Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: amused
  • Music: Glee, "Don't Rain On My Parade."

Things Seanan Isn't Allowed To Discuss With the Reporter.

So I have a reporter from the Contra Costa Times coming over this afternoon to interview me and take some pictures for a local author profile piece. This is pretty cool. I've never been profiled in the newspaper before. We've cleaned the whole house (for values of "we" that mean "mostly my mother"), my room is slightly less of an EPA hazard zone than usual, and the cats have been thoroughly lectured on not throwing up in front of the cameraman. After a great deal of discussion, I have agreed to the following list of Things Seanan Isn't Allowed To Discuss With the Reporter (unless she starts it):

1. The Black Death.
2. Parasites.
3. How parasites caused us to evolve gender.
4. Endemic bubonic plague in California's ground squirrels.
5. The X-Men.
6. Crazy Australian mermaid shows.
7. Anything involving venom.
8. Dinosaurs.
9. The inevitability of the zombie apocalypse.
10. Anything that involves socially unacceptable hand gestures.
11. The ineffective nature of H1N1 as a slatewiper pandemic.
12. How my pandemic would be better.
13. Pandemics, period.
14. My collection of My Little Ponies.
15. My collection of plush weaponry.
16. My collection of plush viruses.
17. Banana slugs.
18. How to evolve a society of pseudo-mammal telepaths from parasitic wasps.
19. Why you would want to do that in the first place.
20. Giant squid.
21. Reality television.
22. Bedbug reproduction.
23. Anything Kate won't let me talk about during dinner.
24. Necrosis.
25. The slow conversion of aspartame into formaldehyde.
26. Monkeyspheres.
27. The fact that the turtle couldn't help us.
28. My limited and specialized knowledge of ASL.
29. The virtues of the machete vs. the meat cleaver.
30. That vial of liquid mercury I bought at a garage sale.
31. Tarantulas.
32. Cheese.
33. Jerusalem crickets.
34. What I did last summer.
35. The vast disparity between women's "appropriate" weight and the things women eat in television commercials.
36. Evil Dead: the Musical.
37. Why you should turn to cannibalism immediately when stranded on a desert island.
38. Kuru.
39. Flensing.
40. Parthenogenic reproduction.
41. Reasons to go crawling around in a sewer.
42. Observing autopsies.
43. Why yoga is better with Rob Zombie.
44. SyFy Original Movies.
45. The drinking games that accompany same.
46. Why I went to Waverly Place last time I was in Manhattan.
47. Pie.
48. Pi.
49. Structured poetry.
50. People as an available source of protein.
Tags: interviews, magazines and me, pandemic time, silliness, so the marilyn
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  • 170 comments
...go 1 level up... Expand

mskauri

January 7 2010, 21:38:49 UTC 7 years ago

As a fluent ASL signer who spent 2 years studying at Gallaudet (the Deaf university in D.C., basically a foreign language immersion program for me), I'd love to know how this one made the list...and how I can help increase the volume of specialized knowledge!

LOVE the list...am tempted to change the title from "...with the Reporter" to "...in a job interview" and share it with the Vocational Rehabilitation counselors who work in my agency. I know they'd love it (and some would USE it!).

seanan_mcguire

January 7 2010, 22:59:48 UTC 7 years ago

Go for it!

I posted the list of things I can say in ASL further down this thread. I need to take a class to improve my grammar, but I get one or two new signs a month, which is nice. I've promised my friend Judi, who does sign language interpretation for kids, that if I ever have a Deaf character, I won't pretend sign language is somehow small and unobtrusive.

judifilksign

January 8 2010, 19:43:33 UTC 7 years ago

Thank you! Signing attracts the eye, in addition to being just plain fun to do! (Signing as a secret, subtle communication has always been one of my personal book bug-a-boos, and you were sooo patient listening to my rant!)