Dream with Our Eyes Open

Had this going around in my head this morning:

I'll try not to repeat too much from my profile page.

I'm a slightly genderqueer married woman Of a Certain Age. I have a husband of more than 30 years, a grown daughter in a PhD program on the Left Coast (definitely a nerd like her folks), and various family members in my nearby area, which is Washington DC and environs (specifically, Takoma Park, MD, a/k/a The People's Republic of Takoma Park).

I have been a member of various fandoms since I was an 8-yr-old following the space program with my dad and reading the "Spacecat" books. In middle school and high school, I was a huge Tolkien and Star Trek:TOS nerd, and things went on from there. In college, I discovered D&D, and I still play tabletop RPG (Numenera, most recently) about once a month in a group that includes The Mr., his brother, and friends we have known for years.

I work as a web content manager (and to some degree, a systems analyst) on the intranet portal of a medium-sized organization. We're in the middle of porting a 4500-item site from Rhythmyx to Drupal.

I'm Jewish, liberal, and have fought depression for years (mostly with meds and meditation). I'm also a two-time cancer survivor.

I lock various posts. If you are interested in my health issues (including depression), my fic writing projects, the manga Saiyuki, or the remodeling job we're starting on our 1920s house, let me know, and I will add you to the applicable filter.

Haven't done a meme in, like, forever. I narfed this one from oonaseckar.

Using only song names from one artist/band, cleverly answer these questions. Pass this on to 15 people (hey, you guys, do it if it strikes your fancy - that's all!). Try not to repeat a song title.

Pick Your Artist/Band: Billy Joel

Describe yourself: All About Soul

How do you feel: And So It Goes

Describe where you currently live: Sometimes A Fantasy

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Zanzibar

Your favorite form of transportation: Downeaster "Alexa" [ETA: a "downeaster" is a type of boat, usually a fishing boat ... but hey, it's a boat)

Your best friend is: Uptown Girl (my sister Amy, in this case)

You and your best friend are: Keeping The Faith

What’s the weather like: Scandinavian Skies

Favorite time of day: This Is The Time

If your life was a TV show, what would the title be: A Minor Variation

What is life to you: Everybody Has A Dream

Your relationship: A Matter Of Trust and/or You're My Home

You Fear: I Don't Want To Be Alone

Whee! Hey, I have an alternative call to action for you: link me to a meme that you particularly enjoyed doing, on your journal. Thanks muchly!

Growing Up Gender Nonconforming

I wasn't in exactly the same place as the author was: I always considered myself a girl. But I didn't think I was very good at being a girl. And mostly, I didn't want to improve at it, either. I didn't want to be other people's idea of a girl. My poor mother, daughter of a garment industry family, really never did understand it. She'd take me shopping for clothes, and I'd go hide under one of the garment racks with a book.

The one period in my life that I tried hard to be gender conforming was when I was a new mother. I really didn't like it. No matter how hard I tried, I didn't seem to have much in common with the other mothers I met.

Most of the time when I feel like being girly, I do it by myself, for myself. This includes shopping for clothes and very rarely, cosmetics. Makeup, for me, feels like a lie. I don't think it's a lie on other people, mind you! But for me, it's a lie.

I do like jewelry, though. But it has to be smallish and folk-arty or simple and not get in my way. Earrings are good.

Oh yay! Thanks, scribblemoose!

A - Age: 54
B - Bed size: King size.
C - Chore you hate: All of them. Because you can't stop doing any of them.
D - Pet's name: No pets right now. :-( Biscuit the dog and Strega the cat are visiting with us, though.
E - Essential start to your day item(s): Fresh blueberries. Yes, I'm picky.
F - Favorite color: ALL THE COLORS except muddy greeny browny orangey tan things. Yes to intense reds, roses, blues, purples, emeralds, teal to peacock, soft grey, black, chocolate brown, etc.
G - Gold or Silver: Silver
H - Height: 5 ft 5½ inches. I'm shrinking. It's sad.
I - Instruments you play(ed): Guitar, recorder, bamboo flute, tongue drum (to be fair, I just noodle formlessly on the latter).
J - Job title: personnel classification: IT Specialist; functional title: Intranet Content Manager.
K - Kisses or hugs: Hugs. Snuggly, full-body hugs.
L - Living arrangements: With my Mr. (and sometimes our college girl daughter) in a beat-up 1920s vintage house with lots of character
M - Mood: Is this mood I like, or mood I am now? I like contented and calmly happy. I am anxious and scattered.
N - Nicknames: cho, Ruthless, Ruthefluss, Ruthie (family only, most of these)
O - Overnight hospital stays other than birth: Butt surgery (don't click if you're squeamish, although it's just a verbal description), 5-day wait for a bed for an angioplasty, giving birth to my daughter, observation for angina. More recently everything has been done as an outpatient procedure.
P - Pet Peeves: people being pretentious about educational and certification qualifications at work ... especially our personnel training group, which styles itself a "university" and calls the department heads "deans."
Q - Quote from a movie: Why a movie? Not everyone watches movies. OK, this one: "I want my father back, you son of a bitch." Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, of course.
R - Right or left handed: Right.
S - Siblings: Two younger sisters, one born to us, the other by mutual agreement.
T - Time you wake up: 6:30 by alarm on weekdays (sometime the Mr.'s morning routine wakes me before then); 8 or 9 on weekends.
U- Underwear: Jockey Elance Bikini briefs in 100% cotton. Usually pastels.
V - Vegetable you dislike: Hmm? Okra, maybe.
W - Ways you run late: "I'll just finish this one more thing ... ."
X - X-rays you've had: Loads and loads, plus ultrasounds and MRIs. Teeth, wrist (broken at age 8), feet, boobs, ladybits.
Y - Yummy food you make: Pot roast, matzoh ball soup, baked cup custard
Z - Zoo favorite: Fennec fox. So adorable!

That was an amusing way to waste 15 minutes!

Once again, it's Five Things! These are from rushthatspeaks, who asked me:

On January 13, 1982, a plane crashed into the [14th Street Bridge in Washington, DC], killing all but four passengers and one flight attendant of the 79 people aboard the aircraft. Four motorists on the bridge also died in the accident. Pilot error and poor weather conditions were blamed ...

Rescue crews and ambulances struggled through traffic to reach the scene on that snowy afternoon. The federal government had released its employees early, and roads were jammed. Then came word about 30 minutes later that a crowded Orange Line train had slammed into a concrete pillar near the Smithsonian station.

The first fatal accident in the history of Metro would injure 25 passengers and kill three others.

- The Washington Post

I was about 18 months into my first full-time professional job that day, as a copy editor at the American Geophysical Union just north of Dupont Circle. AGU released its employees when the government did. My colleague Carole and I, who both lived in Arlington, Virginia, started home on the Metro. We could not make the transfer to the Orange line. Rumors flew around the crowded station platforms, and then the news about the plane crash started to get mixed into it. We bailed out of the crowded Metro station and walked to a nearby McDonalds for hot chocolate, and there the news started to come together. You must remember that almost no one had cellphones in 1982 and, even if they had, there were no online news services worth talking about. I think we may have eventually walked to Foggy Bottom, and picked up a train home from there.

1. I know your favorite pairing, but who is your favorite Saiyuki character (including Gaiden)?

Gojyo, hands down. He's a very comfortable fit for me as a point-of-view character - that desperate longing to belong and be loved, the fact that he's stuck always between two worlds. And his off-handed swearing and willingness to call people (even himself) on bullshit make me smile. Also, the fact that he doesn't have a special magical talent - except to always be the last man standing, and drag the others to safety.

2. How did you get into manga to begin with?

The Mr. was looking through the SF&F section of a bookstore near his office and getting increasingly disgusted with the selection. So he glanced at the manga section next over and asked the young store clerk what he'd recommend for someone who liked fantasy. He came home that night with the first volumes of Samurai Deeper Kyo. The rest is as blogged here on LJ!

3. If money and language barriers were no object, and you could live anywhere in the world, where would you want to live?

I'm living right where I want to live, pretty much! I grew up around here, and it fits me quite well. I love the varied population, the fact that we have so many great museums and restaurants from all cultures, the fact that I can buy Shabbat candles and sushi rice at the regular grocery, that no one blinks twice if I say that I'm leaving work early Friday because of Yom Kippur. The lush softness of the landscape, loud with birds and bright with flowers and butterflies, full of glens and dells with little streams flowing through, is a part of my heart. But if money were no object, I'd fix up the house. (I like to visit other places, but this is home.)

4. What was your first fandom, and how/when/why did you get into it?

Hee, what a question! It's a tie somewhere between Star Trek: the original series and LOTR. I found Star Trek on TV (to the disgust of my very girly best friend of the time, who preferred Lost in Space), and was given LOTR by my parents. By my early teens I had all of the meta-stuff that was available for both (David Gerrold's The Making of Star Trek, for example). I attended one of the last of the big NYC Star Trek conventions when I was 16. And in college, I had a card file of Elvish vocabulary and later reconstructed proto-Elvish for my historical linguistics teacher.

5. What's a favorite quote of yours? (I'm assuming there's no one favorite and what it might be might change over time.)

For a while now, it's been the Philip Pullman quote that I used as the title of my writing LJ: "'Thou shalt not' is soon forgotten, but 'Once upon a time' lasts forever."

I have no idea what I'm going to do with this account yet, but here it is, and here sit I.

Of course, to me, the Four Questions start with Ma nishtana ha-lailah hazeh ... . However, the meme has something a little more personal in mind! It goes like this:
 

• Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
• I'll respond by asking you four questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

lady_ganesh asked me:

1. Who's your favorite character to write?
   
   Has to be Gojyo from Saiyuki! I think he lets the inner me come out and play.
    
2. What's your favorite offline hobby?
   
   The Young Lady heard me ask this outloud and said it has to be reading. I'll add photography - although that goes online once I post the pix to Flickr.
    
3. Do you go to conventions? (I can't remember.) Is there one you want to go to?
   
   I do like to go to cons sometimes. I used to run tournaments at gaming cons. Now I hang out and take pictures of people in costumes. I've gone to Katsucon the last couple of years and hope to do so again in 2010.
    
4. What's your favorite fannish possession?
   
   After the actual books and manga themselves, it has to be my big print of this picture (pefectly worksafe; click on the image once you get there so you can see the whole thing properly). telophase drew/painted this for me! I won her in a charity auction, and asked for something with four mysterious shop keepers from manga/manhwa. We have this framed and hanging in the dining room.