I'm 52. This blog is 20 years old. Not sure which is more amazing to me. It's not that I didn't think I would live this long, it's that I had no idea what sort of life I'd be living at 52 until...after I turned 52. Damnit, things keep changing on me.
And I never imagined in 2004, just before moving into this house, that I'd still be writing 20 years later: much less frequently, but it's still happening. At least until Google decides to extinct Blogger the way they did Google Spaces.
Without further ado-do, 52 random things I've either never told you before or never explained.
1) My proudest accomplishment: convincing someone I was valuable enough to marry. I still don't know how that worked, exactly.
2) My biggest fear (that I haven't explicitly stated) is that I will lose the love and respect I have now. How would that happen? No idea. It just could. When you're not sure why people do love and respect you, it's easy to imagine it's conditional. And no, I'm really not sure: I've of course asked the question, but the responses I get are like, well, sorry, baseline human attributes. "You make me feel seen". I'd bloody well hope I do, what, do others throw an Invisibility Cloak over you? Yikes.
3) My high school superlative: I was an Ontario Scholar who graduated grade 13 with an average in the nineties. Whoopty do. Most of what you learn in high school needs to be swapped out.
4) Something I was embarrassingly late to realize: that the KFC logo depicts a bowtie, not a stick figure with an astonishingly large head.
5) Number of sexual partners: seven or eight, depending on how you define "sex". (Number I regret: four.)
6) The trip I most want to take and haven't yet: I'm keeping this to at least ostensibly plausible destinations, because otherwise there are far too many to count or rank. But I DEARLY want to do this. Sault Sainte Marie is less than seven hours through the Excited States and only seven and a half through Canada (unless you take the Chi-Cheemaun, which I'd love to do again).
7) If I could be reincarnated as a different animal, I'd want to be either an octopus or a cat.
8) The first concert I attended as a teenager was an open air Glass Tiger concert at Fanshawe Park in London. We are almost certain Eva was in that crowd with me. I think I remember seeing her.
9) A contest I once won. A sales contest for Danone yogurt that netted me a genuine Luke Schenn Toronto Maple Leafs jersey. Of course I didn't win that alone: my dairy/frozen team at Price Chopper contributed.
10) A movie I have memorized: the easy (and already given) answer would be Groundhog Day, which I once watched five times in succession for the United Way. But I consciously discarded most of that movie so that one day I could enjoy it again. I have, since. No, the movie I have memorized is Silence of the Lambs.
11) The name I'd want to go by if it wasn't my own: I have never given this any thought. I like my name, but if I had to choose another it'd probably be Kieron. Still has a K, honours one of the closest friends I ever had, and I just find the name lovely.
12) Best phone I've ever owned: My current Pixel 8 and it's not close. I mean, it's the first time I've had a current-gen near flagship phone. I love it for several reasons. One, it ISN'T a Samsung, which means it doesn't come with fifty duplicate apps you'll never use hogging half its memory. Two, the speech to text is great. Three, the call screening feature exclusive to Pixels is worth the price of the phone all by itself. Don't want to talk to the guy inquiring about your ducts or your car insurance or the virus in your computer? Hit Call Screen and your caller will be asked their name and the reason for their call, which is supplied to you via text. You can then choose to get more information, accept, or decline the call. Brilliant. (The phone will also wait on hold for you.)
13) The mythical creature I kinda sorta believe in even if I know it's not "real": Nessie. I mean, I WANT to believe.
14) The eeriest prediction I ever made that came true: 1993 Stanley Cup playoffs. The day before the Leafs won game one against St. Lous in double overtime on a Doug Gilmour goal from behind the net, I announced to the rec.sports.hockey Usenet community that the Leafs would win the game in double overtime on a Doug Gilmour goal from behind the net. People were asking me for lottery numbers.
15) The first song I can ever remember truly loving: Knock Three Times, Tony Orlando and Dawn. But there are probably a dozen before that I can't recall.
16) Number of plants in my house: zero. (Because number of cats in my house: two...)
17) Favourite "bad" smell: gasoline or campfire. (If you think the second is a "good" smell, think again: campfires are HIGHLY carcinogenic, akin to inhaling a pack of smokes all at once.)
18) Best nonsexual fantasy: it starts with a recurring dream that I win eighty million dollars. Initially, it was a lottery win. That's the only way I've ever dreamt it. But I've changed and vastly (and totally unrealistically) elaborated on it in a wakeful state, and now it goes something like this:
--I save at least two people's lives, usually by taking bullets intended for them
--The bullets put me in a coma
--From which I am extricated by the kisses and spoken promises of two people I love
So there's this whole program I've made up in my head called the Kiss of Life: it's something you register for with organ donation and it goes like this: anyone saving two lives and going into a coma in so doing is eligible. To win the prize, the third condition must be met (within five minutes of the kisses/promises). Seventy nine people have qualified for this fictitious prize; none have met that third condition, and so now the prize is eighty million. Plus rejuvenations for the two who kiss me and ten people I care about, curing anything that ails them and granting them many more years of life. Yes, I have a list.
Isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever heard of? Completely impossible seventeen ways and ludicrous in the bargain. Other than this one, every fantasy I have ever had as an adult, including all the boom-chik-a-wow-wow ones, stood at least a chance, however faint, of happening. This one is pure wish fulfillment and nothing more, and I berate myself every time it comes into my head...but can't help imagining gifting people with functional bodies and a lack of financial worry for the rest of their days.
I have this fantasy OFTEN as I am falling asleep.
Sometimes it goes further: the same alien wizards who rejuvenate my loved ones inform me that the earth is going to be destroyed next week, and offer to take us all to a galaxy far, far away. It's like something out of Contact. Is this how everyone's fantasies are? Usually my brain shuts it down before it even forms if it's impossible. Spider Robinson says a fantasy is not a wish, much less an act, but I don't know if that's true for me. If I'm fantasizing about something, by definition I'm wishing for it. How else does it work? Do people fantasize about ugly terrible things they have no wish to happen/do? How does that even work?
19) My favourite childhood book series: I really enjoyed the Choose Your Own Adventure books (and the knockoff WhichWay? books) at a certain young age. But I find myself thinking of the Alfred Hitchcock Three Investigators series. I read them all. The two I most enjoyed were the first, about Terror Castle, and especially the fourth, The Mystery of the Green Ghost. My aunt Dawna infuses my memories of both books because I read them at her house and she gave me that fourth one. They are flatly IMPOSSIBLE to find nowadays.
20) Things I can't do that most people can: blow a bubble; drive a car; perform that piercing shriek-whistle people do to get the attention of other people halfway across the country; use a whippersnipper (ungodly bad depth perception); Jesus. the list is endless.
21) Most recent dream: someone I care about -- who does not care about me -- living in my house. I'm not there anymore except as a ghost over her shoulder. I just had that dream two nights ago. Freaky.
22) Number of books I own: it's under a thousand, now.
23) Weird sensory thing about me: I am sensitive to both light and sound. Bright sunlight ranges from annoying to intolerable. Sound is much more detailed. There are many sounds I detest. Squacking through mud (which I also hate to touch). Forks scraping on plates. Fran Drescher's voice. Noises that just kind of peter out weakly without a defined end.
GEE I WONDER IF I MIGHT BE NEURODIVERGENT.
24) Provinces visited: two. U.S. states visited: fifteen.
25) Did I have an imaginary friend? Many of them. I named them after characters from the books I read, and once talked to a dial tone for half an hour in an effort to convince my parents I had a friend. Best acting performance of my life: they bought it. It helped that somebody became my friend shortly afterwards and coincidentally had the same name. (Note: I didn't "make friends" with Tim. I still have no idea how to do that. I've never "made" a friend in my life. I just be who I am and some people befriend me.
A quote that resonates (that I haven't given you):
“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.”
― Stuart Chase
26: Weddings I can remember attending: eight. Weddings I have participated in: three (once as ring bearer, once as musician, once as best man. Funerals I can remember attending: three.
Second half up tomorrow.
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