Ink & Penwipers

Scribbles, screeds, speculations, and the occasional reference to Schrodinger's cat.

30 April 2003

Okay, since this is Posting Silly Quiz Results Week, here is how I stack up on the Dante's Inferno Test:

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
LevelScore
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)High
Level 2 (Lustful)Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)Low

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

I'm a bit suspicious of how good this makes me out to be.

29 April 2003

Because I thought I was finished, but I wasn't.

So I just ordered a Giles action figure online for Jessica's birthday, which was over a month ago, but hey, it's a better month this month. Which reminds me of an IM chat some weeks ago in which RJA, her friend Amy, and I discussed the merits of the Giles action figure.

(paraphrase)
Me: Yes, in an interview ASH boasted about his action figure, saying that it articulates in 14 positions and is a choking hazard.
Amy: [snerks and laughs]...Does he come with his own little copy of the Kama Sutra?
Me: *scaring the cat, laughing so hard* No, I think he comes with a crossbow.
Amy: Oooh, kinky.
Me: LOL
RJA: [claps hands to scandalized ears]

And apparently now there is a Fiesta!Giles action figure ("It's a sombrero." "And it's on your head.") I didn't buy that one, though I was tempted.

So there, I did actually accomplish something today -- I bought my best friend her birthday present. Life is good.

Un Tour de...Quelque Chose...

Today's Accomplishments

1. Took a bath.
2. Checked my email.
3. Popped in the disk to open Chapter 12.
4. Opened Chapter 12.
5. Read Chapter 12.
6. Sighed deeply.
7. Closed Chapter 12 without writing anything.
8. Decided to eat lunch.
9. Ate a few handfuls of BIG Cheezits and a chocolate truffle instead.
10. Lay down.
11. Dreamed some stuff about my fic.
12. Fell asleep, dreamed crazy Freudian dream about driving a locomotive through a tunnel that was too small and not being able to back out because there was another train behind me, but that ended up working out okay.
13. Got up and piddled online while Jessica was at school teaching.
14. Listened to music.
15. Dug out my flute and piccolo and played for an hour.
16. Listened to music again.
17. Went out and had Mexican with Jessica.
18. Came back here and piddled online.

Real big day, huh.

In other news, last night's Manchild was a "tour-de...something" as Jessica said. Actually, what she said was that Roger Allam's performance as the Manchildren's old schoolfriend Dirty Dixon was a tour-de-something. So over dinner we basically wrote a paper about class issues, public school oligarchy, and British cultural criticism in Manchild. Decided that the only way to have an American version of Manchild, with its old-money/new-money male-to-male tensions, would be to have it with jocks. Further decided that this statement is as good a crystallization of American/British cultural criticism as one is likely to find. Agreed fervently that given a choice between the two (and only between the two), the British Manchildren win hands down in terms of sex appeal; for all their "pathetic patheticness," they're infinitely more cuddly than the 50-something denizens of the American Sports Bar. Of course, it doesn't hurt that two of them are played by Nigel Havers and Tony Head.

I'm just saying.

28 April 2003

Gosh, this is accurate.

You are Psalms
You are Psalms.


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Again: Huh.

25 April 2003

Just Imagine a Small Woman With Glasses Looking Round With Hunched Shoulders, Rubbing Her Hands and Cackling With Glee.

It's aliiiiiiiiive!

I have got Jessica blogging now. Go look. Or check out my blogroll. I've got new people on it.

23 April 2003

Whew. Chapter 11, for your reading entertainment. Has a few ups and downs -- just a bit of a warning.

As always, R&R!

22 April 2003

Another Silly Quiz Result, Gacked From Rebecca

Sunrise
Sunrise - You seek to learn all you can so that you
may teach the wisdom of the world to others.
You enjoy tranquility and peaceful beauty, and
like to feel at one with the world.


When are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Huh.

(Apparently, I'm also Oz this week.)

21 April 2003

Ephemera

Holy Week. Completely exhausting. It was very big and I was very small. I slept in this morning, heartily.

Had a weird dream this morning in which I was a character on the West Wing. But all, or most, of the WW characters were women for some reason. C.J. had an underling whom she got mad at for doing something. I was a female Sam, I think, wandering around and not knowing what I was doing. Maybe I was a female Josh. And there was this big powwow with some good-looking male Russian dignitaries who explained how they went through periods of thinking Communism was right, and then thinking it was wrong. I was telling my colleagues how I had a great deal of respect for their leader, who had a specific name, but I don't remember it now, except it started with a D. Except then the leader as part of his closing remarks made some benediction that implied that our country would soon see the light. Even in my dream I thought it was a weird time to be "seeing the light" about Communism, as that whole argument is so pre-1990. And then the men disappeared. There was a whole bunch of other weird stuff, like being in the children's section of a library and trying to check out this series of fantasy books that had been recommended to me, only the first one was missing, possibly misshelved (a significant possibility since the shelves were a huge mess), and I was searching for it because it was suddenly very important that I read these books. And then -- well, I guess I woke up.

This may have something to do with the fact that Jessica made me aware of Governor Howard Dean's campaign for 2004, just before I went to bed last night. Apparently he's very Bartlet-esque, and hey, Martin Sheen even endorses him. Speaking of which, apparently the powers that be are leaning heavily on Sheen to shut up about protesting the war, even to threatening his job on the West Wing. How un-American is that? What is wrong with my beloved country??

Don't want to think about that anymore right now.

I notice from my stats pages that someone has read through all the chapters of Shadow that are currently posted -- which makes me happy, whoever did it. Chapter 11 is coming along slowly but surely. In my imagination, reams and reams' worth of story is proliferating, most of which I will never write. I have this sort of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure thing going with the story. Because of course Elisabeth can wind up back in her own dimension...or she can end up staying where she is and create great dramatic complications wth ramifications that echo down to the roots of the world. I know which one I am going to do for the story I'm actually writing, but it's always fun to think of the other thing. My latest amusement: dressing Elisabeth up in tweed.

Somebody reassure me that Giles is not going to die at the end of Season 7. I just have this horrible, horrible feeling, and I can't make it go away. Even watching Manchild does not help.

*deep sigh* I suppose I should potter round and find myself some lunch.

17 April 2003

Not My Rant, But Ambrosial

Pursuant to Natasha's comment about "wanker" being an excellent all-purpose epithet, I have a story to relate.

Jessica and I went grocery shopping this afternoon to prepare for the home Seder meal she is going to make. (It promises to be quite the evening: the Agape meal, the Maundy Thursday Liturgy, and a Passover meal when I get home!) Unfortunately, the store we chose -- a large one with an international foods aisle -- had plenty of matzo meal and crackers, but none of it kosher for Passover. "I go through this every year in this town. Gentile wankers!" Jessica muttered. It's always cute when she brings her Anglophile and Jewish selves together to form epithets. The thing is, she's right. You can eat kosher-for-Passover matzo year round, but you can't eat regular matzo on Passover: so why don't stores take care to stock kosher-for-Passover matzo more often? The answer is, of course, that the stores do buy kosher-for-Passover matzo. For Hanukkah. So we had this whole discussion of methods of qualifying "wanker" with "gentile", and how it actually fits despite being an ethnic mesh of insults.

So we went to another superstore to look for kosher-for-Passover matzo. Found cute little kosher-for-Passover matzo crackers, but that was it. On the way home, she ranted: "You know, every year the Jewish community goes to the managers and explains that if they only stocked kosher-for-Passover matzo, we would be fine. Instead, we get our special matzo on Hanukkah -- " "As well as ceramic seder plates in Marshall's on Hanukkah." (They also had hideous snow globes that played the Dreidel Song, but that's another story.) "Yeah, guess they were too busy wanking to listen." I found this very funny -- and mind-boggling. "I just don't understand that," I said. "Well, you can't speak to the issue, you're not a gentile wanker..." She stopped. "Well, technically -- " "The point is, I don't wank instead of think," I said, helping. "I wank when it's time to wank, and I think when it's time to think." "Exactly."

So there it is.

16 April 2003

My Life as The Ambassadors

This being Holy Week, every morning there is Holy Eucharist at church at 7:00. So I went this morning and took Communion and prayed with the few others who were there. I'm beginning to not need the Prayer Book open before me in order to remember the responses, even the long ones. I've done it enough times now that I am less caught up in the newness of the thing; but for some reason there was a difference about this morning.

It certainly wasn't the rite. Or the sermon, though Father Ken made use of a powerful quote from The Cloud of Unknowing ("By love God may be grasped and held; by thought, never"). Nor was it myself; in fact, I felt bodily even more numb with interrupted sleep than usual. The Eucharistic Prayer, which is of necessity quite long, was just as long as ever, and my attention strayed occasionally as it often does. (I have resolved not to feel guilty for occasionally thinking of my fic or my novel during church; nor do I plan to shut such thoughts out, as simple repression seldom works with me.) No, there was nothing around me or within me to make this morning different.

Except it was. For eternally-split seconds at a time, I knew the grief of the Passion, the grief of my own passion, and the celebration of the bread and wine. And after taking them at the altar, I knelt in my pew and gave silent heartfelt thanks (Almighty God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ...).

I've never understood the urge of some to dwell with a sort of morbid relish on the pains of Jesus' flogging and crucifixion, as if repeating loudly and at length the medical dissections of his pain would make us feel more devout and thankful for his sufferings. For one thing, it doesn't work. I find myself much more shocked and horrified by last night's episode of Buffy than I ever would at another catalogue of the pains of the Crucifixion. The first time this thought occurred to me this morning, I felt a bit guilty, much as I did when many years ago I read someone's (I forget who) lament that we as a society give credence to people who paint their faces and scream at sports events but are suspicious of religious fervor of even less intensity. But should I feel guilty?

I begin to think not. Was the Passion and Crucifixion a great event -- the great event, as Christians believe? Yes. Did it affect the entire world, both causally and teleologically? Yes.

Did it look like it? Probably not.

Oh yes, odd things happened. The sky went dark, and there was an earthquake, and the curtain in the temple tore itself in two. But who except the disciples knew to connect all that with the Roman execution of a troublemaking blue-collar rabbi? Such things happened every day, and would continue to happen in this brutal world. It needed no consciousness of a great war between all good and all evil to understand the picture of that execution. I'm content to believe the odd things really happened, but I'd also be content if I discovered for certain that they were all narrative filigree: the important thing that afternoon was happening on a cross outside the boundaries of the city. Something quite literal was happening there: God was bearing the cost of -- another word for forgiving -- everything that had ever been done to him. He was letting us, beings renowned for both cruelty and impotence, kill him. It was literal, and so it was quite commonplace.

Our sporting events, our stories about battles between good and evil, are epic, tragic. Their mythos tugs at our hearts and gives us the chance to feel things deeply that would otherwise pass us by. The Crucifixion is no such event. The Gospel as a whole, of course, does marry with our collective mythic consciousness -- and yes, I believe God arranged for that to be the case -- but that moment, in itself -- the silent beat in the midst of the torrent of music, the eye of the hurricane -- is not meant to arouse our vicarious mythic emotions. It was meant precisely to make possible the equilibrium that is the human race's peace with God -- something plain and particular -- like -- like --

Like someone getting numbly out of bed in the morning to kneel and be thankful for a split second at a time.

14 April 2003

Yes, But I'm Not So Masochistic as to Wear Tweed Underwear...

My head is a train station at the moment. I keep buying tickets to get on one train or another, and I keep missing the trains, so that what I thought I was going to blog about is already on its way to Saskatoon without me. So here's my sheaf of missed train tickets:

Holy Week: red altar cloth, palm crosses, the breaking of the bread, Morning Prayer, people laughing together...
Writing: Chapter 11, Helen and Rankin, Mary and Martha, and the story of the cat guarding Giles's flat in England...
Taxes: They suck. And the government sucks. Something about Winston Churchill and that quote about democracy, as the train rounds the bend out of my sight...
The Exasperating Tendency of Life to Have this Simultaneous, Schismatic Duality Between Centered Purposefulness and Chaotic Depressive Doldrumminess
Spring: poems, the loveliness of trees, the smell of lilacs, sunlight tingling through new leaves to shine through a window onto a hardwood floor...
The Effect of Springtime on a Double Sagittarius Cognitive Synaesthete
The Clamor of Self-Will and How it Monopolizes One's Attention
A Few Notes Upon the Unreliability of Guilty Feelings, Especially When Compared With the Near-Relief That Happens When One KNOWS One Has Done Something Wrong: And A Not-So-Random Wish that the Percentage of Occurrence of Those Two Feelings Were Reversed, Even if It Means That One is Doing More Wrong Things

Sigh. I'm going to sit down with my bags and refrain from any more attempts to purchase tickets at this point.

11 April 2003

In other, more pleasant news, I am pleased to present the first chapter of my roommate Jessica's post-series Buffy fic, entitled "Daemonium Meridianum". Please read and review!

If a child psychologist sat me down right now, and asked me to draw pictures based on how I feel, I'm pretty sure that, viewing the results, he would either a) stage a conference and meanwhile send for the straightjacket men, or b) blink once and then give me a mild smile. Probably the latter. Hmm, for some reason I'm not the center of the universe. What's up with that?

Another blogback to one of Rebecca's articles, this time on gender politics in fiction and fanfiction.

And Should I, After Tea and Cakes and Ices...?

Ah, I get to talk now about the anxiety of authorship, Deborah Tannen, and a host of other goodies as relates to fiction writing. Italicized passages are RJA's.

I got the impression that many people feel the reason Lewis and Tolkien had trouble with women characters was because of their Christian background -- based on the assumption that Christianity is inherently misogynist, so the more seriously an author takes the Bible, the more inevitable it will be that they short-change female characters in their fiction. I don't think that's the case, however.

I agree; I should think their being British males of the early twentieth century would have more to do with it. And so far from being inherently misogynist, Christianity has depended on women for both its strength and character since its beginnings, Pauline strictures on order of worship or no. Any misunderstandings on that point, in my opinion, are born of a lack of contact with history, on the part of both modern uber-conservatives and those reacting against them. If Lewis (I can't speak to Tolkien, having not read him) has difficulty with women characters in the Narnia books, it is merely that he has a weakness as a writer -- one I would put down to lack of personal experience. I note that after he meets Joy Davidman, his female characters accrue more depth and his own narrative portrayal of them reflects the rise in his consciousness -- Till We Have Faces being the best example. I also note that in later years Lewis's anti-feminist arguments take a different tone from his earlier gleeful bashing whimsy: his article "Priestesses in the Church?" as well as his chapter on Eros in The Four Loves are weighted heavily with painful awareness that male dominance of any variety is not healthful except under severely limited circumstances -- that those circumstances are currently limited hardly at all -- and that that situation is responsible for a great deal of both male and female suffering. Despite the fact that I think Lewis is mistaken about femininity in several key points, I respect his arguments, and I certainly would never parade him through the streets with a sign saying MISOGYNIST hung around his neck.

In fact, in some respects I am quite sure I am more conservative than Lewis or Tolkien on the subject. And yet the problems and prejudices evident in their fiction regarding women are not, I think, present in mine. Of course, it might well be said that my attitude is different from that of Lewis or Tolkien because I am a woman and therefore naturally more interested in portraying women characters fairly and giving them significant parts to play.

I think RJA is right in saying that this is a false conclusion. It's a matter of badly-linked syllogisms with faulty premises:

a) Men don't understand how to write women.
b) Lewis and Tolkien are men.
c) Therefore they don't know how to write women.

d) Non-men know how to write women.
e) Women are not men.
f) Therefore women know how to write women.

g) Women (knowing how to write women) are interested in writing strong women characters.
h) RJA (or X) is a woman.
i) Therefore, RJA (or X) knows how to write women and is interested in writing strong women characters.

Neither a), d), or g) is completely sound, for multiple reasons I won't go into here. It's certainly true that as a woman, a writer such as RJA is more likely to know what women's collective experience is like. But whether or not that is important to her writing ethos is an entirely different matter, dependent, as with male writers, on prejudice, education, philosophical and moral systems, and politics. That women should so often be socialized and educated to think from the male point of view when writing is Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert's lament -- but it is the individual who does or doesn't respond to that issue.

Musing a bit further on what I've written to date, I realize that the theme of men reduced to a state of physical and/or emotional helplessness and needing to be in some way assisted or even rescued by women comes up again and again. It's in four out of my six DOCTOR WHO stories, it crops up repeatedly in D&L, it's in my Trekfic, my X-fic... wow, I'm a radical feminist and I didn't even know it! And the hero, instead of resenting the heroine's intervention on his behalf or mentally disparaging it, recognizes and acknowledges that he couldn't have made it through the crisis without her. He sees her as an indispensible part of their team, someone he needs by his side, not just the obligatory female sidekick or love interest. (Plus, she's often the viewpoint character, so the story needs her, too.)

This isn't necessarily a feminist trope. It's much more a reflection of the common female wish for a situation in which male emotional helplessness/surrender creates an opportunity for the female to be needed, loved, or something other than nonessential. This trope can occur in both a feminist and an anti-feminist context. Much more feminist, in my opinion, is a narrative in which the female characters' relationships with men (whatever their nature) are not the defining issue for their existence in the story. Of course, it's very difficult to write a story of that type without succumbing to agenda, and so most stories with this trope serve both feminist and anti-feminist philosophies, depending how you read them, or how you want them to be read. I haven't read Knife, RJA, so I couldn't say, but its premise sounds much more feminist to me than the Darkness and Light trilogy.

So there you have it. *sound of two pennies hitting the floor*

09 April 2003

Happy Birthday, Natasha!

Hope yours is swell.

07 April 2003

Today my ad banner offers a link to David Bader's Haikus for Jews, which is much better than Jack Canfield motivational tapes. Ew. I have perused Haikus for Jews in my local B&N, and remember one very amusing one in particular:

On His Bar Mitzvah

Today I am a man.
Tomorrow I will return
To the seventh grade.

Oy vey.

In other news, have started Chapter 11, and have randomly provided an opportunity for Elisabeth to joke about eating Cheetos while reading Giles's books. For some reason Giles isn't finding this very funny. I'm so mean. My application to the Evil Author Society is in the mail, thanks for asking.

05 April 2003

Okay, since Rebecca posted such an interesting article on Harry Potter and his detractors, my urge to pontificate is piqued.

A Few Notes on the Philosophy of the Fantastic from a Historical Perspective: Or, You Want Me to Do What Upon a Star?

From Rebecca's post:

I might not agree with those parents who are so frightened of the word or the idea of "magic", so convinced that the word "magic" always does and always must refer to the occult, that they refuse to let their children read ANY fairy tales or fantasies -- but at least they are consistent.

And it is a very interesting consistency too. Not at all times has the idea of the fantastic aroused such a tempest in Christians' consciences, and it is curious to me that in this modern age we should think that Christianity is more embattled than it has ever been, both from within and without. It is curious to me that the fantastic, one of the things in our culture that is least redolent of this era of industrial-strength destruction, should now be the scapegoat for the perennial difficulties that Christians experience. (And ought to experience, I may add. Jesus promised us pretty much exactly the opposite of a rose garden; it seems silly to me for so many Christians to act like they have a right for it to be easy -- read: convenient -- to practice their faith in this world.)

Before I say anything else, I have to acknowledge that I am largely dependent for my information on C.S. Lewis's introductory essay in English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama. As well, this little mini-essay would be much more complete if I could say something from the straight religio-philosophic standpoint, or if I knew anything about the early church other than what I can gather from the Acts and the Epistles. So my scope is literary, and a bit limited.

In Middle English story and fable, and even in Middle English religious writing, there is a much more seamless relationship between the fantastic and the religious outlook. From our perspective, it looks like straight gullibility: people tell stories about saints who made miracles occur -- grisly monsters who did horrifying things to children -- kings who were kidnapped into Faerie -- royal houses who can trace their lineage back to supernatural beings. All of it told without winking at the audience. Perhaps, however, it wasn't straight gullibility -- more like a freedom from the modern "dissociation of consciousness" that we labor under every day, Christian or not. A Middle Ager did not have subhuman intelligence; he or she could figure out what was or was not possible under normal conditions. But he did not have the distaste for the supranormal that we have; nor did she get overexcited at the prospect of experiencing a supranormal situation herself -- the stories themselves were satisfying mythos enough. And of course, politically, the social order was pretty much fixed, so it didn't enter in greatly as either a cause or an effect of this mindset, and whenever it did, it was seen to be an anomaly -- unlike our constant and painful awareness of the political implications, both as causes and effects, of our storytelling.

In the Renaissance, however, things began to change. The Reformation, the political upheavals, the rise of technology, the threat of Islam, the renewed and vigorous witch-hunting -- these things made the fantastic different to people's minds. Now the great question was that of fate or agency: you could be an astrologer, or a Calvinist, and declare determinism the true philosophy; or you could be a magician, or a Roman Catholic (or a less strenuous variety of Protestant), and kick dust on determinism. A fantastic story, about Faerie or anything else really a-natural, was really less fantastic than the things that were going on outside in the street. Certainly they were less dangerous on the whole. Depending on your (either secular or religious) belief in either determinism or agency, you either hunted witches (those damned believers in agency), or you looked askance at them and went about your own business.

It wasn't till the Revolutionary Age that any of this was carried to its natural political conclusion. At this point, the fairytales became nice little stories -- moving symbols of that revolutionary spirit that we all needed more of. Being -- perfection -- was death; becoming -- revolting -- was life. And the fantastic -- always contiguous and evolving, and like the rainbow's end, never quite attainable -- was valuable really only insofar as it was useful to the spirit of that age.

After the Romantics, the Victorians took hold of the fairytale as a man clings to a life preserver. Here was a way to duck the dreadful implications of the New Science -- and a safehouse for those cramped by the reactionary social mores that sprang up in response to the great revolutions. The fantastic had room for moral ambiguities, for warpings of time and space, for both the beautiful and the terrible. And since we don't touch things without changing them, the Victorians left a sweetness on the fantastic that is sometimes cloying. And they drew an association between the occult and the relatively innocuous practice of contacting loved ones in the Beyond -- Arthur Conan Doyle being the poster child for that movement. W.B. Yeats, who took a literal view of fairies and the occult that went beyond even Doyle's shenanigans, made the circle complete.

We're still spinning out the implications of everything that happened in the Victorian age. Anyone who's watched The Matrix will understand what I mean by the terrifying determinism of our machines; Foucault perfected the observant philosophy of social surveillance; Joseph Campbell with an air of detachment assembled the thousand faces of the hero; and Hitler ensured that we will never use the words "final" and "solution" together in a sentence without cringing. So why -- oh, why -- is the uber-conservative branch of Christianity so down on the fantastic, when it seems so much less dangerous to the individual soul than the forces we come into contact with every day? Pascal says: "God instituted prayer so that humans might have the dignity of causality." And reading the Bible, I can't imagine that God wants humans to feel guilty for having any agency; the Fall tainted our agency, not the other way around. And if the fantastic is married in our collective consciousness to an idea of agency, of alternative ways of thinking about our own universe -- and if agency in itself is not sin, then why the witch hunt?

(Shorthanded reasoning here, but this is a blog, not an academic journal. So sue me.)

It's a very interesting consistency, I must say, to take a broom to every hint of fantasy in human life and sweep it out of doors. And it's not as if children won't figure out how to make their own anyway. And very interesting that we should have somehow preserved the most faulty aspects of every age regarding the fantastic: The Middle Age credulity, the Renaissance gossipmongering, the Revolutionary tendency to look through the wrong end of the telescope, and the Victorian escapism -- together with our own capabilities for mass destruction.

Sigh. I'm off to go dig out my copy of At the Back of the North Wind.

01 April 2003

*deep relieved sigh*

Okay, here is Chapter 10. As always, squees, feedback, or constructive criticism are eagerly anticipated.

I thought it was cool when Natasha and James did it, so now I'm doing it. Here it is:

The Alphabetical Meme

Act your age? I can't say. I get less serious all the time, but life gets harder and more demanding. Pushing thirty, from either direction, gives life a unique weirdness. Now, do I look my age? Well, I get carded every now and then, and people think I'm an undergraduate when they first meet me. At my age, I should call this a compliment, but I've had too many years of being told in middle school that I looked like I belonged in elementary, and in high school like I belonged in middle school, so it still rankles a bit.

Born on what day of the week?: Wednesday, I believe. Sometimes my birthday falls on Thanksgiving, and James, I'm sorry to disagree with you, but birthday/holiday conjunctions suck. At Thanksgiving, people are so busy stuffing their faces that they can't be bothered to remember that it's my special day. Maybe it'd be better at Easter -- "Christ is risen, and it's my special day too" -- so I feel a bit jealous.

Chore you hate?: Washing dishes. With the power of not only a thousand suns but a thousand supernovas.

Dog's Name: Have no dog. I like cats, but I don't have one of those either. I am traveling light at this stage of my life.

Essential make-up item: Lipstick or gloss.

Favorite Actor/Actress: Um, considering I have built an entire fic around a character played by Anthony Stewart Head, I don't think I even need to answer this, really. But when I'm not obsessing myself, I tend to be content to let my friends' obsessions govern my viewing habits. So when I get over Tony, who knows what I'll be watching. James is right: it pays to follow the writers first.

Gold or Silver: Silver. It's the color of the moon.

Hand you write with: Right. I have a writer's callus on the knuckle of my right-hand ring finger.

Instruments you play: Flute and piccolo. I play well enough to enjoy it, but my talent doesn't quite stretch to orchestral standards.

Job title(s): English major, ex-library assistant, resident cat.

Kids?: Nope.

Living arrangements: The upstairs of a 1912 house in an older urban neighborhood.

Make of vehicle: A 1992 Geo Storm hatchback of that idiosyncratically Geo teal color. When I bought it used, the "S" was knocked off the logo, so it's always been Lucy the Torm. Now the whole logo's off, so I don't know what to call it.

Number of people you've slept with: Slept with, maybe five family members and five friends, and a roomful of people in high school activity convention things. Had sex with, a big fat zero. Stop rubbing it in.

Overnight hospital stays: Don't remember any. *knocks on head in absence of wood* But I have been in the ER during a plurality of night hours.

Phobias: The dark.

Quote you like: Ray Burdis in Manchild, season 1, episode 6: "Look at that! She's making drinks out of grass! Grass! I mean, who the f*ck would want to drink a shake made out of grass?...[Patrick,] I'm not talking to you anymore. You disgust me." Patrick: "Oh, please, this mail order bride thing is just a means to an end..." "No, no, no, I'm not talking about that buy-a-wife thing, I'm talking about this!" [points to shake] "And you do this to us! We're supposed to be your friends!"

This scene is much funnier if you watch the clip. Alas, BBCAmerica has removed the episode 6 clip from its page. Wankers.

Rock Groups: Sixpence, and...oh, bloody hell, I'm not even going to bother explaining my musical tastes.

Siblings: A sister, 5 years my junior, and a brother, 11 years my junior. I broke in our parents and our teachers for them. The sad thing is, most of the teachers are still around for another dose of Inman idiosyncrasy. *cackles gleefully*

Time you wake up: When I'm working, my alarm goes off at 6:45; during Lent, 5:45 for Morning Prayer. This is an altogether different question from when I wake up, which is rarely if I can help it.

Unique habit: I eat hot chocolate mix straight out of the packet.

Vegetable you refuse to eat: If it's a vegetable, chances are I will refuse to eat it under most circumstances. However, when cooked appealingly I may be induced to eat just about anything from that food group.

Worst habit: I procrastinate a) because I'm a perfectionist and won't do something if I have no guarantee that I won't do it perfectly the first time, and b) also because most of the time I just don't give a [your favorite expletive here].

X-Rays you've had: Colon X-ray as a child (very traumatic); various other X-rays including dental ones; and a chest X-ray a few years ago (during which I rolled my eyes and said to myself, "Finally, you wankers. You know, I wasn't kidding when I said my lungs hurt.").

Yummy food you make: Lemon curd. I love it so much I'm putting it in my fic.

Zodiac sign: Sagittarius. Apparently, it's also my rising sign, so what can I say.