Seven Things

I was tagged by Monquito to reveal seven personal idiosyncrasies. I also really need to do a “real” post, because there has been a lot going on, but I thought this one was pretty fine.

1. I am a little afraid of the phone. This is separate from my general dislike of talking on cell phones. I mean I don’t like calling to order pizza, and I hated having to call clients when I was an attorney. I don’t mind it when I get calls, I just hate having to make any kind of non-personal call. I obviously manage to do it despite my weird hate.

2. I cannot do any kind of gymnastic action more difficult than a somersault. No cartwheels, no handstands, nothing. I just never learned.

3. Until about a month ago, I had not driven a car at all for over 4 years (and in the 3 years before that, I’d only driven a handful of times). It had gotten to the point where I had a total psychological block about driving. Not even really about driving, but about parking, or having to drive down a narrow street or something like that.

4. I am pretty scared of bugs, but I am not scared of mice or rats or snakes. I will pull a snake out of a swimming pool, but I will not kill a bug if anyone else at all is around to do it. Especially if that bug is above my eye level. I think they will jump on me.

5. There was a fairly long stretch of time in high school when I wore blue lipstick. And my love of shiny, bright makeup has continued, though I try to keep it less insane. But I owned about 40 colors of nail polish at one point, and I own (and occasionally wear) bright pink eyeshadow.

6. I love musicals. Love them. Love seeing them, love listening to the soundtracks, love singing along. I think it is just great when people burst into song for no damn reason.

7. I do not like eating ice cream out of ice cream cones. They get soggy and they don’t taste good when they are soggy, and they leak and I have to eat my ice cream too fast. Don’t like them.

I am going to pass on tagging anyone else to do this, because I always feel a little bad tagging people. But it was kind of fun, other Internet people, so do it up if you so choose.

Tock

I got a new clock for Christmas. I have wanted this clock forever (BEFORE it was featured in any of those magazines, even!), and my mom finally bought it for me.

The alarm clock I used growing up was a very simple and harsh affair. I still have it but I keep it in the living room – it’s a small black box with a silver face, and you set the alarm by turning a little knob to the approximate time you want and pulling out a metal pin. It goes off with the worst sound I have known. I don’t even know how it produces this harsh, insanely loud buzz. You have to push the pin back in to stop it, and there is no snooze.

In law school I bought a very ugly sort of faux-future-looking thing, silver, digitial, with a radio and various “soothing sounds” available to wake you. I’ve been using the church bells, and they get progressively louder if you ignore them, which is hardly soothing at all. This clock served its purpose just fine and I likely wouldn’t have bothered to want to replace it until I saw The Twilight.

Seriously, it looks so much better in my room than Silver Future Clock, I can’t even tell you. The four-minute snooze is admittedly short, but I used to not snooze at all, so I think that’s ok. The bell is loud and a little startling, but not painful. I love the lit dial; when I turned off my light it gave off a very dim, very warm light (though I can see how the light from the dial might not be ideal for insomniacs or creatures of the night).

I think my favorite part though, the thing I didn’t notice until I put my book down and shut off the light and was falling asleep, is that it ticks! I find the sound of a clock ticking off the seconds very soothing, so long as it is pretty quiet. This was just at the edge of hearing. Had I not been utterly unable to fall asleep for other reasons entirely, it absolutely would have lulled me.

Obligatory Cat Picture

Work = still pretty terrible, so all you get today is this cat picture:

(There’s a joke in the tag for this!)

Highlight of my weekend

It was not, as you might think, getting to play poker for several hours. And it was definitely not getting to work for 6 hours today (though I did also watch 6 hours of Torchwood whilst working, so it wasn’t all bad)

We got a new washer and dryer! Our old washing machine was leaking a little, so our landlord just said we could have new ones. The best part is that the washing machine is front-loading! So exciting! It’s not one of the big silver ones, it is white and boring-looking, but I am very excited at the prospect of using less water and being able to wash things I used to have to wash by hand. And I can trap the cat in it. (Kidding! Maybe.)

Sadly, the outlet in our laundry room is older, and has no grounding hole, or whatever that third hole is. I would patiently await the electrician who will be replacing the outlet, but I forgot that this week is going to be horribly busy AND I am leaving on Friday to visit my grandparents, which means doing laundry, and doing it today. So I’ll be rocking the laundry ghetto-style, with a heavy-duty extension cord into the kitchen.