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Jun. 17th, 2006
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Survey Saturday
Jun. 17th, 2006 11:40 am1. You are in the Witness Protection Program and must invent a new first, last, and middle name
Mahalia Anna Bergestonian (MAB)
2. You are in a threesome with two famous people, alive or dead.
Vincent D'Onofrio and Christopher Meloni. Italian Heaven, that.
3. You are in charge of naming your new band. What's the name of the band?
Dead Puppies in a Gunny Sack or The Aborted Babies.
4. You are going to get a free tattoo. What is it and where do you want it?
Nathor,the Bird Goddess (check the icon) on my best, right between my boobelahs.
5. You are being forced to listen to one song over and over, ad infinitum, as a form of torture. What song is it?
Logically, it would be "The Song that never Ends."
6. You are leaving your state/province. What state do you move to?
Maine
7. You are leaving your country, where would you move to?
Wales
8. You get to choose one book as the best ever written. What book do you choose?
The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
9. You get to choose one movie as the best ever made. What movie do you choose?
Total Recall
10. You get to spend one day each as a bird, an insect, and a mammal. What bird would you be? What insect? What mammal?
Owl, Dragonfly, Cat
11. You must relive one year of your life. Which would you like to relive?
My 18th year.
12. Which would you least like to relive?
My 26th year.
13. You have a time machine that will take you backwards anywhere from 1800 to the present. What decade do you most want to visit?
The 1880s in London.
14. You must choose to go skydiving or very-deep-sea diving.
Deep-sea diving all the way, baby!
15. You get to return to the past and have a sexual encounter with a rock star who is no longer alive. Who do you pick?
Jimi Hendrix
16. You get to be a contestant on any game show, airing today or in the past. What show do you want to be on?
Jeopardy
17. You are given $1 million dollars but you must give it all to one charity. What charity do you choose?
Greenpeace
18. You must ban one word from the dictionary and all usage, to be no longer uttered or written. What word do you ban?
Initiative.
19. You can have 100 million dollars tax free but if you take it, you'll die at the age of fifty. Do you take it?
Since I'll probably die in 2012, at age 45, hell yes.
Mahalia Anna Bergestonian (MAB)
2. You are in a threesome with two famous people, alive or dead.
Vincent D'Onofrio and Christopher Meloni. Italian Heaven, that.
3. You are in charge of naming your new band. What's the name of the band?
Dead Puppies in a Gunny Sack or The Aborted Babies.
4. You are going to get a free tattoo. What is it and where do you want it?
Nathor,the Bird Goddess (check the icon) on my best, right between my boobelahs.
5. You are being forced to listen to one song over and over, ad infinitum, as a form of torture. What song is it?
Logically, it would be "The Song that never Ends."
6. You are leaving your state/province. What state do you move to?
Maine
7. You are leaving your country, where would you move to?
Wales
8. You get to choose one book as the best ever written. What book do you choose?
The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
9. You get to choose one movie as the best ever made. What movie do you choose?
Total Recall
10. You get to spend one day each as a bird, an insect, and a mammal. What bird would you be? What insect? What mammal?
Owl, Dragonfly, Cat
11. You must relive one year of your life. Which would you like to relive?
My 18th year.
12. Which would you least like to relive?
My 26th year.
13. You have a time machine that will take you backwards anywhere from 1800 to the present. What decade do you most want to visit?
The 1880s in London.
14. You must choose to go skydiving or very-deep-sea diving.
Deep-sea diving all the way, baby!
15. You get to return to the past and have a sexual encounter with a rock star who is no longer alive. Who do you pick?
Jimi Hendrix
16. You get to be a contestant on any game show, airing today or in the past. What show do you want to be on?
Jeopardy
17. You are given $1 million dollars but you must give it all to one charity. What charity do you choose?
Greenpeace
18. You must ban one word from the dictionary and all usage, to be no longer uttered or written. What word do you ban?
Initiative.
19. You can have 100 million dollars tax free but if you take it, you'll die at the age of fifty. Do you take it?
Since I'll probably die in 2012, at age 45, hell yes.
Critter of Habit (thoughts on the South)
Jun. 17th, 2006 01:11 pmThe "traditional" term is Creature of Habit, but I have decreed that, in the South, we only have Critters of Habit. This epiphany came to me when Aunt Tudi was telling me about Motley's daily ritual of coming in around lunchtime, eating a buttload of food until her belly looks like a baseball, and then lying down on the orange couch to take a several hour nap. I proclaimed that Motley was indeed a Critter of Habit. Now, if she were a cat living in Brooklyn, she'd be a Creature of Habit. But she's not a Brooklyn cat, although she'd do well in Brooklyn, I think. Motley is a little ruffian and could definitely hold her own with the city cats in the alleyways.
But she's a Southern cat, which means she's not a wise-ass alley cat, but a hell-raisin' Redneck cat. And she's a Critter of Habit.
This summons up my feelings about the South and being Southern. Before the Internet, I was profoundly ashamed of my heritage, so much so that I've almost totally eradicated my accent. I sound nothing like the other members of my family on the Father Unit's side. The Mother Unit's fam is bit harder to pin down. G'Pa was born in England, but lived most of his life in NYC, or so I believe. I could be wrong on this. The Grandmother Unit was born in SC, but escaped to NYC at a very young age and never came back, living there and California for the majority of her life. Both of them globe-trotted, being musicians and Bohemians.
Being Southern in the US means that you're automatically judged as an inbred idiot with no education. At least that's how I saw it and, honestly, I was led to see it that way because of the US media's treatment of the South. I've told people over the years that I'm a product of the New South, that generation that schluffed off our Old South albatross, masked our accents, and stressed the fact that we were contemporary and educated. It's a ruse, of course. I've come to realise that one can still be educated and have a horrific Southern accent. I'm doing my best to deprogram myself and not think "idiot" every time I hear a Southern accent.
I say "a" Southern accent because there's more than one. Sometimes I think that non-Southerners believe that there's only one accent, much like a lot of Americans think that there's only one British accent. Not true. In fact, accents can vary drastically within just 100 miles. The Western North Carolina accent isn't as "thick" as the South Carolina Upstate accent. We in WNC don't trill our "r" when saying "three," but SC Upstaters do. We say "flim" for phlegm, but Upstaters say "fleem." A lot of people in this area call Yvonne "WHY-vonne," whereas she's simply Yvonne in NC. In the South Carolina Low Country, the traditional accent is a lot like what you hear on TV, where it's assumed that all Southerners pronounce Southern like "Suthun." No. That's pretty much a Low Country and coastal Georgian phenomenon to my knowledge. Bostonians and Charlestonians say "park the car" a lot alike. They know no 'r's in their language.
Anyway, I digress. As I was saying, before the Internet, I despised being Southern. Now, not so much. Being exposed to so much diversity has made me realise how precious diversity truly is, including my own unique spot on this Earth. I can get away with saying "critter" and I now say it with relish. I enjoy the fact that nothing here is big; rather, it has to be big ole. My ability to tap into my Inner Southern has become a prideful thing to me. The method of Southern expression is sometimes the only way to describe a thing, and only a true born and bred Southerner can describe it in the way it needs to be.
I got a hint of this while working with Timothy, who is Southern through-and-through. He explained to me that dogs don't have fights; instead, they "waller down a bunch of ground." And you don't take up a gun and shoot a deer; instead, you "throw up and cut down" on it. Very descriptive, very accurate, and these expressions can not be uttered with anything but a Southern accent. Tim is one of the smartest human beings I know, and he's one of the biggest Rednecks I know, too. At the time, I would look down my multi-cultural New South nose, and tell him that I would never say such a thing. Now? Yeah, I probably would, simply because I'm one of few who really can.
So, to quote a former co-worker, "I said all that to say this:" my cats are all Critters of Habit. To be honest, so am I. Yee haaaaah!
But she's a Southern cat, which means she's not a wise-ass alley cat, but a hell-raisin' Redneck cat. And she's a Critter of Habit.
This summons up my feelings about the South and being Southern. Before the Internet, I was profoundly ashamed of my heritage, so much so that I've almost totally eradicated my accent. I sound nothing like the other members of my family on the Father Unit's side. The Mother Unit's fam is bit harder to pin down. G'Pa was born in England, but lived most of his life in NYC, or so I believe. I could be wrong on this. The Grandmother Unit was born in SC, but escaped to NYC at a very young age and never came back, living there and California for the majority of her life. Both of them globe-trotted, being musicians and Bohemians.
Being Southern in the US means that you're automatically judged as an inbred idiot with no education. At least that's how I saw it and, honestly, I was led to see it that way because of the US media's treatment of the South. I've told people over the years that I'm a product of the New South, that generation that schluffed off our Old South albatross, masked our accents, and stressed the fact that we were contemporary and educated. It's a ruse, of course. I've come to realise that one can still be educated and have a horrific Southern accent. I'm doing my best to deprogram myself and not think "idiot" every time I hear a Southern accent.
I say "a" Southern accent because there's more than one. Sometimes I think that non-Southerners believe that there's only one accent, much like a lot of Americans think that there's only one British accent. Not true. In fact, accents can vary drastically within just 100 miles. The Western North Carolina accent isn't as "thick" as the South Carolina Upstate accent. We in WNC don't trill our "r" when saying "three," but SC Upstaters do. We say "flim" for phlegm, but Upstaters say "fleem." A lot of people in this area call Yvonne "WHY-vonne," whereas she's simply Yvonne in NC. In the South Carolina Low Country, the traditional accent is a lot like what you hear on TV, where it's assumed that all Southerners pronounce Southern like "Suthun." No. That's pretty much a Low Country and coastal Georgian phenomenon to my knowledge. Bostonians and Charlestonians say "park the car" a lot alike. They know no 'r's in their language.
Anyway, I digress. As I was saying, before the Internet, I despised being Southern. Now, not so much. Being exposed to so much diversity has made me realise how precious diversity truly is, including my own unique spot on this Earth. I can get away with saying "critter" and I now say it with relish. I enjoy the fact that nothing here is big; rather, it has to be big ole. My ability to tap into my Inner Southern has become a prideful thing to me. The method of Southern expression is sometimes the only way to describe a thing, and only a true born and bred Southerner can describe it in the way it needs to be.
I got a hint of this while working with Timothy, who is Southern through-and-through. He explained to me that dogs don't have fights; instead, they "waller down a bunch of ground." And you don't take up a gun and shoot a deer; instead, you "throw up and cut down" on it. Very descriptive, very accurate, and these expressions can not be uttered with anything but a Southern accent. Tim is one of the smartest human beings I know, and he's one of the biggest Rednecks I know, too. At the time, I would look down my multi-cultural New South nose, and tell him that I would never say such a thing. Now? Yeah, I probably would, simply because I'm one of few who really can.
So, to quote a former co-worker, "I said all that to say this:" my cats are all Critters of Habit. To be honest, so am I. Yee haaaaah!
A question from earlier this evening prompted me to ponder on all the roles I've played in my life. To anyone who reads this, I challenge you to post your own list of roles.
( the list, in alphabetical order )
( the list, in alphabetical order )