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gwynYou friends people are silly. I said I was going away, and most of you not only didn't unfriend me, but you sent me really nice notes over the past month and talked to me about stuff and acted like you missed me. Sniff. Only a couple people bailed on me, and now I'm all gee-whiz about it, and what with Alias and Angel starting up next week, I figured I'd dip the currently unvarnished big toe in the water again and see if it's safe. So I'm going to try this again.
I can't say I have high hopes that things aren't going to be crappy again, but that's sort of how it is with me. I'm kind of a sponge, emotionally -- I absorb much more of other people's emotions than I wish I did, and they expand once they're in me, and it gets weird. It becomes twice as bad, or twice as excited, or whatever the emotions are that I'm absorbing. A while ago, with personal crap spilling all over, the sponge just got too full.
I've been writing -- a sequel to Heliotrope that I dreamed a while ago, which is coming along slowly, and I've put a few paragraphs down of the next chapter of Measure. I'm still stalled on it, though. And I have this idea for a Mag 7 story, but the source I want to steal from is unavailable and I can't fill in the holes myself. And I'm slowly plugging away on a Keen Eddie vid, which made Jo sputter with laughter so I guess I'm going in the right direction. And, over time, I amused myself by seeing if I could actually think of 100 things for the 100 things about me meme. Somehow, I managed to do it.
1. I’m older than I wish I was. I’m not mature enough to be the age I am. At least people tell me all the time that I look much younger than I am.
2. I had a twin sister, who died on March 9, 2005. We were told we’re identical, though there was no way to know for sure unless we had a DNA test; however, we didn't look very much alike.
3. I used to call her my Evil Twin. She was bossy, bitchy, overbearing, and cranky, but I miss it terribly. It was just the way it was. Many people think we hated each other because we didn't always like each other, but that was just surface stuff. Losing a twin is something that can't be explained to other people. They will just never understand, no matter how much they care.
4. I’ve never liked it when people use that phrase to excuse themselves, because it steals my thunder — how many people can say they have a real live Evil Twin?
5. We’re adopted. All our lives we’ve had people ask us the same stupid question: how can you be adopted if you’re twins? How can you be twins if you’re adopted?
6. The adoption was private, that’s how. And no, I don’t have any desire to find my “real” parents, because my parents were real enough, thanks. If biology mom came looking for me, I’d talk, but I have no desire to seek anyone out.
7. OTOH, it pisses me off that the state refuses to allow me to access my medical history because I’m adopted, or to have my doctor access it. I don’t make enough money to sue for release. I want to know if I’m going to wake up on my 45th birthday with a dread hereditary disease.
8. ET had perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect vision, was skinny, and had boyfriends. I had bad hair, terrible skin, was overweight, and had glasses by 6th grade. I would give anything in the world to have taken on the cancer that killed her, too -- she was loved by a lot of people, and I didn't have that much in my life, so it would have been better if she could have continued her quality of life.
9. We had similiar voices and mannerisms. Since her death, people have wanted to talk to me, spend time with me, because I remind them enough of her, even though we didn't look much alike. It's a little weird sometimes, and freaks me out that people freak out about my voice or my eyes.
10. In sixth grade, I knocked out the front teeth of a boy who taunted me about being adopted, like it was something embarrassing and I should, out of duty and respect, be ashamed of myself. He wouldn’t admit to the principal that I did it, because I was a girl.
11. My family was camping family from hell. By camping, I don’t mean cars and TV hookups and all that crap — I mean hiking up a mountain, pitching a tent carried on the 40-pound pack on your back, and freezing your ass off. I was “hiking” before I could walk; started carrying a small backpack before I was 5.
12. If I never go camping again, it will be too soon. I’m certain one of the circles of hell involves tent pitching in a sleet storm and eating dehydrated food.
13. I’ve climbed the fifth-highest peak on the continental U.S. Go to your encyclopedias to figure it out.
14. When we didn’t camp, we were working on the 52 acres of forest property my parents bought when they first married. Or the other properties my dad bought and sold around the Northwest. I learned how to wield a machete at a young age, starting my love affair with edged weapons.
15. When we weren’t camping or working the property, we were at field trials for the hunting dogs my dad bred and trained (Brittany spaniels). The best food you’ll ever eat, I found at these things, is breakfast cooked by a local Grange society out in rural Nowheresville.
16. Buckaroo Banzai makes a great litmus test for friendships — I’ve found that people who don’t like it or don’t get it aren’t compatible.
17. We moved around constantly when I was a kid. We’ve lived all over the west, from desert to coast to mountains, but we always came back to Seattle in between moves.
18. For almost a year, we lived just outside of Las Vegas. In the vacant lot behind our house, we’d sometimes stumble on men who’d been beaten up at the casinos and dumped there.
19. We were around 4 and 5 when we lived in Vegas, and I met a girl my age who’d been struck by lightning twice. I knew then I wanted to go home.
20. Nevada let kids start school at whatever grade they tested at, so my sister and I started first grade a year or more younger than the rest our class. We’d never been to kindergarten. I didn’t know how the school thing worked, and freaked out.
21. I couldn’t make eights. I’d only got as far as 7s with my parents, so I started crying when I couldn’t understand how to write an 8. I think it was the beginning of my intellectual downfall right then.
22. I’m nearly six feet tall, and with shoes on I’m generally at least 6’, if not taller. I was 5’10” in 6th grade.
23. This made me a target for everyone to pick fights with, so I became a fighter. Every new school I went to, the pack would start circling. Sometimes kids tried to hire me to beat up other kids. I never did it, though.
24. My parents hit me a lot, much more than they did my sister. I was always in trouble by doing my own thing or being off in dreamland, and they didn’t know how to deal with me, so they smacked me around. They weren’t beat-you-with-an-electrical cord abusers, but they were pretty tough on me.
25. They once offered me a quarter to stop talking for a half hour. This was actually a lucrative change of pace from being told to shut up, so I took it. I had a teacher tie my hands behind my back because she thought it would get me to stop talking, since I talked with my hands all the time.
26. I didn’t have many female friends growing up, mostly male friends, and was always one of the boys. This made everyone wonder if I was a lesbian when I got older, since boys weren’t asking me out on dates, just palling around.
27. I wanted to play little league ball when I was a kid, but this was before Title IX, so I never got to because I was a girl. But I could hit, throw, and catch better than any boy at school.
28. I loved singing, even though I was terrified of performing on stage. I wasn’t bad, either, since I made it into an award-winning choir.
29. I was also a fairly good piano player, and had taken lessons since I was five, but my teacher in junior high terrified me so much that I quit. I regret quitting to this day, but my mom just didn’t understand what that woman was doing to me.
30. The last elementary school I went to once we finally settled back in Seattle was, no kidding, Sunnydale Elementary.
31. I started reading at a freakishly early age, but my parents wondered if I’d just memorized Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, so they tested me out with a different Dr. Seuss book. When they found out I could read it okay, they thought they had a little prodigy on their hands. Thus began my lifetime of cruelly disappointing them with my below-averageness.
32. The first “short story” I ever wrote was when I was five, and it was basically a further adventures of Mickey Mouse and Goofy in their Hound of the Baskervilles spoof. Apparently I couldn’t get enough of the source material even as a kid.
33. I seem to have a facility for languages, and for mimicking speech patterns. I don’t know why. I used to speak German and Spanish fairly well, but can’t much anymore due to lack of use. I know smatterings of phrases in Russian, French, Portuguese, and Welsh. I’d like to actually learn to speak Welsh.
34. I believe in the serial comma.
35. There is nothing that cannot be made just a skosh more endurable by the judicious application of cat huggage. Even a psychotic, Alien face-hugger cat.
36. I bought a house about 11 or so years ago. I was pushed into it by my dad, even though I didn’t want one.
37. My house is really cute, a tiny little shoebox that’s painted a kind of periwinkle color with nifty blue and white painted doors. Some of the people in the nabe call me purple house lady.
38. Unfortunately, it’s also constantly falling apart: in the past six years I’ve replaced and repainted the rotting south wall, part of the sewer line, then all of the sewer line, the roof, parts of the crumbling garage, redone the moldering bathroom, and now have a rotten interior wall in my office. Not to mention the huge nightmare yard, and the rotten back porch that had to be replaced when I moved in, or the new furnace and water heater that had to be put in. Or the windows and insulation. Sometimes, I sit on the floor and weep.
39. My biggest problem is storage. The attic is minimal at best and can’t be moved around in, and I have only a dirt crawlspace (literally) underneath. With thousands of CDs, hundreds of DVDs, and hundreds and hundreds of tapes, it’s a challenge. I can’t stand clutter and need white space.
40. I love to drive, and am a really< good driver. I just wish all the rest of the fuckwits would get off the road. There is nothing better than a long stretch of highway with no one else on it, and sitting behind the wheel of a really bitchin’ car.
41. I’ve never had a real accident, or gotten a real ticket. I’ve been in a bunch of accidents, though, and it’s one reason I can’t stand being a passenger — no one drives as well as me! They’re trying to kill me!
42. I seem to be one of those rare fans who can hear lyrics. (Not that this means I understand a word of Stairway to Heaven.) But I love a good Mondegreen, which can make me laugh like a drain — I think because when I was a kid, I heard them all the time. My favorite was that I thought “I’m your Venus” was “I’m your penis” and I couldn’t understand how they could get it on the radio.
43. People love to tell me all the things that are wrong with me and why I’m a horrible person, but they never seem to be in agreement about the horrible things. I’d like to make people pick two from column A, one from column B, and maybe an appetizer, otherwise I have no idea how I’m supposed to fix myself. (“You love conflict and are evil.” “I love the fact that you’re not afraid of dealing with conflict like an adult.” She’s my sister! My daughter! Sister! Daughter!)
44. My own mom once told me I was ugly. When your mom tells you things like that, you know things are pretty bad.
45. I have a .38 pistol with a custom-made wood grip that has a split Indian head buffalo nickel on either side. My grandfather, a sheriff in Idaho, brought in bank robbers using it back in the late 1920s. He carved the grip specially for my dad’s hand. (Note to visitors: Don’t worry, I won’t use it on you — the inside of the barrel’s corroded, so it can’t be fired.)
46. I never knew my grandparents, but I’d like to have known my dad’s dad — aside from the cool bank robbers story, he also was a Treasury agent/Secret Service agent.
47. Macs rule.
48. The way people toss around the First Amendment in this country drives me nuts. Most people haven’t got a clue what it really says or means. I know it by heart, and it’s one of the few political/governmental things I’d willingly lay down my life to protect.
49. One of my favorite web sites is luciferous logolepsy (http://www.kokogiak.com/logolepsy/). I love obscure, archaic, and rarely used words. Some would say, no doubt, to the detriment of my fiction.
50. I’m not big on plastic surgery but if I could get a chin lift, I would. Basically I believe in better living through chemistry (hair dye, colored contacts, teeth whitening, makeup, etc.), but not through slicing into flesh.
51. The dogs that people think are so ugly, like French bulldogs, are adorable to my eyes.
52. I once had a little kid point a gun in my face. I was sitting in a (pretty terrible) McDonald’s downtown with a friend, and suddenly this little kid was standing behind my friend, pointing a gun inches from my face. I had no idea why — he was black and I’m white, so maybe he just hated me on principle, but I felt all the blood drain out of my body, and it was like I was made of air. I was paralyzed. One of the old ladies sitting next to us picked up her cane and yelled at him, as if brandishing it would ward off bullets like some superhero’s magic weapon, and he suddenly ran away. I subsequently convinced myself that it was a prop plastic model, but I really don’t know. I know guns, and at the time I was looking at a 9 mm. The manager of the McDonald’s couldn’t have been less interested when we told him.
53. I started smoking when I was in first grade. No, really. Since we moved around so much, the only kids I could ever find to be friends with were older, bad kids who stole their parents’ cigarettes. So I did, too. I hated it from the get-go, and never really inhaled (just like Bill! I basically pulled it into the back of my throat and exhaled quickly), because I loathe cigarette smoke and everything about the evil things.
54. I didn’t always smoke, though, just from time to time. I finally stopped trying to be cool and fit in in college, when I realized that I was sitting there in my dorm room, hanging my arm out the window while talking on the phone because I hated the smoke so much, and there was no one around to see me being cool with my rakishly held cigarette. Plus, I didn’t like funding the coffers of the most heinous companies in the world. That was the last cigarette, and I never looked back.
55. I’m a serious agnostic, almost an atheist — but I want to reserve doubts about my own beliefs just in case I’m wrong. Hedging your bets for the afterlife is a good thing.
56. Despite that, I’m fascinated by people’s beliefs and in religions as a concept, and I ask a lot of questions to understand. I love really culty religions, too, as an entertainment device — the weirder and freakier, the better.
57. I like silver way, way better than gold. Gold doesn’t appeal to me at all, but silver or platinum make me go “ooo, shiny.” Copper is my favorite, though.
58. I can read maps (and even fold them). I can even read topographical maps to some degree.
59. The one thing that will always set my temper off is double-standard bullshit, especially when accompanied by holier-than-thou condemnation from someone whose behavior isn’t much better than the person they’re hectoring. My blood just boils at “do as I say, not as I do” chastisement, “everyone should believe what I believe” statements. When that’s accompanied by smug pronouncements of superiority, I will lose my rag every time. Guaranteed.
60. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen is the Paradise ice caves on Mt. Rainier. I understand they’re now inaccessible, or if they are accessible, very different and somewhat degraded in grandeur from when I saw them in the ‘60s. They’re almost impossible to describe, but the closest thing I can think of is that it must be like being in the middle of an aurora borealis. Patterns of gorgeous, pure color and light, playing throughout the cave interiors, that make you feel like you’re on another world.
61. People often tell me I’m funny, but it’s hard for me to see myself that way. I can never figure out how to be deliberately funny without sounding forced or lame.
62. I’m still not over Sept. 11. I don’t think I ever will be for as long as I live.
63. If I could do anything I wanted, it would be to go up in space — shuttle, capsule, whatever. Neither Challenger nor Columbia has changed my mind about this.
64. Onions are the food of Beelzebub. And they are in everything. The worst are little chives and scallions and such — nearly impossible to pick out of food. Blech, ptui! The mere sight of a pickled beet can make me need to vomit.
65. My inner ears are scarred from numerous terrible infections incurred as a youth. I can’t distinguish sounds when there are multiple noises — they all sound the same to me, so I can’t talk to people at parties, in a noisy restaurant, etc. I have superhearing when it’s quiet, though, which makes it impossible to sleep with noise. But it causes me terrible pain to wear earplugs.
66. There is no pain on earth like that of having a hollow needle stuck into your inner ear. Nothing, except being burned, can compare.
67. Because of the ear trauma, I still get plugged up ears and have to have them medically taken care of. I know it’s time when I start to list sideways when I walk, and can’t follow a straight line when walking. I’m told it’s funny to watch me when I’m like that.
68. I’m horribly shy when meeting new people. I have a hard time talking to strangers, but friends can’t get me to shut up.
69. However, I’m not afraid to speak in public. I started having to speak in front of hundreds of movers and shakers in this organization I volunteered for a decade ago, and after that it got easier. I still get scaredy beforehand, but it’s controllable. It’s acting, and I like acting.
70. When I was younger, I was so paralyzed by shyness that my sister had to help me buy clothes since she worked at a department store, and my mother had to do things like ask for registration forms and stuff. I didn’t really get over it until I went to college, where I had to take care of myself. I still have to force myself to meet people at cons and such.
71. My natural assumption is that I’m a worthless dumbass who is not worth knowing, and so I can’t bear to introduce myself to anyone and move in to their sphere. I always feel like Willow in first season Buffy.
72. Pepsi, not Coke. And never, ever, ever diet.
73. I laugh when I’m nervous or afraid or shy or embarrassed. A stupid laugh, and I say stupid things to accompany it.
74. I can cook, but not that well. There are a few things I can do superbly, everything else is a struggle. Mostly it’s timing – getting a meal to all come out in time.
75. Even though I love fine food and prefer natural, organic, and seasonal stuff, there are times when only vat food will do: Hostess cupcakes, American cheese slices, cheese hot dogs, Chicken in a Biskits, you name it.
76. I’m rarely able to remember my dreams. It’s probably for the best, because most of the dreams I remember turn dark and scary, or are out and out nightmares.
77. I’ve always had a vague, undefined kind of envy towards people who inspire others to do things. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have someone write a story in your honor, or dedicate a vid or a book to you, spend money just to come see you, get into a fandom because you were there, or heck, even make an icon expressly for you. It’s always seemed pretty cool in the green-tinted lenses of my envy-specs. OTOH, I like to write, and dedicate, stories to people.
78. Envy, I get. Jealousy, I don’t. My partner of 8 years said that was one of my enormous failings — that I never got jealous. But I don’t — there’s nothing productive about it; at least envy carries a kind of faintly wistful tinge to it, where you just feel like, oh, that would be so wonderful, how I do envy you! There’s an implication of “good for you,” too. But jealousy implies that you think you’re more deserving of that thing, that it should belong to you and you alone. I can’t get to that place where I think I’m more deserving of something and would get jealous about it.
79. Among boyfriends, I had brief flings with: a gorgeous Swedish guy, a gorgeous guy who was 11 years younger than me, and an okay-looking guy who was a multi-millionaire. Which is pretty amazing given that I’ve had hardly any real romantic relationships.
80. I had a fully working Yellow Submarine lunchbox with Thermos, as well as a soft-sided Barbie lunchbox that was so rare, it wasn’t even listed in collector’s catalogs. I didn’t know people collected them till I went to college, and ran home to find my lunchboxes with visions of vast wealth in my head, only to find my mom had thrown them out. I still rail to the gods over that.
81. The one thing I really don’t get in fandom is the obsessive interest in becoming, discussing, kerfuffling, or worshipping over BNFs. The whole BNF thing turns me off faster than a light switch. I think people who talk constantly about status, desperately claw for it, or disingenuously pretend they don’t have it after spending years trying to get it are just freaks, and I wish the whole thing would go away.
82. I love comics and animation, but I have a hard time seeing them in a fannish way. Even my beloved The Authority, for some reason.
83. I’m an incredibly law-abiding citizen because my basic goal in life is to never do anything that could potentially result in a body-cavity search.
84. Over the years, I’ve had about nine skin cancers removed. I’m a walking ad for melanoma, and figure my days are numbered, and it’ll happen eventually.
85. I have this thing called restless leg syndrome. It’s hard to explain, but really debilitating because it makes it tough to sit still or sleep — you get this horrid creepy crawly feeling in your leg muscles, and have to move constantly. Your muscles will also spasm and twitch uncontrollably. If I’m lucky, I get about five hours of highly interrupted sleep. I can’t sit still after about 8 p.m. People have committed suicide because it’s so frustrating and chronic and hard to get anyone to take seriously. I figure if I’m going to spasm and twitch I’d at least like to get Tourette’s so I can get away with swearing at people.
86. I also have a condition called synesthesia, which people at the Vividcon aesthetics panel would remember. I see colors and patterns from music — listening to a symphony live is probably the closest I’ll ever come to knowing what acid is like. Certain letters of the alphabet are specific colors, too. I also feel musical instruments in different parts of my body. Some people can taste colors, or hear letters, that sort of thing. As conditions go, synesthesia’s pretty cool; the leg thing not so much.
87. I can’t do top ten lists. My lists for everything always change with my mood. If I was forced to pick a favorite movie, though, it’d probably be The Terminator. Most days.
88. I love fashion, clothes, shoes, hairdos. I especially love awards show fashions, because that kind of dress-up is something I’ll never experience. It’s also terribly fun to pick apart the outfits and hairstyles. Meow.
89. People stopped playing Trivial Pursuit with me because I kicked everyone’s asses. I can’t remember phone numbers, but I can remember the stupidest, most pointless trivia about pop culture.
90. I’ve read everything William Shakespeare ever wrote. Unannotated and unfootnoted. I’ve read Romeo and Juliet somewhere around 15 times.
91. I always prefer to be around real live people than chat online or do e-mail. I can’t type well, it’s an ordeal for me to sit in my office with my back turned to the TV (whence all life stems) and keyboard for more than a few minutes, and people always, always misunderstand me online because I’m very dryly sarcastic, and I get myself into terrible trouble. I don’t mind the phone, but it exacerbates my repetitive stress injuries to use it for long.
92. OTOH, I think the Net and chats and e-mail and the web are some of the greatest things that ever happened. I’ve met people from all over the world and found acquaintances I would never otherwise have had a chance to meet, and keep in touch with people who’d never otherwise be in touch.
93. Red wine gives me migraines, so I can’t drink it. I look at a bottle of fine Cabernet like a recovering alcoholic does.
94. In my freshman year of college, I lived in an apartment a few blocks from Ted Bundy. Later, when he got caught, I realized I’d seen him numerous times walking by our door, strolling down the alley.
95. I carry too much static electricity in my body, and if I wave my hands over people’s heads, I can often make their hair stand up. This isn’t as cool as it sounds — I get static shocks all year round, instead of just winter, and sometimes they’re so bad that my hand goes temporarily numb, or I hurt people (or my poor kitty).
96. For some reason, kids really like me, even though I’m not into kids. Too many years working in day cares, kindergartens, sitting, etc. pretty much killed off interest in having or being around other people’s spawn.
97. I cannot do math. I’m functional at about a third grade level, and that’s it. I nearly flunked algebra, though oddly, I excelled at geometry. My troubles started with fractions when I was out of school for a trip to Minnesota for a funeral, and it was all downhill from there. My father used to try to help me but within moments would get so frustrated with my incompetence he’d slap me around. Needless to say, this did not enhance understanding.
98. Though I can’t sleep in hotels at all, I love staying in them because they often have swimming pools. Swimming is probably my favorite activity activity. When I’m in water, I feel at home.
99. Neither Evil Twin nor I have the slightest tendency towards addictions or dependencies at all, ever, except our total dependency on iced tea. (When people mistakenly spell it ice tea, I become slightly unglued.) I have yet to encounter support groups for iced tea addicts.
100. My philosophy is to always expect the worst, because then anything good in life comes as a pleasant surprise. (I was thrilled when I heard this summed up almost exactly the same way in one of my favorite movies, Say Anything.) People don’t call me Eyore for nothing.
I can't say I have high hopes that things aren't going to be crappy again, but that's sort of how it is with me. I'm kind of a sponge, emotionally -- I absorb much more of other people's emotions than I wish I did, and they expand once they're in me, and it gets weird. It becomes twice as bad, or twice as excited, or whatever the emotions are that I'm absorbing. A while ago, with personal crap spilling all over, the sponge just got too full.
I've been writing -- a sequel to Heliotrope that I dreamed a while ago, which is coming along slowly, and I've put a few paragraphs down of the next chapter of Measure. I'm still stalled on it, though. And I have this idea for a Mag 7 story, but the source I want to steal from is unavailable and I can't fill in the holes myself. And I'm slowly plugging away on a Keen Eddie vid, which made Jo sputter with laughter so I guess I'm going in the right direction. And, over time, I amused myself by seeing if I could actually think of 100 things for the 100 things about me meme. Somehow, I managed to do it.
1. I’m older than I wish I was. I’m not mature enough to be the age I am. At least people tell me all the time that I look much younger than I am.
2. I had a twin sister, who died on March 9, 2005. We were told we’re identical, though there was no way to know for sure unless we had a DNA test; however, we didn't look very much alike.
3. I used to call her my Evil Twin. She was bossy, bitchy, overbearing, and cranky, but I miss it terribly. It was just the way it was. Many people think we hated each other because we didn't always like each other, but that was just surface stuff. Losing a twin is something that can't be explained to other people. They will just never understand, no matter how much they care.
4. I’ve never liked it when people use that phrase to excuse themselves, because it steals my thunder — how many people can say they have a real live Evil Twin?
5. We’re adopted. All our lives we’ve had people ask us the same stupid question: how can you be adopted if you’re twins? How can you be twins if you’re adopted?
6. The adoption was private, that’s how. And no, I don’t have any desire to find my “real” parents, because my parents were real enough, thanks. If biology mom came looking for me, I’d talk, but I have no desire to seek anyone out.
7. OTOH, it pisses me off that the state refuses to allow me to access my medical history because I’m adopted, or to have my doctor access it. I don’t make enough money to sue for release. I want to know if I’m going to wake up on my 45th birthday with a dread hereditary disease.
8. ET had perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect vision, was skinny, and had boyfriends. I had bad hair, terrible skin, was overweight, and had glasses by 6th grade. I would give anything in the world to have taken on the cancer that killed her, too -- she was loved by a lot of people, and I didn't have that much in my life, so it would have been better if she could have continued her quality of life.
9. We had similiar voices and mannerisms. Since her death, people have wanted to talk to me, spend time with me, because I remind them enough of her, even though we didn't look much alike. It's a little weird sometimes, and freaks me out that people freak out about my voice or my eyes.
10. In sixth grade, I knocked out the front teeth of a boy who taunted me about being adopted, like it was something embarrassing and I should, out of duty and respect, be ashamed of myself. He wouldn’t admit to the principal that I did it, because I was a girl.
11. My family was camping family from hell. By camping, I don’t mean cars and TV hookups and all that crap — I mean hiking up a mountain, pitching a tent carried on the 40-pound pack on your back, and freezing your ass off. I was “hiking” before I could walk; started carrying a small backpack before I was 5.
12. If I never go camping again, it will be too soon. I’m certain one of the circles of hell involves tent pitching in a sleet storm and eating dehydrated food.
13. I’ve climbed the fifth-highest peak on the continental U.S. Go to your encyclopedias to figure it out.
14. When we didn’t camp, we were working on the 52 acres of forest property my parents bought when they first married. Or the other properties my dad bought and sold around the Northwest. I learned how to wield a machete at a young age, starting my love affair with edged weapons.
15. When we weren’t camping or working the property, we were at field trials for the hunting dogs my dad bred and trained (Brittany spaniels). The best food you’ll ever eat, I found at these things, is breakfast cooked by a local Grange society out in rural Nowheresville.
16. Buckaroo Banzai makes a great litmus test for friendships — I’ve found that people who don’t like it or don’t get it aren’t compatible.
17. We moved around constantly when I was a kid. We’ve lived all over the west, from desert to coast to mountains, but we always came back to Seattle in between moves.
18. For almost a year, we lived just outside of Las Vegas. In the vacant lot behind our house, we’d sometimes stumble on men who’d been beaten up at the casinos and dumped there.
19. We were around 4 and 5 when we lived in Vegas, and I met a girl my age who’d been struck by lightning twice. I knew then I wanted to go home.
20. Nevada let kids start school at whatever grade they tested at, so my sister and I started first grade a year or more younger than the rest our class. We’d never been to kindergarten. I didn’t know how the school thing worked, and freaked out.
21. I couldn’t make eights. I’d only got as far as 7s with my parents, so I started crying when I couldn’t understand how to write an 8. I think it was the beginning of my intellectual downfall right then.
22. I’m nearly six feet tall, and with shoes on I’m generally at least 6’, if not taller. I was 5’10” in 6th grade.
23. This made me a target for everyone to pick fights with, so I became a fighter. Every new school I went to, the pack would start circling. Sometimes kids tried to hire me to beat up other kids. I never did it, though.
24. My parents hit me a lot, much more than they did my sister. I was always in trouble by doing my own thing or being off in dreamland, and they didn’t know how to deal with me, so they smacked me around. They weren’t beat-you-with-an-electrical cord abusers, but they were pretty tough on me.
25. They once offered me a quarter to stop talking for a half hour. This was actually a lucrative change of pace from being told to shut up, so I took it. I had a teacher tie my hands behind my back because she thought it would get me to stop talking, since I talked with my hands all the time.
26. I didn’t have many female friends growing up, mostly male friends, and was always one of the boys. This made everyone wonder if I was a lesbian when I got older, since boys weren’t asking me out on dates, just palling around.
27. I wanted to play little league ball when I was a kid, but this was before Title IX, so I never got to because I was a girl. But I could hit, throw, and catch better than any boy at school.
28. I loved singing, even though I was terrified of performing on stage. I wasn’t bad, either, since I made it into an award-winning choir.
29. I was also a fairly good piano player, and had taken lessons since I was five, but my teacher in junior high terrified me so much that I quit. I regret quitting to this day, but my mom just didn’t understand what that woman was doing to me.
30. The last elementary school I went to once we finally settled back in Seattle was, no kidding, Sunnydale Elementary.
31. I started reading at a freakishly early age, but my parents wondered if I’d just memorized Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, so they tested me out with a different Dr. Seuss book. When they found out I could read it okay, they thought they had a little prodigy on their hands. Thus began my lifetime of cruelly disappointing them with my below-averageness.
32. The first “short story” I ever wrote was when I was five, and it was basically a further adventures of Mickey Mouse and Goofy in their Hound of the Baskervilles spoof. Apparently I couldn’t get enough of the source material even as a kid.
33. I seem to have a facility for languages, and for mimicking speech patterns. I don’t know why. I used to speak German and Spanish fairly well, but can’t much anymore due to lack of use. I know smatterings of phrases in Russian, French, Portuguese, and Welsh. I’d like to actually learn to speak Welsh.
34. I believe in the serial comma.
35. There is nothing that cannot be made just a skosh more endurable by the judicious application of cat huggage. Even a psychotic, Alien face-hugger cat.
36. I bought a house about 11 or so years ago. I was pushed into it by my dad, even though I didn’t want one.
37. My house is really cute, a tiny little shoebox that’s painted a kind of periwinkle color with nifty blue and white painted doors. Some of the people in the nabe call me purple house lady.
38. Unfortunately, it’s also constantly falling apart: in the past six years I’ve replaced and repainted the rotting south wall, part of the sewer line, then all of the sewer line, the roof, parts of the crumbling garage, redone the moldering bathroom, and now have a rotten interior wall in my office. Not to mention the huge nightmare yard, and the rotten back porch that had to be replaced when I moved in, or the new furnace and water heater that had to be put in. Or the windows and insulation. Sometimes, I sit on the floor and weep.
39. My biggest problem is storage. The attic is minimal at best and can’t be moved around in, and I have only a dirt crawlspace (literally) underneath. With thousands of CDs, hundreds of DVDs, and hundreds and hundreds of tapes, it’s a challenge. I can’t stand clutter and need white space.
40. I love to drive, and am a really< good driver. I just wish all the rest of the fuckwits would get off the road. There is nothing better than a long stretch of highway with no one else on it, and sitting behind the wheel of a really bitchin’ car.
41. I’ve never had a real accident, or gotten a real ticket. I’ve been in a bunch of accidents, though, and it’s one reason I can’t stand being a passenger — no one drives as well as me! They’re trying to kill me!
42. I seem to be one of those rare fans who can hear lyrics. (Not that this means I understand a word of Stairway to Heaven.) But I love a good Mondegreen, which can make me laugh like a drain — I think because when I was a kid, I heard them all the time. My favorite was that I thought “I’m your Venus” was “I’m your penis” and I couldn’t understand how they could get it on the radio.
43. People love to tell me all the things that are wrong with me and why I’m a horrible person, but they never seem to be in agreement about the horrible things. I’d like to make people pick two from column A, one from column B, and maybe an appetizer, otherwise I have no idea how I’m supposed to fix myself. (“You love conflict and are evil.” “I love the fact that you’re not afraid of dealing with conflict like an adult.” She’s my sister! My daughter! Sister! Daughter!)
44. My own mom once told me I was ugly. When your mom tells you things like that, you know things are pretty bad.
45. I have a .38 pistol with a custom-made wood grip that has a split Indian head buffalo nickel on either side. My grandfather, a sheriff in Idaho, brought in bank robbers using it back in the late 1920s. He carved the grip specially for my dad’s hand. (Note to visitors: Don’t worry, I won’t use it on you — the inside of the barrel’s corroded, so it can’t be fired.)
46. I never knew my grandparents, but I’d like to have known my dad’s dad — aside from the cool bank robbers story, he also was a Treasury agent/Secret Service agent.
47. Macs rule.
48. The way people toss around the First Amendment in this country drives me nuts. Most people haven’t got a clue what it really says or means. I know it by heart, and it’s one of the few political/governmental things I’d willingly lay down my life to protect.
49. One of my favorite web sites is luciferous logolepsy (http://www.kokogiak.com/logolepsy/). I love obscure, archaic, and rarely used words. Some would say, no doubt, to the detriment of my fiction.
50. I’m not big on plastic surgery but if I could get a chin lift, I would. Basically I believe in better living through chemistry (hair dye, colored contacts, teeth whitening, makeup, etc.), but not through slicing into flesh.
51. The dogs that people think are so ugly, like French bulldogs, are adorable to my eyes.
52. I once had a little kid point a gun in my face. I was sitting in a (pretty terrible) McDonald’s downtown with a friend, and suddenly this little kid was standing behind my friend, pointing a gun inches from my face. I had no idea why — he was black and I’m white, so maybe he just hated me on principle, but I felt all the blood drain out of my body, and it was like I was made of air. I was paralyzed. One of the old ladies sitting next to us picked up her cane and yelled at him, as if brandishing it would ward off bullets like some superhero’s magic weapon, and he suddenly ran away. I subsequently convinced myself that it was a prop plastic model, but I really don’t know. I know guns, and at the time I was looking at a 9 mm. The manager of the McDonald’s couldn’t have been less interested when we told him.
53. I started smoking when I was in first grade. No, really. Since we moved around so much, the only kids I could ever find to be friends with were older, bad kids who stole their parents’ cigarettes. So I did, too. I hated it from the get-go, and never really inhaled (just like Bill! I basically pulled it into the back of my throat and exhaled quickly), because I loathe cigarette smoke and everything about the evil things.
54. I didn’t always smoke, though, just from time to time. I finally stopped trying to be cool and fit in in college, when I realized that I was sitting there in my dorm room, hanging my arm out the window while talking on the phone because I hated the smoke so much, and there was no one around to see me being cool with my rakishly held cigarette. Plus, I didn’t like funding the coffers of the most heinous companies in the world. That was the last cigarette, and I never looked back.
55. I’m a serious agnostic, almost an atheist — but I want to reserve doubts about my own beliefs just in case I’m wrong. Hedging your bets for the afterlife is a good thing.
56. Despite that, I’m fascinated by people’s beliefs and in religions as a concept, and I ask a lot of questions to understand. I love really culty religions, too, as an entertainment device — the weirder and freakier, the better.
57. I like silver way, way better than gold. Gold doesn’t appeal to me at all, but silver or platinum make me go “ooo, shiny.” Copper is my favorite, though.
58. I can read maps (and even fold them). I can even read topographical maps to some degree.
59. The one thing that will always set my temper off is double-standard bullshit, especially when accompanied by holier-than-thou condemnation from someone whose behavior isn’t much better than the person they’re hectoring. My blood just boils at “do as I say, not as I do” chastisement, “everyone should believe what I believe” statements. When that’s accompanied by smug pronouncements of superiority, I will lose my rag every time. Guaranteed.
60. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen is the Paradise ice caves on Mt. Rainier. I understand they’re now inaccessible, or if they are accessible, very different and somewhat degraded in grandeur from when I saw them in the ‘60s. They’re almost impossible to describe, but the closest thing I can think of is that it must be like being in the middle of an aurora borealis. Patterns of gorgeous, pure color and light, playing throughout the cave interiors, that make you feel like you’re on another world.
61. People often tell me I’m funny, but it’s hard for me to see myself that way. I can never figure out how to be deliberately funny without sounding forced or lame.
62. I’m still not over Sept. 11. I don’t think I ever will be for as long as I live.
63. If I could do anything I wanted, it would be to go up in space — shuttle, capsule, whatever. Neither Challenger nor Columbia has changed my mind about this.
64. Onions are the food of Beelzebub. And they are in everything. The worst are little chives and scallions and such — nearly impossible to pick out of food. Blech, ptui! The mere sight of a pickled beet can make me need to vomit.
65. My inner ears are scarred from numerous terrible infections incurred as a youth. I can’t distinguish sounds when there are multiple noises — they all sound the same to me, so I can’t talk to people at parties, in a noisy restaurant, etc. I have superhearing when it’s quiet, though, which makes it impossible to sleep with noise. But it causes me terrible pain to wear earplugs.
66. There is no pain on earth like that of having a hollow needle stuck into your inner ear. Nothing, except being burned, can compare.
67. Because of the ear trauma, I still get plugged up ears and have to have them medically taken care of. I know it’s time when I start to list sideways when I walk, and can’t follow a straight line when walking. I’m told it’s funny to watch me when I’m like that.
68. I’m horribly shy when meeting new people. I have a hard time talking to strangers, but friends can’t get me to shut up.
69. However, I’m not afraid to speak in public. I started having to speak in front of hundreds of movers and shakers in this organization I volunteered for a decade ago, and after that it got easier. I still get scaredy beforehand, but it’s controllable. It’s acting, and I like acting.
70. When I was younger, I was so paralyzed by shyness that my sister had to help me buy clothes since she worked at a department store, and my mother had to do things like ask for registration forms and stuff. I didn’t really get over it until I went to college, where I had to take care of myself. I still have to force myself to meet people at cons and such.
71. My natural assumption is that I’m a worthless dumbass who is not worth knowing, and so I can’t bear to introduce myself to anyone and move in to their sphere. I always feel like Willow in first season Buffy.
72. Pepsi, not Coke. And never, ever, ever diet.
73. I laugh when I’m nervous or afraid or shy or embarrassed. A stupid laugh, and I say stupid things to accompany it.
74. I can cook, but not that well. There are a few things I can do superbly, everything else is a struggle. Mostly it’s timing – getting a meal to all come out in time.
75. Even though I love fine food and prefer natural, organic, and seasonal stuff, there are times when only vat food will do: Hostess cupcakes, American cheese slices, cheese hot dogs, Chicken in a Biskits, you name it.
76. I’m rarely able to remember my dreams. It’s probably for the best, because most of the dreams I remember turn dark and scary, or are out and out nightmares.
77. I’ve always had a vague, undefined kind of envy towards people who inspire others to do things. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to have someone write a story in your honor, or dedicate a vid or a book to you, spend money just to come see you, get into a fandom because you were there, or heck, even make an icon expressly for you. It’s always seemed pretty cool in the green-tinted lenses of my envy-specs. OTOH, I like to write, and dedicate, stories to people.
78. Envy, I get. Jealousy, I don’t. My partner of 8 years said that was one of my enormous failings — that I never got jealous. But I don’t — there’s nothing productive about it; at least envy carries a kind of faintly wistful tinge to it, where you just feel like, oh, that would be so wonderful, how I do envy you! There’s an implication of “good for you,” too. But jealousy implies that you think you’re more deserving of that thing, that it should belong to you and you alone. I can’t get to that place where I think I’m more deserving of something and would get jealous about it.
79. Among boyfriends, I had brief flings with: a gorgeous Swedish guy, a gorgeous guy who was 11 years younger than me, and an okay-looking guy who was a multi-millionaire. Which is pretty amazing given that I’ve had hardly any real romantic relationships.
80. I had a fully working Yellow Submarine lunchbox with Thermos, as well as a soft-sided Barbie lunchbox that was so rare, it wasn’t even listed in collector’s catalogs. I didn’t know people collected them till I went to college, and ran home to find my lunchboxes with visions of vast wealth in my head, only to find my mom had thrown them out. I still rail to the gods over that.
81. The one thing I really don’t get in fandom is the obsessive interest in becoming, discussing, kerfuffling, or worshipping over BNFs. The whole BNF thing turns me off faster than a light switch. I think people who talk constantly about status, desperately claw for it, or disingenuously pretend they don’t have it after spending years trying to get it are just freaks, and I wish the whole thing would go away.
82. I love comics and animation, but I have a hard time seeing them in a fannish way. Even my beloved The Authority, for some reason.
83. I’m an incredibly law-abiding citizen because my basic goal in life is to never do anything that could potentially result in a body-cavity search.
84. Over the years, I’ve had about nine skin cancers removed. I’m a walking ad for melanoma, and figure my days are numbered, and it’ll happen eventually.
85. I have this thing called restless leg syndrome. It’s hard to explain, but really debilitating because it makes it tough to sit still or sleep — you get this horrid creepy crawly feeling in your leg muscles, and have to move constantly. Your muscles will also spasm and twitch uncontrollably. If I’m lucky, I get about five hours of highly interrupted sleep. I can’t sit still after about 8 p.m. People have committed suicide because it’s so frustrating and chronic and hard to get anyone to take seriously. I figure if I’m going to spasm and twitch I’d at least like to get Tourette’s so I can get away with swearing at people.
86. I also have a condition called synesthesia, which people at the Vividcon aesthetics panel would remember. I see colors and patterns from music — listening to a symphony live is probably the closest I’ll ever come to knowing what acid is like. Certain letters of the alphabet are specific colors, too. I also feel musical instruments in different parts of my body. Some people can taste colors, or hear letters, that sort of thing. As conditions go, synesthesia’s pretty cool; the leg thing not so much.
87. I can’t do top ten lists. My lists for everything always change with my mood. If I was forced to pick a favorite movie, though, it’d probably be The Terminator. Most days.
88. I love fashion, clothes, shoes, hairdos. I especially love awards show fashions, because that kind of dress-up is something I’ll never experience. It’s also terribly fun to pick apart the outfits and hairstyles. Meow.
89. People stopped playing Trivial Pursuit with me because I kicked everyone’s asses. I can’t remember phone numbers, but I can remember the stupidest, most pointless trivia about pop culture.
90. I’ve read everything William Shakespeare ever wrote. Unannotated and unfootnoted. I’ve read Romeo and Juliet somewhere around 15 times.
91. I always prefer to be around real live people than chat online or do e-mail. I can’t type well, it’s an ordeal for me to sit in my office with my back turned to the TV (whence all life stems) and keyboard for more than a few minutes, and people always, always misunderstand me online because I’m very dryly sarcastic, and I get myself into terrible trouble. I don’t mind the phone, but it exacerbates my repetitive stress injuries to use it for long.
92. OTOH, I think the Net and chats and e-mail and the web are some of the greatest things that ever happened. I’ve met people from all over the world and found acquaintances I would never otherwise have had a chance to meet, and keep in touch with people who’d never otherwise be in touch.
93. Red wine gives me migraines, so I can’t drink it. I look at a bottle of fine Cabernet like a recovering alcoholic does.
94. In my freshman year of college, I lived in an apartment a few blocks from Ted Bundy. Later, when he got caught, I realized I’d seen him numerous times walking by our door, strolling down the alley.
95. I carry too much static electricity in my body, and if I wave my hands over people’s heads, I can often make their hair stand up. This isn’t as cool as it sounds — I get static shocks all year round, instead of just winter, and sometimes they’re so bad that my hand goes temporarily numb, or I hurt people (or my poor kitty).
96. For some reason, kids really like me, even though I’m not into kids. Too many years working in day cares, kindergartens, sitting, etc. pretty much killed off interest in having or being around other people’s spawn.
97. I cannot do math. I’m functional at about a third grade level, and that’s it. I nearly flunked algebra, though oddly, I excelled at geometry. My troubles started with fractions when I was out of school for a trip to Minnesota for a funeral, and it was all downhill from there. My father used to try to help me but within moments would get so frustrated with my incompetence he’d slap me around. Needless to say, this did not enhance understanding.
98. Though I can’t sleep in hotels at all, I love staying in them because they often have swimming pools. Swimming is probably my favorite activity activity. When I’m in water, I feel at home.
99. Neither Evil Twin nor I have the slightest tendency towards addictions or dependencies at all, ever, except our total dependency on iced tea. (When people mistakenly spell it ice tea, I become slightly unglued.) I have yet to encounter support groups for iced tea addicts.
100. My philosophy is to always expect the worst, because then anything good in life comes as a pleasant surprise. (I was thrilled when I heard this summed up almost exactly the same way in one of my favorite movies, Say Anything.) People don’t call me Eyore for nothing.
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Date: 2003-09-22 12:18 pm (UTC)I'm with you on #35 -- that everything gets better with cat-huggage. Yep. Especially if it's my cat, but in a pinch, any cat will do.
And I believe in the serial comma, too. :-)
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Date: 2003-09-22 12:24 pm (UTC)And I am familiar with restless leg syndrome--had a client who was affected by it during her pregnancy. You have my deepest sympathy, because it sounds like a really shitty thing to have to deal with.
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Date: 2003-09-22 12:32 pm (UTC)Agree with you about the cat huggage. I cannot give up iced tea, either... I like it strong and without additives, and have been known to be difficult about that in restaurants.
Glad to see that you've been writing, but I find that your posts are fun or interesting, no matter what they're about, even though I've been horrible about responding. Working on that.
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Date: 2003-09-22 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 12:53 pm (UTC)I can't even begin to imagine, though, have restless leg syndrom *and* being pregnant!! OMG, what a nightmare, already having a tough time sleeping... arg. How horrible for her.
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Date: 2003-09-22 01:15 pm (UTC)I’ve always had a vague, undefined kind of envy towards people who inspire others to do things.
You are part of a group of people whose vids inspired me to vid. :-) You, Lum, Killa, Carol, Lynn, Naomi...and a few others.
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Date: 2003-09-22 01:17 pm (UTC)Heh. This is my philosophy too.
Glad to see you're venturing into fandom again. Welcome back :).
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Date: 2003-09-22 01:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 03:19 pm (UTC)Welcome back!
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Date: 2003-09-22 03:55 pm (UTC)Now onto that meme:
In sixth grade, I knocked out the front teeth of a boy who taunted me about being adopted
For some reason, I feel very proud of this :)
Buckaroo Banzai makes a great litmus test for friendships
Um, what if she has never heard of it, let alone seen it? ::ducks head::
But I could hit, throw, and catch better than any boy at school.
Right there with you darling. I was the tough tomboy as well, but i pushed my way onto the softball team anyway. Only girl. Didn't care, though. They were all my best friends anyway and didn't treat me like a girl.
The first “short story” I ever wrote was when I was five, and it was basically a further adventures of Mickey Mouse and Goofy in their Hound of the Baskervilles spoof
OMG! You were writing fanfic even then!
Hedging your bets for the afterlife is a good thing.
Bwahahahaha! Very true.
71. My natural assumption is that I’m a worthless dumbass who is not worth knowing, and so I can’t bear to introduce myself to anyone and move in to their sphere. I always feel like Willow in first season Buffy.
Again, right there with you. Feel the same way about me own little self. Fandom provides such freedom from that, even though at times i feel a shyness in commenting on BNF's journals.
cheese hot dogs,
Wait, like those ones that Ball Park makes now, where there's like cheese in the middle? My roomie is in love with those.
my favorite movies, Say Anything.)
You just added another point to all the reason i love you *g*
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Date: 2003-09-22 05:02 pm (UTC)Sorry about the old house upkeep traumas. Just remember, my house has pesonality, my house has personality...
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Date: 2003-09-22 06:11 pm (UTC)And Mac's do rule.
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Date: 2003-09-22 07:55 pm (UTC)ait, like those ones that Ball Park makes now, where there's like cheese in the middle? My roomie is in love with those.
Sadly, yes. I am ashamed to admit it, but yes. Every once in a while, you just have to have the fake-smokey taste with injected American cheese of an Oscar Mayer cheese dog.
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Date: 2003-09-22 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 08:04 pm (UTC)And you're down in Oz, aren't you? Skin cancer capital of the world? Although I've read that that's not so true anymore, after some successful campaigns. The hardest thing about being single again after all those years was not having someone to tell me what my back looked like -- the fear is always there!
So nice to see you...
Date: 2003-09-22 08:20 pm (UTC)#44: I've met you. Seen you live and in person. Your mom was wrong. (I know it lingers -- but having heard similar things from my father...he was wong too. I think my first impression of you was...stunning. Then, smart. My opinions are very un-PC *g* )
#77: I have made you no icons, it is true...however, Killa and Tiff worked on me for a YEAR to get into M7 (for Ezra)...then Killa handed me a copy of The Lucifer Match, Cold Enough to Snow...uhm...I think, even though you love the OW...the results speak for themselves. I've been a very busy girl.
#97: Me also, too. thank god for spreadsheets...
And you rock more than MAC's do.
Re: So nice to see you...
Date: 2003-09-23 08:53 am (UTC)They just didn't understand the Power of Chris and Vin! Mwah ha ha ha! And their gay cowboy pants! It's always interesting what'll make us finally fall, isn't it? I'm really glad that I could be part of your downfall. ;-) Heee.
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Date: 2003-09-23 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-24 03:17 pm (UTC)namaste!
I know, quite late
Date: 2005-08-28 04:34 pm (UTC)