I really need to be doing other stuff.. :)

[lynsangelic1]

1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.



I got my questions from acoustics1220

(I think these are all going to be somewhat personal, and it's totally okay if you DON'T want to answer these questions - because you know, I love you like that)
1) Family? I don't think I've ever come across you mentioning family. Parents, siblings?
2) Lesbianism, when did you know? How did your circles react?
3) Favorite artist (musician, painter, poet, writer -though I really wanna know musician *hints* *nudge nudge*)
4) Craziest thing you've done by yourself? (odd can qualify, or wacky, high, 3 sheets to the wind??) :)
5) What made you start reading Harry Potter?

 

 

1)     You probably haven’t heard me talk about my family because they’re quite uninteresting ;)  Have the full set: mum, dad and a sister who’s three years younger.  No living grandparents, but in addition I have a huge paternal dynasty – well over a hundred (maybe a couple hundred) first, second and third cousins, most of whom I don’t know that well or didn’t know at all until they add me on bebo.  A good number of cousins are older than me with several children of their own, seeing as my dad was the baby of nine brothers and sisters.  I’ve family scattered across the globe – Canada, Boston, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Spain etc etc.  Oh, and there’s a castle up north with my name on it.  Seriously.  The old clan castle.  It’s undergoing renovation but as soon as they’re finished pumping millions into it, I’m making a claim J

2)     I did titter at this question (sorry!).  ‘Spose it’s a common one.  Um, first inkling when I was 10 or 11 on family holiday and we went into a bar in Tenerife.  There was a woman singing Big Spender on the bar top.  My perverted pre-teen self reminds me she was wearing thigh-highs.  There is a fine line between thinking ‘that is so cool’ and ‘that is so hot’.
Later on it was more gradual.  First girl!kiss led to many other girl!kisses, all the while maintaining I was just cool or maybe bi.  Knew without question or fear when I kissed the woman I fell in love for the first time and confessed to my best friend that night.  Her response?  ‘Too fucking right you are!’
Told my parents over text at New Year a few years later.  Good idea?  Absolutely not!

3)     I’ll try and answer all of them. 
Painter:  Salvador Dali.  I absolutely fell in love with him at the Tate Modern exhibit but have been fascinated by his The Persistence of Memory for years – a piece which I affectionately dub the ‘Melty Clocks’.  Also love Rubens for the sheer scale of his paintings when seen in life.  I love his John the Baptist head banquet one at the Scottish National Gallery.  I enjoy a lot of classical paintings, just because there’s the larger Greek/Roman myth behind the canvas.  The scale and detail is astounding.
Poet:  This one’s more difficult as I find a lot of poetry trite and contrived.  I quite like Pablo Neruda as his work seems quite raw and rhythmic.  I adore the use of rhythm and atmosphere in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven – Though I confess to having first discovered it in the Simpsons Tree House of Horror episode.  I met a guy with my favourite verse tattooed on his arm - that was quite cool. 
Since the age of 4, all children in Scotland are indoctrinated in the works of Robert Burns with annual speaking/singing competitions, lessons, primary school projects etc.  I do like quite a lot of his stuff, though some to me seems as if he was bored and wanted to find something to write about.  I detract from To A Louse that he was in the mood to write something, was a little uninspired, but manages to pull it off with no one the wiser.  Well.  That’s how the scenario in my head goes anyway.
One of my favourite poetry books is The Melancholy Death of the Oyster Boy and other stories by Tim Burton.  Irreverent, bittersweet, grotesque, bizarre and often funny.
Writer:  Chuck Palaniuk’s Invisible Monsters single-handedly changed the way I feel and approach writing.  In terms of narrative and style I believe there is no better working author today.  His work gave me the initiative and confidence to try and fuck around with conventions more and have fun.  I enjoy a lot of his other work, but Invisible Monsters is Chuck at his absolute best.
I tend to read a book or two by a single author, as opposed to their entire works.  Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex had some of the most gorgeous, involving prose, sprawling over time.
Any other writers that I adore would in theatre – Douglas Maxwell, David Greig, Anthony Neilson, Brian Friel to name a few.  The first three are working Scottish playwrights and probably not that well known further afield.  Friel, I believe, has performances in the US.  His Lovers: Winners and Losers is a joy to watch.
I’m certainly don’t consider JK as a favourite writer.  She created and imagined a world that I’m so fond of playing in but in terms of actual writing – not so much.  It’s not her fault, it’s a childrens/young adults series and written in such a style.  I’d consider her imagination excellent but her execution doesn’t come close to some of my favourite writers.  And like I said, that’s because of the genre she’s working in.
Musician:  I left this til last because I think it’s the most difficult to answer.  Very very difficult to answer as it could change depending on what I’m in the mood for.  I really admire Mike Patton’s work ethic and the way he approaches music.  Apart from Faith No More (which is the most musically eclectic band to which they defy genre and inspire most of modern music) he’s had tons and tons of side projects.  Some I like, and some I don’t.  But I admire how much he challenges himself – an opera album, followed by hip-hop then metal and so forth.
I like the way Daniel Johns (Silverchair) has grown as an artist (and without a doubt, one of the best singers I have heard live) and incorporates lush overtures and classical strings in his music and now lately has gone in an almost new-wave direction.
I love the way Portishead makes me feel when I’m listening to them and how they produce different sounds in a different way.  Beth Gibbons’ voice has a calming and unsettling effect on me and conveys emotion through vocals better than anyone else I can think of.
Jeff Buckley and Muse are always favourites… And there are about 7 other bands/musicians I haven’t mentioned.  I can’t decide. :)

4)     Stole a bike.  This is my favourite story to tell of drunk stupid me.  It was after first year of uni, during the Edinburgh festival.  For those not fortunate enough to have been on a rampaging night out during the Fringe, everything is open til 5am.  So I stumble out of City (I believe its changed name now), break up a fight between co-workers and then wander off in search of home.  To walk from this club to my flat on Leith Walk would take about 20 minutes, perhaps longer with drunken weaving: but still, it’s not that far.  I reach the east end of Prince Street and decide that I need to pee.  I try the (now closed) Burger King at the end but they’d just shut up shop for the night.  I check the buses to see when the morning buses kick in but it’s a while.  I wander up the alley at Waterloo Place, towards St Andrews square and find a bike chained to the railings.  [For your convenience, I’ve squiggled some lines on a city centre map to give you a better picture]
Aha, says me.  Surely tis easy to pull this chain off and ride a bike for the first time in years while drunk?
Remarkably, it just required a sharp tug for the chains to break and off I was.  I’m a short person and this was an extremely high boys bike but no problem.  So off I go, wobbling about but supremely confident.  I come straight out of the alley onto the main road at the end of Princes St (because, obviously, these roads are safe at half five in morning!) and turn down onto Leith street which is a quite steep downhill cruise when you’re wrecked.  This was an amazing high, free-wheeling down on a stolen bike on a main road going really quite fast, hearing the wind whistle in your ears…
And then we come to the end of the road which meets a roundabout.  I barely manage to curve round it but can’t quite pull off turning right the way round and therefore crash.  I hit the pavement and me and the bike go flying into the bushes in front of Ego on Picardy Place.
Wasn’t really that sore.  So after lying for a few minutes, and seeing a police van pass me by and praying to almighty God that they don’t arrest me for drunk bicycling only to find out it’s drunk stolen bicycling – I get up, dust myself off and attempt to ride again.  But the bike wouldn’t go and I couldn’t figure out why.  Asked a passer-by, addressing him as Mister Man, to give me some assistance.  He said ‘Well, your chains come off and your front wheel is totally buckled.  That might be why it’s not going.’
’Oh,’ says me.  I thanked the helpful man, carelessly disposed of the bike in the bushes and continued on my merry way down Leith Walk.
I have felt incredibly guilty for the theft, it is awful and very unlike me.  But it was quite a ride.

5)     My mum had bought my sister books 1-4 for Christmas.  She isn’t as much of a reader as I am.  I’d always heard good things about them, so I pinched them off her and started to read.  It took me 3 separate tries, months apart to get through the first few chapters of Philosopher’s Stone but once I did, I was flying and read them all in no time at all.  Then it was only a year of intense, addictive build up and expectation to OotP and the rest is history.