Eighty Three Things About Me

A few years ago it was all the rage in the blogsphere to post these sort of slapdash "100 Things About Me" lists. I was checking out the archives of a few sites and the idea caught my interest. By the time I got to 83 it felt like I'd covered most everything fit to post online.

So here it is, the 83 Things About Me:

1. I love Pop-Up Video, to, like, a truly amusing extent.
2. At any given time, it's pretty likely I'm wearing my hair tied up on the top of my head in a messy bun/ponytail. It doesn't look best that way, and I know it. But the hair's out of my face and it's comfortable. Period.
3. I love that my husband was a university dj and keeps my life full of music.
4. I'm photogenic. I'm told all the time – it must be true.
5. Buying a house was the single all-time greatest purchase for my peace of mind.
6. I recently discovered that thread count is, actually, a pretty profound indicator of quality. Egyptian cotton: find it.
7. I was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario; Thunder Bay, Ontario is a crappy, dying, pulp-mill city on Lake Superior with a nine-month winter every year; and I love Thunder Bay, Ontario.
8. The first music I ever bought (read: picked out) for myself was The Best of Blondie – dig the cred.
9. I'm the oldest sibling and I am Queen.
10. I'm quietly consumed with amassing a vast collection of winter coats to match any possible mood, from hobo to czarina. But as yet I do not have a single pair of winter boots.
11. I am a sucker for physical humour. People getting hurt, particularly, or movements that mimic the oversized gestures from Sesame Street & the Muppets.
12. I have a security blanket called my softie, and I carry it everywhere. Yes, to work, yes, to the grocery store, yes, to the movies.
13. I have three piercings in my left ear and two in my right – originally inspired by Courteney Cox's character on an 80s show, "Misfits of Science".
14. I'm pregnant with my first child and I swear I have been feeling movement since about the two week mark, books and doctors' predictions be damned.
15. I have lived in India, the Philippines, France, and Canada.
16. My husband brags to his friends that I love The Big Lebowski.
17. I can do amazing tricks on the trampoline (and I have a trampoline in my backyard – c'mon over once this kid is born and I'll show you a thing or two).
18. I'm an avid indoor gardener. I got it from my mom. I don't have a green thumb, I'm just stubborn and disciplined. There are three things you have to understand if you're going to successfully raise houseplants: i. You will have a kill ratio. Accept it. Mine is 4/7. That means if I buy seven plants, four are likely to die, whether I like it or not. ii. It's nothing personal. Some plants want to die, or they have come to the end of their life cycle, and they will die no matter what you do. Don't take it personally. iii. You have to water the damn plants. This is the big oversight for many people. Water them regularly and they'll probably live, pure and simple.
19. I know some lovely, interesting, rational Americans. Bearing this in mind, I deeply fear the United States and its 'moral authority'. It's only a matter of time before they annex Canada, those bastards.
20. My favourite book is Touch the Dragon, by Karen Connelly.
21. I'm hypothyroid. Which means that I take a little purple pill every morning. Without the little purple pills, I'd irreversibly become a drooling cretin within a few months, a fact I find deeply chilling.
22. My undergraduate degree was in Women's Studies.
23. I suck my teeth. Nobody has ever complained to me about it, or ever asked me to stop, but I've heard people complain about other people sucking their teeth and how annoying it is. I can't deny that I suck my teeth, so I can only assume that I have the greatest grin-and-bear-it husband, family and friends, ever. At least, on this matter.
24. I had cancer at 18. Hodgkin's lymphoma. Cured by radiation, and by the garlic pills my grandfather insisted I take. I'm sure the bag of crystals from my west-coast aunt played a role, too.
25. My favourite colour is green.
26. When I get hurt, particularly when I hit my head, I don't want anyone coming close or trying comfort me. Don't touch!
27. I love Bjork, the Beastie Boys, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by The Band, John Denver's "An Evening With John Denver" album, Hindi film music, most of the soundtrack for Disney's "The Jungle Book", and Scott Joplin.
28. I drink a prodigious amount of club soda, daily.
29. Sadly, I still wish ill on a few people who wronged me in the past. You know who you are. If I ever see you again let's hope the best weapon at my disposal is a drink to throw in your face because I'm not above 'accidentally' running you over in my car and just sucking up the manslaughter charge. I'd be worth it. She died, I had nothing to do with it; I'm over it. 
30. I voted for Terry Fox in that CBC "The Greatest Canadian" challenge.
31. When I was eleven I was the star of a local children's educational tv show called "Harriet's Magic Hats". The premise was that a woman named Harriet had these hats that would magically take you to visit the people who gave her the hats in the first place. I played Aunt Harriet's niece, who was forever needing to learn about various occupations (baker, auto mechanic, zookeeper, etc.). That role earned me a great deal of money and a junior high career as a social pariah.
32. I drink tea.
33. I love the shower. One of my medium-term goals is to install a second water heater in the house so I can up my usual 20 min/twice daily shower ratio to a more reasonable 35 min/3 times daily. (Some people watch television; we all have our hobbies.)
34. I can quote way more Star Wars than the average girl.
35. I am a massage endorphin addict and have no shame in trying to wangle a rub out of just about anyone. Luckily for my pride, my husband is willing to fork over a rub about once a day, more often if I have a headache.
36. I was a Pixie in Brownies.
37. I love birds. I would love to own a bird. But I totally, fundamentally disagree with putting birds in cages. As such, I can never own a bird.
38. I'm the kind of friend that inspires my friends to all think they're each one of my closest friends.
39. I appreciate expensive brassieres.
40. When I was a kid, #1 of my theoretical three wishes was to be able to breathe underwater.
41. Despite this, I ended up with a crippling adulthood phobia of sharks, whales, and anything big in the water (including the undersides of boats if seen from below).
42. And despite that, I am a certified scuba diver.
43. In most cases, I do not tell people when I think they're making a mistake in their dating lives. Really – have you ever seen those poor suckers in shitty relationships make the hard decisions just because you came along and dispensed some wisdom? Not a chance.
44. I am blessed with cheerful, giggly hangovers.
45. I wish I could meet Rudyard Kipling.
46. I am a hopelessly sentimental Canadian who cries at the national anthem, whenever Canada wins gold at the Olympics, and at the sound of the Canada Direct operator coming on the line when I'm calling home from overseas.
47. My wardrobe is very touchable.
48. I recently finally "got it" that some people, no matter how much you invest in them, are shallow, pathetic (albeit fun) sociopaths. If I'd learned this at 20 I could have saved myself so much time and energy.
49. I've kept a journal since I was thirteen, and I've never shown it to anyone. Nor am I interested in showing it to anyone – not secretly, not hopefully-after-I-die-someone-will-publish-these-as-masterpieces, not even a little bit. Those books are for me and no one else.
50. I am a bully with my husband. I like to poke and tickle and bug and bother and lick and lean in too close and follow him around and generally perturb the shit out of him. And I love that he is such a good sport.
51. I dearly, desperately wish I was fluent in Quebecois French. Goddamn shitty anglo-Canadian in-school French education. I can conjugate hundreds of verbs in dozens of ways, but I still can't understand the woman behind the cheese counter at the Ste. Hyacinthe market.
52. I know my parents are fallible, human, and error-prone. But I still hold that against them (as quietly as possible).
53. My favourite stone is ammolite, a semi-precious gem with an iridescent rainbow sheen. It's from the inner layer of fosselized ancient snail shells. It's found in Alberta, Canada, and only a very few other places in the world.
54. I love making radio.
55. I am easily startled by sudden loud noises, and end up mad and 'in a mood'. People tend to try as best they can not to startle me as a result.
56. I am very physically flexible – a holdover from years of gymnastics as a kid.
57. I secretly believe that I am a trombone virtuoso... who has never had the chance to play the trombone. At the core of me I know it to be true.
58. I wave at trains.
59. I am a good dancer, but I haven't developed any new moves since about 1992. I'm fascinated that my cousin can mimic that Beyoncé "Crazy Like That" hip waggle-thing, but when I try it I just look stupid.
60. I like a clean house, but am, myself, an unrepentantly messy person.
61. I have seen a total solar eclipse (1995, Thailand).
62. I have a long neck. Not freakishly long – the kind of long where I look fab in chokers and turtlenecks.
63. I have a Master's. Of Science.
64. I bite at the little hangy-bits of skin at the edges of my fingernails. Obsessively. Yes, to the point of making myself bleed, getting infected fingers, needing elaborate bandages, being unable to use one hand or the other for up to a week at a time as a result. It's a sickness.
65. I remember a lot of my dreams.
66. I'm terrible at most kinds of math (but conics, for some reason, I understand).
67. I am a big chicken-hearted fee-fee and can't watch scary movies, even movies like Scream that anyone can handle. I had to turn off The Butterfly Effect. Yes, I know it works out in the end – that's not the point.
68. I like the weather best when it's humid, about 25 degrees celsius, overcast and windy.
69. I deeply resent other drivers who needlessly endanger me on the road, making stupid distracted decisions while they jabber on their cel phones.
70. I have actually read the classics, i.e. Dante's Inferno, Paradise Lost, The Odyssey; though I don't remember much about them.
71. I'm an excellent accidental self-taught photographer.
72. I use only organic toothpaste because I read an article a few years back that said commercial toothpastes all contain this scary carcinogenic foaming agent.
73. I get very angry at wasteful and shortsighted Calgary city planning, to the point where I'm not allowed to talk about it in public anymore because I can't keep my language clean.
74. I sway swingingly back and forth like Ray Charles to certain kinds of music: piano, fiddle, and 'old timey' bluegrass.
75. I find misspellings on public signs absolutely unacceptable.
76. My favourite film is "Out of Africa".
77. Simply put, I have absolutely beautiful hair. I'm not fussy about it, but it's an empirical fact that I have better hair than you.
78. I'm not much of a videogamer, but three cheers for Zelda.
79. I think people who ever find cause to say, "I wasn't being mean/insulting/rude – you just don't understand my sarcasm," are uninsightful jackasses.
80. I tip well, really well, when it's deserved. But holy smokes, stay out of my way if you're in the service industry and don't understand the concept of "customer service".
81. I have a terrible memory for jokes, so I memorized a really good one from Asia and have been using it since 1995 – with universal success and without ever running into anyone who has heard it before.
82. I was born on Guy Fawkes Day, but being Canadian, haven't ever had the opportunity to publicly burn effigies of some long-dead traitor on my birthday.
83. I'm not too worried about germs. I can share – spoons, straws, toothbrushes – with a minimum of fuss and squeamishness, but ewwww, dog slobber is disgusting.

Categories: Ash

Comments [20]

Yucky people

It's interesting what being pregnant has done to my brain, or my heart, or something. It kind of made me rethink the energy I spend on people, and whether I actually want them around or not. I used to be more "polite" about it, and say hi and be nicey nice and often get my feelings hurt when those yucky people ended up being their yucky selves just as I should have predicted. It took me a long, long time to step back and assess the clear fact that some people just suck, and I don't have any obligation to make nice or give a shit about them. Now I just smile politely, and then I walk away. And I don't feel the least bit bad. It's awesome.

But there are the yucky people who talk-too-fast and Hiiiiiiiiiiii how ARE you? not interested in you, just interested in what leverage you can give them, those people, out there. And for my part, I only have this to say: fuck off, you people. You suck. Don't talk to me. I am not leverage, not for you.

And there are those I'm-too-good/important-for-you people, the people who meet you 5, 10, 12 times and still pretend they've never met you because they're so important and don't have time to remember all the little people who cross their paths. And for them I have this pearl: also fuck off. You may be good and important in the world and you may do interesting creative things, or you may not. But for sure, you suck. Don't talk to me. Especially not on time #15 of meeting me, finally "realizing" we may have met before. You SUCK!

And finally, there are those clinically depressed energy-sucker people who are in denial about their depression and the shitty lives they've built for themselves and insist on inflicting themselves and their energy-suckerage on the world. I do feel sorry for you, and I'm sorry you're depressed because depression is awful. But to you I must also say this: fuck right off. Don't talk to me. I am not here to cure you of depression, Mr. Random Stranger, I have enough depressed friends and family to spend my love & energy on, and I have NONE left over for you. I know you know this already, because it's a core part of depression, knowing this, but YOU SUCK. But be honest with yourself and REALIZE that you suck and do something about it.

The best part of pregnancy has been the compartmentalization: I have opinions about the yucky people, but I don't feel any obligation to try with them, anymore. It's GREAT. I recommend it. Pregnancy, I mean. Also the figuring out that you don't need to spend ANY time on yucky people. Saves you soooo much social bullshit. Also gives you the licence to tell the yucky people to fuck off on your website, if not in person (because, c'mon, that's just crossing the lines of decorum).

Categories:

Comments [1]

The First Belly Shot: 20 Weeks

Here you have it, folks:

Note the bulge. That's not just a few extra coogies after dinner!

Categories: Pregnancy

Comments [2]

Still Life With Headache

The remains of lunch today at Mercatto on Toronto St., Toronto ON:

A few weeks ago I read in some pregnancy book that raw carrots could trigger headaches. I thought, Aw c'mon. I am usually plagued with headaches and migraines but after about the six week mark of the pregnancy, all traces of headaches seemed to vanish, like magic. I am usually a two-advil-a-day, five-or-so-days-a-week type of gal. Always have been, since I was a kid. So while I did read the carrots = headache thing in the book, I ignored the advice. “Meh,” I thought with my newfound arrogance, “I am pregnant! I am now IMMUNE to headaches! I need no advice, thank you very much!”

A few days later Turner came home from Calgary's Crossroads Market with awesome new-picked field carrots from the Mennonites and served them with dinner. Two hours later, clanging headache. Head-ache, head-ache. All the next day, headache. I finally thought, could it be... the... carrots? Nah.

When the headache passed, I was clear for another long while. I was suspicious, though. I stayed away from raw carrots for weeks, on purpose. No headaches. None, not a single one. Then I had a bowl of squash soup in Ottawa last weekend. Tasted good. Two hours later, clanging headache. Later, I found out it had carrot in it. What the hell?! Around that time, I was out having Vietnamese with a friend. I ordered the ban mi, minus the carrot. Lawrence sez to me he sez, “No carrot...?” 

Me: Umm... this is going to sound strange - I'd never heard of it before a few weeks ago, but... I think carrots give me headaches.

L: [not missing a beat] Oh yeah. Me too - since I was a kid. I can't eat raw carrots - they give me clanging headaches.

Lookit folks, I just stared. Have you ever heard of this? Raw carrots triggering headaches? I mean, I ate POUNDS of carrots as a kid. HUNDREDS of pounds a year, I'm sure. Raw carrots were the default kid snack food in our house. And carrots went into everything - salad, stew, tuna sandwiches. And all while I was growing up, I was following my parents to the aspirin bottle.

Take note, headache sufferers: sure, there are lots of triggers out there - stress, smoke, flashing lights... there's no shortage of stuff that can bring on the agony. But BEWARE! ONE OF THEM IS the innocuous and innocent-looking CARROT!! You heard it here!

Categories:

Comments [4]