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A little while back, [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] posted a five things meme, which I'm just getting around to now. Here is the premise:
Comment here and I'll give you a list of five things I associate with you so that you may elaborate upon them. If I don't know you well, I'll give you five random things from your interests list.
And here are my answers.
The first thing I thought of when I saw the name of the old hometown was that I was glad I wasn't living there anymore. I spent a lot of my adolescence wanting to escape from the Valley and its small towns and small people. But there were good things about living there too. I lived two blocks from the Susquehanna River , which meant walks on the riverbank to collect rocks or go to the Cherry Blossom Festival. My sis was a Cherry Blossom Princess one year. I lived a block from Grablick's Ice Cream, which had delicious ice cream with a take out window and soda bar inside. Sadly, it's a bank now. Blue Ribbon Ice Cream, which was across town and near an old coal plant and the local cemetery was still going strong the last time I was there. Near Grablick's was a mom-and-pop pizza place where I had my first grade birthday party, and a small mom-and-pop drugstore, both gone long ago. All of the stores (such as they were) were little ones. We had no chain stores at all, no mall. We did have a town pool next to the little league diamond and a nice town playground behind the police station, where my grandpa was a dispatcher. We also had a football field, because we are all about the football. I spent a lot of autumn nights there watching games or working the Key Club's concession stand (which made really great pizza).
I lived in a double house with my maternal grandparents, and I used to hop the rail on the front porch over to their side of the house. We had azaleas and evergreen bushes in the front yard. Our cellars (with coal-burning furnaces) and attics also joined, so if I went down into the basement on our side of the house, slid open the door to the coal bin, and then opened another door in there, I could go to my grandparents' basement, then up into the house. The bad things about coal-burning furnaces are shoveling coal and ashes, the stink that comes up through the vents when you're poking the fire or putting on more coal and the coal dust vaporizes and rises through the ductwork. The good thing is being able to open the door and toss in bits of wood and paper to watch them burn or poking the embers to make the sparks fly. The attic had a sliding bolt latch on our side, but a hook closure on my grandparents' side, which made sliding paper through to lift the latch and scout out Christmas presents possible.
Our backyard was ringed with hydrangeas and there was a lilac tree and pussy willows in one back corner and a rose bush in the other. The slope down to the rose bush was all soft with thick moss. Clinging to the fence between them were honeysuckles, and I used to pick them and suck the nectar out of the blossoms in the summertime. We had a quince tree and snap dragons and lilies of the valley closer to the back of the house. We had a small swing set in the back of the yard, and a concrete and stone birdbath in the middle.
Next to our house was an old abandoned dress/shoe factory. A big brick building we would sometimes sneak into. Around back was a hill down to the loading area, and in the wintertime, we would take out our pans and sleds and slide down it. By the hill, there were also a few blackberry trees, where we'd end up all purpled in the summertime, and out in front of the factory was a place where wild clover grew thick.
We had a small town library, a tiny brick building painted white, and a greenhouse near the cemetery, which was on the riverbank. The cemetery has lots of trees and winding dirt car paths, old mausoleums and angels mix with more modest headstones. Many of them have markers showing the person there was a veteran. When Hurricane Agnes swept into the area the year my sister was born, the cemetery flooded and washed out some of the graves. There were pictures of flooded streets with caskets floating down them.
Speaking of the spooky, two blocks from my house was a huge white mansion of a house ringed with a black wrought iron fence and never kept up very well when I was a kid. The year was always overgrown and wild. We called it "the Mansion" (creative, hmm?), and it was a favorite stop for trick-or-treating on Halloween. A few more blocks past that, on an alley that ran between houses and Insalaco's grocery store (an empty building when I was there last) was the Smurl house. The Smurls reported their house was haunted and possessed by demons/evil spirits who tormented the family. Books were written and a television miniseries made out of it. I was in college when the story broke, but it was enough to have carried out of the Valley via major networks.
One of the nifty things about the area for history buffs is that there are a lot of Revolutionary war landmarks along the Susquehanna. There is a small cemetery by my middle school (which was right next to the Methodist Church where my Brownie and Girl Scout troops met) with graves dating back to the war and an old cannon. If you drive down the river bank, you'll see bronze plaques marking particular battle sites.
I didn't think I was going to have a lot to say here, but this is looking more like a post than a comment.
While I saw Sean in films before LOTR, I don't know that he really registered on my radar until then, and I'm certain that [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]'sinterest obsession with him had something to do with my own interest. Well, that and the fact that he's totally hot. I like the bad boys, sexy hot and kinda tormented and a bit fucked up and ruthless. Yes, yes. Not really what I'd look for in real life, but definitely fantasy fodder. If we default to my main LOTR pairings, he's usually in there somewhere, and I've written some other Beanfics (Sharpe and The Island for [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com].
I'm the sort of person who likes touching things and, oftentimes, smelling them. When I go through a library or bookstore, I run my fingers along the spines, feel the paper between my thumb and forefinger, and usually smell the books. My sister finds this odd. Of course, I find a lot of what she does odd as well. When I was a kid, I usually had some girly perfumes in my bedroom. Love's Baby Soft, Love's Lemon, and Cody Wild Musk were usually always on my shelf. I graduated into nicer scents as I grew up. I like many of the Calvin Klein (CK) scents and Donna Karan's apple smells. PURPLE ONE.
I haven't bought much department store perfume at all lately. Mostly because I've fallen into the perfume oil pit. I've been buying scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab for a few years, but last year, I discovered the wonder of Blooddrop. Since then, most of my scent purchases have been through them. I tend to favor fruity and foody scents. I like that the oils are more diverse than what you can get in store, and the fact that they don't have alcohol in them makes them richer, deeper.
Oh, and in the house, I also like to have nice scents, scented candles, incense, wax tarts.
Wow. What do I say about writing? I've loved doing it since I was little. Writing and reading both. I wrote poetry and stories in school, took extra English classes, worked on and then edited the school newspaper and then my college literary magazine. I stared college as an engineering major. Every semester I overloaded on classes I was taking for pleasure. They were all arts classes, and I ended up in English by the time I graduated. My concentrations were in classics (my minor) and Renaissance British literature.
The sorts of texts I study reflect what I love writing too. Stories with strong fantasy and horror elements. While I can read and enjoy completely realistic fictions, I far prefer those with some sort of magical/mystical edge, even if it's edgy and dark. Those tend to be the things I write in my fiction and poetry. My nonfiction tends to be about those things, especially the things I've had placed or published.
Writing is a love and hate process for me. When I'm in the zone and the words are flowing, there's nothing like that feeling. It's exhilarating, freeing. However, when I'm fighting for each and every word, it's so frustrating, like swimming into a strong current and getting more and more tired while not getting anywhere. I used to take time to outline and plan before writing, but that doesn't work so well for me anymore. It makes for writing that feels stiff and contrived. I write to discover and uncover now. I write to be surprised.
Looking back, I don't remember who it was who put me onto Loreena McKennitt's music. McKennitt is a less pop and electronic (and more Canadian) musician than Enya. Her music is heavily influenced by Celtic and world sounds and by myths and legends. It's a very textured and layered sound, but relies less on electronica and more on traditional instruments. She has a beautiful, haunting voice. Some of my favorite songs are her versions of the Tennyson poem "The Lady of Shallott" and the Noyes poem "The Highwayman." I also love her version of "Greensleeves" and a song called "Dante's Prayer."
Anyone who wants to play, feel free to comment, and I'll give you five things.
Comment here and I'll give you a list of five things I associate with you so that you may elaborate upon them. If I don't know you well, I'll give you five random things from your interests list.
And here are my answers.
The first thing I thought of when I saw the name of the old hometown was that I was glad I wasn't living there anymore. I spent a lot of my adolescence wanting to escape from the Valley and its small towns and small people. But there were good things about living there too. I lived two blocks from the Susquehanna River , which meant walks on the riverbank to collect rocks or go to the Cherry Blossom Festival. My sis was a Cherry Blossom Princess one year. I lived a block from Grablick's Ice Cream, which had delicious ice cream with a take out window and soda bar inside. Sadly, it's a bank now. Blue Ribbon Ice Cream, which was across town and near an old coal plant and the local cemetery was still going strong the last time I was there. Near Grablick's was a mom-and-pop pizza place where I had my first grade birthday party, and a small mom-and-pop drugstore, both gone long ago. All of the stores (such as they were) were little ones. We had no chain stores at all, no mall. We did have a town pool next to the little league diamond and a nice town playground behind the police station, where my grandpa was a dispatcher. We also had a football field, because we are all about the football. I spent a lot of autumn nights there watching games or working the Key Club's concession stand (which made really great pizza).
I lived in a double house with my maternal grandparents, and I used to hop the rail on the front porch over to their side of the house. We had azaleas and evergreen bushes in the front yard. Our cellars (with coal-burning furnaces) and attics also joined, so if I went down into the basement on our side of the house, slid open the door to the coal bin, and then opened another door in there, I could go to my grandparents' basement, then up into the house. The bad things about coal-burning furnaces are shoveling coal and ashes, the stink that comes up through the vents when you're poking the fire or putting on more coal and the coal dust vaporizes and rises through the ductwork. The good thing is being able to open the door and toss in bits of wood and paper to watch them burn or poking the embers to make the sparks fly. The attic had a sliding bolt latch on our side, but a hook closure on my grandparents' side, which made sliding paper through to lift the latch and scout out Christmas presents possible.
Our backyard was ringed with hydrangeas and there was a lilac tree and pussy willows in one back corner and a rose bush in the other. The slope down to the rose bush was all soft with thick moss. Clinging to the fence between them were honeysuckles, and I used to pick them and suck the nectar out of the blossoms in the summertime. We had a quince tree and snap dragons and lilies of the valley closer to the back of the house. We had a small swing set in the back of the yard, and a concrete and stone birdbath in the middle.
Next to our house was an old abandoned dress/shoe factory. A big brick building we would sometimes sneak into. Around back was a hill down to the loading area, and in the wintertime, we would take out our pans and sleds and slide down it. By the hill, there were also a few blackberry trees, where we'd end up all purpled in the summertime, and out in front of the factory was a place where wild clover grew thick.
We had a small town library, a tiny brick building painted white, and a greenhouse near the cemetery, which was on the riverbank. The cemetery has lots of trees and winding dirt car paths, old mausoleums and angels mix with more modest headstones. Many of them have markers showing the person there was a veteran. When Hurricane Agnes swept into the area the year my sister was born, the cemetery flooded and washed out some of the graves. There were pictures of flooded streets with caskets floating down them.
Speaking of the spooky, two blocks from my house was a huge white mansion of a house ringed with a black wrought iron fence and never kept up very well when I was a kid. The year was always overgrown and wild. We called it "the Mansion" (creative, hmm?), and it was a favorite stop for trick-or-treating on Halloween. A few more blocks past that, on an alley that ran between houses and Insalaco's grocery store (an empty building when I was there last) was the Smurl house. The Smurls reported their house was haunted and possessed by demons/evil spirits who tormented the family. Books were written and a television miniseries made out of it. I was in college when the story broke, but it was enough to have carried out of the Valley via major networks.
One of the nifty things about the area for history buffs is that there are a lot of Revolutionary war landmarks along the Susquehanna. There is a small cemetery by my middle school (which was right next to the Methodist Church where my Brownie and Girl Scout troops met) with graves dating back to the war and an old cannon. If you drive down the river bank, you'll see bronze plaques marking particular battle sites.
I didn't think I was going to have a lot to say here, but this is looking more like a post than a comment.
While I saw Sean in films before LOTR, I don't know that he really registered on my radar until then, and I'm certain that [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]'s
I'm the sort of person who likes touching things and, oftentimes, smelling them. When I go through a library or bookstore, I run my fingers along the spines, feel the paper between my thumb and forefinger, and usually smell the books. My sister finds this odd. Of course, I find a lot of what she does odd as well. When I was a kid, I usually had some girly perfumes in my bedroom. Love's Baby Soft, Love's Lemon, and Cody Wild Musk were usually always on my shelf. I graduated into nicer scents as I grew up. I like many of the Calvin Klein (CK) scents and Donna Karan's apple smells. PURPLE ONE.
I haven't bought much department store perfume at all lately. Mostly because I've fallen into the perfume oil pit. I've been buying scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab for a few years, but last year, I discovered the wonder of Blooddrop. Since then, most of my scent purchases have been through them. I tend to favor fruity and foody scents. I like that the oils are more diverse than what you can get in store, and the fact that they don't have alcohol in them makes them richer, deeper.
Oh, and in the house, I also like to have nice scents, scented candles, incense, wax tarts.
Wow. What do I say about writing? I've loved doing it since I was little. Writing and reading both. I wrote poetry and stories in school, took extra English classes, worked on and then edited the school newspaper and then my college literary magazine. I stared college as an engineering major. Every semester I overloaded on classes I was taking for pleasure. They were all arts classes, and I ended up in English by the time I graduated. My concentrations were in classics (my minor) and Renaissance British literature.
The sorts of texts I study reflect what I love writing too. Stories with strong fantasy and horror elements. While I can read and enjoy completely realistic fictions, I far prefer those with some sort of magical/mystical edge, even if it's edgy and dark. Those tend to be the things I write in my fiction and poetry. My nonfiction tends to be about those things, especially the things I've had placed or published.
Writing is a love and hate process for me. When I'm in the zone and the words are flowing, there's nothing like that feeling. It's exhilarating, freeing. However, when I'm fighting for each and every word, it's so frustrating, like swimming into a strong current and getting more and more tired while not getting anywhere. I used to take time to outline and plan before writing, but that doesn't work so well for me anymore. It makes for writing that feels stiff and contrived. I write to discover and uncover now. I write to be surprised.
Looking back, I don't remember who it was who put me onto Loreena McKennitt's music. McKennitt is a less pop and electronic (and more Canadian) musician than Enya. Her music is heavily influenced by Celtic and world sounds and by myths and legends. It's a very textured and layered sound, but relies less on electronica and more on traditional instruments. She has a beautiful, haunting voice. Some of my favorite songs are her versions of the Tennyson poem "The Lady of Shallott" and the Noyes poem "The Highwayman." I also love her version of "Greensleeves" and a song called "Dante's Prayer."
Anyone who wants to play, feel free to comment, and I'll give you five things.
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From:
no subject
And you write everything here so beautifully--but then, I know that about you. Whatever you write, it's lovely.
Sure, why not? Toss five things my way, and I'll explain 'em.
~Kris
From:
no subject
Hmmm. How about these:
Fairy tales
Baking
Writing
Puzzles
Fantasy writers/books/art/music (take your pick on one or more)
From:
no subject
Ok, hit me. Because LJ needs more memery.
From:
no subject
How about these:
Doggies
Writing
Dinosaurs
Favorite things on television
Tolkien's work/PJ's film
From:
no subject
and then, hell yeah, I want to play along, just give me 5 things to ramble about.
From:
no subject
Five things, hmm?
Austria
The Erl King story
Slash
Favorite things
Dreams
From:
no subject
And I had totally forgotten about the Smurls. OMG!!!
Thanks for doing it!
From:
no subject
This was a lot of fun to do.
From:
no subject
I loved reading about your old home town, because it felt both familiar and unfamiliar to me. Familiar because of the slightly insular feeling (I still live in my home town, which is quite small (on a more global scale -- on a national scale we're about average or above in terms of size, hovering between town and city)), and unfamiliar on account of the details, which were quite fascinating.
From:
no subject
It is very insular, still is. When I lived in Germany, a lot of our neighbor's parents and families stayed near to their family. Some of the older generation hadn't even been very far from their villages.
You have so many cool things in your interests section, it was hard to pick only five:
Finland
Rocky Horror
Writing
Zhaan
American Gods
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Wicca
Things you dream about
Fantasy
Poetry
Fan fiction
From:
no subject
And a lovely thing that is, indeed.
If you're still playing, throw me five.
From:
no subject
Writing and/or poetry
John Donne
Tolkien
Cooking
Aragorn