Question meme and life-living update
Jan. 24th, 2009 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissaThe question meme has come around again on the guitar. You know the drill: ask me five questions or comment asking to have me ask you five questions. Or both. And then pass it on. This batch of five is from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
azhure:
1 - What book would you like to have written?
Copper Mountain. Wow, do I ever wish that thing was finished. Most of the stuff I write, I like writing. I already did a disastrous draft of that one, and doing another draft is not as appealing as it could be, even though there are things about it that seem like they might be good fun.
2 - When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer. I win! Also a physicist. Tried that; it was not a good temperamental fit. Before I knew what a physicist was/did by name, I was mostly groping around trying to figure out how to tell people that was what I wanted to do.
3 - What would you like to change about the world?
So many things, uff da. Not only are there, as the fella points out, people wrong on the internet, they're doing it off the internet, too! And then there are the things that aren't anybody's doing that suck anyway. What I want is for everybody to have the room to think in the long-term. I don't think we'd come up with the same wants (or even the same idea of what things were wants vs. needs) if that was the case, but it'd sure be interesting, and a lot less frustrating than reading over and over again of historical figures making short-term choices that went really badly over the long-run. Starving people do not have a lot of room for the long view. Nor do people with contaminated water supplies or viciously oppressive governments or any of a number of ills. I think the quality of problems we'd have if everybody had the room to draw breath and think would be a higher and more interesting quality of problems.
4 - What dead historical figure would you like to meet?
Today we're going to go with Lise Meitner. Tomorrow it would be different.
5 - What do you regret the most?
Okay, that one's a little more personal than I care to share in specific detail on the internet. Suffice it to say that there was something that, while perfectly true, never needed to be said to the person I said it to. Mostly I don't spend a lot of time on regrets, because the past is not the bit I can control, the present and the future are. So apologizing for bad behavior, analyzing why it went wrong if there's a question, and trying to do better in the future in specific, concrete ways seems a lot more productive than regretting.
So anyway. You know how this goes. Ask me, or I'll ask you.
So. Where are we on the list I made on January 1?
1. Finish What We Did revisions. In progress.
2. Finish The True Tale of Carter Hall draft. In progress.
5. Finish "Pillars of Salt and String," "The Radioactive Etiquette Book," and "The Curvature of Every Disorder." In progress.
6. Finish "The Witch's Second Daughter" and "Twelve Things You Don't Know About Dryads." In progress.
9a. Learn three Scarlatti sonatas. In progress on one.
13. Substituted mango into Yucatan chicken recipe. Done. It was...fine. The peach version is really very much better, even for peaches at the end of peach season that are in no way optimal peaches. I don't know that we'll be doing the mango thing again.
14. and 17. were already done last time.
18. Continue to attempt to keep Rice Paper and Pumphouse Creamery in business singlehandedly. In progress. This one isn't going to be "done" this year, assuming that both businesses stay in business at all, which we of course hope they will. This evening's dinner reservations are at Rice Paper, and Pumphouse got our business yesterday.
19. Try at least four new-to-us restaurants: In progress: one tried. a) Manana Pupuseria in St. Paul. Not recommended until spring. I had a nice plantain but the pupusa I had was pretty dull. So it's on my "fine but not great" list--except that it was really, really, no I mean it REALLY cold. Keeping my coat on through dinner was nothing like enough. So if you're interested in trying it out, either get takeout or wait until there's a lasting thaw.
21. Food Safari outing just made the calendar! This is another ongoing one. But still, it's ongoing actively rather than merely theoretically. So that's a win.
29a. Read Tony Hillerman series. In progress. Finished Skinwalkers this week.
30. Catch up on Numb3rs. In progress. I started S4 yesterday and will watch two more in a few minutes. Uff da, the end of S3!
31. Find another DVD series to love. In progress. Tried a few things I did not love, ordered one thing I might love, talked through some other ideas with people and put items on my library list.
41. Make charitable donations early this year. Done.
43. Ask for help when it would be a good idea to do so. Heh. Ongoing. I think I would get stern glares if I scored that one as done.
46. Swedish meatballs with great-aunt and -uncle. Done. We went yesterday. I am only scoring this one as done because we might decide to have pannekoekens one of these days instead, not because I am done lunching with my great-aunt and -uncle for the year.
47. Saturday Morning Doughnuts with folks. Daddy brought doughnuts while Mom was out of town for the funeral, and then they both did this morning. So that one is done, too, in the sense that we might decide to make it bagels next time.
azhure:1 - What book would you like to have written?
Copper Mountain. Wow, do I ever wish that thing was finished. Most of the stuff I write, I like writing. I already did a disastrous draft of that one, and doing another draft is not as appealing as it could be, even though there are things about it that seem like they might be good fun.
2 - When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer. I win! Also a physicist. Tried that; it was not a good temperamental fit. Before I knew what a physicist was/did by name, I was mostly groping around trying to figure out how to tell people that was what I wanted to do.
3 - What would you like to change about the world?
So many things, uff da. Not only are there, as the fella points out, people wrong on the internet, they're doing it off the internet, too! And then there are the things that aren't anybody's doing that suck anyway. What I want is for everybody to have the room to think in the long-term. I don't think we'd come up with the same wants (or even the same idea of what things were wants vs. needs) if that was the case, but it'd sure be interesting, and a lot less frustrating than reading over and over again of historical figures making short-term choices that went really badly over the long-run. Starving people do not have a lot of room for the long view. Nor do people with contaminated water supplies or viciously oppressive governments or any of a number of ills. I think the quality of problems we'd have if everybody had the room to draw breath and think would be a higher and more interesting quality of problems.
4 - What dead historical figure would you like to meet?
Today we're going to go with Lise Meitner. Tomorrow it would be different.
5 - What do you regret the most?
Okay, that one's a little more personal than I care to share in specific detail on the internet. Suffice it to say that there was something that, while perfectly true, never needed to be said to the person I said it to. Mostly I don't spend a lot of time on regrets, because the past is not the bit I can control, the present and the future are. So apologizing for bad behavior, analyzing why it went wrong if there's a question, and trying to do better in the future in specific, concrete ways seems a lot more productive than regretting.
So anyway. You know how this goes. Ask me, or I'll ask you.
So. Where are we on the list I made on January 1?
1. Finish What We Did revisions. In progress.
2. Finish The True Tale of Carter Hall draft. In progress.
5. Finish "Pillars of Salt and String," "The Radioactive Etiquette Book," and "The Curvature of Every Disorder." In progress.
6. Finish "The Witch's Second Daughter" and "Twelve Things You Don't Know About Dryads." In progress.
9a. Learn three Scarlatti sonatas. In progress on one.
13. Substituted mango into Yucatan chicken recipe. Done. It was...fine. The peach version is really very much better, even for peaches at the end of peach season that are in no way optimal peaches. I don't know that we'll be doing the mango thing again.
14. and 17. were already done last time.
18. Continue to attempt to keep Rice Paper and Pumphouse Creamery in business singlehandedly. In progress. This one isn't going to be "done" this year, assuming that both businesses stay in business at all, which we of course hope they will. This evening's dinner reservations are at Rice Paper, and Pumphouse got our business yesterday.
19. Try at least four new-to-us restaurants: In progress: one tried. a) Manana Pupuseria in St. Paul. Not recommended until spring. I had a nice plantain but the pupusa I had was pretty dull. So it's on my "fine but not great" list--except that it was really, really, no I mean it REALLY cold. Keeping my coat on through dinner was nothing like enough. So if you're interested in trying it out, either get takeout or wait until there's a lasting thaw.
21. Food Safari outing just made the calendar! This is another ongoing one. But still, it's ongoing actively rather than merely theoretically. So that's a win.
29a. Read Tony Hillerman series. In progress. Finished Skinwalkers this week.
30. Catch up on Numb3rs. In progress. I started S4 yesterday and will watch two more in a few minutes. Uff da, the end of S3!
31. Find another DVD series to love. In progress. Tried a few things I did not love, ordered one thing I might love, talked through some other ideas with people and put items on my library list.
41. Make charitable donations early this year. Done.
43. Ask for help when it would be a good idea to do so. Heh. Ongoing. I think I would get stern glares if I scored that one as done.
46. Swedish meatballs with great-aunt and -uncle. Done. We went yesterday. I am only scoring this one as done because we might decide to have pannekoekens one of these days instead, not because I am done lunching with my great-aunt and -uncle for the year.
47. Saturday Morning Doughnuts with folks. Daddy brought doughnuts while Mom was out of town for the funeral, and then they both did this morning. So that one is done, too, in the sense that we might decide to make it bagels next time.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 01:34 pm (UTC)2) Which is your favorite ballpark to visit?
3) Which ballpark would you like to visit next?
4) If someone made you pick a new team name for the Giants, what would it be?
5) What smells like home to you?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 04:55 pm (UTC)1a. The Aurora Public library in Colorado (main branch). I spent a lot of weekend days there with my dad when it was rainy. A huge, spacious place with crazy architecture! I miss it a lot now and I think it too is renovated and I probably wouldn't recognise the inside anymore.
2.
The MetrodomeWell, actually it's Mays Field, (http://www.maysfield.org/) or what the rest of the universe calls AT&T Park. I know every inch of it.3. *ponder, ponder* It's all tied up with associations. Can't wait to see
4. Oh dear. OH DEAR. TK's Man-Servants? OK, no. The Crazy Crabs (http://www.rehabthecrab.com/). The Seals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Seals_(baseball)), to honor the past. Could always go with the Gnats -- only need to change a few letters on the jerseys. But my best answer is the San Francisco Treats.
5. Black currant tea.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 05:38 pm (UTC)I love our Wild. You know I love our Wild. But what kind of a name is that, the Minnesota Wild? The Minnesota Wild what? And then they got a mascot who is an...animal. Yes, I think it's fairly safe to say that Nordy is an animal. I am almost certain that, unlike the Stanford mascot or Mr. Green, he is not a plant. But that's about all I can say about him.
In The True Tale of Carter Hall, the state has been given over to the Wild Hunt, which is a scarier answer for Wild what than many, but it works, I think. (This is what happens when you try to move Polaris.)
Anyway, point being: I think that a lot of new team names in various sports are really pretty dumb. Probably this is because I am used to the Dodgers and the Athletics, so they don't sound as dumb to me as they ought.
[Coal and Iron-Filled] Barge!
Date: 2009-02-04 10:49 pm (UTC)=2= Forbes Field
=3= If I build it, they will come.
=4= "No, we're not the New York Giants anymore."
=5= Air as sulfurous as the podium at the U.N. when Hugo Chavez dropped by to visit, mixed with Heinz pickles.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 04:55 pm (UTC)2) What Mpls-area restaurant would you recommend?
3) What's the most interesting food you've had recently?
4) What's on your desk?
5) In what areas have you noticed that others applying the Golden Rule to you goes badly (that is, where do you not want most people doing unto you as they would be done by, because your tastes are so different)?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 04:57 pm (UTC)2) What's the newest thing you own?
3) Do you have a favorite park in the Mpls area?
4) What would an ideal party look like for you?
5) What's the strangest question a small child has ever asked you?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-28 03:25 pm (UTC)2) What's the worst movie you've seen?
3) Looking back, who is one person you would have treated nicer in High School and why?
4) If given the chance would you like to know the day of your death?
5) Do you put water on your toothbrush before or after applying the toothpaste?
The Drill
Date: 2009-02-04 10:51 pm (UTC)Re: The Drill
Date: 2009-02-05 01:03 pm (UTC)1. What's the item that always seems to be on your to-do list (whether it's actually a list or just a notional list)?
2. Which US state have you not visited but would like to? If you've visited all of them, which one would you like to return to?
3. Do you object to people ending sentences with prepositions? If not, what, if anything, is your point of semi-pointless grammar snobbery?
4. Is there a musician or group you don't hear quite enough of in your current life?
5. If climate and room were no object and you had a dedicated gnome gardener working for free, what fresh produce would you most like to have available outside your door for the picking?
Re: The Drill
Date: 2009-02-06 05:32 am (UTC)=1= Make a dent in my stack of things to read (physical and online).
=2= Still haven't made it to Hawaii!
=3= The only true answer to the first part is, "It depends." For me it's mostly a matter of the way the sentence feels like it would sound. My snobbery, such as it is, is limited to what little I know and the aesthetics of how it sounds, which is of course totally unfair. So I'd have to say it has a semi-point rather than a point.
... Also, I hang around with editors and linguists and I just want to fit in. I strongly suspect that they can see right through me, though.
=4= Probably, and I bet I haven't discovered who he/she/they is/are yet!
=5= Cacao isn't really produce, is it? I'm really into greens, so I'd have to go with greens (broccoli rabe if I have to limit it).