Sunshine Award

Hi, everybody!

“Hi, Dr. Nick!”

Since I ran out of backlog outfits to post, now seems like as good a time as any to mention that Gracey–awesome, fantastic Gracey–nominated both Tia and me for the Sunshine Award last week! Who better to brighten up our days, I ask you?

Now, I can’t speak for Tia, but I am hellz-yeah down to boogie. Let’s get started!

The rules for the award are:

1. Include the award logo in a post and/or on your blog sidebar.
2. Link to the blogger who nominated you.
3. Answer 10 questions about yourself.
4. Nominate 10 other fabulous bloggers and ask them 10 questions.
5. Link to your nominees in your post and let them know about the reward.

Here are Gracey’s questions:

1. Tea or coffee?

Oh, definitely tea. I have a hard time handing the caffeine levels of coffee, because I am a dork, and although I do find coffee delicious, tea wins out most of the time. Plus, there are so many varieties! Varie-TEAS, you might say hahahahahahahahaaaaaaa I’ll show myself out.

2. What would the name of your autobiography be?

If Tia had her say, it would probably be I’m Clever!: The Mia Story. Nothing can really top the autobio title one of my internet friends came up with years ago, though: Hot Buttered Nazis.

3. Reality TV; guilty pleasure or sheer idiocy?

It’s a pleasure, but I’m not really guilty about it. High art, low art, whatever–let’s watch those toddlers win some tiaras.

4. Favorite James Bond actor?

I’ve had a soft spot for Roger Moore ever since I was a kid. I guess I favored funny Bond over slick or sexy Bond! Not much has changed.

5. Ocean or mountains?

Instead of answering the question, I’ll just submit this picture from our weekend trip to Irvine and let it speak for itself:

(Oh, okay, you know I can’t let anything speak for itself. Yes, that is me on the left, laughing and doing a terrible job of keeping my maxi dress from getting ocean-soaked; on the right is my lovely friend Leah, who is currently going to grad school down there and who was making up for missing her clowning class by doing public clowning at the beach. She chased seagulls and gave me a seaweed necklace! Also, I will remind you that I am 5’7″, so you can imagine how tall Leah is. Tito took the picture because she is a dear. Yeah, I love the ocean.)

6. Favorite author?

Oh, dude, don’t make me choose just one. I’m going to give you a selection and you are going to like it. Favorite short-storyist: Etgar Keret. Favorite science-fictionist: Kage Baker. Favorite semi-autobiographer: James Herriot. BOOM.

7. Thanksgiving pie; pumpkin, pecan or something else?

Pumpkin, although lately I’ve found myself growing pickier about pumpkin pie in general. A couple of years ago I tried making a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving, but it was…underwhelming. Maybe one of these days I’ll have the good sense to give up on baking…

8. What are your thoughts on techno music?

I enjoy it! Here are a few techno/electronica (or techno/electronica-influenced) artists I like in particular:

9. What is the last movie you saw in a theater?

Looper,  which I enjoyed despite Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s unsettling facial prostheses. I don’t see nearly as many movies in theatres as I used to (mostly with Jessica and her family), but I don’t mind it–I really prefer watching movies at home, because I am an incorrigible fidgeter and like to get up and putter around the house every twenty minutes or so.

10. And, finally, because Halloween is tomorrow was last week, what is your favorite scary movie?

Ooh, good question. Are we talking straight-up horror, or what? I’m not too good with regular horror movies, but I’m a big fan of psychological thrillers like Hitchcock movies (I grew up with them–Rear Window is my favorite) and the anime film Perfect Blue. The Bad Seed is another good one that I grew up with (which–Mom, what?!). Oh! And I did really enjoy the horror anime series Higurashi no Naku Koro ni when I watched it in college; the first story arc is sort of delightfully horrifying in particular. Normally I don’t much like gore and scares, though! Weird and creepy, yes–awful and painful, no.

Here are my questions:

1. Are you left- or right-handed? (Or ambidextrous?)
2. What was the last thing you drew or doodled?
3. What’s the best present you ever received?
4. What’s the best present you ever gave?
5. What words do you have difficulty spelling no matter how many times you look them up?
6. When you’re putting on shoes and socks, do you do sock-shoe-sock-shoe or sock-sock-shoe-shoe?
7. Did your parents make things up about the world when you were a kid? What’s the best/worst thing they told you? (My dad told me there was whale blubber in ice cream. I told everyone.)
8. What’s your favorite punctuation mark?
9. What’s your favorite single-use kitchen implement (or other single-use household implement, if you don’t spend much time in the kitchen)?
10. What’s your favorite “unsolved event,” mysterious creature/person, or otherwise creepy weird thing that hasn’t been figured out by modern man? (I find the Dyatlov Pass incident fascinating.)

And here are the nominees (and hey, if you don’t feel like doing it, don’t do it! I know memes aren’t everybody’s cup o’ internet):

Alex of Delayed Missives
Laura of Ruby Bastille
D of Smile Texy Smile
Eleanor of The Magic Square Foundation
Evelyn of Evelyn’s Sewing Projects
Erin of RubenesqueSmoothie
Summer of The Raven and the Finch
Michael Spookshow of His Black Dress
Claire of My Illustrative Life
Rachel at Darling Autodidact

Thanks to you all for bringing sunshine into my life! I gotta go find my sunglasses.