Monday, December 01, 2008

insomnia inspired meme

I'm not tagging anyone, but I'd be happy to read your own answers in a comment. 

1. Magazines Subscribed To: Archaeology, Current World Archaeology, Atlantic Monthly, Interweave Knits, Piecework, Vogue Knitting.  The Atlantic Monthly and Vogue Knitting will probably not be renewed. Vogue Knitting because I don't think it's as interesting as I'd thought it would be and Atlantic Monthly because I never get around to reading it even though I know it's one of the good cerebral magazines to actually subscribe to. Yes, this seems like a lot of magazines but all except for Atlantic Monthly are bimonthly or quarterly so it's not like I'm overwhelmed with glossy paper. 

2. Aside from knitting, my favorite pastimes are: reading, writing, listening to audiobooks, playing video games

3. If I were not a _____________(insert your own profession here), I'd be a: dudes, trust me when I tell you I never dreamt about being a transportation engineer when I was a kid, or even an adult for that matter. Good grief, I didn't even study engineering in the university! (I did get a degree in Geology, as well as do graduate study in Scandinavian Literature, because Geology so obviously leads to literary studies.)  But I'd still love to be a university professor. 

4. I am irrationally worried about: my car catching on fire. 

5. If I were the opposite sex: I'd probably never really appreciate the awesomeness of being able to pee standing up. (Ok, as a female, I certainly can pee standing up, so I should qualify this by saying "peeing standing up without drenching yourself in your own urine".)

6. The thing I miss most about childhood is: y'know, I don't really miss being a kid. There's really nothing about either the emotional or physical stages of childhood that I'm nostalgic about. Well, I wouldn't mind being flat-chested again...but now that I think about it, I used to have a really powerful and creative imagination, which I'd love to have again. I don't really think I have an imagination anymore; that's been replaced by daydreams and fantasies. Not unpleasant, but not the same. 

7. I like to collect: I'm trying not to collect anything but I seem to constantly acquire new knitting paraphenelia, whether it's yarn or needles or stitch markers. I also have a talent for acquiring homeless animals. 

8. Though I've never been there, I feel inexplicably homesick for: New Zealand. I cannot explain my love for this place. (And this existed before the Lord of the Rings films, thank you very much)

9. I've never really liked to eat: I'm not a picky eater but I'm not a big fan of pie. (Pumpkin pie excluded but even then I usually just eat the pumpkin custard and leave the bottom and edge crusts.) 

10. When I have nightmares, they are usually about:  I don't have nightmares because that would require an imagination. I just have anxieties, and that usually centers around a loss of independence.

1 comment:

sunt_lacrimae_rerum said...

1. Magazines: 4 knitting magazines; Harpers, The Week, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide. I am boycotting The Atlantic, once my favorite magazine. I am also on a "trial break" from The New Yorker and I think it will become a divorce.

2. Reading, canoodling with my cats, writing, surfing the internet, too much tv and dvds, mostly indifferent to bad.

3. I don't know. I have tried the following: secretary, book store clerk, librarian, worker in a screw factory (literally yes!) waitress, cashier at Woolworth's, theatre factotum, professor. My two favorites were the two least paying: book store clerk and theatre factotum.

4. My irrational worries are: sour cream, Little Debbie snack cakes (oh, how I swoon in the supermarket, from fear that the Little Debbie's will somehow reach out, grab me, and force-feed me), skim milk, and driving on the freeways.

5. If I were the opposite sex: I would be unrelentingly mocked and derided. I would have to go the feline way and be well-fixed at an early age. Boy cats who are snipped early are so nice and sweet and undramatic.

6. The thing I miss most about childhood: very little at all. It was those occasional mornings when I would wake up at 5 AM and sneak down to the living room and read alone in quiet and luxurious solitude, with a friendly cat by my side (as the oldest of 6 children born in 7 years, such solitude was rare and cherished).

7. I like to collect: I am trying to get rid of things, not collect them but I could say I have modest collections of note-cards, fountain pens, books by certain authors, and scarves. I have no aspirations to increase the collections. And of course the stash--goes without saying, really.

8. I feel homesick for Siena, Italy although I've never been there. I know this is cheating because I have been to Tuscany twice but I honestly cannot say I feel home-sick for any unvisited country.

9. I don't like to eat: anything of dubious provenance. I won't eat anything that could possibly in a hundred million years be Little Debbie, include sour cream, and I really do not do pie crust at all, although I suppose I would do a graham-cracker crust. I refuse to eat cheese with any kind of mold, although in my more cosmopolitan youth that did not bother me at all. I don't think I have ever tried one, but I have purchased Chicken McNuggets for a child and felt that the unwholesomeness was such that one could never enter my mouth.

10. I would not say that I have nightmare either, but I have an inordinate number of teaching anxiety dreams--I go to class only partially dressed, my classroom has been moved to "Doom Hall" (a campus building that exists only in my dreams).