Seven

Thank you, Cloud of Secrets, for selecting me to receive The Stylish Blogger Award!
The rules of acceptance:

~Thank and link back to the person who awarded you
~Share 7 things about yourself
~Award 10 recently discovered great bloggers
~Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.



1. My favorite hairstyle is second day curls; that is, I sleep with damp hair in sponge rollers and have a day of curls, then don't wash my hair, but might put it up for the night. The next day, when the curls are a little more relaxed, they still have body and make it look like I have more hair than I do. I like to pin it up and have curls at the back of my head, with curly tendrils falling artfully down. Like this:

2. For the longest time, my favorite Halloween costume ever was my Arabian princess, for which I wore silver press-on nails and one of my sister's dance costumes, with a veil and lots of rhinestones. But as an adult, my favorite was Terpsichore, muse of the dance, for which I made a simple blue toga edged in Greek key ribbon, and a pink shepherdess drape tied with ribbon and a bejeweled broach. I wore a flower circlet. I don't have a ready copy of a picture of it, but I modeled it on old art pieces like this work by Eustache Le Sueur.

3. My favorite instrument to listen to is probably the cello. I'm particularly fond of the violin also, but something about the cello gets inside me. I recently watched this video of Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic playing MJ's "Smooth Criminal" and I nearly drooled. Luka Sulic in particular is dreamy to me (the one with short hair and an impossibly alluring lower lip). I know nothing about these gentlemen except that they are award-winning cellists. And they give me goosebumps and shivers. The passion and thrill...I can hardly bear it. I've watched this over and over P.S. There should be more videos like this, classical instruments played with zest...and I love that it's a rock classic. I love my classics, but don't you think this would get kids interested in playing instruments?

4. I am almost pathologically independent. I find it very difficult to accept help from anyone for anything, with the exception of my family, and even their input is limited to some key areas like health, car care, and general advice. In the Shirley Temple version of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, she repeats the line, "I'm very self-reliant." That's pretty much me. And while people have said, "You deprive others of the joy of being helpful to you," I somehow can't get behind that sentiment. I don't know if it's because I don't like to be beholden to people, I don't like to feel like a helpless woman, or I feel like I was given enough by God that I should be able to survive with that, or what. I accept help when it's blindingly obvious I need it, but that is rare. I just seem to have a hard time letting people take care of me.

5. My favorite non-internet PC game is Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? Sure, I loved Blue Max and made it to the end, played hours of Tetris and its other versions, and Carmen Sandiego's other versions, too, and begged for Oregon Trail. But Where in Time was one of the first games we owned that had extras...there were the cases, but there were also places to go in HQ, like the coffee machine. There was also the chrono-thingy which had a pretty cool effect for a late 80s DOS game. And it came with a paperback encyclopedia.

6. I think the height of wealth would be having a house with a library so big you'd need a ladder on wheels to get at the high books. It should have a well-ventilated fireplace and comfortable, cozy chairs, and long windows with a view of a forest or a meadow or some such natural features. Not unlike this one, from the article "Super Home Libraries" over at Business Week. And if I can get one with a secret passageway, so much the better.

7. One of my most bizarre traits is chameleonism, most especially with my voice. I tend to pick up an accent and vocabulary quickly when I'm around people with a similar one (and drop them when the next group comes along), but I also do it while singing. I don't actually know what my natural singing voice sounds like, because I tend to imitate involuntarily, and I sing a song the way I've heard it. I remember driving in a car and singing along with The Cardigans' song "Lovefool" and my friend telling me I sound just like the lead. But I can do the same thing with many other artists. I am actually not very good at impressions of most people, but for some reason my singing voice is a total copycat. I notice it in church, too, after a soloist sings, or if someone good is near me...I sort of up the ante on my own voice. I don't know why it's like this, and I'm not always glad it's happening, because it doesn't make me trust my singing voice any, and I don't do it on purpose.

Who reads this blog? All of you are officially nominated :)