I, too.

Since I’ve temporarily run out of interesting things to say about other people, I’ve decided to return to a topic that would never run out of interest: me!

So, I would like to credit myself, from whom I am plagiarizing this idea, as for myself I plagiarized it off him. But an idea twice removed is anyone’s for the taking.

So shall we?

I dare say, you won’t waste 10 minutes learning such frivolous information about someone anywhere else today.

~

I AM:

1 ~ , even though I DESPISE sitting in a meeting room, on the board of more committees than I can count… all for different reasons, ranging from actual interest in their work, to blatantly using it to network. One, in particular, I joined when I was 20, because, well, there may have been something to do with a cute guy. I’m not ashamed to admit this as 7 years later, he’s gone and I’m still there!

2 ~ seemingly more moody than I was 2 years ago. I’m also more short tempered, I’m not sure whether this is just because I’m getting less tolerant and more impatient in my old age or if I just feel more confident in my right to be voice my opinions (and I don’t mean the ones I have to ask you for ), therefore repressing my anger less. Either way, mood up, mood down. Thank god I love roller coasters.

3 ~ at time of writing, 2 days away from my 27th birthday. I have very elaborate plans, most of them including me avoiding all calls, a tub of rum ‘n raisin ice-cream and a spoon, and some sort of vibrating sex toy or another. Considering I overheard a conversation involving my friend telling my assistant to make sure I have nothing booked for 8:30pm-2am that night, I’m afraid my plans for le vibe and le icecream may be postponed.

4 ~ the youngest in my extended family of 40+ cousins. And the only one living in Australia. This works highly to my advantage when I choose to travel to Europe, Asia and the USA, and especially advantageous if I choose to travel around Vietnamese New Year, Christmas, or my birthday. . . who am I to refuse them if they wish to spoil me?

5 ~ however, subjected to countless excruciatingly painful family dinners where the argument over who used to change my diapers more when I was an infant and not able to do it myself, never ever seems to get old.

6 ~ incredibly fortunate in that, after crying, I never show any sign that I have done so. This I did NOT inherit from my mum, whose nose does a Rudolph, and whose eyes puff up, just at the mention that someone may have cried somewhere, sometime in the history of time…maybe.

7 ~ wordy. Period.

8 ~ naturally, a very disorganized person. I’m one of those people who swears that although everything looks like it’s in a big mess, I know exactly where everything is. That’s a great big fat lie, what I mean by that is, I know exactly where it is…it’s in that great big pile of junk, and if you would please go away for a minute or an hour or a decade, I’ll find it. Unfortunately, my life has dictated that if I wish to survive in it, I’ll have to fight my natural tendencies. Therefore, I have post-its, lots and lots and lots of post-its. My assistant thought up the wonderful, amazing, great, some sort of Nobelness winning system (I may be using a little bit of sarcasm there) to use the pink post-its for things that are really urgent based on the idea that since I despise pink so much, I’ll want to be able to rip down those post-its by completing that task. He was wrong. Now I’m just more irritable because of the little fluoro pink squares all over the place.

9 ~ a size 8-ish shoe. Feel free to have this information seared into your memory forever. You neeeeever know when you might need it…oh look a link…wonder what that would lead you to…better click it to see, oh look here’s another one!

10 ~ completely overwhelmed with my feelings for someone. And despite where I am in my life, and the things that came before, I’m not surprised by those feelings in the slightest, simply because of the person that they are.

~

I WANT:

1 ~ to, just once, paint my nails, and not, in my impatience while waiting for them to dry, smudge one, which makes me jump around throwing a dummy spit only to smudge several of the remaining 9 fingernails.

2 ~ to sleep for just three uninterrupted hours a day. And for it to be dreamless.

3 ~ my steak so rare, it’s twitching, trying to crawl off the plate as they serve it to me. If it yells in pain and cusses at me, calling me a “carnivorous bitch” as I spear it with my fork, all the better.

4 ~ a new Teflon pan. I think my cholesterol sneaks out of my bloodstream in the middle of the night and steals my pans and scours them with a wire brush to discourage me from eating too many eggs.

5 ~ to have a White Christmas this year, spending it with a dear friend in that strange country where men were skirts. It doesn’t even really need to be white, just not so hot that we leave the Turkey outside on the hood of the car to cook.

6 ~ my mother to be more aware of herself, and the world around her, and realize that everything she thinks she wants, she already has, and until she sees that, she’s not going to be as happy as she truly could be.

7 ~ things that my head tell me I shouldn’t, but that my heart can’t seem to let go of; and to be perfectly honest? I know which one I’m listening to.

8 ~ to write like my muse does. I may not know the process as he sits and types what appears in his head, but I know that the words the appear to be consumed draw a world that is more vivid than my 3D existence; one where I can see, hear, taste, smell, and mostly, feel… everything. They’re not simply words, but pieces of the puzzle that creates a tangible universe that one can step into, and make, a reality, even if only for the length of his piece…but for that split second in time, it’s truly real.

9 ~ new sheets. I spend exorbitant amounts on manchester, because I spend half of my time working in my office and the remaining time working on my laptop propped up on pillows sliding my body over my bed sheets. And while freshly washed, crisp clean sheets are one of life’s little pleasures…there’s still nothing like coming out of a warm shower at the end of a hot summer’s day and sliding your smooth legs into a cool bed made up with a set of brand new, still creased, 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, with that soft sheen that gets lost over time and washing… and getting fucked senseless *grins* Every bed spread needs to be christened properly after all.

10 ~ to feel to wake up and feel his sleeping body next to mine; have him pull me in against him, his arm heavy over my waist, his warm breath against the back of my neck, his rough cheek brushing against mine as he drops a soft kiss on my bare shoulder as he drifts off back to sleeping whispering words that only have meaning between us.

~

I, ONCE:

~ when I was 22, was involved with someone 30 years my senior. He was more immature than me in every way but one. But I soon caught up on that. And I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone younger than me.

2 ~ laughed so hard, from a prank I pulled on a friend that involved one of those talking parrot toys, that I literally couldn’t sit up in bed the next morning from aching stomach muscles.

3 ~ spent a lonely, lonely night in an overseas hospital because I couldn’t bear to tell anyone the reason I was there. It was 8 years ago in January.

4 ~ took the fall, when my friend, through absolute sheer stupidity, lost $13,000 that was fundraised for a youth conference.

5. ~ had the following conversation after getting on a plane to fly from Milan to Rome. I’d promptly fallen asleep, only to wake refreshed much later just in time as everyone was disembarking. As I climbed off the plane, I couldn’t quite keep up with everyone, and got lost on the way looking for the baggage claim. I did note how lucky I was that this airport seemed to have the exact same layout as the one I’d just left though. I cornered a guy, who looked like he knew some English, whereupon, after telling him that I’d just flown in FROM Milan and could he please point me out the baggage claim area, he looked at me waryingly and asked..
Weird random guy at airport: “Milano?”
Me: si, milano
Weird random guy at airport: Si, THIS is Milano!
Me: No no, i mean came FROM Milan
Weird random guy at airport: You came from Milano where?
Me: *pointing…somewhere* Milan… er, there!
Weird random guy at airport who is getting a little bit grumpy: How you get to Milan?
Me getting grumpy at HIS grumpiness: Doesn’t matter. But I catch plane (something happens to my english in foreign countries) FROM Milan TO Rome”
Weird Random guy who now thinks he’s on candid camera: Then you catch plane from Rome back to Milan, again?
Me: yes, but not yet, I stay in Rome for a few days”
Weird random guy who wants to whack me with his Italian tabloid magazine: Then why are you still here in Milan?!!
*beat*
Me: *whacks head as I realized why THIS AIRPORT HAD THE EXACT SAME LAYOUT AS THE ONE I’D JUST LEFT!!* *goes on shooting spree*

Anyways, to make a long story only mildly long, here’s a tip: on boarding a plane, perhaps wait until you are safely rocketing through the air before you decide to fall asleep in case you should miss any announcement telling you that the plane has an itty bitty problem and you will have to disembark and hang around the airport for another 2 hours. This may help you to avoid harassing the natives for not knowing which ancient Italian city it is they’ve lived in their entire lives.

6 ~ worked in the human disembodying unit at my University, which prepared the corpses, and body parts for study. After coming across a child corpse, I quickly realized that as cool as being a forensic psychologist was (and this was pre CSI days), it wasn’t the kind of lifestyle I was looking for.

7 ~ owned a scrapbooking store. That’s all I’ll say on that.

8 ~ dated the manager at my local DVD store, and some of my friends are still convinced I only did so to get out of having to pay the late fees. Hey what can I say…whether it was intentional or not… ~ it worked. *grins* For relevant info see “I always… pt 8”

9 ~ was asked by my parents to mediate a series of discussions between the two of them…concerning them divorcing. It wasn’t one of the happier moments in my life.

10 ~ got so wrecked on Ouzo, I, with the help of a fellow inebriated friend, climbed and perched on top of a bus station thingo. The getting up was the easy part. It was the getting down that required outside help. And the promise to never drink Ouzo ever again.

~

I ALWAYS:

1 ~ buy two avocado at a time, knowing full well, that I’ll only eat one, but also know that if I don’t buy another, I’ll crave it, and it’ll just bug me until some time around 3am, I’ll have to put clothes on and drive to the 24hr supermarket, where they may or may not have any, buy one of those wrinky…well, wrinklier ones, then come home, eat one scoop, and leave the rest.

2 ~ burn my tongue when I’m tasting the broth when making Pho and can’t eat any until the next day.

3 ~ when there are two free parking spots next to each other, park on the outermost left one.

4 ~ lie on my back, when I first try to sleep because it’s cooler, only to give up and turn over onto my stomach, and tuck a hand under my head whether it be between me and a pillow or hairy chest.

5 ~ wave with great ceremony and unnecessary enthusiasm, when thanking other drivers on the road for letting me through, not wanting them to miss my gratitude, because of the time I was in the car with my friend who wasn’t waved at, and who spent the rest of a day in a funk because of it.

6 ~ condition my hair, even if I don’t have shampoo, I’ll condition. It goes hand in hand with the being too lazy to brush my hair thing.

7 ~ unconsciously stop reading about 5 pages before I get to the end of book I’ve really enjoyed, and wander off to find something else to do for about 10 minutes, to stall coming to the end of the story.

8 ~ return rented DVD/Videos late. Always. If it’s a one nighter, I’ll return it 3 days later, if it’s a weekly, sometimes 10 days late. It fits into the whole being horrifically disorganized thing. Sometimes I never even actually get around to watching the movie, I just rent it on a whim, thinking I’ll have time to watch it.

9 ~ cramp up in my left thigh after being in a sexual position too long… I may not say anything, depending on the er, situation, but it always happens. I’m going to refrain from stipulating what “too long” is. Feel free to use your own imagination.

10 ~ wear only dresses and skirts. No denim has yet been made to stretch over my ample ass, and while I love seeing some giraffe like women wear pant suits, their legs coming up to their necks and with nothing but the sheerest of tops under the jacket (if anything at all) my tree stumps were not made to be clad in pants. So I wear skirts and dresses, tight ones, flowing ones, short ones, um, less short ones, long ones with even longer splits. And I feel feminine in them, and I like it, and oh, it’s totally more viable to go commando.

~

I LEARNED:

1 ~ the word “evasive” when I was 8 years old and was given a separate spelling list from the other kids in my class because I was a pretentious know-it-all brat. As with all words on the week’s spelling list, you had to write out the definition and then use it in a sentence. My sentence was “I am evasive”. My teacher didn’t find the need to correct me.

2 ~ French, mainly because it really fucking bothered me when my parents would speak French to each other when they didn’t want me to understand something.

3 ~ that my soda stream maker can make about 40L of carbonated water per gas pump. I made that last 40L yesterday, and today… I’m carbonated waterless. *sniffles* I bet even my tears have little gas bubbles.

4 ~ that one should not drive and curl their eyelashes with those medieval torture devices at the same time, because the cars driving next to you, get scared when you scream because you’ve pinched sensitive eyelid skin.

5 ~ to orally administer to a female by practicing on a friend. *laughs* how selfless of her to offer herself up to be practice on like that *giggles*

6 ~ most of my Vietnamese from reading political journals and translating a Vietnamese political magazine from Viet into English, which I did for 4 years.

7 ~ a new matchbox trick yesterday. In the process of learning it, I used 56 matches, burned 3 fingers, 2 holes, one in a nearby plant, and one in the T-shirt I was wearing (not mine…smart girl) and, um, one…well, no, not a partridge in a pear tree, but only because there weren’t any around.

8 ~ that I can love someone and be satisfied with that love without the need for the trappings of a “conventional” relationship.

9 ~ that if I carry a retractable metal rod in my bra or tucked into the side of my boot, it doesn’t make me any more cocky when I’m out at night, just more alert than ever.

10 ~ not to eat watermelon that is so soft you can eat it with a spoon… no matter how much you’re craving it. *nods* it’s just bad…bad…

~

I PREFER:

1 ~ the sound of fingernails sliding down a blackboard (do schools still have black boards anymore? I’m a child of the whiteboard era) to the very ear screeching, skin crawling sound of cutlery scratch scratch scratching the bottom of a plate.

2 ~ dark hair to light on women. On men, who cares, I’m not looking at their hair :p

3 ~ vanilla ice-cream to any other flavour. But I am the queen of ice-cream accessories, toppings, nuts, sprinkles, a variety of things that should never be put into a bowl with ice-cream. This is actually a common pattern with me; I like to start with a plain base, and build.

4 ~ the written word to the visual/aural representation, anytime. There are very, very few movie adaptations of novels that I can stomach… the best one, yet, being one with Daniel Day Lewis, Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin in it…

5 ~ showers to baths. As relaxing as baths can be, I don’t really have the patience to sit in a tub of hot water, but crave instead, how invigorated I feel after a shower. Baths with someone else however, is another matter entirely.

6 ~ Nikki Hilton to her sister, Ashley Simpson to Jessica, Stephen Baldwin to his brothers, Funky Bunched Mark Wahlberg to his NKOTB’s bro, Charlie to Emilio, Satan to God :p

7 ~ Penne to spaghetti. The preference probably has something to do with how much mess I made that one time I was out on a date and wearing a white dress and not having the common sense to follow thousands of years of miss manner’s rules by ordering something bite sized and instead tackling a very splatterful platterful of something that required twirling, swirling, and slurping.

8 ~ anal sex to vaginal….er, ‘cept when I don’t. But most of the time, I do. But I think that may just be because I still know that the majority of time, it will be PIV sex. So the preference is a fanciful one. What am I saying… *laughs* either one is fine. I’m not picky. Just poke it, and poke it quick, I’m feeling antsy today.

9 ~ my hot beverages black. No sugar, and hot. And in a cup, not a mug. But bring me two. Hurry along now :p

10 ~ whales to dolphins. I find dolphins too annoying cute. They’re all…bouncy and happy and smiling and jumping around and …dare I say it? Ditzy? *giggles* But whales, are graceful and majestic. Killer whales most of all, that shocking contrast of black against white is … *sighs* it’s just exquisite.

~

I LOVE:

1 ~ a handful of people at most; on good days, when my ass is looking good and my hair is fluffing as I wish, this may increase to a handful and a half.

2 ~ insanely… there’s something to be said about the old saying, “Amantes sunt amentes”

3 ~ my teeny tiny little family unit, above and beyond anything else. Even if I often have daydreams of us embroiled in a little murder suicide pact just to put ourselves out of the misery that we cause each other.

4 ~ the second line of Nabokov’s Lolita; “Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta”. In absentminded moments while I’m waiting patiently in a traffic jam, I’ve caught myself humming, what I call, that melody, while tapping the rhythm on my steering wheel.

5 ~ the two movies Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Nothing but two people meandering through the streets of two of my favourite European cities, Vienna and Paris, falling in love…and refalling in love. No car chases, no laugh out loud scenes, no gratuitous sex. *laughs* talk about an anti-advertisement, I know. But the dialogue and conversation is such that, you truly feel as though you’re the third person, walking those same steps with them, just quietly watching and smiling to yourself as you watch them fall into each other’s spell. After I saw Before Sunset (the sequel) the first time, I stayed for the next screening, mostly just to watch this scene again…

6 ~ both of my dogs the same amount, but I liked one more than the other. It made me really scared that when I have children that I won’t treat them equally.

7 ~ the whole adrenalin rush thing. I’m love heights and speed, and putting them together…descending from great heights with great speed is the closest thing to wild money sex…

8 ~ my laptop. It’s the means by which I connect with so much that I treasure…you know, like porn and, er, more porn.

9 ~ the cliché: of lying on a blanket under an ocean black sky dotted with little pinpricks of light smiling down from the heavens, while whispering about nothing and everything, and having the hand that can at once cause me so much torment, gently, stroking my hair.

10 ~ truly, wholly, utterly and completely. Who? They know.