Apophenia

For Christmas this year my husband bought me Endangered Words by Simon Hertnon. What fun! And that is how I found the word apophenia, which means seeing patterns and connections in seemingly random and meaningless data.

But is anything really random? Or meaningless for that matter? It seems that as a writer I spend an inordinate amount of time finding those random things to place here and there, all in an effort to surprise my readers. So while I enjoy how the word rolls around in my mouth - a-poh-FEE-nee-a - I'm not sure what to think about it beyond that. And so I've decided how I shall use it in the future - as the name of a character.

Apophenia sneezed as she stepped outside into the early morning sun. Damn, winter grass, she thought. She'd told the gardener and her husband how allergic she was to it and yet did either of them care? Apparently not as here she was with red eyes and itchy nose. She strode down the sidewalk, her arms pumping as she strutted, and plotted her revenge.