It's More Productive than Arguing on Facebook

I started this a couple weeks ago, but couldn't get past #2.  I finally finished it.

After wading through some fairly repulsive vitriol on Facebook tonight, which required the hiding of yet another person on my feed, I got kind of nostalgic for the early days, when we all posted things about ourselves that began with "H" or ten movies that described our lives and whatnot.
So here's ten things you didn't know about me, in lieu of more banging my head up against the latest wall of ignorant bigotry flying around.

1. I always have to shower after scooping out the catboxes because I can't stand all the dust from the litter in my hair and on my skin and all, or the smell of it in my nose.  I have a weird thing about personal cleanliness that used to be even stronger than it is now.*

2. My childhood cats were named after Rudyard Kipling characters, Shere Khan and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

3. I can't think of a third one.

4. I enjoy vacuuming and mowing the lawn because you can see the difference when you are finished. This speaks to frequency with which I do these chores, so it's apparent that saying I enjoy them doesn't actually get me to do them that often.

5. I have, somewhat by accident, come to have a collection of nesting dolls. I didn't really intend to collect them, but occasionally people find cool ones and give them to me. My favorite is a round one that starts with constellations and ends with the moon.

6. I used to tap dance when I was little. This skill once helped me land a part in a play about women who tap danced rather badly, which is my exact level of ability -- rather bad.  I am okay with this.

7. In college I had a paid gig as a writer for a theater troupe. I also got college credit for it, which I found exceptionally gratifying. It's the only time I've ever been paid for writing. There's one piece from it I'm still proud of.

8. The first movie in the theater I can recall my father taking me to see is Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I fell asleep.

9. When I was little, I had a fascination with cutaway drawings, where you got to see the insides of a structure.  I still do enjoy looking at such drawings (Stephen Biesty's books are terrific!) and I occasionally peruse catalogs of home plans, even though I have no intention of moving.**

10.  Every time I go to IKEA I imagine that it will fill me with all the joy it does everybody else. Except it never does. I find it oddly overwhelming and filled with things that I mostly don't like but feel like I should but couldn't afford even if I did. Everything there falls into the "That's maybe cool, but I don't really need to spend money on it" category. As far as I know, I'm the only American to feel this way.

*this, sadly, does not mean that I keep my house spotlessly clean. Also, this cleanliness thing is probably exacerbated by my bizarrely strong sense of smell. (Most useless superpower ever.)

**I detest moving. At most points during the moving process I would rather set all my belongings on fire and start fresh at the new place.

Party Fatigue

A friend of mine posted today about how he'd never host a party for his kids at one of those mega-kiddie-themed-complexes.  It reminded me that a while back I wrote about how much eye-rolling I had for people who threw birthday parties for their kids at such places and I have to say now that I take it back. Not because they aren't headache-inducing, ear-splitting germ-fests (they are) but because I get now that sometimes it's just a helluva lot easier to fork out money to have someone else run and clean up the birthday mess. Also, you don't have to clean your house before taking your kid to SuperHappyFunPalaceofBouncingandVideoGames. Though in all honesty, I have to admit that cleaning the house beforehand was a lot more for me than for the boys who came to the party. Given what I know about 10 year old boys, I think they would not have noticed any amount of dirt or clutter if we'd just left it where it was.
We just finished the Month of All Things Celebratory at our house, which begins with DD's birthday, rolls through Christmas and New Year's, and finally concludes with DS's birthday so the grownups around here are feeling a little bit ragged around the edges. Party fatigue.
The kids are happy, though, and DS even said that this last birthday, which involved ten little boys, pizza and Ant Man* was more fun than one he had once at the local SHFPBVG.
So that's something.


*Have you ever watched an action-hero movie with 10 4th grade boys? It's an experience.