Yes, I decided to do this. I am masochistic, and this is not the only reason why. I had somebody send me that annoying questionnaire that’s always getting forwarded around with the notation “So copy this entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail that you will send. Change all of the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a whole
bunch of friends, including the one who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little known facts about those who know you. Remember to send it back to the person who sent it to you.” As usual I am only answering the ones I feel like answering.

Living arrangement? My girlfriend, four cats (Toadstool, Amanita, Truffle, Agaricus), and a hamster (François).
What book are you reading now? I read George Orwell’s 1984 in ninth grade, but recently found out that my girlfriend had never read it. So I gave her the copy I used in school, and then when she was done I began rereading it. We watched the movie last night and I’ll have finished the book by the end of my Metro ride home (before I get on the bus). I’m also reading Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, on loan from my girlfriend’s mother.
What’s on your mouse pad? At work: the logo for our old newsletter which used to be monthly but hasn’t gotten put out in a while. At home: some design for some game, I think called Populous.
Favorite board game? Scrabble is excellent. I also like Trivial Pursuit and Catchphrase, but we usually play the latter without the board.
Favorite magazine? The New Yorker, Newsweek, Cat Fancy, The Advocate. (These are in no particular order and there are plenty of others I like.)
Favorite smells? Baby powder, vanilla, sugary and sweet smells, anise, other stuff I can’t think of. (My girlfriend would be horrified.)
Least favorite smells? Cat barf.
What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? Weekdays: Oh god, not again. Can’t I just go back to sleep? Weekends: Hey, it’s the weekend, I think I’ll go back to sleep.
Favorite color? I don’t have one.
How many rings before you answer the phone? I like to pounce on it on the first ring, but more frequently I screen it through the machine. Sometimes we have Call Block on, so if I know it’s activated then I can usually pick up right away.
Future child’s name? I have no idea.
Favorite foods? Fried tofu in black bean sauce. Ice cream. Lots of other things that aren’t good for me.
Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate. (Bad joke: what, you thought I’d say vanilla? I told you I was masochistic!) I can’t believe I just said that. How awful.
Do you like to drive fast? Absolutely - but I’m a much safer driver than I used to be.
Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? Only when I’m alone and especially lonely. Otherwise the bed is too full with my girlfriend and as many cats as can tolerate each other.
Storms - cool or scary? Cool.
What type was your first car? 1983 Chrysler New Yorker, Fifth Avenue Edition. Purchased in late 1999 from my girlfriend’s parents for $200.
If you could meet one person dead or alive: Anne Frank, I think. Probably.
Favorite alcoholic drink? Oh, I’m under 21, I can’t drink alcohol. (I like Hot Sex, mudslides, and wine coolers.)
What is your zodiac sign? I am a Capricorn and reportedly hard-working. Sure.
Do you eat the stems of broccoli? You mean there are people who don’t?
If you could have any job you wanted, what would it be? An English teacher at a high school for the deaf.
If you could dye your hair any color? I currently use Clairol Natural Instincts Indian Poppy on occasion, but I’d like to be able to use a bright Manic Panic color - unfortunately I’d have to bleach my hair first, and I just won’t do that.
Ever been in love? Yes.
Is the glass half empty or half full? I read in somebody else’s LiveJournal - can’t remember whose, if it was yours please let me know - that if I haven’t touched it it’s half-full, and if I’ve already had some it’s half-empty. I like that.
Favorite movie? In alphabetical order, Agnes of God, Aimée and Jaguar, And the Band Played On, Boys Don’t Cry, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (for Audrey Hepburn), Bring It On, Children of a Lesser God, Higher Learning, Incubus (don’t ask), Liquid Sky (definitely don’t ask), Salmonberries (for k.d. lang), and Yankee Doodle Dandy.
What’s under your bed? Damn if I know. Maybe the hair towel, possibly a few dead animals the cat brought in, some old soda cans, lots of dust.
Favorite number? 223
Favorite sport to watch? Gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, and maybe fencing.

I’m sure you’re all hoping I’d shut the hell up now. We’ll see.

There was the textbook definition of a spritzhead on the train this morning. I’m almost tempted to write to Diane DiMassa and thank her for giving us a word for this person. This woman claims “Eleanor Virginia” is a geek name, and that the baby will be a geek. She talked about feathering and coloring and apparently someone is a “wild child” for having colored her hair blue. She has an 11-year-old daughter. It would have been okay if she weren’t so loud - I hate when people have to share their conversations with the whole train. We are all guilty of it at one time or another, but I still hate it when it happens - and at least when I do it I’m aware of how loud I’m being and that it is potentially bothering other people. She even looked like a spritzhead: tall, frizzy blonde hair, and she is colored oddly - too yellow, either from smoking or tanning or heroin or something. She also talked about how you have to get to a sale at the right time, blah blah blah something about Marshalls, ugh. Her hair wasn’t even attractive, its color was okay but the texture was flat and nasty. Of course I am not a beauty queen or any less shallow - I just thought it funny to see a real live spritzhead.



Meanwhile I’m really irritated with a particular co-worker who irritates me a lot. But anyway.

Today has gone remarkably quickly considering how crummy I think I feel. My allergies have been bad lately and my girlfriend wants to start me on a rice-and-water type diet; because I am big on frozen dinners she has promised to feed me as we slowly add things back in to determine what I’m allergic to. I still think it’s mostly milk; we’ll see. Work hasn’t been too busy…it’s okay, and it’s almost over anyway. We saw Planet of the Apes with my girlfriend’s parents yesterday, then went out for Thai food afterwards. We had baked an apple pie (well, we put a store-bought frozen apple pie in the oven) and brought ice cream (and soy ice cream for me) but we were all tired after getting in and so my girlfriend and I left the dessert with her parents and went home. We’ll go back sometime this week to have it. Her mother loaned me a book called Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier; I tried to explain I was already reading other things but she mentioned it was a fast read so I took it. I’ve gotten about 50 pages in and I like it well enough so far. I feel like this is really stream-of-consciousness etc. and I think I’ll quit. Oh, my teeth haven’t been bothering me too much these past few days, so that’s good. Still can’t wait for them to come out though.

Once again I am not sleeping. Blarg.

So earlier the cat brought in a bat. The bat was rather injured. The bat is now in the freezer, sleeping peacefully/eternally. The cat now has four bells on his collar rather than just one. Bad Truffle.

And I was sure I heard the raccoon downstairs so I went down and something went thundering out the cat door. I checked the cat food bowls - completely empty, not even any crumbs like the cats usually leave: only the raccoon cleans it out that well. I moved the cherry pie we made onto the top of the fridge (the only place the raccoon can’t reach) and put a few other tasty things up there so she wouldn’t get them. Just now there was a lot of munching and banging around at the cat feeder up here in our bedroom, much louder than the cats normally are. So I looked and looked and peered through the darkness and decided it must be the raccoon. I got up to chase it away (waking my girlfriend slightly in the process) - it was Agaricus.

Oh, I love having cats.

I wonder if commenting isn’t as common in LiveJournals as I thought, or if I just don’t know enough people to have any comments, or if the people I do know just aren’t big on commenting, or what. I don’t need comments to know people are reading, and I don’t need comments to validate me or make me a better person, I just wonder about them.

Anyway. I thought I’d borrow from Hikaru and answer some of those survey questions, but I don’t want to do the whole thing (I pretend I’m too cool for that, ha) so I’ll only answer the ones I like.

Name: Meredith (birth name), Etoile (online name), etool (what most of my friends call me), bunny (what my girlfriend calls me)
Dream job: One of these days I will teach English to deaf high school students. No really I will.
Age you wish you were: Right now my goal is to be 21. I don’t drink and my friends don’t drink, but sometimes we want to go out to a club or something and can’t go because I’m six months shy of legal drinking age. I’m sure once I turn 21 I’ll want to stop aging right there.
Own theme song: Yes, but I’m not telling what it was: it’s sort of a private thing between me and my girlfriend.
Eye color: ostensibly hazel
Wish I lived in: Manhattan. I have a few friends up there that I visit frequently, but I love the city and I’d like to be there a lot more often. I’m a little bit afraid, though, that once I lived there for a while I’d get really sick of it - so I’ll stay here for now (actually, I’ll go wherever my girlfriend goes). I do like how isolating Manhattan can be, though - I’m weird like that, I suppose.
Taste vs. healthiness: I used to eat whatever I wanted, but I’ve gained a very little bit of weight recently so I’ve been paying a lot more attention to calories, etc. than I used to. I’ve switched over to diet sodas exclusively and it’s actually working.
Baths or showers: Showers
Look like a famous person: Audrey Hepburn (see Halloween, below)
Cats or dogs: That’s easy. Cats. Aren’t lesbians supposed to like cats? We have four, I think that’s a good healthy start on cat-liking.
Candy bar: Shut up. I hate you. I’m allergic to milk and I can’t have any mainstream candy. Go away. (I used to like Nutrageous a lot.)
Name if born the opposite sex: My mom says she would have named me Michael. My middle name is Michelle, anyway.
Best Halloween costume: I dressed up as Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s for Halloween last year. It was a rather good impression.
Crystal Pepsi: I remember it, but I can’t remember if I liked it or not.
Barney vs. Teletubbies: I love the Teletubbies, they are televised Valium for adults.
Sign: Capricorn
Bugs: Yes, I hate bugs. Ick ick ack ew.
Worst pick-up line: I’d like to use a little creative license. My favorite pickup line is “Nice shoes. Wanna fuck?” I’ve had it work, but only on someone I was already sleeping with.
Victoria’s Secret: I suppose the party line here is “she’s a man!” But it’s just the name of a store, okay?

I’m still spending all day at Everything2. I finished noding all of the orange line Metro stations today, and also found a couple of friends are also on the site - I had in fact been wondering if there was anybody else I knew on there.

My teeth are still bothering me. I may be terrified of the dentist (thank goodness for general anesthesia), but I will be really glad to get these damn wisdom teeth out. And apparently I was a moron last night and neglected to wash the shampoo out of my hair completely, so the long part is fine but up near the front my head it’s all nasty and my scalp is all icky and flaky and stuff and now I have to go wash my hair again. (Yes, you did need to know that.)

I’m not sure what’s going on this weekend. We have to go to Home Depot to order new shutters for the house, and we have a frozen cherry pie we’re planning to make. Tonight should be interesting/annoying as a friend is coming over to talk about some stuff, mostly with my girlfriend but I expect I’ll be around. I want to rent a movie sometime, maybe this weekend, maybe The Mask of Zorro (I want to watch the fencing more carefully now that I know more about it) and/or The Gift (a friend said Katie Holmes had nice tits in it, and that they’re naked). My girlfriend suggested last night that we do something nice this weekend, though, because next weekend I am going to be in a world of pain.

I’m not sure why I haven’t been making entries as much. Maybe I have and it just feels like less? I’ve become completely addicted to E2 and I’m spending a lot of my time working on it. I have fencing class tonight. I’m not sure if I’ll continue classes after this session…I’m not very good at it, but all my life I’ve hated practicing: I just want to be good, not have to work at it. I’m not sure what else I’d do if I didn’t keep up fencing, though…suggestions welcome. I’m really looking forward to taking those night classes at Gallaudet this fall. I wish the fall session would hurry up and start.