A couple of days ago, I mentioned that someone had "tagged" me to participate in another "meme". And then, like now, I deemed it absolutely necessary to use quotation marks around those words, much as I do with all words or phrases whose use does not come naturally to me and which on some level I find irritating (at the very least) or repellent (somewhere in the middle) or full-on inexcusable (at the very most), but which, for some reason, are being foisted on me in such a manner that I am required to use them. Words such as "decaf", for example. (I'll leave it up to you to determine under which of the three levels this word falls.)
So. Without further fanfare, here are the rules of the thing:
* Link to the person that tagged you.
* Post the rules on your blog.
* Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
* Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
* Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
And here are my contributions:
- I can handwrite backwards almost as quickly as I can forwards. Ask for a complimentary demonstration if we ever meet. (If you already know me in real life, it will cost you $10.)
- I anthropomorphize everything. My computer monitor vigorously nods its head in recognition and agreement.
- I cannot kill anything. Once, when I lived in Philadelphia, a roach decided to take up residence in my living room without first asking if I had any objection. Because I do not appreciate that sort of presumptuous attitude, I decided he would not be allowed to stay. Besides, as everyone knows, roaches do not use coasters and thus their coffee mugs leave unsightly and often impossible-to-remove rings on many porous surfaces. Rather than murder the roach, as someone with a less pure conscience would do, I told him, as I went upstairs to seethe, that it would be in his best interest if, by the time I came back down, he had just taken his things and left. Otherwise, I threatened, he would have to answer to me and there would, yes, be hell to pay. Fortunately the roach did not know that I cannot harm a fly, because when I finally slunk down the stairs to check on his whereabouts, he was nowhere to be found.
- I do not read any "women's" magazines. InStyle, Mademoiselle, Glamour, and the like are all dead to me.
- Pre-answered the other day. (See link above!)
- When I was in elementary school, I would not eat the center of a sandwich. My favorite was peanut butter (no jelly). I would eat the crusts off first (removal of crust during the sandwich-making process is an activity I will never endorse) and then make my way toward the center. It was there that the bread would have received repeat layerings of peanut butter and thus contain the greatest concentration. Although I adored peanut butter (Jif), I did not like it in thick globs, so the center of the sandwich would remain untouched. My brother always accused me, sometimes even rather angrily, of manufacturing this behavior so that when my first album came out, that quirky tidbit could be featured in the liner notes.
Although the "rules" say that I must "tag" six people for this thing, I am not going to do that, because I cannot think of six people who would forgive me for doing so. I will just have to suffer the consequences of my maverick rule-breaking. However, I do invite you to participate in comments, but only by "sharing" six items. All other rules are to be disregarded, especially the one about linking back to me. (If you link back to me anyway, I will not think you are clever. I will, however, want to "tear you a new one".)
fresh-baked at 09:46 PM1) I have trouble committing to tasks. If I were to provide a link to my blog here, one would find that I haven't updated it in a long time, and that a good number of its posts are apologies and excuses for not finishing earlier posts. I have never put 100% effort into my courses, finishing papers and projects the night before they are due. Somehow I still manage to get A's but that's not the point. The point is that I am capable of A+'s. I repeatedly tell people I will send them letters and postcards but then I repeatedly put it off until I repeatedly lose their addresses. I'm good at rationalizing this behaviour; I blame it all on a broken heart or a recent diabetes diagnosis, but really I am just lazy to a flaw. This is even my third time trying to write this comment. I'll be surprised if I make it through the other five unimportant facts about me. Despite this, I think I'm a pretty strong, patient guy and know that one day I will rid myself of this ambition for ambition through ambition.
2) My father grew up with Wayne Gretzky in Brantford, Ontario. They played hockey together on some little league team. Or is "little league" a term only used for baseball? I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know the difference between a hockey stick and a puck.
3) I was the first kid in my 7th Grade class to watch South Park. I remember going to school the morning after having watched that first episode and telling a group of fascinated, wide-eyed boys about one of the characters farting out a space ship. If I have ever been cool by popular standards, I was the most cool in that, my twelfth year of living.
4) In Canada, the price of mailing a letter goes up every January by a few cents. This January I got a job at a post office, and so every shift I work, I find one or two letters in our drop box that have last year's required amount of stamps on them. I'm supposed to slap a big RETURN TO SENDER sticker on these letters, but I just don't have the heart to do it. Instead, I use the change in my pocket to buy penny stamps and pay the minimal difference so the letter can be sent to its addressee after all. My coworkers laugh at me for doing this and tell me that these senders will always pay the wrong price if I keep bailing them out, but I figure they will catch on eventually. There is more hope for them than the impersonal assholes working next to me.
5) I don't know how to drive and I vow never to learn.
6) I'm having a lot of difficulty with this last one. Every possibility zooming around in my head seems too sappy or conceited or something or other. So let me just say that my two favourite actresses are Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep.
Success!
Offered by: Brad on February 13, 2008 3:54 AMThomas. Okay. Contact me if she ever looks you up. Tell her I can do lingual macrame with cherry stems. She'll know what I mean. ;)
Offered by: KarenZipdrive on February 12, 2008 1:36 PMOK, first of all, hi Thomas. ;) (Excuse me for a minute while I go die.)
O.K. I’m back. Now I’m Ghost Writer.
1. I'm OCD. I thought I stopped being OCD, but I realized that my ADD just caused me to lose interest in what I used to be OCD about. My current obsession is trying to get my BMI from 19.1 to 15 before filming my scantily clad, slow flowing, yoga-esc, "Dance" video with my friend as advertising for the yoga studio we are opening.
2. I wipe my dad's shit out of his pubic hair on his balls every day. I love to see the shocked traumatized faces of the people to whom I say that. (giggling at the thought of all of your faces right now. BTW, I wonder if all of you look like what I imagine you looking like?)
3. When I was 17, I threw all of my clothes into a trash bag and drove to Alaska from Texas to live on a farm with some Mormons without telling anybody that I was leaving, where I was going, or when I'd be back. I got sent back home by the Mormons because I was corrupting their sweet, innocent, virginal 19 year old son that was about to go on his 2 year mission. The weekend I got back I went to a concert and left for Houston the next day with some random girl I met at the concert. My parents were pissed.
4. I like to wake up my daughters every morning singing at the top of my lungs, "OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING! OH, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY. I'VE GOT A SPECIAL FEELING EVERYTHING’S GOING MY WAY." Followed by "Zippety Doo Dah, Zippetey aye, My oh my what a wonderful day! Plenty of sunSHINE heading my way, what a wonderful FEELING, wonderful day!" Complete with jazz hands and tickling. Hey, my parents did it to me and look how stable I turned out!
5. I don't understand why no one argues with the people that have a fear of snakes or spiders that are EASY to get away from unharmed but people feel the need to argue about my paralyzing, trembling, justified fear of Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, and Chows that I have personally witnessed biting my friend's bottom lip OFF and have chased and attacked me before. I can’t help it. They scare the crap out of me. I can’t make myself be brave and approach my neighbor’s Pitt that digs under my fence and chases my kids. I tell the kids to climb the swing set and stay there while I call other neighbors (because the Pitt’s family isn’t home) to please go get the dog. He is a sweet, friendly, rowdy, untrained dog, but when I see his wrinkled forehead, I can’t do it. I can’t walk up to him, grab his collar, and lead him back to his yard.
6. I know this is supposed to be six things about me, but I think that what I admire about Jodi tells something about the kind of people with whom I like to surround myself. I think Jodi is rad because she is super talented, complimentary, and thoughtful. She is actually a lot more accepting than she would have us all believe and she just generally an incredibly friendly, nice person that I feel honored to know...and she has perfect handwriting. (It's ok, Jodi. You don't have to bend over, I'm more than happy to squat to kiss your ass.) ;-*
Offered by: jamied on February 11, 2008 7:18 PM1. I was a fat kid growing up. By fat, I mean 92 pounds in the second grade. I had a bowl haircut that my dad would deliver once a month on the back porch of our modest ranch house in the middle-class suburbs of Cleveland. I had buckteeth that stuck out into the next county. In short, I was irresistible only to blind pedophiliac monks who weren’t skilled enough at their craft to seduce alter boys. But cosmic Karma is a bitch. Supposedly (I’m a terrible judge of self worth) I had a hot college look before I succumbed to the doldrums and various sags, bags and bulges of middle age. So take that, Don Schuler! I know I got laid more in college than you did! Nyah!
2. I write in my head. Remember in high school when the teacher asked to see ‘progress editions’ of your reports, term papers, or manifestos you were planning to send the community paper before you went all Columbine on your leering gym teacher’s ass? Well I never did them. Not once. I write, revise and edit completely in my head. By the time it hits the paper, it’s finished, polished, thought out and, although frustrating to my classmates, usually got an A. And if I didn’t, well, that’s what the manifestos were for…
3. I’m not as good a writer as I think I am. ‘Nuff said.
4. I’m a TV junkie. When I was younger, I used to sit in front of the black & white TV my parents had (we were the last on the street to get one) and watch anything and everything put in front of me. Recently, as a form of mental comfort food, I went back and watched some old ‘Our Gang” comedies, which I used to think were hilarious in my youth. Evidently, they don’t survive aging well. I was bored off my ass. But it also evoked a wave of nostalgic sadness for innocence lost. We always assume we can go back to certain benchmarks of our youth to relive, rekindle or remember times when we were carefree. Alas, houses get bulldozed; disco really did suck; TV shows change with the times and are never nearly as funny, dramatic or cutting edge as you remember them.
5. I have zero friends I keep in contact with from high school. I have three friends I keep in contact with from college. I have zero friends made since then as close as those three. Therefore, no one knows the whole me, and I work very hard to keep it that way.
6. I have never had a physical affair since being married. But I almost have twice.
Dang, Thomas, I'm so sorry to hear that. A lesbian who can shuffle is a terrible thing to lose...
Offered by: Ds on February 11, 2008 3:25 PMUnfortunately, no. This was almost 17 years ago. She was a Goth, theater person who liked me as a friend, liked me. I liked her as someone who would potentially be my "first", liked her. Unfortunately a 20 year old boy doesn't understand that a lesbian who teaches you the finer arts of cunnilingus doesn't "just need to try it once with a guy." She met someone, I met someone, and we both grew apart from the mutual friends that caused us to meet in the first place. A shame too: She was awesome at Euchre.
Offered by: Thomas on February 11, 2008 1:27 PMHey Thomas,
Do you still have the lesbian's number?
- I am obessed with growing a beard. I have a nascent beard now, and that's usually as far as it goes. I am 1/32nd First People (Mom's relatives always had a taste for the exotic) and from them I received a preponderance for a darker skin tone and a profound lack of facial hair density. Also, you call it corn, I call it maize.
- I attempted to get on the show American Gladiators. The requirements included 30 pull-ups in 30 seconds. I was 5 shy. I wasn't even allowed to try anything else. Bah.
- I once saved a boy's life. He fell into a swift moving stream and was headed to the St. Joseph river. I jumped in, plucked him out and swam back to shore. I cut my arm and lost my glasses, showing you that if you help someone, you only get hurt in the process. The boy later grew up to be president of the United States. (Not really, but I'd like to imagine he could be.)
- I caused a 15 minute long distance phone service outage for the Chicagoland area in 1997. I got to talk to an official in the FCC. I felt like I was the worst person ever.
- I was taught how to orally please a woman by a lesbian. She thought it was "cute" that I was a 20 year old virgin. She used "Suzy-Q" treats with a grape at the top. She would slit open the side, imbed the grape and then had me remove only the creme filling, not damaging the cake on either side, then had me spin the grape. The first time I applied this knowledge, I was beaten over the head with an empty 20oz soda bottle to finally get me to stop (after 40 some odd minutes and three climaxes.)
- Animals and small children are enthralled by me, yet I was bitten by a bad dog once. It managed to leave quite a bruise, but not break the skin. I know the owner put the dog down because of it, and I still feel bad for the dog. It was just acting on instinct.
Offered by: Thomas on February 11, 2008 8:45 AM
