Boring? I've got a surfeit.

Happily, this meme from Kristine features the unspectacular, so I am eminently qualified.

The game works like this:
1) Link to the person who tagged you
2) Mention the rules
3) Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself
4) Tag six other bloggers by linking to them
5) Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that lets them know they’ve been tagged.

The first thing: I don't wash my hair often. Once a week. My hair and I are both happy with this schedule but I don't tell other people about it. Until now.

The second thing: I like it when my dog licks my toes. Luckily he likes it too.

Third thing: I have been thinking about doing a little bit of tooth whitening for about five years now, but I don't know whether you can do it on porcelain crowns, and I haven't gotten around to asking my dentist.

Fourth thing: In order to get to sleep I have to be lying on my stomach with my feet hanging off the end of the bed.

Fifth thing: I have violent and upsetting dreams, all the time.

Sixth thing: I have kept, and I annually read, all the notes my best friend and I passed in high school. There are a lot, and most of them are killingly funny.

I have never tagged before, but now I'm tagging Gwen, Ames, and Stace.

Now You Show Me Yours

On Monday I opened up the mailbox to find this:

It is a beautiful present from my lovely uncles Joe and Dave, who are always so kind to me. They mean me to write, come hell or high water, or children clamouring around me.

To make a good start, I christened this journal with a list of my favourite words. Obviously, this list is a mutable thing - constantly in flux and never fixed.

This particular list was swimming around in my head as I woke up one morning last week: fully formed, as if from the mind of Zeus. I'm afraid I lost half of them by the time I got them written down, but here are those that remained. All are there simply because I like the sound of them...not necessarily what they represent.

-crenellations

-funicular

-trebuchet

-hackneyed

-abstruse

-wonky

-charlatan

-haphazard

-aspidistra

-penumbra

-coronet

Leave your favourite-word list in the comments. Could be favourites for any reason - that you like what they stand for, like how they make you feel, or you just plain think they're euphonic. (Oooh, euphonic! Must add that one.)

I've got some catching up to do.

I decided to do one of these book meme things instead of actually writing a post. YEAH BABY.

I wasn't tagged, but thanks Tara for the idea.

These are the 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. I've read the bold ones, underlined the ones I've started but not finished, and italicised the ones I plan to read.

Also I should note that I have never before been so tempted to lie in a meme.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Anna Karenina

Crime and Punishment

Catch-22

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wuthering Heights

The Silmarillion

Life of Pi: a novel

The Name of the Rose

Don Quixote

Moby Dick

Ulysses

Madame Bovary

The Odyssey

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Eyre

The Tale of Two Cities

The Brothers Karamazov

Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies

War and Peace

Vanity Fair

The Time Traveler’s Wife

The Iliad

Emma

The Blind Assassin

The Kite Runner

Mrs. Dalloway

Great Expectations

American Gods

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Atlas Shrugged

Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books

Memoirs of a Geisha

Middlesex

Quicksilver

Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West

The Canterbury Tales

The Historian: a novel

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Love in the Time of Cholera

Brave New World

The Fountainhead

Foucault’s Pendulum

Middlemarch

Frankenstein

The Count of Monte Cristo

Dracula

A Clockwork Orange

Anansi Boys

The Once and Future King

The Grapes of Wrath

The Poisonwood Bible: a novel

1984

Angels & Demons

The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)

The Satanic Verses

Sense and Sensibility

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Mansfield Park

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

To the Lighthouse

Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Oliver Twist

Gulliver’s Travels

Les Misérables

The Corrections

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Dune

The Prince

The Sound and the Fury

Angela’s Ashes : a memoir

The God of Small Things

A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present

Cryptonomicon

Neverwhere

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Dubliners

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Beloved

Slaughterhouse-five

The Scarlet Letter

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

The Mists of Avalon

Oryx and Crake : a novel

Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed

Cloud Atlas

The Confusion

Lolita

Persuasion

Northanger Abbey

The Catcher in the Rye

On the Road

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values

The Aeneid

Watership Down

Gravity’s Rainbow

The Hobbit

In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences

White Teeth

Treasure Island

David Copperfield

The Three Musketeers

And this concludes the Longest Meme Ever.

# 7

I am notorious for letting my library books become overdue. My largest fine ever was $57.

I am also notoriously good at writing resumes - you know, the spin doctor part. In the last year of university, when I was trying to get a job, I wrote on my CV "Contributing patron to the Greater Victoria Public Library."

Status Quo

"That’s the biggest mess the world has seen!!!”
Mom yelled at me quite loud.
But it’s a new world’s record so you’d think that she’d be proud.

-Gregory K


(copied with implicit permission from here)




Ah, yes. Once again it is Messy Tuesday. I was so disorganised today I almost forgot to post about the disarray. Which, really, is a sign of undoubted success.

Let's start with something nice and light. One might call it an aperitif of disorder.

Toys are kind of a gimme for Messy Tuesday, if you're a household with kids. In this picture I particularly like how the Amy Morris doll is peering up at me like I've just caught her with her hand in the till. Actually her hand is in the lemonade stand. But you'll also note the roll of Christmas wrap, which really ought to be moved. I'll think about that while I show you this:




This is Mr HalfSoledBoots' side of the bed. I like the composition of this photo because a lot of different aspects of our lives are represented. You see the Bible there, in the black case - Religion. You see the blood pressure monitor and the empty Kleenex box - Health. There is the Usborne "Big Book of Picture Puzzles" - Family, and also Education. You see in the upper-left the upside-down witch hat belonging to Emily's Hallowe'en costume - Philosophy. Then there are the urban planning periodicals - Career. Lastly you have a little scrap of quilting fabric wrapped in a promotional band - Hobbies - and a pair of bobby pins - Personal Care.

(Admiring applause?)

I have saved the most desperate mess for last. You will probably think it's no big deal, but here is my craft corner:



I call this a Desperate Mess because of that wicker basket you see there. It's huge. It's about 40 centimeters deep, maybe 50 wide, and probably about 80 long. And it's packed so full that its density is probably distorting the gravitational pull of earth. I briefly thought about doing some calculation on the bulk density of X number of knitting projects in Y amount of space, but stopped when I began to bleed from the ears. Suffice it to say there is a lot of yarn there - the appearance of the topmost layer is deceptive - something like the placid surface of a cauldron pool under which some lethal and seething monster lies dormant.

Interestingly, I have been looking for my headphones for two days and it's only just now that I notice they're on top of the wicker white dwarf.

In the face of the mess - albeit contained - that the wicker basket represents, those sloppy-looking plastic bags, and the cardboard box in which my Starmore kit arrived and in which it still languishes, are laughable.

I showed you mine - now you show me yours.

Addendum:
Meme item number 6: I took first-year Astronomy in university. I got an A- in the course, and an A+ in the lab. It turns out Physics, like a lot of other things, is just about being careful and printing neatly. (Luckily I didn't take it long enough to explore more deeply and find out I am wrong, and stupid.)

Paint and Teeth - find the commonality.

# 5

When I was very small, we went to a rather terrifying dentist who masqueraded as a jolly grandpa type. His office was all painted like Winnie the Pooh (and this was in the 1970's, so it was old-style WtP) with a beautiful tree all up one corner and spreading over the ceiling, and the characters painted here and there over the walls and doors. The waiting room was kind of circular, and the three exam room doors - of the spring-hinge variety, so they stayed closed - opened off the circle. The three doors were painted with Pooh characters on the bottoms - along with grass, flowers, squirrels and other pastoral animals meant to soothe - and with huge numbers in orange on the tops. There were also big bronze dots, about 12 inches across, sort of randomly painted all over them. You got called in to one of these three doors when your moment of reckoning arrived.

I'm 34 years old, and to this bloody day whenever anyone makes some remark like "what's behind door number three?" or "and behind door number two we have..." my stomach clenches in fear just a little bit.

I'm only on Number Four?

#4

I have a dream vacation. Want to know what it is?

I would bring the following things:
-wool
-needles
-a needle gauge/ruler
-a notepad
-pencils
-a laptop equipped with only a word processor
-peanut butter, bread, Mini Wheats and milk, a dozen eggs and some cheddar, and a tin of tea

I would knit, sleep, walk out in the middle of a night of pouring rain, write my Novel, cry rivers of tears, and BE ALONE.

Is that too much to ask?

Didn't think so.

Wonderfully Out of Context

Erudite Mondays at HalfSoled Boots

Volume 2, Number 2

My Uncle Dave (find him in the sidebar under Rellies - he's "Actively Avuncular") tagged me to do this "nearest book" thing where you find the closest book, turn to page 123, and post the fifth through eighth sentences. I'm going to do this, as ever, my way.

Nearest Book of Any Description - Charlotte's Web
"A rat can creep out late at night and have a feast. In the horse barn you will find oats that the trotters and pacers have spilled. In the trampled grass of the infield you will find old discarded lunch boxes containing the foul remains of peanut butter sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, cracker crumbs, bits of doughnuts, and particles of cheese. In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone home to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribblings, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles, partially gnawed ice cream cones, and the wooden sticks of lollypops."

Who's hungry?

Nearest Grownup Book - Household Counts: Canadian Households and Families in 1901
(Page 123 is a map: I had to go to page 153.)

Another way of representing the differences in the social environment between the new world and Europe is to compare how many young people were participating in life-cycle service. Although it was common in eighteenth-century Europe, historians have noted that the tradition of young people leaving home to work for a succession of employers in their teenage years generally declined in the modern era. Hajnal and Berkner both note the prevalence of young servants in western European populations and suggest that between 30 and 40 per cent of males and females at ages 15 to 19 were servants in the eighteenth century. Laslett and Kussmaul have stressed its importance in eighteenth-century England as well.

Who's bored?

Nearest Book Belonging to ME: The Penelopiad
I had a whole run of dreams that night, dreams that have not been recorded, for I never told them to a living soul. In one, Odysseus was having his head bashed in and his brains eaten by the Cyclops; in another, he was leaping into the water from his ship and swiming towards the Sirens, who were singing with ravishing sweetness, just like my maids, but were already stretching out their birds' claws to tear him apart; in yet another, he was making love with a beautiful goddess, and enjoying it very much. Then the goddess turned into Helen; she was looking at me over the bare shoulder of my husband with a malicious little smirk. This last was such a nightmare that it woke me up, and I prayed that it was a false dream sent from the cave of Morpheus through the gate of ivory, not a true one sent through the gate of horn.

Hm. Good one Maggie.

Nearest Book I'm Actually READING: The Odyssey of Homer
These things the famous singer sang for them, but Odysseus, taking in his ponderous hands the great mantle dyed in sea-purple, drew it over his head and veiled his fine features, shamed for tears running down his face before the Phaiakians; and every time the divine singer would pause in his singing, he would take the mantle away from his head, and wipe the tears off, and taking up a two-handled goblet would pour a libation to the gods, but every time he began again, and the greatest of the Phaiakians would urge him to sing, since they joyed in his stories, Odysseus would cover his head again, and make lamentation. There, shedding tears, he went unnoticed by all the others, but Alkinoos alone understood what he did and noticed, since he was sitting next him and heard him groaning heavily. At once he spoke aloud to the oar-loving Phaiakians: 'Hear me, you leaders of the Phaiakians and men of counsel. By this time we have filled our desire for the equal feasting and for the lyre, which is the companion to the generous feast.'

I give Homer props for adjective use. And if you've always wanted to try a classical epic but aren't sure which one to tackle, pick this one. (The Lattimore translation is excellent - see link.)

Book that is Nearest to my Heart: The Hounds of the Morrigan
"But we'd never get it. She'd kill us first."
"Kill us?" said Brigit. She looked around wide-eyed at the idea of anyone even thinking such a thing.

The most wonderful book EVER and EVERYONE should read it.

Book that is Second Nearest to my Heart: A Traveller in Time
"You know who she is?"
I shook my head, not venturing to guess.
"Her blessed Majesty, Mary Queen of Scotland," said he, "My beloved and sacred queen. One day she will be Queen of England, on her rightful throne, and the true religion will come back, and all will be well on earth as in heaven."

I'm getting a bad feeling about this....

===========================

Isn't it amazing what you can say in four sentences? Especially if you punctuate effectively.

Maybe you've noticed.

#3

I have a thing for vampires. Ever since I was a fairly young child I was both drawn to and terrified of them. I remember devouring everything I could find to read about the mythology and mystique of the vampire, then lying in bed in the dark paralysed with fear, repeating in a whisper, "They can't come in unless you invite them." The intimacy of the bite, the thrill of fear, the power of the biter and the powerlessness of the bitten.....all of these things haunted my daydreams - and my nightmares - for years. I suppose it was all part of a young girl's (ahem) awakening, now that I read this paragraph over. (Sorry, Mum. I realise it's possible you'd rather not know that.)

I didn't really notice my vamp obsession until lately, when I was scouring the DVD bins at London Drugs for a copy of Underworld and Underworld Evolution. The movies weren't there, so I stalked over to the Aud-Vid desk and commanded the pimply lackey to order the set. They arrived in short order - four hours of Kate Beckinsale with blue-black hair and fangs. I felt the thrill of victory. I cackled a mad gleeful laugh. Back at home, I lovingly put the DVDs onto the shelf that holds my favourite movies, sat back and read the titles over: Underworld. Underworld Evolution. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Chosen Collection. Angel: the Series. Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Hm.

Sheltered? maybe.

My sister used to torture the neighbour's kitten, Mighty, by dressing him up and strapping him into her doll buggy. Apparently her cruel sadistic streak has only been repressed, not eliminated.

#2
This is the story of ten of the most awkward minutes of my life.

One night, while I was in university, my friend Diane and I were walking back to my place from the club where we had gone dancing. She wanted to stop at 7/11 for a cup of coffee, but had a lit cigarette which she wasn't allowed to bring inside. She handed it to me and said "here, hold this". I stood there outside the 7/11 while she bought her coffee at 2.45 AM, holding a lit cigarette like it was a stick of dynamite. I tried to look natural - you know, like it wasn't my FIRST TIME holding a cigarette at the age of 21 - but was fascinated by the ominous death-stick in my fingers. After a few minutes, when I was growing increasingly worried about the glowing red ring creeping ever closer to my hand, a kid about 15 approached and asked if he could bum a cigarette. I looked up in surprise and said automatically, "I don't smoke."

He looked at the cigarette in my hand. Looked up at me. Said "F*ck you, lady."

Half a Loaf.

The first order of business was to write another book review, seeing as how it's been several weeks since I posted one. Now that's done, I need to address some of the comments from last week.

Firstly, Anna, I feel that as far as Lorna's Laces go, beggars shouldn't be choosers. That said, I have only ever tried the Shepherd Sock, and haven't even petted any other types of Lorna's Laces. I do like lace knitting, though, and have heard good things about the Helen's Lace. If you are TRULY SERIOUS about sending me some, I can only thank you happily and dash away furtive tears of joy. I love red, pink, blue, green, grey and purple.

Secondly, yes I belly dance. It's great fun and very affirming from a feminist perspective. It's not easy to get over stage fright, but I wouldn't like to think I had given up an interesting and enriching life experience just because I was worried that people would laugh at me. I've been mocked many times in my life, and have come to the conclusion that people will do it even (maybe especially) if you're fully clothed, sitting in the corner quietly, and trying not to be noticed. So you might as well put body glitter on, don a sparkly costume, slide cymbals on your fingers, and jump up on the stage.

Thirdly, I have been tagged for another meme. I've come to a more mature perspective on memes, and no longer feel that they are necessarily Of The Devil. Therefore, I give you seven more things, courtesy of Annalea, who tagged me. But I will stretch the meme out over the next few posts because I can only think of one, right now. Surely by tomorrow some more will come to me.

1. I have this recurring fantasy where I hide in the library until they lock it for the night, and I spend all night in there drifting through the stacks, lying on the floor reading random bits of random books, and nobody bothers me. It gets dark and maybe it rains (our library has a leaky roof right over the children's section) and I eventually end up in the occult section, freaking myself out with spooky books like you'd find in the Sunnydale High library. Flashes of blinding lightning illuminate the towering stacks like angular, monochromatic gargoyles.

How's that?

D-Day.

An interesting thing happened after I posted the R.I.P. Meme challenge. There was a short but eerie silence around the blog, then over the next two days I got three emails:

I was going to do your meme, but I tried and couldn't think of anything good to say.

I recently had a loss in my family so this is too close to home for me.

I took a stab at it but didn't like the process...I feel a little jinxed by the idea.

Then, yesterday, I received this:

Liked your idea immensely...thank you for being brave enough to put yourself out there and challenging us to do the same. I don't have anywhere to publish my attempt but I thought I would share.
Attached: "All Saints Day" eulogy.

It was such an honour to receive this piece, from someone who mostly lurks but has commented twice. I read it with so much interest and sympathy, and found myself exclaiming "Hey! Me too!" while reading it.

Olga put up her eulogy the other day...it's a real roller-coaster of emotion: read with caution. The most enthusiastic participant, Jenny, (private blog) has yet to post hers. And I have a promise from Jared and a cautious commitment from Ames to do theirs, too. I'm curious to read them not only to get to know them better, but to see whether my theory will hold true: that, in the end, certain things are common to the heart of us all.

_____________________

If you do end up posting a reflection of yourself, please leave a comment.

Tomorrow, we will put all this behind us and go back to the knitting. I've got some stash to deal with...I really wouldn't want it to end up at the Thrift Store.

I Believe You'll Find it a Stimulating Exercise.

"And they have no purpose that unites them, so they just drift around blundering through life until they die… which they know is coming yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them."
Anya - Buffy the Vampire Slayer 7.21, "End of Days"

For some time I have had it in mind to write a eulogy for myself. It occurred to me one day that, as well as a good exercise in writing, it might be an interesting way to sort out my life goals...kind of like a to-do list in reverse. It is thought that mentally celebrating victories you have not yet experienced, is a good way to ensure that you DO experience them. This was the basis for my first idea - to write about myself as if my life was over, and to detail the accomplishments and failures of it as though they were finished. I thought this would help me to clarify the ambitions I have for the next 34 years.

As I wrote the piece, I found to my surprise it morphed into something quite different from my intention. It became an examination of my self, rather than my life...and a chronicle only up to the point I've actually lived - not a projection about my future. I was surprised, when I finished it, at what my subconscious had chosen to include - and to omit. And the words had taken on a mournful, regretful quality I hadn't expected.

I suspect this was a reflection of my true state of mind. Imagining one's future adventures requires an optimism I don't have. It requires a certain brightness I just can't see. You need a spark of hope and enthusiasm that, at this moment in my life, I lack. All I was capable of, when imagining The End, was a vision of my life as it is now, over.

I guess that's what actually happens, isn't it? Your life is never fully lived, or finished - your intentions remain just that: intentions. Your plans die with you. Somebody comes into your house, packs up your stash, and sends it to the thrift store while your spectre stands there aghast, fluttering its translucent hands anxiously and moaning, "But.....but.....that's first-cut baby alpaca! I got that at Rhinebeck!"*

* As an aside, distribution of my stash was the only personal bequest I added to my will. Because that would just be a crying shame.

I will tell you, I wasn't sure whether to post that piece, or not. I thought - and correctly - I would get some uneasy comments and emails about my exact motivation for writing it. And to be honest, it does require a certain melancholy even to conceive such a thing. But I'm glad I did post it, because the response was moving....and surprising.

The response was so moving, in fact, that I got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.

I want to read yours. Your eulogy in honour of yourself; your obituary; your gravestone, whatever. Delve deep. Look within. Examine your heart, and dig it all up - the stuff of your life and the truth about yourself. I think this is a pretty cool - and damn original - meme and though I swore I would never do this part, I'm tagging You.

November 2 is the Day of the Dead. It's a holiday mostly celebrated in Latin America, to remember dead friends and relatives. (And there are sugar skulls involved.) Wiki says this:

Though the subject matter may be considered morbid from the perspective of some other cultures, celebrants typically approach the Day of the Dead joyfully, and though it occurs roughly at the same time as Hallowe'en, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, the traditional mood is much brighter with emphasis on celebrating and honoring the lives of the deceased, and celebrating the continuation of life; the belief is not that death is the end, but rather the beginning of a new stage in life.

So what do you think? Will you publish your own eulogy on the Day of the Dead?

I would love for you to leave a comment with a link to your Famous Last Words. And if you think it's a cool idea and an interesting challenge, by all means spread the word. It would be an amazing and emotional day spent reading post after post full of the Truth of the Heart.

For Cripes' Sake Lighten Up Already.

All right, I will do this meme although I usually have a strict "DON'T EVEN" policy about the list-type ones. My sister did this the other day and it made me laugh. But there will be no stinking tagging.

Three things I fear:
1. Religious extremists
2. Widowhood
3. MVAs

Three people who make me laugh:
1. Mr. HalfSoledBoots
2. Emily
3. Joss Whedon

Three things I love:
1. Hot glue
2. BC Ferries
3. Dumbek drumming

Three things I don't like:
1. Conformity
2. Telephone solicitation
3. The fashion industry

Three things I don't understand:
1. Mortgages
2. Lip discs
3. My brother

Three things on my desk
1. Tape measure
2. Bunny hand puppet
3. Orange Blossom cookies

Three things I am doing right now:
1. Nursing my child to sleep
2. Rubbing my feet together (I have done this when I get in bed ever since I can remember.)
3. Debating retrieving my secret Mars Bar from the tea caddy where I stashed it last weekend

Three things I want to do before I die:
1. Learn tai chi
2. See a strip show
3. Sail

Three things I can do:
1. Raise a sardonic eyebrow
2. Keep a secret
3. Row a boat

Three things I can’t do:
1. Keep house
2. Diet
3. Use a power drill

Three things you should listen to:
1. Your conscience
2. David Suzuki
3. Our Lady Peace

Three things you should never listen to:
1. Naysayers
2. The American president
3. Whining

Three shows I watched as a kid:
1. Cover Up
2. Greatest American Hero
3. Simon and Simon


There. That wasn't so bad, was it?