Introducing... ME!

Hello!
My name is Ursa.
One of the things that runs through my head whenever I'm trying to think about how to introduce myself in a new setting is The Little Prince. The narrator uses a childhood drawing of a python eating an elephant when meeting a new person to determine if they still have a sense of wonder, or if they have lost their open-mindedness and are only interested in adult things.
I hope that I have maintained that child-like sense of wonder and open-mindedness. I hope that if I ever had encountered this narrator that I would have passed his test and we would have spent the rest of our conversation talking about wondrous things and not just what we do for a living, 
In that spirit I'm going to try and focus this introductory entry on the things that bring me delight and joy. The kind of joy where laughs dance out of my mouth unconsciously. The sort of delight that makes me hum small melodies without realizing I'm doing it.
The adult things.. They will inevitably arise later, so I'll leave them be for now.
So my joys.. in no particular order:

• Thunderstorms
• Dancing by myself with only my cats as audience members
• Good food and drinks
• Getting a loved one to laugh when they've been crying
• Being surprised - in a good way
• Discovering anything new that I love especially:
• Music
• Books
• Video games
• Movies
• Shows
• Crazy looking caterpillars
• Cats purring
• Good endings - in life, love, books, shows and movies
• Successfully jury-rigging something
• Dragonflies
• Effervescent writing

Now I know some of these things are subjective. For example, good endings. I think one of my favorite examples of this one is Harry Potter endings. I absolutely loved the ending in the books. But when watching the movie, that final scene felt forced and didn't deliver anywhere near the same level of satisfaction as the book did, even though they were essentially the same. So I'll now talk about a small selection of my favorites from some of the more subjective of my joys.

Effervescent writing: Probably the first book I mention whenever discussing this topic is Speak, Memory by Nabokov. If you have yet to pick this up I highly recommend the edition which he revisited after it had been translated to English. Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. In fact, any book by Octavia Butler. But Wild Seed is the one I usually recommend for first time readers of her writing. Any novel or graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. A particular favorite of mine is his novella The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I can't remember if I read it before or after I had read a blog entry by his then-partner Amanda Palmer about her observations on his writing this particular book, but it is a great companion piece to the book and if you have the time and inclination, find that blog entry. 

Good Video games: So I know many "gamers" who roll their eyes at many of the titles I love and have spent hundreds of hours playing. I think this is perhaps one of the reasons I refrain from calling myself a "gamer". That said some of my favorite titles include Stardew Valley, Don't Starve, and Rock Band. Stardew Valley appeals to me on many levels, but after discovering and falling in love with this game, I learned that it was completely developed by a single developer. Making Eric Barone (the developer) one of my idols, since at the time the conventional wisdom was that it was not possible to develop a commercially successful game solo. Given that it has sold over 10 million copies, he blew that "conventional wisdom" out of the water. Don't Starve is a delightfully Burton-esque indie game that is maybe best described as a base-building game, but is so open-ended that there are any number of ways to play. And, finally, Rock Band. Besides the obvious appeal of being able to "perform" any number of popular songs as if you were a real rock n' roll star, I have found through the years that playing as a drummer is an absolute genius way (at least for me) to relieve stress.

The rest of the "subjective" topics... I'm sure I will cover at some point so I will end this Introduction here. Thank you for reading. I will end with a quote from one of my idols. "For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone" - Audrey Hepburn