10 From 100
1. What is the oddest job
you’ve ever had?
Chicken catcher. Fortunately, it only lasted two days
because it was also the worst job I've ever had.
2. Ocean or mountains?
Apparently neither! I have never felt comfortable in the mountains,
have always found them oppressive and inhospitable. And although I love water,
I have always been leery of islands. What would happen if you needed to leave suddenly?
So when I discovered, during a recent trip to Maui,
that swimming in the ocean is nothing like swimming in a lake and that the
undertow is determined to kill me, I realized that oceans are best enjoyed at
ankle depth. Evidently I have unresolved issues with geography.
3. The worst punctuation
or spelling mistake that people make is ___________________________.
You don't really want to get me started. The space given is
not long enough to contain my grammar-Nazi rage. Rampant disregard for the proper use of
their/there/they're and your/you're never fails to send me into spasms, but even
more unforgiveable is the random insertion of an apostrophe into words for no
reason whatsoever.
Lately I have been really annoyed by run-on sentences that
lack any punctuation at all. These usually show up on facebook statuses that
have likely been entered via mobile. I can understand not using punctuation
whilst texting, as - on my phone at least - it's a bit of a production to
access periods, commas and capitalization. (And in all honesty, writing without
capitalization, if done sparingly and correctly, can be a very effective
stylistic tool.) But these facebook
posts are not texts, and they only serve to make the writer look illiterate.
/rant
4. When was the last time
you threw up and why?
About five years ago, when I finally came to the realization
that I had developed a sensitivity to squid. It took me three tries to figure that
out.
5. You have five choices of pizza topping. Go:
Spinach, pesto, asiago, onions, kalamata olives
6. How long have you been
participating in the Canadian Book Challenge?
Since the beginning! Although I have never successfully completed
the entire challenge (thank you tendency to fall asleep in bed after reading
only two sentences!), I expect to turn in a personal best performance this year.
7. Do you promote your
online presence?
I am a shameless self-promoter. It comes with the territory
of being a freelancer. My blog address is on my business card and the blog
itself acts like a sort of catch-basin for all my other social media entities, with
links to my facebook, twitter and linked-in accounts (where I also shamelessly
promote myself) and to my print and online publications, so the curious can
check out my writing. Hey, a girl's gotta eat.
8. Describe your current
bookmark.
Like most people (I would suspect), I have several bookmarks.
Many of them come to me from friends, often tucked into a gift book and usually
bearing the name of a bookstore in a city that I would love to visit. I use
these in the secondary and tertiary books that I am currently reading.
For my main book on the go, I use a bookmark that I somehow
acquired during the first job that I had after grad school. It's brown leather
with the name of some sort of poultry coccidiostat on it and a stylized picture of a chicken. Both images
have largely worn away over the years. The bottom is fringed into ten
strips and the middle two fringes have torn off halfway up, the result of a
long ago feline attack. It gives the bookmark a sort of goofy gap-toothed look
that I quite like.
9. Marry, date, or dump:
Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, William Shakespeare
Marry Margaret Atwood because she is fascinating enough to
grow old(er) with. Date Stephen King because it would be a little too creepy to
share a house with that twisted imagination but a dinner or two would be awesome. Which leaves
poor old Willie to be dumped. Someone else will scoop him up as husband
material, I am sure.
10. Where is your
favourite reading place?
My bed, just before drifting off to sleep. It's quiet, warm,
comfortable, and removed from the millions of interruptions that ambush me
during the day, including that nasty work ethic that keeps nudging me and
telling me to go do something productive. Reading myself to sleep is my reward
at the end of each day. Of course, sometimes I only manage to read the same two
sentences over and over again before I wake up with the light still on and my
wrists aching from holding the book upright in my sleep.
3 comments:
I feel like such a rock star! Can't wait to compare our newest tattoos and piercings and to celebrate bloggy friendships.
I'm pleased for you both and to meet you, Barbara. For all my gently introducing my blog and your presence, we haven't encountered each other. I eagerly looked for comments to my 10/100 too. Don't get me started either, on 'have got' contractions. Just say HAVE!!! John, have a lovely time in Alberta. One of my best amateur portraits is of Lake Morain. Lake Louise became one of my greeting cards featuring a Clark's Nutcracker.
I'll think of you all happily. I know the joy of making friends by mail or on-line, then you exchange e-mail addresses. Next come addresses for Christmas cards and birthdays. The really developed friendships might phone, then the ultimate is meeting in person. To my surprise, some people are adamant that you never go past e-mail if 'you didn't meet in person'; that real life friends must only be allowed locally. I'm pleased to see two proper penpals hitting level five. :) Carolyn in Manitoba. http://cmriedel.wordpress.com/
Bloggy meetups are the best, Carolyn, and I highly recommend online friendships to the next step. I think I have met about 30 blog friends now and, with maybe one or two exceptions, they have all been wonderful experiences.
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