Mememe: Day Two
I have already posted so much TMI about myself there is not much to reveal.
1.
I am a dog. Seriously. I am as stupid and loyal as a Golden Retriever. And as pesky. Once you're my friend, you'll stay my friend. I am wired that way. And it's not hard to become my friend. It's much, much harder to get rid of me.
2.
I laugh like a hyena and snort while doing so. It's quite offputting.
3.
The first eating utensils I learned to handle were chop sticks. I learned much later to use fork and knife and never liked the metal much. I even eat pasta with chop sticks. Western cutlery still poses a challenge and dinner dates make me nervous. I hate eating soups with spoons.
I eat with the grace of a gorilla. Watching me eat is as pleasant as watching the Alien devouring a human victim though, so I do it in private.
4.
I have bad motor coordination and bump regularly into door frames, glass doors, table corners etc.,. The Beau often comments that "disaster walks with me". Pouring liquids from one container into another requires my full attention. I once poured hot coffee on a man's lap. (Needless to say, he didn't come back for another cup.)
5.
I read books before I turned nineteen or twenty. Then for a long time I read absolutely nothing. The first book I bought as an adult was Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix in ... 2004? I only started reading because I was trapped for a few days in a condo in a Southeastasian country with no TV or drugs.
Well, and now I am reading fan fiction. Impressive, I know.
6.
Being a drug addict doesn't concern me (although it does have its drawbacks: see point 5 above). There was a time when I used to have coke every weekend. I used to do heroine on a regular basis, experiment with mushrooms, LSD, E, speed, ketamine, GHB, etc., etc., etc., ... Then I stopped, but I can't really put my finger on the reason why.
It wasn't a big thing: I didn't get in trouble with the local mafia or sold used underwear on eBay. What happened was that at some point a friend and I chatted about a party where there would be E and I suddenly realised that I haven't done drugs for over two years.
The last time I was under (illegal) influence was, a year ago. So perhaps the frequency isn't enough to justify that labelling, but then I couldn't stop altogether, and isn't that what defines addiction? The inability or unwillingness to stop a habit? If someone were to tell me that from now on I couldn't ever have a line or a hit ever again, I'd not be happy.
7.
When I was a child my favourite books were Les Trois Mousquetaires, The Brothers Lionheart, The Borribles and The Neverending Story. If you know these books, I am sure you can see the pattern: I always longed for friends.
This is why I love the Harry Potter books so much: The friendship and loyalty between Harry, Ron, Hermione ... and Neville. They all have different ideas about the world, about friends, about magic even, but their bond is indestructable.
I had always male friends-but never many female friends. Somehow it rarely worked, especially in Japan.
Men can be obnoxious, and I have some male friends who I'd like to slap once in a while, but at least communication is very much straight forward. With many women it's like navigating a boat in deceptively calm waters: there will be rocks somewhere, under the waters, and by Murphy's Law I will somehow manage to steer into them.
8.
I didn't speak until I was five. My parents still joke that they thought I was retarded, and only when I demonstrated my chop stick eating skills at the age of two or three, they were somewhat reassured.
"At least she'll be able to feed herself," my father said to my mother.
9.
When I was a child my mother nourished that hope I'll become a famous ballet dancer one day and sent me to the state opera. It turned out that I had the flexibility of a wood block and two left feet. Also I had no sense of rhythm. I was not capable to dance a waltz if my life depended on it, but I could cheat my way through by counting. Somehow it didn't work with the Polka measures. That one little half step-I never managed to get it right, and it angered my mother (and the dance instructors) so much, I had to practice to the music of Strauss' Annen Polka again and again, before dinner and then after dinner until it was bed time, and soon longer, until ten or eleven o'clock. She tried everything-slapping me, pulling my hair, banging my head against the wall, and she screamed at me in despair, but I still wouldn't get it right.
Then the end of the year approached and the director called my mother and me into the office and explaind that it wasn't only my lack of talent, it was my stature: the waist too thick, the neck too short, the knees not smooth enough, the balance between torso and legs indicated I would not grow much, and at mt age my upper arms arms were already too thick too.
Admittedly the diet my mother put me on after that conversation wasn't exactly enjoyable, but at least the horror of the ballet school ended here and then.
For years after that Ballet School period alone the first measures of the Annen Polka used to frighten me. I would literally freeze, and I'd be unable to even clearly think when someone played that piece which is funny, because that Polka is really a silly bit of music.
1.
I am a dog. Seriously. I am as stupid and loyal as a Golden Retriever. And as pesky. Once you're my friend, you'll stay my friend. I am wired that way. And it's not hard to become my friend. It's much, much harder to get rid of me.
2.
I laugh like a hyena and snort while doing so. It's quite offputting.
3.
The first eating utensils I learned to handle were chop sticks. I learned much later to use fork and knife and never liked the metal much. I even eat pasta with chop sticks. Western cutlery still poses a challenge and dinner dates make me nervous. I hate eating soups with spoons.
I eat with the grace of a gorilla. Watching me eat is as pleasant as watching the Alien devouring a human victim though, so I do it in private.
4.
I have bad motor coordination and bump regularly into door frames, glass doors, table corners etc.,. The Beau often comments that "disaster walks with me". Pouring liquids from one container into another requires my full attention. I once poured hot coffee on a man's lap. (Needless to say, he didn't come back for another cup.)
5.
I read books before I turned nineteen or twenty. Then for a long time I read absolutely nothing. The first book I bought as an adult was Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix in ... 2004? I only started reading because I was trapped for a few days in a condo in a Southeastasian country with no TV or drugs.
Well, and now I am reading fan fiction. Impressive, I know.
6.
Being a drug addict doesn't concern me (although it does have its drawbacks: see point 5 above). There was a time when I used to have coke every weekend. I used to do heroine on a regular basis, experiment with mushrooms, LSD, E, speed, ketamine, GHB, etc., etc., etc., ... Then I stopped, but I can't really put my finger on the reason why.
It wasn't a big thing: I didn't get in trouble with the local mafia or sold used underwear on eBay. What happened was that at some point a friend and I chatted about a party where there would be E and I suddenly realised that I haven't done drugs for over two years.
The last time I was under (illegal) influence was, a year ago. So perhaps the frequency isn't enough to justify that labelling, but then I couldn't stop altogether, and isn't that what defines addiction? The inability or unwillingness to stop a habit? If someone were to tell me that from now on I couldn't ever have a line or a hit ever again, I'd not be happy.
7.
When I was a child my favourite books were Les Trois Mousquetaires, The Brothers Lionheart, The Borribles and The Neverending Story. If you know these books, I am sure you can see the pattern: I always longed for friends.
This is why I love the Harry Potter books so much: The friendship and loyalty between Harry, Ron, Hermione ... and Neville. They all have different ideas about the world, about friends, about magic even, but their bond is indestructable.
I had always male friends-but never many female friends. Somehow it rarely worked, especially in Japan.
Men can be obnoxious, and I have some male friends who I'd like to slap once in a while, but at least communication is very much straight forward. With many women it's like navigating a boat in deceptively calm waters: there will be rocks somewhere, under the waters, and by Murphy's Law I will somehow manage to steer into them.
8.
I didn't speak until I was five. My parents still joke that they thought I was retarded, and only when I demonstrated my chop stick eating skills at the age of two or three, they were somewhat reassured.
"At least she'll be able to feed herself," my father said to my mother.
9.
When I was a child my mother nourished that hope I'll become a famous ballet dancer one day and sent me to the state opera. It turned out that I had the flexibility of a wood block and two left feet. Also I had no sense of rhythm. I was not capable to dance a waltz if my life depended on it, but I could cheat my way through by counting. Somehow it didn't work with the Polka measures. That one little half step-I never managed to get it right, and it angered my mother (and the dance instructors) so much, I had to practice to the music of Strauss' Annen Polka again and again, before dinner and then after dinner until it was bed time, and soon longer, until ten or eleven o'clock. She tried everything-slapping me, pulling my hair, banging my head against the wall, and she screamed at me in despair, but I still wouldn't get it right.
Then the end of the year approached and the director called my mother and me into the office and explaind that it wasn't only my lack of talent, it was my stature: the waist too thick, the neck too short, the knees not smooth enough, the balance between torso and legs indicated I would not grow much, and at mt age my upper arms arms were already too thick too.
Admittedly the diet my mother put me on after that conversation wasn't exactly enjoyable, but at least the horror of the ballet school ended here and then.
For years after that Ballet School period alone the first measures of the Annen Polka used to frighten me. I would literally freeze, and I'd be unable to even clearly think when someone played that piece which is funny, because that Polka is really a silly bit of music.