Do you want to play Questions?
Feb. 27th, 2004 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleDoes this count as playing Questions, already?
Here are the questions from jss1113. (foul! not a question.)
>1. What are you reading these days?
>2. If you couldn't live in here (the Boston area), where would you like to live?
>3. How do you manage to keep your online persona (Adri) separate and distinct
>from your real life persona?
>4. Describe a perfect day.
>5. Is there a moment you can think of that was a turning point in your life, or
>that helped define who you are today?
Answers below, cut for length
>1. What are you reading these days?
Most of books that have successfully grabbed me, recently, have been YA. And some of those have been YA. Brock Cole's _The Goats_, which is disturbing enough that I don't want to read it when I'm alone in the apartment. And a lot of Susan Cooper stuff (almost all rereading. This time around _Dawn of Fear_ is impressing me very strongly, though you should probably start with her _Dark Is Rising_ series.) I've also read and re-read all the Joan Aiken the library has, since she died last month. Wow, she was good! I don't know if the series beginning with _Go Saddle The Sea_ qualifies as Regency. When I first read it, I didn't know what Regencies were. Now, I'm wondering. And I read a couple of Kate Ross's mysteries featuring Julian Kestrel. You might like Ross' _Cut to the Quick_, though I think it's way over towards the serious end of your taste. Try the Cambridge library.
Books I started but didn't finish:
_Virtual Light_, William Gibson. Very atmospheric. But I was listening to it on audiotape, and quickly realized I wasn't following the plot at all. I didn't like the atmosphere, either.
_Daughter of Time_, Josephine Tey. Another audiobook, belonging to the library. This saved it from being thrown across the room. I used to love this? People I respect used to appreciate this bigoted closed-minded bullshit?
_The Sacred Land_, Harry Turtledove. Another Herodotus spinoff. The pot boils. Sometimes it doesn't look like writing anymore, it's just word-processing.
_Alanna_, Tamora Pierce. It wasn't all that bad. It was just awfully heavy-handed, and didn't suit my mood.
>2. If you couldn't live in here (the Boston area), where would you like to live?
I don't know. My requirements are different from yours, because I would be looking for a job in one of a few fairly specialized industries, in a city with public transit. That limits me enormously. A walkable neighborhood with a sense of community is very important to me. I haven't seen that in many places where an independent non-driver can get to anyplace I might conceivably work. Maybe Philadelphia. Maybe Chicago or Toronto.
>3. How do you manage to keep your online persona (Adri) separate and distinct
>from your real life persona?
I don't. Colleagues, family, and a handful of very old friends call me by my first name. Many of the friends I've made in the last 5 years call me Adri or Adrian. It's my middle name. Someone who meets me at Friday night services, or at a Wednesday gathering of the folk song society, might not know what I do online or at playparties (she might, who knows.) But my social circles in this area overlap so much that I consider serious closeting both a lost cause and a waste of time. My main privacy concerns are keeping my mother from knowing anything, and keeping a moderate barrier between my professial life and my social life.
>4. Describe a perfect day.
No head pain. No hand pain. Someone I love (who may not wish to be named here). Sufficient warmth. Activities are not described in order. Day may be overdefined - an overscheduled Adri is not having a perfect day, or even a good day.
Things I want include:
At least 3 hours of really rock-solid privacy, to do stuff I won't describe here
A good science museum
(Or a used bookstore)
(Or a history-type museum)
(Or a place like the arb, if the weather is right.)
Cooking with someone who appreciates the craft
(Or lingering over a good meal in a restaurant, talking about it and trying to reverse-engineer it)
A few hours of useful work (more than a few would make it stop feeling perfect)
Cosy story-time, reading to or next to each other
>5. Is there a moment you can think of that was a turning point in your life, or >that helped define who you are today?
I'm not sure if there were lots of them, or none. Every time I think of a defining moment, it seems somehow overdefined. Going to U of M was defining, but it wasn't a turning point...at the time, it was unthinkable for anyone in my family to consider going to another university. Connecting with various communities when I did was generally good and valuable. But if the community was important in my life, I had many opportunities to connect with it.
Sometimes I tell myself my life would be a lot different if I'd treated my chronic hand pain differently in 1998. If I hadn't made it worse with physical therapy and surgery. If I'd managed to get proper pain management then. Maybe I'd have ended up with more use of my hand. Or maybe the pain, and my efforts to cope with it, wouldn't have tipped my frequent migraines over into continuous migraines. But that's probably just wishful thinking.
One incident that seems like a turning point was a story I posted to Usenet, back in 1993. It seemed like every Jew on asb wrote to me about it. One included a phone number, and I called on Christmas day, when I happened to be at loose ends and in the right area code. We didn't meet then, but we met the next year. She coaxed me into another world, inviting me to parties, introducing me to people. Most of the people I love, I seem to have met at one of her parties. I might have linked into that community eventually...but I'm very glad she wrote to me when she did, and I'm glad she dared to be so open about putting herself forward. (It would be almost unthinkable to contact a stranger that way now, through a similarly anonymous forum.) And I'm very glad I called her.
Does anyone else want to play this game?
Here are the questions from jss1113. (foul! not a question.)
>1. What are you reading these days?
>2. If you couldn't live in here (the Boston area), where would you like to live?
>3. How do you manage to keep your online persona (Adri) separate and distinct
>from your real life persona?
>4. Describe a perfect day.
>5. Is there a moment you can think of that was a turning point in your life, or
>that helped define who you are today?
Answers below, cut for length
>1. What are you reading these days?
Most of books that have successfully grabbed me, recently, have been YA. And some of those have been YA. Brock Cole's _The Goats_, which is disturbing enough that I don't want to read it when I'm alone in the apartment. And a lot of Susan Cooper stuff (almost all rereading. This time around _Dawn of Fear_ is impressing me very strongly, though you should probably start with her _Dark Is Rising_ series.) I've also read and re-read all the Joan Aiken the library has, since she died last month. Wow, she was good! I don't know if the series beginning with _Go Saddle The Sea_ qualifies as Regency. When I first read it, I didn't know what Regencies were. Now, I'm wondering. And I read a couple of Kate Ross's mysteries featuring Julian Kestrel. You might like Ross' _Cut to the Quick_, though I think it's way over towards the serious end of your taste. Try the Cambridge library.
Books I started but didn't finish:
_Virtual Light_, William Gibson. Very atmospheric. But I was listening to it on audiotape, and quickly realized I wasn't following the plot at all. I didn't like the atmosphere, either.
_Daughter of Time_, Josephine Tey. Another audiobook, belonging to the library. This saved it from being thrown across the room. I used to love this? People I respect used to appreciate this bigoted closed-minded bullshit?
_The Sacred Land_, Harry Turtledove. Another Herodotus spinoff. The pot boils. Sometimes it doesn't look like writing anymore, it's just word-processing.
_Alanna_, Tamora Pierce. It wasn't all that bad. It was just awfully heavy-handed, and didn't suit my mood.
>2. If you couldn't live in here (the Boston area), where would you like to live?
I don't know. My requirements are different from yours, because I would be looking for a job in one of a few fairly specialized industries, in a city with public transit. That limits me enormously. A walkable neighborhood with a sense of community is very important to me. I haven't seen that in many places where an independent non-driver can get to anyplace I might conceivably work. Maybe Philadelphia. Maybe Chicago or Toronto.
>3. How do you manage to keep your online persona (Adri) separate and distinct
>from your real life persona?
I don't. Colleagues, family, and a handful of very old friends call me by my first name. Many of the friends I've made in the last 5 years call me Adri or Adrian. It's my middle name. Someone who meets me at Friday night services, or at a Wednesday gathering of the folk song society, might not know what I do online or at playparties (she might, who knows.) But my social circles in this area overlap so much that I consider serious closeting both a lost cause and a waste of time. My main privacy concerns are keeping my mother from knowing anything, and keeping a moderate barrier between my professial life and my social life.
>4. Describe a perfect day.
No head pain. No hand pain. Someone I love (who may not wish to be named here). Sufficient warmth. Activities are not described in order. Day may be overdefined - an overscheduled Adri is not having a perfect day, or even a good day.
Things I want include:
At least 3 hours of really rock-solid privacy, to do stuff I won't describe here
A good science museum
(Or a used bookstore)
(Or a history-type museum)
(Or a place like the arb, if the weather is right.)
Cooking with someone who appreciates the craft
(Or lingering over a good meal in a restaurant, talking about it and trying to reverse-engineer it)
A few hours of useful work (more than a few would make it stop feeling perfect)
Cosy story-time, reading to or next to each other
>5. Is there a moment you can think of that was a turning point in your life, or >that helped define who you are today?
I'm not sure if there were lots of them, or none. Every time I think of a defining moment, it seems somehow overdefined. Going to U of M was defining, but it wasn't a turning point...at the time, it was unthinkable for anyone in my family to consider going to another university. Connecting with various communities when I did was generally good and valuable. But if the community was important in my life, I had many opportunities to connect with it.
Sometimes I tell myself my life would be a lot different if I'd treated my chronic hand pain differently in 1998. If I hadn't made it worse with physical therapy and surgery. If I'd managed to get proper pain management then. Maybe I'd have ended up with more use of my hand. Or maybe the pain, and my efforts to cope with it, wouldn't have tipped my frequent migraines over into continuous migraines. But that's probably just wishful thinking.
One incident that seems like a turning point was a story I posted to Usenet, back in 1993. It seemed like every Jew on asb wrote to me about it. One included a phone number, and I called on Christmas day, when I happened to be at loose ends and in the right area code. We didn't meet then, but we met the next year. She coaxed me into another world, inviting me to parties, introducing me to people. Most of the people I love, I seem to have met at one of her parties. I might have linked into that community eventually...but I'm very glad she wrote to me when she did, and I'm glad she dared to be so open about putting herself forward. (It would be almost unthinkable to contact a stranger that way now, through a similarly anonymous forum.) And I'm very glad I called her.
Does anyone else want to play this game?
