It's Friday

1. What is your most prized material possession?
I will not include my pets in that--but in a disaster those would be most important--what I could not leave behind. In terms of an actual object, though--while there are plenty of things that I could not replace, there's nothing I can think of that I prize so much that I would say it is above all others. The closest is a doll's case from Tokyo that my father brought me when I was little. It's made it through our moves, my ex, and my cats, although I very nearly thought I lost it a few weeks ago when it came crashing to the ground after Darius slept on top of it. It has a silk geisha in a komono arranging flowers.

2. What item, that you currently own, have you had the longest?
I'm not sure which is older: My teddy bear, which I received on my first birthday, or an infant bracelet of silver and turquoise.

3. Are you a packrat?
Oh, definitely, to the point that I'm on medication for obsessively hoarding. :)

4. Do you prefer a spic-and-span clean house? Or is some clutter necessary to avoid the appearance of a museum?
In theory clean lines are more relaxing than clutter. But I hate walking into a house that does not look lived in--like all those magazines where they have a cat or dog pose in the living room where there is not one hair on the upolstery. Really!

5. Do the rooms in your house have a theme? Or is it a mixture of knick-knacks here and there?
My house is rather ecclectic. My bathroom is done in black and white, with a phantasy theme of dragons, unicorns, and wizards, but that was as much accident as artifice. My bedroom has a tendency towards celestial and Asian knick knacks. The rest of the house is mostly colourful paintings and books, with such things as windchimes, sparkling suncatchers, etc. It's rather organic, I suppose, like a garden. Clean enough to relax in, wild enough to have its own independent character.