silly letter memes are fun!
May. 18th, 2006 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kraitA while ago, when the letter meme was going around, I was assigned two letters; the first was X, given to me by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tzigane, so I give you...
The Letter X
1. X-Files, the: This show will always be a bit special, because in many ways it was my first fandom. Fanfiction and online interaction were still unknown to me, but my best friend loved it too, and we would call each other or babble about it the next time we got together. In addition, David Duchovny was the first in a what has proved a trend toward older men; at the time, he was 33 -- exactly two decades my senior. :D
2. Xena, Warrior Princess: Not a fandom; in fact, I've never seen it. However, I distinctly remember that Xena/Lucy Lawless was the most gorgeous woman I'd ever seen when I ran across her in a magazine, or something. I desperately wanted to be tall, blue-eyed, and black-haired for years after that. She wasn't quite a girlcrush, since there was so much "want to be her," but it was close, and indeed if I'd been a little older, she might be. (I was 22 before I ever had a girlcrush. I'm obviously too straight for my own good.)
3. Xanadu: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alph, the sacred river, ran, through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea! One of my favourite poems EVER. I have the entire thing memorised, and it has a special resonance because it's referred to, briefly, in a series of books I adore; "his flashing eyes, his floating hair" will always conjure up images of elves for me now.
4. .xxx domain: I may be too understanding for my own good, but one of the rare times the Religious Right has made absolutely NO sense to me was the brief furore over the .xxx domain. Some right-wing leader was violently opposed to it because "it legitimised the pornography industry" or some such. I only narrowly refrained from sending off a baffled email, because that's the complete opposite of how I perceived it: allowing pornography to use the same .com domain as regular businesses, "the" domain name, with the greatest recognition factor and instinctive respectability, seems to me about as legitimate as it gets! Much more accepting than shunting it off into its own .xxx ghetto, which incidentally would ALSO make it easier for filtering software to block it from your precious children. Reading that article was the first time I have ever actually found a use for the word "bzuh?"
5. Xenophilia: If there's a word to describe me, that's it! I am in love with all things alien, foreign, strange; I'm a bit nomadic at heart, and I want to travel the world before I die. I don't doubt it's the driving impetus behind my love of fantasy and science fiction. As any D&D manual will tell you, though, every trait has its negative aspects; in my case, the tendency to favour the new or the unusual simply because it's unusual, and to play devil's advocate in any discussion simply because bucking the trend is instinctive.
6. Xenophon: As a child I was mad about horses; I still am, though at least I don't wear out the knees of my jeans so quickly. :D I learned everything I could about them, and Xenaphon (who developed the school of training that is now called dressage, which includes the maneuvres performed by the world-famous "dancing horses", the Lipizzaners) may be a sign of my madness. How many other eight-year-olds do you know who could discuss Greek war horse training? :D
7. Xylophones: Another "bzuh?" inducing moment. I am the kind of person who likes reading product recalls because I find the various ways in which people off themselves to be both funny and pathetic. I'll never forget the moment of utter disbelief and mockery that followed upon learning that toy xylophones are no longer allowed to have mallets... lest children poke the stick end down their throats and choke to death. Yes, you read that right. It's the same reason pull toys (staples of childhood since AT LEAST the Dark Ages!) can no longer have strings longer than 21 inches-- lest they wrap it around their necks and strangle themselves. I can't imagine how we keep the population going, if children are actually that fragile.
8. Xavier: You expect me to say something about the X-Men, don't you? :D Sorry to disappoint, but "Xavier" to me will always be the scrawl on the bum of my Cabbage Patch doll. Her name was Margaret, I believe. I'm not one of those childfree women who hated dolls even as a child, but it took me many years to realise there might just be an indicator in my doll relations after all. What I remember is lining up all my "babies" around the living room floor and telling my mother all their names; it took me years to realise that I never distinguished between Margaret and My Little Pony. Human or animal, they were all my "babies" and I expected my parents to know each of their names. (My poor mother!) Now, of course, I much prefer animal babies to human, and dogs are as far as I'm ever going to go toward motherhood.
9. X-Acto Knife: I need one of these! My last one broke, and they're just so useful. I do a thousand and one crafty sorts of things, from making dreamcatchers to beadwork to custom painting model horses, and X-Acto knives are one of the most useful things EVER. I'm not a safe person to have around blades, though; I've wounded myself countless times with needles, knives, scissors, even dissection tweezers! Nonetheless a good X-Acto is high on the list of things to do with my paycheck, when I get a paycheck.
10. Xanthochromatism: Genetics, and particularly genetic abnormalities, fascinate me. I'm particularly smitten by trisomies (did you know there are only three autosomal trisomies that are viable?), but colour aberrations and other freaks of nature (I have an entire site full of photos of various sideshow oddities bookmarked) are also high on the list of ways to entertain me. Xanthochromatism is the nice technical name for something with excessive amounts of yellow pigment, and/or a reduction in black pigment. Erythristic refers to things with extra red, melanistic to those with too much black, and leucistic to those with insufficient pigment; I'm sure you're already aware of albinism.
tzigane, so I give you...The Letter X
1. X-Files, the: This show will always be a bit special, because in many ways it was my first fandom. Fanfiction and online interaction were still unknown to me, but my best friend loved it too, and we would call each other or babble about it the next time we got together. In addition, David Duchovny was the first in a what has proved a trend toward older men; at the time, he was 33 -- exactly two decades my senior. :D
2. Xena, Warrior Princess: Not a fandom; in fact, I've never seen it. However, I distinctly remember that Xena/Lucy Lawless was the most gorgeous woman I'd ever seen when I ran across her in a magazine, or something. I desperately wanted to be tall, blue-eyed, and black-haired for years after that. She wasn't quite a girlcrush, since there was so much "want to be her," but it was close, and indeed if I'd been a little older, she might be. (I was 22 before I ever had a girlcrush. I'm obviously too straight for my own good.)
3. Xanadu: In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alph, the sacred river, ran, through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea! One of my favourite poems EVER. I have the entire thing memorised, and it has a special resonance because it's referred to, briefly, in a series of books I adore; "his flashing eyes, his floating hair" will always conjure up images of elves for me now.
4. .xxx domain: I may be too understanding for my own good, but one of the rare times the Religious Right has made absolutely NO sense to me was the brief furore over the .xxx domain. Some right-wing leader was violently opposed to it because "it legitimised the pornography industry" or some such. I only narrowly refrained from sending off a baffled email, because that's the complete opposite of how I perceived it: allowing pornography to use the same .com domain as regular businesses, "the" domain name, with the greatest recognition factor and instinctive respectability, seems to me about as legitimate as it gets! Much more accepting than shunting it off into its own .xxx ghetto, which incidentally would ALSO make it easier for filtering software to block it from your precious children. Reading that article was the first time I have ever actually found a use for the word "bzuh?"
5. Xenophilia: If there's a word to describe me, that's it! I am in love with all things alien, foreign, strange; I'm a bit nomadic at heart, and I want to travel the world before I die. I don't doubt it's the driving impetus behind my love of fantasy and science fiction. As any D&D manual will tell you, though, every trait has its negative aspects; in my case, the tendency to favour the new or the unusual simply because it's unusual, and to play devil's advocate in any discussion simply because bucking the trend is instinctive.
6. Xenophon: As a child I was mad about horses; I still am, though at least I don't wear out the knees of my jeans so quickly. :D I learned everything I could about them, and Xenaphon (who developed the school of training that is now called dressage, which includes the maneuvres performed by the world-famous "dancing horses", the Lipizzaners) may be a sign of my madness. How many other eight-year-olds do you know who could discuss Greek war horse training? :D
7. Xylophones: Another "bzuh?" inducing moment. I am the kind of person who likes reading product recalls because I find the various ways in which people off themselves to be both funny and pathetic. I'll never forget the moment of utter disbelief and mockery that followed upon learning that toy xylophones are no longer allowed to have mallets... lest children poke the stick end down their throats and choke to death. Yes, you read that right. It's the same reason pull toys (staples of childhood since AT LEAST the Dark Ages!) can no longer have strings longer than 21 inches-- lest they wrap it around their necks and strangle themselves. I can't imagine how we keep the population going, if children are actually that fragile.
8. Xavier: You expect me to say something about the X-Men, don't you? :D Sorry to disappoint, but "Xavier" to me will always be the scrawl on the bum of my Cabbage Patch doll. Her name was Margaret, I believe. I'm not one of those childfree women who hated dolls even as a child, but it took me many years to realise there might just be an indicator in my doll relations after all. What I remember is lining up all my "babies" around the living room floor and telling my mother all their names; it took me years to realise that I never distinguished between Margaret and My Little Pony. Human or animal, they were all my "babies" and I expected my parents to know each of their names. (My poor mother!) Now, of course, I much prefer animal babies to human, and dogs are as far as I'm ever going to go toward motherhood.
9. X-Acto Knife: I need one of these! My last one broke, and they're just so useful. I do a thousand and one crafty sorts of things, from making dreamcatchers to beadwork to custom painting model horses, and X-Acto knives are one of the most useful things EVER. I'm not a safe person to have around blades, though; I've wounded myself countless times with needles, knives, scissors, even dissection tweezers! Nonetheless a good X-Acto is high on the list of things to do with my paycheck, when I get a paycheck.
10. Xanthochromatism: Genetics, and particularly genetic abnormalities, fascinate me. I'm particularly smitten by trisomies (did you know there are only three autosomal trisomies that are viable?), but colour aberrations and other freaks of nature (I have an entire site full of photos of various sideshow oddities bookmarked) are also high on the list of ways to entertain me. Xanthochromatism is the nice technical name for something with excessive amounts of yellow pigment, and/or a reduction in black pigment. Erythristic refers to things with extra red, melanistic to those with too much black, and leucistic to those with insufficient pigment; I'm sure you're already aware of albinism.