8 random things

I have been tagged for a meme by Loth! (Why are you called Loth, by the way? Is it short for something?)

Don't think I've actually ever been tagged by anyone before, although I have answered many "I'm not going to tag anyone but if anybody wants to do it..." memes. I have done this one before on LJ, but I shall try to come up with a different eight.

1. I am very good at wiggling my ears. I can also make rhythmic clicking noises with them at will. This is a medical mystery, but definitely has something to do with childhood ear infections.

2. I am simultaneously very low-maintenance and quite vain. I can never be bothered with any beauty routines that go beyond keeping clean and presentable, hardly ever wear makeup, and spend most of my life in jeans and T-shirts. Yet I have a great many clothes and shoes and quite a lot of makeup, and am rather prone to thinking that I have to own certain items in case I ever need them. And I spend far too much time angsting over my ten grey hairs, even though it's highly unlikely that I would dye them.

3. It's possible that I read too much Victorian literature in my youth, actually, because I have this deep-down feeling that my skin "ought" to be good enough not to need any makeup (and my hair ought to look nice in its natural state, too). I only ever apply this thinking to myself, though. I suppose that I want to look good, but I want people to think it's effortless. In fact, I want it to BE effortless (see above).

4. I am very, very squeamish. I rather despise this tendency, but there's not a thing I can do about it. If someone starts talking about something vaguely surgical, I actually feel sick and weak in the legs and need to sit down. The last time this happened was last week, reading an article in the paper about new ways to treat varicose veins. It wasn't even that graphic.

5. I have a ridiculously good long-term memory, and a terrible short-term one. I will forget a phone number between page and phone, but remember everything anyone ever said to me. ("Your bum looks like it's made of wobbly jelly" - 1992.) I remember the good stuff, too, though, and a lot from my early childhood - the time when I was five, for example, and we were on holiday in Ibiza. It was my first foreign holiday, and one night Mum and Dad took L and me out to a café AFTER DARK, and we had strawberries and whipped cream with sparklers stuck in them, and "cold chocolate" (which I suppose was just chocolate milk, but I remember it as being delicious).

6. I used to seriously dislike my name when I was little. It's not that uncommon in Scotland, but there are a lot of variants which are equally common, and often teachers (and so forth) wouldn't remember it quite right. Which was annoying. These days I don't mind it at all... but then people usually get it right.

7. I am only good at cooking if I'm not hungry, or if someone else has to eat it too. If it's just me, convenience and nutrition will win out over deliciousness every time. (Lunch today was plain cottage cheese and a big handful of sprouted pulses.) On the other hand, I enjoy baking, but then I don't do that when I'm hungry, and no meals rest on the outcome.

8. I always have warm hands. J almost always has very cold hands that need warming up. A match made in heaven.