red hair and black leather

1. How old do you wish you were?
Old enough to know better.

2. Where were you when 9/11 happened?
At my temp gig. Went home not long after the first tower fell.

3. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?
Insult the parentage of said vending machine.

( Inside the cut: favorite erogenous zone, Jacuzzis, secret weapons, and other questions of breathtaking inanity! )

Fiday Five for July 14, 2006. (Happy Bastille Day!)

1. What about you makes you unique?
Um... Me being myself? Seriously, everyone's unique.

2. What aspect of your physical appearance do you think makes you stick out from the crowd?
How I present myself. Not entirely original, but eye-catching.

3. What do you always have with you while out in public? (for example, earrings, purse, wallet, watch, etc.)
Rings, earrings, painted nails.

4. Is there anything about your body that you think isn't normal?
What is normal? Seriously? I'm amazingly short-waisted, my knees are shot, I've got scars like woah.... But my skin is really soft, and my eyes are pretty cool.

5. What are you complimented on (looks, smarts, anything) the most? Why do you think that's the case?
Looks. I think it's because we're a very visual species, I have a strong look, and most of my meatspace interactions are in settings that don't allow for the showing off of spicy brains. Not that I have them lately, but whatever.

All right, y'all. I'm bored. Here's lyrics from 20 songs iTunes played me. Guess the song title and artist (no fair searching). All comments are screened.
~*~

( Clicky clicky )

My iTunes selection at work is deliberately limited. I suppose that'll change once I get my iPod....

If you had to choose one genre of music to listen to for the rest of your life - one and only one - which genre would you choose and why?

Me, I'd choose blues. There's an amazing range of styles, and it's the one music that consistently speaks to me. Almost any other genre that I regularly listen to owes a big debt to blues (and soul). I know blues - I can't play it by any means, but my body knows it and responds accordingly, moving along and getting right in that groove.

Interesting....

( Meme inside! )

ganked from scoundrel01

(  50 Things you're dying to know. Or maybe just intensely curious. Mildly interested? )

As forodwaith said, I will never qualify as a foodie or an amateur chef. I am a good baker, and what I believe used to be called a "good plain cook," meaning that six days out of seven I can produce a decent meal from common foodstuffs. I actually prefer cooking at home, because I can make sure there's no random tastes sneaking in. (On the other hand, I just order out for Chinese. Why bother cooking it when I have all of Chinatown just down the street, and they can do it better than I ever could?)

Despite this, like anyone who eats I have some very definite opinions about food.

( Prepared foods I prefer to the real thing )

( Prepared foods I'm convinced are just as good )

( Packaged foods which I will never let past my threshold )

What do you think?

(Okay, now I'm hungry.)

Went up to the Golden Haven Hot Springs Spa in Calistoga with debg, pix_kristin, and fashionista_35. Deb and Barb's generosity made it possible for me to go, and I am profoundly grateful for it. (Side note: I had never seen the words "Motel & Spa" used on the same sign before.) We all had spa treatments - I got a cheapy, the mini-facial, but it was still nice. The best bit was the mineral water pool and spa that was open to all the guests. The hot tub was lovely, but the pool.... oh my. It was bathtub-warm, and the water had so many minerals in it that I could float with minimal effort.

I'm not a good swimmer. I can do the old-lady frog kick, I can do the side stroke, and I can do the back stroke. Anything else - anything that requires my face going in the water - triggers a panic reflex in me. It took all I had to swim underwater for a paltry few seconds. Strange for a water sign, eh? However, in this water, I felt safer. I could allow myself to float on my back and do the minimum necessary to keep my face out of the water. I still couldn't relax all the way, but I could let myself be, for precious seconds at a time.

That's something I've not been able to do for almost four months now - let myself just be. Actually, probably longer, considering there were more than a few emotional storms all the way through 2005. I didn't quite accomplish it, and Sunday was majorly fraught (tears and everything! Yay!), but I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere.

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For the past 6 years, I watched the Oscars at my friend Karen's house. It's always a big to-do, with people dressing up and food competitions and trivia and prizes. It really hit me hard - the fact that I couldn't be there this year. It was a highlight of my year, every year. It kind of dovetailed with the fact that I'm starting to feel forgotten in MN and invisible here. I know people miss me there, and I know I have people here. But it's the larger slipping away & anonymity that I'm having problems with. And the loneliness. Hoo boy, the loneliness. Ouch.

I have a hard time letting go, this is true. I need to let go of MN and try to keep the friendships there at the same time. 'Tis hard.

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Need to be around normal people again. Must to get involved with a production, pref. one that doesn't take me forever and a day to get to, hence am limiting search to SF directly across the bay. Palo Alto v. nice, but rather far at 11 p.m. Have set up audition and have sent out resumes. Have contacted those whose names I have been given. Next step, volunteering at big theaters and at Theatre Bay Area events. Yes.

(And yes, I called theater people normal. You make your own normality, and mine involves being able to tell stories of actors launching baby dolls into the bassinet, and having said bassinet move two feet, and the hysterics that came after. "Regular" people understand that it's funny. Theater people understand that it's hilarious. I like being admired, but I miss being grokked.

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Thinking I should take a martial art. There's a hapkido dojo up the road from me - anyone have an opinion?

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The very pretty truejavachik lent me her copy of S1 Babylon 5. I'm having a hard time getting into it - it's very.... Trekky. I'll try a few more eps before I give up, though.

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I think I want all of them.

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Finally, a quiz! ( Who wants to live forever? )