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.   

Someone Send Me Nine Fly Swatters & A Pair Of Blaze Orange Laces - It's Fall!

Flies ruin everything.



Seriously, for those of us on The Compound, the F in fall stands for flies: nasty, swarming little critters with the irritating tendency to give up the ghost all at once and die in mass graves on our tables, shelves, and window frames, just as if someone had poured a bowl of them out onto our furniture.  This massive crash landing only seems to occur when we have an unseasonable [not to mention, merciful] spell of warmth in this already wintry climate.  (Ice in September, yes.)

I hope the Hawaiian Islands have their own version of this sort of thing, because otherwise, that's just not fair.  Not only is the infestation disgusting, but apparently, it's also our fault.

Just ask the Log Doctor.  Yeah, you read that right: the Log Doctor.   This expert seems to think that we need to reseal the windows.  Or buy some fly tape in bulk, which i've been considering heavily.

Lest you think we have been bested by our kamikaze friends, rest assured.  These few and glorious warm days we've had since September have not gone unappreciated.  We've swam laps.  We've paddled rivers.  We've arched archery.

And we've run.  Shockingly, we've gone and run some more.

I run in spells, which is to say, in stretches.  Which I guess is also to say that I'm astonishingly undisciplined, and can't stick with a habit for more than a matter of weeks.  If you don't believe me, ask someone I hang out with.  I'll crochet twenty-five tiny hats in a week, then quit cold turkey.  I'll paint my fingernails a different color every three days, then stop for six months.  I'll start growing my hair out... then cut it to an inch and a half.  I'll wake up early to work out... then, a few days later when I realize that the other option is to stay in bed, I'll drop my ambition like an anchor and slam the snooze button.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't do long-term discipline, but I totally rock at being impulsive.

I'm sure I'll be back to my normal (read: lazy) self soon, but I've been in a bit of a running mood these last weeks.  This is fantastic, especially considering two things:

1)  C and I leave for our third annal Utah Camping Spectacular in just over a week.  The air is so much thinner up on those canyon ledges, and if there's any way that I can lessen the amount of huffing, puffing and splotchy-skinned embarrassment I will undoubtedly endure in view of the general public - well, it's a gift I'll take, thank-you-very-much.

2)   You might think this is premature, or that I'm just exaggerating again (Me?  Exaggerate?), but here's the truth: winter's a-coming.  And, based on some fairly consistent past experience, I tend to get a little "soft" during the snowy season.  You might call it getting "doughy", "jiggly", or even "squishy".  C and I just call it "having a little extra".  A little extra what, you ask?

A little extra of a lot of things, actually.  That's the problem.  It's like putting on one of these, only it's not a suit.

source

It's just more of me.

So, even if I run in phases, i'll still count it as running.  And even if the Fly-pocalypse occurs only on floridian days, I'd still rather have the buzzing, balmy respite than submit to a seven-month period of looking more and more like I live in a network of underground tunnels.

Sometimes you can't win 'em all.

And sometimes you just can't win.   But on those rare occasions when you're in the lead - albeit, temporarily - don't complain.  Just bask in the glory.  Because that - that - is your moment.

Until a fly lands in your coffee. Then you know you're back.