As requested, 11 random facts about me (some themes borrowed from Sarahf):
2. I am not a morning person, would not and did not marry a morning person, and consider it a personal flaw akin to chewing with one's mouth open. This is one more cross-cultural sore point I have with Japan: get daylight saving, and shut-up your elderly, loudspeakers and futon-thumping till noon.
3. I am mildly claustrophobic, both to small spaces and crowds: crowds more so. Less fear than extreme irritation with the latter.
4. I have never had a pet, and do not believe in having them. I do like most dogs more than most people, and in my dreams would herd sheep with a border collie, but cannot abide keeping a dog inside, on a leash, or in a city. Similar thinking on birds. Do not see rodents as pets. Fish are for eating. I am allergic to cats, and glad of it.
5. I am fed up with shoyu. Used to like Japanese food, but am coming to think it all tastes the damn same.
6. I have a thing against plastic surgery. This with the exception of reconstructive surgery, of course. Not sure what I think of gender reassignment, except in the end it is their business, not mine. That issue aside, especially hate fake breasts and lips. Even the most subtle work looks horrid, and neither the lips nor chest moves anything like reality. Besides, speaking as a 'straight' man, what's wrong with a petite chest?! And botox... (shudder). Maybe I am oversensitive to the 'uncanny valley'.
7. Cannot abide self-delusion. Whether it is another obese N.American blaming everything else, or conservatives born into money, or religious idiots voting against their class interests, I cut them out of my life. Used to try to reason with such people, until I realized that reason is not a game they play. I don't mind honest stupidity.
8. I have never been in a proper fight. Childhood scraps count for nothing. Done martial arts. Shoved a salaryman cock or two out of trains for being bad drunks, and another from hitting a mentally challenged homeless guy for no good reason (him trying to impress his date?), and helped a friend and some wee Japanese bouncers subdue an out of control marine the last time I went to Roppongi - long ago. None of these are real fights.
9. Am never going to be fluent in another language. Not happy. Should have studied French better when younger. Same with Japanese, before I realized it isn't worth the effort for the results. Yes, opinion may differ on that.
10. Have a thing about knives. Not a fetish, but between childhood Scouts and taking Iaido, anything with an edge is always kept sharp, always passed edge up and point away from the receiver. Never less than 6" from the edge of a counter, and blade facing to the wall. I get cross when people are careless. Wife thinks I'm a loon.
11. Know my J-stroke. Nobody is really a Canadian if they don't.
Sarahf's 11 Questions
What's the best thing you've ever done?
A toss up between: getting married and having children, against my better nature; and being so against getting married I did it late, and avoided extending the couplings which would have ended in divorce.
Where is your favourite place to go?
Somewhere without roads and with trees. In Ontario, that's by canoe. In Japan, on foot in the mountains.
If you had to choose between sweet snacks and salty snacks, which one would it be?
Unfair: sugar with caffeine; salt with alcohol.
Do you think you'd make a good spy? Why do you think so?
Yes. I disassociate easily. I became excellent at lying and manipulating people as a teen, for various fucked-up reasons. I had an existential moment when I decided that is not who I would be: beneath me.
Who is the most intelligent person you know?
First person? Maybe I move in the wrong crowds. I know many people with better computational power, and a very few with better memory, but judgement... Not so much.
If you had a super power, what would it be?
Teleportation.
What is your favourite item of clothing?
Anything in a 'medium tall', when I can get it, which I usually can't in Japan or Canada.
If you were being sent to a desert island, what would you take with you?
Water.
What kind of student were you at school?
Idealistic. So much for that.
Ah youth... What halcyon days them was.Who could you spend all day with and never get bored?
I wan't much of a hand in the boudoirs
I was usually to be found where the food was.
- Ogden Nash
Takigawa Crystal. Brains and beauty. But I'd rather have her for the evening...
What do you cook to impress people?
A joint of meat.
Since I am not sure who wants to continue this challenge, I invite you to if you are on the blogroll to the right. Your questions come from my random facts:
- What's your poison?
- What's your weakness?
- What irritates you?
- What convention can't you abide?
- What flavour are you done with?
- What kitsch can't you take?
- What characteristic have you got no patience for?
- What test have you avoided?
- List one regret.
- List a quirk.
- List something random that justifies an identity.
Nice answers. It bodes well that you don't mind honest stupidity. I am honest to a fault, mostly because I tend to forget to engage brain before opening mouth, thus demonstrating the fact that I don't like to overtax my little brain very much.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if plastic surgery is done really well then you'd not notice! Maybe.
ReplyDeleteI'm like Sarah with honest, plus lying is hard work to do well.
I am honest on principle, but wasn't always. Much of that for the survival of some freedom and sanity in a nut-job Catholic household. The trick is to create a kind of double-life for yourself that is internally consistent, so that all of your lies fit into this framework and you can keep straight what you've shared with whom, and since you are living that side of the double life to the people you lie to, in a sense you believe it yourself, so it comes out as truth.
ReplyDeleteNobody should need to figure out how to do that, much less before their teens.
Crowd claustrophobic; I married one. To avoid seeing undue stress I know when he says it's time to go, I either go or part ways. After the first time I saw him become unnerved in a crowd I would never consider pulling the dick move of, "Come on don't leave me here by myself."
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way as you do about plastic surgery. GROSS. Especially lips, it's god awful!!! Meg Ryan, I lost a little bit of faith in humanity when she got her lips done. I thought her petite face and boobs were part of her charm. *head shake* What is wrong with people?!
The Geneva one....or whatever prevents torture under any circumstance.
ReplyDeleteI would waterboard a person to the edge of death and back and back again just to save a loved one......an entire group/building filled with unknowing women and kids?...Is it a joke? I would like to see the folks with moral awesomeness when their nuts were in the vice.
Chris, sorry, I don't know which comment or question yours refers to: "What convention can't you abide?".
DeleteBut since you brought up torture (and lets throw in executions too...) I don't disagree with an INDIVIDUAL decision to torture or kill someone who has the lives of others at risk. I really don't. However, every little bit of history, including your own country and the English legal tradition that Canada is heir to, shows that no matter why a state is originally trusted with these powers, once it is, all is lost.