Thank you, th...

Thank you, thank you, Chering, for the new icon, from my favorite picture of Gale. Ain't it classy?Chering gets one of my coveted Gold Stars.Gold Star

Time Wasting

Qafcomments tagged me for this one. In turn, I tag:pepino21786 bradys_rulztosca15betty122_alicespringsWhat were you doing 10 years ago?I was the Associate Administrator for Finance for the Department of Anesthesia of the University of Pennsylvania. My husband was alive, and we had season tickets to the Philadelphia Flyers and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Our Big Trip that year was three weeks in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Helsinki. Among other books, that year I read “Dangerous” by Amanda Quick and “Inheritor” by C.J. Cherryh each twice. Life was good. What were you doing 1 year ago?I was still working as the part-time accountant for The Printer’s Place even though I’d told myself when I took the job the previous summer that I would quit after I closed the year. 26 February was the fourth anniversary of my husband’s death, and I was splitting the Orchestra subscription with my youngest son, John. I had dropped the Flyers' season tickets. I was going to read only 24 books that whole year, the least since I got a library card when I was nine, but including the play “Equus,” and “Freakonomics,” which inspired me to make “Dominance’s” Justin a professor of Economics. Mostly, however, I was responding, at great length, to Chering and Pepino’s recaps and waiting on tenterhooks for S5. Life was good. Five snacks you enjoy:1.) Chocolate ice cream.2.) Peppermint chocolate chip ice cream.3.) Wasabi peanuts.4.) Kit-Kat bars.5.) Big, round, not-too-sweet sugar cookies.Five songs to which you know all the lyrics: 1.) Down in the Valley2.) She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain3.) Love and Marriage (Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage)4.) Jingle Bells5.) We Three Kings of Orient Are Five things you would do if you were a millionaire: 1.) Set up trust funds for my sons and grandchildren.2.) Take said sons and grandchildren to Hawaii for two weeks.3.) Invest the remaining funds 60% equities, 40% short-term fixed income.4.) Quit my job.5.) Take an undergraduate degree in History, preferably at Upenn. Five bad habits:1.) I eat too many sweets.2.) I stay up too late.3.) I am a slutty housekeeper.4.) I am selfish - not good at sharing, particularly the computer.5.) I don’t always open and read my mail (postal only).Five things you like doing: 1.) Writing.2.) Reading.3.) Playing Snood.4.) Traveling5.) Attending theater, concerts, movies. Five things you would never wear again: 1.) One-piece bathing suits2.) Mini-skirts3.) Slacks with the crease sewn in.4.) Heels higher than 1.5”5.) Underwired braFive favorite toys: 1.) Computer, including an internet connection2.) DVD player with slo-mo button3.) Plasma TV with SurroundSound4.) Clock-radio with CD player5.) My needlepoint/counted crossstitch projects

Happy happy

"Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you,Happy birthday, dear pepino21786,Happy birthday to you.Happy times and largely your fault, Pep. FanSee

Roses

Sass, qafcomments, thank you both for your roses, but even more thanks for your constant encouragement. I am such a slut for praise, it's embarrassing. FanSee

Would You Want Your Daughter to Marry One?

The author uses Brokeback Mountain (which he hasn't seen) as a jumping-off spot, but that's not what this article is about:Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Ex-Gay Cowboys

Organization I Plan to Join

National Sarcasm Society: Like We Need Your Support.

Stress Management

Must be my day to post.Having a rough day?Just in case you've had a rough day, here's a stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological texts.The funny thing is that it really works.1. Picture yourself near a stream.2. Birds are softly chirping in the cool mountain air.3. No one but you knows your secret place.4. You are in total seclusion from the hectic place called "the world,".5. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.6. The water is crystal clear.7. You can easily make out the face of the person you're holding underwater.8. See, you're smiling already.

Best Quote of 2006

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who is black, was asked on public TV about the President. He replied "Well, I really think that he shatters the myth of white supremacy once and for all.”

_alicesprings

Happy happy, and many more to come! Enjoy. FanSee

Kinneygarten

If you’ve been following Chering’s and my fic, “Dominance,” you know that we posted the final chapter today. (2 February 2006, at least in the northern hemisphere. God only knows what day it is in Oz.) Tomorrow we will start posting twelve chapters of “Kinneygarten,” a solo effort on my part. Despite the fact that we’re posting “Kinneygarten” on Chering’s LJ (http://chering.livejournal.com/), her only part in this was to review, to tweak, to find/construct the marvelous illustrations, and to encourage me. (Thanks, Chering!) Whether she should have encouraged me, you’ll have to decide for yourself after you give this little fic a try. Meanwhile, thank you all for your encouragement of our efforts in “Announcements” and “Dominance.” I am such a slut for praise. FanSee

The Unseen

I found an old (November 2005) review of The Unseen: The Unseen FWIW. FanSee

Interests Meme

LJ Interests meme results c.j. cherryh:C.J. Cherryh writes hard science fiction and very dark fantasy. I've been reading her since the 70's. dorothy dunnett:My previous obsession. She wrote historical novels and created one of the most charismatic heroes ever: Francis Crawford of Lymond. Lymond is beautiful, brilliant, sardonic, bi, flirts with death, and had a hellacious childhood. Dunnett writes about him using the most vivid, lush prose of my experience. neal stephenson:Another author. (Can you say WordNerd?)A double whammy, Stephenson writes both science fiction (Snowcrash) and wonderful historical fiction (The Baroque Trilogy). He's also an inveterate punster and a very funny writer, in my opinion. qaf fanfic:Reading and writing. queer as folk:Surprise! rufus wainwright:Complicated melodies, complicated lyrics: I like complicated. (See Cherryh, Dunnett, and Stephenson above.)Also quite pretty.I like pretty. snood:O.K., not everything I like is complicated. Snood is a computer game where you shoot things. I'm at a 12% win rate on the Evil level, up from 11%. Nothing to brag about, believe me. travel:I like traveling in the U.S., abroad, alone, with tour groups, with friends, in the winter, spring, and fall. I like traveling and do as much as I can. I've been to Ottawa, San Francisco, China, New York City, Sweden, Vermont, Denmark, New Orleans (pre-Katrina, Norway, Toronto, France, and Great Britain. My passport is up-to-date and I can be packed and ready to go tomorrow morning.::Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.

Book Meme

From shadownyc1. Grab the nearest book.2. Open the book to page 123.3. Find the fifth sentence.4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.At my elbow:"The coral atolls in Mangrava lagoon had no good raw stone at all, and even the volcanic islands offered only relatively coarse-grained basalt."This is from Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. I'm about half through and there's a lot more about failure than success, which makes for somewhat depressing reading. Collapse is interesting and instructive, but I don't think it's going to change my world view the way Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel did. FanSee

Malta picspam

This is the third time I've tried to post this. Grrr. Anyway, unless I totally lose it, there will be way too many pictures of my trip to Malta under this LJ cut:The Grand Harbour, Malta. Malta is made up of three small islands in the Mediterranean, south of Sicily.The Grand Harbour.A typical tourist in a typical pose.Shopping street, Valletta. Valletta is the principal city of Malta.Naptime.Judy, my companion for this trip, with the Citadel in Birgu in the background.Me and Judy, Birgu.Typical Maltese street, this one in Birgu.Cul de sac in Birgu.Signage showing the Maltese language, an amalgam of Italian and Arabic, with perhaps a little Phoenician thrown in.Excavations at a prehistoric site on Gozo, the second largest of the three islands.19th C. graffiti at the excavations.Gozo was the scenic high-light of my visit to Malta.Gozo.Gozo.Gozo.Mdina, the silent city; i.e., few people live there anymore. It is surrounded by the modern city of Rabat.Old and new in Mdina.

Malta picspam

This is the third time I've tried to post this. Grrr. Anyway, unless I totally lose it, there will be way too many pictures of my trip to Malta under this LJ cut:The Grand Harbour, Malta. Malta is made up of three small islands in the Mediterranean, south of Sicily.The Grand Harbour.A typical tourist in a typical pose.Shopping street, Valletta. Valletta is the principal city of Malta.Naptime.Judy, my companion for this trip, with the Citadel in Birgu in the background.Me and Judy, Birgu.Typical Maltese street, this one in Birgu.Cul de sac in Birgu.Signage showing the Maltese language, an amalgam of Italian and Arabic, with perhaps a little Phoenician thrown in.Excavations at a prehistoric site on Gozo, the second largest of the three islands.19th C. graffiti at the excavations.Gozo was the scenic high-light of my visit to Malta.Gozo.Gozo.Gozo.Mdina, the silent city; i.e., few people live there anymore. It is surrounded by the modern city of Rabat.Old and new in Mdina.

Addicted

This is going to shock you, but I have addictive tendencies.Besides QAF, I am addicted to computer games, especially Snood. I have played literally thousands of games, so many that I no longer play for a high score. (The highest I ever got was 23,000.) No, now I play to raise my "Percent Won" percentage. While I was still playing for a high score, I drove my "Percent Won" percentage down to 11%. With great effort and many many games, I have finally broken the 12% barrier and am hanging on by the skin of my teeth. The last time I hit 12%, I played while I was recovering from a stomach virus. Bad move! It's taken me several weeks to recoup from the damage I did in one day. I get news bulletins from Snood - somehow I don't think I'm the demographic they're aiming at. FanSee

Time-Waster

I'm addicted to these little quizes, but don't usually publish the results. This was SO on target I couldn't resist.The Movie Of Your Life Is An Indie FlickYou do things your own way - and it's made for colorful times.Your life hasn't turned out how anyone expected, thank goodness!Your best movie matches: Clerks, Garden State, Napoleon DynamiteIf Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

New Year's Resolutions (for Kaiponohea)

If I post my resolutions here, will that make them official? Enforceable? Sustainable?Major Goal: Break what needs to be accomplished into small segments, then start and FINISH each segment: 1.) Keep a To Do list going. 2.) Straighten up the kitchen and dining room once every day. 3.) Do one non-routine chore per day.Fun Goals: Price out bathroom renovations. Round up John to nail down plasma TV purchase. Watch at least one movie per week, at home or in theater.And this year, like last year and the year before that and the year before that, going back to 1969...scribble, scribble, scribble. (With apologies to Nora Ephron.) FanSee