Okay, now what? / Vital Statistics Meme

Well, after dithering about it for a good six months or more, I finally decided to start a Blog. So here I am, all dressed up and nowhere to go.

Maybe I'll go play with settings for a while. Perhaps something profound will come to me while I'm doing that.

Don't hold your breath.

-- Later --

All right. I have an idea. I'll start with a meme I saw on G's blog a while back, called the Vital Statistics meme. I don't know why they're called "memes," though as I typed that I think I figured it out -- "me" twice. And they're all surveys about oneself. Ach so. I do so love thinking with my fingers.

So here we go:

I drive: Absolutely nothing. I have no driver's license, so a car for me would be nothing but a really expensive lawn ornament. I keep telling myself (and everyone else who knows me) that "this is the year I'm going to learn." Been saying that for three years now. Something about the idea of controlling that much machine with only my two hands and one of my feet makes me really, really nervous.

If I have time to myself: I generally goof off. Reading, playing with the computer, jewelry-making, embroidering, knitting, doing other handicrafts. Or staring at the Idiot Box.

You wouldn't know it but I'm very good at: Drawing. Surprised myself, even. Took a drawing class on a whim a couple of years back and found out that I could actually produce something that didn't look like it was done by a five-year-old. And math. I was planning on being a math teacher at one point, before I realized that meant I'd be spending the rest of my life in high school, a place I'd hated the first time around.

I am no good at: Cleaning. I hate it. Why bother? Things just get messed up again as soon as you're done.

A book that changed me: The Sound and the Fury: the first book I had to read more than once before I understood what was going on. And Ulysses, because it was the first book I've ever put down without finishing it out of pure irritation. There's a difference between being difficult to read and daring the reader to make some sense out of you.

Movie heaven: I'm all over the map here. The Sting, Sense and Sensibility, The Grifters, Strictly Ballroom, The Music Man, Silverado, The Crying Game....this list will probably change tomorrow.

Comfort eating: A great big bowl of oatmeal, with brown sugar, bananas, raisins, and a few chopped pecans.

When I was a child I wanted to be: An author, a music teacher, Shirley Temple (yes, really!).

All my spare money goes on: CDs, beads, yarn, embroidery stuff, scrapbooking supplies (that's just lately). Or books/magazines about beading, knitting, embroidery, and scrapbooking.

At night I dream of: Lately, it's been people I've lost touch with. I also have a panic nightmare that crops up once in a while: I am late for a final exam in a class I forgot I signed up for and cannot drop. I usually wake up from that one with my heart hammering in my chest, until I remind myself I'm not in school anymore.

My favorite building: My parents' log home in the middle of the woods, the one they've dreamed and planned and saved for since shortly after they were married, and finally moved into this past August.

My biggest regret: Spending so much time, care, love, and energy on someone who later proved to me he wasn't worth it.

If I wasn't me, I'd like to be: J.K. Rowling: because she's doing what she loves, and she has people who love what she's doing. The money wouldn't be bad either.

My favorite artists: Edmund Blair Leighton, Claude Monet, Jan van Eyck, Vermeer, Rodin, Dennis O'Hara (a photographer in Minnesota. Takes great nature photographs), Cheryl Butchko (watercolor artist I lived down the hall from when I went to college).

The soundtrack of my life: Again, all over the map, and this will probably change tomorrow. Beolach (Nova Scotian Celtic band), Fall Out Boy, U2, Sarah McLachlan, JS Bach, Karl Jenkins, Johnny Cash, Green Day, Violent Femmes, the Beatles, Gaelic Storm.

Best invention ever: The printing press, the light bulb, indoor plumbing.