December 28th, 2007

Parental Likes

501. Chocolate
502. Short stories
503. Fires in fireplaces
504. Sleeping in
505. Rain on the roof
506. The smell of baking bread
507. The Rodin museum
508. Gin martinis

That list is pretty representative of my folks, but it does leave out a few personality facets. For example, the incident which occurred yesterday, wherein my father brought a measuring tape to the grocery store in order to settle a dispute with my mother, touching upon the dimesions of pizza shells. It was resolved amicably.

I have new boots!

Let this be a lesson
RR

December 27th, 2007

Neglected Likes

In honour of the warm after-glow of Christmas, I’m offering a special collections of things I like that, I fear, are not liked by many others. I try to like them extra, to make up for it!

462. Fruitcake
463. Chicken liver
464. Small talk, especially about the weather
465. Waiting rooms
466. Airports
467. Hospitals
468. Sleeping in public
469. Really really long lists

In other news, Christmas was nice. In case you doubted that I could do otherwise, I’ve been writing more or less steadily, but that’s a lot easiser when you don’t have anything else to do besides eat, sleep, read, and go to the amusing local gym, where you NEVER run into people from high school, even though you are totally braced for it. In fact, given the low-demand life I am leading, I’ve accomplished very little, but I do not care because I haven’t had more than one day off since July. I am totally entitled to sleep 10 hours a night and eat as much fruitcake as I can find. Also to watch a *Fraiser* marathon on television for reasons that now escape me, and play copious *Dance Dance Revolution* (OMG–I do not have my *Chicago Manual of Style* with me and I do not know what appropriate citation style for a video game is. Italics? Quotation marks? Something I haven’t even thought of yet, like angle brackets? Oh, the shame!!) My bro borrowed the PlayStation and *Dance Dance* (going with the italics for now) from his girl, and it’s been quite the hilarious entertainment. I fell off my mat, but only once.

Um…I’ve been outdoors. No, really. I went to see AMT for breakfast this am, and she was charming and her t-shirt showed a tiny mouse screaming, “Books rule!” and also she had red leather gloves. I have black leather gloves which are so elegant and grown-uppy, and I adore them and I know not how this meshes with my not eating beef. Cows–too cute to devour, but I’ll wrap my hands in their skin? Well, apparently, at least for now. I’ll get back to you on this.

I *do* like presents. No particular thing, just *stuff* for *me* you know. I think what I like best about gifts, letters, anything in the mail, really, is that it is evidence that someone thought about me when I wasn’t around. Something about the image of a loved one standing in a card shop, glaring at one of those Shoebox-silliness cards, thinking really hard–“Would RR laugh at this?” That just kills me.

I think a lot of thought went into this holiday. I am kilt.

This comes to you courtesy of my new Magnetic Fields’ cd, 69 Love Songs, vol. 2

Epitaph for My Heart

Caution caution caution
To prevent electric shock
Do not do not do not
Remove cover.
No user servicable parts inside
Refer servicing to qualified
Service personel.

RR

December 20th, 2007

Ben Likes

448. Anniversaries
449. Goats
450. Irony
451. Tina Fey
452. Animation for grown-ups
453. Men Behaving Badly
454. Blue
455. Sleeping in
456. Yawning
457. Humphrey Bogart
458. Dance Dance Revolution
459. Cream pies
460. Sunsets
461. People thinking I’m cool

December 19th, 2007

10+

414. Clone High (tv show)
415. Tinsel
416. Lunchtime
417. Accents
418. Chopped liver (really)
419. Green
420. Muppets
421. Stop-motion animation
422. Breakfast cereal
423. Synonyms
424. Defribullators
425. Swimming
426. Spelling yoghurt with an “h”
427. The way French people pronounce “h”
428. Banana chips
429. Christmas specials
430. Plans
431. The guided tour of Alcatraz Island
432. Birds
433. Eating an apple while walking jauntily down the street
434. Sesame Street
435. The difference between raisins and currents, whatever it is

December 18th, 2007

Yay!

404. Eavesdropping
405. Vacation pictures (anyone’s)
406. Short fingernails
407. Prizes
408. Chicken
409. Tegan & Sara
410. Long division
411. Hugs while wearing puffy coats
412. The word “llama”
413. The Chicago Manual of Style

December 15th, 2007

Lauren’s Likes

400. Calico cats
401. Exposed brick walls
402. Jelly feet
403. Date squares

December 14th, 2007

Friday Likings

349. Friends
350. Lists
351. Pudding
352. The Joel Plaskett Emergency
353. Annabel Lyon
354. Annotated PDFs
355. The phrase “carbon footprint”
356. Reducing your carbon footprint
357. Marmalade
358. Song lyrics that encapsulate something you’ve always thought but never said aloud
359. Shiny hair
360. Staple removers
361. Wireless technology
362. Gingerbread
363. Rhymes
364. Futo maki
365. Thoughtfulness
366. Parents
367. Fluffy snow
368. Places where it doesn’t snow
369. Free downloads
370. John Updike
371. Punctuation
372. The “Little House” books
373. Hawkeye Pearce
374. Toblerones

Now, don’t those 25 things make you want to add some of your own?

Happy Friday!

Everytime they look at us / We’ll blow their minds
RR

December 11th, 2007

This Lovely Lovely World

335. People with perfect pitch
336. How veggie wraps are tasty in almost every restaurant–seemingly impossible to screw up
337. Sloan
338. The Killers (band, der)
339. Clean dry sidewalks in winter
340. Crunching leaves or cracking ice (or making wine or bursting paintballs) with your feet
341. Clapping on the beat
342. Biting stuff
343. Canada
344. Microwaves
345. People who contribute to this
(so far: 345 a) Jessica
b) David
c) Jane
d) Kerry
e) Penny
f) Ian
g) Scott
h) Felicia
i) Fred
j) Kevin
346. Things that are better than you’d expect
347. Riding in cars
348. Harmonicas

I like you

I hope you’ve seen the wealth of wonderfulness hiding in the comments on previous posts. To add to the joy, I’ve been polling a wide range of friends and acquaintances. Liking stuff is a pretty fun game to play with people you don’t know well, because everybody does like stuff!!

325. turkey help-lines
326. Christmas cards
327. first-edition hardcovers
328. reading copies
329. giving books away
330. lattice (waffle) fries
331. paintball
332. roasted red peppers
333. lasers
334. families

So much more to come!

December 6th, 2007

More

281 Wintersleep’s “Weighty Ghost”
282 Streaming
283 Days of rest
284 Christmas cards