The Name: Paralith

Contributor: Paralith

As I was coming out of the most difficult part my Lost Year, I knew it was time for a different screen name. I know, it’s dorky, thinking that changing your habitual screen name is important. But for me, it was.

My previous set of preferred screen names all came from the fantasy stories and worlds and characters that I’ve been creating ever since middle school. I’ll easily admit that most of the female characters I imagined were basically reflections of myself. There was one in particular, however, that I felt was most like the real me. Well, no, not like the real me. She was most like what I wish I could be. She was practically ageless, she was one of the most powerful warriors ever to exist in the universe, she was wise, she was compassionate. She was thoroughly beautiful, and she was thoroughly undefeatable.

For a long time, day dreaming about being a creature like this was a part of my daily life. And that, I think, well personifies the downfall that was my Lost Year. So much of my mind had been caught up in dreams and ideas so thoroughly unrealistic, that I was completely unprepared for that big baddie, Real Life, when it came to get me. I so deeply wanted to stay wrapped up in dream worlds (which served no purpose other than self-gratification and escapism) that I never really, truly desired to even think about Real Life and what I would have to do to get along with it. I thought I wanted to think about Real Life. I thought that I wanted it. But I didn’t.

It’s hard for me, still, to accurately describe the nature of my problem, one that I still find myself grappling with. I hope that writing in this blog will help me figure that out, and maybe help other people who are going through what I, and Speak Coffee, and City Girl, have gone through in our Lost Year.

But to get back to the original thread of thought. The name of that character, who I held so close to my heart and who I so wished I could become, was my most favored screen name during my Lost Year. And I knew it was time to leave her behind, and stop pretending, even in the feeble way of using it as a screen name, that I could one day be her.

As someone who will spend her life in science, I decided to look to the scientific names of animals to craft a new screen name for myself. I looked up certain animals, I combined different names, and then different parts of names, and at one point, I arrived at the name Paralith. I chose it largely based on aesthetics, though I later did some research to find that the latin root par or para means to make ready or prepare, and the latin word lith means stone. As I prepare to enter the life of a scientist, am I preparing myself to become a woman of stone, with the cold logical heart of science guiding me through life? I hope not. Though I must not confuse Real Life with a fantasy life, I do not want to completely lose all my imagination and emotion. They are, after all, a part of Real Life too.

The Name: Speak Coffee

"Speak Coffee" comes from a short story I wrote as a junior in college that has gone through several reincarnations since and is currently sitting in the waiting room of the ER waiting for me to stitch it back up after having been ripped apart yet again.

In the story the main character writes a "Man Manifesto" dictating that she does not want an emo guy, a guy with a wife, or a guy that smells better than she does (she's been having problems recently). So now that she has goals and directives she begins wondering how she's ever going to achieve any of them. This is where the excerpt comes in:

I print out my manifesto and tack it up on the wall above my computer. I think about it for a while and realize that if I really mean it I ought to make it public. I take out the scotch tape and fix it to the outside of my bedroom door where my roommate can see it. I feel a little like Luther.

I tell myself not to worry: I’m not philosophizing; I’ve got one picked out. One with blue eyes, ocean blue eyes. One that lets his face get scruffy until he goes home to see his mother. This one doesn’t have a girlfriend.

He smells good. I know he does. But he’s subtle about it. Subtlety makes it all the better. A whiff of boy that I get when I’m in physical proximity. I want that around. Around me. While I’m doing daily tasks. Washing the dishes. While relaxing in front of the television. Not just when we’re at bars or kissing.

He makes bad jokes. Then immediately apologizes for making them. I laugh. I tell him it wasn’t as bad as he thinks. Sometimes they really are bad and laugh at him instead. He takes it well. Gathers up the hand that I use to swat him and runs his thumb over my fingers.

I want him in my life and I’m not certain how to get him there. How to get myself there. To get to the point where I’m sitting on the kitchen counter in his sparse but fairly clean apartment. Soft sunshine coming in through the window over the kitchen sink. Near the stove there’s a brown ring burned into the counter from a hot pan and a previous tenant. He’s never really noticed its existence. The kitchen’s clean, not sticky or grimy or molding so I don’t mind the burn mark either.

He’ll walk up to where I sit on the counter, laughing, smiling, coffee brewing a few feet away. No tired lines, no stories, no brush off. He won’t speak sex to me, or love or even chocolate. He’ll speak coffee to me. Bitter and bold, filling me with life. Starting with the aroma and not stopping until it’s caught up in all my senses. He’ll speak coffee. Sweet, delirious coffee.

To hell with boys with dirty tile floors or men with wives. Give me clean kitchens and coffee. Give me men who know how to speak in more than just guy or smart ass.

The story continues but my favorite part was always "speak coffee to me" and I swore up and down that if I ever opened a coffee shop that was what I'd name it. As I have no where near the capital to open a coffee shop I've used the name as the title of my blog on writing and the shorter version Speak Coffee as my SN. Perhaps it is representative of my wishful, daydreamish nature ... or maybe I just really, really, really like coffee.

WTF Name?

So some of these names we've chosen are more self-explanatory than others. Give a little (or long) explanation of where they come from just as a place to start.