April 21, 2005

• Another “List Thingy.”

  
  

  Feeling a bit uninspired today, so I am resorting to one of these fun but pretty pointless “list blogs.” I have no site to attribute this to, because it didn’t actually originate from xanga, or from a blog– but from a Temperament Theory listserv where it was doing the rounds, as part of an “exercise” in “self-disclosure,” and working through fears of exposing our truth. Actually, this one is not “easy.” It is a sort of “confessional,” especially if you dig deep.

  
  

  Pick 20 things about you that more often than not are a surprise people you meet– the everyday-to-esoteric parts of who you are that may generate responses of “You? You’re kidding! I really wouldn’t have thought that, at ALL! Wow.” It is not as easy as you may think– especially if you have the courage to make it “real,” by going down into stuff you really wouldn’t normally share with anyone. Items 19 & 20 are “fixed questions,” but if that gets too personal, you could also just add two more “general” things about yourself. For “flavor,” include some of your own feelings, as well typical responses from others.

  
  

  
  
  1. I have never worked for anyone (other than myself, or businesses I have owned) for longer than about three months. Almost my entire work history has been contract work or self-employment. I can’t remember the last time I had “money in the bank,” but I also don’t have any debt.
     
  
  
  2. I have never been out-cold drunk, nor have I ever tossed my cookies from drinking. People have a really hard time with this because I used to be at 3-4 parties a week in college. The thing is, I don’t like anything stronger than beer or wine. The truth: I fall asleep long before I get sick. Alcohol works like a sedative for me. I’m a boring sleepy-drunk.
     
  
  
  3. There is nothing pierced or tattooed on me. “You’ve GOT to be kidding! I remember you being part of the whole punk thing!” True… but by appearance and philosophy only; the thought of the physical pain of getting those things done put me right off.
     
  
  
  4. I chase thunderstorms and tornados. I agree. It’s weird. I could be a “stormchaser.” What’s even weirder about it is that I am absolutely terrified of any kind of “adrenaline sport” or activity (and I’ve tried many); you won’t even get me anywhere near a rollercoaster. But I’d fly on one of those planes that go into the eye of a hurricane. Doesn’t compute, does it?
     
  
  
  5. I have never had a one-night stand. Yes really, not I am not kidding. It seems incredibly difficult for anyone to grasp, although I am not sure why. And they often add an associated thought “Well, you must not be very sexual, are you?” No, sorry… WRONG. Nothing wrong in that department…
     
  
  
  6. Guns terrify me. Actually, that’s not true– people who believe it’s OK to use guns to “kill things” mystify and terrify me. Ultimately, I think it’s the underlying personality of someone who’s OK with the use of violence to harm living things that terrifies me.
     
  
  
  7. I have no idea how to fix anything on a car. Something goes wrong, I call a mechanic. I don’t even change oil. It’s a combination of no mechanical inclination with no interest.
     
  
  
  8. No matter how evolved I may be in other ways, I am a chronic procrastinator. Yet I am highly “responsible.” It seems contradictory. I can to other people’s stuff to perfection, but not my own. Most of my major “missed opportunities” in life have been the result of procrastinating myself out of having to make a choice.
     
  
  
  9. Brush with fame: I spent most of ages 13-20 in an interesting part of southern Spain, inhabited by many of the “rich and famous,” many of whom were friends and acquaintances of my parents. As a result, I had many very “day-to-day” interactions with well-known people. I used to occasionally play golf with Sean Connery, in my late teens. I went to school with his son, Peter. English actor Sir Oliver Reid’s son Mark was my roommate. One of my first “adult” dates was a very informal and more of less “blind” setup with Catherine Oxenberg. To me, they were “just people.”
     
  
  
  10. I had malaria when we lived in Kenya, when I was nine. Actually, I caught Malaria in Tanzania, but that’s beside the point. I can’t give blood; there is “something” that will live in my system till I die. I used to get one-day recurrences– the last one was 13 years ago.
      
  
  
  11. My favourite drink is skim milk, closely followed by apple juice. People think it’s “weird” that a 40-something man mostly drinks milk. Many think I must have ulcres– which I don’t. My parents find it appalling, and always try to ply me with wine and gin & tonics when I visit. I just like the way it tastes. Especially with brownies.
      
  
  
  12. Along the same lines, I have a profound dislike for “soda” in almost every form. I don’t drink coke, pepsi, root beer, 7-up or anything like that. I don’t even like carbonated water. I find the “feeling” of the carbonation really nasty.
      
  
  
  13. I never plucked wings off flies, or took birds’ eggs or any of those other trivial but cruel things little boys are “supposed to” do. I was born with some deep respect for all life. When I end up killing a mosquito, or a roach, I apologize to the Universe.
      
  
  
  14. My first “real” job was working in my father’s factory when I was 13, during the summer break, working from 11pm till 7am. I did various things, including running a 120,000lb heavy machine press that would stamp 100′s of bottle caps out of a sheet of metal in a single pass. The noise was absolutely deafening. It violated almost every child labor law in the country (Denmark).
      
  
  
  15. I am, for all intents and purposes, almost legally blind without my glasses. But I didn’t start wearing glasses till my mid 20′s. Nobody has any idea how I went from 30/20 at age 18 to my current state at about 24. Thankfully my eyesight is stable now.
      
  
  
  16. I have no fear of dying, at all. I have considerable fear of pain preceding death, but no fear of death, itself. I don’t know how this happened, because just 10 years ago the thought of death scared the shyghte out of me. If anything lies on the “other side” it is so far beyond anything we can imagine that our brains would implode, if we tried to understand it.
      
  
  
  17. Truthfully, I’d just as happily spend four hours on the couch making out with someone, as actually having sex. I’m basically a “sensuality whore,” I can just touch my partner for hours… to my mind, there’s very little that’s more intimate than some really good snogging…. it’s about the feeling, not the sex act.
      
  
  
  18. I was caught streaking (with three other boys) when I was 17, and in boarding school in England. We spent a few hours with the local constabulary, but were not punished severely on account of the level of ridicule we’d already brought upon ourselves, and the level of amusement we generated when we got caught up in some barbed-wire fencing and a bramble thicket at the end of a field. Bloody painful….
      
  
  
  19. What about yourself do you try the hardest to hide from other people? Just how scared I am that the next (any) person I meet will turn out to be manipulative and emotionally abusive and that I still haven’t learned the tools to detect it before I am in deep do-do. Emotional manipulation is just a nightmare to me.
      
  
  
  20. What irrational fear haunts you most of all? That I am ultimately unable to take care of myself and will end up as a bum, living in a box, under a bridge, with nobody but rats for companionship. Every now and then people I once knew would drive by and shake their heads in disgust. The scary part isn’t the poverty, but the knowledge that I would be completely disconnected from the Web of Life.

  
  

   

  • 11:21 pm
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