Red Hot Disco

What was your very first job? 
Submitted by Laurel.

I swear I had my first real job at age 12. I had two! Three if you count the unpaid slave labour that my mother preferred to call "babysitting your siblings, and don't punch anyone this time". When I was twelve my school suggested that we pupils earn our camp money for that year's camp, so my mother got me one job at a nursery, potting seedlings in a glasshouse for four hours a day, Saturdays and Sundays. I would come home sweaty and exhausted, clutching my ten dollars desperately in one damp, limp fist.

The second job was cleaning the dusty shelves at our local minimarket, which was owned by the father of one of my (male) classmates, and it was delightfully cool and dim in that market, although I would be coughing up dust and lemon-scented cleaner for the next few days.

Child labour is the best labour.

Okay, my first sign-a-contract-and-get-paid-leave job was nightfill at the supermarket near university, and it paid my rent through my first year in Christchurch. I also got no sleep for approximately nine months, except when my workmates and I would take it in turns to crawl into the shelf behind the toilet paper and take midshift naps.

What's your favorite restaurant?

It depends entirely on who I am with at the time. If we want to go somewhere decent with the kids, I'm inclined to go to La Porchetta, a pizza/pasta franchise that doesn't cost the earth and doesn't suck food-wise. The last time Mike and I went somewhere, I think (so long ago!) it was...oh my God, I really can't remember. Must remedy that promptly.

If it's a night out with friends (ie. usually not Mike), then the last good restaurant we went to was the Mexican Cafe. Since it's the only, it must be the favourite.

You've been through the desert on a horse with no name.  Except your horse does have a name.  What is it? 
Submitted by edubya.vox.com.

Of course the horse has a name. It's me that has no name. The horse is called Snowflake, obviously. My name is irrelevant.

What TV show(s) will you be watching this season? Why? 
Submitted by ducnly.vox.com.

Where to start? I both curse and bless the day we bought our DVR, because now I can actually go to bed and let the hours of "quality TV" amass. One day I might actually watch the following:

• Tony Soprano's near-death experience to make sense of all the symbolism;
• the bits of "Big Love" involving Bill Pullman's naked ass;
• House's various sarcastic and hilarious one-liners at the expense of his idiotic patients;
• you know that bit in "Scrubs" where JD says something, then lives it out in his head? I'll fast-forward those bits. That will save me hours!
• all of Doctor Who, because what sane person wouldn't watch Doctor Who?

If this were Livejournal, I'd be able to say the following:

Mood: Lively!
Listening to: Sammy Davis Jr. - Too Close For Comfort
Current Location: On my couch, eating toasted crumpets

But it isn't, so I won't.

Shoodly-do-dop.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?

A morning owl. A night person. Some variety of all or both or none of the above. I half-doze the middle of the afternoon away, letting the day vanish into a hazy hypnotic oblivion in which I daydream about sleeping. I sleep at night, I wake in the morning, stuff happens in between.