My blogging bestie Pinkie has nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger award! Thank you, Pinkie! I shall do my best!
- Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link to their blog so that other people can visit them
- Answer the 11 questions put to you by the nominator
- Nominate 11 bloggers of your choosing and provide them with a new set of 11 questions to answer
- Notify the nominees by commenting on one of their blog posts
- List the rules and display The Sunshine Blogger Award logo within your post or on your blog site
I was reading along in Pinkies Sunshine Blogger Award post hoping like crazy she would tag me, and she did! YAY!
Now about those 11 questions –
1. Have you ever cosplayed, if yes.. what’s your best cosplay? If no what would you cosplay if you could?
No, I’ve never really exactly cosplayed. But I was a professional exotic dancer for 15 years and during that time I had a number of acts that involved costumes and music designed to work together for a special show. Does that count?
If I could do anything in cosplay…I am partial to the gothic lolita look. Any and all goth lolis, although Rory Mercury of Gate is probably my favorite. Which I totally could have pulled off in my younger years, but now I’d look more like gothic grandma. I’m actually a pixie, so anyone pixie like. I also love crossdressing, so anything boyish and athletic (again, I look too old for it now but), Eun-chan from Coffee Prince would make me happy!
2. What is the least geeky thing about you?
I would have to say the outdoorsy athletic part of my life. I kayak, hike, bicycle, rode and trained horses, and for many years I was a bodybuilder as well as a dancer. You might have thought I’d go for the exotic dancer thing – but I think you might be surprised how many dancers are really geeks, gaming nerds, etc. in their “real” life.
3. If your life was ever turned into an anime, what type of anime would it be?
Slice of life is my favorite genre, and I think my life would make a decent slice of life anime, if it were properly written and edited down to 12 episodes. It would probably end up ecchi and sort of noir. Like the first episode would be dark, skim over the awful childhood with a scene or two of horses for the bright point, maybe a second episode with the 8 years of marriage to an abuser with some of the high points (I have to laugh – yeah I was HIGH alright) being RHPS fandom pulling me into that different altsex accepting world, and then the second half when I turned my life around and some of the adventures I had (waggling eyebrows), and finally settling down with my dear hubby. Well – but that set off a whole different adventure though…
4. If your life was ever turned into a video game, what type of game it would be?
It would be an open world adventure game. One of those where you can concentrate on exploring, or fighting, or magic, or healing skills, or crafting great weapons and magic jewelry , or breeding and raising the best horses/cats/dragons, or all of the above, whatever you really wanted to do.
5. If you’d have to choose any other archetype but geek, what would you want to be?
OMG. That’s hard. I bring my geekiness with me no matter what I’m doing. Is this real world archetype? Because my next thought is magic user or healer. Witch. That’s it, witch. But I am a witch. A geeky witch.
So I looked up a list of archetypes and healer is on there (although I’d hardly compare myself to Mother Theresa, she is someone I admire). I also see adventurer and while I’d consider my adventuring rather mild – I’ve traveled a lot and I’m perfectly happy setting out with nothing but a backpack and a bag of dance costumes – I’m not Indiana Jones or anything. But I’ve had other more…uh…normal…people act like I’m like wild and crazy and fearless with my travel and lifestyle. By that standard though, I think you’d have to consider any of the modern nomads living in an RV an adventurer. And yeah, we are kinda.
6. What’s the worst thing you have ever done to a friend?
Cut them off. Cut them absolutely completely and totally out of my life for good. I’ve done it twice. Both times for what I considered good reason. The first friend, once my best friend, certainly one of my oldest friends decided to try and find out what it was about cocaine that made her brother so addicted to it that he wound up killing himself with it. Cocaine turns you into the person you hated most in your life and in her case, it turned her into her abusive father. I feel like I didn’t cut her off, so much as she turned into another person entirely – who was no friend of mine. When she picked me up and pinned me against a wall and threatened my life, I was done.
The second situation was a bit more complex. I will say that any friendship should have a balance. Friends support each other during good times and bad, sickness and health and all that. I never mind being there for someone. But when I’ve been there for you literally every single day for months, and my hubby goes into the hospital and you shrug it off with “eh, he’ll get better” and then go back into all your problems…when his problem is actual life or death and yours are not – well, I tend to feel like you don’t give a shit about me and my loved ones. So why should I give a shit about you and what am I doing spending so much of my time to support you? Especially when right at that moment, I need to support my hubby. If you force me to make a decision – well it was some years ago, but I have been married to this man for 30 years now for good reasons.
I still feel like it was a shitty thing to do to both of them. But I also feel like it was the best decision for me. Could be it was easier for me because I had already been through cutting off my family – which is truly the only thing you can do when you are the family scrapegoat in a family of narcissistic psychopaths.
7. What is your favorite alcoholic beverage and tells us about when you had too much off it.
Oh boy. Vodka. Which time do you want to hear about? Well, here’s a pretty funny one. I used to always make sure I was working – dancing – on my birthday, because of course all your regular customers come and even total strangers tip you well and buy you drinks when they hear it’s your birthday. So I was working, dancing, drinking to excess. I got up on stage to do my set. I used to often dance hard and fast – that athletic thing – and I was zooming around the pole, holding with only one hand, both feet off the floor. Did I say I was holding with one hand? I guess I forgot to hold on. I literally took flight (I am told) and flew through the air halfway across the room where I slammed into a wall and slid down to the floor, apparently scaring half the room to death. LAUGHED. GOT UP. WENT BACK to the stage and FINISHED MY SET. Laughing my ass off the whole time.
They sent me home.
And the running joke was this one. It was a running joke of the people around Billie Holiday that you never wanted to pick up her “water” glass for a sip of it – because it was probably vodka. Well, the same was true for me. I’ve seen more than one person pick up my frosty glass of water for a sip and be quite surprised. The best one was a customer sneering “Oh I know that’s just water.” “Have a sip” I offered. It was straight Absolute Vodka with a twist of lime. You shoulda seen his face. Evil snicker.
8. How would you take over the world, in a world of endless possibilities? Be evil!
First off, I want to look like Ming the Merciless (from the 1980 movie) and Maleficent (by Angelina Jolie) had a non-binary baby who grew up to dress like Dr. Frank-n-furter (1975 RHPS). Now that we have the important shit settled…
I’ve been struggling with the rest of it for a few days. See, I’m basically a nice, compassionate person but if you’re really going to just hand this earth over to me…and I can be evil as I want to be…
I’d start with a wave of abductions, using my trusty flying saucer so even if people reported them the government would discredit them. I could get away with it plenty long enough to pick and choose a few hundred or so people I feel worthy of continuing to live, either because they are useful or entertaining. We’ll pop them into a nice, safe bunker somewhere (where they will immediately begin to plot my demise, of course).
Then I will set off a series of smart bombs – the ones that only kill people and leave the buildings, plants, animals and natural resources undisturbed. Bye bye.
After which, I’ll turn my selected people loose to go on doing whatever they do and ride away in my horse drawn RV to explore the world now that it is free of most of those pesky people.
9. Which anime character you think could stop the you from question 8.
Rimuru Tempest would just absorb me. Slurp. But then he would gain the power to look like a cute chibi goth loli me.
10. Which anime characters would be the henchmen to the you from question 8.
Oooo – henchmen! Hozuki of Hozuki’s Coolheadedness. He would keep me nice and organized and put down any nasty little rebellions in the bunker with his trusty spiked club. He’d bring along the rest of his cast, too – Nasubi, Shiro, Kakisuki, Rurio, Peach Maki – anyone else he figures he’ll need. He’s welcome to plant goldfish.
11. If you could make one true wish, but it had to be at least somewhat selfish, what would it be?
The treatment for kidney disease has not changed significantly in the last 60 years. The reason for this is the two companies that provide over 50% of the dialysis in the world are perfectly happy with patients dependent on the treatment three times a week for the rest of their lives in order to live . The much touted kidney transplant is not an actual cure, but a different set of problems. Most transplants don’t last more than five years, during which patients take from 13 to 33 drugs daily for immunosuppression and the side effects of the other drugs. Only 35% of dialysis patients live more than five years after initiation of dialysis. There’s a lot of reasons and it’s a complex subject – but you need at least this much background to get my wish.
Since the powers that be are perfectly happy with the treatments as they are right now, there is no funding available for research into better solutions such as 3d printed kidneys, or kidneys grown in the lab using your own cells, or stem cells injected into your kidney that will help it to start creating new kidney cells and increase function, or using genetic modification to stop rejection of a transplanted kidney instead of drugs. All of these great advanced ideas and more have been suggested and to some extent researched, but it eventually comes to a point when they cannot get funding. No funding, no research.
So my wish is that somehow, some way unlimited funds become available to those researchers who truly want to help patients with kidney failure have a better life and a better future with these great new ideas.
And then, of course, I want my hubby to be first in line for the first lab grown from his own cells kidney. That’s the selfish part. Because I enjoy his company.
Now that I’ve said that – for all the wrong reasons (because Medicare pays so much for dialysis -about 35 billion a year – even though it’s actually only 7% of their annual budget) – the Pumpkin Head signed an executive order to fund that exact research and development. Right before the whole Coronavirus hell broke loose. I know the NIH set up some contests for ideas and gave some grants, but I don’t know what the status of it is now. I hate to say this, but I am hoping the gov’t will continue to push for it – because Coronavirus leaves about 1/3 of the patients who were hospitalized with it with significant kidney damage. In other words, they are or soon will be on dialysis. In fact, some medical facilities were running out of dialysis capacity as well as respirators.
Sorry to end on a sort of dismal, depressing note. But that’s my wish if I could have anything.
My 11 Questions ARE (drum roll)
- What is the one piece of music that always just misses the cut when you chose a favorite for a blog tag or award – here’s your chance to finally share your second favorite!
- What is your number one feel good piece of media, be it a book or anime or TV series or movie, the one that will always make you feel better on a bad day.
- What is the longest streak you have going on something, and what is it? This could be 485 days straight logging into a game, or 35 days of journaling, 20 days of exercise, whatever you do that you keep track of that way. Brag!
- What is one thing you wish you could make time for every day – that pesky streak you just can’t keep up – be it exercising, language study, or a few minutes to meditate. What do you think it would take to help you do it?
- What is the best anime you’ve watched in 2020. Doesn’t have to BE a current simulcast – just the best thing you’ve seen this year. If you don’t watch anime (GASP) the best live action series.
- What is the best book you’ve read this year?
- What game currently has you completely in it’s grip? Why?
- If you could have anything, what is your wish? (I stole it Pinkie, but I love it, hope you don’t mind)
- What do you really miss? Wax nostalgic for us about something you love that isn’t around any more.
- How often do you or your family cook? If you don’t cook, whatever DO you eat?
- Speaking of eating, what dish did you literally go out and try because you saw it on an anime (or live action show) and it looked SO GOOD?
My 11 nominations…(in no particular order)
2.Fiddletwix – The Anime Madhouse
7. Biblionyan (I know you’re on a break, dear, see you when you get back!)
8. Fred au natural – This is my place
9. Anime Rants
11. YOU!
No, seriously, feel free to volunteer for this award in the comments. I actually only follow a few more blogs than this, and some of them are not remotely anime related, and/or they don’t seem to do tags, awards and so on. So if you want some of this sunshine, just hop on board! I also am sure some of these folks have done this award already and might not want to do it again, which is understandable.
I hope you aren’t dead of boredom from this long post. Blessedbe.
Foovay's Cauldron 
“Any and all goth lolis, although Rory Mercury of Gate is probably my favorite.”
You have amazingly good taste!
“I still feel like it was a shitty thing to do to both of them. But I also feel like it was the best decision for me.”
We do what we have to. Staying alive is a great option! Sorry you had to go through both of those situations.
“They sent me home.”
Sounds like it was for the best.
“Then I will set off a series of smart bombs ”
Neutron bombs? Yikes. Well, the question did say _evil_…
“The treatment for kidney disease has not changed significantly in the last 60 years.”
I didn’t know the details behind that — though now that you mention it, it does seem strange that there’s been no real progress. Along those lines, Goodman Sachs recently wrote a negative financial opinion on some gene therapy options precisely because they did not offer continuing income potential — one shot, and cured.
We have to figure out a better incentives system…
“But that’s my wish if I could have anything.”
It’s a good wish.
Thanks for the tag, too! I’ll try to make sure you don’t regret the nomination!
I know I’ll really enjoy your answers 😀 The investors in that new cure for Hep C? They are complaining too – because it’s a one series of treatments and done – and then you are cured of Hep C and you don’t infect anyone else. So they are seeing a steadily diminishing group of potential patients. Basically putting themselves out of business. So they’re bitching that they won’t have continuing profit. It’s like if Jonas Salk was pissed that he cured polio and now can’t sell the cure any more. Is that really what we’re about?
Oh seeing actual pictures of you was amazing! In 1985 I wasn’t riding a horse.. even mom had not mounted her steed yet xD!
When it comes to having to abandon your friends I totally get that, I had to do that a few times and I might have to do it in the near future. While I do want the best for everybody I do feel that I always have to take care of myself first. If that means saying goodbye to someone who needs me that is a shame, and I will factor that shame into my decision but if I still feel it is better for me to move out their lives of them out of mine I would do the same as you would. I havent met someone as volatile as the first one, but I had a friend who was constantly was depressed and cried for attention. It cost me a relationship because I had to give her more attention as a friend than I could to my partner, it cost me going out on Saturdays as she often felt to depressed and she would not like it if I was having fun while she would feel miserable and eventually it became so dominant that I was giving her counseling like 5 to 8 hours in the day.. I could not get anything else done anymore. I ate.. helped her.. ate again.. helped her again.. could watch one or two tv shows half.. because I had to glance at my phone to see if she needed me.. and eventually when I said she needed to tone it down a bit she shamed me and outed me as a horrible friend.
Said I left a suicidal girl in the cold because I wanted to have a fun night and showed my text in which I indeed said.. I love you very much but I really need some me time tonight.. which she twisted into me saying “fuck you” …
I asked her to remove it..she blackmailed me into coming home and helping her or she would leave it on. I gave her 12 hours to remove it.. the next day I had tons of texts and boos and her making me out to be the worst friend someone could have.. I might not always be the best friend .. but I was certainly not her worst I gave up so much for her.. so I responded to her tweets and the hateful messages I shown all I had done for her. I told her that this is all I could do I tried.. and if it was not I was sorry but I can not be a bad friend than I rather be no friend at all. I turned my phone of for about a week, I never let her back in. I could not forgive her for making my sacrifices into something so toxic. I was happy to do it for her until I learned it all meant nothing if it wasn’t my entire life she could claim.
Rimuru could definitely eat you!
How I would be evil is.. I’d give everyone in the world one perfect day of happiness.. like so super perfect for everyone. Then among the countries that would make me their queen I would bestow 50.1% with one perfectly happy day per year. Like say around Christmas, for those who Impress me I’d offer a perfect week to the 1% of the people that make me the happiest. People would sing to me.. just to get something they really want give me everything for that one perfect day.. that one ideal drug that I would sell at them for way to much. Those who’d oppose this dystopian ideal I would have chased by a cult which I promises happiness for the rest of their lives. I would have them rally up those against me and then burn the area that does not want to follow me.. in a bonfire to increase my divinity! And people would still love me for it because I make them happy.
Kana from Dragon Maid would be my henchwoman because who’d want to hurt her! Maybe Toru as well but I don’t want to take her from Kobayashi!
Amazing post though and such an amazing life! I am just a pink stain by comparission! Not nearly as define! But still happy to be here and read these amazing tales
ROFLMAO I’d love you even evil. Maybe especially evil.
As for your sadly suicidal friend, it sounds like she is more of a narcisstic manipulator than a truly depressed soul – although perhaps she is both. However, given the fallout especially, I support your decision. Without the fallout – it does sound a bit like the second friend that I let go. We had been friends with an even give and take for years, but her health physical/mental/emotional deteriorated. I was happy to be there for her, to do all I could,for her, but to have her return that love by acting as if my hubby was unimportant was just unacceptable. He needs me, too, and he’s always going to come first.
I believe in the long run you decide how amazing your life will be. I know you’ve had awesome gaming adventures I’ll never come close to – and given the difference in our generations that IS the new adventurous in many ways. Research has shown that your brain and body react the same to vizualization of action as to actual action/exercise/practice etc. so for all practical purposes you have climbed mountains, explored dungeons and slayed dragons 😀
Kana would be an adorable henchwoman!
Exotic dancer? I started with nude modeling at 18. When I arrived in California in 1976 I discovered there was an untapped market for male exotic dancers for private parties. And yet, I was an uber-geek!
Eventually I got married. Kind of put an end to the strip-o-grams.But I’m still a bit of a nudist.
Vodka… I use that stuff as mouthwash. But sipping a glass of it would be well beyond my tolerance.
Yay for male dancers 😀 See, lots of geeky dancers around. I started drinking straight vodka when I was 16 years old. I actually like the taste – depending on the brand. I don’t drink nearly as much any more so my tolerance as far as being drunk is all but gone.
Congrats on the award. Love the wild vodka stories!
Thanks for the nomination. Normally you would tag a post from the blog and let the other person see the pingback these days, although informing your nominated people via the comments is a older method of doing things.
What is the one piece of music that always just misses the cut when you choose a favorite for a blog tag or award – here’s your chance to finally share your second favorite!
If I had a 2nd favourite, I would probably mention it in the answer anyway. For instance, in the Super Happy Love Award, I mentioned Echoes (by Disclosure), despite its being an odd choice for the question being asked, because it came to mind first.
What is your number one feel good piece of media, be it a book or anime or TV series or movie, the one that will always make you feel better on a bad day?
Almost any anime – excluding anime with lots of drama and/or tragedy like Sangatsu no Lion – will make me feel better, but my “comfort food” anime is the entire magical girl genre. Specifically, I’ve been saving Sailor Moon (which is one of my first anime and the one that started me loving the genre in the first place) for special occasions and I keep a few longer magical girl series for when I need that pick-me-up.
What is the longest streak you have going on something, and what is it? This could be 485 days straight logging into a game, or 35 days of journaling, 20 days of exercise, whatever you do that you keep track of that way. Brag!
I’ve racked up over 100 daily logins on the Bungou Stray Dogs game over the last 2 years or so (notably, I quit it at one point because I shouldn’t have made so much time for it, but COVID-19 means I have the time).
What is one thing you wish you could make time for every day – that pesky streak you just can’t keep up – be it exercising, language study, or a few minutes to meditate. What do you think it would take to help you do it?
I should probably dedicate more time to exercise because I’m not the fittest person ever, but even sports I “less suck” at I still suck at, I have no sense of balance or hand-eye coordination (etc. etc.). Most exercise I do is incidental, like walking to the library, so COVID-19 really messed with it, so you’d have to get me going to places every day in order to get enough (which, again, COVID-19 doesn’t really facilitate).
What is the best anime you’ve watched in 2020? Doesn’t have to BE a current simulcast – just the best thing you’ve seen this year. If you don’t watch anime (GASP) the best live action series.
If we’re going off ratings alone, the 2nd cour of Fate/Zero. I watched a big chunk of the Fate/ franchise (F/Z, F/SN: UBW, the detective anime starring Waver Velvet and one season of Prisma Illya) in the winter season and that was the best stuff that came out of it.
What is the best book you’ve read this year?
Aside from all the manga, Number One Chinese Restaurant (by Lillian Li) was a good one, although much like Crazy Rich Asians, it was kind of hard to keep the whole “who’s related to who?” straight and you need a family tree for them all (which Crazy Rich Asians did, but this one didn’t). The Setting Sun (by Osamu Dazai) was an interesting one too, even if only because I tried doing some Bungou Stray Dogs fanwork – to be specific, it was free verse poetry, as opposed to fanfiction – based around what I knew of that book and so reading it was basically the question of, “What did I get right about the nuances of this book and Dazai’s work?”.
What game currently has you completely in its grip? Why?
If we count mobile games, there are two main games – one is the Bungou Stray Dogs game, Tales of the Lost, and the other is the Hypnosis Mic game, Alternative Rap Battle. The HypMic game never seems to let up on its events and I’ve been a fan of Bungou Stray Dogs since before the anime came out, so I’m pretty dedicated to raising my characters in both.
If you could have anything, what is your wish?
To get COVID-19 to stop wrecking the world and get everything that was wrecked because of it to go back to normal…is that 2 things?
What do you really miss? Wax nostalgic for us about something you love that isn’t around any more.
I miss when laptops and computers were more robust. I’ve been surviving off a laptop from 2013 for years and got a new one when quarantine started getting pretty bad because the mouse was worn down (although I kept my old one up because the new one has basically no storage left and the old one still works). 3 months later, I thought the new laptop’s mouse stopped working (it hadn’t) and had to use the touch screen functions to finish the post I was working on.
How often do you or your family cook? If you don’t cook, whatever DO you eat?
I don’t cook that much – there is this one time that’s basically gone down in the history of my close family, where I made a baklava for social studies class (we were learning about ancient Greek history) and had to substitute out some ingredients because I didn’t have them…it came out pretty badly. Ever since then, I’ve been told to cook a lot (it doesn’t help that my family and I got into a cooking reality show during the quarantine period…) and while I can cook some basic things like bok choy, bacon and mushrooms and I know how to operate the ol’ rice cooker (I need some help with cooking most meats though), I would prefer to stay out of the kitchen.
Speaking of eating, what dish did you literally go out and try because you saw it on an anime (or live action show) and it looked SO GOOD?
This is more like “drinking”, but miso soup. It’s common in Japan, but I hadn’t actually tried any until I travelled further afield than I would usually and got a restaurant bento with fruit, sashimi and the works…It’s really salty though.
Yes, well, I’m a little old fashioned though 😛 Oooo, Miso soup. I love miso. It’s a staple for me. I think the COVID is all one wish and no doubt pretty much everyone in the world right now would agree with that wish. Walking is actually really good exercise. It’s all I really do now, although due to other things, I really do walk about two miles a day just to take care of business. The whole cooking thing – I’ve been seeing and hearing so many people having fits because they have to cook now and it sort of freaks me out. Mind you, when we were younger and both working hubby and I ate out a lot, but I’ve always had food in the house and I love to cook. He does, too and since he retired, he took over the cooking. But it sort of freaks me out that it seems like most people really do not cook at all. Love my rice cooker!! The books and games all sound so good. I like a lot of the magical girl genre and I can see it being really good cheer me up fodder!
Oh, what awesome answers. I truly enjoyed this post. And thank you for the nomination. I’m gonna do a double post with yours and Pinkie’s nomination I think. So, 22 questions answered in the near future. It will take some time to answer. *phew* I love awards though, it’s so much fun to answer questions and share stuff about yourself. And it’s even more fun to get to know the nominator. (is that a thing? A nominator.) So, please look forward to that.
YAY! I can’t wait! It actually took me about four days to write this post LOL so I do understand. But they really are fun 😀