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!

[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*

[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.

[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!!!

[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).

[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.

[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.