2:18 p.m. - 2008-01-27
Seven Things
This will include my first attempts to leave links. If they don't work we'll all know pretty quickly. I'm crossing my fingers.

Geek Betty slapped the tag on me for a survey. Traditionally surveys and chain emails only come to my inbox to be broken. There are the occasional exceptions. Her geekiness is so open with her own views and experiences that I feel pretty obligated to acquiesce.

The Rules:

Link to the person who tagged you and leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours.

Post the rules on your blog.

Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.

Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, linking to their blogs.

Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Let's begin!

1) I'll steal the first subject from G.Betty. My favorite book has always been Jack London's "Martin Eden". I'm not sure if it's because of the description of the time period in which it's written or that it evokes such spectacular depression in me.(what a ringing endorsement that is) Anyway, if your cup overfloweth and you're so happy you just feel like you can't stand it, chow down on this one and it'll smooth you right out.

2)I'm a big Al Pacino fan. I've seen more movies than just about anybody but Roger Ebert or
Ploppy . I've never seen "The Godfather". (1,2 or 3) I guess it's time.

3)I have a dread fear of icy stairs. Not descending them but climbing them. I've had no bad experiences on them. I don't know if it's a common enough fear to have it's own phobia designation or if it's akin to something else, but, uh... I don't like 'em!

4)As a kid I jumped from the roof of a two story house. I didn't break anything. I'm not sure why I did it. I would have been 8 or 9 years old. I'm sure I was showing off. I had a great history of that sort of thing. As I said I'm not sure what led to the act, but I distinctly remember climbing onto the railing of a second floor balcony. I had just enough reach to wrap my fingertips around the edge of the rain gutter. I did a pullup to the roof and suddenly there I was with a birds-eye view to the whole neighborhood. I stood at the edge of the roof and looked down at the ground below. Other kids had assembled there to watch the show. I had absolutely no fear of this and I can't understand why. In hindsight maybe it was because once every couple months I'd watch Evel Knievel smash himself to bits on ABC's Wide World of Sports and always come back. Death or injury wasn't anything I had any real comprehension of. I adjusted my cape. Oh, yes! I was wearing a cape. It was a bath towel fastened at the neck by a safety pin. In fact we were all wearing them. I guess we'd all been leaping off of things all day. This was just the culmination of it all. And then... I leapt, thowing my cape out behind me while doing so to show proper flying form. I hit the ground squarely with both feet. HARD! My ass cheeks went all the way to my heels. I'm not sure how my knees didn't blow up. My front teeth came together with a rattling crack. No breaking or chipping. Fortunately my tongue was in my mouth or I'd have bitten the end of it off. I sort of did a tuck and roll to the right. It wasn't on purpose. I think I must have been a little off balance and the momentum of the whole thing took me that way. I rolled straight to my feet, took a bow and the other kids applauded. Though I calmly accepted the applause I was due, I was accutely aware of how lucky I was not to be hurt. I would never make a leap like that again.

5)...until I went skydiving. This was many years later. I have no bad experiences with this. It's pretty safe as long as you're not doing some incredibly risky aerobatics or attempting an impossible landing. If your chute doesn't open there's always the reserve. One thing I've never had the nerve for was bungee jumping. I've seen people do it. It looks like it would be fun. Something about it makes me uneasy. Icy stairs and bungee jumping. I'm looking for a pattern.

6)I cut my own hair. If you'd ever seen me in real life this probably would not come as a shock to you. There's no way I could do this as well as an actual barber or hairstylist could because I can't see what I'm doing. I started doing it in the fall of 2004. I'd been going to some quick cuts place for years. I think originally they charged $9.99. (this is a long time ago) It gradually raised to $14.99. One day, the last day, it had raised ot $17.99. I usually went in once a month. So in one month it raised 3 bucks. If that was all I probably would have just paid it. Basically 18$ and a couple $ tip for whoever ran the razor and I was out of there for 20$. Part of what they were doing for the extra 3 bucks was to wash your hair first. I didn't need my hair washed first. I've got curly hair and any hair cut is just going to leave little bits and pieces of cut hair in my hair that won't come out til I wash it afterwards. Plus it was going to take more time. Wait to get a chair, then wash it then cut it. I liked the whole fast food atmosphere the place originally had. So I put up with it that one time. I was wandering through a Walgreens some time after that and saw a set of clippers with attachments for 23 bucks. I thought I could do what they're doing. Since I've got curly hair anyway, any imperfections will just look like curly hair. So I picked up the clippers to try it a couple times. If it was just too goofy looking I wouldn't really be out anything. Well except the goofy looking hair. But that's what they make baseball caps for. I found the results acceptable:

It ain't perfect, but then neither am I so it kind of fits.
(heh-heh! there seems to be kind of a Kermit the Frog quality to that last one)

7)I was in the bottom 10% of my high school graduting class. This should come as no surprise to anyone who's ever read this blog. My creative spelling and punctuation separate me from even the avearge internet blogger. My grades were perfect through 3rd grade. By 4th grade I'd had enough and waited what seemed an eternity for my academic career to end. I did have a bit of an issue in kindergarden. Teacher was a bit concerned about some issues I was having. When I colored a picture I made no attempt to stay inside the lines. The results were these great collages with colors running into each other. That coupled with the whole 'name' thing. This was before there was such a thing as Sesame Street or any of the children's educational TV programs. My time before kindergarden had been spent fishing, riding bikes, playing baseball, running my Tonka trucks through the dirt... and maybe occasionally jumping off of things. So after we tackled the alphabet, we were practicing printing the letters. We couldn't read yet so teacher had us practice with our names. I knew what my name was but had no idea how to spell it. I was smart enough to know that the teacher had given us name tags to wear on our left breast and all I had to do was spell it the way teacher did. I did it perfectly! When the teacher came around to check our progress, I could see a look of concern come over her face. After the first couple weeks of school there was a parent teacher conference. My parents were made aware of teacher's concerns. Shortly after this we all had a meeting together. The coloring was easy to explain. I had real crayons at home. The 64 pack with colors you could never possibly have any reason to use. I had a crayon sharpener and my crayons always had an edge and I could draw anything. At school we had the fat crayons. Do they still make the fat crayons? You know the fat crayons. They're the same width and slightly shorter that cigars. I'd decided immediately I couldn't color with those and had no interest in trying. So I did the collages. This was the 60's and the age of psychedelic pictures and I was happy with my results even if they weren't appreciated by the teacher. I was sort of making my own psychedelic images. I could see how the name thing was alarming. While I'd spelled my name exactly as it appeared on my name tag, it was upside down and backwards. It was on my left breast and I was looking down at it, this was exactly how it appeared to me. I'm not sure if the word dyslexic was being used yet but this was sort of their fear. So after I told them what I'd done they all started laughing with relief. I wasn't dyslexic, I just didn't know how to spell my own name. It's been 40 plus years since then and I'm proud to say I am now able to spell it. My handwriting is indecipherable though so I could be dyslexic and who would know?

OK! That was 7 of them. I remember doing this on a MySpace bulletin called "5 Things" a couple years ago and had a hard time coming up with 5 things. I can't remember any of these being on that list but can't remember what I wrote then.
The rules of this were to designate 7 people to complete this on their blogs and and leave a comment on their blog telling them they've been tagged. Some people enjoy doing these and some don't. I'm not going to put you on the spot. If you read this and feel like it's something you'd like to do, just sign my comment box telling me you're going to pick up the baton and run with it. If not, I don't blame you a bit. I hope you'll chose to share.

I'll be back with a Fat Ass preview in a day or 2. Til then, happy trails!

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