cygnoir.net

fifteen in fifteen

// June 13th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Life

This sort of meme makes me both crazy and happy. The instructions are as follows: “Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends choose.” The list is in order of how I thought of it, not how I read it. Reply in a comment if you so desire. (Thanks for the tag, Jen!)

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
3. The Bridge by Iain Banks
4. Justine by Lawrence Durrell
5. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
7. Demian by Hermann Hesse
8. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
9. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
10. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
11. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
12. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
13. White Apples by Jonathan Carroll
14. Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey
15. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

25 random things

// February 4th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Intarweb

This is that “25 random things about me” meme. I cannot imagine that after 11 years of an online journal there is more to know about me, but here goes.

1. I overuse the words “love” and “favorite” and “awesome”, according to cynical people. According to me, I love my awesome favorite things.
2. My schedule is very important to me. If I do something that isn’t on my schedule, I put it on my schedule after the fact.  If I do not do something that is on my schedule, I remove it from my schedule. Spontaneity is not one of my strong suits, but I don’t mind.
3. I love bad jokes.  The worse, the better.  One of my favorites starts: “Where did Napoleon keep his armies?”  Another starts: “What is brown and sticky?” I know lots of these.
4. My myriad, mysterious health problems have been resolved by a strict adherence to a gluten-free diet with vitamin supplements.
5. I am engaged to my best friend, and we are getting married! But don’t ask us for details because we have no idea yet. Wedding planning is difficult.
6. I can make a sound like a train whistle. It disturbs FunkyPlaid.
7. You can sing my full name to the tune of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road”.  (Thanks, Tony.)
8. I own at least one copy of every book that Iain Banks has published to date.
9. My first library job was in 1996. It was not an intentional career choice, but I am happy with the results.
10. I once tried out for “The World Series of Pop Culture”.  My team didn’t make it, but we had fun in Austin anyway.
11. Although my latest projects are prose, I am more comfortable writing poetry, especially fixed forms.
12. I like to guess where people are from based on their accents. When I am right, it freaks people out. This pleases me.
13. My steadfastness and loyalty have caused me to stick with things (habits, people, jobs, places) I should have given up.
14. I love magic tricks, surprises of all kinds, and not knowing what happens next. Spoilers are stupid.
15. If I hear or say the word “moist” I think it or say it to myself three times.  It is incomplete without three more: moist, moist, moist. It is a high-maintenance word, and my least favorite.
16. Oddly enough, another word containing the same diphthong is my very favorite: “foible”. It is quite laid-back and charming, not high-maintenance at all.
17. Fountain pens thrill and cheer me. My current favorite is my limited edition Namiki Vanishing Point. FunkyPlaid gave it to me for Christmas. It is purple and writes perfectly every time.
18. My greatest weakness is becoming sidetracked by perfectionism.
19. My sweet tooth is the size of my entire head. I especially love chocolate-hazelnut things like Nutella and Nutella-based treats. Please send them to me.
20. When I heard the news that Stacey’s, my favorite bookstore in San Francisco, will be closing this spring, I decided not to purchase books from Amazon anymore in favor of supporting local, independent bookstores. Not that I have any business buying books in the first place!
21. Online, I delete much more than I publish. Offline, I write without crossing much out.
22. I still avoid sidewalk cracks because of that rhyme, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” Ugh!
23. I do certain things well, but I do not pretend to know everything there is to know about those things. I am always learning, and never bored.
24. Crying comes very easily to me. I used to feel embarrassed about my tears, but now I know they are just the way I express my wordless world.
25. Chance has opened many wonderful doors for me; I endeavor to have the intelligence and strength to walk through the right ones.

last year

// January 1st, 2009 // Comments Off // Life

Instead of the 40 questions meme I did last year, I am doing another: post the first sentence for the first post of each month for 2008 (skipping tumblelog posts):

• 2007, neatly bisected into “without him” and “with him”, allowed me the clearest of Before and After photos. ["this is the new year"]
• Words written and rewritten in order to transmit the intangibility of learning an intangible subject fade as they are saved. ["intersection"]
• Pennies. ["pennies"]
• The last thing I want to write about is the first thing on my mind these days. ["symptomatic"]
• What I will/won’t miss about my flat: ["missing"]
• As I was about to post to my various “status dumps” today, I noticed that I have become mired in my own narrow-minded view of what this website should contain. ["on length and depth"]
• My social software habits have become dreadful. ["one month of gratitude"]
• It is gray inside the building today, which reminds me of December, which in turn reminds me of last December and my last job. ["nostalgic"]
• Since I haven’t been around much lately, I’ll point you in the direction of two places you can find me more often: ["elsewhere"]
• There is no better phrase for it: I am burned out. ["burnout"]
• If I disappear for a few weeks, don’t worry: I am participating in National Novel-Writing Month, a/k/a NaNoWriMo. ["brute force"]
• Holidailies is a community writing project which begins this Friday. ["guesswork"]

Well, that didn’t come anywhere close to summing up my 2008.  It was a brutal year, full of tumult and chaos and clarity. So many of us went through so much. In 2008, I got a new job, took control of my myriad health problems with a gluten-free diet, moved in with my beloved, helped my mom recuperate from major surgery, went to Scotland for the first time, got engaged, and voted for a president I truly respect and admire — who won! These significant external changes spurred significant internal ones. I let go of things I expected always to hang onto, and in the process, lost a lot of fear about the future and my place in it.

Most importantly, I let go of a way I was perceiving myself that no longer fit. In fact, I don’t think it ever fit.  With that false perception gone, I started to see myself as I really am, and started to believe the good things that people say to and about me. I still cringe a little as I write this, but I believe that I am a good person who loves other people and treats them well. With that belief in place, good things are sure to follow.

I wish for good things for all of us in 2009. To this end, I would like to share this Buddhist prayer from Zenju Earthlyn Manuel:

May the heavy become light,
May what’s ill become well,
May what’s violent become peace,
May rage be settled,
May the idea of enemy be banished,
May actions be filled with sincere purpose,
May wellness be illuminated,
May gifts be recognized,
May all that we know to be love, pour out and overflow wherever it is needed.

[ETA: I forgot to mention my gluten-free diet as one of my major external changes. I added it above.]

omnivorous

// August 17th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Life

The Omnivore’s Hundred, as seen on Ultramundane:

1. Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2. Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3. Cross out any items that you would never consider eating (or eating again).
4. Optional extra: Post a comment http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

To make the filling out of this form and generating the HTML for it a bit easier, reddywhp has played around with some PHP. Go to http://reddywhip.org/lj/foods/ and fill it out there. After filling it out, you will be given the code to copy and paste into your blog.

Livejournal users, remember to use your LJ-Cuts!

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forty questions about 2007

// December 29th, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Life

Here is yet another year-in-review meme. Again, I will get to a proper review one of these days …

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Traveled abroad for work. Auditioned for a game show. Went on an 8.5-mile hike. Rented my own apartment in San Francisco. Acted in an independent film. Led a team on a year-long project. Went geocaching. River-rafted (or, rather, laid very still on a raft while others rowed). Rode a bike in Golden Gate Park. Sang karaoke, twice at private parties and once at a bar in front of strangers.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn’t make them, and I don’t think I will anymore. Every day will be a resolution day, and that resolution is to be happy.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, but 3 people close to me got pregnant, so ask me again next year!
4. Did anyone close to you die? No.
5. Which countries did you visit? Does Texas count? No? Then just England.
6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? Better health, less stress, more travel, and a new computer.
7. Which date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory? 1 July.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Reuniting with FunkyPlaid.
9. What was your biggest failure? Believing that I was a bad person.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Most of the latter half of 2007 I was sick, either from medication or from stress.
11. What was the best thing you bought? My iPhone.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? FunkyPlaid’s, as always.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? The current administration’s, as always.
14. Where did most of your money go? Rent.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? My future.
16. Which song will always remind you of 2007? Interpol’s “Pioneer to the Falls”.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    happier or sadder? happier. thinner or fatter? fatter. richer or poorer? richer.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Reading.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Worrying.
20. How will you be spending Christmas? FunkyPlaid and I spent it with some of our local loved ones.
21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with? FunkyPlaid.
22. Did you fall in love in 2007? I certainly did, all over again with the love of my life.
23. How many one-night stands in this last year? Zero.
24. What was your favorite TV program? “Pushing Daisies”.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No, I don’t hate anyone.
26. What was the best book you read? Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Everything on the Dynamophone label.
28. What did you want and get? True love.
29. What did you want and not get? A dSLR camera.
30. What were your favorite films of this year? I don’t think they came out this year, but I saw them this year: “Borat” and “The Prestige”.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? On 23 February, my team took me out to lunch, and my ex took me out to dinner. I was 34.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Exercising more regularly.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? Same as always: lots of layers, black and muted colors, silver jewelry, boots.
34. What kept you sane? Spending time with FunkyPlaid. Petting my cat. Writing in my journal. Talking with my friends. Long, brisk walks. Therapy.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Will Arnett.
36. Which political issue stirred you the most? On the federal level: Iraq. On the local level: Prop A.
37. Who did you miss? My parents. Lara. Matt. Michael. Mish. For the first half of the year, FunkyPlaid.
38. Who was the best new person you met? So many! I can’t even begin to name all the folks at SFlickr and all the folks at Gamescape North. But two people in particular stand out, and since they are a couple I can get away with this answer only if they don’t catch me: Rebecca and Ryan.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007. Go with your gut.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. this is the new year / I’ve been waiting for / this is the new year / I’ve been longing for