The ability to create witty, catchy, and/or clever titles for things has always escaped me. I am something of a wordsmith, but when it comes to giving something a title, I fail without exception.
Usually, I avoid this shortcoming quite easily: I simply do not create anything which requires a title.
But I recently caught Blog from a friend of mine, who had caught the figurative bug from some English teachers' figurative sneezes (which I guess is a weird and gross way of saying she was inspired, and consequently inspired me). I tried to fight it off, but well, my immune system has always been for crap.
I sat down at my computer and surfed the internet absently, then acted upon that niggling urge and came to blogspot. But now what? Signing in was easy enough -- Google for the win (again)! But one of the very first things it asked me was: What should your blog title be?
Although I am far too conscientious and OCD to bang my head against a keyboard in frustration, you can bet I was daydreaming of doing that very thing as I tried several different stupid combinations of things that I like.
A main part of the problem here is that I didn't/still don't have any idea what this blog is going to be about. It is difficult to name something that doesn't even have a theme. But then, I figured, it was obviously going to be a blog about me, somehow. My thoughts, or stories from my life, or maybe even some kind of self-mockery thing. But somehow Sarcasm Seamstress seemed really retarded, as did Whisker Whispers (I like foxes, okay?), and Soccer Chick. So I tried to change tactics.
As you can probably guess, my longwinded tendencies and my over-analytical grammar-happy brain combine to make pretty awful titles for things. Case in point, my email addresses. Aside from my recent brain-blast to create an email address using (shocker!) my name, I have a pretty terrible history of email addresses.
I hate using numbers or other such cop-outs, so due to a lack of creativity, or perhaps an over-endowment of it, I tend to end up having incomprehensible email addresses. Take, for example: mbcampergrl. I promise it made sense when I was creating it: I loved to camp (camper) at Montgomery Bell State Park (mb), and I was a middle school person of the female persuasion (grl). One particularly heinous example is an address I still use quite often today: wotwmonolatryary. I... I could try to explain it. But... well, I just don't feel like typing all that out. Of course, my personal favorite is the very first email address I ever created: rosiposeypudnnpie. I kid you not. At least it was original.
Hoping to avoid a repeat of my usual complete incoherence, I actually took a moment and thought about what to name my blog.
I came up with the Roses first. The name thing worked so well with my latest email address. Maybe it would in a title, too. Okay. Roses. What about roses?
I discarded some truly dumb ideas before the idea of a green thumb came to me. But a green thumb rose seemed somehow... typical. I am definitely not your typical Rose. So, I thought, the opposite of a green thumb is a black thumb, right?
I started dwelling on that. Considering that they are my namesake, I am inordinately fond of roses. They are a very hardy flower. As long as you give them a place to put down their roots where there's plenty of sunshine and water, they really don't need much tending. Roses grow strong, protect themselves, and are difficult to eradicate, not to mention that they come in wondrous varieties. I have often liked to consider myself very aptly named.
I figured I couldn't be the only one with qualities like the hardy, complicated flower I love. Just because some of those people aren't named after that flower doesn't mean they can't relate to it. And I like the idea of being able to thrive even when the world throws you dry spells. After all, in the garden of life, we can't all be tended by green thumbs. Maybe that was cheesy, but you get the idea.
And thus was the title "Black Thumb Roses" born.
