Oh look, it's Dietrich

Only one word per answer.


1. Where is your cell phone?
pocket

2. Relationship?
several

3. Your hair?
fine

4. Work?
scarce

5. Your sister?
nonexistent

6. Your favorite thing?
sex

7. Your dream last night?
lost

8. Your favorite drink?
wine

9. Your dream car?
gasless

10. The room you're in?
Study

11. Your shoes?
none

12. Your fears?
eternity

13. What do you want to be in 10 years?
therapist

14. Who did you hang out with this weekend?
witches

15. What you're not good at?
competition

16. Muffin?
yes?

17. One of your wish list items?
country

18. Where you grew up?
shore

19. The last thing you did?
read

20. What are you wearing?
robe

21. What aren't you wearing?
underwear

22. Your pet
Daniel

23. Your computer?
old

24. Your life?
wondrous

26. Missing?
dollars

27. What are you thinking about right now?
sleep

28. Your car?
spaceship

29. Your kitchen?
white

30. Your summer?
bugs

31. Your favorite color?
iris

32. When is the last time you laughed?
plays

33. Last time you cried?
Saturday

34. School?
hope

35. Love?
overflowing

I saw Pan's Labyrinth last night, and it was every bit as enchanting and shocking and incredible as everyone had led me to believe it would be...I was absolutely thrilled with it.

It was also fun for me to listen to the gorgeous Castillian Spanish as I read the subtitles, and to see the subtle mistranslations (as i saw them) and also some bits that were untranslatable.

To wit: I never did learn the vosotros verb tense.

You see, there is a familiar 'you' tense and a formal 'you' tense. And there is, ostensibly, a familiar 'you' plural and a familiar 'you' singular. But in modern Spanish, for the most part, folks don't use the familiar plural 'you.'

But the faun addresses young Ofelia. the princess, as 'vos.' I noticed it. And I wondered.

You experienced Spanish speakers: help? Is 'vosotros' a normal way of addressing royalty? Or, child royalty? And if so, why? Certainly, 'nosotros,' or 'we,' would be expected for royalty addressing the people. So the you-plural makes sense, but if so, why the familiar and not the formal 'ustedes'?

Anyone? deadwinter?

It's the shortest night of the year. Rum singing in my head atop the sweet whorls of passionfruit and mango, I float in and out of shadow, strolling home.

Once or twice I practice a stance of defense, an alert posture learned from years of city living, the dance of you-can't-be-too-careful in a town where I've never known trouble.

It's quiet. I don't see a soul. A bird sings so many different tunes in a row I wonder if it's a machine, duplicating birdsong, that someone has hung in a tree in the ballpark just outside the square. I remember a story about a city mockingbird who'd learned to ape car alarms. One after another, this one sings tunes for a sore ear in the middle of the shortest night of the year.

Every air conditioner rattles; every streetlamp hums. Along with the idling of taxis, the silence forms a subtle chord, tuning to the harmonics of neon in the pizza-shop window, the fluroesence of a disembodied hand hefting a Coollatta to eternity.

Even the hippest coffee shops have closed.

My muscles sing the warmth of a night walk, alone, safe. A police car rambles around the block with nothing to do. The sidewalk trees sigh. In the doorway of the Goodwill, amid the debris of the day's donations, a bearded man peacefully sleeps.

This is my new favorite thing, ganked from AWordADay mail this morning: the theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior toward us. To wit:

"Clark-Trimble, a leading Cambridge psychologist, came to the conclusion that low human dynamics in the early morning could not sufficiently explain the apparent hostility of Things at the breakfast table - the way honey gets between the fingers, the unfoldability of news-papers, etc..."