1) My parents' house is haunted by the first owner who liked it so much he decided to make sure he'd stay there forever with a shotgun. When I was about ten, the dude enjoyed getting me and Rob in trouble by taking out the milk and leaving it on the counter. Mom just wouldn't bow to the logic of "why would I put it up there when I can't reach it?" I told him off eventually, and he stopped, but he'll still and yet stare at you if you're on the computer downstairs. It's eerie.
2) I have replaced the exhaust on a Geo Metro from engine to tail-pipe. Mitchell helped. (Or possibly did most of it, I'm not sure.  I do remember holding the exhaust in place with my boobs while he bolted something in.) I'm inordinately proud of that, and look forward to learning more car repair when I'm in a position to, you know, have a car. Because of this wish, my dream cars are all 1985 or older, because new cars have too much electronics to be easily fixed at home.
3) I highly dislike clothes. People need to be aware that my house is a clothing optional environment. This lead to an interesting side-hustle in highschool of flashing people for money. I have also done it on dares, or just to annoy or traumatize people. I see nothing wrong with the human body, especially breasts, and I do so enjoy getting a reaction out of people.
4) The one social skill that I have never managed to master is the TMI cut-off line. I will talk about anything to anyone, which gets me in copious amounts of trouble, either because people are getting information they'd rather not, or because people I am fond of feel less special because I confide in everyone, OR because they're not getting enough information because when I become reclusive, I go too far don't say enough.
5) I am a documented schizo-affective, although I am not currently medicated. I have spent a week in the psych ward due to an aborted attempt to fix the problems in my marriage by invoking the "til death" clause. I talk to my unborn children and my gods, and I can hear the trees though their concept of time makes it very difficult to have communication with, the veracity of which I'm ambivalent on. In the last year, I've added Radio!Ryan to my list of interesting side-effects, which I inherited from my soul-twin which basically amounts to hearing the upper level thoughts of pretty much everyone, the veracity of which I'm actually more convinced of in him than me, but perhaps that's because I truly want to believe that people aren't that petty and cruel. In terms of things that sanity-checks have proved aren't real, the floor will occasionally change to a malignantly intelligent form of quicksand, the sky will press down and try to eat me, and phones have tiny straw-like tongues that they use to try and suck out my brain, although knowing it all isn't real really doesn't help me cope when presented with it. I no longer am haunted by the things that aren't there that I can't see that stare at me, and I very rarely see into Looking Glass world although I'm still very uncomfortable with mirrors, and I'm pretty sure that my doll has given up trying to find me and so no longer live in fear of that. In spite of all this, I have very good baseline sanity-checks built in for functionality and unless you hear me talk about it nobody would ever guess that I'm completely off my rocker. I consider this fact to be both a compliment, and hugely annoying.
6) I have an intense phobia of people being angry. I'm not entirely sure where this comes from, because neither of my parents were the type to scream and hit when angry. But if I even believe I'm perceiving someone losing their temper, I will become convinced that a) I have done something to invoke it and b) I am going to get very hurt. I can and have made some very morally poor choices in an attempt to protect myself from what I see as this threat. I have gotten much better at this point of getting confirmation of people's emotional state instead of spiralling into my assumptions, but it's still a work in progress, and is probably the most visible manifestation of #5.
7) Due to complications from my highly unregulatable Crohn's Disease, whenever I go to the bathroom I must follow it with a shower. I so enjoy this feeling of clean, that I'm pretty sure that even after the surgery (I will be losing at least a third of my large intestine and will probably have a permanent ostomy) and it is no longer necessary, I will probably continue to do so. I now understand why Europeans are so fond of bidets.
8) During highschool, I came to an emotional junction wherein I very nearly became a nun. I became a poly bisexual hippie pagan instead. Someday, this may cease to amuse me.
9) On a related note, I am, apparently a recruiter for the same-sex team. Any female I am friends with who thinks she's straight when she meets me, inevitably gets converted by me over the course of our friendship. I never receive any benefits from this, however. I have received thank you letters from their girlfriends, though.
10) Again related to eight, it is personally mortifying for me how much of a hippie I've become. I am so embarrassed by myself I don't want to be seen in public with me.
11) Related to #10, my parenting theories most closely resemble those of hard-core Christians, which is both amusing and frustrating. Where are my theoretical children supposed to go, when all of their spiritual peers are being raised by tv and babysitters, being taught to take tests instead of learn, believe that brand name clothing, flashy toys and other capitalist nonsense is a right instead of retarded, and believe that there is no such thing as right and wrong, just what you can get away with?
12) I am a libertarian socialist, which is a contradiction I maintain could only happen in Canada. It starts to make sense when you understand that I believe in two different governments, the political and the social servants. I believe that the politic's job is to protect us from the maliciousness of the human race. Nothing more. I believe in a small government, that mostly keeps it's fingers out of my darned business. I believe in an end to prohibition and other such victim-less crimes. I believe in an end to legal regulation of marriage in any degree because I don't think anyone but one's spiritual adviser and/or god has the ability to sanctify a marriage and that religious opinions should have nothing to do with a legal contract between two (or yes perhaps more) people in regards to creating a family unit as long as they're all of consenting age. I believe in personal responsibility and the end of nanny-state laws. On a related note, I think we need to decide when a child becomes an adult and be consistent, but that's a different rant. On the other hand, I believe that there are certain services which should be considered essential, and that it is both inefficient and suicidal to allow the private sector to run them. These things are police and fire services, transportation services, healthcare, hydro and water, a few other things I'm sure I'm forgetting, and I'm starting to consider the pros and cons of considering phone and internet backbones as well. This is not because I think we should get it for "free", or any such noise because I actually understand government, and it's not because I'm under any delusion that the government will run it optimally. It is because it is cost effective to have such things run in a not-for-profit environment, wherein the company is accountable to the consumers instead of the shareholders. It is also because, yes, I am norse and I believe that countries are like families and that we have the responsibility to help those who need help while holding accountable those who are just not pulling their own weight, and again the government already has the structure to achieve this in place, and while we could do it through independent charities instead, it causes needless bureaucratic duplication that costs money better spent on programs. I have heard comments that without capitalism, there will be no innovation, but I think that's silly. People are curious creatures. You don't have to bribe them to make things better, they will do it on their own because they're bored. But even if it were true, there can be PERSONAL financial gain without needing there to be financial gain for the COMPANY, which is all that's necessary to fulfil that theory. I grew up with the consequences of the privatization of various electricity companies, and I think that if one is really impartial, one would have to agree that experiment failed. The history of Ottawa is rich with examples of why the privatization of police and fire is a bad idea (whatever I currently feel of the bottom rung of the police systems at the moment, I am quite sure that privatization is much worse).
13) Related to something mentioned in #12, I don't believe in traditional schooling either. This is in spite of having spent Grade 4 with a teacher with similar theories and seeing it fail. I believe this is because by Grade 4, school had already broken us of any love of learning. We were too interested in trying to f*** the system instead. But human beings are inherently curious creatures. We love to learn, you don't have to "make" them, they'll do it if you just provide materials and get out of the way. I am very intrigued by the works of Denis Rancourt and others, and the idea of pass/fail universities and unschooling. I feel that traditional schooling as it's currently implemented is a giant failure which is very good at breaking people's will, teaching them how to obey, the intricacies of multiple choice tests, and making sure that one watches a lot of tv at night instead of reading. It is horrible at cultivating a love of learning, knowledge retention, or moral development. And by saying all this, I do so with all the love in the world for the teachers I know. It is not the people in the system's fault that the system has failed. I know they love the children dearly (though not all teachers do, the ones I personally know do), and are doing the best they can IN SPITE of the system around them. My children will not be going to public school as long as I am alive to assure it.
14) I am not at all pleased that I am different. All I ever ever wanted was to fit in to society and be happy and content with what everyone else had and wanted. I have done multiple contortions of myself, my ideals, my dreams and my reactions in an attempt to successfully achieve this major surgery on my spirit, but it continues to fail. I am very slowly coming to peace with this, but I am still not happy about it.
15) No matter that I understand the psychological consequences of an abusive relationship, one of my two honest regrets in life was not throwing the dog tags back in Sean's face that night outside the theatre. It cost me the respect and friendship of some of the finest people I've ever known, and even though I do like my life and realize that doing so would change everything, if I had it to do other again, I'd do it differently.
16) My other major regret is not just throwing in the towel and going home when Kai told me to when everything blew up with the Eric/INS/etc b***s***. Even though I am aware that Roman would have taken that as a confession instead of just exhaustion, and even though I am pleased that we managed to have a civil divorce that was beneficial to us both and a moderately friendly post-marriage relationship, neither of which would have happened had I done so, and that although I like my life and am aware that nothing would be the same if I had done different, I still feel that the cost was too high and I lost too much of myself in doing so.
17) The fact that my parents were well-established in their marriage before I was born, and that I was very well planned has always been an ever so slight disappoint to me.
18) I am technically ambidextrous, although it's hard to tell from observation, it being a right-handed world and I'm a human being and thus lazy.
19) I have a very unfortunate tendency of taking people's direct word for things. If their actions completely deny their statements, it doesn't matter. This had caused me a lot of heartbreak when people tell me things I want to hear but are untrue, or because it allows me to be manipulated. This is true even when I have been directly told that they are lying. I'm really not sure how to fix this.
20) I am a terrible gossip. I compensate for this by attempting to make sure I pass along as much positive chatter as negative, but this is also still a work in progress. I think this stems from the Haviland family tendency for everyone to not-know things. (Most classic example of this is still Bonnie Jean's "secret" pregnancy ("Oh when did you not-know?" "I've not-known since yesterday") Being in Seattle and being out of the family gossip line was particularly painful for me.
21) My entire life was built around going to school for computer programming, getting a job with my dad's company and living a contented cubicle life. My every choice from elementary school onward reflected this. I went to one of the best colleges on track to get a very good diploma, and got a choice co-op position. Those four months proved to me that I could not survive in that environment, and I dropped out. My world dropped out from under me as well. I have spent the last eight years trying to answer the question "What now?" and am only just starting to make any kind of headway.
22) I used to be quite scary in my ability to perceive the depths and complexities of people and situations. This was a combination of intense observation and categorization of minutia, tracking and thusly predicting trends while not being overly attached to my conclusions, and a sixth sense for the textures of undercurrents. 2007 broke me in ways I am still recovering from, and 2008 was thusly the year of Me, and I completely lost that ability and it's very difficult now for me to not have that perception to rely on. I feel like I'm seeing the world in two dimensions or in black and white, and I fear never getting it back and what that will mean for the rest of my life.
23) Approximately a year ago, I asked my soul-twin to Outcast me, in atonement for 2007 and for the protection of the world at large. This was supposed to have ended on my birthday, but for several reasons never did. I am technically still Wandering Lost, although I am no longer actively isolating myself from people. This is partially because situations have not arisen in which someone I trust can ritualistically welcome me back into society, but also because I am not confident that when asked if I am now healed enough to be safe to those I love that I could answer yes.
24) I'm 99% sure that I am allergic to Elyse's hippie organic Lush lip chap. The irony of this amuses me.
25) I have the intermittent urge to run for political office. I often wonder if my lack of discretion in the virtual world, such as in cases like this, will later come and bite me in the ass, should I actually try. And that makes me very sad, because I have done very little I'm not proud of, and the things that would shame me to have brought into the public forum are not the things people would focus on. |
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