What is the best colloquial phrase you’ve ever heard?

I’m going to warn you right now, this entry makes reference to poo. The references aren’t too yucky, but some people are tweaked by the mere word.

Read more…

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how active I would be with Holidailies. I wanted an excuse, a reason to post at least one entry per day.

I had intended to stick strictly to entries featuring holiday content–memories, present-day musings and happenings, beliefs, perhaps a silly poem, picture, or video. I even had a list of one-word prompts that I’d brainfarted a couple of days before it started. I posted a couple entries as well before the actual event commenced, just to see how much I could wax moronic about past experiences.

The month has been very fun, though the holiday-themed entries petered out for the most part after the second week. My household is not as festive as others, and while we did get a tree and put up lights, such entries were few and far between. There were days I didn’t try especially hard to write a holiday-themed entry. Perhaps I should develop that discipline for next year.

I spent a lot of time visiting other participants this past month, curious what others were writing about, whether my imagination could be sparked by something they were writing about, and sometimes just browsing because I was interested in the excerpt of their latest entry. I added a couple people to my blogroll because of that.

One of my secret goals was for one of my entries to be chosen as Best of Holidailies. I was surprised that not one but two were voted such by its panel. Of course, they were both mushy and about the druid. ;P

Interesting experience. I’ll definitely play next year. Thanks to all who participated, you gave us glimpses of your holidays past and present, inspired us, and gave us a lot to think about. I’ve made a few new friends, and look forward to the slight insanity of committing to one entry per day during the most major holiday season of the year. Thank you!

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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.

What is the best color to describe you?

My sister and I had a mother who sewed, an aunt who crafted things, and a grandmother who loved to knit. They tended to give us handmade gifts for birthdays and Christmasses, typically identical items, in the form of blankets, quilts, white shirts with fabric paint in original decals and designs, pillowcases, bags, clothes for our generic Barbie™ dolls, and other such things. To differentiate which identical item was given to which of us, our parents, early in our youths, assigned us each a color. Red for me, yellow or blue for my sister, a patch sewn into the item, or a symbol with that color on one edge of the design, or whathaveyou. It made it easier to figure out who owned what.

There was a span of time in which my sister couldn’t remember what her color was, would see my item strewn around the house with its red tag, claim it as hers, and it would end up in her room. I’d bring her out to the living room, where our beanbags rested next to the fireplace, and ask her which was hers. “Yellow,” she’d say immediately. I’d point at the red one, “And that one’s mine, yes?” “Yes,” she’d answer. “So,” I’d reason, “Red is mine, yellow and blue are yours, yes?” “Oh, yeahhh,” she’d acknowledge, and wander off. Weirdo.

So, I have a long-standing history with red. One of my favorite sweaters featured red and white stripes, and my only boyfriend in high school commented quite appreciatively on it. I recently got back into contact with him, actually, and he remarked on it anew. Heh. From the time I was in high school, to just a few years ago, I had an aversion to red. I’d avoid vibrant reds, wanting instead a muted, dark maroon, but usually veering more towards forest greens, dark blues and the like.

I had a brief love affair with purple, due to the preferences of one of my online heroes.

I’ve always had a preference for blue, however. Some say it denotes sadness (someone is feeling blue), while others say it is the color of happiness (Anne McCaffrey’s dragons’ eyes whirled blue and green when most contented and calm, for example). Some resources tout blue as being the color of inspiration, sincerity, and spirituality. Artists use it to depict distance in landscapes–the farther-off hills and mountains take on a blue tint, as they do in real life, due to the way that light refracts through the atmosphere and over the terrain. It is the color of communication, truth, and confidence.

I was amazed a few days ago to find that they’ve yet to be able to develop a genetic, true blue rose–there are naturally occurring flowers that are said to be blue, but due to the pigment still in the flower, it’s more of a mauve purple. Blue roses can still be made only by cutting the stem of a white rose, and allowing it to rest in a vessel of water with blue dye.

I have a hard time finding negative things to say about the color blue. Storm clouds laden not only with rain but with damaging wind and ire are not only dark gray, but take on a most ominous storm blue-gray. In some cultures, people with blue eyes are said to be Other (as in, not human), or in possession of extra, potentially evil powers.

I think the color blue describes me adequately. My mood, my way of being, the way I carry myself, the way I see the world and how the world views me, it’s very blue. It is what draws me and motivates me. Yup, it’ll do.

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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.

What is the best thing about Portland?

I’ve come to appreciate and enjoy a great many things about Portland, OR. I’m hard-pressed to decide on just one thing in particular. I’ll highlight a few:

Their public transit system. Their website is very intuitive, and they service most of the far-off and popular places in the area. Their usefulness fades after dark, when their schedules become anemic and oftentimes disappear altogether for the day, but such is the nature of its peak usefulness. My favorite part is the light rail system. I still think the MAX is a spiffy thing to ride, except during peak times in which people are packed like sardines and still more people bid to enter. Aside from the limitations of its hours and its reach, I can travel most anywhere in about an hour and a half, and in many cases, under an hour. And, not having a car (*grumbles*), I’m rather dependent on it to get around. I’m thankful it exists at all. I prefer this bus system to the others I’ve had the opportunity to experience in my life.

The food carts. Called “pods” by the locals, these kitchens on wheels have been built on small 4×8 single- and dual-axeled trailers with plywood, finished with a roof (usually flat, some get fancy with peaks and eaves), optional finish on the outside, painted to look like a miniature house or your average billboard, with a window and a platform facing out towards the sidewalk. Every kind of cuisine is represented in pods, and there are even non-food carts intermixed with them.

I’m not sure what sorts of licenses and inspections are required to run a place like that, but the druid’s favorite pod serves the biggest burgers you’ve ever seen on gratuitously large buns with so many fixings you can barely manage to wrap your mouth around the entire thing before inhaling. That particular pod owner is the graduate of some sort of top school, having worked with some of the top chefs in the world. He quit his day job and opened his pod, and he’s been very happy and in business seven years hence. Each pod has an interesting story, and more open all the time. There’s a parking lot of food carts a few blocks away, most dishes at an even $5 each. Good stuff. Makes me want to open one. For casseroles. lol

The scenery. Landscapes and urban sprawl, picturesque waterfalls and natural wonders, historical buildings and funky construction, all under a canopy of green trees and grey skies. I’ve been to Multnomah Falls twice, and along the Columbia Gorge once. I want to visit the Japanese Garden someday, and there are so many other things I’ve seen and have yet to seen that I could write an entire series of entries on just this topic. It’s not strictly Portland specific but certainly topical.

Keeping it weird. Everything from zombie walks to pillow fights to Santa bar hopping to naked bike rides to quite a few other uniquely Portlandia activities, makes this place a bit unusual. It brings focus to the city, its people, and its businesses. I have yet to participate in something but I am sure as I increase my visibility in the area, I’ll be invited to something or another. In fact, I would have gone to the Pirate Festival but as my chosen-mom had just passed away, I was not emotionally able to bear going.

Its culture. I’m talking about every stereotype and undefinable subset of people here. It’s refreshing to be in a city where not everyone wears business suits (NYC), or everyone wears sweats (Seattle, WA), and so on. There are groupings of all types represented here. I love that it’s friendly to the GLBTA community. It’s very liberal and I very much like it that way.

The weather. Rain is prevalent in the Pacific Northwest on the whole, with a mild climate all year ’round. I like rain. It makes things green. Except people, it makes them blue. It makes me happy, it reminds me very much of my childhood home, except a more moderate rain total per year, which I find very appealing.

There’re many other things, these’re just what I pulled out of my head for now.

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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.

What is the best amusement you had, listening to the sounds outside your window?

There are two instances that come to mind easily, that I’ve probably mentioned other-blog. Both happened within weeks of each other, in the summer of 2002. The sounds wafted in through my open computer room window, curtains billowing softly in the breeze.

Our neighbor, some Asian guy, mowed his yard every weekend, whether it rained or shined. He used a gas-powered push mower with the usual blades underneath. There was no basket to catch clippings, he preferred to leave those on the ground.

He had the most annoying habit of mowing over rocks, without even trying to avoid them. It was for this reason that he strapped leather coverings over his lower legs, to keep the flying projectiles from stinging him in the shins. That poor mower would be chugging along valiantly, only to be thwarted by another rock of not insignificant size: “RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrNEEEEERRRRROOOOWWWW–*some projectile thwacking against the side of his house, or the fence, or even our house*–rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrNNNEEEEEERRRRRRRROWWWWW–”

He was doing this one fine day while I was chatting with a friend online. So of course I had to slip into conversation, “Welp, the next door neighbor is mowing his rocks again.” Which had the desired effect of my friend not typing for several minutes, too lost in laughter to respond properly.

And then there was the day that the neighbor across the street got a wood chipper. They had demolished this grand ol’ tree in their front yard, for some silly reason, a nice conifer hundreds of feet tall, with a swingset on one of the lowest branches and everything. That sucker was goin’ down. They had a professional tree-felling company chunk it down piece by piece, starting at the top and working their way to the roots. And of course they had to get rid of the evidence, wherein the wood chipper was rented from somewhere and put to use.

Now, this neighbor, and many others on the same street, had more than a couple children. As this was summer and it was overwhelmingly sunny (in the Pacific Northwest, any clear day is overwhelmingly sunny), the children were running amok, no doubt revelling in the fact that they didn’t have to be stuck in a stuffy classroom this day. They were hollaring it up as they rode bikes and chased each other up and down the streets. The neighbor who mowed his rocks had three little ones, and they pretty much lived in this little wading pool on the side of their house nearest to us.

Now, imagine me innocently typing away on my computer, and stopping to listen to the cacophany outside. Children screaming in laughter, and the wood chipper making much the same noises as the mower being called upon to eat rocks.

I was in a silly mood, and started giggling to myself as the noises merged. Of course I would wish no harm to children nor trees, but I had this mental image of the the children screaming because of the wood chipper.

Hrm, typing that out makes the mental image rather gruesome. Guess you had to be there.

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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.

What is the best sleeping position for you?

I remember having a horrible time sleeping, throughout my youth. I had the least amount of trouble when on my side, but my arms would fall asleep, my hands would get numb, my pillow wouldn’t be thick enough to keep my neck in alignment with the rest of my back, I’d toss and turn all night trying to find just the right position.

When I was a young teenager, I woke up one morning feeling incredibly alert and as well-rested as I’d ever felt. I felt very comfortable. I was alert enough to keep my position as it was, because I suddenly decided that whatever way I was sleeping, that was THE best position for me. I can’t find a diagram of it but it’s a modified form of the fetal position: on my side, the “under” leg straight, the “over” leg bent at the knee and drawn up as close to the chest as possible; the “under” arm straight and straight out, laying partially on the front of that shoulder; the “over” arm resting along my side, whether bent or straight.

I memorized this sleeping position, and the next night, tried it again. Woke up perfectly refreshed. Damn, I thought, That’s it.

I found that my “over” arm (the one resting on my side) made my hand tingle with lack of circulation by morning. So I began tucking a pillow between my side and my arm, elevating it. I’ve always slept in this position since. I got used to shuffling the pillow around so that it was between my side and whatever arm was “up”, no matter which side I slept on, so that it became an unconscious thing I just do without thinking or even waking. I tend to sleep so deeply in this position that I don’t even change sides most nights. It’s fairly rare that I’ll be in a different position when I wake up. Dunno why, that position is just “it” for me.

Also, I smiled to myself as I tucked the pillow between my side and my arm, imagining that somday, there might be someone’s arm tucked there rather than the pillow.

The druid loves to snuggle up with me as he’s falling asleep. I tend to sleep with my back to him, as I want room for my “lower” arm to lay straight. He wends his arm around my middle and I find I don’t need a pillow there at all.

Sleeping as a couple has been interesting and a unique experience in my life. Referring to the diagram in the linked article, we tend to fall asleep in “The Spoon”, transition to “Loosely Tethered”, and by morning we’re usually butt-to-butt in “Zen Style”, if not spooning again. *grins*

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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.

Grr, dang it, I really want to participate in the grand meme, “365 Photos”, wherein you (attempt to) share one photo per day for an entire year. The customary day to start is January 1, for simplicity’s sake.

I don’t have a true camera anymore, as it was given to my roommate the gamer after he dropped it. But eh, I can piddle around with my phone’s camera until I can replace it.

The lights are still up in the room the druid and I share. I think we’ll keep them up, they make splendid nightlights.

Monthly Words #1, Option 1.

1. Think about your first name. Is there a story behind it? Did your parents ever tell you how they decided to put that on your birth certificate? If no, then research the meaning of that name, and share whether you think it fits or not. Would you rather be known by another name?
   My mom tells me that the name given to me at birth was chosen, because a doctor friend of hers was walking on a tropical beach at sunrise, and smelled a spice on the wind. My given name is very hippy-ish and I like it fine, but in the vein of preferring anonymity online, I try to go by “Zan”.
2. Whether your blog, online journal, or profile is years old, or months young, what was the first entry or status you posted? Do you remember what you were feeling, and experiencing the day that you began typing?
   I’ve actually been blogging/online journaling since the year 2000. I have long since deleted that first diary, so I cannot share what I had written then. Not surprising, given that it was 10 years ago. I have an archive of it somewhere but I don’t feel like digging for it, nyah. As far as THIS blog, my first entry was written June 3, 2009, very very early in the morning. I remember wanting to be like one of my online heroes, who has made a life out of blogging (*whispers* and sometimes did sponsored entries), and after dorking around with layouts and Wordpress plugins all night, sat down and actually penned a lackluster first entry. I can’t say whether it’s gotten better than then, but I’m still at it. :P
3. What are three things that ended in the old year? What are three things that you know or think shall start with the new year?
   I signed divorce papers, lost my gallbladder, and the druid moved in, ending my privacy (something I’m happy to have ended, that was a lonely stretch there). I think I shall start my career as an underpaid taxi driver (schlepping the druid to work, natch), perhaps start a secondary career doing something in retail (unless I can make my big break in blogging, aheh), and given the surge of renewed contact with old classmates via Facebook, I imagine there will start (or restart) several friendships not tended to since 1992.
4. How do you begin each day? What is your morning routine? At what point do you finish waking up and either embrace or brace yourself for the day?
   I generally wake up before the druid, I’m not sure why that is. My morning routine consists of using the restroom, combing my hair if it’s been obnoxiously tousled in the night, and plopping down at my computer to make sure the internet still works. If the cat’s in my chair, I must dislodge him first, which involves lots of petting and snookering to soothe his ego after usurping him from his favorite sleeping place. I’ll pad out to the kitchen for edibles somewhere in there, whenever it registers that I’m mildly hungry. Usually oatmeal or cereal, whatever’s in the house. If I’m feeling energetic, I’ll scramble eggs and toast, err, toast.

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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.

What is the best thing to happen in the last ten years?

Well, there are two things/instances, really, but one would not have happened without the other, soooooo…

The first thing is that I got to move to Portland, six years ago, and then three years ago for keeps (I know, that sounds weird. Call the first round practice). I originally found my way here because a friend offered me a place to stay, back when the ex was trying to kill me. It was a very fun year. And very traumatic, as my family cut off all contact with me for leaving the ex who was trying to kill me. “It’s better to stay with him than be alone!” was their motto, to which I responded, “Let’s find out!” No news about home, no holiday chatter or gift exchange, just silence. I stopped writing letters, emailing, and phoning, five months in. That was difficult.

The second time, I was armed with a little savings to live off of, a perfect credit score, and a car, stuffed with whatever I could cram on my grand escape. I coordinated with a friend who was couchsurfing in her mom’s house and wanted her own place, and we’ve been together since. I got a job, and had fun tearing around the convenience store after dark. My family again stopped communicating with me, but I was able to weather that better, except when my sister got her second bout of cancer and nobody would tell me how she was fairing. I only got news a couple of months later that she had passed away. THAT was hard to deal with. I was told after she was buried so that there was no hope of me attending. I still don’t know where she’s buried.

The second thing that was best about the last ten years, was being in the right place (car) at the right time (bored, unemployed, off for a ride) to meet the druid, who was also in the car on this day trip. He took my hand and I was gone. I never dreamed that we could have a relationship, and then I never dreamed that we could have an exclusive relationship, and then I never dreamed that we could live together, but here we are.

He’s my best friend, my truest love, my soulmate, and on, and on.

And though we grew up 70 miles apart, it took a chance meeting in Portland, Oregon, to make it stick.

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Voted “Best of Holidailies 2009” by its panelists. :)

Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.

Well, here we stand (those of us who follow the Gregorian calendar, rather than, say, the Mayan or Lunar), on the precipice of a transition between one year and the next. For some reason, people are excited for the new year. The populace tends to be when it concerns years divisible by 10.

“What were you doing ten years ago on this day?” is a common prompt. I remember the ex and I giggling about the non-computer-savvy public fearing that the “Y2K” bug would cause computer malfunctions all over the country, ending with riots and anarchy. It became midnight in our time zone, we saw illegal fireworks go off, we gave each other a hug, and then we went back to our computers to dink the rest of the night away. It was then that I learned that traffic lights have computers in them, or at least the ability to be affected by the Y2K thing. Err? It came and went without much fanfare.

Tonight is a blue moon, a rare occurrance in which a second full moon occurs in a single calendar month. Even though the lunar cycle is 27 days (more or less), it is rare that any one phase occurs at the very beginning of the month. That a blue moon occurs on the eve of a new year seems very auspicious and advantageous. People seem encouraged on the whole for the new year. It wasn’t that way last year–most bloggers I read seemed gloomy and out-of-sorts regarding the new year.

There are many things I look forward to in the new year: opportunities to visit places I yearn to see again; a running car; possible employment thanks to a running car; the opportunity to reconsile with family (lofty, unattainable goal but I can’t seem to stop trying); becoming a writer who gets paid; seeing if I can get funding for college, for either a certificate or degree.

The old year has been okay–the high points have cancelled out the bad stuff for the most part. It isn’t fired. But it’s so over.

And now, I shall repeat a topical, slightly naughty comment about the New Year’s Eve Party in Times Square: “Welp, time to watch Dick Clark’s balls drop.” Have a good night, and try the veal!

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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.