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getting to know your friends, again
02/24/2007 = 06:25 AM

Somehow I attract these emails the way the Mom attracts stray cats. You feed one hungry kitty and suddenly you can't open a can of fucking peaches without everyone begging for tuna.

Welcome to the 2007 edition of Getting to Know Your Friends. What you are supposed to do is click "reply," change all the answers so that they apply to you, and then send this to a whole bunch of people (including the person who sent it to you).

The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends, if you did not know them already.

What I am "supposed to do" and what I actually do are mutually exclusive when I get emails of this ilk. I only send them back to the sender. I post them on my blog.

If you've gotten this email from someone and don't want to do it, reading mine all the way through grants you immunity.

If you haven't gotten this email but want to do it, help yourself. See the "supposed-to" rules above.

1. What time did you get up this morning? Which time? I'm basically a sentient bladder, plus I'm an insomniac. I stopped trying to pretend I was sleeping and got up and made coffee at 4:40 am — the crack of ass.
2. Diamonds or pearls? Tough call. Diamonds are my birthstone, and there's quite a lot to be said for anything that bright and sparkly, but pearls are so — I don't know; they look like satin but they're strong and dependable. Also, if one is to believe the hype, they're fantastically nutritious and high in calcium, but if I gots pearls, I ain't eatin' 'em, is all I'm saying.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Gourd, I can't remember. I had a lot of movies I meant to see at the cinema but got hosed out of every time. I think it might have been Happy Feet.
4. What is your favorite TV show? Just one, huh? The one I try to watch as it happens and not record and watch after the fact? Probably Digging for the Truth.
5. What did you have for breakfast this morning? Coffee. Later on, I'll have more coffee. Then, I'll have an energy beverage fizzy-lifting drink, and wash it down with some more coffee.
6. What is your middle name? I make it up as I go along. It usually has quotation marks around it, as in Golf "You'll Still Love Me if I Don't Tell You My Middle Name, Right?" Widow.
7. What is you favorite cuisine? Whatever I haven't had recently and am in the mood for. I like lots of different types of food. At the moment, my favorite cuisine is Turkish, but as soon as I have some Turkish food, it will switch to something else I haven't had in a while, like down-home Southern fried food or something French cooked in wine.
8. What foods do you dislike? Peas. Though I like pea pods and snow peas. I guess what I don't like are naked peas. Pickled herring (it tastes better than it smells, but the smell usually throws me too far to want to come back and taste it). Root beer. I know, I'm crazy. You can have mine. I don't know why I don't like it. I just don't.
9. Favorite chips? In general, I'm more of a pretzels person. But I also love restaurant-style corn chips (and Fritos). Flavored potato chips depend on my whims. My latest discovery are the Cheddar and Beer ones, and they're not quite beery enough, but they're still pretty damned good. (They also make great crumbs for breading chicken.)
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? It's a mix made by Miss Fairweather (who has left off being "fair weather" due to having been heched by the Whatever.) The mix is original versions immediately followed by covers, and is called "Play It Again." Fun stuff.
11. What kind of car (truck) do you drive? I own a Dodge Neon. I rarely drive it. Insert long boring non-health story.
12. What is your favorite sandwich? I have a lot of favorites that I order out, but only two major players that I make at home, and these depend on the weather. Sunny day sandwich is crunchy peanut butter, strawberry jam, bacon (shut up), fresh-ground black pepper (I repeat, shut up), and a very small amount of marshmallow fluff (and did I mention, shut up?) on lightly toasted Portuguese bread. I usually have this with a side of carrot sticks and/or celery, incidentally — it's not quite the same without them. Rainy day sandwich is beef bologna and mustard on seeded rye, with a bowl of Lipton's onion soup. Here is where the real shutting up needs to happen, because if you're going to slipfight me over my favorite rainy day lunch from when I was a tiny kid, I will have no choice but to tell my mother on you. Are you going to rag on a woman dealing with tiny kids during a thunderstorm for preparing powdered soup? Go ahead. I'll just hide under this table till you've finished.
13. What characteristics do you despise? Lack of individuality, I think. Drawing inspiration from the world around you, including other creative people, isn't a punishable crime, but I do have a profound distaste for people who parrot other people's opinions rather than formulate or support their own ... and a particular hostility toward anyone who plagiarizes another person's creativity and proudly puts their own name on it, especially when someone else compliments their "handiwork" and they neglect to mention that their only contribution was the ol' cut 'n' paste.
14. What are your favorite clothes? I have two hoodies that are not only fantastically comfortable and cozy, but deliciously cute. One is black with the words "Golf Widow" on the front in white (not personalized —I bought it off the rack at a sporting goods store) and the other has Orange Bird on the front. Nrem made it for me. I love Orange Bird and I love Nrem. Either of these goes perfectly with the only pair of jeans I own that don't fall down on me, except that those jeans are starting to be a bit loose, even with my best belt, so it's probably time for new jeans again. Which, yay.
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would it be? New Zealand, I think. Unless Egypt. Hell, if I can get to Houston within the next year or so I'll be happy.
16. Favorite brand of clothing? There was a time in my life when such things mattered to me. I'll spend more for a designer brand if it's more comfortable or fits better than the department store generics, but that's the only time I'll do so.
17. Where would you want to retire? I sort of like the idea of Baltimore. You still get snow in winter, but it's warm in the summer. There's a Hard Rock Cafe. It's convenient to Washington, DC and the Smithsonian. Crab cakes. Close enough to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina that I'd be able to go see people. Duff Goldman, as if I could ever have the patience to order a cake a year in advance. I stick my fingers in the frosting on the way home from the damned bakery already.
18. Favorite time of day? When stuff is done and the rest of the day is mine own. Varies, of course, from day to day.
19. Where were you born? Pick one:
    1. In the back seat of a Chevy Nova.
    2. In a log cabinet.
    3. In the hospital where my dad worked.
20. What is your favorite sport to watch? Tournament poker. It is, too, a sport. It's on ESPN and they have beer endorsements. Women's NCAA basketball (preferably UConn, preferably crushing the estrogen out of Villanova) is usually on PBS, and, while it does occasionally air on ESPN, not only does it have no beer endorsements, it also has no razor endorsements; therefore, by boy logic, it is not a sport. The previous logic makes no sense to this blogger, but I have neither beer nor razor endorsements myself, and I lack boyparts.
21. Who do you think will not send this back? I don't mail these things out. I leave them in a pile by the door and you can help yourself if you'd like to.
22. Person you expect to send it back first. If I had to guess, I'd say either Jennytenny or Katie Doyle, because they both love a good meme.
23. Pepsi or Coke? Diet Coke is the most convenient, because That Man of Mine is a pain in the arse purist, but I like Classic Sugar Bomb Coke or Coke Zero, too.
24. Beavers or ducks? Platypus — best of both worlds. Oh. Oh. Color me naïve. Oregon State versus Oregon, you mean. Oregon. (Please. I kid. I'm not that naïve. I still prefer Oregon. You translate. In fact, it's more fun if you do so aloud, and use the pronunciation "OR´-ə-gn".)
25. Are you a morning person or night person? I'm a lazy person by nature. If someone will let me nap, I'm a day person; if I can hang out in sweats and watch TV or a DVD in the dark, I'm a night person.
26. Pedicure or manicure? I only do pedicures when I'm going to be wearing open-toed shoes, and I prefer to do them myself if possible. I have started getting professional manicures twice a month because, although it's a "luxury," it's a miniscule expense that I can actually afford with the extra money I earn freelancing; it's less sloppy than my trying to apply nail polish myself anymore; and it makes me feel pretty, which is the best reason ever.
27. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Other than that the new podcast is floating freely 'round the webiverse> Well, yes, actually. I won a prize. (Wooo.) No cash. (Great.) But I love winning, especially when it's because of something I wrote. Read my prize-winner here.
28. What did you want to be when you were little? Gene Kranz. I wanted cigarettes, a headset, and a vest, and I wanted people to call me Houston. I don't recall ever having wanted a flattop, though.
29. What is your best childhood memory? I have too many really good, specific memories to pick just one, but in general, I'd have to say my favorite passtime when I was a tiny kid was to hide behind something (whether it was the biography shelves in the school library or the big green easy chair in our living room) and read without anyone disturbing me. I haven't had that kind of delicious, secure solitude since I grew up and got Responsibilities, hence my referring to it as a childhood memory.
30. Piercing? Four up my left ear, one in my right ear.
31. Ever been to Africa? Not yet.
32. Ever been toilet papering? I've been, but I've never actually been effective at it. I would throw the roll upward and it would come down without catching on anything. So I'm guilty, but not culpable, I guess.
33. Been in a car accident? Never a major one, thank goodness. Four fender-benders (only twice where I was driving, and only once when I was at fault), and once I hit a parked car during a bad storm.
34. Favorite day of the week? Saturday.
35. Favorite restaurant? I was going to say "see number 7, because it depends what I want to eat," but no. I wish I could remember the name of the place. It was a white building. It was in the Philadelphia area. It was October. Our software class had had to sit through a tedious hour-long sales presentation, but we were treated to dinner by the owner of the software company. We had a private dining room and a personal sommelier. I had no choice but to order seafood, because anything else would have insulted the petit Chablis, which reminded me of the ocean (in a good way). They had the black labeled off-the-freakin'-boat Bushmill, and hand-whipped cream, and freshly-brewed coffee, and sugar-rimmed glasses, and they knew how to apply the formers to the latter and create an Irish coffee that would, possibly, even have impressed Spider Robinson. But, mostly, they had soup. Specifically, snapper turtle. Laced with a spoonful of Harvey's Bristol Cream. My toes still curl at the memory. You bet your sweet ass I love that soup.
36. Favorite flower? Anything that's still in the ground. Picked, cut, even potted flowers are captured and pretty, but I prefer things to die on their own rather than to have a hand in their demise. I think I like the smell of wilder flowers more than cultivated ones. Wild roses are ... rosier ... than regular ones, even if the regular ones are nicer to look at.
37. Favorite ice cream? I have a dairy allergy (and please, don't recommend I try Lactaid or other enzymes, because I'm not lactose-intolerant — I repeat, I have a dairy allergy) and no matter what ice cream I have, I can only have a small amount and I'll pay the price afterward no matter what. That said, Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk, which also contains chocolate, to which I am also allergic, so it's a double whammy of fun.
38. Favorite fast food restaurant? Sonic. They have diet cherry lime slushies and tater tots. Also, "foot long coney" sounds dirty.
39. How many times did you fail your driver's test? Passed it first go. Thanks to my dad for teaching me "curve-parking," which is to say, "curb-parking," which is to say, "parallel parking."
40. From whom did you get your last email? You mean, the last one that wasn't a request for me to MySpace Friend someone, a blog update notification, or an offer to increase the size of my boyparts, of which I haven't got any attached to me and the ones I do own are attached to someone else with his own email address? Let me look. Ah. Andy.
41. In which stores would you choose to max out your credit card? Barnes & Noble, Comp USA, and probably Zabar's.
42. Bedtime? I don't have one, as such. Insomniac. I can't sleep at all if it's too quiet, so I put on the telly or my iPod and fall asleep when I may. Eventually, I will wake up again, have a quick wee, and go back to bed; lather, rinse, repeat.
43. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? I never solicit responses for any of these things anymore, but if I were to have an opportunity to ask these questions of any given person, and get viable answers, I'd say probably the late Rex Stout.
44. Last person(s) you went to dinner with? That Man of Mine.
45. What are you listening to right now? The Lord of the Yum Yum. I'm getting Bizet. Heh.
46. What are your favorite colors? I like very saturated jewel tones in wintertime. They make me feel less bleh. In spring and summer, I like light blonde woodtones, sand, ivory, moss-greens, seafoam — you know, sort of like earth tones but not as deeply-hued.
47. How many tattoos do you have? I won't get even one till I can choose a design I'm willing to commit to for life. I've narrowed it down to three, and it's only taken me nearly thirty-six years to do so. At this rate, I ought to have one tattoo by the time I turn eighty.
48. How many are you sending this email to? Only one: the beautiful woman who sent me the bloody thing in the first place.

Tags: meme

drinking: coffee
listening to: Lord of the Yum Yum, Overture to Carmen
tonight's dinner: stuffed cabbage