it only takes a meme to get a fire going

All hail to Sarah (who I had never before met but *wavewave*nicetameecha) in Seattle for braving the comments section at Snow's blog. It was because she did that I did a little happy chairdance for her to go along with a tune I entitled 'Gooooood on yaaaaaa Sar-ar-ar-ar-ahhhh', and then (of course) I had to click on her comment to find out more about her. That's part of the lateral magic of the internet for me. Long story short: this meme was happily snatched and passed with love from Sarah's blog.


1. First name? Legal or nick? mm, I'll go with Beth.

2. Were you named after anyone? The Biblical one as in mother of John the Baptist Elizabeth. But hold the 'z' and give me a dollop of 's' instead.

3. When did you last cry? Two days ago, while babysitting my sweet niece. She said something funny that unexpectedly touched me (and, upon seeing me wiping tears she asked if it was her fault that I was leaking water out my eyeballs).

4. Do you like your handwriting? I do. When I was learning to write as a child I hoped huge hopes that I would write just like my mother, who has beautiful penmanship. I write more in block capital letters than I do in cursive now, but I like them both.

5. What is your favorite lunch meat? spamspamspamspam (yes, I am serious, if it's heated up) and braunsweiger.

6. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? It depends a great deal on what 'other person' I would be, don't you think? But for the sake of an answer: if I was a generally decent kind and loving person with a slightly off sense of humor I'd LOVE to be my friend.

7. Do you have a journal? DUH.

8. Do you still have your tonsils? All twelve of them, which I have a strict policy against loaning out.

10. What is your favorite cereal? Life. Ooh, and Golden Grahams, even if they scrape up the roof of my mouth. mmmmmmm.

11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Slip-ons? No. Be sensible! Shoes with laces? There's where it becomes more complicated: if I'm in a hurry to use the bathroom or after a very long day I'll shoehorn them off using the toe of one foot against the heel of the other shoe w/out touching the laces. But (!) if I'm trying to make an ooh-la-la good impression I will undo the laces manually because, as we all know, lacingness is next to godliness.

12. Do you think you are strong? Very. I'm fairly vulnerable as well, but that's probably a lesser-known fact to anyone who either does not reside inside my head or who is not allowed by me into the Inner Sanctum.

13. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? It's wrong to hurt the feelings of potentially hundreds of flavors by claiming my ardor for Just One. Wrong! I'm not a big ice cream freak, but when I was pregnant 18 years ago I had THEE. WORST. CRAVINGS. for Ben&Jerry's Chunky Monkey. Hey, when that growing fetus needs a dairy fix who am I to stand in the way?

14. Shoe Size? A brand-dependent 8.5

15. Red or pink? Yes.

16. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? When I make decisions based on my (real or imagined) fears.

17. Who do you miss the most? The list is long, there are no 'mosts'. All of them, yes. Very much.

18. Do you want everyone to send this back to you? Everyone in the entire universe, yes. Or maybe not. Okay, maybe a note to say 'hey that was fun and I'll play along too' -- that'd work fine.

19. What color pants, shirt, and shoes are you wearing?
Shoes = none. Pant = blue (jeans).
Shirt subsection (a). long-sleeved cotton scoopneck = fuscia.
Shirt subsection (b). zipped-up hoodie = orange.

20. Last thing you ate?
Real food: leftover baked ziti
Non-food item: a piece of tobacco when I smoked a cigarette earlier tonight.

21. What are you listening to right now? The water filter of the aquarium. Little bit like the sound of a tabletop fountain. I sure do appreciate the determination of that lone surviving fish in there but wow I'm not going to miss the every-other-week cleaning when it's gone.

22. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Puce.

23. Favorite smell? autumn in Wisconsin, currently. There's another one I will not spell out because my non-legal spousalish unit will faint and possibly suffer a brain injury during the falling process if I were to mention it (it implicates her person). I don't wish a brain injury for her, so let's just go with the 'autumn in Wisconsin' answer.

24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Without implicating anyone, see the response to question #23.

25. What is the first thing you notice about people to whom you are attracted? It depends on what part of them is visable when we first meet. I tend to be attracted to men's forearms (don't laugh, one of my sisters likes eyebrows). I noticed scents. I notice gestures. Body language spoken here too.

26. Do you like the person you stole this from?I have no reason not to like no-longer-a-stranger Sarah. Sure!

27. Favorite drink? whiskey/water.

28. Favorite sport?Fun-poking. I paid a LOT for my equipment too, so I try to use it as often as possible.

29. Eye color? Whose - mine? Green.

30. Hat size? Here's a question about myself that I honestly don't know! Huge. Is there a hat size called 'from which side of the family did you inherit that enormous melon?', because that's what size I wear.

31. Do you wear contacts? No, just glasses for computer work/reading.

32. Favorite food? Name the starch, I'm there.

33. Scary movies or happy endings? Scary movies that end happily.

35. Summer or winter? Neither. Autumn.

36. Hugs or kisses? I'll take three helpings of both please. As the seasons change my lips become more and more chapped so I tend toward the hugs for sake of keeping my lips from falling off my head. But I can be persuaded to let one or two really good tingly ones sneak past with no nevermind.

37. Favorite dessert? Current cheap and easy dessert craving is Rice Krispie Treats - the version with butterscotch and chocolate mixed in. (insert Homeresque beer drool here)

38. Who is most likely to respond? Oh sweetheart, I won't even begin to guess.

39. Least likely to respond? Do I need to speak into your good ear?

40. What books are you reading? The new 'O' magazine that arrived this week (let's call that 'reading lite'). And The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Carson McCullers). And Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert). And for fun, The Order of Things: How Everything in the World Is Organized into Hierarchies, Structures, and Pecking Orders (Barbara Ann Kipfer).

41. What's on your mouse pad? The image? It's a photosleeve containing a photo I took of my son at the midget car races on his birthday two years ago.

42. What did you watch last night on TV? The Thursday night Gray's Anatomy/ER doubleheader. Pardon me, but I was most certainly not sleeping! I was resting my eyes.

43. Favorite sound? Wistful answer: our voices together, on the rare occasions when my sibs and I have sung together. Day-to-day answer: my son's guffawing laughter.

44. Rolling Stone or Beatles? Rolling Beatles.

45. The furthest you've been from home? physically that'd be Melbourne, Australia.
I've gone far far away inside my own head during some pretty dark times, but I suppose that's more of a metaphysical kinda travel.

46. What's your special talent? My Stupid People Tricks are not limited to but include: tying a cherry stem using only my tongue, doing the 'Live Long and Prosper' thingie using my toes, whistling through my rolled-up tongue and (this one is my personal fave) flipping my eyelids inside-out. When I'm not making an absolute fool of myself doing those nifties, I have a rather highly-tuned bullshit detector and can (usually) call someone on their crap without making them feel horrible. After having experienced both sides I now know it takes talent to do that.

47. Where were you born? In Mississippi.

48. Who sent this to you? Nobody, baby, I reached out and grabbed that ring all by myself.