dig a ditch deep enough / to keep you clear of the sun

• What is your opinion on sex without emotional commitment? I've never mastered it, but I fake it well. Hmm--does that mean I've mastered it after all? No, probably not.
• How's your heart lately? battered
• Did you just wake up? nah, I saw the clock at 10:12 this morning
• What's the color of the hand soap in your bathroom? it's colorless
• The next person you'll hold hands with, will it mean anything? surely--I'm not a casual hand-holder. Don't take that the wrong way: it'll probably be one of two children with whom I'll spend time in the next couple of weeks.
• What is your middle name? hasn't changed since the last time I answered this question
• What can you hear right now? "She Moves in Her Own Way" by the Kooks, and my neverending motherfucking air conditioning
• Who was your last text from? Farmer E, negotiating
• Are you someone's close friend? so I've been told
• Last time you cried? in the shower that most closely followed the experiences revealed in the last post. If this blog is "get it all down," that shower was "get it all out."
• When's the last time you looked in the dictionary? the day last week when 'prosaic' didn't look right on the page
• Have you seen all the Rocky movies? prolly?
• What books, if any, have made you cry? *snort*: that's a long, long list! The Brothers K would be very high on it, though not for such obvious reasons. The most recent was Nick Earls' Perfect Skin--a lovely, lovely book.
• Last thing you drank? wild blueberry tea
• When's the last time you chose a bath over a shower? Tuesday night
• Where did you sleep last night? ...my bed?!
• Do you have good vision? with the assistance of my Coke-bottle contact lenses, it's correctable to 20/20
• What was the last movie you saw in theaters? God knows. Anybody wanna go see a damned film with me, so I can answer this question?!
• Has anyone ever cheated on you? yes.
• Do you have more friends that are girls or boys? most of my friends are adults. I discovered something rather startling yesterday: I have a friend who's a girl. This sounds simpler than I mean it, so pay attention. I attended the HS graduation party of a young colleague (Susan), in the company of another coworker (Marie). Along the way, Marie mentioned that we were among the minority of the staff who'd been invited to the party. "In fact, I think it's just [the department in which Susan works]...and you." Susan and I don't work together directly, our shifts never overlap, and we've never spent time together outside of work. I was very surprised to know that I was the only "outlier" who'd been invited. Surprised, and inordinately touched; quite inadvertently, I've made a friend.
• Have you been to New York City? nope, and the thought does not distress me overmuch
• Does whatever happens in Vegas really stay in Vegas? not to me. What happens in Vegas, to me, seems to live in infamy.
• Are you closer to your mother or father? given that they're rarely more than 20 feet from each other, they seem to be equidistant
• Are you picky about spelling and grammar? yup, though I try not to be a pain in the ass about it--except at work, where pain in the ass-ness comes with the territory
• Look outside, how's the weather outside? VERY hot, bright-sunny and slightly breezy. There's gonna be lots of sunburnt, hungover people roaming the flatlands tomorrow
• What was the last thing you saw on TV? Criminal Minds on DVD. Broadcast TV would have been, um, NCIS on Tuesday. Excellent cliffhanger, considering that they don't "do" cliffhangers.
• Do the speakers on your computer work? certainly, given that "Ah Ndiya" by Oumou Sangaré is pumping out right now, segueing to "Maria Maria" by Santana [feat. Product G&B]
• Do you have a job? indeed, I have one FT job, one extremely half-assed freelance job (though I wish that the flakier-than-all-get-out guy would just cut me the fuck loose if he's not going to bother with me, {grumble x 100...}), and one potentially awesome freelance job that's hanging on the whim of a very attractive attorney (thus proving that I am in HELL)
• Have you ever drunk your soda from a straw? I prefer to drink it from a container
• Do you have any children? this question made me snortle. The accurate, fair, appropriate answer is that no, in fact, I do not have children. Thank God.
• Have you ever written in wet cement? yes, my name and hand-print are next to the footprints of the home-cat in a flat of cement near the house where I grew up. Mine were specifically intended; hers appeared because she was rarely far away from me.

The lump in my throat is larger than my will to continue this at the moment, so I'll start again later. 

*whew* OK, I'm back; now we can continue. You were saying...?

• Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Fluffy
• Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school? no
• Ever lied about your age? pretty much nonstop from age 18-20 11/12, Thursdays-Saturdays and often in between. Occasionally since then.
• Can you speak any languages other than English? I know what not to order in a restaurant, and how to say, "I don't speak [whatever]" in a few European languages.
• What is one thing you've learned about life? that I don't know the first damned thing about anything
• Do you have any expensive jewelry? lots. I no longer believe in jewelry that I don't love, and I love expensive jewelry. Guess I could say that's one thing that life has taught me—though this is most definitely not intended as an answer to the previous question.
• Have you ever punched someone? yes
• Have you ever lied to someone? yes
• What are you looking forward to? sleeeeeeeping in tomorrow--one of the very rare days of the year when I don't work, when the business downstairs is also not running
• What do you usually do first in the morning? rue the day
• What is one emotion you are feeling right now? reluctant yearning
• Who did you hang out with last night? Farmer E
  
• Is someone of the opposite sex on your mind at the moment? Mumbler, because "Carve Your Heart" by Dashboard Confessional just came on, and he brought 'em to my attention:
  Oh, look now--there you go with hope again
  But I'll be sure your secret is safe with me
  Oh, you're so sure I'll be leaving in the end
  Treating me like I'm already gone
  
  But I'm not--I will stay where you are always
  I will stay, I will stay, I will stay...
• Do you find the opposite sex confusing? no more than the equal
• What is the reason behind the last time you cried? mourning an emptiness
• Is there anybody you wish you could be with right now? of course
• Are you gonna be home alone tonight? looks like it
• Do you have a best friend? I do
• How old are your siblings? five and four years older than I
• What do you carry with you at all times? keys, phone, a small mountain of debt, some memories, and at least that many regrets
• How many piercings do you have? six
• How many tattoos do you have? two
• Do you prefer talking on the phone or online? I don't talk online--webcams have a peculiar connotation that's best left in the past. I prefer talking face to face; I'm not a big phone person (a couple of years ago notwithstanding); text messaging and I are intimates; chat/IMing (with or without Abraham's "assistance") is fine; but above all, I most like hand-written correspondence
• Are you a morning person or a night person? y'know, I'm really not a "person" in this sense. I don't like to go to bed, and I don't like to get up. So, what's that leave us?
• Are you perfect? I'm the Platonic ideal of where I am now
• How many times have you been to Canada? only for the bowling
• Where are you most ticklish? in my mind
• What color eyes does the last person you kissed have? blue
• Be honest, are you disappointed in anyone? no more than ever
• If so, who? three people stand out:
  1. a FB "friend" who changes his mind with the day's calendar pages
  2. with the employment situation [no, I will not be more clear], and
  3. someone else--reading this--who is so self-absorbed that I am forced to reluctantly agree that some of what's been said by others in that regard is absolutely correct
• Will you talk to the person you like tonight? no--it's unlikely that I will interact with anyone tonight
• Are you friends with the last person you kissed? in the technological sense, we are connected. I acknowledge that with a wince and a snort. I really want a drink.
• What's something someone can do that makes you melt? blink his huge navy blue eyes at me--even when he's saying something incredibly cringe-inducing like, "you're so much easier to talk to than girls are"
• Do you have reason to smile right now? ...or I'd be dead?!
• Have you ever woke up next to someone and wanted to puke? only when I had already been ill. Tough question, though.
• What do you do when you need to relax? I relax.
• Do you like things in life to stay how they are or change? yes
• If someone liked you, what would be the best way to let you know? club me over the head and drag me by the hair to their lair. I'm not one for subtlety at this juncture.
• If you won a lot of money on the lottery, what would you buy first? assuming that I'd already paid my stupid bills? The camera.
• Would you honestly say you'd risk your life for someone else? yes
• Could you forgive a boyfriend/girlfriend or friend who physically hurt you? depends on the definition of "hurt". There's the hurt of an inadvertent "two people bending toward the same thing on the floor and one whacks the other on the forehead with the chin"--that's forgivable. There's the unavoidable "extra knees and elbows that appear during good sex" injuries--certainly forgivable, since all's fair. There's even "I had a nightmare that I was, against my will, forced into a welded-shut caged death-match and, in the throes of said nightmare, leg-dropped you to a pulp"--which, difficult as it may be to explain, is probably within the realm of at least something to consider accepting, as a 'dating sleeping-with-another-person foible.'
  But if you hit me, on purpose, I'll hit you back--and we're completely through.
• What's your greatest fear in life? giving in to fear
• Are you afraid of death? "All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing." [Maurice Maeterlinck]
• Who was the last person you hugged? Susan, upon leaving yesterday's party
• Do you open up to people easily? I don't think that I do it with impunity, though when I trust someone I do have a tendency to trust them to a distressing degree. Distressing, if they prove unworthy.
• What do your friends call you? various derivations of my name. Still not so much with the organic nicknames.
• Has anyone upset you in the last week? just me
• What's the best thing about you? my shoulders, my ability to mix music (not that ANYONE has acknowledged the clever inclusion of the Professor Frink quote at the end of "don't ask", grumble grumble grumble), and my absolute refusal to speak when I've nothing productive to say
• Who was the last person of the opposite sex you had a conversation with? one on one? I am a little pissed to realize that I don't have a clue--beyond the usual work suspects.
• What's your favorite drink? depends on the purpose. I drink a lot of tea and water. Coke occasionally. Molson Canadian or blue frogs when the spirit moves and antibiotics are not also on the menu, which they are this week. Have I mentioned that I've another throat/sinus infection?
• Do you miss anyone? I'm wishing I could actually talk with Heidi about Alaska (etc.), rather than writing--a general wish, made more fervent by the fact that I've finally finished the CD that I started for her an eon ago.
• Is your room clean? "my room"? They're all "my" rooms--and no, now's you ask, none of them are particularly "clean" by objective standards.
• What are you going to do tomorrow? Sleep in (if the gods allow); read; feed the foster-kitties; read more; re-box the package for Heidi and possibly the other one, though that's looking rather doubtful; clean the bathroom; read more; finish Susan's mix CD; and maybe scrounge for a photographic subject. And maybe read more.
• Who is your favorite person to have a serious conversation with? depends on the subject. I think sometimes my friends are (thank God) unaware how serious I am in conversation.
• Does any part of your body hurt right now? not corporeally
• Do you like coffee? just the scent
• Who was the last person that texted you? thanks for your confidence in my sociability, but it's still that same one from Farmer E, yesterday
• What are you craving? cool weather. It's 84° outside and 80° inside; my AC is set to hold at 77° but hasn't hit that since, I don't know, Thursday? It runs for ~90 min. at a time before shutting off in a huff, remaining off for 5 blissful minutes before starting up again. I am SO sick of that sound. SOOOOOOO. Very. Tired. Of. That. Sound.
• How did you sleep last night? um, not well.
• What was the first thing you thought this morning? besides "AC still running?!?!"? Probably something like, "Get newspaper from parking lot." I don't think in complete sentences first thing in the morning.

[snatched from The Cat, of course, who snatched it from here]