Random stuff about how I am thick

[raven]

Dear self,

That thing, where you keep increasing Firefox text size? And the way your head hurts in the morning?

YOU NEED NEW GLASSES.

yours in breathless stupidity,

you.

Ahem. In other news. I am very stupid. I rolled out of bed at half twelve and only then remembered I had to be in work by one. Following which, I was sitting in the shop in the late afternoon, getting error messages and pressing refresh obsessively when the nice people who run the website rang the shop. "Hi!" they said. "Your servers are down!"

"I know that!" I said chirpily back. "I am trying to run a bookshop! Without a computer!"

"Uh-oh," said Assistant Book Monkey's voice behind me, and I turned around to see our thirty-year-old till creak open, shriek impressively and spew almost an entire receipt roll at the ceiling. "I think I broke it."

At which point two annoyingly loud girls opened the door and demanded to do some vox pops for the local paper about the closure of the local police station. Okay, we said, seeing as we have no till and no computer and no customers and indeed, no purpose in life, we'll answer your questions. Of course, I chose this moment to say, dozily, "Formby has a police station?" and before I was quite aware of what was going on I'd been quoted, had my picure taken and been informed that I was going to be in the paper being idiotic.

Sigh. I went back to the computer, which was still emphatically unfunctioning, and banged my head against the window. Over the noise, ABM told the newspaper girls, "She's not always like this. Actually, when she's not here she's at Oxford."

They looked at me and my head-against-window and yards of till roll and said, "You're kidding."

"Yeah," I said, "he is."

Eventually the till was fixed, the servers came back up, a woman came in and bought £120 of book tokens, someone came in and gave us some chocolates, life got better. Things could be worse: I could be at school right now. But I'm still feeling distinctly frazzled today, and I'm not sure why.

Anyway. Enough of me being weird. likethesun2 tagged me to come up with seven odd/quirky things about myself, and here they are:

1. I have an abnormally high heat threshold. I hold mugs of fresh coffee without using the handles, I eat stuff out of pans that are still on the gas, I get called "asbestos fingers" by my flatmates, who shamelessly take advantage of my ability to plunge my hands into boiling water. I undoubtedly get this from my mother, who takes things out of the oven without mitts.

2. Possibly related to the above, I like hot water. I have a well-documented passion for hot baths, but it goes deeper than that. Part of the reason I drink so much coffee is because it means I can have something hot to hold, and seriously, some days, running my hands under a hot tap will cheer me up.

3. I grew up within sight and sound of the sea, and I tend to get twitchy if I have to live in a place a long time without some sort of water nearby. In Oxford the Cherwell and Isis just about suffice, but I miss the sea.

4. This may possibly be surprising to no one at all, but I have a genderfuck kink liek woah. Oddly enough I don't ever feel the urge to try it myself - my gender identity, alas, is straightforwardly female: very staid and boring - but in other people, I find it really, really hot. And of course, it's a narrative kink too. Other people give the world great literature: I give it girl_doctor. And any story, any fandom, I'll wade through any amount of crap for a genderfuck - or genderswap - story.

The only other notable kink I have is impromptu bondage.

5. One of my goals is to visit all seven continents and to trail my toes in all the world's oceans. I'm doing all right - I've done five of the continents, and have resigned myself to the fact I may not be visiting Antarctica any time soon. The oceans are more tricky - I live on the Atlantic shore, which I've seen from both sides, and I've seen the Pacific from Vancouver, and the Indian Ocean from Darwin. Again, polar ice caps are a problem.


6. I'm very easily startled. I hate loud noises and too-bright lights, and if there's enough chaos going on around me, I'll mentally shut down until it becomes quiet again.

7. "Philosophy supernatural nude" is a SHADE OF LIPSTICK. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PORN.

...sigh. I like using the phrase because it makes me sound I like philosophy, sci-fi/fantasy, art, porn and lipstick - and this is, of course, true. Unfortunately, I got it from Kissing Jessica Stein - oh my god, I hate that movie so much - but still. I think I must've claimed it for my own by now.

Comments

[biascut.livejournal.com]

#7 made me LOL.

Which is the other continent you haven't visited, then?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

South America! I'd love to go there.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Ah! I was assuming it would be Africa or South America, but then I got confused and wouldn't remember whether South America counted as a separate continent or whether the Americas are one. (I am useless at continents. I'm sure they keep changing how many there are.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

My only South American friend assures me it's a different continent. *g* And I'd actually quite like to see more of Africa - I was in Cairo for a few days, and that's all I've seen of it.

[emerald-embers.livejournal.com]

(I've discovered a great big genderkink weakness of my own, so you're not alone there ^_-. And impromptu bondage, not one I recall having for myself but it sounds good!)

But yes, commenting to say 2 and 1 aren't necessarily related ^^. Or tightly related, anyway. I'm a temperature wuss - mum calls me 'lizard' because I sit in front of a fire 90% of the time but get scalded by other sources of heat or cold really easily. Even so, I have a great big hot water weakness, taking baths Way Too Hot for my own good, loving hot drinks beyond what is healthy (soup is my comfort food too), and in winter/times of back pain, hot water bottles all the way.

^^

*snuggles*

[tau_sigma]

They do, I swear they do! People laugh at me when I say this, but I'm sure when I was in primary school, they told us there were five continents!

[balthaser.livejournal.com]

Climate Change College (http://www.climatechangecollege.org/home.php) : Ben & Jerry's invite people to go to the arctic. Not quite the antarctic, but I think it'd be fun!

[tau_sigma]

Aww. *pats Iona on head* Bless. Only the exceedingly clever can be so adorably silly.

And ... does your mum not burn her fingers? Really? Because, OW. I am a wimp about temparature, it has to be said; I sneakily turned the hot water temperature down in our house in Durham because, although no-one else had a problem, I used to scream with pain any time I put my hands in the hot water.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

They looked at me and my head-against-window and yards of till roll and said, "You're kidding."

"Yeah," I said, "he is."

*laughing* I love you.

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

I watched the end of S&A! Won't say any more here in case of spoiling people. Just... Oh. God.

Soon I will indulge in orgy of ficathon stories! Yay you for organising it and being generaly great! *cheers*

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

I CAN SPELL SOMETIMES I PROMISE.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Philosophy supernatural nude

I've always wondered where it's from and now I know. Hurrahs!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yay, you've seen it al! Now you're like everyone else and in the whole only-eighteen-episodes-oh-GOD place. But ah, yes, so much fic! *dances you* Enjoy!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* I always mean to compile a big ol' list of genderfuck recs.

*snuggles you right back* It's awful, isn't it, that I can't wait for winter just so I can indulge my thing for hot water without guilt. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's awesome! I had no idea that even existed.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*blushes* *submits to patting*

She really doesn't burn her fingers! She doesn't do it with her bare hands - she tends to use a cloth or a paper towel - but it's always with a stunning disregard for the laws of physics.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*sticks tongue out* love you too!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Yeah, I never really did explain it before, for some reason.

[tau_sigma]

Wow. Asbestos fingers indeed.

Also, I've been meaning to ask, might I have your (home) address? I've realised I don't have it, and I may get around to sending people postcards while I'm in Spain, hopefully.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

Something I've been wondering for some time now: what is this peculiar beast known as a book token, what distinguishing features should I look for if trying to spot it in the wild, and what is its natural habitat? ;)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Course you can! I shall email it pronto. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* A book token is, basically, money you can only spend on books. They're vouchers, they come in several pretty colours and denominations with cards and envelopes and stuff, and they can be spent on books in (almost) every bookshop in Britain and Northern Ireland. Notably, they never expire - so every so often we get an ancient bit of paper that's clearly a twenty-year-old school prize. Come to think of it, all my school prize ones are probably still knocking around somewhere.

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

That's both shiny and surreal. I can't imagine stores here cooperating to that extent just because they sell a common product....

I don't think gift cards here (store- or chain-specific, mind) are allowed to expire anymore, either, at least in Washington state. Most states don't have similar laws, though. See: can't get stores to agree, can't get states to agree...crazy individualist country. :)

[balthaser.livejournal.com]

They're advertising it in the cinema every time I go.
(It'd look good on your CV!)
=p

[marymac.livejournal.com]

I suggest telling the optician somebody else gave you the old glasses. They get adorably smug when they think the competition gave you a suss pair. Well, mine does.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* In my case, these were the right glasses for me three years ago. It's entirely my fault.

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

3. I grew up within sight and sound of the sea, and I tend to get twitchy if I have to live in a place a long time without some sort of water nearby. In Oxford the Cherwell and Isis just about suffice, but I miss the sea.

Oh, SO much word to this. I live by the beach in New Zealand, and my bedroom window has a view over the harbour. It just feels unnatural to be inland, and I miss the sea terribly!

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Dear self,

That thing, where you keep increasing Firefox text size? And the way your head hurts in the morning?

YOU NEED NEW GLASSES.


. . . *makes an optician's appointment right alongside you*

Why am I such a twit? (Though I'm actually hoping maybe I'm just under the weather, I'm not sure I can afford new glasses right now).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I went down to the sea today, actually. *g* It's beautiful out there.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* I'm feeling that twittish myself.

[foulds.livejournal.com]

Yay for ignoring a clear need for glasses. I too need glasses. 2 and a half months of summer, and I haven't even made an appointment for an eye test. Oh dear.