For my eleven points of self-diversification, I chose the following: act alone, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, cook a tasty meal, cooperate, fight efficiently, pitch manure, solve equations, take orders, and write a sonnet. Let's dive right in, shall we?

1. Act Alone
I have my B.A. in Theater, so my mind immediately turned to monologues, the only time when one is acting alone. I chose Madeline's monologue from The Fall Of The House Of Usher, a play by Gippe Hoppe based on the Poe novel. (.MP3)

2. Balance Accounts
This was quite easy, as my checkbook needed some balancing anyway. After balancing my own account, I realized that my husband and I had overdrafted on our joint account, and rushed to the bank to deposit some cash. Thank you, SF0!
3. Build A Wall
There is a menace in my apartment. His name is Hot Pocket and he is a largish gray cat. The gentle cans of Kitchendonia have been stalked by this feline fury for far too long. He regularly tips over the bag in which these empty cans reside, scattering them to the winds. Well, no more. The cans decided to take matters into their own...uh...whatever cans have for hands. With my help, we built a wall to keep that cat in his corner. But the cat decided nobody puts baby in a corner and he easily hopped away to nap and save his energy for another attack on another day.
4. Comfort The Dying
One of my villagers in Animal Crossing: Wild World is dying. She has a terrible flu with chills and shakes and nausea. Her head spins, she sees purple spirals everywhere, and she can't leave her house. All she can talk about is how sick she is, so I decided she needs some comfort. I brought her some medicine from Nook's store, even though I really don't care for her attitude and wouldn't mind if she moved away. But she won't move away if she's dying, so comfort is my middle name.
5. Cook A Tasty Meal
I can do this with one hand tied behind my back. (Hell, wasn't that another task I already did? Booyakasha.) I decided to make beef stew using a mix packet, a pound of fresh stew meat, and a small onion sliced and quartered. I threw all the contents into my trusty crockpot and turned it on. The results were delectable. The meat was tender to the point of falling apart, the stew broth thick and rich. The onions basically dissolved into pure flavor.
6. Cooperate
It was time to take this tasty meal somewhere it would be fully appreciated. So I went to my friend's house for a potluck dinner. We each brought a dish we thought rocked. There was chicken tikka, garlic steak kabobs, my beef stew, thai peanut noodle salad, and cherry pie. We drank lots of beer and ate our food around the firepit while we passed the mead horn around and had ourselves a summer solstice sumble (Norse ritual of toasting and honoring the gods). Wassail! (No picture, didn't have camera.)

7. Fight Efficiently
I may not look like much, but I'm a wicked shot with a rake. That is, I am when I play Penny Arcade: On The Rain-Slicked Precipice of Darkness on my XBox 360. I joined forced with Tycho and Gabe to fight fruit fuckers, hobos, mimes, and giant robots. We fight as a group of three, which is terribly efficient. And we take turns to keep things orderly. However, time is a factor in any fight, so there is no rest for the weary and one cannot just drag one's feet during their "turn." If you've played, you know what I mean. If you haven't, for shame! Go download it from XBox Arcade and play and fight...efficiently.

8. Pitch Manure
ma·nure -noun
excrement, esp. of animals, or other refuse used as fertilizer.

Small animals leave their excrement within the confines of our apartment. It's just a part of having a cat and two ferrets. I couldn't bring myself to subject you to photographic evidence of the ferret's litter box. It is breathtakingly disgusting. However, who hasn't seen a cat box? As you can see from the evidence, our cat box was in a state of neglect, requiring lots of actual action on my part to clean the damned thing. It was gross. But in order for what I had just pitched to be true manure, it needed to be used as fertilizer. I transported a small amount of the poop matter outside and buried it next to some plants growing by my door. Ta-da!
9. Solve Equations
One of my favorite games is Brain Age for my Nintendo DS. It's training for your brain in minutes per day using word puzzles, math, and other great little games. One of these games is Sign Finder, which gives you a mathematical equation missing its sign and prompts you to fill in the correct sign. For example, if it said 9__6 = 54, you would draw an X for multiplication. You do this as fast as you can until you've solved all 20 problems. My best score is 19 seconds.
10. Take Orders
My husband is lazy. I am also lazy, but slightly less so. I am also highly motivated by food and drink. So when we're hungry and out of food or thirsty and out of beverages, I'm the one who always ends up making the 2-block round trip to Superamerica to grab Diet Dew or beef jerky or Gatorade. Seeing this as an opportunity to check off one of these eleven things, I took my husband's complicated order for Superamerica: "I want Gatorade, but only if they have G2. If they don't have G2, I guess I'll take Riptide Rush. If they don't have that, then I want some kind of sugar-free energy drink. Also, a small bag of dill pickle chips, not the sweet and sour but the dill pickle kind, and a pack of M&Ms, but only plain ones, not peanut or almond." I ask, "Do you want to just come along? It's 2 blocks." He shakes his head no. "Then I'd have to put on shoes. Nah. Not worth it. You don't have to get me anything if you don't want to..." But then he makes the goo-goo eyes, so he knows I will. Besides, 10 years of waitress experience just kinda kicks in when you're making an SA run. (No picture as husband is camera shy.)

11. Write A Sonnet
An Elizabethan sonnet has a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It is also written in iambic pentameter. Stress on the second syllable, as in: da DA da DA da DA da DA... Inspiration just hits me when it comes to rhyming poetry. Give me an ABAB scheme in iambic pentameter and I'm off like a shot. So it was with this sonnet I wrote about SF0.




So that's the story of how I demonstrated my ability to please Robert Heinlein. I mean, I'm sure I could please him in *plenty of other ways, but the smell of grave dirt is a real turn off to me, so I'm going this route.

[[Voo]]