train robber. While I refrained from telling him to "Stick 'em up!" I believe I did make some other suggestions about what he might do with his body.
Handkerchiefs also suggest hair accessories to me. From the 1970s when Mom used to wear Dad's (clean) handkerchiefs as a bandana, to the 1980s when I used them either to hold a ponytail or as a headband. I have never figured out how to tie a handkerchief around my head as a bandana. I have a smallish head (shut up!), but just can't ever get it to reach all the way around. I think I must be doing it wrong. My husband says his mom used to wear a bandana when gardening, too. I can kind of see it, in a quick mental flash, but mostly just can't imagine her dirty at all. She's too elegant. Mostly I picture my mom, in jeans, t-shirt, and bandana, muddy, and equal parts grumpy and happy.
The last thought handkerchiefs prompt is of course, the hankie code. We've all seen it online, and frankly, I wonder if it was ever actually used or effective. It seems far too intricate to work, but maybe I'm just lazy. Makes me think of seedy gay bars, though, and a general sense of fear and need to be secretive that I wish was a thing of the past, but know isn't. The hankie code seems like a holdover from the days when being gay was still illegal. But then I remember that in some states, it still is. Amazing.
Hanker - cheese and cowboys.
Handkerchief - snot, camping, robbers, gardening, and gay culture. Everything comes down to something gay with me, doesn't it?