Your favourite enemy and your most hated friend

I’ve been wanting to write for a while but I’ve gotten a total of 5 hours of sleep in the last three days, so it’s not gonna happen. Instead, you get a survey because I still want to write. I just don’t wanna think. My brain is running on fumes.

1: Talk about the first time you watched your favorite movie.: My first all-time favourite movie that stuck with me into adulthood is Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. The first time I watched it, it was on one of those old movie channels on tv and I was probably about ten or so. My mother sorta forced me to watch it, telling me I would love it. I despised being being guilted into watching it and fought it for about ten minutes and then I completely fell in love. From then on out, any time I was home sick from school, I would put on the VHS tape (and later, the DVD) and watch that. I still watch it when I’m sick or there’s a really rainy/stormy day.

2: Talk about your first kiss.: I’d rather talk about one of my more favourite kisses. I had met this guy named Will and we had known each other for about six months. One day we were hanging out at the mall and when we were done wandering around there, we walked out to my car. We were just standing there talking when he leaned in for the kiss. He was sitting on the hood of my car and I was standing between his legs. I was also completely unprepared and chewing gum, which got all over both of us. (It made for a funny situation.) What finally pulled me out of the kiss was the fact that there was a huge group of people standing there watching, whistling and clapping at us. 🙂

3: Talk about the person you’ve had the most intense romantic feelings for.: Current boytoy! I love him to death. He frustrates me, he infuriates me, he drives me insane…and he wouldn’t do any of those things if he didn’t mean the world to me. He’s a good guy and his heart is always in the right place. And he’s very bite-able, which is good.

4: Talk about the thing you regret most so far.: I don’t regret things. “It is what it is.” Ya know?

5: Talk about the best birthday you’ve had.: Here’s the thing. I don’t ever really remember having GOOD birthdays. I love my actual birth date (February 6th). I love that it’s in winter. I love that I usually have cozy snow-filled days. But lots of bad things tend to happen to me on my birthday. I just remember every birthday since I turned 18 just…completely sucking for one reason or another.

6: Talk about the worst birthday you’ve had.: Three (four?) years ago. Boyfriend called me up at exactly midnight to wish me a happy birthday and then proceeded to tell me that his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and wouldn’t live for another year. I spent three hours listening to him sob (understandably) and I couldn’t be there with him physically to make anything better.

7: Talk about your biggest insecurity.: I don’t generally have a lot of insecurities. I feel like I’m a fairly confident person, or…at least I’m trying to be. The fact that I’ve been unemployed for so long is a big one, though, I guess. That’s important.

8: Talk about the thing you are most proud of.: As horribly egotistical as this makes me sound, I’m proud of who I am. I’m proud of the fact that I can befriend pretty much anyone. I’m proud that I can be logical and rational and level-headed. I’m proud that I’m wary when I have to be, but it’s not a constant paranoia. I’m proud that I can be brutally honest with people and still find a way to be tactful most of the time. I’m proud of the fact that I have some evil powers that I use mainly for good. Most of the time. 🙂 I’m proud of the fact that I can turn on a sense of humour or a serious persona as needed and I’m proud that I have the ability to drop what I’m doing 99% of the time and be there for anyone who needs me.

9: Talk about little things on your body that you like the most.: I love my eyes and my lips. And I love the piercings I have. And my new-ish bangs (and the fact that they’re blue). I love that I’m physically fairly strong and it amuses me that some people are surprised by that.

10: Talk about the biggest fight you’ve ever had.: It was with Boyfriend quite a few years ago. He was a social pot smoker and I was SO anti-drugs that for the first time in my life, I gave someone an ultimatum. Drugs or me. I wouldn’t hang around if he continued. We dragged that fight out for a week or two and it was just…one of the most brutal times in my entire life. Knock-down-drag-out fights. I was drained, I was sobbing all the time. I would take a double shift at work if it meant I didn’t have to come home and talk to him.

11: Talk about the best dream you’ve ever had.: The best dreams I have are ones where I tend to be creative or really clever. Like with the recent dream-composing. I love that. And the one dream I had where there was a band playing and the band name was “I Effing Love You”. The band themselves were insanely proud because no matter what you were doing, if you referred to the band, you were still telling someone that you loved them, so it was two-fold. Clever, right??

12: Talk about the worst dream you’ve ever had.: I have pretty bad insomnia and have had it for as long as I can remember. I remember my mother telling me that I was nearly impossible to get to sleep as a baby, so this has gone on for my entire life. Now, with that said, when I do crash, I sleep HARD and that usually brings night terrors/nightmares (which I also vividly remember having HORRIBLY as a kid). I’m so used to them that it doesn’t faze me anymore at all. But I have one recurring frustrating dream that just started a couple of years ago. It’s a typical “I’m back in high school and I can’t find my classroom” one. Only the problem is that it’s like..two weeks into the start of senior year in high school and I lost my class schedule and still hadn’t memorized it yet. I’m able to find my locker and get my books, but then I have to go to the main office to get a new schedule and I can’t find that. When I finally find the main office, it’s the end of the day and they’re setting up tables in the hallway for some stupid holiday fundraiser and I get roped into watching a table as punishment for ‘skipping my classes’ (which I couldn’t FIND). Then I ditch out of that and grab my backpack. I head to my locker and clear it out because I never know what books I might need for the classes I can’t find, then I cut across the football field to get home (which is in the complete opposite direction of where I need to go) and somehow wind up working as a civilian military plane mechanic because…I managed to learn how to do that in the ONE high school class I was able to find without a schedule. I think it was math. And it wasn’t even the teacher I was assigned to. It was just a random math class that I joined in after saying “screw it, I can’t find mine, I might as well just sit in one SOMETHING.” That’s an annoying dream that’s happened many times over the last few years.

13: Talk about the first time you had sex/how you imagine your first time.: I’ll tell you that it wasn’t bad. The guy I was with was very concerned that I was ok. Any time he’d do ANYTHING, he’d stop and ask if I was ok and if things felt alright, which I appreciated. Because of that, I took his approach to dealing with Boyfriend who was a virgin when we got together.
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14: Talk about a vacation.: Alaska cruise! May of 2011. I got to meet up with the lovely JEN first!! I got tons of pictures, we went whale watching a couple times, I sent out postcards from the ship. I learned I get seasick and had to keep drugging myself every 12 hours with whatever they gave me on board. I got tonsillitis halfway through and had to get official meds from the ship’s doctor. All in all, a good trip that I’d probably do again, but only if it was guaranteed that I wouldn’t contract some horribly deadly virus and nearly die.

15: Talk about the time you were most content in life.: Most content, most content… As a rule I’m extremely laid back. Any irritations or anger issues I have are simply in the moment. They don’t stick with me for hours or days. I randomly whine on Facebook now and then, but again, it’s just a fleeting thought for the moment. So generally, I’m emotionally content. Mentally content…not so much. I can’t think of a time in my life when I ever felt exactly happy. I’m not a worrier and I’m not paranoid. There’s just a lot that I wish had been different for me. It would have been nice to grow up with a father that I didn’t feel hated me simply for living. It would have been nice to be able to breathe without expecting some horrible backlash for something minor that I didn’t do or wasn’t a big deal. All of that wore me down as a kid and a teenager, so ‘content’ is also fleeting. I’m content in small moments. Right now I’m ok. 🙂

16: Talk about the best party you’ve ever been to.: This wasn’t a party, but more of an impromptu get-together. A friend of mine in high school and I wanted to get together to go see our old junior high play their last band concert of the year. She decided she wanted to stop over at a house belonging to a friend of hers instead. I was driving, but I agreed anyway even though I didn’t know any of those people. We walked into the house and people were smoking who-knows-what (didn’t smell like pot, but…I won’t make accusations this late in the game) and drinking more of who-knows-what. They had one guy just totally jamming out on a drum kit and another guy on a guitar. Everyone else was just sitting around on couches vegging out. I got buzzed second-hand which really brought me out of my shell. (I was EXTREMELY shy and quiet back then.) It was probably the most relaxed I’d ever been until that point in my life. I was offered a bunch of different stuff to “just try out” while I was there, but I was doing fine without it. No one pressured me into it, everyone was just hanging out and it was fine. Totally relaxed. They didn’t care that they didn’t know me and I didn’t care that I didn’t know them. I do remember recognizing a couple of people from school, but no one I knew any better than simply seeing them passing through the hallways. After a few hours, we went home and it was a good night. Aside from that, I’m too introverted to be involved in ‘real’ parties.

17: Talk about someone you want to be friends with.: I’d kill to be friends with my favourite band. 😀 But really, I’ll be friends with anyone I get along with. No matter to me who you are, what you do, what your story is.

18: Talk about something that happened in elementary school.: I remember…my best friend at the time, Kathleen, and I decided that we were going to start a scandal newspaper. We didn’t even know real tabloids existed at the time. We were probably about 10 or so. But each lunch recess, we’d walk around the playground and pretend to be newspaper writers. Her code name was like…Dark Shadow or something and I was…Wolf Eyes? Something like that. Anyway, we’d pretend to peek around trees and spy on people, then we’d write little scandal stories with drawings representing scandalous photographs. The only thing I don’t remember is if we wrote about classmates and teachers or if we wrote about fictional people. It seems to me that we wrote about actual people but changed the names to protect identities, because that was the grown-up thing to do.

19: Talk about something that happened in middle school.: My mother worked in my middle school as an art teacher. I was big into music and the arts, so I was always in that wing of the school. I have an obvious last name,so people easily put two and two together and figured out that we were related, even though I NEVER told anyone because I didn’t want special treatment or anything. Although, my mother did bring my clarinet to school every day for me because it was easier for me to hand it off to her to bring home as well. I usually went straight from my music class to gym and I was scared to leave it in my gym locker when I could just run across the hallway from my music class to mom’s classroom, drop off the clarinet and run to gym. So she just started bringing it with her to school too. She was friends with my music teachers and they used to tease me about having a ‘personal servant’. I loved having that ‘in’ with those two teachers in particular.

20: Talk about something that happened in high school.: I took 10 marking periods of CPR instead of gym classes JUST BECAUSE I COULD. Then there was the one time I was good at gym. We had an archery class and I grew up shooting, so for the first time ever, everyone wanted me on their team because I could hit the bullseye with a longbow with my eyes shut. That was decent.

21: Talk about a time you had to turn someone down.: This is happening way too frequently now.

22: Talk about your worst fear.: I’m sure this survey wants something deeper than ‘heights’, but I don’t really have general life fears. Life is what it is. I can’t spend my time worrying about what may or may not happen. So, heights it is. I’m petrified of heights.

23: Talk about a time someone turned you down.: Back in junior high, I was finally talked into going to one of the dances. I was friends with this guy who I really thought was gay. He was picked on a lot, he didn’t have many friends and he was quiet. I only saw him once a day for…gym class, I think, so I asked a friend who was in his regular classes with him if he wanted to go to the dance with me. He said no. I failed to mention to said friend relaying the question that I only wanted to go as friends. It turned out that he WAS gay and didn’t want to go as dates. Oops. See? This is why it pays to be direct and do the work yourself. I should look him up on Facebook, actually. He’s randomly been on my mind lately. I can’t even remember his name, though, so it’s time to break out the yearbook.

24: Talk about something someone told you that meant a lot.: Everything people tell me means a lot. I won’t reveal anything specific, but any time someone tells me something secret, something big, something important, something that makes them say “I’ve never told anyone else this”, etc…it means the most to me.

25: Talk about an ex-best friend.: Ex-best friend asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding and then promptly fired me after two ‘meetings’ via email and text message. She insulted me, she threw accusations at me that still make absolutely no sense after 6 years, she actually told me that my thoughts and opinions were wrong and she yelled at me for going shopping at Barnes and Noble (where she worked) on a day that she wasn’t there. (I didn’t know her schedule. It changed weekly.)

26: Talk about things you do when you’re sick.: I isolate myself completely so I can wallow in my impending death. Eventually, after much whining, sneezing and tissue usage, I get better and come out of my lair.

27: Talk about your favorite part of someone else’s body.: I love shoulders. And the lower back. And eyes. And if there are piercings or tattoos, that’s a happy thing.

28: Talk about your fetishes.: Biting. A bit of bondage (slight). Dominance.

29: Talk about what turns you on.: All of the above, but also longer hair on guys, an easy smile, a sense of humour, intelligence, sarcasm and being quick witted.

30: Talk about what turns you off.: Intolerance of any kind. People who assume things about me, especially. People who try to read something major into every little thing I say.

31: Talk about what you think death is like.: I think it’s kind of like a slow motion scene in a movie. You know it’s coming and you can probably feel everything shutting down, so you just…wait for it.

32: Talk about a place you remember from your childhood.: I remember another best friend’s house. Her name was Megan. Her father and my mother were schoolmates. Megan’s grandparents lived (and still live) directly across the street. Behind them lived Megan’s Uncle Bruce (I only ever referred to him as Uncle Bruce), and behind Uncle Bruce lived Megan and her parents. So any time we wanted to get together, we had a secret pathway that we took through all of the backyards. I’d wind up at her back door.

33: Talk about what you do when you are sad.: I tend to crank up the music and listen for hours on end. These days I do a little writing to help the mood.

34: Talk about the worst physical pain you’ve endured.: I’ve had back problems ever since I severely twisted my back at work once in the stupidest way. Then a few years later, I slipped and fell on black ice in a parking lot and twisted my lower back again. So I’ve had some horrific sciatic nerve pain over the last year or so, off and on. I also swear up and down that I fractured my ankle and that hurt for a good six weeks (which was an indication).

35: Talk about things you wish you could stop doing.: Procrastinating. And I also wish I’d stop talking myself out of things. I’m really good at that.

36: Talk about your guilty pleasures.: I don’t really have guilty pleasures. At least, nothing I haven’t already mentioned.

37: Talk about someone you thought you were in love with.: I’ve only been ‘in love’ twice and only once properly. There was never anyone I thought I was in love with. There were guys I loved and cared about, but I wasn’t ‘in love’ with them.

38: Talk about songs that remind you of certain people.: “Breakeven”- The Script reminds me of Ashlea. “Gives You Hell”- All American Rejects reminds me of Tobey. “Hedwig’s Theme” (from Harry Potter) reminds me of Az. Anything by Marianas Trench reminds me of Stephanie. Matt Webb reminds me of Jen. Billy Joel reminds me of my mother. I have songs that remind me of most everyone. 🙂

39: Talk about things you wish you’d known earlier.: I may have to turn this into an entry sometime. Too much to say and too little brain power.

40: Talk about the end of something in your life.: I’ve been told that I tend to have a fairly major meltdown once every 3-5 years, which is true. Each time that happens, it’s an ending. It’s a learning experience. It’s a chance to re-learn who I am and what I want. These last few months have been a shedding of the skin, so to speak. I’m different now than I was three months ago. It’s a good different. But September-ish gave me an ending that I seemed to need.