Ocho
sylvantechie tagged me with the "8 Facts" meme, and it's well-timed as I've been feeling guilty for not posting in ages.
1) Most of my dreams growing up occupied a shared physical world, generally defined by a city and its surrounding wilderness; after waking up, I could relate the location of a dream to those of past dreams. Topography was very important, with changes in elevation (be it climbing or, often, falling) being both common and symbolic. When I went to college, a distinct dreamscape emerged, based on the campus. Since graduation, the dreamscape has fragmented; it's unclear if this is the result of being less situated physically, or of something else entirely.
2) There's little more satisfying and meditative for me than hearing the sounds of moving water. Of course I love ocean and river sounds, as well as rain, but even the shower will do just fine. When I have a lot on my mind, or am having trouble getting going in the morning, I'm very happy to turn on the morning shower and just sit for five or ten minutes, listening, feeling perhaps a little bad about letting all that water go do the drain without having done anything, but not enough so to stop.
3) When I was young, I assigned all my stuffed animals Dungeons & Dragons stats. The dinosaurs, properly, were not very smart. If a stuffed animal fell off the bed, or got poked in the eye, I apologized in my mind and gave it a healing potion. It's probably noteworthy that I started playing D&D at age six, when some other kids at the bowling alley (where my parents played league games) introduced me to the game.
4) Though my professional working life has been about business from the beginning, business was not something I ever thought about growing up. My father is a scientist; my mother, an art historian and librarian. My friends and I all assumed I would become a professor. It's not that business seemed bad to me - it just never reached my mental radar.
5) Though a chunk of my job is seeing projects through from start to finish, I am personally a great starter and a terrible finisher. Though another chunk of my job is organization, I am personally not much of an organizer. I have an easier time taking responsibility for other people than for myself.
6) Corners of rooms can cause me problems if in the wrong mindset and/or sleepy. They have this vertiginous effect that can produce a sort of quiet, paralytic panic attack, though it's all internal - as soon as somebody appears to interrupt the siren's call of the corner, all is well. As I've gotten older, I've learned to avoid some problematic train of thought that seems to be part of this effect, so it only happens once in a blue moon. I wonder what things other people have done to train themselves away from "bad thinking".
7) Mangoes, lychees, pineapples... these fruits make me happy.
8) I don't like the first person singular pronoun, but relativism forces me to use it all the time. Bummer.
Seems like many relevant folks have been tagged already, so let's see where those tags go. Unless you are looking for a tag, in which case, please consider it done.
1) Most of my dreams growing up occupied a shared physical world, generally defined by a city and its surrounding wilderness; after waking up, I could relate the location of a dream to those of past dreams. Topography was very important, with changes in elevation (be it climbing or, often, falling) being both common and symbolic. When I went to college, a distinct dreamscape emerged, based on the campus. Since graduation, the dreamscape has fragmented; it's unclear if this is the result of being less situated physically, or of something else entirely.
2) There's little more satisfying and meditative for me than hearing the sounds of moving water. Of course I love ocean and river sounds, as well as rain, but even the shower will do just fine. When I have a lot on my mind, or am having trouble getting going in the morning, I'm very happy to turn on the morning shower and just sit for five or ten minutes, listening, feeling perhaps a little bad about letting all that water go do the drain without having done anything, but not enough so to stop.
3) When I was young, I assigned all my stuffed animals Dungeons & Dragons stats. The dinosaurs, properly, were not very smart. If a stuffed animal fell off the bed, or got poked in the eye, I apologized in my mind and gave it a healing potion. It's probably noteworthy that I started playing D&D at age six, when some other kids at the bowling alley (where my parents played league games) introduced me to the game.
4) Though my professional working life has been about business from the beginning, business was not something I ever thought about growing up. My father is a scientist; my mother, an art historian and librarian. My friends and I all assumed I would become a professor. It's not that business seemed bad to me - it just never reached my mental radar.
5) Though a chunk of my job is seeing projects through from start to finish, I am personally a great starter and a terrible finisher. Though another chunk of my job is organization, I am personally not much of an organizer. I have an easier time taking responsibility for other people than for myself.
6) Corners of rooms can cause me problems if in the wrong mindset and/or sleepy. They have this vertiginous effect that can produce a sort of quiet, paralytic panic attack, though it's all internal - as soon as somebody appears to interrupt the siren's call of the corner, all is well. As I've gotten older, I've learned to avoid some problematic train of thought that seems to be part of this effect, so it only happens once in a blue moon. I wonder what things other people have done to train themselves away from "bad thinking".
7) Mangoes, lychees, pineapples... these fruits make me happy.
8) I don't like the first person singular pronoun, but relativism forces me to use it all the time. Bummer.
Seems like many relevant folks have been tagged already, so let's see where those tags go. Unless you are looking for a tag, in which case, please consider it done.