Trying to pry my brain off this book

[mrissa]

All right, my dears. I am going to repeat to myself, "It is not yet time to write The True Tale of Carter Hall," a hundred times over (while, uh, finishing this chapter), and in the meantime, I am in interrogation mode. Answer all or some or none, as you like:
1. Do you smell things in your dreams? ("I don't know, I've never thought about it," is a reasonable answer if true.)
2. If this was a saga, how would they tag you over and over again? This can either take the form of "Thorolf Thorolfsson the Bald" or "wily Odysseus" -- that is, formal or informal. How would they tag me? How would they tag someone we both know, if you can think of such an example?
3. Do random strangers talk to you? Or is it some non-random group of strangers? (And hey, do you have ideas about why they talk to me? I'm mulling.)
4. What song has been in your head most recently?
5. Where were you on the night of the 23rd? Is this everybody's parents' standard "I realize I sound like a cop" question, or is it just my parents'?

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

my father tends to ask people if they've ever spent a night in jail, instead.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do they tend to answer him?

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

mostly, they look very, *very* startled. and then i say "daaaaad!"

so, no. but not because they mightn't.

[khriskin]

1. Never thought about it, but I have a lousy sense of smell when I'm awake, so that may be why.

2. ... *confused* ... I may need some more rum before I understand this question. ^_~

3. Yes! I talk to them too though... random friendly conversations are fun. ^_^

4. Code Monkey. http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mp3/Code%20Monkey.mp3 Funny! ^_^ (then again, I'm a code monkey, so I'm biased. ^_~)

5. No mine use the 'do I want to know?' or just '*sigh*' ... and then I confess 'cause I'm a wuss. ^_^;;

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

2. In sagas, they tend to have one thing they call someone over and over, as a literary device. With Odysseus, you hardly ever see him called just by name -- they won't say "then Odysseus awoke and slipped from the cave." It's "then wily Odysseus awoke and slipped from the cave." Or brave so-and-so, or beautiful so-and-so.

5. I'm glad that my parents and I have the "not wanting to know everything" firmly down on both sides. I can answer, "Do I want to know?" with a cheerful, "Probably not," and my mom will not press the question. Better, she knows not to ask questions if the likeliest answer will only upset her and she has nothing to do with the information anyway. For example, she doesn't approve of couples moving in together before marriage -- so when I said two romantically involved friends were buying a house together, she just didn't ask if they'd gotten married or not.

[redbird]

1. Not as far as I know.
2. I'm not sure: "flowing-haired" goes with Achaeans, which I'm not, and "sensible" doesn't quite fit. "Redbird the knowing"?
3. Yes. Often they want directions. When I was in high school, random old men and women on buses occasionally talked to me, just wanting someone to talk to, I think.
4. Not sure.
5. On the Amtrak Adirondack, hoping not to be home too late.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

1. I'm pretty sure I don't. Smll is definitel a lesser sense for me.
2. Paula the Yappy?
3. Not only do they talk to me, they tell me things they haven't told their dearest confidants. Like the guy I barely knew from work who told me about the illegitiamte child his wife didn't know about, or the woman in my first apartment complex who told me about the affair she's had with the guy who (with his wife) had had my apartment before me.
$. Soon May the Wellerman Come, by Bok, Muir & Trickett - only it's taken me all day to remember that fourth word, and I was substituting all sorts of things. I still have no idea what a "wellerman" is.
6. Not my parents', specifically, but it is what I'd use for a standard interrogation sort of question.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

1. I *think* so, but now I can't think of an example. Possibly I will get more clear on this as time passes, with dreams lagging behind my waking life - smell has only in the past couple years started to become much more significant to me.

2. I think you might be Mrissa of the Woven Thoughts. I'm afraid I might be "wordy Calluna." Others...Misia the Definitive, and Matociquala, wrestling word-monsters, muddy and victorious.

3. Oh, so much. Almost every store I'm in, even in, say, Home Despot when I'm not wearing anything orange, let alone an apron, people think I work there. Some people ask, other's assume and get offended when I can't answer their questions. Out of a crowd, I tend to be the one who gets asked for directions. People in parks strike up conversations. When I was in divinity school, they would ask me what I did, and immediately upon finding out, tell me all about their conflicted relationship with religion. It was kind of cool, really. I have no idea why they talk to me, let alone you, but I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter, someday.

4. Something written and performed by a coworker of mine called "Eyes of a Chicken."

5. Disporting myself in a marble pool edged by fountains shaped like dolphins sofas, and USB cables . (Nope. Not my household.)

[rosefox]

.) Not to my recollection.

:) Clever, in the sense of Clever Elsie (see userpic).

:.) Often, but that's a New Yorker thing: if there's a conversation on a semi-crowded subway car, and someone voices an opinion (especially an opinion about some local event, place, or political issue), some random stranger nearby is almost certain to chime in with a correlation or contradiction. This happened twice while melanie and misterx were visiting and I was telling them nifty little facts about the subway system and the museums and other places we were visiting. It was pretty entertaining. There's nothing creepy about it; New Yorkers just want to show off their city and what they know about it, and make sure you're not being fed any misinformation.

::) At the moment, a porn soundtrack earworm (link goes to mostly-worksafe text, not an mp3; major major earworm alert).

::.) Enjoying my second date with nick_kaufmann, and also enjoying coming home to sinboy. My life is so fantastic, really.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is very different from my experience of pointing things out to people on BART cars. I never got people chiming in to argue or support. I got a few people listening surreptitiously with the "I never knew that!" posture, but that's not at all the same thing.

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

1. I don't smell much in dreams, possibly because it is not a primary sense for me. Hearing, sight, touch, and the weird "inner voice" that I get when reading something, where I reproduce the words in my head, yes. (It's not the same as hearing actual spoken words; it's more a gestalt sense, if that makes any sense.)

2. He Who Wanders From Room to Room is possibly too silly. Maybe "Talks to Lawyers"? Oh dear, that's getting worse.

As for you, possibly "Mrissa, second cousin of Supergirl, able to spend vast amounts of energy to supplement the laws of physics," given how you like to do so many things until you crash, and then the cycle starts again! You seem to have a nice range of competent skills.

3. People don't come up to me the way they used to. Perhaps I'm giving off the wrong vibes, brooding or staring at the floor too much. I do have plenty of colleagues come up and talk to me and comment on cases, judges, or the legal environment I'm in. Now that I'm a practicing lawyer, acquaintances will come up and ask me for legal advice. Outside of those contexts or situations, not so much. I do make more of an effort to talk to people outside of work now, but maybe it seems like too much of an effort when I do so.

4. Queensryche, "Revolution Calling" from Operation Mindcrime.
"It just takes a minute and you'll feel no pain. Make something of your life boy, give me one more vein. I'm going to take away the questions, I'm going to make you sure..." You didn't ask, but the state of mind is a desperate wish for rebellion, even the wrong-headed sort.

5. July 23, I think I was home at my parents' house that night, probably watching TV, since nothing in particular shows on my Dayplanner for that night.

Mack

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I highly value competence. I wish the crashes were less frequent, though. We're working on it.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

1. Very rarely and only for a second. Usually nothing good.

2. Have to think on that one. *grin*

3. Yes! All the time! I keep checking my forehead to see if it's tattoo'd with "Talk to me!" Apparently I also look interested in all sorts of personal TMI, too. :p

4. "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener." I blame my hairdresser - we were trying to sing all the jingles from our youth.

5. I can't even remember where I was yesterday unless I consult my calendar. Oh, I was playing on my new shiny computer!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have actually wanted to say, "I'm not sure your sister would want me to know that about her vagina," on more than one occasion. It's very sad.

[howl-at-the-sun.livejournal.com]

1. I can smell horses in dreams, anyway. Nice horse smell. But when I try to think about what some nightmare creatures that I remember smelled like, I cannot exactly remember. I just have a sense of Overwhelming Danger. I am also now utterly sure that I can taste things after an elaborate dream which involved making a special coconut sliver and apple slice drink with various coconuts and apples and tasting it each time.

2. I am already called Amanda the Elf-Child on a regular basis, and so long as we do not presuppose elves to be vegetarian and opposed to melodrama (in stories, only!) and all that, it applies well enough. I might call you Mrissa of the Long Nose if it could be taken in the metaphorical and not the physical sense. We both know Adam, who could be called Adam the Sproingy (for his hair!) if I wanted to risk being hit the next time I saw him.

3. Not usually. I apparently tend to radiate I-am-busy-and-on-a-warpath-so-for-goddsake-out-of-my-way. I pace in agitated little circles when I have to wait in line in public. There have been a fair collection of slimy kind of guys who have hit on me, but, er, they're rare too.

4. What song has been in your head most recently? Aldonza, from Man of LaMancha -- "I was spawned in a ditched by a mother who left me, naked alone and too hungry to cry. I never blamed her. I'm sure she left hoping that I'd have the good sense to die."

5. Where were you on the night of the 23rd? Never heard that one. But then, the very day after I turned 16 I got my driver's lisence so's that I could get myself to and from the theater rather than my parents having to stay up late to do so. Out late has never been a problem.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Would that nice man really hit you just for calling his hair sproingy? I am shocked, shocked! and don't believe a word of it.

[lutin.livejournal.com]

Yes, I smell in my dreams. Unlike the other respondents, quite often & quite vividly. Of course, all examples escape me right now, but I've woken up many times smiling, having 'just smelled' something great (eg, Vietnamese cinnamon or roses).

(A)Elf(y), or light aelf, or Elf Child, like Amanda. rysmiel named me petalberrypixie, which I think is nice.

They do: last fall, I had a number of African American men keep pace with me on Shattuck in Berkeley, as they talked about their problems (to me). In the spring, Asian girls who wanted to talk about environmental issues and parks (in an intelligent+ way). Oh! And a wonderful man on a SF bus who started talking to me about String Theory and good S-F books. (We're going hiking together, sometime.)

No song. I've been listening to Ellen Kushner's Sound&Spirit radio program. I like the older ones (eg, The Road to Santiago; Rumi) and the Scandinavian Ones (LOTR, Kalevala) best.

I rarely went out in high school. When I did, it was until 4 or 5am, or not until 4 or 5am, and my mom just asked me at breakfast whether I'd had fun.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yay, another dream smeller!

I smelled people I know in my dream last night. Then I woke up sad because they weren't in town to smell again soon.

And now I have "The Road to Santiago" in my head.

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

I often smell things in my dreams, but then, I can also smell things while I am awake that others in the house cannot smell, so I'm probably just a scent-oriented person. Hospital work was probably a poor choice for me (I had to mouth-breathe throughout clinicals, and then I could TASTE the smells, so that wasn't necessarily better :P).

Strangers talk to me, but rarely random ones. Usually very specifically the ones I least wish would talk to me. Generally the most obnoxious, needy, obviously insane strangers talk to me. And I answer them very nicely, because I figure nobody else will, because everyone else will cringe and pretend not to hear them, just like I want to. =/

The song that's been in my head all day is a German song called Two Questions, by a band called Klee, from their CD called Honeysuckle. I heard it on the MPR earlier today and it was lovely and I don't know what they were singing because I don't speak German, but it won't leave my brain, so it's dancing around in there, and I will let it dance as long as it wants. Here's an extremely short sample of it:
http://tinyurl.com/q87jy

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, if you want to hear it, you've actually got to click on the song after clicking the page link. My mistake. :/

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was thinking at the dentist yesterday of all the careers that would be barred to me because of my sense of smell. With "dentist, dental hygienist, or secretary for dental practice" springing immediately to mind: blarg! Ohhh, the smells! (This is why I didn't minor in chemistry. Physics was the obvious science for me: it mostly does not stink. Except when the vacuum pump breaks half an hour into the twelve-hour backscattering test run of your Rutherford Scattering experiment and spends the next 11.5 hours spewing tiny, tiny particles of oil into the air while not creating any additional vacuum. Then physics stinks. A lot. Hypothetically, I mean; certainly not that anything like this has ever happened to me.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

1. Usually only with the very vivid dreams. Otherwise dreams are kind of funny that way because the "smellovision" is off. In the swamp, battling mutant crocodiles, but it all smells like clean linen.

2. Resa the calm. Considering my lj that sounds ludicrous but in RL people always comment on how calm I am, especially in stressful situations.

3. Drug selling gang bangers get off the sidewalk and call me Ma'm, so I'll have to say no to this one.

4. Horrible tinkly bit of Rimsky-Korsokov. I think it's Sheherezade.

5. I'll get back to you on this in a few years when my kids are old enough to go about unaccompanied.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

1) I do smell things in my dreams, and feel textures. I assumed everyone did when I was younger, but that's not the case; still, I'm always slightly surprised.

2) I would probably be Velma the Word-Seeker, because I'm always modifying my speech, looking for the right words. You would be, perhaps, questioning Marissa, and DDB might be DDB of the Open Gaze.

3) Some strangers do talk to me, because the invisible-to-me sigil above my head says, "I can reassure you about your sexual idiosyncracies, and steer you to others who share it." In a bar, the person into Roman showers, or bondage, or tickling videos will somehow tune in on me, and subtly steer a conversation that way.

4) "Goodbye Joe," by Laura Nyro.

5) 23 July 2006? Work, then home. 23 June 1997? Home musing about the last sex with a former lover, and wondering just how much of a mistake it had been. Which 23rd do you mean?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Which 23rd is always up for discussion when my parents ask this question as their joke-interrogation -- we have been known to give answers like, "Wrapping the last of the Christmas presents. Oh, I'm sorry, didn't you mean December 23, 1989?"

I used to assume everybody smelled things in dreams, too, because that's what you do, but apparently it's not what one does, not generally, so I thought I'd ask.

And I can see a particular Davidish expression that could very easily be described as Open Gaze, to say nothing of the photographic tie-ins, so that's a good one indeed.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

1) Only occasionally, though I experience phantom smells when awake. (I know they're phantom 'cause they last more than one breath)

2) Kev the confident? or maybe over-confident, though 'foolish' fits better at times. ?confidant? Kev-the-grey is pretty well gone though, except for my online handle.

3) Almost never. I think it has to do with my looking through/past most people when I'm out and about. If I made eye-contact more often I might get talked to more.

4) the opening theme to Shaun of the Dead. da-dant, dant, dant, da-da-dit-dant...

5a) At home, reading in bed. 5b) My parents never talk like cops, they're more prone to brittle 'isn't it funny of me to ask this this way?' questions I either flatly don't answer or reply in joking kind. Family gatherings are just hella fun.

Remember the bit in Twister? Where Dusty is welcoming Bill back? take that level of joy/excitement/adulation, change the words to "The Intense!" and that's about how I'd tag you in a saga, were I to write one of your life.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Umm. Smells often last longer than one breath for me.

I loved Kev the Grey while he was around, but I'm still glad you've moved on. (Confidante is the one that means people tell you stuff, in case that's what the bit in question marks means.)

You remember about how I found out I was intense? I had a similar experience in e-mail conversation recently: someone was asking if I'd met one of their friends at Minicon, describing her as "intense," and I had met the person in question and had not particularly noticed that she was intense, except to note that I didn't have to worry about bulldozing her conversationally. That was amusing for both of us, I think.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Rest assured, Kev-the-grey (and I) love you as well. But I'm not sure I loved Kev-the-Grey. He was a tolerably nice fellow, and meant well, but was a bit Emo for my (current) tastes. Though I am not entirely convinced that I've moved all that far beyond him.

I think my biggest change would be a sizable helping of self confidence, and a belief in my self-worth that was pretty much lacking before grad school. Hmm, if I'm going to chew this over it should be in my own journal.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't expect you to love him from here. Maybe in another decade. It's always easier to be charitable towards our past selves from a distance.

bulldozing

[aet.livejournal.com]

I wonder do you keep this just mental?

I am usually visually shy, but somehow I tend to bulldoze people into corners even bodily (somehow men more often than women. And it is not nice suddenly take breath and see the man you have been talking to has not only backed away into corner, but has also crossed his arms protectively ... ouch. I did not mean to do that and the topic was interesting, but not that vital anyway)

Re: bulldozing

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't tend to do this, in part because I would guess that Minnesota is the part of the country that demands the most personal space of all Americans, and in part because many fans tend to demand less personal space than average -- so odds are far better that someone else will move/stand closer than I consider comfortable for how well I know them than vice versa. I am a hugger, and I have no qualms about snuggling up to friends I know well, but that's not really the same context as what you're discussing.

[ckd]

1. I rarely remember dreams, and don't recall any times I noticed smells in those few I did remember.

2. I'd like to say "clever" (or "the Clever" depending on the form chosen) inasmuch as I make my living solving problems and think I'm reasonably good at doing so. For you, I want to say "the Energetic", with the proviso that I wish it to be applicable henceforth. (You hear that, Universe? You're On Notice.)

3. Often to ask directions, because a confidently striding pedestrian is presumed to know how to get to wherever they are trying to go. (The Kendall Square Cinema is a common destination, because it's not in Kendall Square and isn't well signposted.)

4. Probably "Total Eclipse of the Heart" due to the Hurra Torpedo version.

5. The most recent 23rd? At home, because it was Sunday night and I'm boring that way.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The thing I liked best about the Hurra Torpedo version is the total Norwegian straight face of the singer while his bandmates whomped on kitchen implements.

[sculpin.livejournal.com]

1. Only once that I remember, in a vivid nightmare. It was the smell of dead, sour dirt.

2. Cam the Screwball. Or possibly "oracular". When I get tired, I say some cockamamie things, and some small fraction of them have been pretty good.

3. I've been a magnet for racist, sometimes crazy old ladies. They look at pasty-faced me and think I'm a sweet little thing who will surely agree with their offensive and/or insane pronouncements. (Real-life example: black people are ruining this town through systematic parking meter malfunctions.) This hasn't happened for a while, though -- I hope that cutting my hair short has made me look less agreeable.

4. Ojos de Brujo's "Zambra". It's a nice change from the usual sort of thing that goes through my head.

5. I don't recall my mother ever realizing that she's sounded like a cop.

[sculpin.livejournal.com]

2, redux: Oh! I've been described as "serene". Which seems unlikely to me, but apparently that's how I'm perceived. I can only guess that my face just happens to fall that way when I'm not particularly animated.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

1. Pretty sure i have smelled some things in dreams, but i can't remember anything specific.

2. Excitable Tasha; Mrissa the Chronicler; Athenais, Manos de Camera

3. They DO talk to me and i don't like it much at all. i think it's because i radiate "young-cute-single-flirtatious" though i'm really one-to-none of those. It's always guys who are in their 40s and slightly skeevy. i'm happy to talk to other people, especially tourists trying to figure out where they are going in my city.

4. "Tessie" by the Dropkick Murphys. Go fig. With accordion.

5. Boy, i wish i remembered. i know where i was every day surrounding the last 23rd, but not exactly on it. Odd, huh. Maybe i got timenapped.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how one can radiate cute without being cute -- can you expand on that a bit more?

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

Hmmm good question. If i'm one-to-none, the cute is the one i guess, though i don't feel v. cute when i go out of the house. Generally though? Short, blonde, curly hair, not thin or heavy, and face that looks 17. People see those things and think, "Cute!" And then they think the other things. But i think on closer inspection, i'm not as cute as people would think on first glance. Wow, this is very self-involved here, isn't it. :) But there you go. i also do that thing where you smile to make someone go away (very brief way of putting it -- women smiling because they're uncomfortable and want the person to think they're politely blowing them off, but it never works) so i think that contributes too. Also the fact that i encounter 6 total Muni buses/trains per day, all full of people, so my likelihood of getting talked to by strangers goes way up ... because it always happens on Muni.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It was a self-involving question, so don't worry. Anyway, yes, I know the "smiling to make people go away" thing, but I often make it work by saying something tart and...finishing, I guess. While smiling.

When I rode BART regularly, I would often have people talking to me on BART. Here it's more grocery store etc.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

1. I've never thought about it, but I suspect not.
2. I literally have no idea. How do you think I would be tagged?
3. Occasionally, but probably no more often than is "average". And certainly much less often than you.
4. "Mr. Jones" by The Counting Crows (I think Dylan has a similarly named song, but this is not that).
5. No idea.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

1) Nope. I do, however, dream in color, often with plots, and lately when I'm technically awake, so the plots in my head are spooling out as I'm trying to get to sleep. It's annoying.

2) I have been told I am a sweetheart, so 'sweet Dia' (or Cassie) perhaps. Or 'Cassie-Dia the Terrierlike'. On bad days, I am forgotten Cassie. You are Mrissa, with her hounds, because a lot of the time when I think of you it's in conjunction with the smelling and the determination.

None of the others are interesting about me. Alas.