When you love, love, love in mad delerium

[vovat]

As I'm sure you know (whether you wanted to or not), yesterday was Valentine's Day, and bethje and I exchanged gifts in the evening. I gave her two CD's, and I'm still waiting on her last gift. From her, I received:

• Double Wonderful, a novel by Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder
  
• My Chartreuse Opinion, the only album that Scott McCaughey released under his own name
  
• The Sims 2, which I'd been wanting, seeing as how I'd been playing the original Sims when everyone else was talking about Part 2. I should be used to being behind the times by now, though. I mean, I can't remember how old I was when my family first got a color TV set, and I was born in 1977. So far, I've only started with the tutorials. When I start playing the actual game, I'm not sure whether I'll want to start making my own Sims, or try out some of the pre-made ones.
  

We didn't have time to go out for dinner last night, but we did go out tonight to Nifty Fifty's. Beth had been there before, but I hadn't. We had bacon cheeseburgers (which were pretty good) and chicken fingers (which weren't very good). I did appreciate the variety of sodas they had, though. I ended up having a strawberry-orange soda with dinner, and then a float with peach soda and strawberry ice cream for dessert. It wasn't a particularly romantic dinner, but it was fun. I sometimes find myself wishing I had more skill with the romance.

After dinner, I came back home and took a nap. I'm not really all that great with naps. When I go to bed, my body tends to expect that it's there for the long haul. I wish I could just go back to bed and get a full night's sleep, but I have to go to work in about an hour. (Why are so many of my recent entries centered around sleeping too little, or too much, or irregularly?)

Finally, dragonxbait did an interview meme, so I decided to participate. Here are the rules, as she listed them:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me" or "my turn!" or "IT'S TIME, IT'S TIME, IT'S QUESTION...TIME!" or whatever.
2. I respond by asking you five questions of my choosing.
3. Post the answers to your LJ.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I've done this a lot of times before, so it's okay if no one wants me to interview them. I think I might have run out of good questions anyway. Oh, well. Here's what I was asked:

1. You seem to remember many of your dreams, have you ever tried lucid dreaming?

No, I've heard of that, but I don't really know anything about how it works.

2. Have you decided to back any of the current (or potential) 2008 presidential candidates?

Well, I want Al Gore to run again. Failing that, I'm not really endorsing anyone in particular as of yet. I really don't want Hillary Clinton to get the Democratic Party nomination, because I don't think she stands a chance of winning. On the other side of the coin, I hope the Republicans don't nominate Giuliani, because I don't like him, but I think he COULD win.

3. What is your earliest memory?

I have memories of certain things from my early childhood, including my sister as a baby, my birthday cake with a Matchbox bulldozer on top of it, and just hanging around the house I lived until I was five (and then lived part of the time for a few more years starting when I was ten). I can't really pin down any one memory that I'd say is my earliest, though.

4. Valentine's Day: Romantic Tradition or Repellent Consumerism

I guess it's somewhat more of a consumerist thing for me, since I see it primarily as another gift-exchanging occasion. I don't necessarily view that as a bad thing, though. I think it should be up to the individual couple. If society tries to force people to celebrate a holiday in any particular way, they become much less fun, and I know from experience that Valentine's Day is a holiday that a lot of single people despise, partially because of the way it's presented by society.

5. What is your favorite meal of the day?

I never really ate regular meals anyway, and working the midnight shift has things even more messed up than usual. I do have a particular fondness for breakfast foods, though.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

You'll have to let me know how the Schwartzwelder novel is. I've been curious about those for a while.

Also, when you say you're not good at the romance, I just kind of picture the two of you sullenly eating in a fast-food place, and then you reach over to touch her boob. And she glares like "oh, no you di'nt!".

[bethje.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right. {g}

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I say a little about Swartzwelder's The Time Machine Did It in this post (http://vovat.livejournal.com/200734.html), and I'm sure I'll review Double Wonderful when I'm finished with it. I think it's pretty obvious that Swartzwelder is more used to writing for a visual medium, but both of them have some really funny passages.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Wow, you all go way out for Valentines Day. We just had breakfast in bed. And it was Pop-Tarts. Store-brand pop-tarts at that, so I don't even need capital letters.

I'm pretty sure I've heard you mention bits of dream before that count as lucid dreaming. The idea is you're aware that you are dreaming, so therefore you can take more control over what happens in the dream (I say "can" because I've had more than a few occasions of seeming lucidity in which something completely unexpected ended up happening anyway). A lot of people make it out to be more mystical and life-changing than it actually is, but then again, lots of people make out dream interpretation in general to be more mystical than it really is too! Some people like to seek answers to things that are bothering them in a lucid dream. Personally, I've asked my baby a couple times what his name is (in a lucid dream), but because I never get the same answer, I don't know if I can really trust that...!

Hey, you can always interview me again. You at least come up with better survey questions than most people.

Don't ask what the baby's name is.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I've heard you mention bits of dream before that count as lucid dreaming. The idea is you're aware that you are dreaming, so therefore you can take more control over what happens in the dream (I say "can" because I've had more than a few occasions of seeming lucidity in which something completely unexpected ended up happening anyway).

I've had dreams where I realized I was dreaming, but that never really seemed to impact what happened in them. There have been others where I had a certain amount of control, but it wasn't TOTAL control. Like, I'd think something in the dream SHOULD be a certain way, and then it would change to fit my idea of how it should be. But there was rarely any conscious thought involved in this.

As for the interview:

1. What part of the chicken do you prefer to eat?
2. What's your favorite kind of gum?
3. If you could leave one book in a time capsule, what would it be?
4. Who's going to die in the next Harry Potter book?
5. What should I have for dinner tonight?

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

1. The breast, although I'm not sure if this has more to do with me actually liking to EAT it more, or if it's just so much easier to prepare.
2. Cinnamon gum. I mostly get Big Red in the 10 packs (10 packs of five sticks that is) because it's the best deal, but I wonder if there are other kinds that keep their flavor longer. But doesn't-- or didn't they at any rate-- Big Red advertize that their taste lasts longer? I really worry about the other brands if this is the case!
3. Well, first I'd want to make sure I had a second copy to keep for myself if I'm going to be leaving one in a time capsule. I suppose "A Wrinkle in Time" even though I don't think it's in danger of going out of print. But then again, maybe the censors will go all out in the future and decide it's way too thought-provoking to exist, so it would be good to have that preserved copy.
4. My theories keep getting shot down every time a new book comes out-- with the exception of 6, only I expected Dumbledore to die in book FIVE instead-- so I've given up. But I think Snape's gonna go for sure, but doing something redemptive for the good guys. I used to think Ginny would sacrifice herself for Harry's sake, but I don't see it happening so much anymore. I also had a theory that Neville is going to prove himself in some huge self-sacrificing move, but I'm not sure about that anymore either. I hope she doesn't kill off either Ron or Hermione because then I'd be seriously annoyed, but possibly she will anyway. I don't think Harry will get it-- I think it will look altogether probable that he will have to die, until he accepts it himself, but it will turn out through some force of good like how his mother died for him that he will be saved-- possibly somebody else will take his place and die instead of him, to save him, like.
5. Chinese. I think that's what we're having if we're home for dinner.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

2. I think they used to insist in the commercials that no other cinnamon gum freshens breath longer than Big Red. But does that mean that the flavor actually lasts longer, or that the breath-freshening lasts longer after you're finished chewing it? I really don't know, and I haven't seen one of those commercials in years anyway.

5. I ended up having fish. Chinese would have been good, and there's a place basically right around the corner, but I didn't have any cash on me at the time.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

2. I just bought a new 10-pack, and this pack now has a yellow banner across each individual pack proclaiming "Freshens Breath LONGER". How do you verify that, anyway? Ah well. It definitely doesn't hold its flavor longer, so I'll just have to accept its claim that at least I have good breath now.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

You'll notice that it doesn't say longer than WHAT. {g}

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

I know you don't know me that well, but I'm up for an interview. I'm pretty random, so any questions are fine.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Okay, here goes:

1. Which is your favorite Oz book?
2. What do you think of how The Road to Oz refers to Knooks as tending to trees, when earlier books made them the guardians of animals?
3. Have you ever danced with the Devil by the pale moonlight?
4. Would you rather have a private plane, a flying carpet, or an airship?
5. If you had to raise a baby dragon, what would you feed it?

[punterschlagen.livejournal.com]

This looks interesting. Count me in.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Here are your questions:

1. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
2. What's your favorite kind of amphibian?
3. What do you think tofu is REALLY made of?
4. If you found a peach with a golden pit, would you sell it, plant it, or have someone investigate it?
5. What's your favorite season?

[punterschlagen.livejournal.com]

1. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

42, of course.

2. What's your favorite kind of amphibian?

I must pause first for another round of that favorite Girl Scout camp song...
"Oooooooooooh,
It's born in the water and it moves to the land
It lays eggs in a jelly-like mass!
It has no covering on it's skin:
It's an amphibian!"

Kermit is my favorite amphibian.

3. What do you think tofu is REALLY made of?

I dunno. I don't WANNA know.

4. If you found a peach with a golden pit, would you sell it, plant it, or have someone investigate it?

I'd probably hide it in my rock collection, and then forget about it, and then find it again when I finally dig that box out of the back of the closet in the baby's room, nestled in among unidentifiable bits of gravel from around the world and a piece of the Berlin Wall.

5. What's your favorite season?

The off-season. I'm not that into sports. Also, Autumn.