a host of eccentricities

[ontology]

I feel like catching up on the memes that have been floating about under my nose for the last eon or so. I always want to do them and never get 'round to it (mainly because I have a sneaking suspicious that I am, indeed, a lazy git--and forgetful). I have to dig up the five questions that avendya asked me--oh, back in April, I think. I did them in a Notepad document and lost them, and then I found them again, and now I have to re-find-them-again. 

Anyway, mermaidrain tagged me for the five-odd-things-about-you meme not too long ago, and while I'm thinking of it, I ought to have a go at it, yeah? It's been a while since I've done it, and there are lots of people reading this journal that weren't then. (I don't remember when this was, incidentally. Back when I had three or four friends, more likely than not.) 

i. My guilty pleasure, where food is concerned (you know, since 'everything' doesn't count--I have been severely enamoured of food since I learnt to chew, which likely has got something to do with my father working as a pastry chef and baker for a number of years and feeding my young self things like blueberry mousse and cream puffs) is frosting. Vanilla butter frosting, actually. There's a recipe for it under the 'recipe' tag. It's got powered sugar and a bit of margarine or butter and some vanilla and milk in, and it comes out all creamy and fantastic and I could eat it forever and ever and ever. If you are lazy or haven't got a mixer or arms, you can buy something very similar in cans from Betty Crocker, which is also very tasty but the homemade variety is much cheaper. (I just made some yesterday to go with chocolate cupcakes.)
ii. I have a perfect hourglass figure, which these days is no longer considered perfect, to my great vexation. (That is to say, I would have a perfect hourglass figure if I were not quite so enamoured of food--I am not exactly overweight, but I do have bits of surplus flesh in awkward places, and when one has had large hips bestowed upon them by apparently vindictive nature, an extra pound or five makes a lot of difference.) The main downside of this whole business is that trousers cannot be found to fit me for love or money or even desperate blackmail--the few pairs I have got are too large and must be held up with belts, and they were rare finds because everything else is three sizes too small. The upside is that I look fantastic in period costume, as the clothing was made to suit a figure like mine. People with nothing up top usually look funny. (Also, period costume hides the more unnatractive of my curves quite nicely. I reckon this was on purpose, as people were more apt to be fashionably plump a century or more ago, but didn't want the lumpy bits to be accentuated.)
iii. Speaking of food--and this had better be the last of it!--I eat everything very methodically. I have little routines for various sorts of food, which are rather difficult to describe. I eat around my sandwiches and toast, getting all the crust except for the bit at the bottom, then eating the middle until there's an inch left above the bottom crust, and then devour that lengthwise. This is about the simplest it gets. The rest of them are much weirder. 
iv. An album has never been listened to properly until I have heard it through my headphones while not doing anything else. I like becoming properly acquainted with albums on roadtrips. Headphones are very intimate, wheras speakers aren't--you don't have the same musical experience when the entire room is privy, you know. Also, I love catching all the little nuances of instrumentation and concentrating on where the melody goes (especially if it's one of those really fantastic melodies that surprises you by leading you one way and breaking off to go another at just the right moment--I'm thinking of Vienna Teng's 'Pontchartrain' just now because my guitar teacher and I were talking about it a little today). 
v. I have this really terrible habit of talking to books. This is one of the various reasons why, when I am reading a new book, I do it very much alone. (Also because I don't like distractions; I want to be as immersed in the bookworld as possible, and I would rather not come out of it at all!) If they are books that I am chummy (read: fandomy) with in any particuar way, this is greatly intensified to epic lengths. I will occasionally come out of books in order to berate a character (funny, the talking-to is usually berating), advise them, or otherwise have some kind of a chat. Sometimes this involves them answering back, which usually ends in violence. I have been known to 'accidentally' take tumbles from the tops of parapets.

In other news, I got a package from lexiedohtoday, containing the belated Christmas present of this very fantastic shirt (!!!). I wore it to my lesson today and my guitar teacher loved it (as do I, naturally). It is utterly perfect!!

Comments

[lexiedoh.livejournal.com]

-squee- That got there exceptionally fast for only $2 shipping! And I adore it with that jacket.

I love you!

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Hee! I adore my military jacket. And, yeah, I wasn't expecting your package to get here so quickly, either! Nice surprise in the middle of Geography. ♥

[ressie-noldo.livejournal.com]

I am the same way, when it comes to figure (er. seriously, nature is evil with those hips. Evil.). *mutters* (Honestly, who set that trend about needing to be morbidly underweight to be attractive? I'd like to know, so that I could disembowel them or quart (:D) them or something equally unpleasant.) Er. Yes. I sound stupidly teenagery. Shutting up now.


& I eat around my toast, except I go all around it and then eat the middle. (Is there some sort of specific mental disorder relating to food habits?)



Also, word on the intimacy of headphones (crikey, that sounds wrong) -- that's the way I feel about them, though my mother is somewhat irked by this. (I have these wonderful completely soundproof headphones, which are great when one wants to catch a particular note of the piano backing or something, but not so great when one wants to keep an ear out for one's parental yell. You know.)



I sound more than usually insane in this comment. *flees*

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

ZOMBIES. YES, IT WAS THE ZOMBIES. They were sick of the prejudice against the morbidly thin and bony and rotting, so they infiltrated our media and--did stuff. Or, um. Yeah. *pokes stuff*

You eat your toast all wrong, you toast heretic. I hope you don't lick the middles out of your sandwich cookies, because that would be really depraved.

Also, word on the intimacy of headphones (crikey, that sounds wrong)
I dunno; I think I nearly caught my headphones and my earbuds snogging once. I get yelled at in the car all the time, because I sit in the back of this huge hippie van with headphones on and I can't hear anything, and parents in the front are like, 'wait, I was talking to you for five minutes; do you mean you didn't get any of it?'

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

I dunno; I think I nearly caught my headphones and my earbuds snogging once.

o_O

*just isn't going to ask*

I get yelled at in the car all the time, because I sit in the back of this huge hippie van with headphones on and I can't hear anything, and parents in the front are like, 'wait, I was talking to you for five minutes; do you mean you didn't get any of it?'

Hon, you're going to do your ears some permanent damage. :p No, seriously. Of course, this is coming from someone who has basically never had the volume on her iPod up over 50% and usually closer to 10 or 20%, which is only annoying when I actually want to drown something out (others' music in the office, loud people in the office, loud people in general, drama at home, etc.) but don't want to hurt my ears.

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

I don't think I listen very loudly; it's mostly the being-ten-feet-away bit that gets me in trouble. (I think I'm exaggerating. I'm not sure. The hippie van is humongous.) And, drat. I almost never have my discman (or someone else's which I have nicked because mine has been dead for a long time) when I want to drown stuff out. So, tell me, do you typically carry the iPod about in a pocket, or what?

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

Some people carry them in pockets. I don't because...well, it really is about the size of a deck of cards, and for obvious reasons I don't really want to sit on that or have it cutting into my hipbones when I sit down. (Well, and there wouldn't be room in most of my pockets. But still.)

Normally I keep it in a pocket in my backpack when I'm not using it; I have a case for it with a belt clip, though, so I have it clipped to a pocket (usually my little coin pocket on my jeans, because...it works) when I'm listening to it.

[builtofsorrow.livejournal.com]

I ♥ your shirt. And also your jacket! *is somewhat jealous*

Also: YOU ARE ODD, WOMAN. *grins teasingly* I'd say I was joking, only I'm really not, it's just a Very Good Thing to be odd, yes?

(I find myself very curious about your food-eating rituals [I make it sound like some sort of Ancient Civilisation religious ceremony] though. I'm not sure I do anything in a tremendously methodical fashion, although I rarely bite into sandwiches: I tear the crusts off first, eat those, and then tear off the rest of about half of it in chunks, and then I take the rest of it apart and eat it item by item. This drives my mother bonkers.)

[safebox.livejournal.com]

*waves awkwardly*

Hello! Just friended you because you seem excessively awesome and wanderlight told me to.

In relation to your post - so with you on the headphones thing, I had a moment like that just today when I heard a Joseph Arthur song through headphones for the first time and it instantly became even more awesome.

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

*hijacks* Hee, Joseph Arthur. ♥ You must listen to "Honey and the Moon" sometime in the dark, alone, with headphones. It's the only way to fully experience it. I sound like a dork...

[safebox.livejournal.com]

I've done the headphones thing before, but never in the dark! Well, now I have something to do tonight =D

Music dorkery is a beautiful thing.

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

*waves back* Hi! New friends are very welcome. :D Curiously, your first name is almost the same as my middle name, which is Aimee, because my parents are unconventional spellers (although not actually Francophiles at all). ^-^

Um. *goes to friend back* :)

[un-titled-love.livejournal.com]

o.m.g. Vanilla butter frosting is ♥. Siriusly. Frosting is, amongst manymany other wonderful things, one of my loves. -runs off to find said recipe-

Also: How much do I adore your shirt (and jacket)? SO.much.

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

♥! I don't think I could agree with you more re. the albums; my favourite bit about roadtrips is being able to stare out the window, watching the scenery and absorbing my music. If I'm reading/doing homework/etc., I can't give albums the attention they deserve -- they need all of it. And I love listening to all of the threads of instrumentation, too (sometimes I pick them apart and listen to various strains on their own, which is dorky); the love of instrumental layers must be why we both like Dreaming so much. (Did you pick up the accordion bit in it? It's lovely.)

Hee, I talk to my books and other media also. I kept screaming at Ten yesterday while watching "The Satan Pit", my sister thought I was going insane and actually came over to see if I needed any help. Once I had to put a book down on the table and got into a yelling match with it. And then I got so angry I had to actually go outside and take a walk before I could pick it up again. Er.

Also, I LOVE THE SHIRT!!!

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Yes; roadtrips are fantastic because there's so much room for quiet when you're in the car and aren't required to be doing anything; I can listen to music for three hours, and music is the best instigator for thought of which I know. (And I do the picking-apart thing, too. I once played around with my headphone plug because if I put it in just right, the sound came through in a weird way through just one side, and I could hear this very unusual harmony vocal I hadn't noticed before.)

the love of instrumental layers must be why we both like Dreaming so much. (Did you pick up the accordion bit in it? It's lovely.)
Oh, blimey, yes. And it's not only layered--it's layered well. I've heard some songs that had only two or three instruments in them and they sounded crowded, and I've heard great hosts of instruments that all fit together like patchwork. This may come from listening almost solely to movie scores (namely LotR) for about six to eight months of my life--I love having three melodies going at once on different instruments.

And yes, the accordion is lovely. Accordions are an instrument that needs more exposure; I listen to so much traditionally based folk music that I didn't realise they were so ignored by the rest of the music world (they're a staple in the most average of traditional Celtic bands!), and then I started hearing accordions here and there occasionally--Patrick Wolf's got one, which made me SO HAPPY--and thought, oooh, now there's an instrument with potential. (Had never heard a creepy, watery-sounding accordion until 'Pontchartrain', which may be the singular most atmospheric song I have heard in a six months, maybe a year.)

Hee, I talk to my books and other media also.
I have paused movies to pace around the room and talk. And, er, I can directly trace the Evangeline story to a pacing session I had after a book I'd read made me so angry that I had to monologue about it for fifteen minutes before I was satisfied. (Only some of this was out loud.) I also threw The Two Towers across a picnic table. Ruddy cliffhangers. Especially when your mother's friends tease you about them. :p

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

!!! My old mp3 player used to do that; if I half-pulled the plug I could listen to just the instrumental sides of some CDs. It was fantastic and probably not good for the thing, which is why it's not defunct, but whatever. There should be options on media players to allow you do do that -- hear just one bit of the song, be it the lyrics or the background instrumentation.

Yes. Patrick. ♥ (How are you liking Patrick?) I think The Arcade Fire uses accordion; I'm just sampling their CD Funeral right now and it's addictive. Loads better than your usual indie pop.

Ooh, I know. "Pontchartrain" is just --. Emotionally draining, though; it isn't exactly background music. Patrick Wolf's "Empress" does the same thing for me: wraps me up and spirits me away.

When I first read LOTR I read The Two Towers, because it was the one I'd brought to China with me, and then I couldn't read the first or third until I got back from the trip. Torturous. And the worst possible way to read a series, but it worked, at least?

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

And, er, I can directly trace the Evangeline story to a pacing session I had after a book I'd read made me so angry that I had to monologue about it for fifteen minutes before I was satisfied.

Mm? What book was that? (I should probably know this, but...I can't remember.)

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

I never actualy did rant about it publically, because the whole thing in my head was so long and complicated, but the book was Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, which was superficially annoying for hinting at a nice gothic aesthetic and NEVER DELIVERING--it has one of the coolest covers ever, and the main characters have got severely gothic names that sound sort of silly when there isn't anything gothic happening, and BEING ABOUT VAMPIRES, you would think that it would be...yeah. Instead, it was ABOUT HIGH-SCHOOL DRAMA, and vampires with all of the inconvenient bits taken out (i.e. the more interesting bits).

I think where it really lost me was when we discover that not only does sunlight not vaporise vampires, it makes them TWICE AS HAWT, because their skin goes all glowy and glittery and stuff. >_< Also it had no plot and consisted mostly of Look, A Hawt Vampire Guy Who Protag Is Madly In Love With For No Particular Reason, until the author decided to tack some action on at the end. And even then there is no interesting gothic aesthetic, despite Protag being held captive by scary vampire in an abandoned dance hall, the awesome possibilities of which were completely ignored.

All of this wouldn't have made me particularly angry, just a bit vexed--what really got me going was the weird, unhealthy ideas that started cropping up. First off, Bella the Protag confesses in the beginning that her mother is her best friend, but not long after, she falls madly and clichedly in love with Hawt Vampire Edward, and suddenly he is The Only Thing That Matters, Ever. This is stressed repeatedly throughout the book: she can't live without him, life without him is meaningless, she loves him more than anything else ever, including people like, you know, HER PARENTS, who she's known all of her life, and she's only acquainted with Hawt Vampire for a few months. This is presented as being awesome and romantic. >_<

AND THEN. AND THEN. At the end, she wangsts about how SHE IS NOT A VAMPIRE, and all she wants is to be a vampire so that she can be with him forever (literally), and her parents don't matter, blah blah blee. ARGH. What kind of message are you passing on to the sentimental young girls who are reading this??

So, I paced around the room ranting in my head for half an hour about stuff I don't remember, but the thing I mostly recall is pondering what an actual romance with a vampire would be like, portrayed as realistically as such can. I mean, for me, I can't get buy a romance if I can't imagine these people living their lives together. So, why does nobody ever seem to consider this sort of thing in vampiremances? And also, don't these women (or men, I suppose; there must be female vampires being lust objects somewhere) consider the dangers of--stuff? So he's hot--he's also UNDEAD AND POSSIBLY EVIL and vants to suck your blood. Allowing him to shag you is probably inadviseable, but this is only even considered superficially. (And you don't get mother-freaking-out scenes--'YOUR BOYFRIEND IS WHAT?' and mother lecturing Vampire Boyfriend all 'who do you think you are?' and stuff.) I was also ranting about the lack of gothic aesthetic, and being nagged by the 'if you want it done right, do it yourself' thought and masterfully banishing it, but it was very persistent, and then Evangeline started nattering in my head, and things Happened. (Although I don't know how much I'm going to be dealing with the former topic, honestly.

...Gosh, that was long. This is the condensed, breakneck-speed, 'I need to get off the computer, make this quick' version, too. *headdesk*

[bonny-kathryn.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say that I like reading your posts, even when I forget to comment (or just plain don't have time). It makes me remember that, not so long ago, I was sixteen and knew things. It's a bad thing, this current trend of looking down on those younger because they feel things more expressively (I won't say deeply, because I'm not sure it's true). I can't say I miss sixteen, exactly, because I find twenty three to be generally superior, but I was there, and it was good, and it is good to see someone who can remind me of the particular good of sixteen, which I shall never have again (and perhaps I can remind someone else of the particular good of twenty three).

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Your comment made me feel all warm and fuzzy this afternoon. :D

[shorelle.livejournal.com]

Hello there! This is rather random, but I got directed over here by wanderlight who recommended you as a shiny new friend -- do you mind if I add you? ^^ It's always great to meet another Vienna Teng fan!

Back on topic, I rather envy your hourglass figure! I'm completely flat (seriously, there are men with more breast tissue than me) and look rather like a prepubescent boy. It does make shopping for clothes difficult in another way, since most nice/fancy tops are cut with breasts in mind. XD Ah well, that's what shirts are for!

And there's nothing wrong with talking to books! (I hope.) I have mental conversations with characters after being particularly affected by them; it's rather entertaining, like a fanfic in interview form.

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

Hee! I was about to check you out, so this is amusing timing. :D Friend away! (Unless you are a Nefarious Being. You aren't, are you?)

You know, the problem with shirts these days is that they all seem to cater to a particular size, which is often too small for me and too large for you. Hmph. I am cold and losing my train of thought horribly.

And there's nothing wrong with talking to books! (I hope.) I have mental conversations with characters after being particularly affected by them; it's rather entertaining, like a fanfic in interview form.
Ah, but at least yours can still lay claim to the dignity of being mental conversations. *waggles eyebrows*

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

Heh, I eat my crusts first. Always. I can't think of any other food rituals offhand, though. And I wholeheartedly agree on the headphones. I think I never heard a lot of my music until I got my iPod. ('Course, now I've got plenty on there that I never listen to--mostly old stuff, but some that isn't so old and I just...never think of it. Especially because now it's choked by random songs from fanmixes that I haven't read the lyrics for yet, so I don't know if they're okay or not, so they just...sit there and don't get listened to.)

I can't remember much talking to books. This could be because I almost never do any recreational reading anymore except a few minutes before bed, which is sad. I talk to the TV a lot, though. Actually I yell at the TV a lot. Characters in said TV, really, like in Doctor Who and...such. (Have you got your sound fixed yet so you can watch more? Last one I remember you mentioning was The Christmas Invasion. I'm rewatching Doomsday, and it is SO SAD.)

And that is an awesome shirt.