25 things

[mrissa]

arkuat and the_overqual tagged me to list 25 random things about myself. I never get tagged in any meme, so I figure I'd better do this one. I don't know that it will be provably random, though. Possibly it will even be provably non-random.

1. I like structure, but not arbitrary structure. This has recently led to jokes about what life would be like if bishops had not survived the Cambrian Explosion; I blame rysmiel for that bit. (Mostly if it relates to the Cambrian Explosion, I blame rysmiel or the_overqual. It's useful to know who your go-to people are on these things.)

2. I look forward to the mail. I don't know why, since it mostly has bills in it, and acceptance letters mostly come in my e-mail box these days. But I do.

3. Eight is my favorite number. It's the smallest cube. It's a very good number.

4. The eighth book down on my fiction pile is Carolyn Ives Gilman's Halfway Human, but I never read my fiction pile in order. It's just stacked that way so that the mass market paperbacks are on top and the big thick hardbounds are on the bottom.

5. I hate having stuff on my desk. The book piles are all right, because they're off on the edge of my desk where they officially belong. But in general I put things on my desk in order to drive me crazy, so that I will have motivation to take care of them and get them off my desk again.

6. Managing my library list is an ongoing task. I'm a little annoyed with the library's online software for making sure that I have to herd multiple lists with expiration dates rather than just letting me have one big list that stays attached to my card number. I suddenly wonder if they feel that this is a moral point regarding the Patriot Act or some such piece of filth: that if they don't keep my list attached to my card number, they can't ever be asked to cough it up. Still. Inconvenient.

7. I wear a watch. I don't know why I wear a watch: there are clocks in every non-bathroom room of the house except the music room, and I don't look at my watch in the music room anyway, because I'm playing the piano, not watching the time. Still, there it is. Probably it's easier than categorizing watches as similar to hats and shoes and coats, things to be put on when I'm about to leave. (And when I leave I have the cell phone, which tells time. So I don't know.)

8. I used to think I didn't like pancakes. Now I know I simply don't like pancakes with maple syrup. Which is weird, because I like maple syrup. (Not maple-flavored syrup, though.)

9. I used to think I didn't like shrimp. Now I know I simply don't like the vast majority of shrimp types in the vast majority of preparation types. Much better!

10. I keep trying things I don't like, in case I like them now. Mostly I don't. See, for example, coconut, pineapple, and celery. This has not paid off well practically, on the average, but it has a philosophical appeal I can't really shake.

11. I really like the look of wet ink. Wet wall paint leaves me more or less indifferent. Wet oil paint annoys me, because it takes forever to dry again, and mostly when I was oil painting on things it was on journal covers. Now I mostly don't paint my own journal covers any more (because I'm using a different kind of journal, less conducive to it), and if I did, I'd use acrylics. I like acrylics.

12. My family used to call Grape Nuts "mrissa Chow," because it was my most fundamental food. Just a little milk, no sugar or honey or anything like that. Usually when I have Grape Nuts for lunch or dinner, it means that's all I thought I could eat, but it's still a happy thing, because I got some food in me.

13. I cannot help but look at how clothing will wear with washing. Cannot help it. When I see a skirt with sequins on it, I invariably see how it would look with four or five of the sequins off and a few more hanging by threads. Some people would not notice this. I would. Which is why, you will note if you see me often and watch carefully, I own nothing with beading, sequins, or any kind of embroidery that isn't extremely sturdy.

14. Also it isn't really my kind of thing.

15. I wish it was easier to convey "not my kind of thing" to people without having to worry that they are hearing "evil sick and wrong" instead.

16. I am right-handed. This is not something people think to mention, but it's true.

17. I am also right-footed.

18. I try not to bring it up in February and after, lest some of my loved ones feel the urge to kill me, but I never get sick of snow. Never. In March when everyone else is groaning, "Oh lordy lou, are we not done with this already?", I keep my mouth shut so as not to mock their pain and invite them to thump me, even metaphorically speaking. But inside I am going, "Wheeeeeee," in the very small voice gaaldine uses on roller coasters.

19. Others of my loved ones also provide certain parts of my internal soundtrack. Sort of as metaphors, really. Being happy like gaaldine on a roller coaster is very different from being happy like scottjames making fun of Jeff or being happy like my mom when someone else thinks I'm cool like she thinks I'm cool. Which is even different from being happy like my dad when someone else thinks I'm cool like he thinks I'm cool. The internal soundtrack has nuance.

20. And fanfares. And theme songs. And Samuel L. Jackson doing blues riffs.

21. If I had to play a brass instrument, it would be the French horn, but I'm really just as glad no one is holding my loved ones at gunpoint and demanding that I play a brass instrument.

22. If I had to repaint this office, I would probably go for a very deep coniferous green, but I'm happy with the cobalt blue it is instead.

23. If I had to design an ideal cover for one of my books, I would be very sad and curl into a little ball and moan about why oh why had they laid off the nice art department whose job it was to think about this stuff so I didn't have to. I know that for some writers this is like showing up at someone's house for dinner and finding they've made your favorite dish all wrong. For me it's like they have promised me that when I add on an extra room to my house, elves will clean it for me free of charge. And even let me thank them. I don't think this is just because I haven't sold a book, either, because I have felt this way about short story design and illustrations: my reactions have ranged from Wow, that is so cool! at the high end to Yay, I didn't have to do it myself! at the low end.

24. I'm always happy when I get illos, though, because it makes my grandmother so happy. She feels like people like my work more and respect it more if they illustrate it.

25. I am a dreaded, disgusting morning person. This has only gotten worse with the vertigo. I am trying to make matinee plans for all theatrical and musical events that allow that, because I know that no matter how much I'm enjoying the event, I will struggle with staying awake in the second half.

Comments

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Re #13, I have been attempting to cultivate this habit with considerable success in recent years, because I have frequently been burned by not paying attention to it (although not with sequins or embroidery, per se, because, #14). It strikes me as a good habit.

How does one tell what-footed they are? I don't think I realized there was even such a thing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's a lot easier if you're not paying attention, because if you're paying attention, you have a lot of observer effect. But if you're in a situation where someone says, "Take a step forward," or "Kick one foot out," or similar, which one do you go with first? If you were to start running, which foot would you start on?

Some people don't have a strong preference. Doing PT has shown me that I really, really do.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I believe the standard is how you run up to and kick a ball sitting still in a known spot.

So are you also right-eyed? I'm right-handed and -footed, but left-eyed. This makes rifles somewhat more complicated to shoot; I mostly just use my right eye for that. It's also why I got the motor-winder for my Nikon FM (the wind lever had to stick out into my right eye to have the meter on otherwise).

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

10. This is my philosophy, too. It doesn't always work for me--I try lobster, frex, every other year or so to see whether I like it yet, and I never do--but there are a bunch of things that I've come around on (beets!). So fight the good fight, etc.

12. My parents were so proud of me when I would eat Grape Nuts when I was little. Then they discovered that I was putting like a cup of sugar in.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I would almost always rather have crab when lobster is put in something.

I mostly still dislike beets except for beet salads at Hungarian restaurants. So good. Would really like some of that again.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

I knew there were many reasons I liked you. I did not realize that the number 8 was one of them. But it totally is. :) And we agree on pancakes. Syrup makes them soggy and you lose both the pancake flavor and the fluffy texture in a soggy squishy mess. I like maple syrup (on sausage, in candy) but pancakes with syrup is one of those things that is less than the sum of its parts.

You lose me at the snow, though. I live where it Does Not Snow on purpose.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I know, I know. California: the anti-Narnia. (Sometimes Christmas but never winter.)

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Cambrian Exposion humour is a kind of specialised field, I grant, but anything for a weird life or an amusing retort.

[carbonel]

I don't ever tag you because I thought I remembered you saying you hated the tagging thing. Otherwise, I would have tagged you for this one.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Nope, I don't hate it. I don't consider it a binding commitment, but I don't hate it.

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

#25: Yes on all counts. That I find myself partners who are intensely committed night owls has some sort of poetic irony to it. Or maybe just a drive for balance on the part of my subconscious.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Quiet alone time in the morning is nice.

[jenett]

Re: #6:

Yes, the tracking thing is a privacy thing: libraries can't be asked to cough up information they don't have. (Well, they can be asked, but it's provably non-useful.)

In terms of tracking multiple cards/multiple library systems, I am very fond of LibraryElf (http://libraryelf.com) which does do all that tracking stuff for you. It does require handing over library barcode and PIN to their service, but you then get a single email

They just recently went to a pay service ($12 a year for the basic, single card, $20 for multicard and some other premium options), but I've used them for something like 4 years with no problems whatsover (and a great deal of better luck tracking what's due when, and when I need to pick up a hold.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do have multiple cards/multiple library systems, but I almost never use the U of M one. The multiple list thing stems from the fact that you can't make a list of longer than ten items in the Dakota County system. Ten items! That's for pikers, is what.

[akitrom.livejournal.com]

Eight is my favorite number. It's the smallest cube. It's a very good number.

Eight is indeed a dear number. But it is the second smallest positive integer cube.


I am right-handed. This is not something people think to mention, but it's true. I am also right-footed.

I echo dd_b: are you right- or left-eyed? Do you shoot archery right- or left-handed? (It makes a difference, I think. I aim with my right hand, so I pull with my left hand to my left eye. This is called shooting "left-handed", for no reason other than the perversion of the universe.)


If I had to play a brass instrument, it would be the French horn, but I'm really just as glad no one is holding my loved ones at gunpoint and demanding that I play a brass instrument.

Two of my music instructors, independently and across two non-adjoining states, assured me that french horn requires so much presure, so consistently, that french horn players are at an elevated risk for strokes and other burst blood vessels.

And all the french horn players I know, and to whom I've expressed this theory, nod sadly. They say nothing; perhaps it is the pressure.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

But it is the second smallest positive integer cube.

Is 1 the smallest?

Considerately,
No Math Girl

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do not, thus far, shoot archery. And I think most of my near and dear are in favor of me continuing to refrain from shooting archery for the near-term at least, for the same reason as I am not allowed to touch my axe.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We discover my eye-edness upthread.

[aliseadae]

Re: 10 I do the same thing. I have discovered that I like cream cheese, non-plain cream cheese, hummus and most recently avocados. I still don't like mushrooms.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am informed that avocados are an acquired taste, but I acquired them so early I don't remember it.

I am picky about hummus. Have you been to Figlio up in Uptown? They have lovely hummuses.

Remind me, do you eat meat? I adore mushrooms, but I have no trouble cooking food for people who don't like mushrooms but eat meat. But one of my favorite vegetarian tricks is portobellos.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

My favorite number is 28, closely followed by 15.

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

*whispers*

I haven't ever gotten sick of snow, either.

Of course that doesn't mean much, as the snowiest place I've ever lived was Boston, which isn't nearly as snowy as some other parts, but yeah -- when my friends were complaining, I kept my mouth shut.

Cool list!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of you earlier this week, as there was much snow and ice. Also Saami people, snowmobiles and reindeer. Also moose and dogsleds. Stockholm turns out to be surprisingly warm, though, and I think MN winters may have come as a sock to early immigrants.

Also I have finally found a variety of shrimp I'm not crazy about, Dublin Bay prawns.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh yah. Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki are all way warmer in winter than Minneapolis, much less International Falls. My cousins thought I was miscalculating the temperature conversion when I was telling them how cold it gets in January here.

[keilexandra]

22. So agreed, on both counts (brass and French horn if forced).