Day One: Dissimulation

As you may or may not have guessed, Dissimulation was my word of the day.  Given how long this post turned out to be, perhaps I will be breaking them up by challenge and not by day.

I had plans to meet a good friend I hadn't seen in a while for dinner tonight.  We were going to a restaurant that has a British Pub theme but the food is overwhelmingly generic American bar food.  You know, beer battered pretzels, quesadillas, salads, pasta with sauce and chicken.  Anyway, I decided I wanted a word that meant something trying to be what it isn't.  I asked for some suggestions and got pretense, masquerade and guise.  

Using thesaurus.com, I searched pretense.  Dissimulation was one of the search results that I was unfamiliar with and searched that.  Dissimulation is defined as "disguise;" "attempt to conceal embarrassing or scandalous information;" and "practice of misleading."  Given my expected venue, I thought a bar trying to be an authentic Pub with an otherwise un-British atmosphere, I had found my word!

*Note:  This is not my expected method for the rest of the 30 days.  There is a used bookstore near my apartment I plan to visit this weekend to buy an old dictionary to peruse.  I never thought the prospect of reading the dictionary would be exciting, but there it is.  

Anyway, feeling a little nervous about my first-ever (basically) vandalism, I had to decide where I was going to write it.  I walked into the bathroom and discovered it was one of the nicest public restrooms I had ever been in and I felt guilty about what I was about to do.  Not wanting to back down on my first day, I decided to write my word on the inside lid of the feminine products disposal bin inside the stall.  I snapped a photo and bolted.  In the future, I think I'm going to have to write the words on tape and stick that somewhere so it can easily be removed.  I know that makes me kind of a chicken-shit but I can't help but feel bad for whoever will have to remove my little "experiments."

Day One under my belt, tomorrow is another day and I just might have to get to the bookstore sooner than this weekend.  It's a little crazy that something so simple could be so exciting but I look forward to discovering new words, new hiding places and the boldness that may (or may not!) come about as a result.