#quizthing

I was tagged by @amoebagrrrl to post 10 pictures I have previously downloaded.

A Flock of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away) Japan - Fall in Love With Me Blitz - Telecommunication Slapp Happy - Charlie n Charlie Daniele Luppi & Parquet Courts - Memphis Blues Again Momus - Hairstyle of the Devil FFS - Johnny Delusional Autechre - 444 Devo - Gut Feeling Dirty Beaches - Lord Knows Best

Favourite color: Trendy greige 

Lipstick or chapstick: Depends on the context. I don't like wearing lipstick if anyone can tell that I am

Three favorite foods: Olives, figs and very dense cinnamon rolls

Last song I listened to: Duke by Cate le Bon on shuffle

Last movie I watched: Sliding Doors (there was a reason...)

Top three shows: Dekalog, Noggin the Nog, Just a Minute 

Book I’m currently reading: Between modules innit

Last thing I googled: visability guidelines for app text

Height: 5 foot 6/7?

Time: 12:45

Song stuck in my head: Hidden in Snow by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross has been wedged in there for about a week

Current clothing: Grey dress, black merino wool jumper and black doc martens 

Number of blankets I use: One electric and one crocheted.

Dream trip: One day, I’d like to do Wainwright’s ‘Coast to Coast’, but really I just want to visit @amoebagrrrl in Glasgow before this year is out. 

1) Have you ever been moved to tears by a painting / sculpture / work of art? What was it? Not memorably, certainly have been captivated and sometimes saddened but I think only music, films and books have provoked tears, to date. Perhaps I have cried after coming home from an art gallery, but I often do that at the end of a busy day of being out anyway.

2) When was the last time you were so engrossed in a book you disregarded something IRL, such as missing a stop on your train? (Bonus, do you remember what was the scene in the book?) Specific memories are murky - although I know it has happened. I think I missed one stop on the tube when I was working near Piccadilly and reading a collection of Anna Kavan stories. As a kid I would stay awake too late reading with a torch under the bedclothes. 

3) What film would you most love to live inside? (This refers to costumes, set, locations, time period, characters - but you do not have to be constrained by the film’s exact plot.) I like the concept - and the distinction. Thinking about this, the films I’ve been most impressed by and found enjoyable are definitely not ones I’d want to exist inside of. I suppose ‘La Belle Vert’ since the colonised planet was kind of Utopian, if a little bit creepy.

4) Architecture - you are allowed to live for one year in any building designed by any architect (it will be made habitable for you, and bills and furnishings will be taken care of.) What building (existing or existed) and/or what architect to design a ~dream building~? Oh, this is a good one! I’ve always said that the Canterbury city cemetery should let Roger & me live in the chapel (John Green Hall was the architect) because we spend so much time lurking there at night as students. 

5) What’s your favourite museum in the world? I guess this would have to be Sciworks in Winston Salem since the wonder of the small child is so potent that this was the place I first experienced lots of things for the first time - particularly the planetarium where I’m told I amused the whole room by saying “ooh, stars!” as a very young one. Other than that there was an animatronic dinosaur, a giant plastic mouth, harmonograph, zoetrope and geode that I remember well. Again, not the grandest but fond memories.

6) An eccentric billionaire has made a bequest: upon your death, a small plaque and a moderate grant will be given to the individual museum, gallery or performing arts venue that has made the most positive impact on your creative life. Where will your plaque go? I don’t know what place has most influenced my own creativity - probably my school, various pubs, friends’ houses and libraries since it’s daily experience that prompts such things for me, rather than other peoples’ work and so on. Going to National Trust & English Heritage places with my family growing up made me appreciate quality in crafts. Living history and re-enactment prompted an interest in authenticity and making things from scratch in traditional ways. I’d be happy if a donation was made to The Union Chapel since I have only ever had moving and memorable experiences there and that definitely contributes to creativity holistically. 

7) Were you taught to play any instruments while you were growing up? (It doesn’t matter if you can play them now.) If you could go back and arrange lessons for your child self, what instrument would you have played? I pestered my parents to let me learn the trumpet during primary school and was supposed to take the grade 2 exams but the teacher kept saying he’d forgotten to arrange it. My parents told me I wouldn’t have time to keep learning when I started secondary school and that was that. They have since apologised and I’ve accepted that I don’t have aptitudes for understanding how to play music so would probably focus my attention elsewhere instead.

8) Do you do any crafts? Knitting, sewing, whittling, metalwork, beading, photography, printmaking, anything you can make yourself? I’m no good at knitting but do cross-stitch & blackwork embroidery. Have dabbled with spinning and intend to do more when my course finishes. A bit of whittling, a bit of weaving. I love print making but don’t do it enough - I have lino blocks and a silkscreen but not really the space. Some scribbly sketches and comic cartoons, some collage, marbling, embossing, making soap & candles. The best things I’ve done have mainly been textile-based. I’ve made dresses and jackets, though with the guidance of teachers at the time. I’d like to get a decent sewing machine and get back into that. Taking pictures is also a creative thing, I suppose, but the process feels very different - more like writing a letter than making a print or something. Perhaps it’s the process more than the end result with some things. 

9) Dance lessons (ballet, tap, contemporary, salsa, it’s all good!) Yes / No / Was Forced But Hated It / Always Wanted To But Wasn’t Allowed? We had to do dance at (all girls) secondary school. We wore leotards and had a formidable German teacher who would stand at the front of the hall and screech “doubletime girls, faster! faster!” during the aerobics warm-up. I shudder at the memories. Went to a couple of salsa classes with some friends when we were 18ish but the men were so creepy I couldn’t face continuing. My co-ordination and bodily awareness is fairly lacking so I wouldn’t attempt dancing, other than ceilidhs which I enjoy with a kind of invigorating fear.

Rules: answer these 10 questions & tag 10 blogs

Last movie you watched: Four in the Morning

Last song you listened to: A Parents Address to His Firstborn Son on the Day of His Birth - Richard Dawson

Last show you watched: Not sure - episode of Twin Peaks?

Last book you read: Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz

Last thing you ate: Oatcakes

If you could be anywhere right now, where would it be? Northumbria University Library.

When would you time travel to? Such a trite answer, but Manchester Free Trade Hall on 4th June 1976. 

First thing you would do with lottery money: I can’t think of a sensible answer, or even a good fun one. Invest it ethically and buy a pineapple.

Character you would hang out with for a day: Arthur Dent (actually, can I change that to Ford Prefect?)

Time right now: 11:11

LAST.. - drink: water-cooler-water - text message: my Fairphone has been fixed & delivered to a stationery shop to be collected  - song you listened to: Robyn Hitchcock - Up to Our Nex - time you cried: between 10.30pm last night and 1.30am this morning

HAVE YOU EVER.. - dated someone: vaguely - been cheated on: ish (they were noncommittal about our being ‘in a relationship’) - lost someone special: yes - been depressed: yes - been drunk and thrown up: once

IN THE PAST YEAR, HAVE YOU.. - made a new friend: yes - fallen out of love: no - laughed until you cried: yes - met someone who changed you: a bit - found out who your true friends are: yep, in nice and less nice ways - found out someone was talking about you: they were worried not gossipy? - lost glasses or contacts: no - broken someone’s heart: a bit I think - been arrested: no - turned someone down: yeah - cried when someone died: yes - fallen for a friend: continued to 

GENERAL.. - how many people on tumblr do you know irl: a fair few people who I know are on Tumblr and I know a handful of people from Tumblr - any pets: My parents have a goldfish called Eustace (Claude died) - do you want to change your name: not particularly, unless I got married in which case I quite like the idea of taking the other person’s name, oddly - what time did you wake up today: 7ish - what did you do last night: finished my first assignment and had a difficult phone conversation with my boyfriend into the early hours. - something you cannot wait for: (imminently) coffee, in the longer run though, starting counselling & talking to/seeing my friends again - have you ever talked to a person named Tom: used to live with one - what is getting on your nerves rn: nerve pain - blood-type: AH+ - nickname(s): various old ones, Henfield, Hen, Little Red (hilarious Dad joke) and a few soppy ones - relationship status: attached, at a distance, and in turmoil about my feelings for a close friend - zodiac sign: Gemini - favorite tv shows: I don’t really watch television. Watching Twin Peaks atm?  - hair color: reddish brownish - do you have a crush on someone irl: could call it that - what do you like most about yourself: ...I mean well, I think. - tattoos: narp - righty or lefty: righty

FIRST.. - surgery: dental surgery in the US, aged about 6. I remember it quite clearly. - piercing: ears. I had to wait until I was 16 (my Mum thought earrings were “common”) - best friend: a kid called Peter who was my Mum’s friend’s son - sport you joined: I was briefly in the rounders team at secondary school - vacation: Ocracoke, barrier island, North Carolina. - pair of sneakers: they were white, and came from a shop on the same industrial park as the opticians, that’s all I recall

RIGHT NOW.. - eating: nowt - drinking: room temperature water cooler water - about to: wade into a messy shared inbox & do some basic cataloguing - listening to: Robyn Hitchcock  - waiting for: pain to settle down, to go and buy an overpriced coffee and all the nice, expensive things I’ve ordered online to cheer myself up lately to arrive.

DO YOU WANT.. - kids: assertively uncertain.  - to get married: if it made sense to do so. Not sure I’m the sort for that but it’s what my boyfriend wants so trying to get my head around the concept - career: yep. Relatively healthy angst-outlet which pays. Not had a better idea yet.

WHICH IS BETTER.. - lips or eyes: I thought this meant which would you have if you could only possess one. Eyes, in any case. - taller or shorter: irrelevant  - older or younger: as above - romantic or spontaneous: are those opposites? Dependable please.

DO YOU BELIEVE.. - in yourself: Some days I’m not sure I even exist [2] - in miracles: No [2] - love at first sight: probability has it that things sometimes work out so that it appears that way. - heaven: As a concept, yes, as a physical reality, no.[2] - santa: It’s Father Christmas in this country, thank you. And no. [2]