Fallow

Fallow [noun] (faa loh)

1. Dormat
2. Unused

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The last word I would ever use to describe Austin is fallow. It is not idle; it is not inactive.  It is not unseeded or unused.  It is alive day and night.  The enthusiasm that exists on the streets around midnight is contagious - even when Daylight Savings steals away another hour of our rest in the next morning.

The only time I have felt fallow in this town is during conference panels - but that's a good thing.   While the city vibrates with energy and excess, I can sit in my panel on user experience or unplanning your business or using cartoons to find innovative and just ...  think.  And learn.  And - dare I say? - mellow?  

Instinctively, the (blurry) picture on top looks more exciting than the one below.  Instinctively, you're wrong - if this were the Neolithic era, that wild boar would have maimed you.  The left is equally exciting as the right, if not more.

Austin may be known for its active lifestyle, but the silent, quiet underbelly is just as appealing to this Green Mountain gal.

Wraith

Wraith [noun] (rayth)

1. A ghost or spector
2. A ghost of a living person seen just before his or her death

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When death knocks upon one's door, it is said that that person may appear to those most important to them in life as a wraith.  To wish them farewell, to bid them warning, to whisper secrets that had always meant to be shared but somehow laid dormant: These are things those on deathbed come to tell the living.

These are also things one's luggage would tell its owner as an apparition before it disappeared from the airplane cargo - swept into that world the airlines call "lost baggage."

As I flew into Austin, Texas on Thursday evening, I hoped beyond hope not to receive a vision of my dear Maurice (AKA the China bag the size of Vermont).  I had seen Maurice board the plane to O'Hare by chance, but through the next 4 hours, not a single vision was spotted.  This could only be good news, as I feel Maurice would try to contact me if he were to be forgotten on the tarmack.  

 

Upon descending into the baggage claim area, a parade of baggage floated through my mind's eye.  Beneath the guitar-dazzled carousel, black, blue, yellow, Army, beige, and pink bags flew by and then, suddenly, there was Maurice - not his wraith but the mesh-and-thread reality.

Maurice made it to Austin.  I made it to Austin.   Time to unpack and enjoy the show.

Wily

Wily [adj] (wie lee)

1. Clever
2. Deceptive

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Not feeling wily today - working away from work is proving to more difficult than initally imagined.

Where's an ACME bow and arrow/100-ton weight/rocket-powered bicycle when you need one?

Sycophant

Sycophant [noun] (sih kuh fuhnt)

1. A self-serving flatterer; a yes-man

--

 

I need a sycophant by my side when I pack.  While I swim amongst piles of shirts, shoes, toothbrushes (yes, you need more than one), chargers, powerstrips, books, and reservation print-outs, there are few things I want to hear more than, "You're doing well, kid."  

 

Even if I'm not.  

 

No need to worry- I'll figure out that I'm sinking into a bottomless pit of "over-sized baggage" (read: lots and lots of money) sooner or later.   Later if you tell me I'm doing it wrong and I feel a need to be right; sooner if you applaud my efforts, commend my folding technique, and listen silently to my diatribe about whether the floral print Wellies have more merit than the zebra pumps.

 

As a result of a rather patient sycophant, I have once again managed to pack my entire life into two pieces of luggage in preparation for a journey to South by Southwest.  It's a long trip from packing to conference, but worth it.  

Right? (Your response should be in the affirmative, FYI)

Erratic

Erratic [adj] (ih raat ihk)

1. Wandering and unpredictable

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Time for a little lesson in erratic behavior:

Lesson one: Make sure it makes no sense.  

Lesson two: Never make sure it makes no sense. 

Lesson three: Ignore lessons one and two and make this instead:  Take one part Cool Whip and stir in two parts chocolate sauce  - preferably Fair Trade.  Enjoy the almost-mousse.

Sully

Sully [verb] (suh lee)

1. To tarnish
2. To taint

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Does it sully the act of blogging to force yourself to blog?  When you come home late, hungry, tired, and generally lacking the creative spark, does the act of crushing thoughts into a keyboard for the sake of the act tarnish the purity of having a web log?

I wonder this as I continue my New Year's experiment - 365 Words, 365 Days.  Some days, I stare at this screen for minutes on end thinking, "What am I suppose to say?"  Occasionally inspiration strikes but more often than not I fake inspiration - "Oh, I had a salad for lunch.  Salad is crunchy.  So is snow - let's write about snowball fights!"  It's a sad, sad process, but it is mine.

Unless, of course, you'd like to take it on?  

In the end, I feel horrible crushing thoughts to the screen - but once I do it, I feel relieved.  I'm not sullying the blogging process - the art of self-reflection with a silent crowd - as much as I am perpetuating that process.  Blogging is not simple; it is a discipline, like any other. 

So, in that regard, let the tarnishing continue.

Lavish

Lavish [adj] (laa vish)

1. Extremely generous or extravegent
2. To give unsparingly

--

 

Sticky notes are not a lavish office supply.  In fact, one could argue that little yellow pieces of paper with a touch of adhesive on one side are one of the least extravagant things one could find in one's desk.

 

Sticky notes are not lavish - but there are things that serve the same purpose that are much less lavish  than they.

Take hands, for example. 

I write everything on my hand.  Reminders, phone numbers, my to-do list.  I do so with Sharpies or ballpoint pens - nothing too sharp or too light - and scrub my hands daily to erase my fleshy equivalent to a whiteboard.

"... but, why?  Ever heard of a sticky note?" they ask with a latent smirk on their faces.  Almost on a daily basis.

Yes.  Yes, I have heard of a sticky note.  But sticky notes, counter to their name, do not stick to me.  The ideas I write down on them drift away like so many leaves on the wind.  And, quite literally, the note itself disappears, whether it be in a pile, under shoe, or  attached to someone else's notebook.  

 

My hand, on the other ... well, hand, does not disappear and, as such, does not allow for me to forget.   One glance down and I remember to call the doctor, e-mail a reminder, or pick up Fluffy at the vet.

[Full disclosure: Fluffy is fictitious.]

Perhaps the next big office supply will be that which we all have: hands.

Or, you know, not.