I bought a ton a flowers...

[scribblemyname]

Memed from likeadeuce:

• Comment with "I got drunk and bought a ton of flowers"
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can get to know you better.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions. (If you want. Totally optional.)

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Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[lithiumlaughter.livejournal.com]

This is always wading into dangerous territory, and yet here I am. ;)

I drank too much coffee and bought a ton of flowers.

[scribblemyname]

1. How did you get started on your lifelong love of coffee and do you ever forsee any of the shine rubbing off that relationship?

2. What kind of poetry moves you, resonates well, or do you especially love? Do you have any special soft spots, dislikes or preferences?

3. Do you have any pets, want any pets, or have you considered adding any to your life? Why or why not?

4. How is your favorite way of whiling away a few spare hours?

5. What book besides the Bible has had the strongest influence on your life beliefs and in what way?

Response, Part 1

[lithiumlaughter.livejournal.com]

1) My French grandmother always served us proper French breakfasts whenever we spent the night. In case you don't know, this involves a cup of hot chocolate. Always. Pastries, maybe eggs, but always a cup of hot chocolate. It was simply how it was done.
Then there was a place called the Globe in the town I was raised in. My biological dad thought it was awesome, and took me and my siblings there every once in a while. We weren't really the right crowd -- I was ten, and my siblings younger. It was a coffee place/pool hall. I developed a taste for flavoured steamed milk, and a fondness for the darkly lit, fascinating place that felt so grown up to me. I mean, all the adults there! Drinking fancy coffees! Shooting pool!
This fancy steamed milk led to slightly milky tea at my other grandmother's. Then straight up tea.
Then, when I was eighteen, I ended up trundling upstairs on a weekend to find my mum flipping through the newspaper with a cuppa. I ended up just grabbing a mug, poured myself some, and it was history from there. It tasted right, it felt right, and so I never saw a point to breaking the habit.
As to a shine rubbing off it? Most likely not. The two of us are pretty comfortable: two cups a day, maybe three on the weekend. It's a comfort thing. And I can do without it -- I did it in Quebec, where my Mom and Dad there didn't drink coffee, so I made ridiculously strong breakfast teas instead. Still. Coffee and mornings are a little bit synonymous for me. I think it's a comfort thing, really. A nice hot cup of coffee to start the day.
So, coffee. Unless ulcers or some such become an issue. Then we may have to talk about cutting down or cutting it out.

2)If it can rip my heart out and make me try and grasp it back -- or maybe even try to push it further in to the hands that are holding it -- whether it be through the entire thing (The entirety of "Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out"), or through just one line ("If the ropes binding your soul are your own wrists, I will cut them." - "The Promise", by Sharon Olds), then you've got me.
"Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out" had me bawling the first time I read it through. (You want a better story. Who wouldn’t??...God, I could just go on and on quoting that poem) I adore imagery, don't get me wrong, but I'm a sucker for the visceral emotional reaction. Hit me where it hurts. Hit me in that soft spot just under my ribcage with the slow knife, and I'm yours.
As to poetry that bothers me? The really horrible angsty poetry I wrote when I was in high school. There's a notebook of it somewhere that I'm not sure if I should keep, or burn.

Response, Part 2

[lithiumlaughter.livejournal.com]

3)I had two dogs. Sasha and Jett. Mongrels, the both of them, but sweethearts. They're technically my parents' pets, but I suppose that counts.
As to adding one to my life? I've thought about it. I live alone, so having a pet to talk to would probably come across as far more sane than me talking to my appliances...occasionally in French. A dog would be a nice companion. A cat might even fit the bill. Hell, a cat would probably do very well in my small apartment. Thing is, I'm still working on figuring out how to take care of myself some days. Not sure I'd be doing a pet any favours by bringing it in to my life at this point. I'm not ruling it out though.
A goldfish? Maybe? ;)

4)The obvious answer of a book with a cup of tea, or a or a movie with a cup of tea, is probably one you'll have assumed by this point.
I do, however, enjoy plugging in to my iPod, and dancing. The apartment dwellers around me probably wouldn't much like it if I cranked it on the stereo, so the iPod is the safer bet. When I'm somewhere else on my own, I blare it, and dance. If this is gentle swaying to soft stuff, head banging to the harder stuff, or bouncing around and lip-syncing to bad pop music, it doesn't matter. Music. Dancing. Potentially with my broom as I tidy things up. If people could see in to my place, they'd more likely than not think I was mad.
I've been known to listen to classic radio plays as well. My friend Red burned me a bunch of CDs chock full of 1940s radio plays that are wonderful to listen to some days.
Then, there's writing. I have so many bits and pieces of all kinds of things that I don't know where to go with. I know characters, I know a couple locations, and I know a few brief plot points, but nothing that coalesces in to something greater than the sum of parts. Frustrating, but a fact.
I've also taken to watching Canucks games on a regular basis. It's an exercise in masochism. I do text my brother while I do so, as he watches the games too, so there's that.

5) Tricky one. And here, I think, is where I might get a little controversial.
I'm going to assume you're talking about religious beliefs. I think the answer would have to be 'Love Wins' by Rob Bell. I read it once, and I think that it's not so much what the book had to say (I certainly don't take the book as gospel truth at all, and I don't think Bell has a total bead on the truth) as what it got me thinking about.
I'd always struggled with the concept of hell. Always. The majority of my friends are non-believers, and yet sterling people. I get not being welcomed in to heaven, but sentenced to eternal torment? They may not be candidates for heaven, but there's no way they deserve to burn in hell. Bell's book got me thinking about that a little more closely. He pointed to stories of so-called 'Christians' doing horrid things: the one that stuck out in my mind was one where a man (I believe her father, or her step-father) raped a girl while reciting psalms or singing hymns. So, that guy gets heaven because he's a Christian. Ghandi, however, by virtue of not being a Christian, gets hell? None of this ever sat right with me. The book brought this to the forefront of my mind and got me thinking.
It led me to considering (hoping for?) a more Dante-like vision of hell. The idea that my friends would be lumped in with rapists, killers, and so on and so forth simply doesn't fully compute. That there's a place for virtuous non-believers that doesn't put them in the same category as say, Jeffrey Dahmer or Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo seems right to me.
Of course, it's not my place and it's past my understanding. I still wrestle with the concept of hell. I pray a lot about it. I wonder a lot about it. I'm still trying to figure it out. What Bell's book did was give me a major kick in the pants that forced me to move from just thinking about the ideas to directly confronting them. Does that make sense?

Re: Response, Part 1

[scribblemyname]

First off, I love your French grandmother and the comfort food of coffee. (I'm finding coffee popping up all over my stories right now.) Each day, I drink three hot cups of tea (they must be hot), one for the health benefits (it's always yerba maté sweetened with stevia), one in the middle of the day to warm up, and an evening cup because it seems to end me right.

And then, this. Litany. You have hooked me. I love it. It makes my fingers itch for poetry again. Oh, I love it, I love it, and I'm finding that the poems I write that I love the best are not so much visceral, but they do what that poem did for me—open up my insides. I can't even describe what that poem did when I read it, but I love it. Thank you for sharing it.

Re: Response, Part 2

[scribblemyname]

live alone, so having a pet to talk to would probably come across as far more sane than me talking to my appliances...occasionally in French.

I just have to say I love you for this. Really.

Books, tea, dancing, music, writing. Now, I know why we get along so well. You and me are two of a kind. :hugs:

And yes, that makes total sense. The books that moved me most and influenced the way I believed weren't things I inhaled and took in at face value. They catalysed me. (And let's just say in short, I've never subscribed to that version of heaven/hell. Heaven is within, peoples. :end rant: ) Mister God, This is Anna was about a six year old girl, and I can't say she had it all right, but Lordy, she opened up my mind and got me thinking outside of boxes. I think that's the way the best books are. They let us inside their questions and their grappling with angels and heavens and make us ask our own.

Thank you so much for sharing. I loved reading these.