Dead Rodents: Five Things You Don't Know About Me

As I mentioned a few entries ago, Planet Earth... the BBC series we got on DVD. Yeah, well, we're 3 episodes in now and totally addicted. Add "nature watching geek" to the list of things you can call me. It's so beautiful and awe-inspiring (and it's HD). We literally just sit and watch and "wow" every now and again. I won't bore you with a complete run-down, but episode three is all about the earth's supply of fresh water and how it's replenished. There was a segment on Angel Falls in Venezuela and it's possibly the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. (the pictures from that link, don't do it justice.) I'm disappointed there are only 13 episodes of this show.

I got one of those "Meme" things the other day. And I think it might be interesting (for me anyhow) to blog it rather than e-mail it. It's "5 Things You Don't Know About Me".
And I should probably amend that to "5 Things Most People Don't Know About Me". 'Cause some of you might.

Thing number one: I'm notoriously late for work. My day starts at 9am, but technically, I'm never here before 9:30, sometimes 9:45. How do I justify this? Well, my main excuse is Porthos. But the older and more reliable he gets (with regards to house-training) the less viable that excuse becomes. Mind you the whole being late thing really has spilled over into the rest of my life as well. A quality I used to hate. In my defense: I'm a desk jockey. I work through my lunch, I'm not out taking smoke breaks ever, nor do I drink coffee, and I work late when it's called for. Soooo... I've never once been called-out for my morning tardiness. I'm very fortunate that I work in an environment that lets me away with it.

Thing number two: I do not, do not, do not... like public washrooms. Like to the point of obsessive compulsive phobic behaviour. But I'm getting better about that. (even though I wash my hands an excessive number of times per day to compensate for touching taps, and doorknobs and the like. Prime example... I could not tell you what the inside of my high school washrooms looked like. I used to hold my bladder ALL DAY, every day and wait til I got home to use the bathroom. And that has just as much to do with my inability to pee (or anything else) while someone is within earshot, as it did my fear of being confronted or picked-on by other guys in school. Thank god you don't carry around those needless fears forever. I still hate public washrooms but now it's solely sanitary issues, which is good, 'cause I've long since lost my ability to cease all bodily waste functions for insane periods of time.
(perhaps this particular item should be relegated to "things you'd rather not know about me".)

Thing number three: I scream like a wee school girl whilst watching scary movies. And I love every minute of it. One of our friends (Steve) loves to go to horror movies with us for this very reason. Because a) I startle him and b) he laughs at me. And I think those are great reasons for wanting to go to a scary movie with me. hah The best part is... it doesn't even have to be a "good" scary movie to scare me. One time in particular that always comes to mind is when we saw "Jeepers Creepers" in the theatre. That movie scared the hell out of me. And at one point I screamed so loud that this guy two rows ahead of us turned around and gave me one of those "are you for real?" looks. And then someone behind us chose an inopportune moment to scream just to make me scream... and it worked. Ted was embarrassed... but as per usual, I don't have a lot of shame over looking foolish. I love horror movies. I love to laugh at bad ones and have nightmares over good ones. Being scared is a bit of a high for me to be honest.
Favourite scary movie: "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" - f**king terrifying if you can handle it.

Thing number four: I killed a mouse once and since then I can't kill anything other than bugs. It happened while I was still living at home and working nights. My mom's house had a mouse (they say you never have just one, but we never saw another one.) and I wanted to be rid of it in the most humane way possible. So I bought one of those traps that just close the mouse in a box (like a little mouse coffin) once it's walked in. Well, once said mouse was captured I plopped the trap in a bucket of water in the backyard to drown it. And being the rock that I am... I started crying when all the bubbles stopped rising from the water and I mourned that poor creature for days. I vowed then and there I'd never kill another animal and I've stuck to it.

Thing number five: (this is harder than I thought it would be - it's taken me all afternoon to write this entry with various work-related interruptions of course) I'm trying to think of something a little more interesting than the fact that I've never had a broken bone. But big deal? I'm sure that's not so rare. I was also thinking about how I kinda still believed in Santa Claus until after Grade 3. That had a lot to do with my third grade teacher (Mrs Serebrin) secretly co-ordinating with my parents to give me one of the baby gerbils from our classroom. She bought me a cage and everything, and I had never once mentioned to my parents that I wanted a gerbil, so I thought for sure there had to be a Santa. ha Sadly that gerbil was dead by June 7th (the exact day we buried it in the garden) because my dad left the cage outside while we went to church because he thought the gerbil could use some fresh air (I swear to you) and it rained and the little guy caught a cold and died within days.

So yeah... that's kind of a fifth and sixth thing. No broken bones and a self-deluded belief in Santa long past the learning curve of other kids.

And on that I will end by noting that I find it more than a little troubling that I obviously have dead rodents on the brain today.

My iPod picked the song again today. "8 Easy Steps" by Alanis Morissette. I'd love to meet this woman some day, 'cause I think she's one of the most gifted song-writers of our generation, if not the most gifted.

Eight Easy Steps

How to stay paralyzed by fear of abandonment
How to defer to men in solvable predicaments
How to control someone to be a carbon copy of you
How to have that not work and have them run away from you

How to keep people at arms length and never get too close
How to mistrust the ones you supposedly love the most
How to pretend you're fine and don't need help from anyone
How to feel worthless unless you're serving or helping someone

[Chorus:]
I'll teach you all this in 8 easy steps
A course of a lifetime you'll never forget
I'll show you how to in 8 easy steps
I'll show you how leaderships looks when taught by the best

How to hate women when you're supposed to be a feminist
How to play all pious when you're really a hypocrite
How to hate god when you're a prayer and a spiritualist
How to sabotage your fantasies by fears of success

[Chorus]

I've been doing research for years
I've been practicing my ass off
I've been training my whole life for this moment
I swear to you
Culminating just to be this well-versed leader before you

[Chorus]

How to lie to yourself and thereby to everyone else
How to keep smiling when you're thinking of killing yourself
How to numb all too well, to avoid going within
How to stay stuck in blue by blaming them for everything