25 Random Things About Me
from a meme wandering around Facebook
1) I used to think I was a pet person, favoring neither cats nor dogs but loving them both. Then I adopted a great dane puppy. I can honestly say I am a cat person.
2) I used to listen to music in the car. Now I listen to podcasts and NPR when I'm not making the phone calls I've been avoiding all day.
3) I hate talking on the phone. I'm phone phobic. I got your voicemail and I really intend to call you back, but I'll call you back tonight... and suddenly it's three weeks later and I feel REALLY stupid about not calling you back, but I'll do it later tonight. Or tomorrow morning. I mean to call. I just... don't. Which is why...
4) ... I live via texting. I could call you, but I really don't want to. It's not about you... it's totally me. See #3 and #11 for why.
5) I was videogame free for a very long time. I played in high school and then lost interest (sex, drugs, and rock & roll will do that to you). Then I played Gears of War for Xbox 360 at my friend Adam's apartment. I managed to hold firm for a while, but Guitar Hero II was the clincher. I played that one afternoon at Jamie's house and immediately went out and bought those two games and an Xbox 360. I blame Adam and Jamie for this.
6) I don't suffer fools. It's both a blessing and a curse. I can suck it up if someone is at least polite, but I have a habit of telling people what I think and treating them as I feel they deserve to be treated. The emotionally manipulative and the constructors of drama get it nearly the worst. People who are rude to Amy get both barrels.
7) I have always been drawn to emotional cripples. I never thought I had much to offer anyone so I always got into relationships with people who needed me, or needed something from me. Amy is the first relationship where this isn't the case. We need one another, but we're whole people on our own. It's pretty fantastic.
8) I appear to have forgotten to put on deodorant this morning. I am stinky.
9) My feet are larger than Debbie Silverman's no matter what she might say.
10) I'll worry a hole through my stomach about some things (mainly about having to make a phone call or show up to something where I don't know anyone) but not sweat other things, such as learning there are dark spots on an x-ray or MRI (FOR EXAMPLE, people, FOR EXAMPLE). There came a point when I realized worrying over things I couldn't change was doing much more harm than good, so I knocked it off.
11) I'm still agoraphobic with severe social anxiety, though (which is why I worry about the phone call and the showing up thing). I've managed it with meds and therapy, but it still rears its ugly head from time to time.
12) People with severe mental disorders (specifically badly controlled schizophrenia) make my skin itch and make my fight or flight reptile brain go nuts. It's very hard for me to be around someone who is seriously off, mainly because...
13) I can get a sense of who a person is within minutes, if not moments, of meeting them. Faades don't work on me. I see you for who you are and I know you. This is also a blessing and a curse. It sucks to know someone is a backstabbing two-faced manipulator and be the only one to recognize it. I've never been wrong. I've WANTED to be wrong many times, but I've never been wrong.
14) I have a huge number of cds. I used to have a similar number of dvds but I've pruned.
15) A good PB&J is a lot like a good Caesar Salad Dressing: it's all about the balance of the ingredients. You can put as much garlic in that dressing as you want, as long as you balance it with the correct amount of sardines. Layer on that jelly, my friend, but balance it with an equal amount of peanut butter. And what kind of jelly is it? Not jelly at all, but strawberry preserves. Anything with grape jelly gets fed to the dog.
16) I really enjoy doing self-portraits. It's not ego, but an attempt to learn new artistic techniques... and to make myself look cooler.
17) I love incense. Do I really need to stipulate that it be of good quality?
18) My cat Elektra has an obsessive need to sit between me and my computer keyboard.
19) I have never been this happy for such a sustained length of time in my life.
20) I am an image junkie/hoarder. I grab pictures of things (mostly digital) from everywhere and store them in the off-chance they'll come in handy one day... and sometimes they do. I tell myself it's sound graphic-design-decision-making at its finest, but I know it's a lie. I have a problem. I love high quality photographs of just about everything.
21) I honestly believe people are good at heart, that there is a jewel of goodness at the center of all humans. I also believe people are lazy (which isn't necessarily a bad thing: laziness inspired the first spear, I would argue). We're lazy about interactions, lazy about healing emotional wounds, and lazy about how we treat one another. I believe we are taught to be ashamed of that good and beautiful jewel (by many different factors, not all of them inherently negative) and we cover ourselves with (figurative) shit, and allow others to cover us with their own (figurative) shit, as we grow and develop. We hide from ourselves and from others because we vaguely remember one time, now mythologized in our psyches, opening up and being laughed at, so we hide and are less than we are, than we should be, than we know we can be. We're good, but we're lazy.
22) I am not a hippie, I just play one in memes, apparently.
23) I have Scheuermann's kyphosis, a curvature of the spine from childhood. It caused me excruciating pain when I was younger, and now I know more about it (i.e., I was diagnosed a couple of years ago) I'm getting therapeutic massages to straighten my spine out on a weekly basis. The joke here is: Not only wasn't I popular in high school, not only was I tortured, not only was I first chair viola in the orchestra... but I was a fucking hunchback, too. Gahh!
24) It is very nearly impossibly to horrify me. If we're riffing and you say something gross or scandalous, I guarantee I will take it twelve steps farther, and that's just my brain getting started. I can occasionally head it off, though.
25) I love steam punk. I'm having a one of a kind Carl Thompson bass converted into a steam punk beast by artistic goddess Molly Friedrich. She's also working on a mask for me for Mungus shows. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to playing live shows again. It's coming... I promise.
~B
from a meme wandering around Facebook
1) I used to think I was a pet person, favoring neither cats nor dogs but loving them both. Then I adopted a great dane puppy. I can honestly say I am a cat person.
2) I used to listen to music in the car. Now I listen to podcasts and NPR when I'm not making the phone calls I've been avoiding all day.
3) I hate talking on the phone. I'm phone phobic. I got your voicemail and I really intend to call you back, but I'll call you back tonight... and suddenly it's three weeks later and I feel REALLY stupid about not calling you back, but I'll do it later tonight. Or tomorrow morning. I mean to call. I just... don't. Which is why...
4) ... I live via texting. I could call you, but I really don't want to. It's not about you... it's totally me. See #3 and #11 for why.
5) I was videogame free for a very long time. I played in high school and then lost interest (sex, drugs, and rock & roll will do that to you). Then I played Gears of War for Xbox 360 at my friend Adam's apartment. I managed to hold firm for a while, but Guitar Hero II was the clincher. I played that one afternoon at Jamie's house and immediately went out and bought those two games and an Xbox 360. I blame Adam and Jamie for this.
6) I don't suffer fools. It's both a blessing and a curse. I can suck it up if someone is at least polite, but I have a habit of telling people what I think and treating them as I feel they deserve to be treated. The emotionally manipulative and the constructors of drama get it nearly the worst. People who are rude to Amy get both barrels.
7) I have always been drawn to emotional cripples. I never thought I had much to offer anyone so I always got into relationships with people who needed me, or needed something from me. Amy is the first relationship where this isn't the case. We need one another, but we're whole people on our own. It's pretty fantastic.
8) I appear to have forgotten to put on deodorant this morning. I am stinky.
9) My feet are larger than Debbie Silverman's no matter what she might say.
10) I'll worry a hole through my stomach about some things (mainly about having to make a phone call or show up to something where I don't know anyone) but not sweat other things, such as learning there are dark spots on an x-ray or MRI (FOR EXAMPLE, people, FOR EXAMPLE). There came a point when I realized worrying over things I couldn't change was doing much more harm than good, so I knocked it off.
11) I'm still agoraphobic with severe social anxiety, though (which is why I worry about the phone call and the showing up thing). I've managed it with meds and therapy, but it still rears its ugly head from time to time.
12) People with severe mental disorders (specifically badly controlled schizophrenia) make my skin itch and make my fight or flight reptile brain go nuts. It's very hard for me to be around someone who is seriously off, mainly because...
13) I can get a sense of who a person is within minutes, if not moments, of meeting them. Faades don't work on me. I see you for who you are and I know you. This is also a blessing and a curse. It sucks to know someone is a backstabbing two-faced manipulator and be the only one to recognize it. I've never been wrong. I've WANTED to be wrong many times, but I've never been wrong.
14) I have a huge number of cds. I used to have a similar number of dvds but I've pruned.
15) A good PB&J is a lot like a good Caesar Salad Dressing: it's all about the balance of the ingredients. You can put as much garlic in that dressing as you want, as long as you balance it with the correct amount of sardines. Layer on that jelly, my friend, but balance it with an equal amount of peanut butter. And what kind of jelly is it? Not jelly at all, but strawberry preserves. Anything with grape jelly gets fed to the dog.
16) I really enjoy doing self-portraits. It's not ego, but an attempt to learn new artistic techniques... and to make myself look cooler.
17) I love incense. Do I really need to stipulate that it be of good quality?
18) My cat Elektra has an obsessive need to sit between me and my computer keyboard.
19) I have never been this happy for such a sustained length of time in my life.
20) I am an image junkie/hoarder. I grab pictures of things (mostly digital) from everywhere and store them in the off-chance they'll come in handy one day... and sometimes they do. I tell myself it's sound graphic-design-decision-making at its finest, but I know it's a lie. I have a problem. I love high quality photographs of just about everything.
21) I honestly believe people are good at heart, that there is a jewel of goodness at the center of all humans. I also believe people are lazy (which isn't necessarily a bad thing: laziness inspired the first spear, I would argue). We're lazy about interactions, lazy about healing emotional wounds, and lazy about how we treat one another. I believe we are taught to be ashamed of that good and beautiful jewel (by many different factors, not all of them inherently negative) and we cover ourselves with (figurative) shit, and allow others to cover us with their own (figurative) shit, as we grow and develop. We hide from ourselves and from others because we vaguely remember one time, now mythologized in our psyches, opening up and being laughed at, so we hide and are less than we are, than we should be, than we know we can be. We're good, but we're lazy.
22) I am not a hippie, I just play one in memes, apparently.
23) I have Scheuermann's kyphosis, a curvature of the spine from childhood. It caused me excruciating pain when I was younger, and now I know more about it (i.e., I was diagnosed a couple of years ago) I'm getting therapeutic massages to straighten my spine out on a weekly basis. The joke here is: Not only wasn't I popular in high school, not only was I tortured, not only was I first chair viola in the orchestra... but I was a fucking hunchback, too. Gahh!
24) It is very nearly impossibly to horrify me. If we're riffing and you say something gross or scandalous, I guarantee I will take it twelve steps farther, and that's just my brain getting started. I can occasionally head it off, though.
25) I love steam punk. I'm having a one of a kind Carl Thompson bass converted into a steam punk beast by artistic goddess Molly Friedrich. She's also working on a mask for me for Mungus shows. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to playing live shows again. It's coming... I promise.
~B