That Nameless Meme I Got from Moomin Light

WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
St Stephen the first Martyr (whose feast day I was born near) and my father (middle name)

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Probably after watching a movie - I usually cry after chick flicks. I don't think I cried after Chances Are, the other night, but I might have done at the end of Night at the Museum (not a chick flick). When he gets the flashlight and the keys back.

DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Yes indeed - mine was a conscious invention when I was in my teens, and I can alter it at will to make it take on different emotional tone or artsy flare. Any kind of making marks, even dragging a stick in the sand, is a joy.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Really good pastrami

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
The same three as Moomin Light.

IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
I'd be bored with me. Too predictable (to me). And we'd share too many interests. What would we bring new to the other? And I already pay too much attention to what others think - imagine how much attention I'd pay to what my ALTER EGO thought?

DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
Only a little - and I DO use it with my eight year old and he is beginning to get it. Get 'em started young...

DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
No. I had mine out at age 18, and for several days after I had middle of the night runs to the hospital to stop the bleeding when the surgery opened again. I don't recommend it as a way to wake up.

WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
No way.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Captain Crunch with Crunch Berries - but I haven't had the nerve to try a bowl in years, for fear they've changed them beyond recognition, as they did Apple Jacks.

DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Always. And I always turn my shirt sleeves and socks right side out when I take them off, too. I don't care about others (unless I'm doing the laundry - a rare thing, thank goodness) but I couldn't walk away from them twisted up or still tied.

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
No. But I've got enough to do what I face daily, so I'm OK with it.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Real Spumoni.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Are they male or female. And when I can't get it figured out I can't move on to the next thing...

RED OR PINK?
Orange. Seriously, I like both red and pink, but I LOVE them when they drift towards orange.

WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
That nasty little voice inside that discourages nearly every risk, every dare, every bold move.

WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
Moomin Light's father. I had some idea even before he passed away that he had become almost as important to me as my own father. I was quite certain of it after he moved on ahead of the rest of us. We'll catch up down the road and we'll all have so much to share...

Second place goes to my Nana R - who I think of when I garden. She would have loved our yards.

WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Very faded jeans ("Can the leopard change his spots?" Mine would be faded denim) and no shoes at the moment, though never bare footed. I hate to feel things with the bottoms of my feet.

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
Two grilled cheese sandwiches on whole wheat and two Clausen mini-dills. No room for dessert.

WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
The sound of my eldest drawing on the studio table behind me - a wonderful sound. And in my mental soundtrack a song by Evanescence ("Going Under").

IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Vermillion, or Periwinkle, or Salmon, or the Blue Green in the Crayola boxes of the 1960s (I have one of my grandfather's boxes of 64 and the color gives me shivers), or... This question is a silly one to ask on this blog. Remember what happened to me when NC changed the color of the characters on their license plates? I'm still grinning down the highway. I am so wound up with so many colors I can hardly breathe sometimes when I think about it. I want to be them all. I will change myself to be them all. I call my species Chromophilovidior chameleonis.

FAVORITE SMELLS?
I agree with Moomin Light on lavender... but also wild rose (the pink ones that grew down the road where I grew up in NY)... and the smell of Nana's house.

WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Someone at work - and I talk to so many people there that I can't recall which. And I almost never talk on the phone at home. At home I'm like le terrible monsieur Degas, "It rings and you run to it like a servant." I hate the thing.

FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Boxing and golf are my LEAST favorites, for very different reasons ("Ugh!" and "Yawn..."). I don't really have one I like to watch - I even watch the Olympics more from a desire to participate than a real desire to watch.

HAIR COLOR?
Less than 20% dark brown, more than 80% grey (started in earnest in my mid twenties) with relatively new silver showing over my sideburns.

EYE COLOR?
Sicilian brown.

DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Can't - astigmatism.

FAVORITE FOOD?
Escargot? Tapioca? Langostinos in butter? Actually it was an open faced sandwich I ate only once at a French restaurant in Charleston (La Madelaine - it was on Church St just south of the Market) made with grouper, in a white wine cream sauce on one of their own homemade croissants, with pink grape halves. I had it over twenty years ago and it still haunts me.

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings. See "When you last cried" above.

LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Chances Are with Robert Downey Jr., Cybill Shepherd, and Ryan O'Neal. Happy ending.

WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Yellow!

SUMMER OR WINTER?
Long days and late sunlight - Summer. But it's autumn I adore.

HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs - from ladies and a few men. Kisses - from my one and only.

FAVORITE DESSERT?
Apple pie. Or is it Lemon Meringue? No, if I could have either one every day, apple pie would win over the long haul, for sure.

WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Book? Singular? Two graphic novels (I'm pleasantly trapped in a long series called Rurouni Kenshin, and the beautiful and dark Neotopia series). The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron - which I just keep working my way around and around. A huge book about Gauguin and Van Gogh (who painted together in a studio in Provence for nine weeks) - their colors and compositions thrill me. I See by My Outfit a strange journey by Peter Beagle. An anthology of the short stories of Avram Davidson (science fiction - sort of). The last two were gifts from Moomin Light...

WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
It's just a grey Dell mousepad... I never look at it. When I'm using a mouse I'm looking at the screen...

WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON T.V. LAST NIGHT?
No TV. See Moomin Light's meme.

FAVORITE SOUND?
The sound of Moomin Light singing when she doesn't know I can hear it. The sound of my children laughing.

ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Beatles. I have never liked the Stones.

WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Ventemiglia, Italy.

DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I stand at the exact half way point between technical and non-technical, and nearly all of my career roles have involved translating in both directions for people much farther from the border.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
NY - not The City - up The River.