Snatched this from Jayne:

Using only song titles from one artist, cleverly answer these questions:

1. Are you a male or female: Last Beautiful Girl
2. Describe yourself: You’re So Real
3. How do you feel about yourself: How Far We’ve Come
4. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend: I Can’t Let You Go
5. Describe your current boy/girl situation: All I Need
6. Describe your current location: Real World
7. Describe where you want to be: Rest Stop
8. Your best friends are: Black & White People
9. Your favorite color is: Cold
10. You know that: If You’re Gone
11. What’s the weather like: The Burn
12. What is life to you: Long Day
13. What do you fear: Real World
14. What is the best advice you have to give: Feel
15. If you could change your name, what would it be: Could I Be You

How fun!

mood: unproductive
music: When You’re Around – Motion City Soundtrack

Found this survey in my LJ and updated it…

Copy and paste this into your journal. Bold the books you’ve read, italicize the ones you are working on or might read, and leave the rest visible.

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby – F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – George Orwell
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
1984 – George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons – Dan Brown
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement – Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Dune – Frank Herber

P.S. I found Jayne’s entry that she wrote after I told her that I liked Mark, way back in 2006. It’s a good read, and very perceptive.

mood: lazy
music: Inaudible Melodies – Jack Johnson

These questions are taken from the Livejournal front page that lists a variety of prompts for LJers with writer’s block.

Do you think people deserve second chances?
I think that people deserve second chances and third chances — but not fourth ones. Everyone makes mistakes. But that doesn’t mean that constant mistakes can be forgiven.

When I think about this philosophy, I think of Jayne. I think of the way that she betrayed me and broke my heart and shattered my faith in her over and over again — and the way that I was able to give her another chance. I believe that when someone very important to you does something wrong, the right thing to do is to give them another chance. But this doesn’t mean that you should keep your heart soft. My beliefs have always tended to run in the direction of “Forgive, but never forget.”

Do you behave differently online than you do in real life?
This used to be a very, very strong yes, but nowadays, it’s less so. I used to be much more carefree and willing to speak my mind online than IRL. I think that I was a lot less silly online — not necessarily more serious, but just less…obnoxiously strange, haha. I was definitely much less socially awkward online as well, and I was willing to say my opinion a lot more than I was in person, since I had the time to think about what I wanted to say and debate whether I should or not, whereas in person, the conversation would have already moved on by the time I decided whether or not to share my thoughts, haha.

I think that things are different now, though. Since I’ve become much more comfortable in my public skin (LOL, that sounds creepy and weird), I don’t feel like I act that differently online than in person. It’s a good feeling. No pretenses. No acting awkwardly different in person.

It’s Tax Day in the U.S., a day when the mind might be too occupied with deductions and long lines at the post office to think about poetry. But let’s try: what’s your favorite line of poetry? Song lyrics count.
Favorite line of poetry would be E.E. Cummings’s “i like you better than everything in the sky”. I used to have it in my profile all the time, and Ridtsy used to always make fun of it. It’s where my most commonly used username comes from — but is that because of the quote or is that because of Ridts? That’s irrelevant, I suppose.

If you were to have another name, what would it be?
In middle school, it was Aurora. Then, it became Arralee. Then, it was Adrianna. Then, it was Ariadne. This year, it’s Avaline. Can you tell I like “A” names?

Who (or what) do you consider to be your first love?
Michael, a silly boy who I fell head-over-heels for when I was twelve. I loved him to death. He thought that I was a total freak (okay, fine, he said, “I don’t think you’re a freak” to me, but then later he said “I hate Elaine”, so…), but my friends managed to convince him to dance with me at a school function. It was the best moment of my life until Mark asked me to Winter Formal in Junior year. I will still never forget those three minutes during which the wish I’d carried within me for a year and a half came true. That night still exists within me as a symbol of hope, and of impossible things actually being possible. I was young, but I loved him with all my heart. Strange emotions flood me when I look at his Facebook pictures — not of love or regret, but of nostalgia and an unexplainable feeling of fondness.

mood: procrastinatory
music: Randall Appears – Monsters, Inc.

Because I really, really, really don’t want to start on my LGBT essay…

1. Google ”[your name] needs”:
Elaine needs to spend time undergoing complex treatment

2. Google ”[your name] looks like”:
elaine looks like girls you see

3. Google ”[your name] likes”:
Daddy Elaine likes to add one more slop of gel inside the last condom to go on
…HAHAHAHA WTF

4. Google ”[your name] says”:
shade elaine says “they have sweet feet”

5.Google ‘[your name]‘ wants:
Top Due and Elaine Wants Higher by edhiker

6. Google ”[your name] does”:
Aunt Elaine Does the Dance from Spain

7. Google ”[your name] hates”:
Elaine Hates Jesus
…LOL

8. Google ”[your name] can”:
Elaine can’t keep it together

9. Google ”[your name] goes”:
Elaine goes to attend to him

10. Google ”[your name] is”:
Elaine is Sad

11. Google ”[your name] loves”:
Elaine Loves Spoons and I Love Her

12. Google ”[your name] knows”:
Elaine knows the lake from one end to the other and would love to show it to you

13. Google ”[your name] sees”:
Elaine sees seal

14. Google ”[your name] can’t”:
Elaine can’t figure it out

Found this neat little meme on Facebook and decided to transfer it to my blog:

When you need advice on ____, who do you ask?

Alcohol: Jayne
Cars: Jayne
Directions: Mark
Dogs: Erin
Drugs: Jayne
Electronics: Jayne
Family: Mark
Fashion: Diana, Jessica
Food: Mark
Finance: Mark
Health: Mark
Life: Jayne
Love: Jayne
Movies: Diana
Music: Jayne
Partying: Diana, Jayne, Amanda
Random: Jayne
Relationships: Maggie
Religion: Maggie
School: Mark, Kelly
Sex: Diana
Shopping: Diana, Amanda
Sports: Jayne
Traveling: Kelly

…This exercise makes me very, very grateful to have Jayne, LOL.