Color

I absolutely love it. I buy clothes that are cheerful colors. When I got a new car last fall, I was thrilled to find the model I wanted in bright red. I'd always wanted a red car, but one was never available when I bought my other cars. My house is painted in bright, happy colors. This occasionally surprises a first-time visitor, but that's part of the fun. When it's time to repaint, I go forth to choose a new color full of enthusiasm and excitement. I love being surrounded by so much color as I survey the hundreds of paint chips. I gather batches of possible colors and fan them out like a hand of cards. But sometimes I let myself get distracted by the names of the colors. I start to second-guess my choices when the name has nothing to do with the color I think I want. In my house I have a room painted "Mimosa" that is peach and one painted "Plum Ripe" that is clearly lilac and not even vaguely plummy. A small accent wall that I call turquoise, is "Mint Majesty," which is ridiculous. The chip isn't a plant-type green at all. The color that bothers me the most is "Eclipse." I have a small, dark hallway and when I got tired of the white walls, I chose a pale, pale gold. (No sparkles, just yellow with a hint orange.) It's called "Eclipse." But doesn't that sound dark? Really, really dark? The only two names I don't disagree with are the "Tangerine" in the kitchen--with windows, cabinets and whatnot, there isn't that much wall, so I wanted it bright, and the bedroom that is "Peas in a Pod" which is not only accurate, but very soothing. I think that having a job as a paint-color-namer might be pretty cool. It obviously doesn't matter what you label the colors and I would find it very amusing to come up with pointless names. But then I think I'd last about a week before I ran out of adjectives to pair up with random nouns. It just occurred to me that maybe it's all done by computer now. I would say that explains a lot, except it's always been this way. Finally, something a computer can do just as badly as a human.