Observations of interstellar absorptions superposed on the chromospheric Mg II emissions of nearby cool stars have been used to explore the structure of the local interstellar medium along many lines of sight. The interstellar cloud in which the sun is immersed (the 'local cloud', hereafter LC) has not previously been detected using this technique. These Mg II data, taken from observations and from the VILSPA data bank of IUE, have been supplemented with other data taken from the literature. The simultaneous analysis of the observed column densities and the radial velocity components of the absorbers is revealed as a useful diagnostic method in delineating the properties of the LC. The pervasive presence of low densities toward the north Galactic pole and the Galactic anticenter is confirmed, and lower limits to the Mg II column density than hitherto observed are presented. The LC is moving, in the LSR reference frame, toward (l, b) = (126 deg + 6 deg), away from the Sco-Cen-Oph association. It may extend to heliocentric distances of up to 8 pc toward l of about 90 deg; in other directions its edge is at most, at 2 pc from the sun.