lorelei complex

Maybe it's just the whole Friday the 13th thing talking, but I'm going to get back to using this thing. I check my neighborhood every day (oh the beauty of "open in tabs" and RSS feeds) I may as well write something to contribue to it, shouldn't I?

If nothing else, I'll use it as a moblog, which I was planning on doing anyway. So keep an eye out for tons of new photos coming up here. I have a bunch to get off of my cellphone.

For those of you who were wondering what happened to my beloved MacBook Pro, Io, she's over here on the other side of my desk.

But still...something's just...not right here. Any guesses on what it is?

This is my new desk, in my new cube! I figured now was a good time to show you, since things have slowed down enough that I can take a picture.

So. What do you think? Shiny 19-inch Dell monitor, my keyboard and mouse, all hooked up to a Toshiba laptop there on the side, pretty sweet, right?

But something's amiss in this photo. Something...

How many places have you lived in your life?

This is a fun question, considering that I've travelled so much in my life that it's hard to keep track of the places I've been. Sadly, most of those jaunts and travels have been when I was younger and not completely able to remember or recognize the wonderful time I was having, but I have memories and recollections and cherished experiences that mean the world to me. Should I ever have children, I would love to take them to see the world at a formative age the same way I travelled; it was wonderful knowing there were so many different places and people in the world when I was so little. I think being able to travel like that gives even the youngest child an appreciation for how big the world is and what wonders lie just beyond your doorstep or around the globe.

Anyway. I'm an army brat, so that gives you some insight into why I was cavorting around the world as a child. I was born in Hawaii. I don't remember horribly much about my time there, we were only there until I was about two or three years old. I like to tell people that all I remember about Hawaii is that hula dancers are awesome and poi tastes like
paste. Still, I don't completely remember what poi tastes like. Hm.

After leaving Hawaii, we moved to Maryland. We lived here for another year or so, until my father was stationed in Germany. Off we went to Darmstadt, in what used to be called West Germany. We stayed there for about a year before we moved to Frankfurt. We stayed there for about two years. In our three years in Germany, we essentially took the opportunity of living in Europe as an excuse to visit almost every free country in Western Europe. France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Austria, you name it, we went there. We missed a few of course, I didn't get to see Spain until I was in high school, and I've still never been to the UK or Denmark, but it was wonderful while I did it.

After our three years in Europe, we moved to Georgia. Stayed there for about five years, and used the opportunity to travel across Florida and see the Kennedy Space Center and do the typical touristy things in Orlando several times during those years. My family is really big on seeing the sights and doing as much of the historical studies and tours of everywhere we live-I'm very grateful for it.

After five years in Georgia, we moved back to Maryland. My father was retiring from the Army, and wanted a nice, quiet, and stable place to put me through school; and so we wound up smack dab between Baltimore, MD and Washington DC. We lived there together for about 13 years, until I graduated from college. At that point my parents wanted to settle down into their own dream house, and moved just an hour north into Pennsylvania to get it. Me? I stayed in the Washington DC area, moving first just a little south of our old place into a town defined by its mall with some friends, then north into an apartment on my own just outside of Baltimore, and finally further south and closer to work just outside of Washington DC.

Where to from here? Well, my girlfriend and I have a pressing calling to the pacific northwest. I know, I know, those of you who live there are probably "huh?"  but it's very true. We want someplace to live that's kissed by nature and has old trees and parks and where the people care for their surroundings and take advantage of the outdoors. Don't get me wrong, we have parks and trails in the mid-atlantic, but nothing compared to the redwoods-it's just too heavily developed out here. We also want a progressive place to live, someplace that's natural, but still thriving with life and youth and technology, someplace we can live and really be ourselves. It's probably a bit naive, but still. We'd like to see it someday.

What's your favorite song to sing karaoke-style?  If you don't have one, why not?

Okay. I'm going to be flat out honest here. I don't have one.

Why?

Because I'm deathly afraid of karaoke. It's not the getting up in front of people part, I can generally do that. It's the singing part that scares me to no end. I can get in front of people and speak, crack jokes, whatever. it's just...singing. That's the hard part. And when I say hard, I mean it's really really hard.

So yeah. I don't have one, but mostly of my own neurosis. The last time I sang karaoke in front of people was back in college (wow, it's been something like 4 years) where I sang a Christmas carol that I can't remember with two friends on stage in the dining hall (because for some reason in one of our dining halls we had a buffet style meal with a small stage in the middle of the main room where events were usually held-sometimes it was a fashion show, sometimes it was sketch comedy, sometimes it was a musical performance, but most often-and you could bet on it pretty much every day-it was karaoke.) and we completely butchered the song, to massive applause from anyone who cared to listen.

You'd think that would be a good thing; it would energize me and make me want to do it more. Quite the opposite-it was terrifying. It took every ounce of strength and courage to get me up there in the first place-I don't think I could ever get up there again. Maybe if it were a smaller group of people, close friends, songs I knew, and I was grossly inebrieated. Maybe.

Funny though, since I sang on stage in high school, which was about 4 years before that.

Uh oh. Does that mean I'm about due?

What's your favorite way to keep in touch? Phone, snail mail, email, text message, Vox, _____ ?

I'm a digital fiend. That's right, I admit it. I have two screennames, one for home and one for werk, so I can leave myself logged in to IM at home while I'm in the office. I have a ton of email addresses, namely because I have something like 6 or 7 different blogs.

So yeah. I'm pretty bad about answering my cellphone, I have to admit-people call me and leave me voicemail and I'll take forever to get back to them, but I'm usually quick about email or IMs. Text messages? Kinda new to me. Seriously-I generally don't sit still where I have cell reception long enough to send copious amounts of text messages to and from friends where I don't also have a computer.

This question reminds me though; I haven't written or sent an actual letter in ages. I think the last paper letters I wrote were to an old "girlfriend," where I was so utterly bored at my summer job that I wrote her letters literally every day while I was sitting at my cubicle desk. To this day I'm sure she never read them.

But damn if I can't find a real reason to post here.

This is my thing with various blogs; I need a reason to post, otherwise I'm pretty much lost and can't find anything to say. I kind of wish that a lot of the features here at Vox were rolled into Livejournal; it would make LJ a much more attractive and functional blogging platform, but I suppose that'll happen in its own time. In the meanwhile, I'll just keep playing with the themes and my blog name/taglines and uploading photos. And believe me, I have plenty of photos on my cameraphone waiting to be uploaded.

That's an odd thing; I used to abhor cameraphones, since I had a decent camera I thought I'd never ever use one. But then I decided not to carry my phone quite everywhere I go, and my cameraphone became indispensible when I was in the grocery store and saw a hilariously named product, or when driving down the street and happening upon a huge inflatable yellow duckie on the side of the road. (and yes, both of those are true, and I have the photos to prove it)

Anyway, I'll try to get back here more often. It's a lot of fun using Vox, and I'd like to use it more often.

What's your morning beverage of choice?  Coffee, tea, juice?  Homemade or store-bought?

Usually before I shower in the morning, and before I wake up The Girl, I wander downstairs to open thge blinds in our music room (which is where the plants live) so the plants can get some light, and put water in the kettle and put it on the stove. I fill our 6-cup french press with ground coffee. A dash of nutmeg, a couple of dashes of cinnamon, and I shake the mix up and head upstairs to start getting ready before the water boils.

After shaving and such, I can hear the kettle whistling downstairs, so I head back down and pour the water into the press, fill it up, stir the coffee ground/water mixture up, and put the top on to let it brew. Head back upstairs to finish getting ready. By the time we come back downstairs to finish prepping and head out for the day, I press the coffee, add a bit of caramel syrup to the bottom of my travel mug and a little agave nectar to the bottom of Raevyn's, and fille them both with delicious delicious french press'd coffee.

And away we go, off to start our day.

Coffee is usually the way we start the day; juice sometimes makes it into our diet on the weekends, and I used to have a smoothie a day each morning, sometimes as a replacement for breakfast, but I kind of gave up on the smoothies since I got bored with them. A cup of coffee in the morning definitely sets me off on the right foot.

And to think, I used to think coffee was so bad that I said I'd never ever drink it. Hey, I was a kid. I didn't understand the miracle that is caffeine-you can't really blame me.

Play any instrument or speak any language, which do you choose?

This one isn't easy. I have to admit that I'd personally prefer to be able to play any instrument rather than speak any language, mostly because I prefer music to speech and am definitely a believer in the whole "music is the universal language" motif.

In another way, it's kind of selfish. I find music beautiful, peaceful, something I can enjoy either for myself or with and involving other people, whereas language I find to be a bit more utilitarian, beautiful in its own way and its own right, but definitely for use with other people, something I'm not so sure I would enjoy having innately on my own. It wouldn't bring me the kind of joy that being able to play anything, or walk into an orchestra and sit down in front of anything and immediately play a tune.

That being said though, I have to admit that being able to speak any language would be far more useful. You could communicate with anyone at any time; know when and how to get the best bargains or make friends in remote places where you feel incredibly alone. You would never have to travel again and worry that you wouldn't be able to survive in a place where you didn't know how to ask where the bathroom was, or where you could get something to eat. You could have nearly any job you liked because you could communicate with anyone, go anywhere.

So I suppose I'm conflicted, but would lean towards being able to play any instrument. What would you do?

What was your favorite candy when you were a kid? How does that compare to now?

When I was a kid, I used to absolutely love Oh Henry bars, which are still available in many places but are sporadically getting harder and harder to find. Even when I was younger they were difficult to find, and I used to get them all the time when we would visit my family in Nova Scotia every summer. For a while there we went up north pretty much every year, regardless of where we lived, and it was always the Canadian candy that made my taste buds twirl.

Canada was a veritable treasure trove of delicious treats and candies. Oh Henry bars! Smarties (the real kind, filled with delicious chocolate)! Coffee Crisp bars! Aero bars! So so delicious.

If there's anything that I definitely miss from traveling to Canada as much as I used to is coming back with a ton of candies and hoping it all didn't melt on the way back. Or eating it on the way. One way or the other.

As for comparing to now; since I don't have access to those delicious Canadian candies as easily as I did before, I've had to make do with other deliciousness, usually of the one-off sort like Ferro Rocher or Godiva Chocolates or Lake Chamberlain. I know, I know, I have such champagne tastes.