ironymaiden: (bondage)
1) How is your year going so far?
If my year started on the 20th (i feel like it did) then it's been mostly good, very busy at work, shadowed by having my dog get hurt this week. But she's on the mend and it's nice to have insurance for her and just say "yes" to the vet.

2) Have you gotten vaccinated yet? If not, when do you think it's likely to happen?
No. I'm at the bottom of the list: hoping for June/July if Washington keeps up the target pace, but if we're looking at national pace then, well, I guess maybe for Christmas.

3) Are you bored or are you busy these days?
Busy. Work has really picked up and even though I'm done with school I am soon to be in four RPGs so I'm likely to end up with five regular social things a week, which in the before times would be unacceptable. We'll see how this goes.

4) Is this pandemic good or bad for your finances?
Good? I still have my job. We order takeout regularly because we're sadto support the locals, I have fits of online shopping, but the truth is that there's no small item impulse shopping or lunches out or transportation or live entertainment or movies or conventions or travel. My yoga teacher got a desk job and the pool is closed. For example, there were so few in-person soccer games in 2020 that almost our entire season ticket buy rolled over to this year (and of course we weren't buying concessions).* Our rent went down when we renewed the lease. We've given more to charity than ever and our savings are growing.

5) What are you missing most these days?
Thanos saying 'Everything'
it changes from day to day. today, it was being in my office - there's a Slack channel called #slobs-at-the-eyrie where we used to post pictures of messes found in the office. it has, of course, been dead for more than nine months and today someone posted about how neat and responsible we've become. it was funny and horrible at the same time. we're getting ready for our annual team "offsite" and fuck it's just going to be a two-day video call.





* I would lay money that we'll have a similar situation this year, with no in-person games until near the playoffs
ironymaiden: (rich zoe)
last week's questions because a) i failed to post then, b) more appropriate anyway.

1. What are you thankful for this year or are you just happy it’s nearly over?
i am always thankful for my chosen family, for my health, for C and Leela and clean water and safe food and having an income and health insurance and a nice home to live in.

i'm thankful that we didn't start a new war this year. *knocks wood* but i have to say that, and i've continued to wrestle with the destruction of my mental model of "America". i need this year to pass with the least damage possible.

2. When you have a traditional family get together, be it Thanksgiving, Christmas or for some other reason, is there a dish that you just have to have or something is missing?
if mom is cooking there needs to be home-frozen sweet corn that she or my brother has put up. (i am a vicious snob about sweet corn. commercially preserved sweet corn is rubbery and gross, and so is most corn-on-the-cob by the time it hits a grocery store. it can only be consumed if it is canned creamed corn, which i consider an entirely separate food.)

3. Do you like turkey?
yup.

4. Do you anticipate or dread family get-togethers?
how many layers of family? i get on well with my immediate family; even my sister is fully capable of being pleasant company for an afternoon. C's family is also pretty great. i am happy to see them but hate traveling to see them. when we start adding aunts/uncles/cousins, that's where things get dicey. one side is extra-Christian, the other side has an explosive mix of flaming liberals and guns-n-racism conservatives. prior to last year i would have said the extra-Christian get togethers were the most awkward, but prior to last year nobody shook the explosive mix container.

5. If you could get your family/friends to listen to you at one of these gathers, really listen to you, what would you say to them?
this seems like an invitation to talk about political or social issues or some family fight. as noted above, it depends who is in the room. but really, my immediate family has always been pretty awesome to me and i know that not everyone has that.

"I love you and I'm glad you're a part of my life."

* * *

i'm thinking a great deal about years and transitions since it was my birthday this week. last year's birthday is kind of a blank in my memory. not surprising, really, since i spent most of November mired in situational depression. i just hate that i don't know. there's very little i remember about November 2016 after the election; America was ruined, Leonard Cohen was dead. i stopped using facebook and i made one post on LJ that month. academically i know that the Sounders were on their MLS Cup run but i don't remember any details about that either.

Thanksgiving was good. pirate E and G made ham this year, partly because their oven was annoyingly unreliable last year, partly because with baby M in the house something had to give. and it was pretty great, we can do that again. we ate right on time (pirate D even came out), everything was delicious and then we all watched Buffy, as is tradition. baby M was on his best behavior, flirting with all and sundry and conveniently sleeping while the rest of us ate. Leela was also on her best behavior and didn't howl at anyone. A++, would feast again.

yesterday there was gaming, as is tradition, and C and i made a crockpot roast to share and a mix of new sides and leftovers. pirate A brought his homemade pumpkin pie. the food was a hit AND we defeated the manticore and re-consecrated the healing spring.
ironymaiden: (fuck it)
1) If you had to drink one thing for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
potable water. how is there another answer?

2) What is the first thing you drink in the morning?
water.

3) What do you drink with your lunch? dinner?
lately i've been having a soylent variant for lunch, so technically i'm drinking my lunch. sometimes i also have water or tea.
dinner, it depends in how my day has been. tea, a can of beer/hard cider, or a mixed drink.

4) What is your favorite mixed drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic)? Give the recipe.
this changes all the time. but if C is home, i might ask him to make me a Whisky Sour.
his method:
1oz lemon juice
1oz lime juice
2-3 dashes of bitters
1oz simple syrup
1oz+ water (it’s closer to 1.5oz, actually)
1.5oz rye whisky over three ice cubes.

Shake well, serve neat with or without cherries. Egg white foam optional.

he's always messing with the bitters, but usually one of the citrus ones from Scrappy's. and there are something like four or five variations on boozy cherries in the fridge. it started out with a jar of Maraschino...

5) What drink brings back a special memory for you?
Buttered Rum. the first time i had it was at a family dinner in Colonial Williamsburg.* it was the first time we had a dinner together (mom & dad, adult children & spouses, niece and nephew) after all of us kids were married. that was a special meal and a nice trip.


*i'll note that if you want to do a living history thing, the nearby Historic Jamestowne was much more appealing to me. it's run by the park service so it has a more scholarly focus than the more entertainment-oriented Williamsburg.
ironymaiden: Animated young man wearing headphones and bobbing his head (music)
via [community profile] thefridayfive

1) What is the first song you remember from your childhood?
tough to say. there was always music in my day to day life - Mom played the piano, there was always music playing around the house or in the car, everyone liked to sing along with whatever they were playing. when i was little my three siblings were still in the house but old enough to have their own music, so i was exposed to five different tastes in music.

i guess i'll say Bushel and a Peck because i definitely remember mom singing it to me when i was small enough to be rocked to sleep.

2) What is the first music you purchased with your own money?
pretty sure that was a cassette tape of Sports by Huey Lewis and the News. that's the one that had a bunch of hits, including I Want a New Drug.

3) What's a piece of music that you know by heart?
no, there is too much.

let's go with The Gambler. my dad had an 8-track of Kenny Rogers' Greatest Hits and we used to sing along in the car all the time.

4) What's a song that makes you turn off the music right away?
...i don't have that like i used to. i used to hate stuff that got overplayed, but the days of being unable to control what music is playing are over - i don't listen to commercial radio, i don't work retail, and i'm not stage managing musicals.

that said, i usually don't like to hear anything by Chicago.

5) And why?
there's something about Chicago's use of brass combined with Peter Cetera's voice that really sets my teeth on edge. there are certain tenor sounds that i just hate - Peter Cetera, Geddy Lee*...where i love the sound of Sting and Robert Plant. and i really like ska brass and the Blues Brothers.

but fuck Chicago.


*it has been a recurring minor conflict in my romantic life that i am largely unable to enjoy Rush because i hate the sound of the vocals. but apparently "likes Rush" is my type.
ironymaiden: (Daria)
1. How did you choose your LJ/DW username?
i had a handle that i had been using regularly, but it was taken on LJ. there used to be a Daria fan site called The Irony Maiden and that charmed me (in reality i am probably more Jane than Daria but that's another discussion). i've since claimed the name many places but i'm not the only one on the internet, so if you like an ironymaiden's fanfic, that's not me.

2. What has been your favorite day this year and why?
i don't have an unalloyed favorite day from the last 12 months. maybe the day i took my kayak class. i had a great time while it was happening, it wasn't just fun in retrospect. and I've derived much subsequent joy from paddling and daydreaming about paddling.

3. What is your favorite film you've seen in the past year and why?
Baby Driver. i can't adequately express how well-crafted and satisfying that film was for me. it may have ruined me for car action in other films for good, but i can't regret seeing it.

4. What is your favorite book you've read in the past year and why?
i hate trying to pick a favorite book. i'll mention two. i read Code Name Verity and almost immediately turned around and started rereading it with C because i knew that he would appreciate its structure and its unreliable narrator. revisiting it with him was wonderful. for sheer pleasure, it has to be Libriomancer and its sequels, which well, nerd-maste Jim Hines. the genre bookworm RPG gamer in me honors the genre bookworm RPG gamer in you. you know way too much about what i like and what i think and what i might do if i could pull things out of books. (yes references are weak. i can talk your ear off about that as lazy writing, but a villain in these books uses an incredibly dangerous thing from a series that meant the world to me when i was a tween and it was SO VISCERAL.)

5. You get to program a half-hour of music videos on MTV. What videos do you pick?
i do a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend theme because i want more people to watch it. it's on Netflix, kids. you could binge both seasons before season 3.
About 30 minutes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: explicit lyrics ahead
ironymaiden: (taciturn man)
via [community profile] thefridayfive

1) Do you want to get married?
no. i am already married. i would not like to change that.

did i want to get married? not for the sake of "being married", no. but certainly at the time i thought it was the natural thing to do to express our commitment and it continues to have financial and legal advantages that i consider very important. (it was also useful to get our families to treat us like full adults.) i know people who have been shut out of making medical decisions for their partner and that set of rights is very important to me.

2) Where would you like to get married?
if i could do it again, i'm kind of obsessed with this place, which remains mysterious but seems like it should be a private club. since i probably don't have the connections for that dreamy view, The Ruins would be nice. (it's hard to tell from the website, but that swanky eccentric inside is nested inside what looks like a rotting warehouse with trees growing through the broken roof.) or maybe i would make everyone go out to Kalaloch or Doe Bay. My one regret about my actual wedding and reception was that we didn’t have a pig roast.*

3) If you were getting married in a week, who would be in your wedding party?
is that a logistical question? there were no attendants when we got married, because to be honest neither of us had wedding-party-worthy friends living nearby. [personal profile] mimerki and [personal profile] scarlettina, I guess?

...I've never been in a wedding party. There's only one person I wish had asked me and we're no longer friends.

4) What would your wedding colours be?
at the actual event i had red roses, green ivy, and heather in my bouquet; my dress and my hair were trimmed with ribbon roses in a variety of colors. nothing matched. i suppose if i had to make things match they would be green.

5) Does marriage mean to you 'til death do us part?'
well, it's working out that way so far and i hope that it continues so, but i'd be lying if i said that i never had times of doubt. i feel lucky that we've been able to work that out.

so no, i don't think it can be "til death", at least not legally or religiously. i think everyone who gets married for love thinks that it's going to last. but i think that people grow and change over their lifetimes and maybe you were really perfect together in the moment, but you don't grow in complementary ways. when that happens, you should be able to go. unhappy marriage is the worst.

*in PA there was this dude who would bring the equipment to your house. He had a rotisserie smoker he towed behind his truck and he would cook, carve, and serve a whole hog.
ironymaiden: (arty)
Via [community profile] thefridayfive

1. If you could, would you be a movie star or a rock star?
movie star. I was a better actor than musician.

2. Have you ever been in the media (TV, Radio, Papers)?
yes, I received newspaper coverage for plays I acted in and directed. I was featured in my college alumni magazine. I was recognizable in a concert crowd picture in Rolling Stone.

3. Do you know anyone who's been on a reality TV show?
No, thank goodness.

4. Have you ever met anyone famous?
Sure, but they're niche famous (game designers, genre writers, software industry). Mainstream famous, one time i had lunch with George RR Martin. I've worked with a bunch of actors who might look familiar but you wouldn't know by name - my Bacon number is 3.

5. Who would play you in a movie?
Hmm. That means I'm supposed to choose someone younger than me? Jennifer Lawrence.
ironymaiden: (joe metro)
Via [community profile] thefridayfive

1. What is your current main mode of transportation? e.g. car, bike, subway, walking etc.
I'm car-free and multi-modal. Toss up between bus and walking.

2. Are you satisfied with your current main mode of transportation (answer to question 1)? Why?
Yes. I like reading and knitting, I don't like stop and go driving or hunting for parking.

3. Do you think you'll change your means of transit soon? e.g. buy a car, get rid of your car, walk more etc.? If so why?
No.

4. If time distance and money were not factors how do you prefer to get from point A to point B?
train. (we have talked about moving to light rail.)

5. What was your worst transit experience?
depending on a taxi that never arrived.
ironymaiden: (DW friends)
1. How did you name your pets?
There was some research done on dog names that suggested that they best understand two syllables with a vowel sound at the end. So we start there. Then no duplication with friends, family, or their pets. Must be spelled such that a vet office or stranger reading the collar tag can pronounce it.
after that, it's what is pleasant to say and/or meaningful to us. I've written a longer bit about naming our current dog previously, I'll try to link it. Leela (Sevateem, not Turanga) is just right.

2. Poirot or Miss Marpel?
Brother Cadfael.

3. Do you have a FB account too?
yeah. Facebook is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. I don’t browse it anymore. My friends have instructions to earburn me if they want me to see a thing.

4. Books - hardcover or paperback
books! Paperback or ebook; hardcovers are inappropriate for my lifestyle. I like hardcover for reference and game books.

5. Mobile(cell phone): Windows/Android or Apple?
The question is poorly formatted, Windows Phone and Android are separate operating systems. /pedant
Android. I had an iPhone but then they got too big to fit in my pocket.

Questions from [community profile] thefridayfive
ironymaiden: (Default)
1. Do you like to shop? Why or why not?
yes. gathering things makes something in the old basic part of my brain really happy.
2. What was the last thing you purchased?
Bed, Bath & Beyond - steel mixing bowl, SilPat, salt cellar w/little spoon, shelving steps, and one of those thingys to defeat the overflow drain and let me fill the tub full
3. Do you prefer shopping online or at an actual store? Why?
actual store. i like to browse and i like to see and feel product. i'm big on quality for price. i only buy stuff online if i've already seen the item in real life, or intangibles like concert tickets.
4. Did you get an allowance as a child? How much was it?
nope. but i did periodically get all the loose change from the bottom of mom's purse if i put it in rolls. it could really add up.
5. What was the last thing you regret purchasing?
a new VCR. the old one wasn't working, but it may have just needed a thorough head cleaning, and the new one isn't as nice a machine.
ironymaiden: (Default)
1. Using one adjective, describe your current living space.
compact
2. Using two adjectives, describe your current employer.
intense Italian
3. Using three adjectives, describe your favorite hobby/pasttime.
challenging, engaging, rewarding
4. Using four adjectives, describe your typical (work) day.
fragmented, frenetic, stressful, pointless
5. Using five adjectives, describe your ideal life.
rapturous, stimulating, creative, quality, solvent
ironymaiden: (Default)
Friday five

1. What food do you like that most people hate?
scrapple, especially when they know what's in it

2. What food do you hate that most people love?
fresh tomatoes

3. What famous person, whom many people may find attractive, is most unappealing to you?
Gwyneth Paltrow

4. What famous person, whom many people may find unappealing, do you find
attractive?
Harvey Keitel

5. What popular trend baffles you? ultra low rise jeans

BTW, C got home safe, but thanks.

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ironymaiden: (Default)
ironymaiden

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