Five things you may or may not know about me.

Street pennies for the win :) My husband had to pull me out of the street because I saw a penny in the path of an oncoming car and the driver didn't slow down when I jumped into the street. I have also had to do the same for my mother.

I broke my headphones picking up a five cent coin (pennies? what pennies? pennies don't exist!).

Okay, uh. I have a styrofoam head named Josephine that my sister did make up on. She's currently bald because my sister took her wig back and I don't think blonde hair suits Josie as well as brown hair does.

I have a scar on my lower left leg from the time I dropped down an open drain (knee high). It scraped off skin and went almost to the bone, I think, but I just went home and washed it and put a bandaid on since it wasn't very big (also, I was maybe fourteen and home alone). I've been slowly regaining feeling in that area for years. And I had a mild epiphany regarding lymph fluid in biology because I remembered clear fluid from that area.

I'm shit at my racial languages and I can't talk to either of my grandmothers well :/ Awwwwkward.

Ever since seeing Drugstore Cowboy, I try to avoid putting a hat on a bed.

Also, I believe it's bad luck to write a check with red ink.

I was taken to see Poltergeist before I was a teenager, and was told it would be "a funny movie." I did not sleep alone in a room with a walk-in closet for years afterwards. Until we moved out of that house, in fact. (Under-the-bed stuff never bugged me much. I knew there was way too much junk under my bed for anything else to fit.) In the next house, I was given a box containing, among other things, a huge dagger that my grandfather'd had, and promptly started sleeping with that under my pillow until... Um, until I was 18 and moved in with a fellow who had a waterbed.

I should never be left in a bookstore or store-that-sells-yarn when without adult supervision. Especially if there is a sale going on. I have some yarnbending plans that I hope to accomplish before Arisia, if I can find some sufficiently orange yarn, because a friend of mine recently gifted a couple of anime voice actors with some knitted scarfs for Yaoicon, and it gave me Ideas.


Um. Would your cats eat something scarf-like made from yarn if you happened to get it from a fan at Arisia this year? (I know you probably don't need a real scarf; I came up with this really cool stitch that makes "scarves" that are mostly air, and now I need victims people to make them for.) And should I assume my own prejudices of "if it can't be thrown in the washing machine and dryer and fend for itself, then it's clearly headed for extinction," or be looking for the Nicer Quality stuff? *wry grin*

Assuming, though, that my spouse lets me into a yarn shop in time... >_>

A couple of simple ones:
1) I love jokes, even though I can't really tell them, and even have trouble sometimes remembering all the setup on the spot. But it's unusual these days to hear a joke I don't know the punchline to after the first couple of sentences.

2) I prefer to sleep with the radio on. Music is good, but the all-news or sports-talk stations tend to be even better. I get that from my mom, who leaves the tv on when she sleeps.

For a web board about a decade ago, I assumed the identity of a brown kitty (hence my user name here). Since then, the somewhat-random identity of a kitty has been taking over small pieces of my life. I've got very basic yarn/string skills, but somehow I keep ending up with yarn, for instance.

Sometimes this is just a schtick because it's funny: batting at random shiny objects that are held up in front of me, for instance. However, one aspect has been long absent from my life, and is now deeply satisfying when I can do it again.

Climbing trees is something I need to do a lot more of. Because being queen of all you survey sucks when you're only calf-high.

1. I'm not fiscally prudent; I'm fiscally paranoid.

2. I'm too comfortable with the idea of being lazy for my own good.

3. I define the potential of a workday by the number of dogs I can pet on the way to work.

4. I just joined the twenty-first century; hello, high-speed internet!

5. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, and I'm still debating whether or not I have to grow up.

I once came to a full stop on my bike in the middle of the road to pick up a penny. That was when I realized I might have a problem, but it still physically pains me to not stop and pick up pennies I might see.

For a long time I had a fear of sleeping in a room with a cat, which can be traced back to a month during my childhood when we attempted to rehabilitate a house-cat-gone-feral that had belonged to a neighbor who'd moved. We kept the cat in my room, away from the other pets, and she seemed to mellow out quite quickly, until one night when she snapped and attacked me in my sleep. After that, she went to live at a stable. I finally got over my fear over a decade later when my 19-year-old cat was on her last leg and I didn't want to leave her for a minute (and then she died while I was running errands which just destroyed me for a while).

Now I sleep better with my cat on the bed (once she finally finds a position she's comfortable in).

For some reason I won't eat green M&M's. I'm strange that way.

And I can read palms. ;)

5. I memorized the poem from the book "Secret of the Seven Crows".
4. I only pick up street pennies that are tail side up.
3. I still prefer mac-n-cheese with margarine instead of butter.
2. I used to love country but can't stand it now except for songs
like "Fancy" and Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, and Alabama.
1. I read Mira Grant's Feed and loved it a lot. So much so that I
Gave copies to my horror/zombie loving friends for the holidays!

I have a couple superstitions picked up from a cherished friend in high school. One is that if you notice a digital clock at a time with all the digits the same (3:33, 11:11) you "kiss the clock" (blowing a kiss is acceptable) and make a wish. Does not work if you plan ahead for the time; you don't get a wish unless you were caught unawares.

Likewise if the clasp of your necklace moves around to the front, you kiss it and make a wish. Again, only works if you notice it naturally; if it's made it halfway around, you have to move it back *without* the wish. That's only playing fair.

I almost never wish for *things*.

However, Friday the 13ths (Fridays the 13th?) are nearly always exceptionally good days for me. 13 is my lucky number. My tattoo artist had a big "13" over his station and I considered that a very good sign.

I don't believe in divination methods, except when I do.

Oh, and I vastly prefer margarine too-- just because it's what we always had growing up and so it's the taste I'm used to. It's also the reason I prefer diet sodas (mostly) and nonfat milk. Even 2% milk tastes like whole milk to me, blech.

Me also with the milks and the margerines. Butter tastes blah to me, although I have been somewhat converted to baking with butter.

And whole milk tastes like whipping cream and leaves my mouth sticky

I was born mildly ambidextrous but favored my left hand. When I broke my left arm as a child when I was learning to write, I simply switched my right hand, and by the time my teachers figured out what I had done it was too late. I still hold my pen like a lefty. This has been known to freak people out, particularly because I have extremely neat handwriting.

I hate my birthday. If anything bad will happen, it WILL happen on my birthday. Occasionally the most unlucky day on the Jewish calender (Tisha b'Av) falls on my birthday. I think this is not a coincidence. I blame birth trauma--my mother and I both nearly died when I was born. I keep threatening to change the date.

I once somehow convinced a middle school English teacher to let me recite "One Night in Bangkok" for a speech class, which given the amounts of drug use and prostitution referenced in that song, she really shouldn't have let me do. This is a feat I am occasionally called upon to replicate when drunk at a karaoke bar, and is about the only way you will get me to a microphone, because I can't sing, and nobody is more keenly aware of this than me.

I have a lion motif. I'm a Scottish Leo (I occasionally insist I was two weeks late simply to avoid being a Cancer). I'm a Jewish convert, and all converts are members of the tribe of Judah, whose symbol is the lion. My Hebrew name means "Lioness". My glasses have little stylized lions on the side (which I actually didn't notice when I picked htem, I only noticed when I actually brought them home a week later--I picked them because they were big black frames I could find if they fell off; I'm so nearsighted this is a problem) and I wear a lion rampant necklace most of the time. People tend to buy me things with lions on them. It's a self-feeding cycle at this point; the more lion things I have around the more people notice them and then provide me with still more.

I have been known to explain the prior statement with great ire when I am accused of being a member of Team Edward for said lion motif.

How...how is Twilight related to lions? *confused*

I picked up (no pun intended) the street penny thing from you. :)

1. I'm the eldest of five children, only one of which has the same father and mother as I do. Oddly, even though I grew up with two of them in the house and seeing another one often, I had to think about it when people asked if I had family. I still have odd moments when I think of myself as an only child.

2. From the time my son was born (1997) until 2008, I had six generations alive on my matrilineal side.

3. Due to being poor as a kid and not being allowed to go to the library for more than 1 hour per week, I need a supply of food and unread books in the house at all times to stave off panic attacks.

4. I love many flavors, but texture issues in foods will get me every time. It can neither be too mushy or too dry. This leads to my refrigerator door being filled with many condiments.

5. The only time I have ever been homesick was returning to the US from Japan. I was only there for 6 weeks and have wanted to go back ever since.

1. I got picked to be in an indie art film in Nashville because of my outfit (pink tutu, black fishnets, giant black patent victorian-eaque boots, big hair and rhinestones on my head). There was a catering truck and they got me cigarettes (unfiltered, but still cool-I have since quit smoking but that was awesome.

2. The end of the Buffy episode "New Moon Rising" still makes me cry and cheer even now. When we saw it happen first airing, my roommate and I actually screamed with joy.

3. I have celebrated Hogswatch in place of Xmas for almost 5 years now.

4. I often have vivid multi-part dreams where I am reading or watching something in them so I'm following several story arcs at once.

5. I appeared on a faerie erotica site back in 2002. I loved it and it was gorgeous and fun.

1. I don't believe ghosts or ghouls are real, but logic has no place at 2 AM in my creaky old hundred-year-old house. Consequently, I have a sleep issue that is tied entirely to my being too scared to go upstairs by myself after dark.

2. I was in fourth grade before I ever vocalized a wish to be a published writer, but I had already written half of a play (for my stuffed animals), and a fortunately/unfortunately story that was so funny my second grade teacher shared it with all of the other teachers.

3. Despite the encouragement, I've still never submitted anything for publication, and I'm 32. Yes, I know . . .

4. I'm a little smug about my ability to get by without cable television. We currently have an antenna in the attic that gives us 6 channels, almost crystal-clear. That is the best I've ever had it, barring the times I actually shelled out for cable.

5. I'm at my happiest with my family when I'm arguing with my sisters, much to the consternation of the husband and brothers-in-law. No philosophical concept ever made more sense to me than the Greek idea of rhetoric, where you learn things by arguing with people. It's how I grew up. I'm normally introverted and quiet, but nothing brings me out of my shell faster than a fight.

I've always kind of had that superstition about pennies. The first time I encountered it was in elementary school, right before a "Battle of the Books", in which teams from different schools answered questions about novels. This particular one was to be televised on the local public access channel. On the way tot he studio, I saw a penny on the ground, and my teacher at the time told me "See a penny, pick it up, and for the rest of the day you'll have good luck." So, I did, and we cleaned up in the competition. I've made it a habit to pick up pennies since then.

I always wave at cemeteries.

I've found that some of the most formative periods in my life are very brief: a month in Manila, a few days skiing, the weekends I spent at the zoo, that sort of thing. Those brief times have affected me more than the years at any given job, or all the time I was in school.

Many of the things I do as an adult are expressions of rebellion from my parents. My mother hated stuff that made noise: I have windchimes. I wasn't allowed to have anything vaguely like a weapon: I now have a full rack of swords, more daggers than I can count, and a crossbow (Zombie apocalypse optional). We only ever had plastic cups: I use fragile glassware. It's an odd sort of rebellion, but there it is.

I think the most important book I've ever read, for me, was Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In it, Clarke casually mentioned how Bowman sat down to study, because he was an eternal student. While I don't achieve that all the time, to me it became an ideal to strive for.

I never watched a horror movie until I was in college, and I've only seen a handful ever.

5. Really. REALLY? You bring yours, I'll bring mine and maybe there will be two people who love this stuff instead of one really embarrassed one. (Extra points if you can handle the CB Radio/Truck Driver sub-groups. It's an academic study at this point.)

4. Mine is hot chocolate, the hotter the better, with a stack of hot buttered toast cut into triangles, dunked. Hot enough to scald my tongue. This is the one go-to that never fails. Everything else? Stressed out enough? Bounces.

3. We grew up on margarine, because it was cheaper. *thinks* There really are different takes on poverty when it is one parent working as hard as they can - and I do believe Mom would have been extremely distrustful of subsidy foodstuffs. We gleaned fields, we canned jam by the buttload out of whatever the neighbors and friends gave us, but we never visited food pantries, or accepted subsidies. However, we did use margarine instead of butter - and I had a lovely case of IBS I thought was intrinsic until I went to Switzerland and butter was cheaper than margarine (if you could find it at all) - and voila, gone. Overnight. Tub margarine still makes the best pie crust - really. But if I partake of it? Not very pretty. I'm still trying to work the recipe to get the butter to behave like the tub margarine.

2. I doubt I'd be superstitious at all, except I keep getting visited by people who aren't here anymore, but seem to think I need the pokes in the ass/gentle reassurances. I could be an atheist - except I keep getting reminded that dead isn't an end for most of the people I've known - they just level up and have transmission issues getting through. So any of this is something of a reluctant nature, largely because it can't be ignored. Having had my exposure to the dead vs. living - I can trip over a dead body if I don't see it, but I rarely run into the living (may trod on their toes by accident if it's packed). And I'm very hard to beat at rock-paper-scissors - if I lose, it's because I want to. I love found objects and it's very frustrating when I can't get the history on them.

1. I can NOT handle steamed/canned spinach. If you try to make eggs florentine for me, it had better not be runny...at all. Will run screaming. Promise. The bell peppers are right there next to them. I'm actually fond of brussels sprouts, beets and I'll eat the prunes if you don't want them. Jalapeno peppers are wussy - they taste like your lawn, for crying out loud and bite you for your trouble. Chipotle is much better, but a good habanero jerk sauce is preferred and I can eat my weight in anything made fresh with garden tomatoes in the summer. Just don't add mango. Oh, and I've eaten enough pizza to last the rest of my life. I can eat it, but if you wanted to bore me to tears and make me sad, there's the fastest way. "We have a treat today!" *hope rising* "The boss sprang for pizza!" *deflates rapidly and heads for McDonalds*

I too suffered a mis-illusion re: chickpeas. I had an "All-of-a-Kind family" book addiction growing up, and they seemed to always run into street vendors or peddlers who would give them hot chickpeas. I hated regular peas, so the mystical allure of these 'chickpeas' with butter, wrapped in a paper holder and bought off the street in a big city (I was a small town girl, so such things were unheard of) made me think I would *love love love* chickpeas. I pictured them as almost like a roast nut with buttery goodness and salt. I have no idea why. My grandmother heard me say I love chickpeas once, so she said she'd bring some to dinner -- imagine my chagrin when they were the disgusting garbanzo beans I had hated forever. To this day though, when you say call them chickpeas, I have a momentary lapse to pre-disillusionment and my mouth waters.

5. I have four siblings, but none share both parents with me, so if you ask how many I have I'll either say "it's complicated" or say 2, 3, or 4 (but never 1). I grew up with one of my older brothers, but since my mother has one more, I'll always count two. Then there's my step-brother by my adoptive father, and my half-sister by my biological father. For several years, I was the only child in the household. I'm both the youngest child and the oldest, depending on which siblings you count (my sister is younger than me; my mother's children are all older).

4. I am very analytical. College has only served to make this worse by giving me more tools to analyze more things. I never picked apart music I heard until taking music theory, for instance.

3. I have a large birth mark in the shape of a tear-drop on my left arm. I cannot tell you the number of times I've been asked what happened by someone who thought it was a bruise.

2. I have a thing for dragons, for some reason. I have no idea how it started, but I now collect them. I also have a large collection of polished stones and stones I just picked up off the ground. When I was little, this collection covered every windowsill in a two story house. We left most of it behind when we moved to an apartment. I have yet to get *that* many stones again. Or live in a house again.

1. I have a hard time NOT cleaning up or helping clean up after an event if I don't consider myself a guest. I used to help stack chairs and clean up every week at church. I don't do this so much anymore because I'm only home every once in a while and I spend the time catching up with people instead. My HM (House Manager) and other Res-Life staff hosted a winter festival at my house a couple weeks ago. I spent time at the arts and crafts table and consequently started cleaning up at the end of the event despite my HM telling me it wasn't necessary, repeatedly. I also tend to be on time or early to things. Earlier when I have a long car ride, because I then leave a half hour earlier than strictly necessary. This is in part from marching band, where we had to be 15 minutes early to get set up and be out on the field on time. "Early is on time, on time is late, late is unacceptable." I'm getting less anal, slowly, since everything at my school tends to start 15 minutes late rather than early. Edit: I'm convinced the clean-up routine started in band, too, although concert band rather than marching band. We always had to stack chairs and stuff after classes and events. Of course, my mother also expects us to clean up after ourselves.

I probably have other, more interesting quirks, but unless someone tells me it isn't normal, I have a hard time telling that I do something differently.

I listened to a lot of modern country in the 90s, when that meant Garth Brooks, Martina McBride, Faith Hill, Collin Raye, etc and so forth. I don't know a lot about what's popular now, though. I'd love it if you'd share some more of what's out there that you like. :)

Here are some tidbits with where my mind goes reading yours (using your numbers)
5)I rebelled against liking country music because I grew up in Gualala - a small town on the north coast of California, and that was the popular music up there. Then, my senior year in High School, I was giving a friend rides to work and let her choose the radio station, and came to terms with the fact that I actually enjoyed that sort of music. A couple of years later, I ended up in the square dance club at UC Davis until it folded for lack of new members. Now I have vague hopes of someday being able to play the fiddle part of "Devil went down to Georgia." :)

4) That sounds really good, actually. The closest I think I have to a comfort food is Tuna Noodle Casserole - it's one of the recipes I made sure to get from my mom when setting out on my own. Also Tacos. I had to teach myself to make tortillas when I spent a year in New Zealand as I couldn't find a source for decent ones over there.

3) My family used margarine primarily, as it was cheaper than butter, so I only used to get butter when we went to visit my grandparents. I'm pretty sure that this is why I'm convinced that butter tastes better. It's amazing how associations shape likes and dislikes of food.
Relatedly (or maybe only so in my head), because my grandmother has a navel orange tree, and both my grandfathers grew tomatoes in their gardens, I strongly dislike most store-bought varieties of either. I'm very glad that I now live somewhere that I can grow both of these, though our orange tree isn't yet old enough for fruit.

2) I used to be very superstitions about stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. I can't pinpoint when this went away, but it persisted into my adult years. And I still pick up pennies, though it's a much "Oooh Shiny!" as due to superstition. The childhood me would recognize much of what ends up in my jacket pockets. In a couple of cases literally so - I still have a couple of the rocks I picked up off the ground in grade school.

I eat popcorn with chopsticks.

I do not look for auguries in my M&Ms, but instead separate them by color and eat them in the order that the characters on Sailor Moon died in the Season 1 finale. I have no idea why I do this.

I also give my cats dinosaur nicknames by appending -saurus, -raptor, or -adon to their names.

1. I will catch, make a wish on, and release fluffy drifty seed things.

2. I like music that is polyphonous and counterpointy, and when I was in high school I used to listen to both of the first two Sundays CDs at the same time to make it more like that. Now I sing madrigals.

3. To me, the magic places are the abandoned parking lots that local parks districts use to store bark dust and rock and gravel of various grades in huge mounds.

4. I wrote an Interactive Fiction game once, which had a ridiculous quantity of backstory packed into it.

5. I just read, and liked, An Artificial Night. (Did not like book one, skipped book two.)