48 questions
May. 2nd, 2003 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantI'm late on this one, but I had such a good time reading it on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mammal's LJ that I was finally tempted to do it myself.
1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES?
White Corelle. When I'm asked about this, I usually say it's because we have a four-year-old. But the truth is that we'd long since broken all the beautiful handmade pottery we got for wedding presents, and I couldn't bear to bring anything else beautiful into the house to get destroyed.
It is possible to break Corelle. It takes extraordinary levels of clumsiness, but it can be done.
2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
In the car: the sci-fi/fantasy anthology Stardust 2. In the house: re-reading Jane Austen's Emma. In the bathroom: re-reading Barbara Hambly's The Ladies of Mandrigyn, which, like most sci-fi and fantasy books, is a lot better than you'd guess from looking at the cover.
3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
No mouse. Laptop.
4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Scrabble.
5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
Cook's Illustrated. I love their tireless quest for the single best way to boil an egg, mix a vinaigrette, make a graham cracker crust, or those hundred other things that you figured you already knew how to do.
And I love the way every article begins with the same basic story: The perfect [food] is a delicate balance of [contradictory traits], but too often [said food] is [long list of ways said food can go wrong]. The endless tale of culinary hope and disappointment.
(Plus they won my heart by proving, scientifically, that it's not necessarily to fussily polish each mushroom with a damp paper towel, because contrary to kitchen wisdom, they do not absorb water when you wash them the normal way.)
6. FAVORITE SMELL?
No way can I choose just one. Coffee. Mennen Speed Stick. Bacon. An outdoor swimming pool in summer. A deep layer of pine straw when you walk on it. My own skin when I've been out in the sun. The first shovelful of dirt in the spring. Thunderstorms. Bread baking.
7. LEAST FAVORITE SMELL?
Aside from the obvious (something dead in the yard, excrement, half-rotten things in Tupperware), I really dislike the smell of cold cooked egg.
8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
Maybe if I just lie here, the spouse will break down and be the one who gets up and opens the kidlet's baby gate.
9. FAVORITE COLOUR?
Bluey green.
10. LEAST FAVORITE COLOUR?
Brown.
11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?
Most of the time I don't answer the phone. When I do, it fills the kidlet with anxiety: "No! Don't! It might be someone you don't want to talk to!"
12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
No more kids in the works. I have a long list of future cat names, probably more names than I'll ever have cats. Skokie, for instance, would make a great name for a cat.
13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE?
Coming to understand.
14. OF ALL THE POSSIBLE CIRCLES OF HELL, WHICH ARE YOU MOST LIKELY TO BE ASSIGNED TO?
The one where the lazy people go.
15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
Chocolate.
16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
Moderately. I speed consistently, but not by much.
17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
No. Having something in my bed bugs me in much the same way that having gum in my mouth bugs me.
18. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY?
Cool.
19. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
A gold 1978 Ford Fiesta hatchback. (This was in 1987.) Black cloth seats with orange and gold stripes down the middle. Eight-track player. Oddly, no smell of stale cigarette smoke. My co-workers called it "the Fiasco."
20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON, DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE?
Walt Whitman.
21. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?
Mostly I like alcoholic drinks that closely resemble non-alcoholic drinks or desserts. I like Kahlua and cream, but mainly it's just a socially acceptable excuse for drinking a cup of cream.
22. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN & YOUR BIRTHDAY?
May 8. Taurus.
23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
No.
24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Writing fantasy/sci-fi novels. Or maybe being a music researcher for a group like the Waverly Consort.
25. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY HAIR COLOR WHAT WOULD IT BE?
My hair's brown. I like brown hair.
26. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?
Twice.
27. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY?
Some days: Half full. Some days: Take this back; I ordered coffee.
28. FAVORITE MOVIE?
Yellow Submarine.
29. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS?
Yes, except for numbers, which I do haltingly with two fingers.
30. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
Plastic boxes of out-of-season clothes. A down comforter shrunk futuristically down in one of those Space Bags. A really frightening amount of cat hair.
31. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
Three and eight.
32. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH?
Soccer and basketball. I also like those sports that are really dancing, like figure skating.
33. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR?
Being found out.
34. FAVORITE SONG?
Right at the moment, June Tabor's "No Man's Land."
35. FAVORITE TV SHOWS?
Don't watch TV. Quite literally can't tell you the last time I watched TV.
36. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD?
Mustard.
37. HAMBURGERS OR HOTDOGS?
Both.
38. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK?
Mountain Dew.
39. THE BEST PLACES YOU HAVE EVER BEEN?
San Francisco. Asheville, North Carolina.
40. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW?
None. It just goes black.
41. BURGER KING OR MCDONALDS?
McDonald's under duress. They're the only chain whose fries I find at all edible. If I want greasy fast food, though, I'll go to a local place called Mr. G's and eat a Chicago dog and watch the nurses from the local hospital eating chili cheese fries and smoking Marlboros.
42. DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE RIGHT NOW THAT YOU COULD FALL IN LOVE WITH?
I know people that I have a profound and long-lived love for, and people I'd like to have sex with. (And some of them are even the same people.) But now that I'm aware that my most intense crushes correspond precisely with the week when I ovulate, I'm afraid love (of the romantic kind) would have a hard time with me.
43. WHAT DID YOU DO YESTERDAY?
• Sat in a coffee shop answering Transfigurations feedback and drinking a mocha.
• Wrote a couple of stanzas of a poem that picks up after the end of the ballad "Clerk Saunders."
• Had lunch with the Tech Goddess.
• Bought schmancy super-dark chocolate to give to the spouse for a belated birthday gift (and some to eat, too).
• Wasted a good bit of the afternoon obsessively reloading the Bravenet counter stats on Transfigurations.
• Took a nap.
• Picked up the kidlet from school. Picked up a pizza.
• Had a friend over for pizza.
• Put the kidlet for bed.
• Stayed up too late reading HP slash.
44. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?
Pasta.
45. WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 20 YEARS?
An actual novelist, I hope. Living somewhere other than here, I most devoutly hope.
46. IF YOU HAD THE CHOICE OF ANY SUPERHERO POWER TO POSSESS, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Flight. No question. I dream about it all the time. The thing that's always there in my dreams, too, is how pleasurable flying is. How it feels like stretching when you've sat still for too long.
47. WHAT'S THE WEIRDEST DREAM YOU'VE EVER HAD?
Hard to pick just one.
Once I dreamed that I went to a pedicurist (which I have never done), and she carved a bunch of thin slices of skin off the bottom of my feet, and I ate them, and they tasted like ham.
Once I dreamed that my mother had taken a bath in my tub and left the tub full of lukewarm water and clots of menstrual blood.
Once I dreamed that I died and came back as a ghost to warn the spouse to flee the country before a great religious revolution came and he got hanged for possessing heretical books.
This very morning I dreamed that the spouse and the kidlet had died, suddenly and without warning, of something like Mad Cow Disease, and before the doctor could break the news to me, he had to pick up the kidlet's beloved BooYamb toy and hold it and suck his thumb for a few moments.
48. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE CLASSICAL COMPOSER?
Hm. Not a big classical fan, though I like early music a great deal. Maybe Tallis?
mammal's LJ that I was finally tempted to do it myself. 1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES?
White Corelle. When I'm asked about this, I usually say it's because we have a four-year-old. But the truth is that we'd long since broken all the beautiful handmade pottery we got for wedding presents, and I couldn't bear to bring anything else beautiful into the house to get destroyed.
It is possible to break Corelle. It takes extraordinary levels of clumsiness, but it can be done.
2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
In the car: the sci-fi/fantasy anthology Stardust 2. In the house: re-reading Jane Austen's Emma. In the bathroom: re-reading Barbara Hambly's The Ladies of Mandrigyn, which, like most sci-fi and fantasy books, is a lot better than you'd guess from looking at the cover.
3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
No mouse. Laptop.
4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Scrabble.
5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
Cook's Illustrated. I love their tireless quest for the single best way to boil an egg, mix a vinaigrette, make a graham cracker crust, or those hundred other things that you figured you already knew how to do.
And I love the way every article begins with the same basic story: The perfect [food] is a delicate balance of [contradictory traits], but too often [said food] is [long list of ways said food can go wrong]. The endless tale of culinary hope and disappointment.
(Plus they won my heart by proving, scientifically, that it's not necessarily to fussily polish each mushroom with a damp paper towel, because contrary to kitchen wisdom, they do not absorb water when you wash them the normal way.)
6. FAVORITE SMELL?
No way can I choose just one. Coffee. Mennen Speed Stick. Bacon. An outdoor swimming pool in summer. A deep layer of pine straw when you walk on it. My own skin when I've been out in the sun. The first shovelful of dirt in the spring. Thunderstorms. Bread baking.
7. LEAST FAVORITE SMELL?
Aside from the obvious (something dead in the yard, excrement, half-rotten things in Tupperware), I really dislike the smell of cold cooked egg.
8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
Maybe if I just lie here, the spouse will break down and be the one who gets up and opens the kidlet's baby gate.
9. FAVORITE COLOUR?
Bluey green.
10. LEAST FAVORITE COLOUR?
Brown.
11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?
Most of the time I don't answer the phone. When I do, it fills the kidlet with anxiety: "No! Don't! It might be someone you don't want to talk to!"
12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
No more kids in the works. I have a long list of future cat names, probably more names than I'll ever have cats. Skokie, for instance, would make a great name for a cat.
13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE?
Coming to understand.
14. OF ALL THE POSSIBLE CIRCLES OF HELL, WHICH ARE YOU MOST LIKELY TO BE ASSIGNED TO?
The one where the lazy people go.
15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
Chocolate.
16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
Moderately. I speed consistently, but not by much.
17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
No. Having something in my bed bugs me in much the same way that having gum in my mouth bugs me.
18. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY?
Cool.
19. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
A gold 1978 Ford Fiesta hatchback. (This was in 1987.) Black cloth seats with orange and gold stripes down the middle. Eight-track player. Oddly, no smell of stale cigarette smoke. My co-workers called it "the Fiasco."
20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON, DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE?
Walt Whitman.
21. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?
Mostly I like alcoholic drinks that closely resemble non-alcoholic drinks or desserts. I like Kahlua and cream, but mainly it's just a socially acceptable excuse for drinking a cup of cream.
22. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN & YOUR BIRTHDAY?
May 8. Taurus.
23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
No.
24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Writing fantasy/sci-fi novels. Or maybe being a music researcher for a group like the Waverly Consort.
25. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY HAIR COLOR WHAT WOULD IT BE?
My hair's brown. I like brown hair.
26. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?
Twice.
27. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY?
Some days: Half full. Some days: Take this back; I ordered coffee.
28. FAVORITE MOVIE?
Yellow Submarine.
29. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS?
Yes, except for numbers, which I do haltingly with two fingers.
30. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
Plastic boxes of out-of-season clothes. A down comforter shrunk futuristically down in one of those Space Bags. A really frightening amount of cat hair.
31. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
Three and eight.
32. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH?
Soccer and basketball. I also like those sports that are really dancing, like figure skating.
33. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR?
Being found out.
34. FAVORITE SONG?
Right at the moment, June Tabor's "No Man's Land."
35. FAVORITE TV SHOWS?
Don't watch TV. Quite literally can't tell you the last time I watched TV.
36. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD?
Mustard.
37. HAMBURGERS OR HOTDOGS?
Both.
38. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK?
Mountain Dew.
39. THE BEST PLACES YOU HAVE EVER BEEN?
San Francisco. Asheville, North Carolina.
40. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW?
None. It just goes black.
41. BURGER KING OR MCDONALDS?
McDonald's under duress. They're the only chain whose fries I find at all edible. If I want greasy fast food, though, I'll go to a local place called Mr. G's and eat a Chicago dog and watch the nurses from the local hospital eating chili cheese fries and smoking Marlboros.
42. DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE RIGHT NOW THAT YOU COULD FALL IN LOVE WITH?
I know people that I have a profound and long-lived love for, and people I'd like to have sex with. (And some of them are even the same people.) But now that I'm aware that my most intense crushes correspond precisely with the week when I ovulate, I'm afraid love (of the romantic kind) would have a hard time with me.
43. WHAT DID YOU DO YESTERDAY?
• Sat in a coffee shop answering Transfigurations feedback and drinking a mocha.
• Wrote a couple of stanzas of a poem that picks up after the end of the ballad "Clerk Saunders."
• Had lunch with the Tech Goddess.
• Bought schmancy super-dark chocolate to give to the spouse for a belated birthday gift (and some to eat, too).
• Wasted a good bit of the afternoon obsessively reloading the Bravenet counter stats on Transfigurations.
• Took a nap.
• Picked up the kidlet from school. Picked up a pizza.
• Had a friend over for pizza.
• Put the kidlet for bed.
• Stayed up too late reading HP slash.
44. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?
Pasta.
45. WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 20 YEARS?
An actual novelist, I hope. Living somewhere other than here, I most devoutly hope.
46. IF YOU HAD THE CHOICE OF ANY SUPERHERO POWER TO POSSESS, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Flight. No question. I dream about it all the time. The thing that's always there in my dreams, too, is how pleasurable flying is. How it feels like stretching when you've sat still for too long.
47. WHAT'S THE WEIRDEST DREAM YOU'VE EVER HAD?
Hard to pick just one.
Once I dreamed that I went to a pedicurist (which I have never done), and she carved a bunch of thin slices of skin off the bottom of my feet, and I ate them, and they tasted like ham.
Once I dreamed that my mother had taken a bath in my tub and left the tub full of lukewarm water and clots of menstrual blood.
Once I dreamed that I died and came back as a ghost to warn the spouse to flee the country before a great religious revolution came and he got hanged for possessing heretical books.
This very morning I dreamed that the spouse and the kidlet had died, suddenly and without warning, of something like Mad Cow Disease, and before the doctor could break the news to me, he had to pick up the kidlet's beloved BooYamb toy and hold it and suck his thumb for a few moments.
48. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE CLASSICAL COMPOSER?
Hm. Not a big classical fan, though I like early music a great deal. Maybe Tallis?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
yay memes!
Date: 5/2/03 02:05 pm (UTC)Jane Austen -- yessssssss!! Re-read countless times. I love a hard-core dry sense of humor. Barbara Hambly -- I've never given her a chance, due to her violation of one of my rules for fantasy novels (e.g. "no giant talking cats pictured on the cover;" in this case the broken rule is "no twee names like Ingold Ingloriam").
proving, scientifically [...mushrooms...] do not absorb water when you wash them
I.kiss.your.feet. This is exactly the kind of information that I am too lazy to look up myself, but makes my life so much easier now that I know it!
I love Scrabble. Instant sensurround memory of my grandparents! (This is a good thing.) My, you pick good favorite smells. I feel like I cheated my way out of that one, now.
Maybe if I just lie here, the spouse will break down and be the one who gets up and opens the kidlet's baby gate. SNERK!! Sistah! Except ours have foiled the gates, so it's down to whoever can successfully pretend that the kid in the bed with us hasn't woken us up.
"No! Don't! It might be someone you don't want to talk to!" Hee! Sounds like you're clear on that issue.
I really like the name "Skokie" for a cat. An eight-track player in 1987?? Did you have anything you could play in it? Are you really my little sister in disguise? She still has a collection of 8's and a working player. Boney M, woo and hoo!
socially acceptable excuse for drinking a cup of cream Triple snerk! And the greatness of your answer to number 27 surpasses my ability to comment on it.
Favorite numbers: I have a theory for which I'm gathering anecdotal evidence. Were these, by any chance, a couple of the main TV channels in the town where you were a child? (e.g. Atlanta's 2, 5, 11 -- all faves of mine. But no, I didn't watch much TV as a child!)
33: Damn good answer. Covers pretty much all my bugaboos. Wish I'd thought of it.
Who's June Tabor -- would I like her?
Mountain Dew... eeeewwwwwwwwww. The color -- can't get past the color. Is that really the whole appeal, or do you like the taste, or is the high caffeine level the draw?
My folks live near Asheville, in Brevard. I can't remember if you and I have discussed locations on TT before, but is there a chance of a F2F?
most intense crushes correspond precisely with the week when I ovulate Sistah again!
feels like stretching when you've sat still for too long. Award hereby granted for "Most excellent description of something I've never experienced in real life, and thus have no way to judge, but know how it should feel."
I'll never eat ham again without cracking.the.hell.up. But this morning's dream sounds super-crappy -- so sorry you had to have it. I've had similar, and it fucked me up for days.
I only know Tallis through L'Engle books, but that's a good choice by me!
This is an exhaustively long response -- I think I'm in TT mode. Hope that's okay with you -- good to "talk" to you again!
(no subject)
Date: 5/3/03 08:38 pm (UTC)proving, scientifically [...mushrooms...] do not absorb water when you wash them
I.kiss.your.feet. This is exactly the kind of information that I am too lazy to look up myself, but makes my life so much easier now that I know it!
Other timesaving gems from Cook's:
The best way to cook broccoli is to boil it in lots of salted water (as if it were pasta) for three or four minutes.
Contrary to myth, when you cook something in water, it makes no difference whether you start with hot tap water or cold tap water. (No difference that their trained tasters could discern, anyway.)
Barbara Hambly -- I've never given her a chance, due to her violation of one of my rules for fantasy novels (e.g. "no giant talking cats pictured on the cover;" in this case the broken rule is "no twee names like
I do wish she'd resisted the temptation to name her main characters Sun Wolf and Starhawk. Once you get over retching about that, though, the book is quite fun. (I've bought the sequels but haven't read them yet.)
An eight-track player in 1987?? Did you have anything you could play in it?
Not a thing. But you couldn't hear anything over the noise of the engine anyway.
Favorite numbers: I have a theory for which I'm gathering anecdotal evidence. Were these, by any chance, a couple of the main TV channels in the town where you were a child?
The only channel i remember is that Channel 4 was public TV (i.e. Sesame Street).
Who's June Tabor -- would I like her?
She's a folksinger. I only have the one song -- it was on a Green Linnet compilation CD -- but it's a lovely anti-war song.
And I can't help but wonder now, Willie McBride,
Do all those who're lying here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
(no subject)
Date: 5/2/03 03:01 pm (UTC)Have you ever read Cookwise by Shirley Corriher? It's a cookbook+more, all about the biochemistry of cooking, how ingredients react to each other, and how the reactions change as you change the process. It's perfectly fascinating, cooking as an obsession and a science.
And on a slightly related tangent:
45. ...Living somewhere other than here, I most devoutly hope.
My friend who lives in your city calls me every now and then and makes me tell her about the last restaurant meal I ate, from start to finish, in as much detail as I can manage, because she can't get our native cuisine there, and it's killing her. Talking about food to a starving person is sort of like having phone sex, really.