Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever).
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

Confession? What a weird concept. In my head, confessions have to do with information not generally shared with other people, or expressions of transgressions and regrets/repentance, neither of which I'm inclined to share with the entire world. "I've never seen Star Wars" could be a confession, though I've said as much in public before. "I have a fondness for bushy-haired white guys from the 1970s, like Victor Garber, Leo Sayer, Marjoe Gortner, and Gene Wilder back then" is new public information, but probably doesn't count as a confession (and also probably doesn't surprise anyone). I suppose I could say something cryptic, such as, "I have the hots for one male friend, who doesn't know, and will never know," and leave people wondering, but that's not exactly true.

*shrug* I don't know if I can come up with anything for today's meme.

Okay: how many of you had forgotten Marjoe Gortner's existence until this post? Admit it. That can be your confession.

Tags: meme thingies

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever).
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

I'm actually going to go with two pictures of Josephine Baker, one of her singing from 1937, and one from Princess Tam Tam. The first makes me happy, because she's singing the way I want to sing, not caring if she looks graceful or pretty, just being in the moment of the song; and the second because, well, some days, I feel just like that. (That's also how I'm trying to do my hair these days.)

Tags: meme thingies

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever).
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.


01) Dance with me. Not just because I like dancing, but because you like to move to music, and you like to move to music with me. Let me feel your hands around my waist, your shoulder brushing mine; let me see sweat glistening on your skin.

02) Be willing to unabashedly lose yourself in things in front of me, whether it be the taste of a chocolate truffle melting on your tongue, a saxophone riff, a new idea being verbalized, the texture of a rose petal against your fingertip... be willing to be yourself reveling in the moment.

03) Tilt your head down, look at me over the tops of your glasses, and smile slowly. If there's something going on between us, that will weaken my knees in all sorts of good ways.

Tags: meme thingies

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever).
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

01) Perpetual sneering/cynicism, particularly when directed at other people's passions and/or desires. You don't have to share them, but to mock people for being willing to admit to their desires is a wrongness that will make me want to avoid your company, not just remove any potential desire I have for you.

02) Grubby and/or jagged fingernails. You're going to touch me with those? I don't think so.

03) Use a speech pattern of interrupt-and-override. Decide that you know how I will finish my statements, decide that what you want to say is more important than anything I might be saying, decide that I form my sentences too slowly and deliberately, and never let me finish a train of thought. If that happens enough, it doesn't matter how attractive you are physically, or how strongly your pheromones resonate with me: nothing will happen, and friendship will not form, either.

04) Take physical liberties with me before I give you permission to do so. While you're at it, take physical liberties at inappropriate times and in inappropriate places.

Tags: meme thingies

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

This is harder: despite the pain and sorrow of some of the things that I've done and that have happened to me, they brought me to where I am now, with Soren, and the rest of my family-by-choice, and my life now. Nevertheless, let's see...

01) Accepting the lift home from Cafe Wha? with Avner; it's the only time in my adult life that I've truly feared acquaintance rape, and it tore a hole in my judgment, self-confidence, and self-image that took several years to heal.

02) Staying friends with B. after I'd told him that I'd felt pressured into sex the last time we had it, only to be told, roughly, "Well, you came, so it's all right."

03) Listening to someone edit her reality right in front of me (making a phone call to someone else while redbird and I were in the same room, hanging up the phone, then telling us proudly that she'd said something very different from what we'd heard her say), and still taking her into my confidence for years.

04) Agreeing to handle other people's finances when I was barely adequate at handling my own. I hurt several people, as well as myself, with that mistake.

05) Losing those Ecstasy pills at the club within fifteen minutes of being given them. (I still expect them to show up in the lining of a purse one day, though I'll have absolutely no idea what they are.)

06) Going home, instead of going back to Adam's hotel room with him, after the Long Black Veil party. He was exquisite, and I never got the chance again.

Tags: meme thingies

I was preoccupied yesterday, and while I wrote the post, I didn't actually, you know, post it, so I will post two of them today, for my amusement.

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

01) How is Soren doing? Is his leg hurting? How is his speech?

02) What color is the sky right now?

03) Snippets of music, sometimes instrumental, sometimes with lyrics. My subconscious has someone scoring my life, and that someone is a smartass; when I track the musical themes, I get information that my mind doesn't feel like telling me in other ways.

04) Where am I in space? What space am I defining?

05) Textures around me: cotton covering my forearms, stretching fabric pressing against my calves, the gentle brush of pendant earrings against my jawline below the ear....

06) Memories of moments similar to the present one, usually happy ones: subway rides to see friends, coffee and conversation across another table years ago, the feel of the pen nib gliding across the paper as the right words come....

07) Memories and fantasies of hands, lips, and flesh touching mine, reifying me in personal ways.

Tags: meme thingies

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

None of these are guaranteed to win my heart, but they will warm it and make me look favorably upon you.

01) To quote a very wise woman:
Show some emotion
Put expression in your eyes
Light up if you're feeling happy
but if you're sad, then let those tears run down
Definitely: I prefer to spend time with people who show what they're thinking and feeling, and who don't get nervous around other people who do. (Aside: I don't mean that you have to spill your guts all over the room 24/7, but don't be a stoneface.)

02) Respect my passions, even if you don't understand them. The converse of this will probably show up in my turn-off list: you don't have to be a Leo Sayer fan -- you can even ask me never to play any of his albums while you're around -- but if you sneer at my enjoyment of his music, or my obsession with vintage striated Sheaffer Balances and 375s, we will not get close.

03) This could almost be 02a, but I'll make it separate: Investigate my passions a little. Ask me why I like Leo Sayer, when I first discovered vintage Sheaffers, how I got into singing in piano bars, why I write erotica. Be curious about what makes me burn, what takes me.

04) Have passions of your own. Be obsessed, be taken, be passionately enthusiastic about something. If you don't try to force it on me, I'll probably warm to it, and share as much of it as we find agreeable with you.

05) Share your passions with me. Take me to hear desi hip-hop music, and explain it to me; hell, take me to see the World Wrestling Federation, and tell me about your favorite stars. I'll try it at least once, probably three times.

06) Be willing to let adventures and miracles find you. Take random walks through new neighborhoods with me; say "I've never tried Malaysian food -- let's see what it's like," or "There's a jazz band playing around the corner -- wanna go?" Thus far in my life, the worst that's happened is that we've had funny stories to share together ("Remember the restaurant where the waiter quit because of the table next to us?").

07) Figure out when and how to touch me. An arm around my waist, a hand on my forearm, shoulder brushing against mine at a party... and when I'm feeling fragile and brittle, offer me an embrace, and wait for me to move into it.

08) Enjoy having a body. One of the first things I'm likely to notice is how you stand and sit, and how you treat yourself: do you carry yourself as if you're something worthwhile, or do you slump about, dropping yourself into chairs and such? Another thing is how you feel about food in all its aspects -- appearance, texture, scent, taste, the process of making it -- and how you feel about sharing it with me. If you don't like having a body, how can you enjoy being with mine?

Tags: meme thingies

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

01) I'm much more timid than most people believe. When I'm nervous, I tend to retreat into my dance training: I lengthen my spine, compose my face, and carry my arms, which makes me look removed and composed.

02) If I dislike a food, I will retry it every so often, just to make sure that I still dislike it, but I will only do it on my own schedule.

03) I am terrified of most people; hell, I'm terrified of the world.

04) I'm more curious about the possibilities than I am terrified, though.

05) I'm also more terrified of the possibility of living without ever knowing an answer than I am of asking questions/exploring things, which is why I do so many of the things I do. When I first read the The Magician's Nephew and reached the poem on Jadis's bell--
Make your choice, adventurous stranger
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad
What would have followed if you had
-- it resonated deeply with me.

06) If I don't have time at home to myself regularly, I stop functioning. This has often been a problem in relationships, because it's sometimes hard to explain why I need the apartment to myself, even if all I'm going to do is curl up and reread The Bone People.

07) I am very kinesthetically- and tactilely-oriented, but often somewhat touch-starved these days, because my wiring makes me highly responsive and vulnerable to those movements and textures that I need. In an ideal universe, I would spend a lot of time sitting at my friends' feet, resting my head against their thighs, and being petted.

08) I will try almost any pickled foodstuff at least once; I'd probably try pickled rocks.

09) I have almost no sense of time-binding. I remember events in my life, some more clearly than others, and I can, part of the time, remember details such as "We lived on Wadsworth Terrace/I owned the salmon leather blazer/I worked at this job," but there are few events that I can remember and easily say, "Oh, that was October 2008,' and many of those are traumatic.

Tags: meme thingies

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One confession.

01) You need to be gentler with yourself; a mistake does not mean complete destruction and chaos. Take deep breaths, and figure out ways to fix it.

02) I love you, but I feel no physical attraction towards you, and I'm not going to pretend that there is. What we have is what we'll have.

03) It's not your fault; it's never been your fault... do you actually listen to yourself?

04) Every time you smile at me, my heart lifts. I know it's a cliche, but it's true; there's something about your existence in my universe that awes me.

05) I wish we could spend more time together, just the two of us, when you are not being your public self. The public self is lovely, but the private one is so much more amazing.

06) Destructive lies by omission are, perhaps, even more hurtful than lies of commission. You have chosen to abide by the former; you cannot expect me to interact with you as an honorable person, given those circumstances.

07) You're amazing. I've never known anyone like you, and I can scarcely talk with you, because I don't know where or how to begin. Just keep being who and what you are, please.

08) There is no going back to where we were, but I think we might, eventually, rebuild something else to take its place. I'm willing to put in the effort; I can't tell whether you are.

09) I'm not going to say "yes" if I don't mean it. Never again.

10) There are moments when I think I would sell my soul (if I had one) to have you look at me again, with that small angular smile lengthening your lips, and your hand curved around the back of my neck. Some day....

Tags: meme thingies