medyani inquired about becoming more myself, being difficult, illegal cheese, speculative fiction, and touch:becoming more myself:
In a lot of ways, all of the changes I've undergone and undertaken in the last 5 years have brought me to a very different place than where I started, but the best way I can describe it is that I'm more myself than I was before, and it's great. I figure this, like evolution, is a process without a pinnacle, and it's a hell of a lot of fun, so I'm going to try to keep doing it.
being difficult:
On a totally mundane level, what this means is that I like being a smartass. I like giving my friends a hard time in a playful way and generally being difficult. There's a more substantial piece to being difficult, though, that I'm having a hard time figuring out how to articulate. It ties into another of my interests -- confounding expectations -- but it's also orthogonal to that. I'll have to give this a bit more thought and see if I can't come up with a more satisfying description of what I mean.
illegal cheese:
There's this stupid law against cheese made with unpasteurized milk and aged less than 60 days. But some of the very yummiest cheeses fall into that category! I especially love the bloomy rinded stuff that's all runny and stinky and mmmmm.
speculative fiction:
Speculative fiction is full of interesting experimental ideas about "what if society were different in this way or that?" which I find really fascinating, fun and engaging. As a genre, it does what my favorite science fiction does without spending too much time inventing crazy physics or needing to set the story on a spaceship or in an interconnected universe. Standouts: Slow River by Nicola Griffith, Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress.
touch:
I, like most people, I think, am pretty possessive about my body; I don't like touch from people who aren't pre-approved for whatever sort of touching they're doing. But I think that we, as a society, don't touch enough, and I really like when I'm in settings where friendly, affectionate touch can be part of the interaction. I like touching the people I like and love, whether a casual hand on the shoulder or arm or back, a friendly tangling of feet during a rambling chat, or a more sustained hug, lean or snuggle.
