(no subject)
Second meme from shoebox_addict! This one was much harder to do.
Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 16 people to be tagged.
Just a warning, some of these might be considered sort of TMI.
1. I've learned more about myself and my sexuality in my two years of singleness since my last relationship than I ever have before in my entire life.
2. I have two tattoos: a Unitarian Universalist chalice on my back (which I got in 2004 but I had fixed up/added to this past year), and the signature of my favorite author, Lewis Carroll, around my right ankle which I got in 2002. I plan on getting more in the future, but not too many because I don't want to be absolutely covered in them.
3. I'm really anal when it comes to doing my laundry. After I wash my clothes, I can't ever just leave them in the dryer or set them down somewhere to put away later. I always have to either fold them and put them in my drawer, or put them all on hangers in my closet -- and I must do this immediately or else I go crazy.
4. I also get really obsessive-compulsive when it comes to organizing my music. The CDs for all the most important artists I listen to (Tori Amos, Nick Cave, Kate Bush, U2, Peter Gabriel, Ani DiFranco, etc.) are organized according to the hierarchy of my love for the artist, and the chronological order of when their respective albums were released, on a rack next to my bed. If I don't have all the albums for my favorite artist in my collection, and if they're not in the right order, then I feel as though I've disrespected the artist somehow. (MUSIC: SRS BIZNIZ.) The same is true for the organization of my books on my bookshelf, and I'm even OCD about how I organize the music on my iPod.
5. I love The Last Unicorn more than I can say; I've been a fan of the movie since I was five years old, and when I read the book years later it just made me fall in love with the story even more. I can't really explain how or why it means so much to me, but it does. I really want to meet the author, Peter S. Beagle, one day.
6. I have talked to one of my favorite comedians, Scott Thompson of The Kids In The Hall, online before. A couple years ago, he had a blog and I would leave comments on his entries, and a couple times he actually replied. He even thanked me for putting a link to his blog on his Wikipedia page. He was always so friendly and sweet. <3
7. From the time I was 15 until I was about 21, my creative writing output consisted of mainly poetry. I was always coming up with lines for poems out of the blue, and I won a few awards for poems that were published in high school and college literary magazines. I compiled all my favorite poems I'd written into a "book" on my computer and planned on self-publishing it for myself, my family and my friends. But then just before I turned 21, the hard drive of my computer crashed and because I'd not backed any of my stuff up (incredibly stupid of me, I know), I lost my entire poetry book. It was devastating. I have pretty much not written poetry since.
8. I am really not turned on at all by the thought of heterosexual sex anymore. However this may very well change in the future, especially since oddly enough I'm still attracted to men and would still date a man if he were the right kind of person.
9. My maternal grandfather died when he fell off a ladder while painting the house in 1965, when my mom was 12. My mom was in her bedroom playing the Beatles song "Help!" at the time. My mom and her younger sister also claim that they saw his spirit and that it spoke to their mother the night that he died. I wish I could have known him. From all accounts, he was an incredibly kind, smart, and amazing man. He was a writer too, and after marrying my grandmother he even adopted all of her four kids from her previous marriage. He treated all of them like they were his biological own.
10. When I was a really little kid, I drew a comic strip about a white cat named Snowball. It was basically a ripoff of Garfield. My mom has saved a lot of the comics I drew and when I look back on them, they're absolutely hilarious in a random and slightly twisted way. (One of the storylines involved Snowball's kittens beating the crap out of her for no reason at all and then running away giggling.)
11. Whenever I dress up for Halloween or any other situation where a costume is required, I almost always go as a man. When my friends and I attended the midnight Barnes & Noble release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I dressed up as Remus Lupin and my then-boyfriend dressed up as Sirius Black, and we went together as Sirius/Remus. (It was one of the few truly cool things he ever did for me.) The fact that I like dressing in drag is one of the things that has led me to believe that I don't view myself as fully female; I've always wanted to be sexy in the same way that the men I'm attracted to are sexy.
12. I used to be obsessed with Victorian England, starting from the time I was about ten years old. I felt quite certain that I had been born in the wrong century, and I would write stories about girls (usually blatant self-insert characters) living in that time period. Recently my interest in all things Victorian has waned a bit in order to make room for my interest in other time periods, like the Enlightenment -- but my love for Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde, and my interest in things like Jack The Ripper, will never ago away.
13. I lost my virginity on the evening of Thanksgiving day, 2003. XP
14. I have also been a Unitarian Universalist since 2003, although I am not currently a member of any church. Prior to stumbling upon Unitarian Universalism and realizing that it fit my beliefs perfectly, I was studying Judaism and considering the idea of converting. (Although not terribly seriously, to be honest.)
15. Related to number 11: I secretly would love to join a drag king troupe and perform as my own male character and everything. And if I can't come up with my own character, I could always dress up as MacPhisto.
16. From the time I was 14 until I was about 21, I dyed my hair various, natural-looking shades of red (despite the fact that my hair is naturally kind of auburn). But then I went on a crazy spree where I dyed my hair purple, then blue (which faded to green), then fire-engine red (which faded to fuchsia). By the end, it had been bleached and dyed so many times that it was absolutely fried and wouldn't even curl the way it used to. I finally cut most of my hair off and had it dyed brown by a professional hair dresser. I haven't dyed it since and although I miss the red sometimes, I think I'm going to stick with my natural color for awhile.
17. Only a week after I started my senior year of high school, I became extremely ill and was out of school for three weeks, a week of which I spent hospitalized. They spent most of that time trying to figure out what was wrong with me before they finally diagnosed me with Still's Disease, a form of adult-onset juvenile arthritis. My doctors put me on a high dosage of a steroid called prednisone which caused me to gain a lot of weight in a short amount of time, among other really awful side affects. It was, without a doubt, the most miserable period of my entire life and the single worst thing that ever happened to me. I spent most of my senior year of high school feeling sick and totally depressed, while struggling to catch up with all the school work I had missed so that I could graduate. There was no one who understood what I was going through and many of my own so-called friends weren't there for me enough, so I felt very alone. I mention this because, as awful as it was, it made me a stronger person in the end and irrevocably shaped who I am now. Fortunately they took me off the steroids after a few months, and by the time I started college the following fall I had more or less gone back to normal, health-wise. I also entered a much better period of my life, because I flourished in college and made a ton of wonderful new friends. I have been in remission for almost seven years and have not felt any major affects of the arthritis (or been on any medications for it) since then.
18. I own a Celtic lap harp that my dad got me for my 17th birthday. I tried to teach myself to play it, but that didn't work out very well and so for years it stood in my room as a conversation piece. I considered selling it for awhile, but I decided against it and recently I've entertained the notion of picking it up again -- maybe even seeing if I can get lessons this time. I've never sufficiently learned how to play a musical instrument and would love to be able to scratch that off my bucket list.
ETA: I forgot to tag people! babyduckling, backupdancer, canis_takahari, chalissa, changing_heaven, cyan_mytta, downwithfishies, filthy_bonnet, fordanglia, hannah_monster, heartpause, mandee_jayne, melodies36, the_badgerpoker, indiwise, roooof.
Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 16 people to be tagged.
Just a warning, some of these might be considered sort of TMI.
1. I've learned more about myself and my sexuality in my two years of singleness since my last relationship than I ever have before in my entire life.
2. I have two tattoos: a Unitarian Universalist chalice on my back (which I got in 2004 but I had fixed up/added to this past year), and the signature of my favorite author, Lewis Carroll, around my right ankle which I got in 2002. I plan on getting more in the future, but not too many because I don't want to be absolutely covered in them.
3. I'm really anal when it comes to doing my laundry. After I wash my clothes, I can't ever just leave them in the dryer or set them down somewhere to put away later. I always have to either fold them and put them in my drawer, or put them all on hangers in my closet -- and I must do this immediately or else I go crazy.
4. I also get really obsessive-compulsive when it comes to organizing my music. The CDs for all the most important artists I listen to (Tori Amos, Nick Cave, Kate Bush, U2, Peter Gabriel, Ani DiFranco, etc.) are organized according to the hierarchy of my love for the artist, and the chronological order of when their respective albums were released, on a rack next to my bed. If I don't have all the albums for my favorite artist in my collection, and if they're not in the right order, then I feel as though I've disrespected the artist somehow. (MUSIC: SRS BIZNIZ.) The same is true for the organization of my books on my bookshelf, and I'm even OCD about how I organize the music on my iPod.
5. I love The Last Unicorn more than I can say; I've been a fan of the movie since I was five years old, and when I read the book years later it just made me fall in love with the story even more. I can't really explain how or why it means so much to me, but it does. I really want to meet the author, Peter S. Beagle, one day.
6. I have talked to one of my favorite comedians, Scott Thompson of The Kids In The Hall, online before. A couple years ago, he had a blog and I would leave comments on his entries, and a couple times he actually replied. He even thanked me for putting a link to his blog on his Wikipedia page. He was always so friendly and sweet. <3
7. From the time I was 15 until I was about 21, my creative writing output consisted of mainly poetry. I was always coming up with lines for poems out of the blue, and I won a few awards for poems that were published in high school and college literary magazines. I compiled all my favorite poems I'd written into a "book" on my computer and planned on self-publishing it for myself, my family and my friends. But then just before I turned 21, the hard drive of my computer crashed and because I'd not backed any of my stuff up (incredibly stupid of me, I know), I lost my entire poetry book. It was devastating. I have pretty much not written poetry since.
8. I am really not turned on at all by the thought of heterosexual sex anymore. However this may very well change in the future, especially since oddly enough I'm still attracted to men and would still date a man if he were the right kind of person.
9. My maternal grandfather died when he fell off a ladder while painting the house in 1965, when my mom was 12. My mom was in her bedroom playing the Beatles song "Help!" at the time. My mom and her younger sister also claim that they saw his spirit and that it spoke to their mother the night that he died. I wish I could have known him. From all accounts, he was an incredibly kind, smart, and amazing man. He was a writer too, and after marrying my grandmother he even adopted all of her four kids from her previous marriage. He treated all of them like they were his biological own.
10. When I was a really little kid, I drew a comic strip about a white cat named Snowball. It was basically a ripoff of Garfield. My mom has saved a lot of the comics I drew and when I look back on them, they're absolutely hilarious in a random and slightly twisted way. (One of the storylines involved Snowball's kittens beating the crap out of her for no reason at all and then running away giggling.)
11. Whenever I dress up for Halloween or any other situation where a costume is required, I almost always go as a man. When my friends and I attended the midnight Barnes & Noble release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I dressed up as Remus Lupin and my then-boyfriend dressed up as Sirius Black, and we went together as Sirius/Remus. (It was one of the few truly cool things he ever did for me.) The fact that I like dressing in drag is one of the things that has led me to believe that I don't view myself as fully female; I've always wanted to be sexy in the same way that the men I'm attracted to are sexy.
12. I used to be obsessed with Victorian England, starting from the time I was about ten years old. I felt quite certain that I had been born in the wrong century, and I would write stories about girls (usually blatant self-insert characters) living in that time period. Recently my interest in all things Victorian has waned a bit in order to make room for my interest in other time periods, like the Enlightenment -- but my love for Lewis Carroll and Oscar Wilde, and my interest in things like Jack The Ripper, will never ago away.
13. I lost my virginity on the evening of Thanksgiving day, 2003. XP
14. I have also been a Unitarian Universalist since 2003, although I am not currently a member of any church. Prior to stumbling upon Unitarian Universalism and realizing that it fit my beliefs perfectly, I was studying Judaism and considering the idea of converting. (Although not terribly seriously, to be honest.)
15. Related to number 11: I secretly would love to join a drag king troupe and perform as my own male character and everything. And if I can't come up with my own character, I could always dress up as MacPhisto.
16. From the time I was 14 until I was about 21, I dyed my hair various, natural-looking shades of red (despite the fact that my hair is naturally kind of auburn). But then I went on a crazy spree where I dyed my hair purple, then blue (which faded to green), then fire-engine red (which faded to fuchsia). By the end, it had been bleached and dyed so many times that it was absolutely fried and wouldn't even curl the way it used to. I finally cut most of my hair off and had it dyed brown by a professional hair dresser. I haven't dyed it since and although I miss the red sometimes, I think I'm going to stick with my natural color for awhile.
17. Only a week after I started my senior year of high school, I became extremely ill and was out of school for three weeks, a week of which I spent hospitalized. They spent most of that time trying to figure out what was wrong with me before they finally diagnosed me with Still's Disease, a form of adult-onset juvenile arthritis. My doctors put me on a high dosage of a steroid called prednisone which caused me to gain a lot of weight in a short amount of time, among other really awful side affects. It was, without a doubt, the most miserable period of my entire life and the single worst thing that ever happened to me. I spent most of my senior year of high school feeling sick and totally depressed, while struggling to catch up with all the school work I had missed so that I could graduate. There was no one who understood what I was going through and many of my own so-called friends weren't there for me enough, so I felt very alone. I mention this because, as awful as it was, it made me a stronger person in the end and irrevocably shaped who I am now. Fortunately they took me off the steroids after a few months, and by the time I started college the following fall I had more or less gone back to normal, health-wise. I also entered a much better period of my life, because I flourished in college and made a ton of wonderful new friends. I have been in remission for almost seven years and have not felt any major affects of the arthritis (or been on any medications for it) since then.
18. I own a Celtic lap harp that my dad got me for my 17th birthday. I tried to teach myself to play it, but that didn't work out very well and so for years it stood in my room as a conversation piece. I considered selling it for awhile, but I decided against it and recently I've entertained the notion of picking it up again -- maybe even seeing if I can get lessons this time. I've never sufficiently learned how to play a musical instrument and would love to be able to scratch that off my bucket list.
ETA: I forgot to tag people! babyduckling, backupdancer, canis_takahari, chalissa, changing_heaven, cyan_mytta, downwithfishies, filthy_bonnet, fordanglia, hannah_monster, heartpause, mandee_jayne, melodies36, the_badgerpoker, indiwise, roooof.