Wording

A severe case of pagigration

Nearly two months after leaving AOL, John Scalzi continues to inspire the creative efforts of others. No, he's no longer doing the meme-with-links-to-your-blogs thing; he's passed the baton on that (*ahem*). But over in his blog Whatever, he frequently tosses out an idea for a fun activity to keep his large readership amused. Back in January, for example, he parlayed a typo into a writing prompt, "I Met John Scalvi," and encouraged readers to describe their encounters with this fictional person. Other times he's set up a premise for readers to turn into posters and lolcats and such. And today (okay, yesterday), he declared it to be "International Make Up a Word Day."

I came up with the following:

Awakested - simultaneously too awake to go to sleep, and too sleepy to accomplish anything.

Bookcreep - the stealthy migration of books from the shelves where they belong to untidy piles all over one’s desk. Also called pagigration or librigration.

And of course I had to mention my husband's word, inanimosity, which refers to the hostile behavior of objects. I find it a very clever and useful term, and promote it at every opportunity.

To which I now add

Calibording - stopping at a booth near the Arizona - California border, ostensibly to reassure the state that you aren't importing ferrets or insect-infested fruit, while undergoing profiling as a possible illegal alien.

That's enough for tonight. I got a nap earlier, but that doesn't mean I should stay up for another hour, making up words! I'm trying to fight my dawntending, the process of going to bed later and later until all sleeping is done by daylight. That's a word I came up with over 20 years ago, when John and I shared a single Mac SE, and my sleep schedule was even screwier than it is now.

And tomorrow I'll emipagigrate those L'Engle books, I promise!

Karen