Who are you - like you really want to know
Meme from out_there, amongst others. It's Saturday, and what else is there to do?
You know how sometimes people on your friend's list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.
Please copy mine below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-word answers seldom help anyone out.
(Or, of course, not.)
1. First Name: Hilary. It means 'cheerful'. And they say old folks don't understand irony. It can also be a boy's name, which is, I believe, one reason my parents chose it - "Yeah, we can't be arsed to go through two lists" - and is one of the reasons I've always disliked it. Also, it is spelt with one 'l'. I don't know how on earth, since it comes from the Latin, hilaria (my book of names says Greek, but the Latin is more immediate), anyone could ever have thought it should have two. Most of all, when my signature is right there on my email, why are there two 'l's in the reply you have sent back to me, you moron?
Um, yeah. That annoys me.
2. Age: Older than any of you.
3. Location: We moved to Bicester in September 2004 - previously we lived in the London commuter belt - and I still haven't really come to terms with it. There are no decent jobs in Bicester, and, since I don't drive, commuting is extremely difficult. Commuting to London, even though we're close to the railway station, is out of the question, since it would cost almost £5k a year. We don't know anyone here, and there's nothing to do - no theatres, no cinema, not even any decent shops. I will say that the Close we live in, which is fairly private and secluded, is nice and quiet, and the house, although modern and ugly, is decent enough, with a smallish garden that's nonetheless big enough for the cats to amuse themselves in. And at least we have running water, which is more than could sometimes be said of the house back home.
4. Occupation: That's a very good question. I've worked in the book trade for 15 years or so - as a bookseller, in the Rare Books trade, in customer services - all sorts of things. I landed a job in publishing a couple of years ago, but only as an editorial assistant; I got into it too late to get much higher in the ranks. Currently I'm stuck in a thankless, unrewarding, and thoroughly menial job working for a big corporation in their Major Reference Works section, and am bored out of my mind. I'm trying to do something about that, without much success so far.
5. Partner: None. Don't ask me why. I just never met anyone.
6. Kids: None.
7. Brothers/Sisters: One sister, nine years older, married, two adult sons, lives in Penzance with husband; husband is half-Indian, elder son has appeared in these pages and been described as 'hot'. Are you people mad?!; one brother, eight years older, married, lives in Bristol with djelibeybi_meg - who is his wife, I hasten to say - and her children; one brother, six years younger, lives in Horsham with his wife and one teenage, one pre-teen daughter. Pre-teen daughter falls within the autistic spectrum and is being home-educated. My mother doesn't know this. Luckily, nor does she read my LJ. If you do the maths on this, you will realise that brother #2 is 15 years younger than my sister, and if this were a soap opera ... However, it's not, and he isn't.
8. Pets: We've had cats for 20-odd years now, starting with Melanie, then Lillian and Tallulah; Tanith, Phoebe, Dulcie and Mintaka (and, very briefly, SUMO, who wasn't really ours anyway). Lillian died just before we moved; Dulcie was killed not long after we came here. Tanith died early last year, Mintaka two days before Christmas, and Phoebe, the last of them at 19 years old, died a few weeks ago. We acquired the three NuCats, then about six months old, in between losing Minka and losing Phoebe, and they have all settled in quite nicely. But I miss the old cats, who'd given us so much love for so very many years.
9. List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life: First and foremost: JobQuest. I am so unhappy with the way things are at present, if that doesn't change I don't know how I shall carry on. Secondly: writing. Writing - albeit only fan fiction, and only Sports Night fan fiction, with its audience of maybe half-a-dozen on a good day, at that - has been my one and only creative outlet over the past few years. It seems to be drying up now and, again, I don't know what I shall do without it. #3 is health: for years now I've been in a constant state of 'not very well', without ever being actually ill: I'm tired all the time, I have constant headaches, I have pains in my all my joints. On the bright side, the little run of symptoms I went through recently that made me fear I was developing diabetes seems to have vanished without turning into anything dramatic. I may also be depressed, although my personal opinion is that I'm not depressed; I'm unhappy - because of job worries, health worries, money worries, loneliness and boredom - and that is a quite different thing. Fourth: as I just said, money. Retirement is not that far away and, with no pension, I do not know what I shall do. The best I can hope for, I think, is early death. And fifth? I can't think of a fifth thing, and that, pretty much, sums up how things are.
10. Where and for what did you go to school for? Um, to get educated? And, unlike the person who set this meme, to learn grammar. If, as I suspect, they mean University, I didn't. A University education was not, when I was at school, an automatic and god-given right, as it seems to be nowadays and, in any case, I've always suspected that I may be educationally sub-normal. Again, back in my day, that didn't get diagnosed. Having said which, a lot of what now call themselves 'Universities' are actually FE colleges or polytechnics, and I went to two of those - once to do a course in nursery nursing, and once to do a secretarial course. At the latter of which, bizarrely, I excelled.
11. Parents? My father died some years ago although, truthfully, he - the person he had been - had been dead for two years before that, so it wasn't the blow it might have been. My mother, who is 91, is still around and, to my constant concern, living on her own and refusing all offers of help.
12. Who are some of your closest friends? LJ friends tend to be transitory; that bestest friend who loves you so much she emails you several times a day, IMs you in the evening, comments on every post you make, and drops arbitrary endearments like confetti, is pretty much certain to find someone she likes even better before long and drop you like a hot potato. LJ's a lot like kindergarten in that respect. People who have stuck around for a long time include Judy, of course, and wannabedolphin, who used to live in our sitting room; mythichistorian, who actually lives in Brigg but spends much of her life in Warwick, fairly conveniently close to hand; itzcoatl, who's stuck around ever since the Quantum Leap days. And on LJ, without listing them all, I am extremely thankful for all the people from the old LOTR message board who have still stayed in touch, even though our fandoms and interests have shifted; and for a number of lovely people from SN fandom - chief among them laylee and out_there, who I think are the two I have known longest in that respect. There are lots of others of whom I'm very fond, but, again, I don't want to list every single one - it would take forever, and you can bet I would still miss someone important and offend them mortally.
You know how sometimes people on your friend's list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.
Please copy mine below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-word answers seldom help anyone out.
(Or, of course, not.)
1. First Name: Hilary. It means 'cheerful'. And they say old folks don't understand irony. It can also be a boy's name, which is, I believe, one reason my parents chose it - "Yeah, we can't be arsed to go through two lists" - and is one of the reasons I've always disliked it. Also, it is spelt with one 'l'. I don't know how on earth, since it comes from the Latin, hilaria (my book of names says Greek, but the Latin is more immediate), anyone could ever have thought it should have two. Most of all, when my signature is right there on my email, why are there two 'l's in the reply you have sent back to me, you moron?
Um, yeah. That annoys me.
2. Age: Older than any of you.
3. Location: We moved to Bicester in September 2004 - previously we lived in the London commuter belt - and I still haven't really come to terms with it. There are no decent jobs in Bicester, and, since I don't drive, commuting is extremely difficult. Commuting to London, even though we're close to the railway station, is out of the question, since it would cost almost £5k a year. We don't know anyone here, and there's nothing to do - no theatres, no cinema, not even any decent shops. I will say that the Close we live in, which is fairly private and secluded, is nice and quiet, and the house, although modern and ugly, is decent enough, with a smallish garden that's nonetheless big enough for the cats to amuse themselves in. And at least we have running water, which is more than could sometimes be said of the house back home.
4. Occupation: That's a very good question. I've worked in the book trade for 15 years or so - as a bookseller, in the Rare Books trade, in customer services - all sorts of things. I landed a job in publishing a couple of years ago, but only as an editorial assistant; I got into it too late to get much higher in the ranks. Currently I'm stuck in a thankless, unrewarding, and thoroughly menial job working for a big corporation in their Major Reference Works section, and am bored out of my mind. I'm trying to do something about that, without much success so far.
5. Partner: None. Don't ask me why. I just never met anyone.
6. Kids: None.
7. Brothers/Sisters: One sister, nine years older, married, two adult sons, lives in Penzance with husband; husband is half-Indian, elder son has appeared in these pages and been described as 'hot'. Are you people mad?!; one brother, eight years older, married, lives in Bristol with djelibeybi_meg - who is his wife, I hasten to say - and her children; one brother, six years younger, lives in Horsham with his wife and one teenage, one pre-teen daughter. Pre-teen daughter falls within the autistic spectrum and is being home-educated. My mother doesn't know this. Luckily, nor does she read my LJ. If you do the maths on this, you will realise that brother #2 is 15 years younger than my sister, and if this were a soap opera ... However, it's not, and he isn't.
8. Pets: We've had cats for 20-odd years now, starting with Melanie, then Lillian and Tallulah; Tanith, Phoebe, Dulcie and Mintaka (and, very briefly, SUMO, who wasn't really ours anyway). Lillian died just before we moved; Dulcie was killed not long after we came here. Tanith died early last year, Mintaka two days before Christmas, and Phoebe, the last of them at 19 years old, died a few weeks ago. We acquired the three NuCats, then about six months old, in between losing Minka and losing Phoebe, and they have all settled in quite nicely. But I miss the old cats, who'd given us so much love for so very many years.
9. List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life: First and foremost: JobQuest. I am so unhappy with the way things are at present, if that doesn't change I don't know how I shall carry on. Secondly: writing. Writing - albeit only fan fiction, and only Sports Night fan fiction, with its audience of maybe half-a-dozen on a good day, at that - has been my one and only creative outlet over the past few years. It seems to be drying up now and, again, I don't know what I shall do without it. #3 is health: for years now I've been in a constant state of 'not very well', without ever being actually ill: I'm tired all the time, I have constant headaches, I have pains in my all my joints. On the bright side, the little run of symptoms I went through recently that made me fear I was developing diabetes seems to have vanished without turning into anything dramatic. I may also be depressed, although my personal opinion is that I'm not depressed; I'm unhappy - because of job worries, health worries, money worries, loneliness and boredom - and that is a quite different thing. Fourth: as I just said, money. Retirement is not that far away and, with no pension, I do not know what I shall do. The best I can hope for, I think, is early death. And fifth? I can't think of a fifth thing, and that, pretty much, sums up how things are.
10. Where and for what did you go to school for? Um, to get educated? And, unlike the person who set this meme, to learn grammar. If, as I suspect, they mean University, I didn't. A University education was not, when I was at school, an automatic and god-given right, as it seems to be nowadays and, in any case, I've always suspected that I may be educationally sub-normal. Again, back in my day, that didn't get diagnosed. Having said which, a lot of what now call themselves 'Universities' are actually FE colleges or polytechnics, and I went to two of those - once to do a course in nursery nursing, and once to do a secretarial course. At the latter of which, bizarrely, I excelled.
11. Parents? My father died some years ago although, truthfully, he - the person he had been - had been dead for two years before that, so it wasn't the blow it might have been. My mother, who is 91, is still around and, to my constant concern, living on her own and refusing all offers of help.
12. Who are some of your closest friends? LJ friends tend to be transitory; that bestest friend who loves you so much she emails you several times a day, IMs you in the evening, comments on every post you make, and drops arbitrary endearments like confetti, is pretty much certain to find someone she likes even better before long and drop you like a hot potato. LJ's a lot like kindergarten in that respect. People who have stuck around for a long time include Judy, of course, and wannabedolphin, who used to live in our sitting room; mythichistorian, who actually lives in Brigg but spends much of her life in Warwick, fairly conveniently close to hand; itzcoatl, who's stuck around ever since the Quantum Leap days. And on LJ, without listing them all, I am extremely thankful for all the people from the old LOTR message board who have still stayed in touch, even though our fandoms and interests have shifted; and for a number of lovely people from SN fandom - chief among them laylee and out_there, who I think are the two I have known longest in that respect. There are lots of others of whom I'm very fond, but, again, I don't want to list every single one - it would take forever, and you can bet I would still miss someone important and offend them mortally.