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[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

Hi, gang! I was originally planning on putting up a Free For All post today, but I'm feeling a need to meme. We tend to get a lot of participation on the getting-to-know-you type memes, and I'm always fascinated by the types of things I learn about 'Shipper Nation from these things. You can certainly feel free to comment with whatever visual media or text you might feel like sharing as if it were a Free For All, but I'll offer the following meme starter as a jumping off point:

5 Things You Don't Know About Me

This should be fairly self-explanatory. :) The 5 can be as personal or silly as you care to share. If a couple folks on the comm already know them, that's OK, too. My favorite part of these memes is the conversations they start, so let's get to know each other a little more!

Comments

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

I'll start us off:

1) I was a volunteer firefighter after graduating from high school- until I got tired of being treated like a girl and being left behind while the teen boys rode the trucks out. They "let" me roll hose after the fires were out, no matter how many trainings I attended and successfully completed.

2) I later changed fire companies, where I was allowed to drive the trucks. I took an antique, open cab, double-clutch fire truck out for a spin one day with a friend and didn't grind the gears or anything! :)

3) I can drive a standard and had one for 8 years, which is apparently weird if the way my friends talk about it is any indication.

4) I'm a member of Mensa.

5) This week's episode of Castle ate my brain. OMG, the squee and constant looping of the youtube clip! I keep catching my mind wandering, writing a story I don't have time to really write.

[kag523.livejournal.com]

*happy dancing*

This sounds like fun! Alright... well I tend to tell everyone EVERYTHING, so I'll try to come up with some super random items about myself.

1) I have synesthesia, which means I tend to mix my memories/experiences of items. Sounds have colours to me, numbers have genders, I prefer the taste of certain items based on their shape... It is difficult to explain, but it results in me having an excellent memory.

2) I wear SPF 100 sunscreen every single day.

3) I have an exceptional ability to thin-slice decisions. I never waver. I just know what to do. (It drives my husband crazy, since he likes to discuss and make lists of big decisions and I tend to just say "well, why bother, I know we're going to... [fill in the blank].")

4) I used to run a bar. It taught me more about humanity and the value of kindness than anything else.

5) My body is naturally attuned to technical equipment - and that sounds like a joke, but it isn't. If a student computer hangs, I can usually get it back by just touching it. My kid's ipad doesn't sense my touch. Neither does my laptop's control pad or the school's smartboard. It's like I'm synced up with the same electromagnetic field. Bizarre but true.

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

So, what you're telling us then is that you are a cylon.

Pfft. We already knew that! LOL.

And that synesthesia is way cool!

5 random things

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

1. I spent my childhood on three different continents.

2. I'm fascinated by the Byzantine Empire.

3. I think "The Wire" is the greatest TV show ever.

4. I am a super-fast reader but I don't know why (never took a speed reading course or anything.)

5. I am completely terrified of having water over my head. I totally freak out (n.b. Does not apply to showers ;))

Five Things

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

1 - Everyone is home from school and work today (although my husband has work to do). This conflicts greatly with my alone time. Please pray to the deity of your choice for my sanity.

2 - My nose had been pierced for 17 years, almost 18. My mother offered to pierce it with a sewing needle cauterized on her gas stove. I decline, but she paid for it.

3 - An ex-boyfriend once dressed as Spike, complete with pro-quality vampire forehead make-up, for Halloween just for me. :D

4 - I bought A Handmaid's Tale and Exile in Guyville with the same paychack, and they're inexorably tied to me.

5 - I've colored my hair almost constantly since I was 16,, usually red. I used to think I would stop one day, but I don't think I will anymore. I really hate my natural hair color.

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

My mom can't wear watches because they don't just stop, she ruins them. It's freaky in a totally fascinating way.

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

I'm intrigued by what the synesthesia is like inside your head! Also, I totally get #5. My Dad has always had to wear plastic/rubber-backed digital watches because metal band digital watches would run weird on him. I LOVE that you can just touch a PC to get it running again. That kind of makes you a PC Whisperer!

Re: 5 random things

[kdbleu.livejournal.com]

Now, I want to go the library and check out books on the Byzantines (and possibly Vikings), but our brnach is closed today. Maybe I'll put some one hold online. *grins*

[kag523.livejournal.com]

That's so cool! :>D

[kag523.livejournal.com]

I LOVE that you can just touch a PC to get it running again. That kind of makes you a PC Whisperer!

Hee hee! That's TRUE!

[kag523.livejournal.com]

So, what you're telling us then is that you are a cylon.

Thank you for not using toaster. LOL

And synesthesia is really cool. My sister actually did a big interview with me for one of her Phd courses. (Incidentally, she has it too.)

[wand3rlust.livejournal.com]

You're a synesthetic? Wow! I watched this fascinating special on Science channel a few years ago about that and the gal could see and taste sounds. I'm guessing like you there were probably more things they didn't cover, but I thought it was pretty amazing when they showed how well she could remember things.

[stripes13.livejournal.com]

IT'S TRUE THEN!! YOU ARE A CYLON!!!!

[kag523.livejournal.com]

I am! (And so is my sister.) The most extreme one I have is when I get headaches, I literally see shimmering gold-green triangles hanging in front of my vision. Sometimes (depending on the severity) they can block my vision completely and I cannot drive. It's... a little disconcerting.

Re: 5 random things

[stripes13.livejournal.com]

*high fives fellow Byzanitne freak*

[kag523.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* I think of it as Technically Gifted. LOL

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

1. I chatted with Ray Bradbury when I was a teenager, and told him I wished he hadn't killed off my favorite character in Farenheit 451. He told me he gets that all the time.

2. My best friend has albinism, which involves a lack of pigmentation in her skin and hair and major vision problems. In film and TV, albinos are usually portrayed as psychopathic killers, which we find very funny since if you gave a real albino a gun they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn (many albinos are legally blind). Our favorite iteration of this trope was in the DS9 episode "Blood Oath," which involved a psychopathic albino killer who was also *Klingon.* Hee!

3. My fashion sense has been described as "construction worker casual."

4. I have gone caving in Budapest.

5. My husband's first and middle name together make up the name of one of my favorite fictional characters.

Re: 5 random things

[kag523.livejournal.com]

I love the Byzantine Empire! I'm a big history nerd. :>D

Re: Five Things

[kag523.livejournal.com]

I want to know what it is about the Handmaid's tale that connects to you! (Love that book :>)

[kag523.livejournal.com]

I love ALL of these Rachel! Oh goodness - I SO want to meet you for REAL! Any chance you are coming to ComicCon in July???

[kag523.livejournal.com]

I love ALL of these! And the Mensa one didn't surprise me in the least! (You come across as brilliant!)

*hugs* K :>)

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

I don't know about brilliant. I've been told I lack basic common sense. :) *hugs*

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Oh, you are so lovely, K. *BIG HUG* Thank you for that.

Sorry, I've never been to ComicCon and I have no plans to go, but I hope you all have a fantabulous time!!!

Re: Five Things

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Hee! I love Spike, too, though I can't quite imagine my husband dressing up as him at any stage of our relationship :) Once, though, on the day I got my first job after college, I decided to celebrate by writing a poem that prominently used the word "effulgent." It was fun - William the Bloody lives on! :)

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Wow. You are officially the most interesting person ever. Someday I will write stories and you will be part of them.

So cool.

It's amazing how the brain and memory work. I've been getting into the "Sherlock" fandom lately and I read a fascinating post from someone with prosopagnosia (face-blindness). She cannot visually process people's faces, which means that she has had to construct an elaborate system of observation and memory tree association to narrow down people's identities and deduce who she is talking to in any given situation. It's completely fascinating. I had never heard of synesthesia as anything more than a literary device; that sounds like a really amazing way of seeing the world.