More questions
Mar. 30th, 2005 07:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaSame deal: five questions. Ask or be asked. These are from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dichroic:
1. Wheredoyouwanttogoto? (story title by E. Nesbit, but also a real question: where would you like to visit that you haven't been?)
Iceland! Oh, that would be nice. I'll probably write Kjartan's book before going to Iceland, but it would be helpful, I think, to smell it before I do.timprov also swears up and down that a good time is to be had in Hungary, and he even knows some people who would help out with having it. And I'm told that Tallinn is not to be missed, and since I want to go back to Helsinki, it'd just be a quick little jump down.
My family took a lot of driving vacations when I was little, so I've been to 49 of the American states and several Canadian provinces. I'd like to go back to many of them, but you specified "that [I] haven't been."
2. If ten years ago you had listed your ideal partner, would Mark have matched the description?
Well, first of all, you have to know that I metmarkgritter not too long after that. Ten years ago I was 16 and graduating from high school. That fall, there was a wretched hive of scum and villainy down the stairs half a flight from me in Wahlly (it even said so on the door, "Wreched Hive of Scum and Villainy," from one of Mark's beer-fueled LaTex sessions [note the capital T in the middle, you pervs]), and that was where markgritter was to be found. I didn't actually know him very well when he lived in 202. Mostly I knew Aaron and the_overqual from that section. But I knew who Mark was enough to sit with him and Chris (another of the roommates from that section) automatically when we took our Science Fiction class the next fall (fall of '96), because they were my kind of people and the rest of the class thought a class on SF would be subtitled "Watching Star Trek for an Easy A." So then he brought some SF for me to borrow over fall break, without me even asking, so I knew he maybe kind of liked me, and that was a good thing.
That aside...well, ten years agoscottjames and I hadn't yet had our realization that we made better friends than partners at that point, so that might have gotten in the way. And even at sixteen, I was not keen on Ideal Partners and One True Thises and Absolutely Perfect Thats. I don't recall ever falling for that stupid meme. I think because I've always dealt with men as friends and people, quirky and flawed and human like anyone else.
The short answer to all this, though, would have been "yes." Physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever, Mark is one of the geeketypes I would have recognized as probably right for me ten years ago. Probably fifteen years ago, if it comes to that. I had a friend who had an extremely long checklist of absolutely required traits in a guy. I was never like that. Makes it a lot easier to recognize the right thing when it pops up, if you haven't required that it be six feet tall and blond and funny.
Oh, wait: Mark is six feet tall and blond and funny. So maybe it would have worked out even if I'd had my friend's teenage checklist. Still, I'm glad I didn't try to make it go that way. Life is a lot more fun without that kind of restriction.
(It was so funny to watch my old friend with the checklist interact with me and Mark, because he did fit her checklist as no one else I've dated has, but yet he was clearly such a geek that something had gone wrong for her somewhere, and she wasn't entirely sure what. But it was exactly what had gone right for me, so.)
3. What hobbies would you like to try that you haven't yet?
Sleep. I hear it's really cool, but I'm not sure I believe the rumors.
Seriously, every time I think of picking up crocheting or learning a fretted instrument or teaching myself Finnish, I remember that my life is incredibly full of things I already want to do and haven't finished. And we hope to have kids at some point in the distant but not too distant future, and kids are not the best thing for starting new hobbies, althoughporphyrin started making jewelry after Roo was born, so it's always possible. (I feel like whenever I talk about having kids I need to point out that I am on the Pill and we are not trying to have kids any time soon, so do not take the statement that I want kids as license to start bugging me about when. If it's any of your business, I will let you know, and that's a very short list of you. For the rest of you, I will pop up at some point and say, "Surprise, I'm three months pregnant!" Or not, if we're unlucky. Still. It's not going to be soon, and don't ask.)
So I'm trying to fend off the list of things it would be cool to try, on the theory that cool things tend to find me, and on the theory that I have no idea what the next ten years will bring and imposing a new set of obligations on myself right now is possibly not the best thing.
4. Do you still think you'll quit journaling when you start parenting? (I would be sad, if so, though of course happy for you.)
I will stop keeping![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
novel_gazing for sure. Livejournal...I don't know. Lj is significantly different from when I was keeping NG every day. You can post two sentences to lj at a time, no problem. I feel no obligations of a certain length or frequency of post the way I do with NG. You can leave whole huge chunks of your life entirely out of it, or leave them out of it enough that people's privacy is being respected. Different writers find different levels of balance in talking about their kids, but whenever it should happen to come up, I will want to err on the side of caution as much as possible. If I can manage that with avoiding references or locking posts on things that might be truly embarrassing in their adult lives, okay. If not, we'll see what else I manage, if anything.
5. The world. Getting better or worse, or rather which outweighs the other?
Better, oh, better. Not monotonically. But I do think better. At least once a month when I'm taking the Pill, loading the dishwasher, or putting my contacts in, I think, "I love living in the future." I recognize that there are some pretty crappy trends out there. But there's so much good stuff happening, small-scale and large, that that's what I see the most. Sometimes being a natural optimist is a PITA, but I'm pretty much stuck with it.
It's rainy here today, and I have mumble-hundred pages more book to read before I type stuff in and send it off to alpha-readers. And I didn't actually do much laundry yesterday, and there's an errand list and so on. So. I'll probably be posting to lj several more times today in an attempt to procrastinate.
dichroic:1. Wheredoyouwanttogoto? (story title by E. Nesbit, but also a real question: where would you like to visit that you haven't been?)
Iceland! Oh, that would be nice. I'll probably write Kjartan's book before going to Iceland, but it would be helpful, I think, to smell it before I do.
timprov also swears up and down that a good time is to be had in Hungary, and he even knows some people who would help out with having it. And I'm told that Tallinn is not to be missed, and since I want to go back to Helsinki, it'd just be a quick little jump down.My family took a lot of driving vacations when I was little, so I've been to 49 of the American states and several Canadian provinces. I'd like to go back to many of them, but you specified "that [I] haven't been."
2. If ten years ago you had listed your ideal partner, would Mark have matched the description?
Well, first of all, you have to know that I met
markgritter not too long after that. Ten years ago I was 16 and graduating from high school. That fall, there was a wretched hive of scum and villainy down the stairs half a flight from me in Wahlly (it even said so on the door, "Wreched Hive of Scum and Villainy," from one of Mark's beer-fueled LaTex sessions [note the capital T in the middle, you pervs]), and that was where markgritter was to be found. I didn't actually know him very well when he lived in 202. Mostly I knew Aaron and the_overqual from that section. But I knew who Mark was enough to sit with him and Chris (another of the roommates from that section) automatically when we took our Science Fiction class the next fall (fall of '96), because they were my kind of people and the rest of the class thought a class on SF would be subtitled "Watching Star Trek for an Easy A." So then he brought some SF for me to borrow over fall break, without me even asking, so I knew he maybe kind of liked me, and that was a good thing.That aside...well, ten years ago
scottjames and I hadn't yet had our realization that we made better friends than partners at that point, so that might have gotten in the way. And even at sixteen, I was not keen on Ideal Partners and One True Thises and Absolutely Perfect Thats. I don't recall ever falling for that stupid meme. I think because I've always dealt with men as friends and people, quirky and flawed and human like anyone else.The short answer to all this, though, would have been "yes." Physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever, Mark is one of the geeketypes I would have recognized as probably right for me ten years ago. Probably fifteen years ago, if it comes to that. I had a friend who had an extremely long checklist of absolutely required traits in a guy. I was never like that. Makes it a lot easier to recognize the right thing when it pops up, if you haven't required that it be six feet tall and blond and funny.
Oh, wait: Mark is six feet tall and blond and funny. So maybe it would have worked out even if I'd had my friend's teenage checklist. Still, I'm glad I didn't try to make it go that way. Life is a lot more fun without that kind of restriction.
(It was so funny to watch my old friend with the checklist interact with me and Mark, because he did fit her checklist as no one else I've dated has, but yet he was clearly such a geek that something had gone wrong for her somewhere, and she wasn't entirely sure what. But it was exactly what had gone right for me, so.)
3. What hobbies would you like to try that you haven't yet?
Sleep. I hear it's really cool, but I'm not sure I believe the rumors.
Seriously, every time I think of picking up crocheting or learning a fretted instrument or teaching myself Finnish, I remember that my life is incredibly full of things I already want to do and haven't finished. And we hope to have kids at some point in the distant but not too distant future, and kids are not the best thing for starting new hobbies, although
porphyrin started making jewelry after Roo was born, so it's always possible. (I feel like whenever I talk about having kids I need to point out that I am on the Pill and we are not trying to have kids any time soon, so do not take the statement that I want kids as license to start bugging me about when. If it's any of your business, I will let you know, and that's a very short list of you. For the rest of you, I will pop up at some point and say, "Surprise, I'm three months pregnant!" Or not, if we're unlucky. Still. It's not going to be soon, and don't ask.)So I'm trying to fend off the list of things it would be cool to try, on the theory that cool things tend to find me, and on the theory that I have no idea what the next ten years will bring and imposing a new set of obligations on myself right now is possibly not the best thing.
4. Do you still think you'll quit journaling when you start parenting? (I would be sad, if so, though of course happy for you.)
I will stop keeping
novel_gazing for sure. Livejournal...I don't know. Lj is significantly different from when I was keeping NG every day. You can post two sentences to lj at a time, no problem. I feel no obligations of a certain length or frequency of post the way I do with NG. You can leave whole huge chunks of your life entirely out of it, or leave them out of it enough that people's privacy is being respected. Different writers find different levels of balance in talking about their kids, but whenever it should happen to come up, I will want to err on the side of caution as much as possible. If I can manage that with avoiding references or locking posts on things that might be truly embarrassing in their adult lives, okay. If not, we'll see what else I manage, if anything.5. The world. Getting better or worse, or rather which outweighs the other?
Better, oh, better. Not monotonically. But I do think better. At least once a month when I'm taking the Pill, loading the dishwasher, or putting my contacts in, I think, "I love living in the future." I recognize that there are some pretty crappy trends out there. But there's so much good stuff happening, small-scale and large, that that's what I see the most. Sometimes being a natural optimist is a PITA, but I'm pretty much stuck with it.
It's rainy here today, and I have mumble-hundred pages more book to read before I type stuff in and send it off to alpha-readers. And I didn't actually do much laundry yesterday, and there's an errand list and so on. So. I'll probably be posting to lj several more times today in an attempt to procrastinate.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 03:07 pm (UTC)1. You said yesterday that you like EVERYTHING about Minnesota. Since I'm a transplant, what would you take me to do/see that I probably haven't?
2. Did you like college life? Why or why not?
3. What's your favorite non-SF novel?
4. I know you like dogs. What other sorts of pets do you like?
5. Is it normal for families of Scandinavian descent to have close ties between the family still in the "old country" and the American side, or have I been exposed to a skewed population sample?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 03:23 pm (UTC)2. Which state other than MN did you like best?
3. What hobbies other than reading and journaling do you have?
4. City, suburb, or country?
5. What's your favorite vehicle?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 03:43 pm (UTC)People just never know about their sweeties, is what.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-30 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 02:19 am (UTC)2. When it comes to sporting events, you seem to choose fiery death potential over icy death potential. Why?
3. What's the best concert you've ever been to?
4. It's Van Gogh's birthday. Do you have a favorite artist?
5. If you had to give away one of the kids at your house...oh, no, sorry, wrong question. How do you decide what information about the kids to share and what to keep under friendslock and what to just not mention outside the house?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 02:24 am (UTC)2. What's your favorite fairy tale?
3. Who is your favorite Sayers character?
4. What's your favorite anime to show people who don't think they're anime people?
5. Do you eat breakfast? What do you eat? Is it what you'd ideally want or a compromise?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 02:29 am (UTC)2. If visiting family or friends was not an option, what would you do with your vacation days?
3. If someone could tell you where your life would be in ten years, would you want to know?
4. If you could go back ten years to tell your former self something, what would it be?
5. What's your favorite song to perform?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 02:31 am (UTC)2. What was your first RPG?
3. Why does your cat look annoyed or disgusted or...what expression is that, anyway? (It is your cat, right?)
4. Which is your favorite holiday? (Personal holidays are included, but it has to be a personal holiday you're willing to mention, not just "It's personal.")
5. You have infinite funds, but you must flee the country for two weeks. Where will you go?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 02:52 am (UTC)*sigh* It is a good thing he is cute.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 03:25 am (UTC)That is so not the proper conjunction.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 06:48 pm (UTC)2. DnD back in 81 :)
3. It's my cat. No clue, 'Sea took the picture. I think that's the you stopped petting me too soon look.
4. 4th of July. I looooove making things go boom.
5. Australia, as I haven't been to that continent yet.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 07:14 pm (UTC)Thank you for the questions, though.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-31 11:00 pm (UTC)1. Physics? For some reason I have a hard time placing you as a physics major. What led you to an interest in it? And what did you plan on doing with it when you finished college?
2. If for some reason you were forced to stop writing (agreed, that would suck mightily), and you were given the opportunity to do anything else in the world. What would it be?
3. As I understand it, you know how to make lefsa from scratch? Would you be able to/interested in teaching someone else (me?)? I'd like to adapt a lefsa recipe to be gluten free, but of course not knowing how to make it to begin with, it would be difficult at best ;) (for what it's worth, I'm also planning on adapting a phyllo dough recipe...yes, I like really flat breads ;) )
4. Turn about's a good thing ;) 0 if you could go back ten years to tell your former self something, what would it be?
5. What is the most unbelievable thing you've experienced up until now? (Unbelievable to you).
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:37 pm (UTC)1. In which college class did you learn the most? Was it your favorite class?
2. Do you still expect to get a dog at some future point?
3. What's the best new food you've eaten in the last year? (New-to-you, obviously; doesn't have to be an entirely original recipe.)
4. Do you have one best year of your childhood or one worst year, or did they all have pretty much equal ups and downs? (Let's define "childhood" as "years living in your parents' house" for the purposes of this question.)
5. What is your favorite public memory of your fiancee? Not the most quiet romantic moment between the two of you, but something fun you're willing to share.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 03:58 pm (UTC)I might, though. Once I think of some good ones.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-04 04:46 pm (UTC)