Last week, we discussed my favorite fruit (Bosc pears, not, as I might previously have intimated, apples. Sorry). This week, we shall discuss my least favorite fruit, which is probably durian, although I’ve never tasted it yet. I have heard that it is reminiscent of corpses, or smelly feet, and I’m just not with that. My least favorite fruit that I’ve actually sampled is probably raw papaya. It hurts my mouth. I still like it … just not as much as pretty much every other fruit.

If I won a $5,000 shopping spree to any store, I think I would pick Amazon. That way I could get a bit of everything.

I don’t have a particular brand of sports apparel I wear more often than any other, mostly because I don’t tend to wear sports apparel. I work out in sweatpants or shorts, and an extremely tatty t-shirt advertising a shipping company whose trucks are chocolatey-brown and who pays me not to mention their name in my blog, even about my tatty t-shirt. I believe I own a Nike hoodie, somewhere, but it’s not because I purchased it. I think That Man of Mine got it with Coke Rewards points.

I was a rubbish student, in the sense that I hated to study and was bad to procrastinate, homeworkwise. However, I was an excellent student in that I read all the textbooks the first week of school and was good at churning out great homework at the last minute. Also, my teachers tended to love me, even when I was going through my badass stage.

Amongst my friends, I believe I could arm-wrestle, and beat, a few of them, because I have been working out with wrist weights and I think some of them don’t work out at all. However, the only one I’m sure I could beat is MommaJ, who just retired. She’s two years older than baseball. I could kick her arse, if she weren’t so freaking sweet.

If I had to choose a branch of the military to be in, I’d pick the Marines. I reckon that’s the branch that would kick me out the fastest.

I think my best feature is my brain, but for people who have to have something to look at, I guess you could do worse than looking at my eyes. They’re light brown. They used to be darker, but I appear to be losing pigment with age. Anyway, I’m told that they twinkle. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

If I were to win a Grammy, I’d probably win it for Best Performance In the Shower, Without Actually Knowing All the Words, and With Air Guitar. Not a category, you say? Well, it should be. If I were to be nominated for an actual Grammy, for the kind of stuff I actually sing most often, I guess it’d be Rock.

If I were to win an Oscar, that would be for Best Performance by Someone Who Actually Can’t Act. Oh, for pizza’s sake, you want a real category again. Fine. Is Comedy a category in the Oscars, or only the Golden Globes? I guess I could manage a screenwriter’s nomination, but it would have to be for something lighthearted.

My favorite season is paprika. Oh, season. Not seasoning. I like autumn. It’s a nice relief from the agony of summer in the desert.

What counts in your immediate family? Is that the person to whom you’re married, and your offspring, or is it your parents and siblings, but not your offspring? Probably a moot point, since I’ve never offsprung. Anyway, counting it off: I have the Mom, and my dad, who are still married to each other, and I have a brother, who has two daughters, who are also related to me by blood, so do they count, even if his wife, whom I adore, isn’t? I have-ish a sister, whom I am not close to, and she recently married, and I like her husband quite a lot, but he’s not related by blood, so he’s not immediate family. He’s more of eventual family. And then there is my That Man’s twin sister, whom I am extremely close to, and her kids, which still don’t count as immediate family, so I guess that’s four immediates. If we’re counting. I’d just as soon not.

I think, of the five main senses (I think there are more), I most value my eyesight. I’d be annoyed if I couldn’t smell anymore, devastated if I couldn’t taste anymore, pissed if I couldn’t hear anymore, and relieved if I couldn’t feel anymore (no more pain? hell, yes). But if I couldn’t see anymore, I’d miss the lightning. No.

I would be a more successful singer than a painter. Most people can tell what I’m singing when I sing. When I paint, I get a lot of, “Wow, that’s a nice dog,” and then they have to backtrack when I explain that it’s supposed to be a lion.

I have a degree in Business Admin. Given the time and the money, I’d go back to school and do four years for my BFA in writing, another four for my MFA, and stop if I were too old or too tired. If I weren’t, I’d go back for another four for my BS in astronomy, and possibly another four for my Master’s if I hadn’t dropped dead of exhaustion. I’m tired (and broke) just thinking about it.

The only surgery I’ve ever had has been biopsies, unless spinal taps and colonoscopies count. I’m supposed to be having another surgery for a spinal cord stimulator, to cut my pain, but there have been a few communication snafus between the psychiatrist and the pain specialist. I don’t expect them to sort their shit out anytime soon. In the meantime, I have Percocet, and Australian ginger beer. I’ve survived on less.

I would rather be a professional figure skater than a professional football player. I would have loved to be a professional figure skater anyway. They look so lovely. Unfortunately, I am full of ecarg, which is the opposite of grace.

If I could collect anything, it would be first-edition books. This sort of collection doesn’t fit my budget. I content myself with collecting penguins, in the sense that I never actually have to buy any. I just mention that I like penguins and then everyone buys me some, or sends me pictures of them, or makes sure they’re on my birthday cards, et cetera.

As far as how many valuable collectibles I own, I think that number is zero. However, there are a metric fuckton of baseball cards in my home, and I think I paid for some of them, so do they count?

The final question in that hundred-question survey was: “What one question would you add to this survey?” Really? Don’t you think you covered everything? Sometimes dividing it into two questions? Here’s the question I would add:

Do you feel you learned anything about yourself by answering all these questions?

And my answer would be: I don’t know if I learned anything I didn’t already know, but I’m pretty sure I remembered stuff I thought was long since forgotten.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Ne-Yo, Let Me Love You
betting: you’re thoroughly sick of this meme

If I were driving a car, I’d prefer to be in a sports car, because they look cool, and they use less gas than SUVs. However, if I were a car, I’d probably be a Smart Car. Small, not particularly fast, more intelligent than the cooler cars and, as a consequence, just way too dorky to hang around with.

The only items I have ever taken from hotels accidentally (whether staying at them or working at them) have been pens. I tend to stick them in my pocket or drop them into my purse without thinking about whether or not they actually belong to me. This is not to say that pens are the only items I have ever taken from hotels. I have taken ashtrays, towels, matchbooks, sugar packets, Danish that was only going to be discarded anyway, and, on one occasion, a lampshade … all from hotels at which I worked, and all completely and totally deliberately. I reckon the statute of limitations is up on all of that stuff. If not, they can have back the ashtrays and matchbooks. I already used the sugar packets.

I have fallen twice whilst showering. The first time, I was home alone. Thereafter, I stopped showering unless That Man of Mine was home. I did not tell him, because I am a fool. He found out the hard way, the second time I fell. I have a shower seat now, but I use it more for balance than actually sitting in it to shower, anymore. My equilibrium has gotten a lot better now that my health is more under control.

I do not use deodorant soap. I don’t like how it makes my skin feel. I use Bain de Luxe foaming body scrub, which smells like oranges and vanilla, and follow it up with hypoallergenic crystal deodorant. I can’t afford my favorite perfume, Very Irresistible by Givenchy, most of the time, and thank gourd, because I always misspell “irresistible.” (I put in an “a,” every single time.) So I have some, but I only use it on special occasions. For everyday, I wear Bath and Body Works Forever Red, including that I have a pomander necklace that I use as my badge lanyard, and in the little pomander holder thingy is a wodge of cotton moistened with Forever Red. Not only do I smell okay without the use of deodorant soap, my badge is probably the best-smelling one at the company of the chocolatey-brown trucks.

I have never locked myself out of the house so badly that I couldn’t get back in. We all got locked out once when I was a tiny kid, and the GolfBrother got us in. I can’t remember if he broke a window (probably the cellar or the garage, if he did), or if he just cut a screen. He was even tinier than I was at the time, so it’s no good asking him. Anyway, I locked myself out of my first house twice. The first time, I went to the neighbor’s, used their phone, and called my roommate, who worked about two miles away and came home to let me in. By the second time, she and my other roommate were working in Milford, which was a longer haul, so I went around to the side and pried open the basement window. It was undignified, but it worked. Better than I cared for, since my stereo and things were inside. I wasn’t thrilled that it was so easily accessible.

I would not want to make a living as a singing cowboy. There’s only one I even know of anymore, and he sings in tighty-whities and a Stetson on a street corner in New York. I don’t imagine he’s making a living at it, or he could afford britches. I’d far rather make my living as a voiceover artist on The Simpsons. In fact, I’d rather be a writer for The Simpsons, but I do what I do.

I suppose you think that, if I could invite any movie star to dinner, I should invite Liam Neeson. That would be foolhardy. That Man of Mine eats dinner here too, you know. I think I would invite Laura Linney. She seems very cool. She’s also, unbeknownst to That Man, one of Liam Neeson’s closest friends, so, of course, when I was walking her out, I’d whisper to her, “Tell Liam Neeson I made really good spaghetti sauce.” It’s far less harmful, and less stalkeriffic, than saying, “Tell Liam Neeson that I’m wondering if the rumors on that Tumblr page are true.”

I have to go to the ophthalmologist. I have reading glasses, but lately I’m noticing that everything has a lovely fuzzy halo around it. I guess my prescription ran out.

I have, in my travels round the axis, hung out with and/or dated plenty of people my other friends didn’t like. In fairness, most of them have done the same thing, more often even than I. While I refused to pass judgment on their choices, taking their sides even when I didn’t agree with them, because that’s what BFFs do, they generally did not return the favor. Most of them are off living their own lives now, and I don’t hang out or date anyone, because I am married, and we only have the one car, which he drives. I hang out with whomever he fancies hanging out with.

I have also, in those same travels round the axis, been obligated to hang out with people whom my friends liked, but I didn’t. This will continue to be true for the rest of my life, I am afraid, because That Man of Mine likes golfers and card collectors. I couldn’t possibly be more bored.

I myself have never returned a gift to the store, but my gramma got me a shirt once that didn’t fit, and she exchanged it. Since she worked at the store, it wasn’t a difficult thing to do. I had the new shirt the next time we went to visit. As far as other gifts I’ve received, I have either really, genuinely loved them, or not liked them but not had the receipts, so I kept them or regifted them. I don’t regift capriciously, incidentally. For instance, when someone gave klutzy old me a pair of spun-glass ballerina slippers (meant as a wall hanging, not for actual wear), they were one of the more useless (and, potentially, short-lived) gifts I have ever gotten … but I do happen to be friends with a dancer who thought they were a lovely gift from me. So I did get some satisfaction from them, after all.

I don’t care for the Olympics. I’m not interested enough in athletics, and I have seen too many instances of cheating and/or rigging of the judging in the past few games. If I were being forced to attend one event, I would probably pick women’s basketball, since it would likely include at least one UConn alumna whom I would recognize.

If I had to participate in an Olympic event, I’d pick some sort of race, and then, at the starting gun, I would move to the side, sit down, and read my book, which is what I do when the Olympics are on telly, anyway. They wouldn’t know what to do with me.

I own, for me, a lot of shoes. Five years ago, I owned two, and I hated both pairs. They were ugly, but they fit someone whose feet and ankles were terrifyingly swollen. Then my meds got fixed, my size went back to normal, and I made a deal with That Man of Mine that, any time another packet of baseball cards entered the house, I would be buying another pair of cute shoes. He’s been more prudent as a result, but every so often, cards just need to be owned. I have gone from one pair of horrible black loafers (which were my dress shoes) and one pair of white canvas sneakers with a coffee stain on the right toe, to two pairs of sneakers (one of them high-topped and patterned after the Union Jack, possibly my favorite sneakers I have ever owned), five pairs of heels, seven pairs of ballet flats (two red pairs, because red shoes just put me in a really good mood), two pairs of sandals, one pair of regular flip-flops, and a pair of Swap-Flops, with five interchangeable vamps so I can color-coordinate. I have my eye on another pair of flats, but I won’t get them until That Man really needs more baseball cards.

When my gramma was alive, I would never have told her if she got me a gift I already had. I loved that woman. I would not knowingly hurt her feelings. However, my gramma was also the sort of person who, if she got something for you a second time, she’d say that she didn’t know you still had the first one, because she certainly didn’t see you using it. You think I’m snarky. My gramma invented snark.

I no longer sing in the car. That Man does all the driving, and he picks the listening. Either we don’t listen to anything at all, or we have sports radio. We take the occasional side trip into Yawny — I mean, Yanni — or Andrea Bocelli. I cannot bring myself to stay awake for Yanni, let alone sing along. I don’t sing along with Andrea Bocelli because I’d ruin it. All of that having been said, I sing in the shower, and when I’m alone in the house, you’d better watch out, because music is on, and I am singing along at the top of my lungs.

My favorite breed of dog is probably the beagle. They’re not so big they destroy the house or drag you at the end of their leads, and they’re not so small they yap incessantly and bite your ankles.

If I had money to spare, then yes, I would donate money to feed starving animals in the winter, if it were an organization for which it could be proven that that’s where the money was going. Be fair, if I had money to spare, that’s not the first charity I would choose, but I can’t deny that it’s a noble cause.

My favorite fruit is probably the Bosc pear. I think, in a previous post, I might have said apple. I do love apples, but I prefer Bosc pears, and I just forgot, that’s all. It’s a blog. I didn’t chip the shit into my tombstone or something: “Here Lies Golfwidow, Lover of Apples to the Exclusion of All Other Fruits.” That’s a rubbish epitaph. Pears. They’re yummy.

Tags: meme

drinking: ice water
listening to: Dave Mason, We Just Disagree
craving: curry. which means i have to defrost some chicken

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