A quiet night, a stack of books, a tuna melt on rye

The second set of questions from the meme two days ago, all from teapostal. This will also be the last question set unless a straggler comes out of the woodwork to ask something more.

37. Do you believe in luck?
Well contrary to yesterday, I do believe in luck. This belief comes mostly from my inability to play Risk. The game is entirely based on dice rolls and I know that straight probability should make me just as likely to beat my brother as he is to beat me, yet every single time I play I lose. And every time I amass great armies and am then beaten my the two little guys holding down the fort. EVERY SINGLE TIME. If that is not luck – and bad luck at that – I don’t know what is.

45. What is the worst injury you’ve ever had?
I’m actually really lucky with injuries. I’ve never sustained anything more serious than slight abrasions. Really, the worst injuries I’ve had are probably from elective oral surgeries (by which I mean the 10 teeth I’ve had pulled at various times.)

If you expand the question to include illnesses, then the answer would be Scarlet Fever. I had that when I was five and all I remember is telling my father about how my skin itched, a vague memory of being allowed to spend the day in my parents bed, and then building The Emerald City out of construction paper with my father when I was well enough to sit up outside but not well enough to go back to school (well probably camp) yet.

56. In a relationship?
I am not. I am the shyest person you could ever hope to meet (and shy in that way that comes off as terribly aloof and proud instead of in the way that makes people want to take care of you) which is not a terribly good fault to have when meeting people. I also have a difficult time expressing interest in anything. I mean I have to psych myself up to wear fandom related shirts (even though I love and keep buying them) because then someone walking by might know that I like Doctor Who or Jane Eyre: the musical, or what ever else the shirt says. That quirk doesn't really help with the getting past meeting stage. I really should figure this out sometime -- and you know -- soonish.

This is the first set of answers from yesterday's meme. I appear to be a rather boring individual who doesn't believe in anything. Which may be true, I'm usually eminently practical

Questions asked by truebornstark

11) Do you have any strange phobias?
Not really. I dislike snakes enough to refuse to go into the reptile house at the zoo and I have recurring nightmares about them whenever I am cold at night (like if the covers fall off). I don’t think that is strange nor is it really to the level of a phobia. The thing that might be to the level of a phobia is my extreme hatred of talking calling people on the phone. I will do just about anything to avoid it.

29) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?
Not really. I like to read or listen to ghost stories and pretend they are real, but when it comes right down to it. No

I think there are entirely too many planets out there that could sustain life, for us to really be the only one. However, I read a really interesting book on the subject that argued that the time periods required for life at our level (or more advanced) to evolve such that they could visit each other, makes it virtually impossible for it to happen. It also argued that humanity (as well as any alien races) are likely to completely destroy our planet well before we ever gain the knowledge needed to travel faster than light. So. Aliens logically exist, but they are not here abducting people or building pyramids or any of those things.

46) Have you ever caught a butterfly? Sure. We had butterflies all over our backyard growing up and I’ve caught my fair share of them when I was supposed to be weeding.

50) Do you believe in magic?
Again, not really. I love stories about it and wish it existed, but I don’t really think it does.

80) What size shoes do you wear?
US 9 or 9.5 in womens. My feet appear to be shrinking since I wore a 10 throughout middle school and high school. Then spent years as a 9.5, and now, 9s fit most of the time.

I watched this today and liked the idea, but I don't Vlog (and try to avoid saying that word 'cause really?!), so I thought I would adapt to for the lj. And by adapt it I mean the not terribly intensive typing my answers out.
( 10 things I would say to my 16 year old self )

I got
( New glasses! ) which look suspiciously like my ( old glasses.  )  I like them that way.  I did enjoy getting to tell various people over the weekend how exactly I lost them, which resulted in a lot of repressed giggles until I assured the person in question that I found it pretty funny too.  I also enjoyed that the guy at the lenscrafters commented on how I really did need glasses and then seemed to think that I was driving without any kind of eyesight correction.  'Cause, uh, that would be super dangerous. 

Also, I finished my first knitting commission last ten-day.  Before Thanksgiving I wore ( these wrist warmers, ) which I made using this pattern, to the office.  I was basically attacked by a co-worker who wanted a pair in hot pink. She provided yarn, and I knitted them up.  ( Very, very pink. ) When I went to give them to her this morning I found out that she went on vacation early which means they are now living in my car in the parking lot at the office and will probably remain there into the New Year.  Oh, well.  I'm still excited about them. 

Also, I got to fly today instead of driving over ten hours to the project are which always makes me happy.  Particularly since I would have been making the drive by myself, but got to fly with three co-workers who are working on a near-by loop.

    So I've been wanting to do a post on The X-files and the movie and my late middle school and high school years, but I'm not quite sure how to word it.
    As most people probably know, or could easily find out, the x-files premiered in 1993.  At the time I was in fourth grade.  A confirmed book worm, at the time I was reading everything I could get my hands on about para-normal phenomenon.  Fictional stories about ghosts, possessions, and psychics as well as everything in the 000's of the library  (yes I was and am dorky enough to memorize portions of the Dewey Decimal System).  I saw the commercials and knew I would be interested but somehow got the idea that I was too young and it would be too scary so I didn't.
    Flash forward four years. the show still nudged at the edge of my consciousness and I decided that I was going to become at fan.  Yes, decided is the correct word.  I brought a notebook and flash cards with me to lunch one week and tested all of my friends for psychic ability to commemorate my transition to fan of the show.  That Sunday I watched for the first time. As I knew I would be, I was hooked, obsessed.  I shared the obsession with my friend Becky.  We watched every week, taped old episodes to catch up, discussed endlessly, walked around our respective neighborhoods after dark looking for UFOs, and possibly most importantly started signing our notes to each other as the characters.  She was S.A.F.W.M, Ph.D. (Special Agent Fox William Mulder, Ph.D.) and I was S.A.D.K.S, Md. (Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, Md.) 
    Then I got the internet.  And discovered usenet. And fanfiction.  Of course I was pathologically shy, so I lurked, still do, but I read everything.  During the summer I was only allowed to stay home with nothing to do for about two weeks, but those two weeks were spent up stairs in my father's study eating ice and reading through gossamer alphabetically.  The whole time I strained to hear if anyone was coming because I was a good three years from the NC17 cut off date.  At first, I remember avoiding all those fics, sure that the world would cave in somehow if I clicked.  I was, of course, a very good girl.  Then I accidentally hit one and the next page asked if I was over 17.  Truthfully, I answered no, but it linked me through to the story anyway (clearly a difficulty in web design).  The world didn't end.  No big cavern opened an sucked me down.  So I read. And read. And read.  By the time I was actually 17 smut, PWP, and the rest were old hat. 
    Becky changed schools after eight grade, so I no longer had anyone to really discuss the show with.  At some point, Kathy, the only person more obsessed than I was, handed me dossiers she had written up on each of the characters, asking for corrections.  I changed Scully's eye color which lead to years of yelling “they're blue!” “they're green!” back and forth along the hallways of East High School.  To which all I have to say is “They're blue!” On my own I continued to delight in the fact that my middle name was Kathryn and to compulsively wear the gold cross I got for my confirmation.  Wow was I mad when I didn't get to go on the health class field trip to the morgue (or was it a biology field trip).  People got to hold organs!
    My senior year I started to lose interest.  Mulder was gone,  Scully cried all the time, and I had all sorts of other things to pay attention to.  By the ninth season, my freshman year of college, I let the show play in background while I did other things.  I couldn't tell you anything that happened that season, but the “damage” was done.  I was majoring in Chemistry because science was everything, and Anthropology because forensic anthropology doesn't require four years of med-school focusing on the live people to be able to play with the dead people. 

Well I haven't even gotten to my thoughts on the movie, but I will leave you with a link (not about the movie) to which all I can say is yes, just yes.   

A meme, snagged from everyone and their mother:

You know how sometimes people on your friend's list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy mine below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-Word-Answers seldom help anyone out :)



On a completely unrelated note, I am once again kicking myself for forgetting to bring my camera into the field.  I had it in my field pack for a while and then took it out to use on the weekend and never replaced it.  Anyway, I was surveying a cow field, and there in the middle someone had stuck a political sign.  They were extolling their choice for Agricultural custodian, or what ever the official title is.  Now my question is, who was the intended audience for that sign?  The cows?

I got my hair cut and I love it.  There are long layers and sweepy bangs and it will look good with a headband.  And really,  the headband is what counts. 

Also, apparently I now look twenty, which is a vast improvement over looking seventeen.  Mostly because people no longer think I have a job because I'm a high school dropout, instead of thinking I have a job because I'm a functioning adult member of society. My intellectual elitism does not deal well with being called a high school dropout.  I do find it increasingly funny that at 15 people thought I was 21 and at 21 people thought I was 15.