It's Friday again....

From The Friday Five:

1. When was the last time you cheated?

Cheated? As in infidelity, or lying, or in a game? (Thinking.) I don't remember. I was maybe ten years old. I don't like cheating; I don't like cheaters.


2. When was the last time you stole?

I was about eight, and stole a bill from my mother's purse. I got caught (guilt was probably written all over my face). She was not pleased. I don't like stealing, either.


3. When was the last time you lied?

Probably the last time someone asked me to do something I really didn't want to do, but I didn't have a good reason to say 'no' - or at least, not one that I wanted to tell them. Something along the lines of, "I'm so sorry I can't help you clean out your septic tank tomorrow, but I'm far too busy." If it was a good friend, I might have done it anyway - whatever the hypothetical 'it' might be - but some people make unreasonable demands on my time or energy.


4. When was the last time you broke or vandalized another's property?

Ack! Never, of course! Accidentally... at a party twenty-five years ago I sat on someone's coffee table (in my host's mother's house) and broke the glass on its top. I was mortified. (Mortified, but luckily not cut.) The guy I was dating set up the replacement glass but I guess he got something cheap. Years and years later I mentioned to the host that I *still* felt guilty and he said yes, his mother still griped about that from time to time.

This is not to say I've never accidentally broken anything else in all those years but this was significant enough to stick in my conscience, especially when I didn't even know the woman.


5. When was the last time you hurt a loved one?

A complex emotional situation that would defy explanation. Several years ago now. She broke my heart and I did something that I thought was what she wanted, but it hurt her, which I regret. I didn't understand and I wasn't thinking clearly - and even now I think what I did was right - but I regret the hurt. On many levels. This is painful to remember.

Delicious....

Do any of you know anything about Indian food?

I went to an Indian buffet at lunctime: the Marharaja at 149 Rideau St. It's a wonderful place where the chairs were like something out of a movie set, huge, colourful, and hung with brass bells. It's on the second floor and the windows overlook Rideau St. They were open, and I was reminded of British or European restaurants.

The food was good and I particularly enjoyed a dish I'd never had before - it had thin rice noodles in a sort of custard base. I asked the waiter what it was and he said it was called... and here I'm not sure how to transliterate but it sounded like "shaveer".

Does anyone know a sweet dessert dish that sounds like that? And how I could find a recipe?

Neal Stephenson quote

Pondering a definition of "intelligence": Neal Stephenson in "The Diamond Age" defines it as the capacity to tolerate, even to enjoy, complexity and contradiction.

I like that.

I find that intelligence tend these days to be a subject that is downplayed, as if the world is embarrassed by it; rather like beauty. But I suspect that those who don't value beauty or intelligence don't quite understand what it is.

Relativity

This is my answer to the Smallville dodecal challenge #16 at svdodecals: "Someone in Smallville changes an old habit. It can be a good habit or a bad one. Just show us what happens!" (144 words)

~ ~ ~

Relativity

Lex Luthor had always driven fast. Velocity was a high and he found it on the highways, accelerating where Lionel couldn't follow.

Until one day, speeding in Smallville, Kansas (population small and getting smaller) he encountered Clark Kent.

Time stood still there. Changes were small: the corn plant now produced fertilizer, the movie theatre became the Talon, Whitney Fordman was a soldier, and Clark Kent grew up, more slowly than the growing trees, faster than a meteor shower.

Lex learned from Clark. He learned that true speed is faster than the eye can see, slower than a smile. He learned that to win the truly valuable, you have to take things slowly. He learned that thought is quicker than breath, and a kiss is worth a thousand words.

In Smallville, Clark Kent taught him speed of eternity, and the world fit in his hand.

~ ~ ~

Twenty Questions

I got this from dargie's LJ. I love these things - both doing them myself and reading other people's.

1. What's your favorite cheese?

Gjetost. I thought it was Danish; I just found it listed on a Norwegian site. Wherever it's from, I love it passionately. For medical reasons (and because of my current Ayurvedic diet) I don't often get to eat cheese, more's the pity, since I love it.


2. How long do you hold onto odd socks before giving up on finding their mate?

Depends on the sock, and my mood, and how much I liked the sock in the first place, and whether it (or its missing mate) has holes.


3. Who was your favorite musical artist when you were 15?

The Beatles.


4. What shape are your fingernails in right now?

As always. Somewhere between "embarrassing" and "less said the better". A little better than Frodo's. Somewhat inferior to Galadriel's.


5. Two scoops: of what?

Uh - kichadi? If we are referring to that food of the gods, ice cream, from which I am currently barred, my choice is butterscotch or Pralines 'n Cream.


6. What's your earliest memory?

Sitting on the kitchen table in my Jolly Jumper, watching my parents talk by the kitchen sink. At a guess, I was two.


7. When does your pet look funniest?

When walking on the floor. Little birds have a funny gait on flat surfaces: it looks so purposeful and cute. In flight, they are all speed. Climbing the bars, they are all grace. Except poor Wisdom right now, who pulled out her flying feathers for her nest, and has to climb everywhere she goes.


8. What do you collect?

Quotations. Comic books. Experience.


9. What's better than sex?

Nothing.


10. What things are you brand-loyal to?

I can't think of anything. I like President's Choice but don't feel any loyalty to it.


11. Favorite Dr. Seuss book?

The Cat in the Hat.


12. Best meal you've had lately?

Fresh local raspberries from the Byward Market for breakfast this morning.


13. Peanut Butter and ________?

Brandy?


14. Who's your favorite poet?

This is unanswerable, but I'll say, for the moment, T.S. Eliot. Assuming the question means, "Who is the poet whose poetry you most love?", which is how the question is usually taken. If you interpret it as "who is your favourite poet as a person, a historical figure, a thinker and a hero" my answer would be Percy Bysshe Shelley.


15. Where are you going on vacation this year?

The Chicago area, for ZCon. Toronto, for the Eddie Izzard concert and for the "Lord of the Rings" gathering. Possibly to Stratford, Ontario, for a play. The Dorothy Dunnett gathering in New Orleans is in the back of my mind, but it looks too expensive and too far away.


16. If you could change careers tomorrow with no strings attached, what would you be?

A novelist.


17. Whaddya drive?

I don't.


18. What's your poison?

No poisons. Not usually. Not enough to have one of choice.


19. The color of the carpet on your floor?

Blue, with a black, cream and russet design.


20. What's on your walls?

Many things. Living room:

(1) A picture of Robert Lindsay as Hamlet

(2) A photograph of the Great Pyramid in the mist

(3) The Chinese ideogram for "chaos"

(4) A "tree" calendar for 2003

(5) A mounted poster picture of the pyramids at Giza

(6) A photograph of the seated Anubis from the tomb of Tutankhamun

(7) A Japanese print of a standing crane

(8) A rug with a picture of a panda (made by a wonderful friend for my birthday last year)

(9) A papyrus print of the famous picture of Ankhsenpaaten anointing Tutankhamun with oils

(10) A print of a Baroque painting of a woman with a harp. Watteau, maybe? No, I'm not going to get up to check. This picture has a story. My mother got it from a book when I was a teenager, and was learning to play the harp. For some reason my father kept it after she died, and last year when I visited him in Vancouver he gave it to me, saying something like, he had no idea why he had a picture that reminded him of the vile and despicable aristocratic hegemony of the Ancien Regime, and I could have it if I wanted. Sure, said I, and I now have it hanging on the wall beside my harp.

(11) A photograph of Robert Lindsay as Captain Sir Edward Pellew, standing with Ioan Gruffudd as Midshipman Horatio Hornblower.

(12) A photo of Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor.

(13) A framed print with the words: "Life is a daring adventure - Helen Keller" in white on red.

(14) A photo of Tom Welling as Clark Kent.

(15) A print of a Clex painting by Suzan Lovett.

(16) A mounted poster picture of one of the posters for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", showing the fellowship in their boats approaching the Argonath.

(17) A mounted poster picture of one of the posters for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", showing Strider and his sword, looking purposeful.

(18) A drawing by Arden Aradon of a fantasy pyramid structure.

(19) A framed piece of calligraphy on gold and turquoise paper that says:



Life is
pure adventure
and the sooner
we realize that,
the quicker
we will be able
to treat life as
art.
- Maya Angelou

That's the living room. I could go on with the other rooms. Even the kitchen has art on the walls (reproductions of art from ancient Crete).

Snooze mantra....

I have just learned the hard way that if you fool around on LJs long enough and leave your meditation till too late, you have difficulty staying awake and the mantra keeps being obscured by yawns.

Not good.