Ten Things You Know The Drill

[sovay]

As I compile this list, Less Than Jake are singing:

Well, I'm half awake and half a world away
All my past mistakes and every misspent day
I wouldn't have it any other way . . .

Thank you for the editorial soundtrack. I suspect I have a much less interesting ten-things list than most of the people I've been reading over the last few days, as this meme makes its pandemic way across the internet, but all the same I have . . .

1) Been paid in Irish whiskey for storytelling.

2) Been invited up onstage while attending a one-man Gershwin show in Boston and sung "Someone To Watch Over Me" accidentally an octave above written before being corrected.

3) Learned the first five lines of the Odyssey by heart, in Greek, before I could read the language.

4) Won several state awards for archery, both indoors and outdoors, and during those years doubled as the regular performer of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the opening of competitions.

5) Extemporized hexametrical fanfic in the presence of the author.

6) Done a voice-over for a Girl Scouts commercial. (I was in elementary school! I plead the ignorance of youth!)

7) Thrown out my back dancing with a Torah.

8) Jointly driven a stick-shift car in Italy with a fellow classicist (he steered, I shifted), stalled it out on a hilly street in Bacoli, and had to be rescued by a passing stranger on a motorcyle.

9) Recited Akkadian epic at a science fiction and fantasy panel in which I was not scheduled to participate.

10) Fallen out of a palm tree onto a deck chair.

Comments

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

I know this is supposed to be "Ten Things You Probably Haven't Done," but it might as well have been entitled "In Case You Weren't Sure What Writes This Journal, Here Are Ten Things that Leave No Room for Doubt."

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

What? What?? Are we suggesting that sovay is a mechanical/positronic entity rather than a flesh and blood person?

At what point does something become a who, anyways?

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Dangit. Another friend lost to typos . . .

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the eye of the beholder. Churchill succeeded in anthropomorphizing everything, including the backhoe that was rearranging his lawn.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

OOh! Gratuitous Churchill reference. Sure that shouldn't have been on your list somehow?

[sovay]

What? This journal isn't being kept by a mathematically minded chaise longue? I feel so betrayed . . .

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

You're a mathematically minded chaise lounge? That sounds like an interestingly contemplative life. What's it like? At all like Terry Pratchett's idea of the inner life of Camels?

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

Camel like the animal or Camel like the cigarette?

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

The animal. Pratchett says they're really fabulous mathematicians...

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

You should have figured that out from the Major-General results. Chaise lounges are notorious for their lack of knowledge of cuneiform.

[spectre-general.livejournal.com]

You're a state-level archer? Wow, the things you learn. Teach me to arch!

[kraada.livejournal.com]

I've been waiting four and a half years for her to teach me . . . good luck . . .

[sovay]

Well, I am no longer a state-level archer. I haven't done any archery since my first two years of college: I ran completely out of time. My back tension is probably shot to hell and back. But for seven years, it was a major facet of my life. I still have all my gear. A lot of it is green.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

5) Extemporized hexametrical fanfic in the presence of the author.

9) Recited Akkadian epic at a science fiction and fantasy panel in which I was not scheduled to participate.

::Looks innocently into space, whistling a civil cavatina::

Nine