Well, I skipped last week ‘cos it was a choice: write a blog for free; or get eight hours overtime.
We’ve established what I am. We’re just haggling over the price.
I have visited exactly one foreign country. Which, if you’re rounding things off, is nearly zero. Plus, the foreign country I visited was Great Britain, where they mostly spoke the same language I do, only sexier, and with some weird expressions thrown in to confuse me (did you know, for instance, that a fart can be a “trouser cough?”), and the Customs bloke wouldn’t let me pay customs on my imports because I was traveling with The Mom, even though I was over twenty-one and didn’t live under her roof anymore. So I’d like to try that again sometime, perhaps in a more confusing country, and with customs charges.
One of the more bizarre questions on the “mostly useless questions” meme asks, “If you were out of shape, would you compete in a triathlon if you were somehow guaranteed to win a big, gaudy medal?” Here are my answers, in order: I’m not in the best of shape now, but I’m in better shape than I was, and I still don’t want to compete in a triathlon. However, if I’m guaranteed to win, then I’ll be happy to show up at the starting line and collect my big, gaudy medal, which I will then give to my office girlfriend, because he is a darling, but a bit of a magpie, and shiny things make him ever so giddy.
I would rather be poor and happy than rich and unhappy. That having been said, I’d rather, given a choice, be rich and happy. I don’t believe money can buy happiness, but I’d sure like to have the peace of mind it can bring, and then I’ll have time to make my own happiness.
If I fell into quicksand, I believe I would probably try to swim. I wouldn’t mean to. It’s just that, when nothing’s supporting me, I flail. You’ll just have to accept that about me. And so, I imagine, will the quicksand.
We got lost quite a lot today. I didn’t so much want to ask for directions as to say to That Man of Mine, “Can’t you just pull into that Starbucks’ lot? I’ll get a WiFi connection and get you directions.” And he said, “I like to drive around. This is how I learn the area.” It was also how we used up most of our gas and about two hours, looking for a place we never actually wound up finding. Poor and happy, did you say?
I never held a Mexican jumping bean. The girl down the street had some, when I was a tiny kid. She was too, come to that. Anyway, she wouldn’t let me hold them, but she let me watch whilst they wriggled around in the box. Later, the Mom told me they had bugs inside, so I’m glad I didn’t hold them. Ick.
I think I’m more like Alice in Wonderland than I am like Cinderella. I don’t sit around crying and waiting for some old broad to wave a wand and send me to prom. I drink out of the little bottle, and eat the cake, and try the mushrooms … whatever I have to do to get the key into my hand and get myself small enough to go through the little door into the beautiful garden. My problem is that Prince Charming keeps putting baseball cards in front of the door. And I think I’ve screwed these metaphors into an unsolvable knot, so I will stop now.
Given the choice, I would rather have a box of crayons without points than an ant farm without ants. Even without liking bugs (see above), an empty ant farm doesn’t do anything. Broken crayons? Don’t be silly. Peel the paper back and start coloring.
Frankly, I’m not fussy about bread. If white Wonder Bread is all that’s available, I’m still going to eat the hell out of it, because I am a bread ho. But even when I seek out light bread, it’s got to be interesting — challah is fine; I also like potato bread, or Portuguese sweet bread, for sandwiches. French bread is good because it’s got a crust one has to commit oneself to. Most of the time, though, I’m looking for a dark, chewy bread, with lots of seeds and texture mixed into it.
I will pretty much eat eggs prepared any way at all, except if the whites are still clear. I — ugh. Yeah, no. Whites should be white. Golf Widow Law. Anyway, if scrambled is what’s happening, eggwise, fine (can you at least toss a little parsley into it, please?), but I order my eggs over medium well, so the yolks are, not runny, but crawly. I like to dunk my (dark bread) toast into the yolks. When I’m home, I fry eggs and break the yolks, the way my daddy used to make them for me, and put them into a sandwich (light bread for that preparation, because Daddy didn’t want any of that whole wheat crap).
When I was a teenager, my friends and I were coming home from a party and my friend’s car ran out of gas. We pushed it to the side of the road and walked to a pay phone, because the dinosaurs had eaten all the cell towers. Anyway, it was about a half mile walk, and my friend was terrified because her dad was going to kill her, for being out that late, for being irresponsible and running out of gas, et cetera, et cetera. I had a dime in my shoe, because my daddy said I always should, just in case I lost my purse. I had my purse, but the only change I had was that dime. Fortunately, a dime was all we needed, because that was all a phone call cost, when Lincoln was president. We didn’t call my friend’s dad. We called mine. Yes, he swore up a storm, because he was watching The Honeymooners and he had only seen that episode a few dozen times before, but he did show up, with a can of gas, and followed us to the nearest gas station, where he put another $5 into the tank, which, in those days, filled it about halfway, because gas was a very new fossil fuel and we still had plenty. The part of this episode that stuck with me, more than the fact that I never ran out of gas myself after that, ever … was that my friend cried on the way home, and said, “I love your dad more than I love mine.” I thought that was incredibly sad. My dad could be an embarrassment (he showed up in that gourdawful fruit-covered shirt, for instance), but I adored him. No one else’s dad could compete.
I already answered the question about talking in my sleep, because they asked if I ever sleepwalked. I feel like I ought to throw something else in here for you. Oh, I know what. I have out-of-body experiences sometimes. I can’t usually control when or how, but when I feel one coming on (usually when I’m dozing off), I can sometimes steer myself to certain places. It was unnerving the first time. It’s kind of cool now that I’m used to it.
I would rather shovel snow than mow the lawn. Our sidewalk was short, even with all the stairs to the front entrance. Our yard was vast. Fortunately, I live in the desert. We get maybe two flakes of snow per year, and our front lawn is dirt. My shoveling/mowing consists of picking up the occasional discarded wrapper and walking it over to the Dumpster.
I used to love to play in the rain. The world was more interesting (and more abandoned) when water was spilling onto it. I don’t get as much rain anymore, and I’m arthritic as hell, but I still like to park a chair outside for a little while and turn my face up toward the downpour. I’m not sure what that says about me, and I’m okay with that.
I didn’t make mud pies when I was a tiny kid, however. There was a tree in the park across the street that had had a double trunk, but one of the trunks had been cut off, leaving a trunk with a stump poking out. The stump was hollow, and I used to fill it with sand and soil on sunny days, just so I could go to the park when it rained and stir it with a stick. I called it “deer soup,” and I imagined how happy the deer would be, when they came to the park and saw I had cooked for them.
I have broken my left big toe, twice, and my right pinky. I never went to the doctor on either of those. For my toe, the pharmacist where I worked told me the E.R. wouldn’t even splint a toe, and to wear sneakers and white socks till it healed. When it broke the second time, I did the same thing. For my pinky, I bought a splint at a different drugstore (I was way past that first job by then) and it healed all right, too. I reckon I’m all set if I break a bigger bone, eh?
I would not climb a very tall tree to save a kitten. A kitten, no matter what you think, will come down on its own. I’ve seen them do it. However, I would climb Everest to save a child. Although, if it were my own child, there’d be serious trouble for them having climbed up there in the first place. They’d be so grounded that the light from being off-punishment wouldn’t even reach them for ninety-six billion years.
An alligator’s snout looks pointed. Think the letter V. A crocodile’s snout is blunt. Think the letter U. Now remember that you will never need to know the difference, because if you’re near one, and it’s hungry, you’re fucked either way.
I honestly don’t have a preference between Pepsi versus Coke. I drink very little soda as is; when I do, I’d rather have Sprite, or ginger ale. When I’m drinking cola, my first choice is Mexican Coke, which is made with sugar cane and is far more refreshing than any cola that’s been sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. If domestic is all there is, give me whatever. I’m not sure I can tell the difference. I’ve never really tried.
My favorite number is 42. It’s my date of birth, 6, multiplied by my luckiest number, 7, and it’s my age, and it’s the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Everyone’s favorite number should be 42.
We’re almost done with this list, kids. Gimme a couple more weeks.
Tags: meme
drinking: ice water
listening to: Van Morrison, And the Healing Has Begun
into the music: because my cousin was listening to bright side of the road and i got jealous