I love postcards. I always write them when on vacation but I almost never send them. I am thinking of working on that by sending someone a postcard once a week. Would you like to get postcards? If so, send me your address at snailmailpostcards at gmail. Even if you know I know your address, send it there as a sign up. Potentially I will be taking pics of the postcards I send. It’s like the opposite of PostSecret! PostNotSecret.
My friend Claire requested I answer this meme:
1. Just how lazy are you?
Very. I have no sense of discipline. I have found a way to quickly and efficiently not walk up a couple of flights of stairs in my local subway station sans elevator.
2. What are you going on and on about these days?
Hmm. I am back on the conjoined twins kick, but I have been talking a lot about my recent visit to the L. Ron Hubbard museum.
3. Your husband/significant someone always calls it a crackpot theory, but you know you’re really onto something. Tell, tell, tell!
Being single means no one criticizes my crackpot theories! HA! My crackpot theory regards the Beach Boys actually being a punk band a la the Ramones. Also I am pretty sure AA is a scary cult, but I don’t think it’s crackpot and a lot of people agree but it’s one of those things you can’t say without people freaking on you.
4. Have you ever eaten a half a hard boiled egg that you found on the floor, and then absentmindedly shaken salt directly into your mouth to chase it?
No, but I have picked something up off the floor I thought was something tasty but was in fact plastic. Oh, the shame.
5. What did you really screw up this year?
Um, hmmm….seeing doctors regularly.
6. What did you really get right?
I think I am getting better at professional networking. And dating. Go me!
One word meme via grace
The rules:
1. After reading my answers, copy and paste the list into your comment.
2. Change my one-word responses with yours (yes, only ONE WORD, even if it hurts the most painful of hurts).
3. Submit your comment.
4. And hey, you can always post your finished list on your blog, too.
You’re Feeling: exhausted
To Your Left: tea
On Your Mind: O.C.
Last Meal Included: yogurt
You Sometimes Find it Hard To: discipline
The Weather: grey
Something You Have a Collection of: books
A Smell that Cheers You Up: rain
A Smell that Can Ruin Your Mood: homeless
How Long Since You Last Shaved: weeks
The Current State of Your Hair: untouched
The Largest Item On Your Desk/Workspace Right Now (besides computer): shoeboxes
Your Skill with Chopsticks: middling
Which Section You Head to First In the Bookstore: bargain
…and After That?: culture
Something You’re Craving: lobster
Your General Thoughts On the Presidential Race: bored
How Many Times You’ve Been Hospitalized this Year: none
A Favorite Place to Go for Quiet Time: bed
You’ve Always Secretly Thought You’d Be a Good: bartender
Something that Freaks You Out a Little: discipline
Something You’ve Eaten Too Much of Lately: junk
You Have Never: biked
You Never Want To: waste
Booksthatmakeyoudumb is getting a lot of publicity, which I understand because it is interesting. But it is the worst named “research” I have ever heard. It makes me so angry!
In case you haven’t heard of it, basically someone correlated the favorite books of colleges on facebook with the average SAT scores of people who attend those colleges in order to say which books make you go to a “dumb” school. Okay first, what you read before you take the SAT and when you are in college is very different. In fact, the self-reporting seems sketchy to me. Also, I am still considered in my undergraduate institution’s community. Again, my reading tastes are pretty different from when I was 17, so alumni years older are considered in this study. Beginning your study with the idea that some books “make you dumb” is so infurating and biased. Plus, I love that “not reading” makes you LESS dumb than reading Zane. Clearly. Since when have SATs been the only factor on getting into college? And when did your SAT score determine if you were smart or not. A BRIEF look at the books basically shows you that people in some socioeconomic categories do worse on the SATs than others. SHOCKING.The major outliers I don’t understand are Anna Karenina and Fahrenheit 451. Do you really think kids who love Anna Karenina are equally smart as kids who love Harry Potter? Kids who read Fahrenheit 451 are really dumber than kids who don’t read? I totally do not believe that.
Personally all the books I liked when I took the SAT have higher scores than the books I currently read. Also, if you look at the graph, apparently kids who get over a 1400 don’t read any books.
Heidi did this seven odd facts about yourself. Mine are super Freudian, unintentionally!
1. My mom is an alcoholic. I have started to say this out loud more often, mostly in a “haha my alcoholic mom” jokey sort of way. But my mom’s really an alcoholic. Honestly I am not as upset about this as it seems like I should be when saying this. She’s pretty functional, and has always been an alcoholic, so it’s nothing new. I am sure this somehow affects me on some horrid deep level I am suppressing, but it is not really a source of negativity, and if I mention it people get weird and quiet and don’t know what to say. So I mainly don’t mention it.
2. My half-brother is autistic and I wasn’t allowed to have a relationship with him until I was 18, because of details of my parents’ divorce unknown (by choice) to me. Another statement which has a buzzkill effect to conversation but yet I am not upset about. Still it’s hard to forge a sibling relationship with that history and I am pretty bad at it.
3. My family generally knows little about my life. I think they think I am a dorky naive sheltered goody two shoes. Which is not to say I am smoking crack and killing hookers, but I kept everything a secret as a kid. Like, I hid my period from them for years. While I no longer actively attempt to cover anything up about my life (as I did in high school) they don’t ask and I don’t go out of my way to tell. Like for example, I have never admitted to dating anyone to my parents. Seeing as I am pretty open about my life to anyone who asks, this is somewhat demented but based on the bizarre overprotectiveness of my parents when I was a kid. But my first inclination is to lie to them when they ask me something. Laura Palmer was so a rational actor to me.
4. Though as a child I was right-handed, I did a lot of things in a left-handed way, which made my dad make fun of me. Later on, I had to get goofy hand eye coordination tests taken to make sure I didn’t have a tumor (I did not), and it was determined I am technically left handed. Like, incredibly better with my left hand. To the point where the doctor thought for a second that I was lying/crazy about saying I was right-handed. I have no idea what to do with that information. Do I switch over?
5. I have cheated on everyone I have ever dated. I am neither proud nor reticent about this really. But I have good intentions for this to be different. And to be fair, the last three were duly told beforehand that this would happen. And I am totally getting better at it.
6. I count and spell in my head all the time. Like, if I am going up or down stairs, I use a letter of a sentence for each stair, like, “I- -A-M- -S-O- -H-U-N-G-R-Y-.” Usually an apostrophe is four stairs, spaces or dashes are one, and periods are three, unless there’s a lot of stairs in which case I will spell the word apostrophe out. Sometimes I just go through letters, and sometimes, when I am in a wordy mood, I’ll just do a word a stair. I spell out whatever I am thinking at the moment. The only mention of this kind of counting is in OCD things, but I don’t do it in a compulsive way (like, I don’t have to redo it if I do it wrong, and I don’t have to do it.), I do it because I FIND WALKING UP STAIRS (or something else) BORING. Basically, more than 20 seconds of not reading or doing something mental bores me, and so this is the mind trick thing I have developed to cope. I remember doing it as a child on car rides with street lights. I also do it if I am walking home and have to pee, so I don’t have to think about how I have to pee. This admission makes me feel like there is some obvious psychological thing wrong with me. Is it shocking I am related to someone with Autism?
7. I frequently realize things I have always thought were totally normal are completely bizarre, and wonder why no one I know has mentioned it. Like only recently my sister pointed out that everyone doesn’t immediately take off their pants when they get home. Totally shocking to me. Has everyone I have lived with or dated thought, “Why the hell must Jenny get out of her pants immediately upon getting home?” Or peanut butter in the fridge–I was 22 before I learned that PB did not have to be refrigerated. Had I THOUGHT about it, I would have figured that out, but who thinks about peanut butter?
Apparently there’s a theme to posting today. I have no interest in cats, so I have never appreciated lolcats, but lolsheviks is another story.
What would change if I ruled this country? Adapted from something at Grace’s blog. Man it turned out way more political than I thought it would.
Edited to add–NO MORE LAWNS. Please there is too much grass as it is, and you are depriving useful plants water by this obsession with lawns. Quit it. Also, no more car alarms.
By the end of the calendar year, I will send a tangible, physical gift to each of the first five people to comment here, so long as each of those five people are willing to make the same offer in their own internet forum of choice. Woowoo!
send me your addy at jenny bento at gmailz
Chad asked me three questions, so here are my answers!
1) How has your new job affected your ideas of “news”?
That’s really interesting. First of all sometimes reading the news is work. And work, no matter how fun it is, sometimes gets a bit much. Just the other day I had to read a lot of articles on breweries, which is something I would do in my free time, yet, because it was a work thing, it became kind of annoying. I realized that was idiotic and changed my frame of mind, and it was fun again. I generally don’t read news outside of work (other than The Week Magazine), and I do kinda avoid it. Except cheesy celebrity gossip, which we really don’t report on.
Mostly though, I have noticed the holes in what is reported on–I mean I have helped build these awesome categories and there’s nothing in em, even though it feels like a lot of news is happening. Also, how quickly stuff is changing–the mobile phone of yesterday is now also an mp3 player, digital camera, video game device, wifi device, etc. How fast info, and especially news converges is more real and seems faster now.
I also kind of feel like there is some truth to the whole liberal media thing, even though I think it’s somewhat unavoidable. People who want to make money and cut taxes don’t go into low paying fields with lots of wordy writing.
2) What is your favorite ICP song and why?
Interesting question. I have mainly listened to the whole albums, without looking at titles. However I would say the song which first made me realize this wasn’t a joke was Murder Rap. It’s samples/references to Snoop and NWA made me “get it” I guess. I think though two other songs on that album are the ones I get stuck in my head–Get Your Wicked On and Walk Into Thy Light. The former has this lyric:
I’ll drive tank through your highschool/ he does/ I let the carnival high rule/ he does/
High rule makes no sense to me there, so I want to believe the actual lyric is Hyrule, but that makes no sense either.
I probably haven’t listened to enough to say though.
3) When you visit San Francisco, where is the first place you want to visit?
Alcatraz! I am a huge Houdini fan, and I love the ocean so it’s a no brainer. And the Computer History Museum!
And my questions for him, wordily, and, possibly because of my evening with Joel Osteen, all religious:
1. Do “bad Christians” (by this I mean culty racist/sexist/homophobic hate monger types) piss you off more because they give “good Christians” (people who don’t really want to meddle in others’ lives) a bad name? Why do you think good xtans do nothing to stop that impression?
2. Small question–why do you believe in God? I mean how do you get over that whole lack of proof business?
3. How possible do you think it is to be an atheist quaker? I mean the whole Jesus part of Quakerism seems like the least useful (though this is most likely since I don’t believe in JC), and the rest seems very much like more new agey (meant in the good way) and eastern practicey. What would you lose in Quakerism if everything else was the same but without the God part (I realize that sounds silly but the atheist Quaker movement interests me).
Via Grace, you can ask me any three questions in comments, as long as you’ll answer three of mine. I asked her three and here are mine. They highlight my bizarreness. Read the entire entry …
I have been getting on the Bit Literacy bandwagon (late, I know, but I have all this EMAIL!).
The title is a quote regarding the taxonomic structures people have in their email inboxes. Dude I make that crap for a living–can you imagine what my inbox looks like? So this helped.
There is a lot more to you than meets the eye. You certainly get plenty of “action,” but you’d be happier if those who lusted after you were more selective. You hate being used as a general intensifier; haven’t these people ever heard of underlining? Italics? And yes, you remember the cruel words Mr. Joyce directed at you.
But you let none of this get you down; those who abuse you are destined for a “special” reward, sooner or later. You feel particularly warm toward periods, commas, exclamation points, and question marks, and usually wish to have them next to you. Parenthesis can sometimes trouble you.
| Link: The Which Punctuation Mark Are You Test written by Gazda on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test |
I have been using these beta web doohickies and I have invites if anyone wants one. Since I don’t record music fairtilizer seems sort of lost on me, but I am still playing with it. Joost on the other hand is 80% close to the perfect way for me to watch television and as a result I now watch waaaaaay too much MTV. Comment if you want an invite.
awww someone stole my conference game plan:
got this from Grace
1. What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before?
Went to New York. And moved there. Visited the south, canada, and california.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t really make them.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! My friends Rodney and Heidi.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thankfully.
5. What countries did you visit?
Canada!
6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
An ability to squelch my procrastination tendencies.
7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Well, Sept. 11 was my first day of work.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finding a new job I love and moving somewhere new by myself.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Ceasing working out.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Mmmm no, other than colds.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
My MacBook? A new bed.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
All of my friends in Champaign who sent me off well.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
The woman who microwaved her baby. Come on now, that’s above and beyond just killing a baby.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Moving, food, booze, RENT.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Leaving IL. Seeing several bands I had wanted to see for a long time. Seeing old friends as they came through town.
16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
“Coming to Your City” by Big and Rich, Morrissey “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.”
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? fatter
c) richer or poorer? richer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Things I put off. Hanging out with my friends. Cooking.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Internet timewasting.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With my dad’s girlfriend’s family, I think.
21. Did you fall in love in 2006?
Nah.
22. How many one-night stands?
I don’t know? Umm it depends on your definition.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
Gilmore Girls, Lost
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I dislike people who liked last year.
25. What was the best book you read?
I dunno….we still have a few weeks.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
mmmm Iron Horse? I don’t think about this by year…I finally began liking Andrew WK.
27. What did you want and get?
A new job.
28. What did you want and not get?
A lot more money, more vacation, my ipod to actually work.
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
No idea….The Jonestown documentary and Jesus Camp were great.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 27. I had dinner in Austin with friends, flew to Chicago, had lunch with the family, and took the train home and had more dinner with Champaign friends. 2 Indian dinners in one day!
31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Time management? A different gig.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
Um, “If it’s black it’s pretty much professionally appropriate, right?”
33. What kept you sane?
Time in bed. Drinking with friends and singing loudly to jukeboxes. Books and audiobooks.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Anderson Cooper!
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Hmm…the reign of the two party system?
36. Who did you miss?
All my Reed friends when I lived in IL. My Champaign friends in NYC. My friend Kurt this evening when I watched a documentary with him in it.
37. Who was the best new person you met?
Probably my new roommate and his sibling + his gf.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006
If you quit whining, and just do something to change a bad situation, it will work.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year
Hmm that’s hard. This year has been a few distinctly different times.
EDITED TO ADD
I thought of a song! Future Bible Heroes’ “I’m Lonely and I Love It.”
“I’m as lonely as Narcissus gazing in his mirrored pond
wearing all the clothes you hate
and going back to blond
staying up all hours in my deedy demimonde
if you have something to tell me
please don’t correspond
because I’m lonely
I’m lonely and I love it
if only I’d dreamed of it
I’d have broken up with you so long ago
you wouldn’t even know
I’m as lonely as an emperor upon a golden throne
going off my diet with a double chocolate cone
shouting from the rooftops and through every telephone
all the time I’ve been with you
I wish I’d been alone
because I’m lonely as Mount Everest
and probably as high
it’s time to buy all the records
you would never let me buy
it’s time to try the million things you never let me try
I can almost laugh
at all the times you made me cry
because I’m lonely and I love it “
courtesy of el Chipps:
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vote for me (broad) for consumating prom queen here.
the one positive of my real prom was that it didn’t have a king or queen. not that i would have won! i did enjoy both proms i attended, i have to say. while i hated high school in general, i did enjoy the “big dance” aspect of it, because i like dancing and excuses to dress fancy.
I found this through a friend’s site, and, when I saw the url (furtopia) I had to take the furry quiz, because furries amuse me. perhaps tmi.
(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)
| × I miss somebody right now. | × I don’t watch much TV these days. | × I own lots of books. |
* * * * *
| × I have broken someone’s bones. | × I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal. | × I hate the rain. |
