bliumchik | (no subject)

woodburner sort of vaguely tagged people in general to do the "ten odd things about me" meme. Here goes!

1. ~~I've eaten six brains~~ I like zombies. Generally speaking I like zombies of the comical lurching variety, as opposed to a) voodoo b) actual living corpses and c) having my brains eaten. I am a fan of meaningful horror, but zombies just ain't it. Comedey all the way, baby!

2. I'm mildly synaesthetic - Often the taste, texture and shape of things gets confused, especially with food. To this day I only eat one brand of cottage cheese because all the others have a round and slippery texture. I mean they taste like the particles they're made of are too smooth. I have a recurring nightmare of a face that's wrinkled beyond belief and one that's smooth like oily plastic, and they feel like sour milk tastes. Also I've got a thing about symmetry to the point where, as a kid, if I scratched my right ankle I then had to scratch my left ankle because otherwise they wouldn't feel the same. I'd get caught up in these loops where by the time I'd scratched one, the feeling in the other one was fading so I'd have to scratch it again to balance them out, and so on... thank heavens that passed. I still feel like I have to stretch symmetrically - it's like some people can't stand to see a picture hanging crooked on the wall.

3. I want to climb mountains. There's a number of reasons. I always loved climbing as a kid - anything, be it rocks or trees or fences. I was ridiculously delighted at getting a bunk bed when my uncle was living with us. My dad's been hiking since university, he was in a club - I have awesome black and white photos of him in all his awkward afro-haired and square-glasses-wearing youth, leaning against a fence in Georgia or somewhere on the Urals. There were always all these stories about pigs digging up their stash of tins and getting stuck in places that are now random countries ending in -stan. He's gone to New Zealand and Nepal more recently, and the photos are fantastic. I don't think there's anything more beautiful than the sky, and snow and clouds, and I want to be there.

4. I feel like a bit of a dork for adopting a term from an obscure fanfic, but I still haven't found a better term than private-list sexual...

("Draco," he said, "I need to have this cleared up. Are you straight?"

Draco, his mouth full of sticky goo, made a sound that Zacharias thought was pretty much the vocal version of "!!!"

"Do you like girls?" he pursued.

Draco swallowed. "Like girls?" he snapped. "Don't be disgusting!"

That was the first hurdle, and it had gone splendidly. "Good. So you like boys then," Zacharias said calmly.

"Don't insult me," said Draco.

Zacharias had never had quite so many shocks in one night.

"I hate sweeping generalisations like that," Draco told him irritably. "I mean, liking boys? That could include liking Crabbe. Liking girls could include liking Millicent Bulstrode. Are you mad? Obviously, being gay or straight involves a whole lot of potential for liking people unworthy of a Malfoy. The only sensible thing is to compile a select number of names who might be worthy of the supreme honour of allowing myself to be attracted to them. I'm private-list-sexual.")

5. I don't actually have hair - there is, in fact, an evil furry BEAST semi-symbiotically living on my head. Occasionally, it eats combs. It also demands tribute with fruit wax, for some reason. I put up with it because it's good insulation.

6. I have hideous procrastination issues (like you didn't know that) which will be resolved in Maggie 2.0. I freeze up when I know I have to do work and I'm not entirely sure where to start or how well it's going to turn out. The only thing that can shake me out of it is an automatic sort of action, like playing the guitar or browsing the internet, because that doesn't require thinking. If I think, after all, I might have to think about how behind I am in my work, which is depressing. Unfortunately thinking is also neccessary for doing the actual work. I'm working on a bug fix. Maybe there's some kind of patch...

7. My feet are prone to mutiny, especially when I have to stand up for long periods of time. It's because my foot arches are too high and insufficient support cuases my ankles to collapse inwards. I now have special insoles in my shoes, which are an improvement, but I'd still rather be sitting down or walking on my toes. My hamstrings are pretty tight too - it takes me about three goes to touch my toes for a few seconds. That bit I could probably fix with daily stretches, but alas, I'm lazy.

9. Our whole celebrity culture strikes me as somewhat absurd. This may be because the only famous person I can sanely acknowledge as a role model is Neil Gaiman, and he's middle aged and male. Clearly there is a statistical anomaly happening here, so I consider it to be my duty to become famous and even out the numbers.

10. I'm a very anxious person, in general. The inside of my mouth has marks all over it from being bitten, and I've been prone to panic attacks, although the worst of them seems to be over. This may come as a surprise to some, since I try to be relaxed in sort of compensation. I guess my reasoning is, if I tend to get worked up and over-react to things that upset me, it's easier to reduce the number of things that upset me in the first place than to try and fix my automatic reactions. In any case, when you think about it sensibly, a lot of the things we complain about are pretty low on the priority list.

8. Hands up everyone who noticed I missed number eight? Yeah, that's what I thought. You're all tagged.