A Meme! Why the hell not? February 28, 2007

It’s not like I’m writing anything else. I saw this on Synaptic Blue.

20 years ago (1987)

Age? I turned 18 that year!

Were you in school? If so, where and for what? Graduated from high school, spent the summer in Seattle with my friend Susan (her mother was ill, and died from brain cancer that summer).

Where did you work? I had a bunch of wacky jobs. I was probably working at The French Baker in Oak Brook Mall during the school year. In Seattle, Susan and I got a bunch of random jobs. We did telemarketing for about an hour. We took a smoke break and forgot to return. We also applied at Wendy’s, but then we found out that the uniforms are polyester and that we would be required to wear them. Then we got jobs in the food court at a mall; Susan worked in the bbq stand and I worked in the frozen yogurt shop. They were both owned by the same people, a Chinese couple who we couldn’t understand, although I did figure out how to roll waffle cones. I ate waaaay too many gummy bears. We were just talking about this the other day, in fact. We quit by sending Susan’s niece into the food court with a letter for our bosses, claiming somebody had died and we’d had to leave town. We had avoidance of responsibility issues.

Where did you live? I lived in my parent’s house until early summer, and then moved out to live with Susan and her family in Seattle for a couple of months. That was fun.

What were your regular haunts? Pretty much wherever Susan was, I was. I don’t know that we had “regular haunts.” The place we spent the most time was the inside of her car, driving around.

Did you wear glasses? Contacts.

Who was your best friend? Um, Susan? And Jill too, although I haven’t seen her or heard from her in years.

How many tattoos did you have? None. Yet.

How many piercings did you have? None. I didn’t get my ears pierced until I was in my twenties.

What did you drive? An Isuzu I-Mark. Susan had a VW Scirroco, and she taught me how to drive stick in that thing. We drove it all the way from Seattle to LA.

Had you been to a real party yet? I guess that depends on the definition of a “real party.” If you’re talking about a bunch of guys walking around with twelve packs of beer, and girls with six-packs of wine coolers, and then everybody running in different directions when the cops showed up, then yes. I’d been to quite a few.

Heart broken yet? Oh, hell yes. Bastards.

Status on the market? Hmmm. It kinda varied during that year. Mostly single, though, I guess.

Ten years ago (1997)

Age? I turned 28 that year.

Were you in school? I was in grad school at Columbia College in Chicago, in Creative Writing, but I was only taking one class per semester. I was pregnant with my son that year (born in March–he’s got the big 1-0 coming up next week), and it’s not easy sitting in an uncomfortable chair for four hours with a huge baby in one’s belly.

Where did you work? I was a housewife and mother, and did various little jobs here and there creating newsletters for organizations.

Where did you live? Right where I live now, suburbs of Chicago.

What were your regular haunts? After my son was born, I started meeting some old high school friends at Belloumoni’s, a seedy little bar.

Did you wear glasses? I was in a glasses-wearing stage then, but switched between my glasses and my contacts.

Who was your best friend? Susan and I are still friends, and were at that point, but she lived in Seattle, so we obviously didn’t hang out much.

How many tattoos did you have? Two. One is a purple rose on my shoulder with a weird tribal design around it, and the other is a sun on my left thigh, above my knee, sorta towards the inside of my thigh. A girl I knew in college at University of Kansas drew it for me. Her name was Heather.

What did you drive? I believe I traded in my cute little two-door Honda Civic for that piece of shit Saturn wagon that year, right before my son was born.

Had you been to a real party yet? Oh, hell yes.

Heart broken yet? You bet!

Status on the market? Married with Children.

Five years ago (2002)

Age? I turned 33 that year. I loved my early thirties.

Were you in school? If so, where and for what? I hadn’t gone back to finish my Master’s yet, so no, I wasn’t in school. But I was itching to.

Where did you work? Housewife/mother. Various odd jobs.

Where did you live? Exactly where I am right now, suburb of Chicago!

What were your regular haunts? Hmmm. Five years ago? Probably Belloumoni’s still, another bar called Kenney’s, other people’s houses. Mostly I just hung out on my back porch.

Did you wear glasses? Glasses and contacts.

Who was your best friend? I kinda grew out of that whole “best friend” concept by the time I hit thirty, but still very close with Susan, and I’ve got a lot of great girlfriends.

How many tattoos did you have? Still just the two.

How many piercings did you have? I had my ears pierced by this time, and actually that may have been the year my daughter got her ears pierced, so I went with doubles just to show her it didn’t hurt that bad. Plus, I was hoping to get some more diamonds. Totally worked. (Thanks, honey!)

What did you drive? That piece of shit Saturn.

Had you been to a real party yet? I was a walking party.

Heart broken yet? Stop asking me this! Jesus! Let’s just say I hadn’t had one in many, many years.

Status on the market? Still married. Still with children.

As of today (2007)

Damn, this is a long one.

Age? Can you not add? For god’s sake! I’ll turn 38 in June.

Were you in school? If so, where and for what? Yep, still in grad school, persuing a combo Masters of Creative Writing/Master’s of Teaching Writing. I’m just about done with classes.

Where did you work? I tutor college students, and teach writing workshops to kids through adults.

Where did you live? Still here in the ‘burbs!

What are your regular haunts? Whatever bar hasn’t turned me out. lol. I like George’s on Wabash, the South Loop Club, Kasey’s, Sheffield’s (all in the city). Around here, I don’t mind Kenney’s. I spend more time than necessary at Starbuck’s. I love our public library and go there a lot to work on homework. Once in a while you’ll find me in a booth in the bar section at the Beef & Brandy, eating a patty melt with fries and drinking vodka tonics and writing. They think I’m weird.

Do you wear glasses? Will you shut the fuck up with this? My god. Is there something wrong with your attention span?

Who are your best friends? A whole bunch of people.

Do you talk to your old friends? Some of them, Susan especially. I still talk to my old friends Paul and Joe occasionally.

Do you have a crush? I’m totally not telling you THAT. But that Justin Timberlake, he’s sexy.

How many tattoos do you have? Still the two, but I want more. I just haven’t settled on a design yet.

How many piercings do you have? four, all in the ears.

What do you drive? 2006 Honda CR-V. Funny. I love Hondas.

Have you been to a real party yet? Yes, and I found a lot of people who are likewise walking parties, so we just walk around partying all the time. Actually, that’s not totally true, but I’ve found that a party can be formed just about anywhere.

Status on the market? Still married, still have those kids.

Besides ones of the pet variety, any dependents? Two beautiful, smart, well-behaved children. Except for when they’re ill-behaved.

Good God. That was a pain in the ass. Who the hell wants to know that much about some random person from the internet? If you read it all the way to the end, you must really want to know something about me, or be monumentally bored, or the rest of the internet is broken.

Feel free to torture your own damn self by answering these questions on your own blog, and leave me a comment here or a trackback from your blog so I can come read what you’ve written. I mean, it’s only fair.

I kinda wish I lived in Boston October 19, 2006

Because then, it would be against the rules for the Duke of Earle to tag me with a meme. (And, in a weird way, there’s something oddly appealing about children under the age of 18 being required to stand in straight lines, with a minimum of 5 feet between them (so that if they fall, they won’t bump into and injure each other), with their arms at their sides, staring straight ahead, speaking only in low, “inside” voices, wearing long pants and sleeves and flat shoes. And maybe being encased in bubble wrap.)
I don’t really mind, though, because I like to write about books. Here goes:

1) One book that changed your life:

Oh, for God’s sake. Books in general, their existence, has changed my life. A few, though, that have changed my life, in general, are: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (go read it. It made me afraid to get an ATM card when they first came out, and now every time I use my debit card at the grocery store, I have a moment of fear that it’s not going to work, and I’m going to walk out of the store all pissed off and prepared to call the bank, without the food I had been planning to buy, and there’s going to be a lot of military helicopters flying above, and I’m never going to see my home or my children or my husband ever again). Actually, any book or story collection or essay collection by Margaret Atwood. Cat’s Eye is pretty fantastic. Vladimir Nabokov rocks my world for his schnazzy and bold use of parenthesis and parenthetical expression and long sentences and fucking spot-on descriptions of places and facial expressions and characters and jeez. Nabokov is my idol. Also, Tom Robbins. My copy of Skinny Legs and All, which really, if I bothered to narrow this in on one book, this would be it, is held together by rubber bands, because I destroyed the spine by reading it so many times. Anyone who can make believable characters that include a spoon and a can of beans traveling across the country deserves my respect. He expanded my idea of not only character, but of subject matter. Somehow managing to talk about the middle east conflicts in the context of a contentious relationship? Genius.

This is probably going to be a long post. Just to warn you. I haven’t even read ahead what the questions are, so I’m probably just going to be babbling about books and writers for, like, forever.

You know what? Blindness by Jose Saramago. That book changed my life. Damn.

2) One book that you’d read more than once:

Sorry. I can’t keep that at one. Obviously, Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. Native Son by Richard Wright (frequently and wisely assigned in school), The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (I loaned my copy to someone, and never got it back, and had to buy another one, and read that one several times, and saw a play based on it at Steppenwolf. If you haven’t discovered it, you should. Right now. Go on. Amazon awaits you.)

I’ll stop. Honestly. There’s too many.

3) One book you’d want on a deserted island:

That’s just not a fair question. Readers who know me VERY WELL will laugh at this, but I’d have to say, desert me with the damn Bible, for Christ’s sake. That puppy is so chock full of story! I could be inspired by it forever.

4) One book that made you laugh:

Anything by David Sedaris makes my family look at me like they might be considering calling the men with the lovely white, wrap-around jacket. I laugh out loud every other sentence, even when he’s making me cry. The dog thing? Euthanasia or Youth in Asia? Something like that. If you’ve ever loved a dog, you’ll cry your eyes out. If you’ve ever had parents? You’ll laugh your ass off. So you’ll be sitting there, on your couch, with a cocktail and your feet up, reading and crying and laughing, and you’ll be too lazy when the men with the white, wrap-around jacket come knocking, and they’ll go away, and you’ll be saved from a stint in the looney-bin.

5) One book that made you cry:

I cry at a lot of books. I cry because I wish I could make someone cry the way any writer who made me cry made me cry (read it out loud. That sentence MAKES SENSE.). I cry because I’ve come to love the characters and I’m sad for them, even if they never existed. One book, though, if I have to list one, that really wrenched me, was Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina. That is a brilliant book. It may have started a whole trend of sad abuse stories, and I avoided reading it for a while because of that, but I’ve read it several times since (and she was our visiting writer at Columbia in the spring, and a fantastic human, she is), and I cry every time.

I did, last year, cry during a workshop when I was trying to read back what I had written. It was the last scene of my novel, and I’d never written it (and I have a lot to write to get to it). I cried because it was the last scene, and it made me all crazy emotional to have found, in a magical moment, the last scene, and to know that was really and truly the last moment, and that it was going to be sad and oddly hopeful for the reader. I also cried because it was sad, and I know this character better than I know myself and also in the same way we don’t know ourselves but other people know us, and I saw her from this weird distance, and my heart broke for her and all in one insane, scary moment, I found a piece of myself that I’d been either ignoring or not noticing or hadn’t found yet. And I cried. And then I was embarrassed to be crying over my own work. So I said “Excuse me,” and went to the bathroom and looked hard at myself in the mirror. It was a little strange.

I hope that I get that book written, and that people read that last scene and cry. That may sound weird, but if you are a reader, and you get emotional over books, you’ll understand.

6) One book you wish you’d written:

I wish I’d written already the book I’m trying to work on, rewriting it from third person into first, after having rewritten it from first person into third. I wish it was over and done, and I was in the process of sending it off to agents.

I also wish I’d written it really well.

7) One book you wish had never been written:

That James Frey thing. He pisses me off. I may have to thank him one day for messing with the line between fiction and non-fiction, but right now? He pisses me off.
One book you’re currently reading:

Right now, I’m reading, or rather I just finished, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, for a class. I’ve read it before, but it is a masterpiece of Creative Non-Fiction. I’m reading a collection of essays about writing by Ray Bradbury called…shit. I don’t know what it’s called, but the word ZEN is in the title. I’m too lazy to get up and get it out of my bag. It’s a goodie. I love Ray Bradbury.

9) One book you’ve been meaning to read:

Obviously, you’ve never been in my living room. The books I’m meaning to read are shoved in piles on the bookshelves in front of the books I have read, and also in piles on the floor, and I recently asked the guy who’s commandeering the remodeling of my kitchen and basement if he could find a way to build bookshelves on the walls next to my fireplace, and in the corner, and pretty much anywhere there is space for bookshelves. I have a problem. And books are my problem. Okay, honestly? I have a lot of problems. Books are one of them.

One book I’ve been meaning to read? Out of many? I’d like to read Night by Elie Wiesel. I haven’t yet, and I actually have two copies. I just haven’t made the time, which is silly. It’s not a long book. But I have a feeling it will take up a lot of emotional energy.

10) Tag five people:

Oh, thank god I’m at the end. This was torture.

Hmmm.

Definitely Megan. That way, I can kill two birds with one stone by giving her something to post about.

The Queen? For sure, although I have a feeling she may have done this before.

Somebody’s Son. Because I’d like him to show me he does something more than play football, kick asses, and drink. And love his fiance.

Allison, because she’s basically closed down her blog for whatever reason, and maybe this will get her to come out of retirement, even if it’s for only one post. Although, I’ll understand completely if she tells me to fuck off.

Ummm. Oh! Kunstemaeker. Only ‘cuz I’ve just recently discovered him, and I like him, and I think he’ll give me some more books to read.

Only, here’s the thing. I’m not going to email or visit these people to tell them they’ve been tagged. I could claim that it’s because I think they visit my blog on such a regular basis, they’ll discover it quickly on their own, but really it’s because I’m a lazy person.

And, when they discover they’ve been tagged, I’m adding on to this meme that they must come back to this post and comment and tell me they’ve posted their response, with a link to it. That’s fair, no? No. It’s not fair. You just go on and visit those people and see if they’ve responded to this meme, okay. I have to go to bed now.

UPDATE:

A couple of people I tagged have responded!

Somebody’s Son

Megan Stielstra

And as more do it, I’ll update with a link to their post.  Because, presumably, that’s really what this whole meme thing is about.

Oh, for Pete’s Sake, I’ve been Tagged January 14, 2006

This one’s been zipping around blogoland for a bit now, and it has finally bit me. I’ve been tagged by the always beautiful Queen of Ass. Good thing it was her doing the tagging, or I might have pretended I knew nothing about it!

Anyway, I write 5 weird things about myself and tag five others to do the same, and so on and so on and so on and so on, until every goldang blog in the universe features a post listing five weird things about the blogger! I must not forget, like some people, to let the taggees know they’ve been tagged. I should do so by leaving a comment on their blog. Those who’ve been tagged need to display these rules and write their five weird things and then tag five others. Got it? I wonder how it would go if I tagged some random blogs that I’ve never read or seen before? Would they think, “Who the hell is this woman and why does she have the audacity to tag a random stranger?” Yes, they probably would. Which leads us to the list of weirdnesses:

1. I tend to babble. I’ve not named my blog Viki Babbles just because I felt like it. I named it that because I babble. I babble when I write, and I babble when I talk, but I always (okay, usually) (okay, sometimes) make sense at the end. There’s a coaching used in class during oral reading that goes, “Trust that the sentence will make sense in the end.” I think someone made that up after dealing with me. This isn’t really a weird thing, though, is it? Is it weird to babble? I’m not so sure it is. Really, I just tend to give too much information. But I’m leaving this in, because it’s going to be hard enough to think of five weird things about myself.

2. Like The Queen, I have a weird counting thing. My number is five, and I do it in my head and by slightly squeezing my fingers on whatever it is I might be holding at the time. I haven’t ever paid attention to when I do it, but I think I do it when I’m bored or when I’m thinking.

3. When I’m out somewhere, like say at the zoo or Disney World or some such place, and I’ve been walking around for hours, and I start to get hungry, I get really fucking crabby. Just feed me, already. Hell. Likewise when I get tired. I’m like a three-year-old kid. Give me a place to sit down and relax and put a cheeseburger and some fries in front of me, and I’ll perk right up.

4. I think this might be in my 100 things, but they’re MY 100 things, so I can steal. The reference to cheeseburgers and fries reminded me of it. When I have a cheeseburger and fries, or even, say, a steak and some mashed potatoes or a baked potato, I MUST have a 1:1 ratio of burger or steak bites to fries or potato bites. I like to have a bite of meat and a bite of potato in my mouth at the same time. If I run out of fries or potato, then everything is ruined. I cannot finish the meat. This usually isn’t a problem, but sometimes my husband steals my fries, and I’m often forced to stab the back of his hand with a fork.

5. When I have a song that I like, I have to play it thousands of times, over and over and over again, until I’m sick to death of it and never want to hear it again. Right now, it’s Vultures off of John Mayer’s blues CD. It drives my family insane, but I don’t care. I just want to listen to that song over and over again. I’ve been listening to it over and over again for a couple of weeks now, and I’m not sick of it yet. But everyone in my house is!

Okay, that’s five! Whoo! Now, on to the tagging. I think I’d better be all courteous and shit and make sure that the people I tag have never done it. Otherwise, that defeats the purpose of trying to make every blog in the blogoverse feature a post almost exactly like this one. Right?

Cyli of Why Not, Right?, my friend Megan at She Sells Sea Shells, my friend John at Romantic Ramblings, Somebody’s Son at Random Thoughts, and hell, I give up. Everybody has done this!

Tell me your secrets, I’ll tell you mine [maybe] December 29, 2005

I got this from my friend Allison:

Anonymous Posting Meme
Post anything that you want (in comments), and post it anonymously. Anything. A story, a secret, a confession, a fear, a love — anything. Be sure to post anonymously and honestly. Post twice if you’d like. Then, put this in your blog or journal to see what your friends (and perhaps others who you don’t even realize read your blog) have to say.

Come on. You know you want to tell me.

UPDATE/EDIT: Okay, so you can’t really comment anonymously because apparently I don’t allow it. I did go and edit the first comment so it appears to be anonymous. But that kind of defeats the purpose. You don’t want me knowing who you are anymore than you want the rest of my readers to know who you are. And besides, I’ll get some lame secrets anyway. I’ll try to figure out how to let you people comment anonymously, and I’ll let you know when you can go ahead and do that.

Okay, you can post anonymously now. Your comments will probably appear with my name at the end of them. All comments must be approved by me anyway, so if your secret appears in my inbox and has your name attached, I’ll edit it so that your name doesn’t appear, and I will keep your secret until the day I die, I swear I will.

God, this is a pain in the ass. Just leave me some juicy shit in the comments, alright? Wait. That sounded wrong. I meant juicy secrets. Juicy secrets. I don’t want any juicy shit in my comments. It will smell bad and get all over my laptop.

Idiosyncrasies August 22, 2005

I’ve stolen this meme from:

~~Mama Mouse’s Chatter~~

I’m not going to tag anyone with it, I just thought it might make an interesting post. Feel free to steal it yourself, but please leave me a comment so I can come read yours.

Idiosyncrasy:

1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group.
2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity.
3. An unusual individual reaction to food or a drug.

List Five of your own idiosyncrasies.

1. I couldn’t begin this post because I wasn’t sure if I’d spelled idiosyncrasies correctly. It was really freaking me out. This problem of mine, of not being able to continue writing if I think I may have spelled a word wrong, is not so bad now that I’ve fully entered the age of the computer. Especially when I’m posting, because I can just type the word into my little search bar up there and search two different on-line dictionaries in order to check the spelling. Of course, when I’m working on a piece in Word, and that stupid jagged red line appears under something, can I wait until I’m done writing to figure out if I’ve spelled it correctly, and Word is just stupid? No. I have to stop right then and check it out. And when I’m hand-writing in my journal, it’s even worse. And then I get all pissed off because if I did spell something wrong, and I have to cross it out, then the page is messed up. But I can usually get past that. In addition, the nature of this particular idiosyncrasy causes me to experience extreme displeasure and annoyance when I’m reading someone else’s writing and find that something is incorrectly spelled, or even worse, that the grammar is all fucked up. You have no idea how difficult it is for me not to leave comments with spelling corrections and grammar lessons. The only thing stopping me is that I don’t want to become known as the Grammar Bitch of the Internet.

2. I have to have a perfect ratio of french fries to cheesburger. This became an issue when I first started dating my husband, as he inhales his food and I eat very slowly (another idiosyncrasy, by the way, I have to chew my food a lot before swallowing), and he has no morals when it comes to snatching a fry off my plate or out of my cardboard fry container. I don’t mind if he eats my fries when I have finished my cheeseburger, because after I’m done with it, I no longer have any use for the fries. But, he complains, by then, they’re cold. Well, that’s too fucking bad, I’ll tell him. They’re my fries, keep your stupid hands off them. You know how, after you’ve been married for a while, you think up all those signs you were given before you got married that told you that you should reconsider the idea, but you ignored them because you were getting good sex, or he was rich, or whatever? This was that sign for me. If I had known that fry-stealing bastard was going to continue his fry-stealing, I might not have married him. I know that sounds a little petty, but if you look into it a little deeper, you will see that it is just a sign of his sometimes selfish (I know, you could say that I am selfish because I won’t share my fries, but they’re my fries, so fuck you) and inconsiderate behavior.

I also have to have a perfect medium-rare filet mignon to baked potato ratio, but that isn’t as much of a problem, as he doesn’t like potatoes. However, I do have to protect the filet from his stabbing fork.

Why this weird meat-potato ration thing? That’s because I like a bite of burger/steak in my mouth WITH a bite of fry/potato. It just tastes better.

3. I’m surprised that I’m having a hard time thinking these up. I went back up and looked at the definition, though, and that helped me come up with this one. I am a chocolate addict. I mean, I fucking LOVE chocolate. One of my uncles nicknamed me Chocolate when I was little, and always made sure he had some chocolate ice cream on hand for me when I went to his house. Of course, he was a fucking pervert, but I didn’t know that then. The problem is, as I’ve gotten older, I find that I cannot eat chocolate without getting ill. I don’t even have to eat it, but just SMELL it, and I start to feel a tingling sensation up the back of my neck, and this tingling crawls up my neck, comes around by my ears and invades the area of my face right below my eyes. And if I do eat it, then I feel, for a while, that it might be fine to die. The level of pain/illness increases with the quality of the chocolate. Obviously, I’m allergic. The day I became fully aware that I had this problem, my mother had offered me an exquisite truffle from a box of four that she had gotten from someone. My mouth oozed drool as I gazed down into the little box, but as I took a bite from the truffle, I was overcome with sinus pain and a general feeling of sick, and it was so strong that I had to spit it out.

This would be one of those cruel jokes the Universe likes to play on me, and for that I curse thee, Universe!

4. This is sad, and I hope my husband doesn’t read this post (or any other, for that matter!), but I’ve realized recently that I am attracted to men that I perceive are not as smart as me, yet for some reason they think they are smarter than me, and treat me in a patronizing manner, which causes a problem when I say things like, “What, you think you’re smarter than me, asshole?” It wouldn’t be a problem if they realized or admitted that they are dumb as a box of rocks, but really, does any stupid person realize this? No, they don’t. Because they’re stupid! The problems start when I, who in my infinite wisdom will consult another person if I find I don’t have all the answers (rare, yes, but I am intelligent enough to admit when I don’t know something). Unfortunately, I frequently consult my husband, who is smart about some things (he’s a bit of a Cliff Claven), and he uses that as an opportunity to flaunt what he misperceives is his superior intelligence.

Then we usually have a big fight.

Once, many years ago, when I worked for my father, with my brother, he chastised me after I had a fit because the guy out in the shipping department was a fucking moron. My bro said to me, “You can’t get mad at people because they’re not as smart as you!”

Well, at the time, I really took those words to heart. And I was nice and patient with the shipping guy for a while. Okay, for an hour, but I tried, I really tried. But then I realized, no, brother dear. That’s totally wrong. I can get mad at someone who isn’t as smart as me, if it so happens that they refuse to bow down to my superior intelligence and shut their fucking mouths and do what I fucking tell them to do.

So there.

I was not, however, attracted to the shipping guy, because he was disgusting. I guess, upon further reflection, that most men I meet are not as smart as me, and I just happen to be attracted to some of them, and it’s really just a coincidence. I’m not attracted to them because they’re dumb, but rather, in spite of the fact that they’re dumb.

Of course, I’m leaving out the observation that I’m not usually attracted to men that are smarter than me. And that’s probably because two intelligence snobs can’t really coexist.

5. I’m sure if I asked my husband, he’d be able to come up with a few idiosyncrasies of mine that I’m not aware of, but, well, this isn’t his blog, now is it? Let’s see, I’m sure I can come up with at least one more. Let me go think about it for a minute. I’ll be back.

Okay, got one. If I am going to an unfamiliar place, I have to have exact directions. Landmarks help. MapQuest and Google Maps have helped me out with this problem tremendously, but I get really freaked out if I am trying to get somewhere and I don’t know where I’m going. I start freaking out as I get in the car. It’s really pathetic. It’s worse if my husband is with me, because he does not have this problem, and knows the roads within a 200 mile radius of our house like the back of his hand because his job requires that he drive around alot, and he knows things like what hundred west a particular city street is, and I don’t know this shit. (See? I can admit when I’m not smart about something!) I don’t have a problem if I just want to get in the car and go on an adventure, as I don’t worry about getting lost because I don’t HAVE to be somewhere by a certain time. But if I do, then I freak out. And then, when I do find the place, I’m all harried and distressed from the freak-out. It’s pathetic.

Okay, well, that’s it.

Coming later today: A recap of my girls’ night out. Think drunk, bonfire on the beach, and having to tell the other girls in the lake with me things like, “So the guy’s looking at us with his telescope. Just get out of the water. He’s not going away until he sees some titties anyway!”