Sunday, February 15, 2009

25 F-ing things

I'm doing this because nearly a dozen of my friends have tagged me for it. My friend Chris touched my heart in particular with his stark honesty. Because of that, among the funny random things, you will find this interspersed with brutally honest admissions about myself, some of which I've shared with NO ONE EVER. I'm adding this sentence after I've started writing this because I realize that this is going to be a bit of a novel about me, and a pretty long one at that, so if you have the patience, thanks for slogging through it.

You don't have to write back. You don't have to comment. You don't have to read any further than you want. You don't have to acknowledge that you've read this note. But you should know that if I sent this to you, I want you to know me as best as I know me.

1. I have an enormous skull, while normally proportioned, I've never found a hat that fits, it always feels like I'm wearing a yamuca or yarmulke or however it's spelled, that little jewish skullcap thing.
2. I love to longboard. I brag about the fact that I've skated as much as 35 miles in a day, just because I like o longboard.
3. I fiddle, twitch, and make other movements nearly all the time. Whether it's my leg shaking while I'm sitting, talking with my hands, pacing while on the phone, fiddling with my ring, checking my cell phone unnecessarily, flipping said cell phone open and closed a lot, popping joints, stretching my different portions of body or the whole thing or adjusting my clothing; belt, shirt, shorts etc. That might qualify as more than 1, but what ev'
4. I let fear run a great deal of my life. At times it drives me to do exactly what people are afraid of me doing, hurting them. I don't know how to let go of this. I fight with it every day to reach the things I want. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't.
5. I have three older brothers, 1, 5 and 6 years older than I am. I have been bigger than them all since I was in 8th grade. I would guess that I currently weigh at least 60-70 lbs more than any of them. Only one of them is taller than me, by about 2"
6. If you've met me before, you'll know that I don't wear pants very often. I have a number of very specific reasons for it. First and foremost is that I loath, I don't hate, I loath walking through snow/rain with pant due to the inevitable wet pant legs up to about my knees. Grrrrr!!! Also I find that wearing shorts accentuates my rather rotund posterior in a positive way, plus it's got great air conditioning involved, considering my prodigious production of body heat. Which leads into
7. The temperature at which I'm comfortable ranges far wider than the average human being. (All referenced tempuratures are in Fahrenheit) Starting at about 45 degrees I like, although I prefer to stay covered up, ie a blanket or staying fully clothed. At roughly 55 degrees I'm perfectly comfortable in boxers only. In fact it's the perfect temperature for me. the strangest thing is that this ranges up to about 95+ degrees. I can be dressed normally (shorts and a t-shirt for me) sitting in a car with the windows up, in direct sunlight, in the middle of summer and be completely comfortable. I'll be sweating, for sure, but it won't bother me at all.
8. My knees give me pain and will for the rest of my life. I destroyed the stabilizing tendons that run up the side of the joint to keep everything in line together due to taking some foolish advice about how to stand lifting 300+ lbs. One day in P.E weightlifting, while warming up before I'd taken on even a third of my max weight, my right knee (the much worse of the two) popped and I proceeded to collapse and writh in pain for next twenty minutes or so before I could speak intelligibly. So that's nice
9. I was tested in 5th grade for my reading level and the results were that I could read at the post college level. (There isn't a level higher than that) I would estimate that at that time, at the age of eleven, I'd read roughly 150 novels just for fun, ranging between 300-800 pages in length. During the next year, because of that test, I kept track of the books I read and it came out to 58, which comes roughly 88 pages a day. I'm a huge math nerd. It seems so strange to me when I talk to people that have never read a single book for pleasure.
10. When I was about 5 years old I shared a room with my three older brothers and there was a bit of rivalry going on there, not surprising. The two older against the two younger most often. At this particular juncture Robert and Tommy had forced Carl and I out of our collective room and we were trying to force our way back in, when they gave an extra push and got the door slammed shut on my finger. The problem came when the door pinched off a small portion of the ring finger on my right hand. I remember it happening, but I don't remember the pain or much else that happened, other than my mother becoming extremely upset when we'd gotten back from the hospital to find that I'd removed all the bandages they wrapped around my finger. That finger aches in cold weather to this day.
11. I have a strange and paranoid fear that I will turn out to be the Anti-christ. mostly this is because I've been stabbed with a pencil twice, once on each hand, where Jesus is classically depicted as having his hands pierced. I don't really have anyother reason than that, that's why it's a strange and paranoid fear.
12. I remember vividly when I learned how to wiggle my ears by flexing my scalp. I was sitting in what had been dubbed the Music room where all my Dad kept all his musical instruments (including 14 guitars) and related paraphernalia. I was just sitting on a bench and did something that made my scalp feel funny. So I did it again, and started practicing it until I caught sight of myself doing it in a mirror, realizing that I was actually wiggling my ears. The practice continued to the point that I can wiggle just one at a time. I've never met anyone that could wiggle just one.
13. I consider myself an Agnostic Theist, which means I believe in God but don't feel like I have any knowing proof of him. This is a recent change from my being raised LDS. I know that some people will find this shocking, and for that I can only say I couldn't call everyone first. I find my life in a very strange situation in leaving behind some of the ideals and the church that in many ways I've been a staunch supporter of. Here is the basic rundown of what changed in my life/views. I've lived my entire life with doubt in the LDS religion, I've never been "touched by spirit of God" and given a sure knowledge that the Latter Day Saints is the church of god. With that said, I refuse to believe in a religion that gives all real evidence of it's truth after my death. Don't confuse this with saying that the LDS church is a bad one. Far from it. There are a great many ideals it holds to and teaches, and works to have it's patrons practice that I still believe in and will continue to support. Taking into account a secular survey of the behavior of children (how well they do in school/college, participating criminal activities, etc) and how that relates to their religion. On average, LDS children go farther in school, get better grade and generally better behaved. But I wander from my point, which is that I believe in God, I just don't realy believe in religion. Wow that was a long one.
14. I refuse to believe anyone when I ask them why they did/said/asked something and they say, "Oh, no reason" or "Nothing". It's just not true. I have never once found it to be even close to true, although in a true/false paradigm it's kind of hard to come up with degrees, but anyway. I'll accept answers like 'I felt like it, just because, he looked at me funny' I don't care how random, stupid, or completely unrelated the reason is, there is one. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine, if you tell me you don't know why, that doesn't bother me, just don't say there was no reason whatsoever. I know it's not true, and so do you.
15. I love a good chick flick. This is not your average man is okay with watching one every once and a while, because his girl likes them, this is he likes them more than his girl, cries at them and own more of them than she does kind of likes chick flicks. Granted, I'm not dating anyone right now, the idea is still valid.
16. I cry. When I'm reading and watching movies mostly. The movie I cried at the hardest was Ladder 49. I was still crying 20 minutes after the credits had finished, it was so sad! Damn good movie though. The very first movie I cried at was when I was 17, it was Ice age, the part where you see the little story told by the cave paintings of what Manny is remembering.
17. I moved to Utah to find religion and lost it, but I've found myself.
18. I love helping people move. I can't really explain why, I don't particularly like moving myself, but when it comes to moving other people's stuff, I'm totally down for it, anytime. When I was active LDS, it got to the point, if anyone moved in the ward, they were like, "Okay, Nick's helping with the move, could we get two or three other brothers to help the (Insert family surname here)'s get into their new place?"
19. I love a great deal and wide variety of music, but I have an elite set of bands that are pretty much the dog's bollucks, which from what I've heard, is a good thing. To be elite, you must have at least three CDs, and you must be good enough that I listen to you for long enough to learn every song on all of your CDs, and then it has to last long enough that you can be the only thing I listen to for at least a week. Some examples of this are Dashboard Confessional, System of a Down, My Chemical Romance, Breaking Benjamin, Cake, Death Cab for Cutie, Fallout Boy, Incubus, Presidents of the United States of America, Rammstein, Richard Cheese, Sarah McLachlan, Sister Hazel, Staind, Stroke 9. I'm pretty sure that's all of them actually.
20. I don't have a certain type of woman I go for when it comes to looks. I would say there is a trend, although it's not exclusive, of women who've got a bit of substance, so to speak. I just don't want to feel like I might snap you in half. anyway, it's never this person has blue eyes, or green, or blonde hair, or is this height and that makes them beautiful to me. It's always the compliment of most, if not all of their features, their eyes along with the way they do their hair and the shape of their nose and mouth along with the shape of their face and line of their jaw. It makes it much easier to see the beauty in people that way.
21. I decided to run away from home once when I was a kid, I don't remember why, but I decided that I'd live in a tree at the end of my block, that lasted for about an hour and a half, during which time I went home to make myself a couple PB&J sandwiches and then went back to my tree. I got over it, thank goodness.
22. I had a piece of glass stuck in my foot for three years. I had a glass sliver stuck in my foot once and when it was taken out, it left a little behind, creating this weird lump on the bottom of my foot that only hurt when direct pressure was applied to it. after about three years I took my shoes off one day and rubbed my foot and a piece of glass came out of the top of the lump and within about two days, the lump was gone completely.
23. During the summer I didn't have a job when I was about 19 I watched Goodwill Hunting 2-3 times a day for 3 months straight. I've yet to watch it again.
24. The nickname I had as an infant was Baby Buddha. I think you can guess why. I'm not the smallest guy ever.
25. I will always be your friend, by my definition of the word

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Going Rogue, or Ninja if you prefer

I'm stealing internet access from my work to post this, so I hope you're happy. I'm kidding, I'm actually not that worried that your happiness is based primarily on my blog posting regularity. I'm getting interweb access installed on friday, which will be sweet, hopefully I'll have my replacement drive for my laptop computer by early next week and then I can wipe my harddrive and get all the crappy spyware off my computer, Yay!!
Anyway, I moved recently, as you're probably aware and I've been getting used to having 6 roommates, and yes, that's 6+ myself. They are all actually really cool people and most of them don't get to worked up about much of anything. It's just weird to have roommates that are equals in the house again as opposed to living in a house with a guy whos insanely controlling about who comes in the house and what happens around his stuff. Gah! That was soooo frustrating! I just wanted to scream at him, "I pay F***ing rent, I can bring people over to where I live!" it wouldn't have mattered to him anyway, so I just left it alone and went out to hang out with my friends. Regardless, it's pretty sweet at the new place. I live close to a number of friends I hang out with, at least every week, if not two or three times a week, so that's nice.
Moving on to the end. It feels really good to post something after the, I don't know, couple weeks I haven't posted. I love you all, expect more soon.

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