it's easy as ABC...

This meme is flying around the traps. I thought I'd play because it gives me something besides corrected manuscripts to think about. I haven't done a meme for so long that I actually found myself missing them. Feel free to play too.

Accent: Depends on who I’m talking to. I have inherited my mother’s ‘chameleon voice’ gene, but I take it further. If I’m talking to a roughnut, I’m as rough as they come, eh (legacy of a couple of years in North Queensland as a teenager), but if it’s a more genteel conversation, I can talk very nicely, thanks to a year of English private schooling. Most of the time I just speak waaaay too fast and slur my words together because the brain works faster than my mouth.

Booze: I wish. This dry year is a very long one so far. I resort to eating pears poached in red wine and making mulled wine for friends just to enjoy the smell. Normally I’m a red wine girl.

Chore I hate: anything domestic. I’d rather be up to my armpits in kero and printing ink.

Dog or cat: Cats. All the way. One day we want enough to cover a bedspread. For now we’ll settle for two (one each).

Essential electronics: Macintosh computer.

Favourite cologne(s): Not much of a perfume girl, although I do own something by Clinique (I think it’s Happy) and I have been known to dab vanilla essence behind my ears.

Gold or silver: Oh, definitely silver.

Hometown: Does this mean where you live? Or where you grew up? Or where you feel most at home? Canberra fits the bill for much of that.

Insomnia: Only had it for one night of my life so far, touch wood.

Job title: Typesetter and printer. I figure that covers my computer design work as well.

Kids: One 9 y-o. I am supposed to be trying for another, but not very strenuously, and certainly not to dedicate to the memory of an ANZAC digger, however noble that sounds.

Living arrangements: Small house, only tamed by the efforts of my domesticated partner. He wanted a wife, but I’m the one who really needs one.

Most admirable trait: Good humour in the face of adversity.

Number of sexual partners: More than many, less than some.

Overnight hospital stays: Four bouts of my own, three baby-related, one dental. Two bouts sleeping beside my son’s bed when he was in hospital.

Phobias: Nothing outstanding. I’m a pretty pragmatic person. I do have chilly feelings about closed doors.

Quote: This is my favorite at the moment. It’s on the bottom of my emails:

"If books had been invented after the computer, they would have been considered a big breakthrough. Books have several hundred simultaneous paper-thin, flexible displays. They boot instantly. They run on very low power at a very low cost."
Prof. Joseph M. Jacobson, MIT Media Lab,
quoted in the N. Y. Times, Apr 8, 1988, page B2.

Religion: No thanks. If I had to take something up, it would be Buddhism. But I do think awful thoughts about people sometimes, so loving compassion for all beings is a bit of a stretch some days. Easier to be agnostic.

Siblings: One brother, who died when I was 19. Still, he was fun while I had him, and I’ve married into lots of siblings, which is almost as good as having the real thing.

Time I wake up: On a good day, when Best Beloved does, at 6am with the Radio National news. On a bad day, when Best Beloved does, at 5.30am with My Word or the Goons. On an excellent day I go back to sleep and wake at my natural inclination of 7.30 or 8.

Unusual talent or skill: Reading upside down and back to front. I taught myself how to write this way when I was at primary school, before I knew that letterpress existed. Took another 20 years, but I finally found a use for it.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: Cucumber. Erk. Hate the smell of the stuff. Can’t even use a cucumber face mask.

Worst habit: Ignoring the housework until every resident is driven mad.

X-rays: Reproductive organs, back, teeth. I also use them as backing sheets for letterpress printing (not mine; anonymously donated ones).

Yummy foods I make: Lamb shanks, risotto, curries (that time of year again). Beetroot chocolate cake, bread & butter pudding with Seville orange marmalade.

Zodiac sign: Libra. Can’t make a decision to save my life. I really do see both sides of a situation. Makes me completely gormless. And when asked what I want for breakfast, I really, sincerely, don’t know. Really.