Today I'm doing a memething that I found through Terri over at frogblog. Yeah, I know this is a journal and not a blog. But I like interview-style journal entries, and these really call for slightly longer responses than I put on my blog.

So the way it works is, frog asked me five questions, which I'll answer here, and then I'll ask her five questions - and anyone else who wants to participate, just let me know, and I'll make up questions for you, too.

So here goes:

1) Tell me about the name of your blog.

I've been fascinated by dragons since high school, and there's a myth I heard somewhere that looking into a dragon's eyes would kill or, alternately, enslave the poor mortal who dared such a thing. And then there was this rash of incidents where people told me, completely out of the blue - people I didn't even know - that I had really amazing eyes. (It still happens, from time to time.)

So when, in college, I was introduced to the wonders of the Internet, and it was time for me to pick out a handle, "Dragoneyes" sort of fell off my fingers. I spent several years answering to Dragoneyes more often than to my given name. When I started my journal, I barely thought about it before deciding it was Dragoneyes' Reflections - which I moved around a bit because I don't like apostrophes in titles, and also to make it sound a little more literary, and to allude to that myth that started it all.

2) How long have you been blogging and why did you start?

I started my online journal in January of 1999, so about six and a half years. I'd been reading online journals for a year or so, and wanted to see if I could do it, too. I'd never been able to keep up a private diary or journal for more than a few days, but I thought maybe if I had an audience - even if it was just my husband and a couple of friends - I might be motivated to stick to it. It worked. I can no longer imagine starting my morning without sitting down to write.

I also started an actual blog a few years ago, mostly because I wanted to play with the technology. My use of the blog is much more sporadic than that of my journal, but every time I think about just giving up and deleting it, I end up with a need to record weekend anecdotes or a link that needs sharing.

3) Tell me three things about you that you think are utterly unique.

Is it cheating if I say my fingerprints, my retinal scan, and my genetic code? Probably. Hmm... Okay, for one - my vision of Gaena, which is the world in which I do about 80% of my writing. K.T. has part ownership of the world, because she's the one who keeps coming up with the plots - but I don't think we see it the same way, even when we're in the same place.

For two - my writing style, which probably isn't going to win any prizes, but K.T. tells me that when I post comments in blogs that we both read, she usually recognizes that they're my comments before she even sees the name.

And three - my theory (opinion?) on sexual orientation. Though that's probably not actually unique - but I've never heard anyone else come up with it independently. To summarize, as I don't think I've ever written it anywhere public: I think that everyone has a capacity to be attracted to either gender - just in varying degrees. For example, I'm about 80% attracted to men, and 20% to women. And I think that defines my sexual orientation much better than trying to squeeze me into either "heterosexual" or "bisexual" boxes. There's more to my opinion/theory than this, but that's the meat of it, at least.

4) How/where did you meet your husband?

That's a funny story, because I don't remember it. I was starting my senior year of college, and K.T. was running a game (Heroes Unlimited, I think) and Matt was a freshman that she'd at the Science Fiction Club meeting and invited along - but I don't remember him being there. I barely remember the game. Which is fine, because I was dating someone else at the time, and then Matt dated K.T. for the next few years. It wasn't until the spring of his senior year that we fell in love.

5) How did you choose your kid's name?

Matt and I were very methodical. It had been decided, early on, that we were going to avoid family and friend names - it would be too easy to hurt someone's feelings, so we were just going to go with something completely new. I bought a baby name book, and I read through it and made a dash (-) next to all the names I liked. Then Matt read through it and made a vertical mark (|) next to all the names he liked. So all the names we both liked would have a + next to them.

Then we were watching Sports Night (which was a sitcom, not an actual sports show) one evening, and the name Penelope was mentioned, and Matt said, "I like that name." And I said, "Are you out of your mind?" But a month or so later, I realized it had grown on me, too. So I added it to the list.

And then we did some sorting and matching, and put together some combinations for first/middle names. We wound up with about 10 names. Matt put them on index cards, and we ranked them all from 1 to 10. I'd come up with all kinds of ways to decide how to narrow the field until we'd picked one we both liked, but it turned out not to be necessary. Penelope Anne was first on the list for both of us.

(As a side note. One of the nurses, when I was in the hospital after her birth, said, "Ooooh, Penelope's a pretty name. It's English, isn't it?" And Matt gave her the Look and said, "Um, no. It's Greek. Odysseus's wife...?" And the nurse said, "Well, yes, but there's always a Lady Penelope in those English novels..." So for all you English novel fans - Penny's name came first from a random mention in a sitcom. And then we considered the character in the Greek myth, and decided that she was strong and clever and loyal, and that those were all excellent qualities. It's got nothing to do with English novels whatsoever. Sorry.)

And my five questions back to Terri - who may or may not feel like answering them, I guess, as you can see from her blog that she's doing lots of these:

1) Why frog?

2) If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?

3) Where do you turn when you're looking for new music?

4) What do you think your most attractive features are?

5) If you could say any one thing to any one person, and be assured that they would magically understand (if not necessarily agree with) you - what would it be?

--Liz