To hear something other than our own hearts

Still aten't sleeping. Because yhlee asked me some questions:

1. What's the first myth you remember reading/being told?

Oh, God. That's actually a difficult question. From about the age of three, I read everything that wasn't nailed down and several things that were, so I have a lot of trouble identifying first contact with a lot mythic or folkloric motifs unless I can tie them to specific books or movies, and even then I'm often still not sure about when. I cannot remember ever not knowing the Greek myths, for example; I've been trying to figure out for years when in elementary school I was reading the book of Aztec myth/history that used "bitch" quite casually to mean a female dog (and therefore wrecked my ability to parse certain kinds of profanity until I was in high school). If anyone remembers the year of the Ramses II exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts [edit: 1988 and it was the Boston Museum of Science, saith my mother], it's a good bet that I became aware of the Egyptian pantheon around then, but the gods I remember learning are Khnum and Nut, not Anubis and Bastet. I got year-kings simultaneously from Peter Dickinson's Merlin Dreams (1988) and a book of collected world mythologies which included Tezcatlipoca. I wish I knew when my elementary school staged its student version of Gilgamesh. Let's just go with the Norse myths, because those have an identifiable start point: second grade, I discovered the D'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants (1967) in the Atrium library and kept not returning it.

It's not a myth, but I learned "The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry" from my mother, who sang it to me as a lullaby. I don't know when I learned about mermaids, either.

2. What is your favorite dessert on an autumn evening?
(I don't know if they actually have autumn where I am now . . . I suspect not. I will live vicariously!)

I am one of those people who eat ice cream in the dead of winter, so I don't really have seasonal desserts except for things like Fourth of July strawberry ice cream or flaming plum pudding at Christmas; but I really like baked apples or apple pies, with a lot of true cinnamon and currants or cherries thrown in, and in this hemisphere it's easiest to get hold of apples in the fall.

3. What bird reminds you most of home?

One that I'll never lack for, I think; I used to get woken up by argumentative crows.

4. When you listen to music, what's the first thing you notice?
("It depends" is totally valid!)

If it has lyrics, whether it makes a story for me. This is not the same thing as a narrative. If it's purely instrumental, whether it's three-dimensional. This is not the same thing as a classical structure. Otherwise it's just a sort of sonic skim and won't particularly register. Also, of course, whether I think the musicians are any good. Periodically I run into a piece with a terrific concept and the execution just makes me want to remove my ears.

5. Rain or snow?

Snow. Winter is my second favorite season. Perhaps inevitably, it is raining right now.

If you would like five questions of your own, comment!