Seven Things To Do Before I Die:
- Learn to weave
- Learn several more languages – notably Irish Gaelic, Latin and German
- Walk the labyrinth at Chartres cathedral
- Grow old gracefully, yet with exuberance
- Spend some time living by the sea
- Return to Tara Hill and Newgrange in Ireland
- Become financially secure (hoo boy will this one need some work)
Seven Things I Cannot Do:
- Any art involving acetylene torches (jewellery making, glassblowing) – that kind of fire terrifies me.
- Look magazine-fashionable. I seem to have this weird anti-fashion gene that makes it impossible for me to look impress-your-boss-level put together. This extends to the neatness of my home as well.
- Write. I have a super-huge mental block about this. Likely thanks to growing up as the daughter of a frustrated-artist writer.
- Stick to any kind of physical fitness program. Thanks to the universe for blessing me with a relatively high metabolism…though age is starting to erode that advantage.
- Exercise any willpower when it comes to acquiring yarn or other art supplies. Again possibly due to growing up in relative poverty – I need to acquire cornucopian-level bounty, even if there's no hope I can work through it all.
- Do the schmooze-flirt thing.
- Cut myself some slack.
Seven Things That Attract Me To My Mate:
Only seven???
- His sense of play and whimsy.
- His ability to connect to, and be moved by, memory, past experience, and particular elements of the human condition ( i.e. common experience).
- His mind. I used to be intimidated by it, containing all that it does, but now I see it as part of him instead of a separate, defining characteristic – though it is that too.
- His beautiful lips.
- Recognising myself in him. A Jung/psychotherapy thing: self in other. There are elements of him in me and of me in him. It's a weird, narcissistic thing, but entirely normal and rather amazing.
- His sensitivity. Not everyone gets to see the full depth of it, so I feel very lucky that he trusts me enough to show that much of himself.
- Intense biological chemistry. I've never felt this level of attraction to this extent with anyone else. I'm intellectually aware of the physical aspect, and am blown away by it. I love his particular scent, the way his eyes widen and/or narrow, how we fit together – it's all a source of wonder to me. Why the heck did it take me 7 years to figure this out??
Seven Books I Love – in no particular order:
- Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment, by Vicki MacKenzie. I actually haven't yet read this one, but I love it already.
- The Fionavar Tapestry (3 books), by Guy Gavriel Kay
- The Silver Branch, by Patricia Kenneally Morrison
- Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton
- An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Spirits of the Sacred Grove: A Year in the Life of a Druid Priestess, by Emma Restall Orr
- The Van Gogh Blues, by Eric Maisel
Seven Things I Say:
- "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it."
- "I've got people to do and things to see."
- "You *wot*?"
- "Nice shootin', Tex."
- "Heavens to Betsy!"
- "Dang."
Seven Movies I've Loved:
- Disney's Robin Hood (I had a crush on Robin and was Maid Marian for Hallowe'en when I was 7 – I still have the amazing fox mask my mum made)
- Howl's Moving Castle (Billy Crystal as Calcifer the fire demon totally makes the movie)
- Stand By Me (not so much now – I saw it 16 times in the theatre, which was enough)
- Twelve Angry Men (the original)
- Nightmare Before Christmas
- The Princess Bride
- The Sure Thing
