Effluvia

I suffer from ADD/OCD/SAD/ED/BBD/attention span of a gnat/shiny-thing/or whatever-alphabet-soup-you’d-like-to-call-it brain, so here’s my mental dump of the night.

For the most part, I’ve treated this whole “25 things” the same way I do my alarm clock – I just keep hitting snooze. Maybe it’s the procrastinator coming out in me.

Apparently I’ve hit the “no, five more minutes” button too many times, and have too many people tagging me, so I guess it’s my turn. (Otherwise known as, “alright already! I get it! Here’s my list. Are you happy now? Sheesh.”)

Granted, I DO post a lot of "emo-me-me-me" shit, but someone asking me to actually pinpoint 25 things?

I choke. Then I procrastinate. Then I find something else shiny to take up my attention.

Always shocked when I log into one of the eleventythousand networking sites that I’ve signed up for and BLAM! “So-and-so has tagged you in their ’25 Things’ note.” 99.9% of the time I assume that they picked me because they were running out of friends to torture options.

(If you don’t want to read, that’s fine. But there are some links, so it won’t be a total time suck. Well, maybe it will be just a touch of a time suck.)

1) Some friends hide from me when I pop onto g-chat. Many are looking for the pithy conversation that can only come from the quick back-and-forth banter that you can only get from one line conversations. Sadly, I interject into most of these conversations (can you call them that?) random food cravings. Tanya says I have Food Tourette’s. To her I say, “bacon”.

2) I've found that when I listen to the Deb Talan station on Pandora I get all touchy-feely. I lay the onus of all of my more emotional writings (or vomit, you can choose whatever description you feel is most appropriate) on her.

3) There are some songs that make me close my eyes and live in the moment – and I don’t mean re-live a past moment, or live in a moment yet to come. (Wentworth Miller, I’m looking at you – our moment will come. And come. And come again.) Ahem, where was I? Oh yes, bacon. What I mean is that I close my eyes and live in that exact moment. There is nothing next, and nothing then – there is only the ever changing void (and voice) of now. There is no exhale, because I am living in and experiencing this inhale.

I need a moment after that song.

And maybe a towel.

Whew.

Sorry, where were we? Oh, yes …

*Exhale*

4) For the longest time, my “Live In The Now” song (now known as LINT – what? I had temporary dyslexia, and LINT comes much more trippingly off the tongue than LITN) was American Pie. Nothing else mattered when "American Pie" was on. Unfortunately, I can no longer listen to Mr. McLean in my car, not even to “Vincent”, because every time I do the only thing I have to show for my LINT unholy love of 70’s music is a speeding ticket, or more accurately, tickets. Every single ticket I’ve ever had the joy of receiving happened when I listened to “American Pie”. EVERY.DAMN.ONE. It was so bad that when I radio-whore through the stations to this day, and that song comes on, my Pavlovian response is to take the metal coffee cup and bash the radio. (Sadly, the cost of replacing the stereos is still less than my combined moving violation fines.)

5) Portobello Stroganoff. (Add more garlic. And substitute in portobello's.) It could also use some more cowbell. 

6) Procrastination I have mastered. (Which is why I’m finally doing this stupid list months after it was popular.)

7) I love ears. (Hmm. Maybe this is why I love Van Gogh?) There is just something about grabbing an earlobe between my index and middle fingers and then rubbing the meaty part with my thumb that I find comforting. As a young child, I would sneak into my parent’s bed and curl up between them, with each of my hands mauling one of their ears. It’s something I still do to this day. (I actually stopped dating someone because they hated having their ears touched.)

8) Speaking of ears, I loathe having wet ears. I can clean my body, my hair, my face, my EVERYTHING, but if I don’t q-tip my ears, I still feel … dirty …

9) I've had a love-affair with owls since before I can remember. Never did I have a blankie, but I did have this one particular stuffed owl. To tie in with the ear fetish … this owl had the PERFECT nose that I could rub. It was just the right amount of silky and firm. After I massaged the second owl’s nose into oblivion, my parents went out and stocked up on them. Somewhere out in the world, there are at least 5 poor, mauled, and noseless stuffed owls. There’s still one left, up in the attic somewhere.

10) Even though I hated living on the road, I truly do miss it more often than not. Odd, that.

11) Inwardly, I gave up Catholicism the day my mother died. Outwardly? I held onto it until my grandmother died. (Until she died, I wasn’t allowed to let go.)

12) Mmmm. Scampi. (Not as good as the family recipe, but close enough.)

13) The same grandmother, whom I had a love/hate relationship with, honestly (and unknowingly) taught me how to embrace and love “me”; all the while she was trying to recreate me as a sad clone of my dead mother her dead daughter.

14) Sleeping is my best friend, and my worst enemy. I adore sleeping, yet I hate actually going to sleep. For some reason I feel that I will miss out on something. This is brought home to me, more and more often, when I go to sleep as the sun rises, and I wake up completely rested and ready to take on my “day” after 8 hours of sleep. No alarm clock needed. However, when I go to bed at a “reasonable” time, and be it 5 hours or 10 hours later, I still wake up exhausted. (There is a reason I need 3 alarm clocks.) There’s something to be said about circadian rhythms, no?

15) All at once, jumbled up together, I love and hate smoking, and being a smoker. When people offer unsolicited advice about smoking, I really do want to smash them in the face. I wonder, would they offer that same advice to a junkie, alkie, or overeater? I do hear you, I DO, but please let me quit when I am ready. Intervention really only works for those who are ready for it.

16) Dancing is my sanity, my sanctuary, and my meditation. It’s the only time that my brain will actually shut up.

17) Friends call me “shiny girl”, because (even though the connection makes so much sense in my head) I always make unseemingly random statements out loud.

18) The best beer I ever had was found at an ABC store in Saugus, MA. It tasted like smoked sausage.

19) I just saw a commercial for "GUYS Gone Wild". My brain will go to the corner now, and quietly rock back and forth. Pass the bleach. Please.

20) The one and only time I went tubing was on the Medina in Texas. I got stuck in an eddy (are there eddy's in the river, or is that just the ocean?) Not only did I get smashed against a fallen tree, but three other people were smashed against me. The one who was smashed against my ass? My former father-in-law. I'm still traumatized.

21) You know those moments? The ones where you are terrified that you won't make it to the bathroom in time? But then you do? That moment, when the last drop hits the water, is one of the best feelings in the world. Ahhhh.

22) Once I was in a year long, monogamous relationship, and we never had sex. However, he did introduce me to the music of Tom Waits, so I guess it balances out.

23) One may be the loneliest number, but 23 has always been my favourite. Followed closely by 42.

24) Until I lived in San Francisco, I never knew how much power there was in the simple, and physical, act of human touch.

25) "The Name of the Rose" is a book I read over and over. The copy I have is now held together with a rubber band.

Good lord. That was full of ego and tripe.

Forget about me – here’s my current LINT song from Deb Talan.

(Ohhh, look! A shiny thing! Mmmmm. Avocado.)