Grab-bag

TOP TEN WEEKEND TASK

Well done to those of you who took up our challenge (though the dead-line has not yet passed, so any late-entries are welcome).

Thus-far myself, Charlie Brown, bitemeandsmile, fish, themachobox and off-black have submitted their fantasy lists.

I have decided to make it like Scattegories and if anyone said the same person as you did, NOBODY gets him. Thats means none of us girls get Johnny Depp, Will Smith, John Cusack, Ewan McGregor, Dan Carter, Jack Johnson, JAKE GYLLANHALL (damnit), Harrison Ford or Colin Firth.... or Janeanne Garofalo.

Fishy gets Brad Pitt (score!), her three singers and Alan Rickman (surprising, that!).
Cassie gets Vin D, Joaquin, Hugh (score!), Kelly Slater, Marky Mark, and Colin Farrell. [Can anyone say baaaaaad-boooooooys?]
Ange only gets Pacey (I totally woulda put him if I thought of it), Richard Gere and Skeet Ulrich (ripped off!).
I get Rapaport, Phil Jones, Elvis, Craig McMillan, Ed Burns and Karl Urban (go the kiwi boys!).

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Anyone wanna come up with the next group-task?

***
Here's a photo of my step-newphews (my dad's wife's daughter's sons). I honestly think wee Josh is the cutest baby in the whole world (and I'll fight you for it if you think Megan deserves the title, Fishy!). His much bigger brothers adore him.

Isn't it funny how often you can see a baby and be totally convinced it is the best one ever made? And every time you think it you're being totally honest and sincere at the time...... Must be a feature of evolution. They have to look so cute and endearing or we wouldn't feed them. Cunning little buggers.

***

JOURNAL

I like how Leon is putting extracts from his journals on his blog. I might do the same.

I have only ever successfully kept one journal – of sorts.

Here are some random extracts. I am going to list them as fragments because that’s all most of it is. Rather than ambitiously trying to come up with entire poems or fleshed out thoughts, I tended to write down phrases or images or small ideas. Little things. A lot of it is just doodles I wrote while half-listening to accounting lecturers. Nothing cringe-worthy (I don't think). These are all from my Massey University era.

1.
[not romantic – just noticing myself developing a mannerism that someone else had]

I sit on the porch and I close my eyes.
I feel the sun and I know I feel like you – that essence in my head.

2.
[words put together into a phrase]

Lovebird toothbrushes caressing in a cup

3.
[notes taken during a lecture – an exercise of writing a column of nouns and a column of adjectives and a column of verbs and then putting them together in different ways, trying to come up with phrases that might be used in a song written by Beck]

- Ambling justice, zig-zagging its way
- Teal crows, curling through the sky
- Optimistic stains
- Readying herself for the identikit picture
- Like an invisible tourist
- Singing with eyes closed
- Irritated by the delicate effort
- Humble insults
- Blind phonecalls
- The slow, sticking paranoia
- constant state of pregnancy
- a pen poised to write, clearing its throat

4.
[losing a pen]

She spent her whole life looking for that lost pen. One of the hazards of working in bed.

5.
[just chewing]

I have a bag of sunflower seeds. I shovel them into my mouth. It gives me something to do. I should take up smoking – it seems to add character. Party-goers tend to bond more over smoking than over a mutual love of sunflower seeds. It’s a sad state of affairs.

One Day I'll do a 'Thought Provoking' Post.... For now I'm still having fun making up facts about myself.

Twenty Minutes of Procrastinating (and counting)......

'What do you learn at school, Hans Thomas?' Dad asked.
'To sit still,' I replied. 'It's so difficult that we spend years trying to do it.'
- The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaardner
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has the right to blame us - Oscar Wilde
If our brain was simple enough for us to understand it, we would be so stupid we wouldn't be able to understand it after all. - Jostein Gaardner

And the list continues to infinity.....
113) Me and my friend played a recorder solo in front of assembly at primary school.... I'm not sure whose idea that was, certainly not mine. I got to play the tenor recorder eventually because I had the biggest fingers in the class.....

114) .... my friend Nicky calls my freakishly long hands 'The Gollums'. You may or may not know what body part of hers I have nicknamed in revenge :)

115) I almost bit my tongue off on a see-saw when I was three. I had to get stitches. It was my brother's fault.

116) I support communism in theory.

 117) I developed a bizarre habit a few years ago of doing the thumbs-up sign in the middle of conversations when I was talking to someone I had a crush on..... That just doesn't look cool. I hope I've eliminated that habit.

118) I believe Laurie Maines's theory about Tanya the maid poisoning the All Blacks at the world cup in '95.

119) I procrastinate like nobody's business!

120) The best anagram of my full name is 'Eureka! I am the grand jam!' (Second best is 'I am a mean jerk daughter'.)

121) People saying d'oh has always annoyed me. Rather irrationally.

122) My favourite Roses chocolate would be a hard caramel one. Least favourite would be marshmallow or peppermint or coffee.

123) If I had to punch someone for some reason, I'd like to use a right uppercut. They look solid.

I do What I Want

... so I might do more than 100 things about me. If I am inspired. (Credit to Matt for the title - imagine it said in a Cartman voice).

MORE! ME ME ME ME ME
I've gotten past the stage of writing for an audience - so I don't mind if nobody in the world reads past here. I think that's healthy....

98) The best three bits of advice I ever got:
"Lose the fringe" - said to me in seventh form by James. I've never gone back. Anyone who's seen pictures of me at high school will agree it was good advice.
"Smile - it can't be that bad" - said to me by a homeless guy in San Francisco as I passed him in the street, when I was about 12 and having a grump about having to go to another sports shop for my brother to look at (I was being a brat).
"It doesn't get better, but it does get easier" - said to me by the father of a guy I vaguely knew at school who'd heard my mother was dying and said it while he was filling up my nana's petrol tank at Mobil, where he worked (he prefaced it with 'This probably won't mean much to you right now, but both my parents died and someone said this to me and it helped....'). So true.

99) The thing that makes me saddest in life is not feeling needed by the people who I need.

100) Any time I say something vaguely serious, I like to preface or follow it with something less serious. Like 'I think if I chose the right song and was warmed up, I could get past the first round of Kiwi Idol'.

101) I have never in my life wanted to be subbed out of a basketball game (well, maybe I did one time cause my shoulder was killing me, but my coach rubbed tiger balm on it from the sidelines and made me stay on - I was secretly flattered).

102) I used to drink Lemsip for fun and when we had a lemon tree at home, I'd make myself lemon-honey drinks for afternoon tea regardless of whether I had a cold or not.

103) Most of the best compliments I've ever had were from my brother. I credit him and my parents for me having a healthy sense of self-worth.

104) I liked to read Archie comics growing up. I liked Betty and hated Veronica. I also loved the Secret Seven, but hated the Famous Five books. I found it disturbing that a girl could be called 'George' for short.

105) Growing up I never used to wear underwear to bed with my nightie or jamies.... and only realised not all children did this when my friends noticed and laughed at me at a slumber party in about standard three. Slightly traumatising.

106) I only have one secret that I've never told anyone. It'd not deeply traumatic, but dysfunctional and embarrassing. You'd never guess it, and I wonder how many other people have done the same thing (if any).

107) I don't know why it's so embarrassing to admit to liking Phil Collins.

108) I have two tiny burns on my leg from sleeping with water bottles that were too hot (yes - I did it more than once, in close proximity too).

109) I have never been in love, but have had one or two people who were in love with me.

110) I often walk home alone in the dark, both in the city and in my home town. People telling me not to makes me even more stubborn to do it (I have been known to actually run away down the street when someone insisted on ordering a taxi for me).

111) When I'm nervous or feeling defensive at school, I start talking to my class in a posher accent. I only recently noticed. The kids probably noticed ages ago.

112) While I've been insecure about other things, I've never been insecure about my intelligence. Perhaps a factor in my getting along well with cocky people. (I stole that one from Fish - acknowledged.)

One Week of Blogging

This is the longest I've ever carried through with a diary of any form.

I was telling my class last week that they'd be surprised how easy it was to get people to talk about themselves when they did interviews - and after a brief mock press-conference of a couple of them, they agreed. We all like a forum to be totally self-absorbed and introspective and stuff. Most of us are too polite to heap that on people in the course of everyday conversation (most of us, but not all).

Best Things of the Week

• Song of the Week: I wish I was a Punk Rocker by Sandi Thom
• Phrase of the Week: It doesn't rain - it pours.
• What I'm Looking Forward To Next Week: Road trippin' on Monday with the Hutt Crew and a sports exchange with my old school
• Favourite Viewing: The National Spelling Bee, C4's 'Top Ten Covers' count-down (Johnny Cash's version of NIN's Mercy was rightly #1), Grey's Anatomy and the cool song they had at the end (Breathe)
• Best Bit of Advice My Mother/English Teacher gave me: Don't overuse brackets
• Pet Peeve: Allergies flaring up randomly and not having tissues
• Favourite Eats: Chips from the Tasting Room and fresh pineapple
• Favourite Moment: One where things just tied up nicely and created a good memory of where I was, what I was talking about, who I was with, what I was listening to, what I was looking at.... and I consciously thought, 'This is a good moment'. Could I be any more vague?

More things About me

52) I have never had so much as a puff of a normal cigarette and all the drugs I've ever had was a few puffs of a joint (my friend said I wasn't doing it right and was wasting it - so I gave it back to her and decided that was enough of that). I don't think I have an addictive personality.

53) I enjoy having excuses to wear an eye-patch.

54) I don't like birds. I like them when they're in the trees singing or flying, but not as pets and not flying towards my face (similar to moth phobia). Living with people who had budgies as pets and would let them fly around in the lounge was also my idea of hell.

55) If I could have any material item in the world it would be the blue-glass mobile from the Blue movie in 'Three Colours' French movie series (again, I won't attempt French spelling).

56) I don't think feet are gross.

57) I know I'm comfortalbe around people when I start singing around them (to the radio, or just to the tunes in my own head).

58) My first kiss was actually lovely. I'd been kissed all around my face and just waited for that moment where I was ready to kiss back, and it came.

59) When I put a spread on toast, I like to have it go right to the edge of the piece of bread.

60) When I'm eating dinner, I usually eat all the vegetables first and then the meat. I have this very tangible memory of being about six and watching a friend eating soup. She saved all the bacon bits on her saucer and had them last, and when I asked why she said, 'I'm saving the best for last' and I decided to do the same. That reminds me of a truly awful meal my brother made with gluggy rice, and him saying, 'Eat it quickly - imagine how much worse it is when it's cold!'. That's motivation!

61) My brother has some kind of undiagnosed mental illness. Possible OCD or schitzophrenia. It makes him socially awkward an enemployable when he used to be popular and talented growing up. I was the envy of my friends because I actually had a brother who wanted to hang out with me and who was nice to me and who was cool in an original kind of way. He's still gentle and intelligent, but it's hidden behind a self defensive wall.

62) I prefered word-finds to jigsaws growing up.

63) I was born in the year of a the snake. Some people say that's appropriate.

64) I had a moment of being overwhelmed and sad when I got dux, and after the prizegiving I cried by myself in the toilets for a minute. Not sure why.

65) I like drinks you can buy that have crushed mint leaves in them.

66) I wish I'd learnt the guitar properly. I think it's the nicest instrument to listen to on its own.

67) Apparently 50% of the population identify as being 'shy'. I would be in that group, easily. I don't like being the centre of attention.

68) I think shy people are more observant and sensitive towards others on the whole.

69) I always have cereal for breakfast on a week day. Hubbards usually. And I've been having yoghurt on top of it recently.

70) I am really really really not a morning person. I can easily sleep in for hours.

71) I like it when you're so tired that you physically can't keep your eyes open and you keep having nano-naps in the middle of having conversations with people, or trying your hardest to at least look like you're listening.

72) Sometimes when I'm angry I like to listen to the Violent Femmes really loudly.

73) On the whole I don't like electronic music. I like 'real' instruments and I get bored if something sounds the same for too long. I have a short attention span for some things.

74) I like to think I'm competitive in a fun way. I don't care if I win or lose, but I like the act of competing and believing I can win (which I usually do). I have confidence in me.

75) I've never been religious, but I live a pretty moral life by choice. I believe in the golden rule.

76) I'm truly terrible at rejecting people. It brings out the coward in me and it's usually nice people whose feelings I don't want to hurt.

77) I had braces at highschool but then my wisdom teeth came in and mooshed everything up a bit. They used to be perfect! I still have a bit of metal wire cemented behind my front teeth because I was afraid of my orthodontist and never went back for a checkup after my braces got taken off.

78) I remember a show called 'Rip Tide' that was on in the 80s. Hardly anyone else remembers it. It had a giant pink helicopter and a character called Cody.

79) There's pretty much no food that I won't eat. Growing up I didn't like vegetable soup, kumara or pumpkin.

80) I don't mind not having routines. I should probably have more routines at work, less at home.

81) My favourite earrings are my seagull ones. I only got my ears pierced a couple of years ago for the first time. I thought it was 'self-mutilation for vanity' as a teenager. I could be a tad righteous.

82) I like cricket. But I don't like rugby. I used to like rugby but for me it lost its artistry somewhere in the John Hart era. Like most sports, I think it's been marred by coaches selecting talented players over skilled ones.

83) I don't have very good handwriting. But my printing's ok.

84) I might be the only female English teacher in the world who laughed a lot during Jackass - The Movie. People doing incredibly stupid things that don't hurt anyone but themselves amuses me. Possibly not my most redeeming feature or my proudest moment.... but it's true.

85) I prefer sorbet to icecream.

86) I think one of the saddest songs is 'Leftover Wine' by Melanie Kafka. My dad had her LP while I was a child. I loved listening to 'Alexander Beetle' too. I think her voice is in the right range and style for me to sing along to ok.

87) I've never had ambitions to have long nails and have never bitten them out of nervousness. I just cut them short for sporting reasons or because they annoy me or because you can't play guitar good with long nails (on one of the hands anyhow).

88) I was 18 the first time I remember anyone outside of family or friends telling me I was beautiful or sexy. It still surprises me sometimes when anyone says it (which is not to say I don't believe it, just that it surprises me to hear other people say it). Maybe most girls have that issue!

89) I always get holes in the toe of my socks. More than most people.

90) I've never been on a roller coaster that goes upside down.

91) My favourite Beatle was John Lennon. After reading books about him, I'm not sure if he was an entirely nice person though.

92) I like my middle name.

93) Sometimes when I'm walking along a straight footpath I see how many steps I can do with my eyes closed, pretending I'm blind. It's really hard to get past 20.

94) I like to open my bananas from the handle-end. That's how the monkeys do it.

95) Growing up I aspired to be a ballerina and/or a princess.

96) There's something magical about the year 1987, isn't there?

97) I was never afraid of the dark and insisted on having complete darkness in my room from a very young age. If the door was even open a crack I had to get up and close it.

Blog Envy

Everyone else's blogs are really cool. I might have to get some flashing lights for mine or start writing haiku or something... I feel a make-over coming on.

More things about Me

11) One of my eyes is slightly lazy - I only noticed when looking very closely at a passport photo one day. Nobody else has ever noticed (I've asked and made people stare at me intensely from front on just in case it was some freakish mutation people had just been too polite to mention to me).

12) I don't have butter on toast and when people combine peanut butter with jam it makes me gag.

13) I had to go to the after-hours surgery as a child to get a raisin extracted from my nostril. I'm pretty sure I still wanted to eat it afterwards... I was little....

14) My favourite bra at the moment is a Calvin Klein one with blue tartan on it.

15) My favourite time of the day is 11.23pm.

16) I'm not afraid of spiders.

17) I used to be afraid of moths. My mother took me to a butterfly enclosure once. It was my idea of hell.

18) I like chess. I went through a phase of playing out grand master games with my brother. I like Kasparov.

19) I used to make my dad check my room for robbers at night. (He had to check the wardrobe, under my bed and in the laundry hamper.)

20) I haven't shaved my legs for over three years.

21) My favourite teddy was Ellie the elephant. Even though he was a boy, I dressed him up in dresses.

22) When I'm walking towards someone in the street, 9/10 times they give way to me.

23) My favourite words and phrases in French are 'armchair' and 'I make the bed' (won't even try to remember how to spell them in French though).

24) My mum died on December 14th, the day after her 21st wedding anniversary.

25) She always used to give us christmas eve presents, which invariably contained a new pair of pjamas and something to read. I like that tradition.

26) Meatloaf's song with the line '.... but I won't do that' bugs the hell out of me.

27) I'm not comfortable kissing people on the cheek.

28) I like to put my hand on the very top or the very bottom of the pile when doing 'three cheers' at the end of a game.

29) I have my alarm clock 12 minutes fast at the moment.

30) The first song I played on the guitar was 'Karma Police'.

31) I usually try to get the #15 jersey for basketball.

32) I think there should be more songs about 'green eyes'.

33) Egg sandwiches are good.

34) The only perfume I have ever bought an entire bottle of is Burberry Brit.

35) When I die, I don't mind if there isn't a funeral.

36) My first crush was on Ray from Ghostbusters.

37) When I was three I re-enacted Princess Diana's wedding with my Play Centre friend, Ruben. I wish I knew where he was these days.

38) I'm happy being mostly a size 12.

39) I lost my mum's earring once and lied to her about it. I shouldn't have. I decided when I was about 15 that people only lie when they do things they're ashamed of, so I wouldn't do anything I wasn't proud to admit to and would never have to lie again. I have mostly stuck to that. (The loop-hole I invented was that you can always 'frame the truth in a nice way'.)

40) When I was little I had a recurring nightmare where there was a faceless logger in a helmet chopping down a huge tree and it was really loud and scary... then there was a little girl picking flowers and it was soft and pretty sounding. And it would go back and forth.

41) I'm tactile. I like to pick leaves and rip them up in my hands while I'm walking.

42) I iron most things (tshirts, pants, skirts, tops, waxing-strips).

43) I like it when people draw diagrams with their fingers to explain things.

44) I think Alan Alda is ideal in so many ways.

45) I'm a heater hogger.

46) Me and my friend used to get out women's wrestling videos and made up a tag-team persona we were gonna use one day.

47) I don't like feeling vulnerable. But sometimes I do.

48) I can touch type good. I took typing up to sixth form.

49) My first ever tape was Tiffany.

50) Sometimes I like to run away and have internal dialogues when I'm drunk.

51) When you chop the top off a boiled egg, you have to make a hole in the egg-shell so that witches can't use it as a boat.

I'm too tired to think enough thoughts

I only really wanted to post a comment on 'Eduardo's' (name changed to protect identity) site, but got carried away (reminds me much of the internet-dating beginnings.... damn having to be a member of a site to look at it and respond). You should be able to do these things annonymously without fears of repurcussions or having to join a 'community'. I like to be an outsider, on the margins if you like. But I do so like filling out forms when I know all the answers.

My most concerning issue really is that it's a misconception that people can have black hair. I'm sure I heard that from someone who'd seen it on the Discovery Channel. So it's irrefutable. Black hair pigment does not exist. So me and the Asians and Africans of the world have DARK BROWN hair.

Also, I'm intrigued to see that ESPN has a 'Professional Dominoes World Championships' show coming up. I'd be interested to see how you can become a tactical genius at that. I'd back myself there.

Ten things about me (Sam said you had to do 100, but I didn't see any rules about that - I'm a renegade anyhow)

1) I like maths. I think it's beautiful in its patterns and symmetry and elegance.

2) I have a great ability to sit still for long periods of time and not have to get up or move. Some would call that 'sloth-like'; I call it a skill.

3) Up until a few years ago I'd never really worn belts at all. Didn't see the point, and always found them very annoying when getting to the 'undress' stage with a boy. But have found them a necessity in the age of 'hipsters'.

4) I believe that putting a ribbon on a present makes it more special. I try to put ribbons on all presents. And write personalised cards with long messages.

5) I find that singing the alphabet when going for a jog is a more fun way to 'count the steps' than actually using numbers.

6) I think the most useful thing you can use digital cameras for is checking out your butt in new outfits by making an avi of yourself (and I'm not the only one who does this!)

7) I didn't weigh myself for about for about 11 years at one stage. It was liberating.

8) I never read the end of a book first. I find it odd that some people do.

9) It irks me that not all people act reasonably. Society has a fragile balance, and it hinges on people actually wanting to be good to each other at the end of the day. Empathy, I guess. I don't like when people drop rubbish. There's never a reason for it!

10) I wrote something personal here, then deleted it. That's me!