be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting fruit tarts...

Thursday Threesome.

::Fluffy Bunny Rabbits::

Onesome: Fluffy-- is as fluffy does! It's almost lemon meringue season at that pie shop. Do you do fluffy pies? ...or is it fruit all the way for you? (Okay, Southerners: go ahead and expound on rhubarb...)
Pies have seasons?

I don't do pies. If somebody else makes one and offers me some, I'll eat it, but I don't make them myself, and I won't as long as bakeries exist. Life's short.

Twosome: Bunny-- slippers? Yes? No? Barefoot? Shoes? What do you schlep around the house in when it's cold outside?
Actually, that would depend less on how cold it is outside than on how cold it actually is in my apartment. If it's 10 below out, but I have the heat cranked and I'm using the broiler, then no, I'm not going to wear slippers. I do have slippers that I wear when it's actually cold indoors.

Threesome: Rabbits-- Have you ever had little furry pets? What varieties? Are there any in your future?
I couldn't even name all the pets we've had--gerbils, hamsters, about five million cats, a couple dogs, a horse [that's not really little, though], a rat...I don't even remember them all. I don't want another pet. It's not that I don't like animals, it's just that I really, REALLY do not like being responsible for something that can die or feel fear. Pretty much everybody that spends much time around me ends up paranoid, and animals are no exception. They're better off somewhere else.

I don't think I'm going to answer any more questions about animals. It brings up too much guilt.

sbt/sbc

Well, I'll be blammed.

You Are 44% Lady

You're part lady, part modern woman. Etiquette is important to you, but you brush aside rules that are outdated or silly.

Are You A Lady?

Whoever wrote this quiz never heard me swear. :D Then again, maybe that's why I didn't get higher than 44%. The quiz's definition of ladyhood seems to center more around politeness and consideration than femininity [the Southern definition of ladyhood seems to consider them one and the same], and I do try to be mannerly whenever it seems useful.

So. Earl Grey tea, anyone?

sbt/sbc

Mrow?

Curious as a Cat.

Which of your school teachers had the greatest positive influence on your character?
That's hard to say. I had some pretty good teachers. I guess the one that sticks out the most is my third-grade teacher. She was just such an incredibly nice person that from then on, when I've thought about what kind of person I wanted to be, she always comes to mind. She wasn't nice in an ostentatious way, like those people who go so far out of their way to be ingratiating that you just hope they'll go away. She was just a genuinely kind, patient person that made you feel special and loved.

Think of your best friend: what is the first thing most people would notice about that person?
Well, I have a couple best friends. They both wear a lot of black, so that's probably the first thing you'd notice. One of them is highly gifted in the mammary department, too, so that's pretty noticeable as well. Then they'd start talking, and you'd notice that they're both extremely intelligent. B is a little more intuitive/common sense [Taurus], and C is more analytical [Scorpio], but they both have fine, logical minds and big hearts, which is why they're my friends. :) They're both also very patient, which is why they're STILL my friends after all this time.

Good questions. It made me smile to think about people who brighten my life.

sbt/sbc

the stores are open, but I ain't got no money...

Sunday 7.

Name seven stores no good shopping mall should be without.

~Catherine's [jeans! that fit!!]
~Hot Topic [because where else are you going to find skull earrings?]
~GNC [for herbs]
~Claire's [because I do like to look, even if I can't afford any of it]
~Bath & Body Works [yeah, I know they're overpriced, but they have so many massage-roller things...]
~Target, ShopKo, or some similar store [for the stuff you didn't want to pay twice as much for at the other stores]
~Best Buy [beepy electronic things! And unedited CD's.]
~Any one of those weird-ass stores that crops up from time to time, selling headshop paraphernalia, weird novelty lighting, obscene posters, and all the other things that young men use as dorm decoration. As long as they have Happy Bunny door signs and window clings, they're okay by me.

That's eight, but whatever.

I didn't put Barnes & Noble on my list because I have a poor person's irrational hatred of people who can afford to pay full cover price for their books. I have never seen a mall with a used book store, but dammit, that should be on the list too. I didn't list Penney's, either, because although they're a mall staple, they're a bunch of fatphobic pudyankers who can't be bothered to carry any plus-size clothing that a] fits, b] isn't hideous and c] doesn't cost more than your car. They also apparently hate women with breasts bigger than a pea, because their plus-size lingerie section is totally inexcusable. But I've gone over that so many times, and we all know it sucks, so I'll stop there. I didn't list Sears either, because Sears has been circling the bowl for so long, I'm amazed they're still in business. They suck so bad, they have their own gravity well.

So there.

sbt/sbc

Insert Clever Title Here

Saturday 6.

1. Pluto has been demoted from planet to "dwarf planet." Are you willing to give up everything you've been taught all these years and begin referring to our solar system as having eight planets, or will you continue thinking about it having nine?
I think I'll always sort of think of it as a planet, but I'll eventually get used to the 8-planet solar system. It's not like we have a choice anyway. I wrote more about it here.

Good thing I put off buying a 2001-2100 ephemeris...

2. Where is the last store you visited? What was your last bill there?
It was the local grocery store. I spent about $5 [Kool-Aid and diet cream soda].

3. What new television show are you most looking forward to seeing this season?
I don't have TV, so I really don't give a rat's ass about new shows or any other shows. They could have a show called "Merv Griffin's Dwarf Zombie Hentai Survivor" and I wouldn't care. I have old "X-Files" on DVD now, so I'm happy.

4. Take the quiz: Which greek God are you? Save yourself some time and space by listing the name of the God, the description it gives you and the famous people you're like. (Don't worry about the graphical information and all the rest unless you just want to!)

Narcissus
33% Extroversion, 33% Intuition, 16% Emotiveness, 100% Perceptiveness
You are viewed by others as tasteless, thick-skinned, inflexible, self-absorbed, arrogant and oblivious. You are Narcissus. You seek out high risk jobs, and jobs that allow you to assert yourself over other people. You also really need your space. You have a strong conformist streak, but you also like to be spontaneous. You also love you. I mean, you REALLY love yourself. You think you're awesome incarnate. But, your flyboy arrogance aside, your bravado lets you accomplish things that others might not be able to.

Famous People like you: Chuck Yeager, Alan Shepard
Stay clear of: Atlas, Prometheus, Daedalus, The Oracle
Seek out: Icarus, Apollo, Hermes

Cool! I like Apollo and Hermes. And I'd have to agree, Narcissus is a pretty good match for somebody who has 4 personal blogs...

5. Of the famous people it lists like you, which is the scariest?
I had no idea who Alan Shepard was. I had to look him up. [He's an astronaut.] So between an astronaut and a fighter pilot, who's scarier? Uh, probably Yeager, since he was trained to fly over things and blow them up instead of just orbiting Earth. That's still not terribly scary, though, just cool.

6. You decide to bring candy to keep on your desk. If you could only pick one kind of candy, which would it be?
Something that tasted awful. That way I wouldn't be tempted to eat it, and anybody that tried to steal it would get a nasty surprise. Maybe some of those Everything-Flavoured Beans or whatever, from the Harry Potter books. I'd pick out all the booger-flavoured, vomit-flavoured, and Keith-Richards'-anus-flavoured ones and put them in a big, attractive dish. I'd also put some B-complex vitamins in there for variety; they taste just about as bad. That's what you get for trying to steal my candy!

Actually, I would never keep candy on my desk. I don't even keep candy in the house most of the time. Sugar is about the worst thing you can do to your immune system outside of, like, AIDS. I'm already tired a lot of the time; I don't need constant colds, yeast infections, and massive acne breakouts on top of it all. And for some reason, corn syrup makes me crazy [the bad kind of crazy].

As for sugar-free candy, the only kinds that don't taste like total shit are the kinds with Splenda or one of the sugar alcohols [sorbitol, mannitol, &c.], and those give me weird reactions like diarrhea and airway constriction. The diarrhea I can sort of live with; the airway constriction, not so much. So I just occasionally buy a Hershey bar or whatever and go without candy the rest of the time. [And that's why I'm one of those girls that eat pizza and never gain weight. ;) ]

And that's a wrap.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Planet of the Yard Apes

Saturday 8.

today's saturday 8 ... a tongue-in-cheek look at babies.

1. i'm going to a baby shower today. do you like baby showers?
I've only been to one. It was all right.

2. are you a parent?
No. It's the best situation for all involved.

3. i abhor baby showers, but i must attend this one. i've been practising my "sit and smile" routine. what do you do when you are forced to attend a function you hate?
I'm never forced. I just don't go. If I do go, and it sucks, I just say something about not feeling well and needing to go home and lie down. I suppose if I HAD to go to something I hated, I'd make sure I had something else important scheduled the same day. That way, I could put in a brief appearance, apologise for my bad scheduling--silly me, forgetting this event and scheduling my physical for the same day!--and leave. Or, to make it even simpler, I could just show up, lie about having something else to do, and then go home.

One of the nice things about working nights is that nobody ever invites you to boring shit because they believe you'll be sleeping.

4. my neighbour recently had a baby with down's as she is 41 yrs. old. how old is 'too old' to have a baby?
I'm the wrong person to ask. That gets into the whole issue of childbirth as a right vs. a privilege, as well as the ethics of conceiving when there's a risk of birth defects. It's too big for me to judge. Although I will say, if you already have osteoporosis, you probably don't want to be trying to grow a whole other skeleton in your body. But again, it's not my body. And I NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT AGAIN!! HAHAHAHAHAAA! That shit is totally not my problem now! Wheeeeeee!!!!

5. my friend recently had twin boys, which i think is God's way of getting back at you for all the evil you have done in your life. before i had children, i used to think having twins was a 'cool idea.' now, with fertility drugs, triplets and quadruplets are fairly common. what is your feeling on multiple-child pregnancies?
Fine with me, as long as it's not mine, and as long as they're not having more kids than they actually wanted.

6. Plan B was recently approved to go over-the-counter this week in the States. i'm thrilled beyond belief as i've had to use something similar (broken condom), BUT many people are up-in-arms about Plan B due to their beliefs on conception & life. how do you feel about morning-after contraception?
I am very much in favour of it. People who are too retarded to know the difference between birth control and abortion should not be allowed to make medical decisions for others.

7. quite a few of my friends are childless by choice and get constantly hounded by friends/family for being 'selfish'. some others are not able to conceive and one friend has adopted from China. deep-down, how do you feel about couples who choose NOT to procreate. does a part of you want to tell a close friend/family member that they're really 'missing out'?
ABSOLUTELY NOT. First of all, I don't want kids myself, so I would never tell somebody they should do it if they don't want to. Second of all, that has got to be just about the rudest thing in the world, telling somebody else what to do with not only their vagina but the next several decades of their life. If somebody's bugging you to have children, tell them to fuck off. Fuck directly off. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. The worst thing you can do to a child is give birth to it because somebody else wanted you to.

8. a friend is childless by choice, and she and her husband (late 20s, early 30s) have gone into their OB/GYN and vasectomy clinics looking to be sterilised. they have actually been turned away and referred to psychiatric counselling due to this request. how do you feel in regard to the way they've been treated for their request?
I think that's crap. I also hope that couple has enough money to keep going to doctors until they find somebody who will do it. I had no trouble convincing my gyno to let me have a hysterectomy. Some doctors still have the attitude that everybody who doesn't have children will regret it--and if they don't regret it, they still actually do regret it, they're just in denial. This is total bullshit, and I was lucky enough to have a doc that didn't buy into it.

I'm going to log off, get some sleep, and thank the gods for the millionth time that my life is not controlled by a totally helpless being who watches inane cartoons all day and poops constantly. And once I'm done thanking them for not being married, I'll thank them for not having children either.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

What?? Monday AGAIN?!?

Oh, all right.

Sunday 7.

Name seven things you'd like to do in the next three years.
~Find a better job.
~Get a breast reduction.
~Make some good friends who are geographically close so I can actually do things with them. [Not that talking online isn't fun too, but I can't go to the movies with somebody who lives on the East Coast. :( ]
~Find a nice, small [but not too small] house.
~Sell tons of artwork and make enough money to only have to work part-time.
~Pay off as much debt as possible.
~Make at least one road trip to see some of my friends.

***

Curious as a Cat.

What would be the most morally difficult thing you could be asked to do?
Destroy somebody's life, either by killing them, doing something very traumatic to them, ruining their reputation, or what have you. I'd have to witness them doing something really abominable before I could ruin or end their life.

If you were casting a comedy movie, what actor would you choose to be the star?
It would depend on what the script calls for.

So that does that. And I am now the proud owner of a paper shredder. Bye bye, useless balance transfer checks! The other great thing about it is that if I ever decide to start doing handmade paper again, I won't have to sit there and rip up sheet after sheet of scrap paper by hand. Just feed it through, soak it in water, schlop it into the blender and away we go. Man, I wish I had enough free time to dink with all that again.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Fish, Fowl, and Thunderstorms

Saturday 6.

1. Would you prefer being a small fish in a large pond or a large fish in a small pond?
I'd prefer to be a human. If I can't, I'll go with being a large fish in a small pond.

2. If you could change one thing about the climate where you live right now, what would it be and why?
I'd have more thunderstorms. Why? Because I like thunderstorms, I'm used to thunderstorms, and this stupid global warming is causing drought after drought--hence, little rain and very few thunderstorms.

3. Do you consider yourself more or less normal than those around you?
I think I'm somewhere in the middle. There are people I work with who are way more messed up than I am, and people who are fairly normal but tolerate weirdness well. In a random cross-section of people, I would probably be on the weird side.

4. Take the quiz: Are you right or left brained?
It says I'm 40% left brained and 60% right brained. That sounds about right.

5. Consider the last meal you ate: was the primary course beef, chicken, fish or vegetables? How often is this your primary course?
None. It was ground turkey, brown rice, taco sauce, pepperjack cheese, and chopped jalapeños all mixed together with cumin. I usually make a batch of this once every few weeks.

6. Should men who belong to a religion which permits it be allowed to have more than one wife? In other words, should polygamy be legal on religious grounds?
On religious grounds? Uh. No. I know you're all tired of hearing this, but...SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. Apparently it isn't getting said enough, or this wouldn't even be an issue.

Now, should polygamy be allowed on the grounds that it's between consenting adults? Only if you allow both sexes to have multiple spouses--of either gender--and only if there's legislation in place to account for the weird housing, tax and insurance situations that it would cause. It's not a big jump from the current marriage limitations to allowing gay marriage, but we'd need new tax forms if polygamy was legal. What if somebody wanted to file as "married filing as a group"? How might this affect housing if different spouses have different rooms? Do they all sleep in one room? I'm sure it could be worked out, but it'd take some time.

And maybe I'm biased because I doubt I'd ever get into a polygamous relationship. The more people you have to rely on to be faithful, the more likely you're gonna contract something. Also, I can't even handle living with one person, never mind two or more. Then if there was another wife and she got pregnant, then you'd have to live with her kid...Yeah, uh, thanks but no thanks.

Well, I was up at the crack of dusk today with a lot of stuff planned, including making homemade applesauce. So I'm gonna get on that. Ta.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Thanks, I already 8.

Saturday 8 wants to know your restaurant habits.

1. i am dying to go to the restaurant el bulli, which is located in spain. it has an amazing, eclectic, nouveau menu that defies explanation. how far would you travel for a good meal?
About six feet, unless I have a lot of cash and am very tired of cooking. Then...still not very far.

2. i love greek food, and my favourite greek restaurant closes during the month of august as the family returns to greece for a vacation. i refuse to eat greek anywhere else. what restaurant in your area has your loyalty?
None. For one thing, I rarely eat out; for another thing, loyalty in money matters is overrated. Even if you hate capitalism, you're not helping anybody by eating shitty food at $7 a plate when you can get good food at $5 a plate. You're just getting screwed. So my loyalty to anybody who's offering anything for money lasts only as long as I think that what I'm getting is worth my money, not just for the dollar value, but for the size of the slice it takes out of my budget. The sole exceptions I make are for the health food store [I can get the stuff cheaper, but if she goes out of business, there's stuff I can't get anywhere else] and MallWart [I will only buy there what I can't get affordably somewhere else].

3. last night, i had a pint of guinness, which is my favourite beer. if you drink beer, what's your favourite? if not, what other beverage is your favourite to relax with?
No favourites, although I've rediscovered Earl Grey tea and have been drinking a lot of it.

4. when i am in canada, i love eating poutine. when travelling, is there a dish(es) that you like to eat when you're not at home?
Unseasoned chicken breast sandwiches, or subs. The latter is too much of a nuisance to make for one person; and the former is about the only thing I can eat at a restaurant [other than plain, unseasoned burgers].

5. a few months ago, i ate bad calamari (combined with some cherry bomb martinis), and got a horrible case of food poisoning for 24 hours. when was the last time you got food poisoning, and what made you sick?
I have no idea. I seem to remember getting sick a few years ago after eating at a restaurant, but I couldn't tell you what restaurant or what it was--probably chicken, since that's one of the few things I can eat without cooking it myself.

6. as i've gotten older, i can't eat rich foods anymore. i can still eat hot wings and guinness, but very rich chocolate cake or decadent desserts will absolutely murder my tummy. what food(s) wreak havoc on your gastro tract?
~All milk that's not treated with some kind of lactose neutralizer. [BTW: Those Lactaid pills? Crap.] For some reason, no other dairy seems to bother me; but milk gives me blinding stomach cramps and thermonuclear diarrhea.
~Anything deep-fried. Same effect as lactose.
~Anything with a lot of fiber but not much starch or fat. This includes most vegetables except potatoes, peas, corn, and carrots. It also seems to include most beans. It makes my stomach produce TONS of acid, which makes me feel like a] I'm cavernously hungry and b] rats are chewing on my guts.
~Black beans. For some reason, homemade beans all make me nauseous*, but black beans are the worst. Even canned black beans will make me sick to my stomach.
~Nearly all soda. Based on the ingredient labels I've read, it seems like anything with phosphoric acid [colas] or ester of wood rosin [most fruit-flavoured sodas] gives me an acid stomach. So my soda consumption is mostly limited to diet root beer, diet ginger ale, and diet cream soda. Hey, it still beats plain water.

7. i'm not a fan of italian food, with vietnamese food coming a close second on my "i don't wanna eat there" list. what type(s) of food do you not enjoy?
I don't know. It's more specific foods, not types of foods. Like, I'll eat Chinese, but tofu is fucking gross. [No, I'm not interested in learning how to prepare it "properly." Anything that gives me acne that bad is NOT good for me, no matter what the damn vegans say.] And I love Mexican, but only the fake Mexican stuff I make. The stuff in the stores and the restaurants is too full of sodium; and let's face it, ground beef has far too many chunks of bone and gristle in it to be anything but gross. At least the turkey people seem to be able to keep the bone-chip content in their ground products at a minimum.

8. as i mentioned before, greek food is my hands-down favourite type of cuisine. what is your favourite type/style of food?
I don't have one, partially because I'm too eclectic [read as "easily bored"] and partially because I can't eat genuine ethnic food anyway because I don't know any Greeks or Italians or Chinese people. And after 50 years of McDeath and all the other fast-food places grooming everybody's taste for MSG and artificial flavourings, I don't want to try a lot of new stuff at an ethnic or any other kind of restaurant. Gods only know what they're putting in there. I know 99% of the time, the waiters don't have a clue, and 75% of the time, the cook doesn't either. If I can't make it myself and use substitutions when necessary, I generally don't eat it.

Right now, my favourite foods are things that do not aggravate my TMJ.

Time for some more Jell-O!

same bitch time, same bitch channel...
__________
*I cannot keep silent any longer. I have seen this mentioned in too many places, and I must address it.

To all the pedantic stick-asses out there who claim that "nauseous" is not an acceptable synonym for "nauseated" and who just love to mock the protosimian stupidity of those who use the word in that way, I present you this entry from dictionary.com. Two dictionaries here, in addition to the M-W Collegiate Dictionary [Unabridged] in my living room, confirm that this is an acceptable usage. So not only are you just as anal as I am, you're wrong too, and you're using incorrect information as an excuse for your snobbery.

And to those even more insufferable pedants who insist that M-W is not a real dictionary and only the OED is an acceptable reference: What can I say? You're just dicks. It's Webster, for gods' sake. It's written by Encyclopaedia Britannica. What the hell is your problem? Put your creative writing degree away and go back to making my burger.

And yes, I'm fully aware that in throwing a fit over this, I've revealed myself to be just as much of a pedantic geek as the people I'm complaining about. Only difference is, I actually took the trouble to look it up instead of just believing everything that the other pedantic geeks told me, so I'm right and they're not. What's worse is that I'm not above snickering over them any more than they're above snickering over the people they think are wrong. Funny, that.

Midweek

Booking Through Thursday.

1. Do you enjoy books that have cooking or eating scenes in them?
I guess so, although it's not really what makes or breaks a book for me.

2. Have you made or eaten anything that was inspired by a recipe or scene in a book?
Bill Clinton mentioned in his autobiography that peanut butter and carrots were his favourite snack, so I tried it. Damn, they're good--especially if you melt the peanut butter in the microwave and dip the carrots in it like a fondue.

As many Terry Pratchett books as I have read, I still do not feel inspired to try making dwarf bread. A banana daiquiri might be nice, though. Or banana anything, for that matter. That's the problem with taking estrogen; all of a sudden you want something like banana pudding, and then five minutes later you're like, "eh." About an hour before the end of my shift last night, I'd have waded through hell for a box of glazed donuts. Then it went away [the craving, not hell or the donuts]. Weird.

And "Hell or Donuts" would be a terrific band name. They could open for Cake or Death [who in turn would have to open for Eddie Izzard].

man, I'm tired...

sbt/sbc

A day late and a dollar short, again

Tuesday's Tales.

What was the best part of the year so far?
Recovering from surgery and getting to sit around in my new apartment for weeks on end.

What was the worst?
Work.

What do you still have left to do?
Work more, and move towards getting my artwork ready to sell.

How are your resolutions going?
What resolutions?

What goals have you achieved so far?
I had goals? Well, I did want to move, and I did that. And I wanted a hysterectomy, and I got that. Other than that...uh...dropped out of school...haven't sold any art yet...up to my Maidenform bra in debt...'Night, folks!

My eye muscle won't stop twitching.

sbt/sbc

Sevens.

Sunday 7.

Name seven things -- fads, controversies, beliefs, institutions, whatever -- that you just don't "get."
1. Christianity, especially the fundies who can't tell the difference between a belief or a fact [or don't care].

2. 9o% of what's on the radio. I mean, really. WTF? How can I have any respect for my species when they'll willingly sit there and listen to the same song 3 times in 6 hours, and not change the station? I mean, obviously the station doesn't have any respect for them. Also, why do people prefer retarded music? Why is this stuff popular, why do people call up and request stuff that's been available to buy for 40 years, why do the stations play the same thing over and over, and why do people put up with it--in fact, lap it up? I don't get it. At all.

3. Pagans who believe the whole Margaret Murray bullshit, decades after it's been disproven. They keep referring to the Burning Times as some terrible holocaust of witches, when no records have been found that indicate either such a widespread practice of witchcraft or a monumental-scale witch hunt. Look, folks, even the Nazis couldn't destroy enough evidence to prevent people from finding out about the Holocaust. Not only that, if witchcraft had been practiced that much by that many peope, it probably would've gone one of two ways: 1] they preserved the traditions in books, which is why there are no more variations of it than there are today, in which case some books would've been found; or 2] they were illiterate or, like the Druids, didn't keep books, and infinite variations would have proliferated in all the isolated pockets of Europe. If people were practicing witchcraft in large numbers for 2000 years, or even for the 1000-1500 years until the persecution started, it would have evolved at least as much as Christianity has in that time, and probably more because of the lack of sacred texts. You can point back to the Druids or the Native American medicine men and say they had unbroken traditions, but you have no way of knowing how much those traditions changed as they were passed down.

There's no purpose for this story now except to promote anti-Christian bigotry, and the fundies do a good job of that all on their own without our having to cling to persecution fables like little hate-stuffed teddy bears.

4. Chain e-mails and e-mail petitions. I don't understand why anybody believes in these things, unless they totally have no idea how e-mail works. I just now had to send somebody a rude e-mail about this because the times I asked nicely [I clearly recall asking at least once, and I'm pretty sure I asked 2 or 3 times], they didn't listen. It was a friend, too, which is why I gave them more than one chance instead of banning their e-mail address right away.

5. Anybody who still believes there were WMD's in Iraq. The less evidence there is to support it, the more people believe in it. Is it really that much easier to fool yourself into believing something than it is to deal with disillusionment? I mean, I have some goofy beliefs myself, but at least I'm honest about the fact that they might not be true; and I try to be prepared for the possibility that they may be conclusively disproven. Not only that, there's a difference between believing in ghosts [which are very hard to detect even under good conditions] and believing in giant hoards of biological weapons [which, without exception, have a tangible, reliably detectable existence in the physical universe].

6. The big hype over celebrity weddings, breakups, and reproduction. If I actually cared about any of these celebrities, I might feel different. It is sorta interesting to hear when your favourite actor or musician or whatever gets married or has a kid. For me, though, that always ends up relating back to their work, which is what made me a fan in the first place. Either it gets me wondering if their next album is going to contain references to it, or it helps explain recent works. Beck's Sea Change makes a little more sense if you know he'd just broken up with his longtime girlfriend, and the Smashing Pumpkins' Adore makes tons more sense if you know about Melvoin's OD, Jimmy's expulsion from the band, and Billy's divorce and his mom's death. Frida Kahlo's artwork takes on additional meaning when you know about her accident and all her surgeries and back braces and incisions that wouldn't heal and so on. So I'm interested in their personal lives to the extent that it gives me a deeper appreciation of the work they put out. Other than that, it's none of my business. So I don't understand people who pound out one message board post after another on Bennifer, or the magazines having 2 and 3 issues in a row whose cover stories are devoted to the Brangelina love triangle and the kid. Very seldom have I understood a movie better by knowing anything about the actors.

7. Mimes.

Well, that took long enough. Between that, breakfast, a lengthy online conversation, and the penning of a suitably nasty e-mail to the aforementioned e-petitioning f[r]iend, I've managed to squander about 3 hours. And I have a stomachache from eating too much. That's anger, sloth, and gluttony, so that averages about one deadly sin per hour. So if I watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, drool over Daniel Radcliffe, get jealous of Emma Watson for getting to star in a movie with him, grumble over all the money they have that I don't, and then brag about it all--I'll have all seven in one day!

Although I could never be as efficient as this. [It took an hour to find that. More sloth!]

sbt/sbc

Ahhh, breakfast at midnight.

Coffee, hot buttered cornbread, and the Saturday 6.

1. Has your blog received more comments, less comments, or about the same number of comments this summer?
The same.

2. What do you think best explains your answer from the last question?
I have about the same number of readers. The only people I can think of that do significantly more websurfing and blogreading during the summer would be people that have the summer off, i.e. kids and teens. The blog of a 30-year-old who alternately acts like she's 5 and 65 probably doesn't get a lot of kid or teen traffic.

3. With the latest terror alert about liquid bombs on airplanes, are you any less likely to schedule a flight somewhere?
Not to any degree that matters.

4. Take the quiz: What color flower are you?
I'm a blue flower.

5. What was the last occasion in which you sent someone flowers?
I've never had occasion to send somebody flowers. I've bought little grocery-store bouquets for my mom a couple times [shut up, it was all I could afford], but I've never called a floral place and had something delivered. Flower-wise, pretty much everybody in my life falls into 3 categories:
~People who I don't know well enough for flowers to be appropriate [e.g. coworkers, doctor]
~People who grow their own flowers [e.g. Mom, B]
~People who have allergies or who I suspect have allergies [e.g. me, both brothers, several other friends]
Also, somehow I feel a little bit silly paying to the tune of $15-30 for something that grows in the ground, in the same way I feel silly buying bottled water when I already have access to clean water for free. So if I do buy flowers, it'll be something like long-stemmed roses or something that I'd never get otherwise because nobody I know grows them. Once in a great while I'll buy a bouquet for myself, but I have to keep them someplace where the pollen isn't gonna spread all over. Roses and daffodils generally don't bother me unless I'm right next to them. I love lilacs, but they sure don't like me.

Dammit, now I want an herb garden.

6. A hypothetical science question: A couple has a young child that they love very much. He has a rare genetic disorder that will be fatal unless doctors can use embryonic stem cells, and the only way to get them is for his parents to donate eggs and sperm so that a lab can create another embryo. Should the parents and the doctors be allowed to create an embryo to save the child's life?
In my opinion, if they want to, yes. [My position in a nutshell: If it doesn't have brain waves or other evidence of higher brain function, it's not human life. That is how they determine clinical death, and I think it's only logical that they should use the same criteria for the beginning of life as for the end.] But I'm not the president, so my opinion doesn't count for much except at election time--and sometimes not even then.

ugh. I don't know if it's West Nile, or a summer cold, or the fact that I work all week in a hot, humid, non-air-conditioned environment; but I just slept 9 hours, got up and had 3 cups of coffee, and I'm still bushed. Maybe I have what my doctor likes to call "that shit that's going around." Or maybe it's the fact that I had major surgery 2 months ago, and I've been going pell-mell with work, unpacking, and painting ever since they let me out of bed and my feet hit the floor. :P Silly Frida, instant recovery is for kids.

Time to go do dishes and try to wake up.

sbt/sbc

Fly! Be [so totally not] free!

Saturday 8.

1. do you think that denying women the hand lotion or liquid eyeliner in their purses is a good thing given the recent terrorist threat? why or why not?
I really don't know. I'm not sure what women have to do with it, either, since I thought they were disallowing liquids for all passengers. [Maybe it's that women aren't likely to participate in terrorist plots? I can't imagine members of a fanatical--and, among other things, misogynistic--sect would use very many women in their attacks, except maybe for the surprise element or something.]

Frankly, all I know about it is this: It doesn't matter what you ban, it doesn't matter how many cavity searches you do. If somebody wants to hijack or blow up a plane, they're gonna find a way to do it, even if it means having suicide bombers board planes carrying surgically implanted remote-controlled explosives. The only way to get rid of airline terrorism is to shut down all the airlines forever.

2. will the new restrictions alter your view on flying? why or why not?
Yeah, they will, actually. Because of the rude and invasive searches, my chances of flying were about .00002%. Now they're .00001%.

3. i'm flying home from cali the day before the 5-year anniversary of september 11th. are you going to be worried for me, or do you think that this anniversary has no bearing on any possible attacks?
Not any more or less worried than I'd be on any other day. Frankly, if I were a terrorist, I wouldn't plan anything on the anniversary of a famous attack, because it'd be too obvious. I'm surprised they were stupid enough to try another airline attack. Maybe they read the thing about the guy smuggling box cutters.

4. on september 11th, i was getting ready to fly home to the East Coast from denver, colorado. the attacks entailed a 30-hour drive across 11 states to get home. where were you & what were you doing on september 11th?
I was at home, totally not watching TV. I didn't find out about it til I came into work that night.

5. i'm a good flier. i usually fly 5-6x per year for either business or vacation, and i'm usually not airsick or nervous. are you a good flier or a nervous flier, or do you fly at all?
I don't fly.

6. on my last flight for vacation, i missed my domestic flight and had to fly into toronto. i almost got deported at immigration at the airport because i didn't have my passport (i didn't need it for a domestic flight so it was at home). have you ever had an issue with customs and/or immigration?
I have never been out of the country, so no.

7. on my last flight for business, i had four screeners summoned to look at my carry-ons. they thought something had gone awry in my luggage. what was humiliating was that one of my bags had an 8"x10" publicity flyer of a gay male french porn star named francois sagat - signed, no less - in all his ... ahem ... 'glory.' my best friend, a gay male, had gotten me the flyer signed as a joke. of course, my bags were removed and searched, but luckily the bag with the publicity flyer was not. i almost fainted from embarrassment. what humiliating experience have you had travelling?
I can't think of anything. I left my glasses in a rest area once, but I wouldn't classify that as humiliating so much as very frustrating and ultimately expensive.

8. i'm going to try and upgrade at the airline to business class coming home the red-eye for my next flight. have you ever flown first-class or business class, and is it worth the money to upgrade? why or why not?
No, I haven't, and I have no idea.

Of course, I have the luxury of not having to worry about terrorists, since I don't fly, I don't use public transportation, and I live in an area that's very unlikely ever to be hit [unless somebody starts a fanatical religious sect that believes cows and soybeans are evil]. So for everybody that's at a significant risk, I feel for you. Hopefully we can all find some way to not worry about it more than we have to, since we can't do anything about it anyway except maybe join the CIA or expose ourselves to radiation and hope we develop some useful super powers as a result.

So I'm gonna go stand in front of the microwave with the door open for a while. Ciao.

sbt/sbc

must...wake...up...

Must also remember not to hit "enter"after typing the entry title. That has to be the stupidest shortcut in all of blogdom, and it seems to be more or less universal. I want to know whose brilliant idea that was.

Anyway.

Wednesday Mind Hump.

1. Do you use email much?
Every day.

2. When did you start using email?
Probably around 1999, 2000.

3. How many email addresses do you have?
uh...you know, I'm not sure anymore. I have 2 that I use regularly, and a couple more that I've more or less abandoned.

4. If you could send an email to your favorite actor or musician, who would it be and what would you say to them?
I really don't have a favourite actor or musician, and I'm sure they all get so much e-mail that mine would either not be read at all, or would just be glanced at. It'd be nice to give a "hi" to, for instance, Tori Amos, but she probably pays somebody to read her fan e-mail; and hopefully she has enough sense when reading her personal e-mail to delete most of the stuff from people she doesn't know. On the other hand, if I had her kind of money, I might open the stuff just out of curiosity. If it had a virus or spyware, I could buy a new computer and pay somebody to set it up.

Thursday Threesome.

::Disc Golf Season::
Onesome: Disc--overy channel madness: did you catch the Mythbusters show with the bit about the Mentos and Diet Coke (episode 57)? Have you tried it at home yet? What am I talking about? Psst: it's a fun project with the kids...
I don't have TV or kids. I do, however, have carpets; and I don't have a yard. So as much fun as it sounds, I think I'll give it a miss.

Twosome: Golf-- Do you play? Do you watch? Do you care? Even the Opens? Just wondering...
No, no, no, and no. Remember what George Carlin said about golf? That's about how I feel about it. If there were fights and body checks, I might change my mind. Or not.

Threesome: Season----ing salt? What spices do you routinely use when you're cooking up a little something for yourself? A little tarragon? Cinnamon? White pepper? What perks up a meal for you?
Generally I use an organic seasoning blend, Mrs. Dash, Italian seasoning, or whatever individual spices seem like they'd fit. I do not own any white pepper; I have never come across a situation where black pepper wasn't good enough. I have cinnamon, but I only use it about once a year; and then I usually use sticks, because it's a helluva mess trying to strain ground cinnamon out of your herbal tea. I own tarragon too, but it has such a malevolent funk to it that I don't use it unless it's specifically called for in a recipe. [Same goes for fennel. Ew.]

Booking Through Thursday.

1. Do you plan ahead for your reading? Work off of a to-be-read pile? A reading list? Or do you wing it, choose whatever you're in the mood for?
I try to finish what I'm reading before I start something new. Of course, that never works, so I'm in the middle of about seven or eight books right now. I see something interesting, I start reading it, and then I rotate that with the other books I haven't finished until I finish one. I've been trying to get the pile down to 2 or 3, but it's never worked.

2. If you do plan ahead, how far ahead? Do you have two or three books waiting in queue? Or are you backed up by dozens of volumes waiting their turn?
See 1.

3. If you do not plan ahead . . . well, never? What about if you're reading a series? Or someone gives you a book for a present?
I have books people have given me that have sat unopened for years. They know I have 560 other books, so if they were expecting me to drop everything and read THEIR book right away, they're nuts. The only series I really read is Harry Potter, and the only plans I have regarding that revolve around waiting for #7 to come out and buying a boxed set of all 7 [you know they'll have one] since I only own #6 and took the rest out of the library. Knowing me, I'm sure I'll sit down and read it as soon as I get home.

Now I must work.

sbt/sbc

Meow.

Curious as a Cat.

What is humankind's most negative enduring characteristic?
That's difficult to answer simply. I want to say "aggression," but that answer is pitifully incomplete to the point of being misleading. To call aggression a negative characteristic connotes, to many people, that it is not also a positive characteristic. I think that every trait humans have evolved for a reason. While aggression has probably done the most damage, I think it also made our survival possible, so it's hard to call it a negative trait when in fact it's a neutral one. [Don't even get me started on the Seven Deadly Sins.]

Which of your friends do you think was the cutest baby? Why did you pick that person?
Me. Why did I pick me? Because I have never seen baby pictures of any of my friends. [To my friends: This is not a cue for you to send me pictures. Thanks anyway. I'll just imagine you as you are now, in a big diaper with a rattle. That's much more amusing. :P ]

I sleep now.

sbt/sbc

trying to wake up...

...and I'm not sure this will improve my mood, given the subject matter; but if it doesn't, at the very least, it should tell me what to ask the therapist about next.

Why the mood? Well, for once, there's an actual explanation: I dreamed I was living in a NY high-rise and suddenly we were strafed with nuclear warheads. Then I dreamed I met a cool guy with totally wild hair, fell in love with him, and then the fucker left me. Then I woke up to find that my screensaver never kicked in [not that that'll damage the screen, it's just one of the thousand tiny ways that Windows sucks] and checked my e-mail to find a message [as yet unread, until I finish my coffee] from somebody I did not want to talk to because my first impression of them gave me the creeps.

So for better or for worse, here we go.

Saturday 8.

1. are you currently in love?
No. I have a crush or two going, but no actual love, and that's how it should be. If I do fall in love with any of these people, I'm so hosed, because they're all married.

2. do you have a "one that got away?" tell us about him/her. if not, describe your last awesome partner.
I sort of have one that got away, in the sense that there were a couple that I scared off or rashly broke up with, that would've made good friends.

3. recently, a florida couple got stranded on their first date (read about it here). although it's not terribly romantic, it's sweet that they've decided that even after being stranded for 6 hours they're willing to go on a second date! what's your favourite romantic story? (this can be a movie, book, poem, story of long-lost love from a friend or relative, etc.) tell us about it.
One of the few romantic stories that doesn't make me want to grab a barf bucket is the one about my parents, who dated in high school, broke up, married other people, and finally got back together for good.

4. what's the hardest thing you've had to deal with in a relationship?
Usually the breakup.

5. when it comes to lovers, are you the 'jealous type'?
I used to be. I'm sure I still am, although hopefully not to the degree that I was as an insecure, emotionally unstable 20-year-old.

6. do you believe in 'love at first sight,' or do you think it's a chemical/biological lustful response?
I think it's more like a crush at first sight, unless you're so goddamn psychic that you can divine a person's personality by looking at them once. I really don't want to talk to anybody for whom love doesn't hinge in some way upon personality.

7. do you believe that a person has a 'one true love,' the person that he/she was destined to be with forever?
Absolutely not. I think that as people live, die and are reincarnated, they meet a lot of people with whom they develop spiritual kinships, and they may meet one or more of those people again in a subsequent life. Or they may go a whole life without bumping into one, which is what I seem to be doing [and what I've been told numerous times, through divination, would happen, which is one reason I don't bother getting into romantic relationships anymore].

8. love gone wrong - what's the worst romantic 'horror story' you've ever heard, maybe from your friends or family, or something that's happened to you?
Well, let's see, would you like the story of my brother's ex-wife, who abused their kids, cheated on him with teenage boys, ruined him financially, and won't leave their family alone? Or how about my dad's previous marriage to a woman who beat him. Or maybe my mom's previous marriage to a guy who terrorized her for nine years because she was trying to be a good little Catholic and stay with her husband; until finally she escaped, upon which he broke through two locked doors and tried to strangle her. Then there's my friend E, who moved to Washington with a guy I thought was the bee's knees, until it turned out he was an abuser. Oh yeah, then there's my half-sister, who met a wonderful man online and had a lovely whirlwind relationship with him culminating in marriage...until he started beating the shit out of her. Then there's my other friend B, who dropped entirely off the face of the earth [to the point that I worried she might be dead] during a relationship with a thoroughly scary and controlling person who eventually came after her with a gun. And don't even get me started on my own experiences with stalkers, sexual assault, and mentally ill boyfriends--although I can take some consolation in the fact that none of those resulted in my being physically beaten.

Remind me, now, why I don't date again?

Not to shove all the horrors of my life in everybody's face or anything, but I think I have a pretty compelling argument there. No thanks, man. I may be a shriveled-up old maid, but I'm a BREATHING shriveled-up old maid.

And for those who say, "But not all relationships are like that! There are good people out there, you just have to find them!" I have an exercise for you. Buy a bushel of apples, some of which have worms, and some of which don't. Keep eating until you find one without worms or until you throw up, whichever comes first. If that doesn't get the point across, I really can't help you.

I need more coffee.

...

Okay, back.

***

Saturday 6.

1. How many different time zones have you lived in? Which one would you most like to live in?
Two. I don't have any time zone preference, really, as long as it has at least 24 hours per day.

2. What is the current setting of your home's thermostat? Do you adjust it up or down based on the time of day, or leave it at one setting at all times?
I don't use the thermostat in the summer because I don't have central air. I currently have it turned all the way off so the heat doesn't kick in at the same time as the air.

3. Go to your bedroom closet (or the closet in which you keep the majority of your clothes. Take a quick glance: what color do you see the most of? Is this color your favorite color? If not, why do you have more of it than your favorite color?
Black, with green coming a close second. I don't have a favourite colour.

4. Take the quiz: What kind of house are you?
It says "Single Family with Yard. All that's missing is 2.5 kids and a dog. You're happy and normal. Good for you!" Um. What? I sure spend a lot of time in the therapist's office for somebody who's "happy and normal." [She works for the county and is salaried, so I doubt she'd keep asking me to come back if I didn't need to.] And although I think children and dogs are sort of cute--when they're being quiet, anyway--I wouldn't go so far as to say that a lack of them equates to them being "missing" from my life. They can come over, I can give them treats, and then they can go home. Or, even better, I can go to THEIR house and pass out treats, and then I don't have to clean the carpets or replace broken valuables.

I think it's funny that out of all these quizzes, there've only been one or two whose answer described me with any accuracy whatsoever. If these people had written the ASVAB, I'd probably be working in marketing right now. [I'd probably also be making four times my current salary, so maybe I shouldn't laugh so hard.]

5. Imagine your dream house: how many stories would your ultimate home have?
Probably two or three, unless it had an elevator. Then a castle would be nice.

6. Ripped from the Headlines: An underage teenager decides he does not want to undergo a particularly rough regimen of chemotherapy to treat his cancer. With his parents' blessing, he decides to pursue an alternate treatment to be supervised by a clinic that is outside of the country. Should a court intervene and force the teen to undergo the "traditional" treatment? How much does the prognosis for successful treatment with the chemotherapy affect your judgment?
Under the current laws as I understand them, yes, the court has a duty to intervene. Does that mean the current laws are right? That's an entirely different matter. Also, is the person in question a "teenager" in the sense of being 13 or of being 17? The chemo prognosis means little to me, frankly [see below], but the person's age does. If he's close to the age of majority, I think they should leave him alone. If he's 13 or 14, I'd be less comfortable with him making his own decision. Since his parents agree with his decision, I'd be very uncomfortable with the court forcing him to undergo chemo. Of course, he could get the chemo, survive, and look back 20 years later and go, "Man, I'm glad they made me do that." Or he could get the chemo and die anyway, in which case they've just crapped all over the kid's dignity and his parents' rights to raise him as they see fit, all for nothing.

Would I like to see him get chemo, purely in terms of the survival rate? Yeah, but it's not my life. The question is to what extent his life is his own, his parents', or the parens patrie responsibility of the court.

***

Sunday 7.

Name seven cities you'd like to live in that you have not already lived in before.
Okay.

~Palm, Pennsylvania
~Celestine, Indiana
~Kongsvinger, Norway
~Norberg, Sweden
~Elgin, Scotland
~Verdun, France
~Gründau, Germany

Why did I pick these? First of all, they're all small and they're all within decent driving distance of large cities. In some of these countries, I wouldn't even have to drive; European countries generally have a public transportation system that should make the U.S. deeply ashamed of itself. Not that I like public transportation, but if I needed something that I could only get in the big city, or if I had to see a specialist, I could get on a train and go there. Here, if I want to see a doctor in Minneapolis or go to Magus Books or something, I have to get in my car and try to navigate a labyrinth of suburbs, poorly marked freeway exits, and road construction--all without collision insurance, which I can't afford. Not only that, all these places have medium-sized cities nearby, so if I didn't want to choose between driving in a giant city and going on public transportation, I could still go someplace that had most or all of what I wanted.

I picked Palm because it's in a beautiful area and close to some of the places I've lived before. I picked Celestine because most of the people I care about live in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New York, or Tennessee, and Celestine is about a day's drive from all of them--or a short drive to Louisville and a short train or plane ride from all of them. As for the places in Europe, I know I swore on a stack I'd never go to Europe; but when you come down to it, a small town is a small town. It can't be that much more crowded in a small town there than in a small town here. Also, public bathrooms in Europe are a lot more private than the ones here [which shocked me; I thought it was the other way round], so travelling and shopping would be much more comfortable. The only problem is, I'd have to learn the language first, which would take a couple years.

So there.

So now, after 2 1/2 hours of this, I'm finally awake. Time to go do dishes! Wheeee!

sbt/sbc

OMFG memes!!!3!

And again.

Friday Fiver. I like the Cyndi Lauper reference in this week's.

1. When is the last time your phone rang in the middle of the night?
In the middle of THE night, like when it's dark out? I can't remember. In the middle of MY night, which is everybody else's day? The day before yesterday.

2. Who makes you yell?
All humans, nearly all computer programs, and anything, no matter what it is, that is in my way. [This is probably the worst cardinal sin in the Fridaverse: Being In My Way.]

3. What do you do for fun?
I've answered this so many times in so many memes that I'm not doing it again. Sorry.

4. What hours do you work/go to school?
I work at night.

5. Who is number one in your life?
Sadly, probably me. Sounds selfish, and it probably is, but nobody's going to take care of me except me; and with the health problems I have, that takes up a sizable portion of my time and resources. So if I want to continue eating and not being homeless, I kind of have to make myself a priority.

***

The Alternative Friday Five.

1. Do you like summer in general? Why or why not?
No. It's hot and it's full of mosquitoes. I do like the thunderstorms, but because of global warming [pauses to stab a voodoo doll of an oil executive and stuff it in the blender], the whole Midwest is one big long drought after another, so we hardly get those anymore.

2. Are you liking this summer (or, for those of you in the southern hemisphere, did you like this past summer)? Why or why not?
Well, it beats last summer. I have better air conditioning now, and I don't live smack dab in the middle of the part of town where all the summer festivals and classic car shows are held. Also, thanks to some diligent clearance shopping, I now also have plenty of shorts, so I don't have to choose between sweltering and chopping up my good jeans to make cutoffs. [It's not the shorts' fault that I'm having trouble fitting into some of them now...ahem...]

3. What were summers like for you as a child? Did you enjoy them?
They were fun, although when we lived down south, I spent a lot of time sitting in front of a fan doing little or nothing because of the lack of air conditioning. Luckily, reading and jigsaw puzzles don't require much physical activity, so I kept busy. When we lived out east, the summers were cooler, and my friends and I could run around and play outside more.

4. Which summer was your favourite? Which summer was your least favourite? Why?
Oh, hell, I don't know. See, my brain doesn't work that way. My long-term memory is like a big box of mostly undated photographs that can only be identified by the age of the photo paper and the clothes and apparent age of the people appearing in them. So I couldn't tell you one summer from the next unless something really remarkable happened. Most of the time I couldn't even tell you what season of the year a particular memory comes from. I can say that the summer that sucked the worst was probably the one where I had mono the whole summer. [I will not bore you with the mono story again.]

5. Have you had summer jobs? Which were your favourite and least favourite? Why?
I only had two, and they were both work-study jobs at college. They both sucked.

And that about does it for memes, for now.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

OMFG memes!!!2!

Yes. More late memes.

Curious as a Cat.

Let's say you unexpectedly find yourself in Hell after you die. Think about everyone you've known in your life; which one person is the least likely to surprise you by being in Hell with you?
Uh, that would depend very heavily on the criteria for getting into hell. Are you talking about the Christian hell? Well, there's this one lady at work who I think is Christian, and she does nice things for people all the time, so probably her. Pretty much everybody else I know would be there with me, because I tend to associate mostly with other pagans and atheists. Most religions that have hell as part of their cosmology state that you're going there if you don't belong to their religion, so like I said, it would depend on the circumstances. Luckily, witches don't believe in hell, unless it's the hell of being cornered at a party by a group of Borg-again Christians attempting one of their gangbang conversions. Then there's always the hell of having to explain to people for the seven millionth time that you don't worship Satan, don't even believe in Satan, don't do animal sacrifices, don't hate Jesus [although it's really hard not to hate people who use Jesus as an excuse to suck], and are really just boring human beings like anybody else.

[Update: I just realised I totally read that question wrong and thought it meant "who are you least likely to see in hell?" Oops. Eh, I don't feel like changing it.]

What brings you good luck?
Boy, if I ever find out, I'm gonna grab all of it that I can get my hands on.

***

Thursday Threesome.

::Time to Fill::

Onesome:Time-- wasters in your life... Just a brief jump onto your soapbox: What is the biggest bother you have in this department? I mean, something you can post without incurring familial or job related problems ...
The biggest one? Oh, it's so hard to choose. Going to the bathroom is way up on the list. So are cooking, doing dishes, and housecleaning. And then there's the big one: Work.

Twosome: to-- beat the heat! It seems like it's all sort of hot all over the Northern Hemisphere this Summer! What are you doing to handle the heat? ...and for those Down Under? Well, your turn may come in just a few months; do you have any plans for then?
I'm staying indoors with the air conditioning. If I can't be in air conditioning, I drink tons of cold beverages. I avoid places that have no air conditioning and no convenient bathrooms.

Threesome: Fill-- your cup with a cold something! What are you drinking this summer to keep cool? ...and if you're a tea drinker: is it "ice tea" or "iced tea"? Just curious...
Water, mostly, if I really need to keep cool. The only place I go where it's not air-conditioned is work, and the fridge space is limited, so I don't bring a lot of other beverages because it's not worth listening to everybody else screech about how there's no room for their stuff. And it's "iced tea." "Ice tea" would be tea made from ice, which would be, uh, water.

***

Friday Five.

1. How much time do you spend on the Internet daily?
I have no idea.

2. What are your favorite 3 websites?
That changes from week to week.

3. Do you eat at your computer?
I don't eat anywhere else, except sometimes in bed.

4. Pick one and why - Reading the news online or in a newspaper?
Well, if you're gonna twist my arm and make me pick, reading the news online. Why? Because you can actually GET to the news. However, if you want more than one comic strip on a page, you really have to read the paper.

5. How many people are on your instant messenger buddy list?
Which messenger program? I use Yahoo, MSN and Trillian. On Yahoo, there are 2 on my acquaintances list, 8 on my friends list, and 1 on my missing & presumed dead list. I have 1 on MSN, because MSN sucks even bigger lion weenie than Yahoo does, so I never use it except through Trillian. Trillian has its own problems because their emoticon system does not match Yahoo's, or anybody else's that I'm aware of, so talking to somebody on Yahoo becomes very frustrating if you use a lot of emotes.

More to come...

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

OMFG memes!!!1!

Okay, I'm gonna try this in Blogger for a change. Originally I did memes on my old blog, then moved them to LJ when there got to be so many that they were crowding out the other posts. Then I moved exclusively to LJ, and the same thing happened there. So either I'll do them all here, or split them between LJ and here. We'll see.

First, Monday's A Bitch.

1. Whose was the last wedding you attended?
My aunt's.

2. Do you enjoy attending weddings, or do they bore you to tears?
I don't know; I don't remember my aunt's wedding. I was only four.

3. Would you prefer your wedding to be a lavish event with hundreds of guests, or a casual one with good friends and family? (or if you're already married, what was yours like?)
Well, if I'm lucky, there won't be a "my wedding" at all; but if I end up having no other choice, I would prefer it be done in private. Friends and family can go pound sand, and so can the public. Justice of the peace and witnesses only.

4. Have you ever been part of the wedding party?
No. And thank goodness. Dresses make me feel like a transvestite. Which would be fine if I had the slightest interest in being a transvestite, but I don't.

5. Does marriage in general make you feel goopey and warm inside, or skeptical?
Some of both. I get irritated when somebody asks me when I'm gonna find a man and settle down. First of all, they're assuming I even WANT a man, and secondly, they're assuming that only married people can be settled. But then, I suppose I shouldn't be irritated, because, you know, who I have sex with and under what circumstances is everybody's business.

Okay, I'll stop being bitchy. Most people never ask, and one nice thing about Minnesota Nice™ is that it appears to prohibit being nosy about that kind of thing. MN has historically been one of the bigger pro-gay states [up til recently, that is, when Massachussetts made us look like a bunch of Neanderthals--and rightly so]. So I can imagine people here stopped assuming anything about gender or marriage preference--or at least stopped asking.

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Next up, Tuesday's Tales. Thanks to you guys for adding me to the players list! :)

1. What is the earliest memory you have as a child? Think far back.
I think it was my bladder surgery when I was three. I remember lying on my back and seeing lights over my head. [Glad ya asked, huh?]

2. What is a special memory you have about someone? It could be a grandparent, family friend - not including your parents - that you knew as a child. What do you recall about them that makes the memory special?
I don't remember anything much that could be classified as special. We didn't have any family friends, really, and pretty much everybody in the family lived about a thousand miles away. I remember once when my grandma visited us, I invented the term "gramma rays" to describe her seemingly supernatural ability to tell what you were up to--and let it be known that she knew what you were up to--even when she was three rooms away with her back turned to you, reading a book. You could fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you could never fool her. The Gramma Rays see all. [Later, I found out the reason for her vigilance when Dad started telling me all the insanely reckless things he and his brother would do as kids. Anybody would develop Gramma Rays from raising those two.]

3. What was a favorite game you played as a child?
Among other things, I used to play a LOT of Crazy 8. I played it to the point where everybody else in the family was sick of it. But it was the only thing I could win a majority of the time.

4. What was a memorable trip that you can recall being a little kid and what did you do that makes you think about it even now?
I remember being four or five and going to the Parthenon in Nashville with my family. It's a replica of the one in Greece, so it has a lot of columns and an enormous staircase which, to a preschooler, looks like it goes up for miles and miles. I made it all the way up, but once I got inside, I got a nosebleed and had to sit down. I think I remember a uniformed security guard helping us out. I don't know why it sticks out, but the two most vivid parts of it are the humongous stairs and the nosebleed.

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Booking Through Thursday.

1. Do your reading habits change for the summer months?
Not that I can think of. I do pretty much all my reading indoors regardless of the time of year. I used to read outside sometimes, when I could find some place to go that wasn't full of people, mosquitoes or seagull poop. Sadly, there are few places like that now, unless you own your own forest. My work schedule makes it worse, as I work 3d shift; not only is it very difficult to read outdoors at 3 in the morning, it also looks suspicious to the police.

2. If so, how?
See 1.

Back soon for more...

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