|
My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
|
9:19 p.m. - 2014-02-04
When it's been a while since I've set my thoughts and doings into words I've found it helps to do a meme. This one is courtesy of my glorious friend Mary as usual. (Seriously, she has THE best connections to memes.) Put your music player of choice on shuffle and list the first song. If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? Would you take anyone with you? This is a real poser. On one hand I'd love to go all crazy and say it'd be Marrakech or Hanoi (either would be awesome) but honestly? I'd like to go back to Disney World. This time sans kids and just have Mick. I'd do it up big. Have a fairytale wedding with the coach and wear a poufy sparkly dress. Then spend the next week park hopping wearing those silly mouse ears for newlyweds. See all the parades and go on all the rides. Have a swank dinner at the Grand Floridian one night and do the princess brunch at Cinderella's castle and party down at Pleasure Island. Just get my dork on in total Walt Wonder bliss. And play in a way my life's not afforded me the chance to so far. What is your preferred writing implement? (e.g. Blue pen, pencil, green pen) After my computer? A medium point Bic. The clear ones. Black ink. On wide-ruled notebook paper. When did you go on your first trip alone (without your parents)? Technically it wasn't my very first trip, but it's the one I remember best. In October of 1981 I was living in Texas. I got a call that Gidget, my little sister, was in critical condition and it was uncertain that she'd live out the weekend. ????? There was no way she could die without me being there. Unable to get the scratch for a plane ticket I drove. I'd had my driver's license for less than a month and yet I drove 2,200 miles by myself from just north of San Antonio to Hometown, NY in 39 hours. It was a first for many things. First time I'd driven any distance. First time I stayed in a motel room by myself. (A cruddy but handy to the interstate dump in Nashville, TN) It was also the first time I'd been home since I'd left almost a year before and I was unsure of the reception I'd receive when I got there. In those dark dim days before cell phones I drove in a swelter of anxiety as to whether my kid sister was still alive, my phone calls from roadside payphones were answered by my parents' answering machine, I guess they were at the hospital with Gidget. It was coming down dark on my second day on the road and I was still south of Roanoke, VA with almost 800 miles to go before I was home and I was tired and scared and had this awful feeling I was going to be too late. Then I was granted a miracle. I had exactly one cassette tape with me (Queen's 'Night at the Opera') and was restlessly hunting the radio dial for something besides Queen to listen to when some weird bounce off the ionosphere brought me a voice I'd not heard in a long, long time. It was Cousin Brucie broadcasting on WABC. A boon too amazing to believe. Yet there he was. My first taste of home in ever so long. Coming in over my Honda's speakers in all his oh so familiar comforting glory. Cousin Brucie told me it was 6:20pm, the temp in Central Park was 46 degrees and I was truly really listening to him on WABC. With many, many long hard miles to go I took it as an omen. I was going to make it. I was going to get home. And Gidget was going to be alive when I got there. I did. She was. It was all kinds of fine. Do you have connections to any celebrities (even minor)? List them. This is tough. I have friends who are respected scholars and experts in their fields. Living in proximity to NYC I casually know many folk who work in media and theater. Several of my friends are published authors. I know magicians and musicians and music producers. I know healers and dealers and a couple notorious Mafiosi. My friends include artists, TV chefs, and attorneys who present cases to the Supreme Court. Yet I am a big old fan dork and the highlight of my year is shelling out hard currency to get photo ops at fan-cons. There are all kinds of levels of celebrity and I hesitate to say who is above who in the 'famous folk' pantheon. I'm not being coy, truly, it's just complicated. Name 3 items you could pick up from where you are. A backscratcher. My savings account passbook. And a hand puppet named Lim�n. How would you describe your sense of humor? Almost non-existent. Sha, sha, I know I have an amusing turn of phrase. And am well-able to tolerate a broad range of personality quirks which others find pretentious/annoying/criminal. So in a larger sense I have a sense of humor when it comes to being easy on other people and their shit, but finding the funny? Nope, I suck at that. I don't think pratfalls, humiliations, disasters, flubs, or otherwise metaphorical pies-in-the-face funny AT ALL. I make too many mistakes of my own, you see, to laugh at other people who screw up. In my view 'America's Funniest Home Videos' might as well be called 'America's Most Sadistic Videos'. Where is the funny in another's pain? What joy should I take in someone else's downfall? Sure, I enjoy a good pun or a clever metaphor, but the majority of what other people think is a hoot leaves me in sympathetic tears. I'm dumb that way. Do you ever play board games or other non-computer games? Got any favorites? I adore analogy games like 'Apples to Apples' and 'Cards Against Humanity'. I kick ass at trivia and describing games. I do okay at most family board games like Parcheesi and Monopoly. I like 'Twister' with the right company. And rock 'Pictionary'. I've yet to walk away from a gambling table (be it Atlantic City blackjack or a friend's penny-ante poker game) with less than I sat down with. Yet I can't play chess worth a doodly-squat. Risk? Leave me in Australia and ignore me, I am not a helpful ally. Any kind of spatial or strategy game and I am a total waste of space. I suck at the planned assault and the long view. A musical artist you love that isn�t well known. They've since inched onto the mainstream but I've been a fan of Gogol Bordello for years. A musical artist you love that is well known. Joan Jett. The woman inspires me. What is your desktop background currently? A downloaded slideshow of pics from the Isle of Mann. Last person you talked to, and what you talked to them about. Wolf. Shoveling the driveway. It's icy and rutted and we're due for more snow tomorrow. Ick. What do you carry your money in? A long wallet. It's bright orange. A deliberate purchase so I can find it easily in the dark black cave of my purse. Btw? I get tons of compliments on it. All the constants in my purse are gaudy. The clip-on shades for my glasses live in a purple leopard-spotted hard case. Make-up in a see-through case dotted with pink lipstick kisses. Tissues, lens wipes, misc papers live in a shocking pink Chinese silk zipper bag. I loathe digging and dredging through my handbag to find things. The brightly colored 'stuff' bags allow me to use my purse contents with ease. What timekeeping devices are in the room you are currently in? Computer, of course. Plus an analog clock imbedded in a heart-shaped box with the Tin Man on it. And a rather goth-y pocket watch on a neck chain. What kind of headphones do you use? Bose, baby. A Christmas gift from Mick. I also have Skull Candy neck-wrap 'phones, and a pair of nifty Barbie headphones I got at Hot Topic. Ear buds of any sort do NOT work for me. Weirdly shaped ear holes. What musical artists have you seen perform live? Tons of local bands. Just the other day I was talking to Wolf about how the late 1970s were the heyday of garage/bar bands and how we had live music at my high school's weekly dances. I just don't think kids get together and wail like they used to. As far as 'name' acts go: Weird Al; the Ramones; Blood, Sweat and Tears; Chicago; Marshall Tucker Band; Elton John; the Beach Boys; the Dead Elvii; Uriah Heep; Blue Oyster Cult; Tom Waits; Sheila E; Pete Seeger; the Bacon Brothers; Santana; Rod Stewart; ZZ Top; Joan Jett; Marvin Hamlich; Leon Redbone; the Dropkick Murphys; Timbuk 3; Red Hot Chili Peppers; Meatloaf; Charlie Daniels; Solange Demon; and Yo-Yo Ma, among others. How often do you clear your browser history? Rarely. This is MY machine. I do, however, clear my history (if I can) before a tech visit from Anatoly- my personal tech from the Geek Squad. Not so much as to hide anything, it's more like how I clean my house and stash my tampons in the can before company comes over. Some things aren't necessarily wrong just private and polite to put away. What�s the best job you�ve ever had? Wow. I am finding this question surprisingly tough to answer. The criteria is open to interpretation. Most money? Selling cars. Most life skills learned? Landscaping/waiting tables. Most autonomy? Managing a kaleidoscope shop. Most fun? Owning my own bookstore. Hardest yet most rewarding? Being a mom. Best (funniest) stories? Delivering pizzas. Most self-worth on the line? Being a writer. What�s the worst job you�ve ever had? That's easy. Being my ex-husband's wife. What magazines do you read, if any? On paper? Very few. Online? Many. The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, the Atlantic, Newsweek, NYT Magazine, Cracked, and many other non-traditional 'magazines' but in my mind are what a magazine is- namely a compilation of stories on various topics by many contributors such as: Jezebel, the HuffPo, the Daily Beast, Scary Mommy, and Slate. Kudos to those who made it all the way to the end. I know memes are a little lame and I unloaded a big budget of yadda with this one, but lately life has been crazy volatile yet strangely static and nearly impossible to discuss in such an open forum. My days of barfing every and any thought/feeling are long past and I've become if not reticent at least circumspect with what I park here.
|
