My Interests List

Interests: 80s music, abandoned space, aesthetics of junk, alienware computers, amnesia, anime, antarctica, arisia, avoiding the passive voice, boston, chosen family, comics, creature comforts, crushes, deconstructing maps, dry humor, ebay, evolution, finding the right words, five-word interests, flirting, genre, getting a job, gun-toting archaeologist babes, gundam, gurps, hard-boiled goddess, having a happy childhood, hellboy, hot showers cold air, intentional community, interior engineering, japan, jennifer hunter, jonathan l. woodward, jonathan woodward, joss whedon, kaiju, legos, ljmaps, luxury submarines, making out, manga, many many directors, many many writers, meaningful eye contact, mecha, model kits, monster island, mysterious powers, netflix, omitting overly obvious interests, organizing, polyamory, programming, quack?, reading, roleplaying games, rpg design, science fiction, serendipity, star trek, steve jackson games, super robots, superheroes, suspects, symbolism, tasty food, the west wing, understatement, used bookstores, villains, warner bros. cartoons, wired magazine, women, words, writing, xyzzy, yrth, zanzibar.

-Some of these need explanation. Or maybe I just like talking about myself.

80s music

My taste in music pretty much froze solid while I was in college. And I'm not very music-oriented to begin with (despite a year of flute lessons and three years of piano).

abandoned space

I'm fascinated by territory not used. Like under the stairs in office buildings, or forested medians in highways. Probably comes from a misanthropic desire to get away from people into my own space.

aesthetics of junk

Rust, corrosion, verdigris. Mold (so long as it's not on my food or in my lungs). The transition from was to is.

alienware computers

Mine's Nova Yellow. Vroom.

amnesia

Questions of identity. Yes, I've seen Memento. Hell, I defined anterograde amnesia as a GURPS disad in MI3. They say every beginning author writes one story which begins with an amnesiac in an empty room -- the blank page.

antarctica

We're back to "misanthropic desire to get away from people," I think.

arisia

The SF convention, but I've read the books, too.

avoiding the passive voice

The passive voice is too often used by me.

chosen family

I love my blood relations dearly, but I'm greedy; I want more.

creature comforts

I'm as decadent as I can afford to be.

deconstructing maps

Two of my recent writing jobs have involved looking at maps and figuring out what they imply, what's wrong with them, what I can make of them. This is fun. The Soviets had an entire bureau devoted to making their maps unusable by their enemies; it must have been a fabulous job...

evolution

For genes and memes and other themes things. How and why stuff changes.

finding the right words

...Can be the hardest thing in the world. Pastoral? Bucolic? Rural?

five-word interests

'Cause an LJ-interest can only be four words long.

genre

What defines a genre? What are its boundaries? How can you reshape it into something else? What is secretly part of it?

gun-toting archaeologist babes

Yah, Lara Croft, but also Gina Diggers, and my friend Amy L. ("You don't actually own any guns? So you're not technically a gun-toting archaeologist babe?" "Well, I have toted guns, but they weren't my guns."

gundam, mecha, super robots

I was introduced to imported giant-robot anime at an impressionable age.

gurps

The roleplaying system for which I do most of my writing.

having a happy childhood

My childhood was fine, but I can still improve on it.

hellboy

Partly for my own nefarious porpoises, of course.

hot showers cold air

Taking a hot hot shower, opening the window, in winter... Mmm. I dunno, this must be tied into some lost memory.

intentional community

"Geography is no basis for community." I said it, I stand by it, you may quote me.

interior engineering

Largely self-defense against the problems of owning several hundred shelf-feet of books.

jonathan woodward, jonathan l. woodward

I usually do without the initial, but that actor has his own fans. (Of course I'm interested in me. Me me me.)

kaiju

Japanese for "monster", as in Godzilla.

luxury submarines

Technolust unbound.

many many directors, many many writers

I can't sensibly whittle down my faves to anything sane or short.

meaningful eye contact

Oh yeah, she wants me.

monster island

The game, again for selfish reasons.

mysterious powers

Which I like to pretend I have.

omitting overly obvious interests

The only reason this list is as short as it is. Yes, I love chocolate and old movies too.

quack?

From the Far Side cartoon. And I needed a Q.

reading, writing

Overly obvious, yah, but as much a part of me as a limb.

serendipity

Comparing Citizen Kane and Casablanca always fascinates me. One was pure auteur, the other simple serendipity. Yet I couldn't say which is the better film.

suspects

The mailing list, to which I will not point, for anti-spam reasons.

warner bros. cartoons

Beep beep. And "Bros." should never be spelled out.

words

More than "grammar", "English", "language", this is the LJ-interest-word that expresses my interest in words.

xyzzy, yrth, zanzibar

The Adventure, the world, and the book. And I needed an X, a Y, and a Z.

Lorem Ipsum, Baby

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

(I'm creating a website for a friend, and just used the above as filler text for the first time in my career. This is kinda cool, unless you're not a huge publishing geek, in which case you're probably looking at me funny.)

(Note that I disagree with the original unmangled Latin on some points.)