Blog.

That's a funny word.

Blog.

Supposedly comes from mashing "web log" together, but honestly, why call it a "web log" in the first place? Seems like kind of a strange thing to call it. I suppose it originated from when people were still calling it the "web" instead of the "internet" oh so many eons ago.

Many eons being, in this case, about ten years.

So someone started writing their thoughts out, thought it would be a cool idea if they showed them to other people using this fancy series of tubes, and called it a "web log." And then people decided that was a stupid name and really just slurred into "blog" anyway, so why not call it that?

And it stuck.

That's the story that I made up just now, and I'm sticking to it.

But honestly, words are strange. We don't think about it very much because we use them all the time, but I have this book that's buried in a case full of books sitting in my room right now because I don't have the space to put them... anyway I have this book. It's called L is for Lollygag: Quirky Words for a Clever Tongue. It's full of odd, rarely used words that are just fun to say aloud.

You know what, I'm going to dig it out so I can use an example.

Okay, here's a good one.

Peccadillo (pek-uh-DIL-oh) noun
A very small wrongdoing, nothing worth getting your underwear in a twist about.

Yes, that's a direct quote from the book.

Say the word out loud a couple of times. Use it in a sentence. Isn't it fun?

My junior year of college (last school year, for those of you who like keeping track), I would take a dry-erase marker and write up a "word of the day" on the tiles of our bathroom, encouraging my suitemates and I to use that word as much as possible.

'Course, it didn't quite work. I'd always forget to use the word after I'd written it up there, and before long I got lazy and it went from being a word of the day to being a word of the week to just not happening at all.

But I still think it's a good idea. From my perspective, the American vocabulary is not only shrinking, but also turning in a different direction, using lazier words, forgetting grammar, and not particularly caring if it gets something correct or not.

Is this a big deal? To me, it is. To many, it isn't.

I like words. They're interesting and I don't know nearly enough about them. So maybe I should start looking through this book some more.

Now, if you'll excuse me, three very small, very enterprising spiders are trying to make themselves at home on my ceiling. This is unacceptable.

Extended Metaphors (can be really excruciating)

Like many college graduates, I'm in Limbo.

Limbo, according to Wikipedia's "Limbo (disambiguation)" page, can refer to more things than I thought it could.

The first, and most applicable explanation, is the situation in afterlife speculated upon by Medieval Catholic theologians. Basically, if you died a non-Christian, but were basically an okay person, God said "oh hey, you're kind of cool, I like you. But you don't get heaven, sorry, that's only for mah special peeps." Then he stuck you in Limbo. Which was basically perpetual... sitting around. With a bunch of other people going, "hey, what's up. I'm bored." Only by the redemption granted by Jesus could you gain access to heaven and escape it.

People in Limbo probably don't do the Limbo, the second listing on the Wikipedia page, described as a dance that originated in Trinidad, wherein the dancer, in time to a Caribbean beat, would attempt to pass underneath a bamboo pole while leaning backwards. No touching allowed. As soon as you touch the pole or fall to the ground, you're out of the game.

Apparently Limbo can also refer to a movie, a video game, several novels of that title, and an anti-submarine weapon. Go figure.

Anyway, Limbo. I'm in it.

Both the Catholic theory of suspension in time and space and dogma and the dance.

Oh yeah. It's a fun time.

Basically, I've graduated. Go me! Yeeeeehaw! Wohoo!

Now what?

You'd expect a young woman with a degree in theatre to... I don't know, go to New York City or something, right? But no. I'm not feeling any particular desire to go live in NYC at all. So what do I do?

Well, right now I'm living with my parents, working a temp job in the Accounting department at a local hotel, where I can introduce myself to most of the staff by describing my job as "Gift Certificate Girl," and have them nod knowingly.

I never ever expected to be working as an accountant. Ever. But here I am.

But the job won't last forever. So what happens afterward?

My parents frequently encourage me to come up with ideas, make a plan of some sort, and TAKE ACTION! But the problem is that I have too many ideas. Go apply to work at Disney World and audition to be a performer? Go to culinary school and learn to be a baker? Travel abroad? Find a job in Boston? Find a job at home? Run away and join the circus? Be a train-hopping bum? Apply for a reality TV show and become an INSTANT STAR? The world is FULL of possibilities!

But the problem with endless ideas is that eventually I have to pick one. And it's so hard to choose, especially since I have no idea which one to pick. Choosing requires me to commit to something and throw the other options out the window for now.

So I'm waiting in Limbo, watching the other inhabitants of this forsaken city mope around with me, gazing up at a bright and shining heaven that is just out of reach. There's plenty of ladders leading up, but only one will get me there.

In dance terms, I'm that person in line who watches the pole get increasingly lower, watching it with alarm, and realizing that there is only one good way to get under the thing without falling on my butt. But I'm too scared of falling on my butt to just jump right under and go for it.

...well gosh, this all sounds horribly depressing. I just meant to give a description of where I was at in life, and here I am talking about failure and doom and theological concepts. Sorry about that.

Sing it, David Hasslehoff.