I desperately needed the kick in the ass. I can't begin to tell you how thankful I am to write something with a degree of a focus.
THE RULES
1. All right, here are the rules.
2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
4. People who are tagged write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
And away we go:
1. If I have the opportunity to rid myself of shoes and socks, I will take that opportunity with gusto. And if no such opportunity can be had, I will do my damnedest to create one. Even with the possibility, nay even probability, of stepping on stones or the random yellow jacket, there is nothing greater than walking barefoot and feeling every inch of the earth or house as one walks or runs.
2. The closest I ever came to getting kicked out of my parents house was during Wimbledon's celebration of Martina Navratalova's singles career. I was watching with enthused interest that day because I love tennis and sadly never got to see Martina play live in her heyday. My father made some flippant, deprecating comment regarding her sexuality/tennis career and I exploded at what was, to this day, the most ignorant thing I ever heard my father say. Fireworks notwithstanding, I've never heard him say anything like that again.
3. Though I trained for 10 years to be a baseball pitcher, I can't stand watching the sport. It's fun to play and incredibly engaging intellectually. But never was there a sport more disenchanting to watch as a bystander. And I even get everything that's going on. Nonetheless, I still enjoy (read: miss) playing baseball and wonder if I could have truly been as good as my dad always said. No doubt, no - but it's still nice to dream.
(Update: Injured my shoulder yet again! The dream dies daily, long live the dream.)
(I jest, truly.)
4. There are only two movies that have brought me to sobbing tears: Mighty Joe Young and A Little Princess.
I watched 1949's Mighty Joe Young when I was ten years old. It was a bright summer day and I was about to go outside when this huge gorilla appeared on screen. I hadn't seen King Kong at that point, so of course the sight of this gigantic ape kept me saddled on my bed for the next 2 hours. When the movie reached it's zenith, I couldn't understand what was happening onscreen. Joe's death shocked me as nothing has ever since and I was broken to tears. I still remember in vivid detail the last five minutes of Mighty Joe Young; maybe not exactly what was happening in the film but definitely my reactions to it.
A Little Princess walked into my life when I was a bit older, a bit more mature at the ripe age of fourteen. Yet however wearing those four years were, they did nothing to prepare me for the extreme pathos I experienced during Alfonso Cuaron's film. I watched A Little Princess in my family's living room, hunkered down in my favorite reclining chair which was pulled into the middle of the room. As the movie wore on I was worn down. By the film's rapturous end, I was sobbing via the pure punch of cartharsis. It was at this point that I realised I had a heady amount of empathy, sympathy, and (damn't) raging pathos pumping through my body. And that was a happy moment in time.5. I am infatuated with zombies. To give a requisite amount of context, I'm really not that much of a horror fan. There's obviously a certain amount of a "cool" factor when it comes to gore and good frights. However, being scared silly is definitely not my priority in life. That being said, though, over the past seven years I have become increasingly interested with not only zombies but others' similar fascination with the horror. Shockingly obvious is my interest in death and the unholiest part of death, the living dead. I seem to be that morbid. More than that, however, is my curiosity regarding the surging popularity of the undead and what it means not only about, but for the society that dreams up and prolongs such horrors.
6. I was recently called a Tool geek. Andrew the Great called me one. I love you, too, Andrew. Tool, if you don't know, is the most intellectually satisfying hard rock band out there. In my most humble of opinions, of course. Along with my love of Tool, I adore Queen. I can never really call Tool my favorite band because of Queen. They exist together as the two dominant musical forces in myself. And, together, they unite to stand as my monolithic standard-barer of eclectic/perfect/damn good taste. Freddie: how I wish I knew you when you were still alive. Maynard: you fucking rocked in Winston-Salem on the 13th of June!7. I don't understand religious fervor. From the Christians, from the Jews, and from the Muslims. Believe there's only one way to eternal joy and happiness. I do myself. I even call myself a Christian - sour taste and all. Yet why does everyone care what everyone else believes in? For the first time in my life, kinda, I really don't get something of humanity. I can't wrap my head around it. Of course, maybe it isn't human. Maybe it's just evil, this inability to act with love in the world. 'Cause that's what fervor is, a lack of love. As I recently said to the girl, God especially said not to judge, He never said anything about not loving too much.
I've also come to the conclusion that I like to love. It's a hell of a lot more enjoyable than the many, many alternatives.
8. I once hated Harry Potter. From the minute it came out, I couldn't abide the fanfare and the "childish" magic of the series. I even took my hatred so far as to argue with folks on the internet about the book without even reading it. And the movies. The movies didn't help matters at all. It took 6 years before I finally read the first book. I was justified! Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was pedantic and horrifically childlike. Then things changed. I met this girl, see. The girl. And she liked Harry Potter. No, she LOVED Harry Potter and the entire universe. I respected her: her imagination, intelligence, intellectual prowess, and damn't'all, her taste! To put it pointedly. I loved her. (Still do! ...along with all the respect jazz.) She needled, she whined, she harassed. For another fine point, I was cajoled into giving Mr. Potter another chance. And would you believe it? The first book wasn't as childish as I once imagined. The second book showed writing growth. And by the third book I was hooked. Drowning in the joy, my friends, I was drowning in the joy of pure magic!
No one I know updates their blog enough for this meme to do anything. I know, poor me.
Poor, meme-killing me.
It's a kind of magic?
It's a beautiful kind of magic.
