I have now been tagged for the "25 random things" meme about ten times, so I suppose I should actually pony up and generate a list.  Many of you should recognize some or all of these, but people who are newer to cat.net in general won't know all of them.  For extra bonuses, I'll link to some entries.

I hate the concept of 'bucket lists.'  Life is so fragile and short, and I think I'd rather put thought and energy into experiencing life instead of just checking things off a list that ends with "and now that you're done, hurl yourself off of a cliff."

Thus the 'life list' at http://domesticat.net/todo which a few of you have seen so far. Not things to check off, but experiences I want, accomplishments I'm seeking, skills I'm willing to learn.

I saw an email this morning from The Flying Monkey, the local arts center; an artist in residence there (Susan Knecht) is offering glass-blowing classes in the spring.  I thought about it for a little while and then decided to sign up.  2008 was marked by my discovering that quilting Wasn't That Hard™, and I thought, why not?

I'm taking a cue from Geof and Brad, and posting a list of my 2008 music in review. ObNote, of course, is that my account on last.fm made it incredibly easy to compile this list. This December marks four years of tracking my listening habits through their software, and it's been a fascinating exercise.

My last.fm profile: last.fm/user/domesticat

First, the broadest strokes of all: the artists, which I suspect will correspond closely with the albums:

We are going to New York.

Jeff and I don't 'vacation' together often. He has the same love for quiet days at home that I do of plopping myself in a new city and learning it by wearing out the soles of my feet. The typical end result (which you will see in December) is of me packing a small bag and Jeff dropping me off to catch a plane heading off to parts unknown.

(...and I don't even like to fly!)

Stolen from Stephen and Misty.

Misty: "These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. I’ve bolded what I’ve read and italicized what I started but couldn’t finish..."

49 read, 2 in progress, 2 instances of sheer loathing:

1984
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys

In life, there is a continuum between money and time. Most people, in order to make the amount of money they want to have in their lives, must sacrifice time. Those who want lots of time must give up money.

Money's good.
No time for writing.

Things like this are what happens when I'm off from work on a sick day, sitting on the couch with the following things:

• laptop
• cat(s)
• tea
• blanket
• chocolate

I generally don't do memes, because most of them, frankly, stink—they're clearly the twenty-minute creations of some teenage kid who drew up the 'What Is Yuor Luv Style LOL LOL' quiz during study hall. This, however, has funnier questions than most, and the results just cracked me up.

Someone asked me recently to define what I do for dragon*con tech staff. I thought about a lot of answers, all of which encompassed part of the job, but eventually I hit on a word that I think nails the entire thing in one: "logistics."

My job is to know tech staff, inside and out, from the moment they sign up. Their biographical and geographical info goes in the database, but the rest goes inside my head. What are they like? Who do they work well with? Who brought them on staff? What skills do they have? What other departments do they like to work with?

[me resting at the top of Licklog Mountain (peak #2 of the day)]

From wikipedia:

• Class 1: Hiking.
• Class 2: Simple scrambling, with possible occasional use of the hands.
• Class 3: Scrambling, a rope can be carried but is usually not required.
• Class 4: Simple climbing, with exposure. A rope is often used. Natural protection can be easily found. Falls may well be fatal.
• Class 5: Technical free climbing. Climbing involves rope, belaying, and other protection hardware for safety.

I asked myself on the way home: would I have done this if I had known what I know now?

Yes, yes, absolutely yes.

I give up. I've been lectured one too many times. While I don't do many gift exchanges with friends at Christmastime, there are a few friends with whom gifting does occur, and I keep hearing through the grapevine that I am The Impossible Friend to buy for.