Peeking Behind The Curtain

"It's called a word cloud," he said.

C and I were having a spontaneous dinner with some friends, a husband and wife, having met at a mexican restaurant two and a half hours away from home.  I realize that I do employ the word spontaneous with certain irony here, but to us it felt both dramatic and reckless... Let's go get us some guac. and good conversation!

The husband is a teacher, and he was explaining some of the techniques that he uses to engage his middle school students in class.  Both of our friends are remarkably creative and full of ingenious ideas regarding education, team-building and general all around rabble-rousing.  They're great.  In fact, there's so great that I nearly proposed to the guy a few summers ago at a local beach, by accident.

You'll do well to avoid things like this, which when I think about it, shouldn't actually be very hard.

Anyway, we're at dinner and our friend is explaining word clouds, which sound pretty cool in terms of their general use, but when applied to something personal, seem outright terrifying.  Each diagram/widget/list shows the most frequently used words in large, bold print and the least used in small, faint print. The rest of the words are collected in a spectrum of small to large, in varying fonts and colors, based on their recurrence.

(Wait, you already know what this is?)

(Of course you would.)

So when he suggested using one here on the blog, it got me wondering what the resulting word cloud might look like.  Doing this will only make me look bad worse, I soon realized.  After considering the possibilities for a blog-cloud, I got to thinking about what my very own thought cloud could contain.  Oh, the possibilities! 

I don't know about you, but the content of my mind is like a dollar store grab-bag suspended inside of a large gift balloon: the structure contains so many wonderous things and yet, at the same time, so... much... empty... space...

They can put anything in there. 

I can only dread what would appear if we were to figuratively release its contents out onto the kitchen counter.  All I'm certain of is that there would be the sudden and overwhelming sound of muffled laughter and a series of scathing, disappointed looks.  If I understand these "clouds" (insert finger quotation visual) with any accuracy, mine might look something like this:

     SOFT-SERVE

      BRRR... go put on some stretchy pants

QUIT TALKING SO MUCHGET THE CATred rocks    

muffinbottomlate to [location] again

 you can't only wear stretchy pantswhy is it so cold?

MY GOSH, will you quit running into furniture?!

WHERE'S THE BATHROOM?

if it's not black, don't buy it   best. cat. ever. 

will someone please tell me why don't we eat horse meat? 

not again.

In truth, I would be horrified if I discovered that you could read my mind.  And really, in most cases, I don't want to look behind your wizard curtain, either (a few of you are strong exceptions - you probably don't know who you are).  Socially, most of us are too composed, too well-behaved, and far too eager to conform, which necessarily means that - while I admittedly have some weird cat-lady stuff going on in my head - underneath that calm, cool surface, you're probably daydreaming about getting the lead role in the next television super-drama (Law & Order: Medical Malpractice), and are anxiously fighting a wild obsession with adorable baby ferrets.

"But how does she know??"

So while the concept of a word cloud does seem pretty intriguing, and really fairly educational, I'm pretty grateful that it only works on written text.  In light of how revealing this little word-picture could be, I'd like to suggest that people strive to become increasingly mindful about what they choose to write.  It would be a great shame for an author's words to betray a sagging intellect.

I'm relieved to have such a handle on that.   

Down The Rabbit Hole

As I was sweeping cabins earlier today,  I got to thinking, "Good-night, M, if you don't post something on that silly blog of yours soon, they'll all suspect you've gone off the deep end".  They'll wonder if you've finally become a forest dwelling, ax-swinging nut with a propensity for off-roading in inappropriate vehicles and having long [audible] conversations with herself.

Phew.  Glad I've avoided that.

My brainchild occurred only a an hour or so after Helen, a new (and awesome) year-long staffer, pulled a mouse out of the washing machine.

And the thought came just a little while before my husband and two of our neighbors/co-workers/fellow woodsman went outside to try and shoot a skunk that is living in our woodpile.

A woodpile located directly below our front deck,

which also happens to sit right outside my office window.

Fine, the woodpile basically is my office window.

While the chase ensued, I tackled my own challenge: eating half of a watermelon.  This comes to no one's surprise.

Why is no one surprised?  Because eating entire melons and chasing woodland creatures is beginning to feel normal.  The strange-but-true reality of life here has slowly pulled a foggy haze over my perceptions of what to should expect out of a day.

For example, I've recently managed to:

• overflow the pot in the Bunn coffee maker, multiple - ok, dozens - of times.  
• shake someone's hand while holding a pirate's hook in my sleeve (we'd never met before)
• spray water all over the dish pit, ceiling included.  

         [Since we're on the subject, here's a brief life lesson:

    In the battle of human dishwasher vs. ladle, 

there are no winners - only losers.

It looks so harmless.

 

    I'd compare it to running an ultra-marathon naked, 

in Manitoba, 

in February

 or 

to drinking questionable milk]

I've also managed to...

• stay upright in a kayak through most of the Kennebec Gorge (read: most)
• drive a four-wheeler 
• pet a black bear.  It actually felt quite like my cat, only larger and less alive.
• plunge the single-most-foul toilet I've ever encountered.  If I close my eyes, I can still see it.
• shoot archery with a gaggle of sweet Dominican grandmothers.
• start wearing hats.  Thank you to my friend Cathy, state food service laws, and that one retreat guest who left me a fedora.  Her fedora.  On purpose.  I look too much like a little boy to pull it off [without looking like a little boy].
• stop sleeping in.  This seems simultaneously gluttonous and tragic, and yet I will probably attempt to return it to my skill set pronto.
• take one day off in a month.  Though it may sound like I'm flaunting some big accomplishment here, what I'm really saying is that this kind of behavior is particularly unadvisable and likely a result of your own bad planning.  Plan better next time. 
• live in a state of heightened anxiety and panic (see above).
• remain in wedded bliss weddedness.  Considering the previous truth, this is a miracle.  I'd have banished me.  

I keep thinking that I should maintain a list of the unique happenings that that take place here in the woods, and perhaps I really ought to, but as time goes on, the instances themselves become less and less unique and, consequently, more and more everyday.

In conclusion, I suppose I will start on that list...

providing something really weird happens.

Someone Get Me A Paper Bag to Breathe Into

Our cabin has a moose theme.  There are so many eyes on our furnishings that sometimes I feel like I'm being watched.

We have moose lamps, both electric

 and oil.

We have moose in our drapes.

and on our walls.

We have moose that tell us how warm (or terrifyingly cold) it is, both inside 

and outside.

We have moose things sitting on other moose things.

We have moose holding our keys

and ready to hold our drinks.

These moose are walking all over our walls.  I counted 12, but I'm sure there are more hidden in drawers and behind cupboards.  

We can consult an old moose calendar if we need to.

We even have some real moose.  These do not live in the house.

I think that with all of this moose-mania, the obvious next step is to get this.

source

I'm thinking a full-back portrait, with the antlers creeping up my neck. 

Also, I'd like the moose tattoo to have its own tiny moose tattoo. 

Layer upon layer of awesome. 

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Another thing - and this is totally off topic - what are some good ideas for an adult Easter basket?