oh, why not

I keep starting entries about nothing and never finishing them, so why not do yet another survey??? This one I swiped from jasspirit :

1. Dick and Jane or Kim and Wendy? Kim and Wendy? Who are Kim and Wendy?? Dick and Jane were my era. Run Spot run. See Spot run. See the perfect fifties family, even though I was a schoolchild in the late sixties. See what perfect, well-behaved fifties children Dick and Jane are. See Dick and Jane visit their therapist twenty years later.

2. Did you wear knee socks? I did as a child. For some reason I am having a visual of red and blue striped knee socks. Obviously I was quite the fashion plate, with my red and blue knee socks and cats-eye glasses. And headbands.

3. Favorite rock band? Radiohead. I worship the water Radiohead walks on. REM was my favorite band for years and years and years, but I’m sad to say that they have disappointed me until I haven’t even bought their last couple of albums. I haven’t liked anything since Monster, and I wasn’t all that wild about it. Radiohead, however, just gets better all the time. So, Falling Dog, when is their next one due out??

Well, I guess they’re rock. I don’t know what anybody is anymore. I think my iPod calls them “alternative”. Although it’s pretty hit or miss about what things are. Tom Waits is both rock and alternative. I noticed the only thing I have that’s labeled country is Jerry Garcia and David Grisman doing Shady Grove, which I would certainly think is way more bluegrass than country. And Robert Earle Keen, who is one of those people I really like but have NO idea why, is folk and not country, which he sure sounds like to me. Although since I hate country music, I’m okay with them calling him folk. Oh, and the Drive By Truckers, my other really strange recent interest, is referred to as “other.” They have ten zillion categories, and they still couldn’t decide what the Drive By Truckers are.

Where was I?

4. Last long walk? Today, in Blowing Rock, where I visited Art in The Park. I’d forgotten all about it being an Art in The Park weekend, and I nearly turned around when I saw the shuttle parking signs, but decided to see how bad the crowds were. Usually we avoid Art in The Park weekends like the Black Plague, but this apparently was the weekend to go as it wasn’t crowded at all. It’s Art In The Street Behind The Park now, having outgrown the teeny park, but I enjoyed it. Lots of very nice pottery and photography and jewelery and stuff, and much of it was surprisingly reasonably priced. Then I walked all around town so got three miles in at least.

5. Last time you saw the ocean? The last trip to Charleston, which I think was last September. We had to reschedule three times due to hurricanes, but I think it was September when we finally went. We’re planning to go again in June, hooray!!! I need frequent visits to the ocean.

6. Christmas tree – real? Artificial? None? For many many many years I had none, due to being brought up in the Weird Religion. I did buy a teeny cute little potted pine tree, and hung teeny decorations on it for years. Then when we bought this house we bought a real tree our first Christmas, and for quite a few afterwards. The last couple of years we didn’t, for one reason or another. Last year I bought another potted pine (my first one died, sadly, after about fifteen years of hauling it around) and hung decorations on that, and also decorated the palm trees we had all over the livingroom all winter.

We live in one of the biggest Christmas-tree-producing counties on earth, so there’s no excuse for not getting one. Well, we’re beside the biggest Christmas-tree-producing county outside Oregon, if I’m not mistaken, but ours is a pretty big one too. There are at least four farms within a mile of us. Maybe more. They’re not even all that pricey here.

7. Name a couple poets you’ve read and liked. Noko, of course. And Sylvia Plath.

8. Name a couple artists you like. I think this should read “…a couple OF artists…” Yes, I AM the grammar police. Max Ernst, for one. And I really like Impressionists, like Monet. I got to see an Impressionist exhibit at the National Gallery when I lived in DC. It was amazing – I’d never believe actually seeing paintings in reality could be so different than seeing prints of them.

9. Electric or gas? (cooking) I’ve never had anything but electric, except for an apartment in Atlanta that I didn’t live in for very long. I can’t remember how well it cooked – all I remember was how scary it was to light the burners with a match. It was a pretty old stove. And when we moved in, a guy from the gas company had to come over and get it started. As he was working on it, a terrible storm was brewing, and just as he lit it a tornado went down our street. Everything sitting in the window blew off into the floor, the gas man and I both leapt away from the stove, and I was absolutely certain the whole place was going to explode. I think that gave me a permanent terror of gas stoves.

10. Camping experiences? Positive or negative? Camping is one of those things I always think I love to do, until I’m actually doing it. We used to go camping when I was a teenager, and I have mixed memories. I liked sitting around the campfire reading a book. I didn’t like sleeping on a brick-like bed (we had a popup camper) and being woken up by my father building a campfire at the ungodly hour of five AM. Or having to take a shower in those scary little spider-infested concrete park shower things. Or freezing to death, or getting rained on. Or nearly getting blown into the river, like we did in Arkansas on our way to New Mexico one summer, when a storm came up just as we’d set up camp and we all had to hang onto the camper to keep it from blowing off into the raging river. And then the power at the campground went off so we had to eat pie for dinner in the campground’s restaurant. We must not have been packing dining supplies. I’m not sure what sort of campground had a restaurant, but that one did. And although I’m usually all for pie for dinner, I recall being quite hungry and that just not doing the trick.

Oh, and we spent one night in a park in the mountains of New Mexico, and it started POURING rain, and I kept lying there thinking of all those stories you hear of campers who get swept away when the rains come and flood dry creekbeds they’d unknowingly set up in. And my mother kept getting up and peering out the window and that did NOT help. I kept thinking I could feel the camper rocking back and forth, and just KNEW the flood waters were rising and we were doomed. I’ve never been so glad to see morning in my life.

Baker B and I never go camping, because he’s too neurotic about noise to stay in a campground. And I’m perfectly happy to sleep in a room with a bed and a shower and electricity and hot water and one of those little coffemakers and internet access.

11. Do you cry easily? Not as easily as I used to.

12. Do you butter bread when you make sandwiches? Why would I do that? Unless I was making a grilled cheese, and I do that on the little George Foreman grill, so no, I never butter bread to make a sandwich.
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13. Favorite town/city in Texas. I haven’t been to that many towns in Texas. We drove through on the way to New Mexico, and the only place that really stands out is a campground where the wind NEVER STOPPED BLOWING. Then a few years ago I went to Dallas for a trade show with my last job, and while I was there I rented a car and drove to Houston to see Kim, who was a traveling nurse at the time. We went to Galveston one day, and I loved the old buildings there, although I was less than impressed with the beach, which was kind of nasty and more like dirt than sand. And we went to Austin one day, which was nice.

But my favorite place was San Antonio – I loved San Antonio. San Antonio was amazing, and not at all what I expected. The River Walk was incredible – this river right through town that’s kind of like a canal, I guess- that flows through a rock channel and has bridges here and there, and all sorts of dining and drinking and shopping spots along the banks. It was wonderful. And I was quite impressed with the Alamo, too – I was shocked to find it right in the middle of a city, though. I’d always imagined it out in the middle of nowhere. Which of course it was back when it was besieged. But I was quite taken with San Antonio, and have wanted to go back ever since.

14. Last time you wore nail polish. What is its name? Umm… I think its name is nail polish. I haven’t worn nail polish in ages. I take spells of wearing it, but it’s always more trouble than it’s worth. I have no idea what the name of the last kind I wore was, either.

15. Can you drive a vehicle with a clutch? That’s all my vehicles have. I think I have a harder time driving automatics.

16. Would you be comfortable on a motorcycle trip? Not if it involved riding a motorcycle. Not if it involved viewing motorcycles, either. So, no, I wouldn’t.

17. Write your epitaph. Since I’ve been pretty determined of late to avoid the need for an epitaph, I’m going with my new motto: Every day above ground is a good day.

18. Did you ever have music lessons? I took guitar lessons as a kid. I don’t think I learned much, though. They were at the YMCA, and were group lessons.

19. Do you still play? Not in YEARS. I gave my guitar to my niece ten years ago – at least, maybe more – because all I did was lug it around when we moved and try to find somewhere to put it. I don’t think she ever played it, but I was please to find my nephew does. He’s recently gotten an electric guitar, though. That you can hear ALL OVER THE NEIGHBORHOOD when he plays. And I think lessons may be in order.

20. Spend a thousand dollars. Quick, don’t think, do it. A vacation to a sunny oceanside spot. A tropical island. Can I have several thousand? I need airfare.