Holiday amnesia

I have been so busy making my holiday gifts, preparing for debt consolidation (cat's out of the bag: I'm in debt) and hammering out my vacation plans for next week that I just plumb forgot that I have a blog. I have to keep my three readers entertained. Sorry Mom, Mchan and Mark.

Let's see what I've been up to since we last checked in.

I got to see Kid Beyond again. Really, my sweets, if you get a chance, go see him. He will wreck your sense of reality and you will be really happy about it.

He was on tour with Imogen Heap, so I got to see her too. I've not spent a lot of time listening to her music and I was happy to have a chance to do so. She just has one of those voices that takes you on a little jaunt through her stories and her compisitions are the perfect backdrop. This lady knows her abilitites so well and really works with what she's got.

And she's very tall. She has taken to backcombing (also known as 'ratting') her hair, which adds on quite a few inches to her already altitudinous person.

So I had the chance to chat with Imogen, and she is quite kind. Me being me, and not really caring whether people like me or not, whether they are famous or not, I had to ask her some questions. Nothing pervy, just about her music.

I'm fascinated with people who have the ability to focus on one thing. Especially people who are so focused on one thing that many go out of their way to view, purchase or buy what these people spend every waking moment doing. I have a Tasmanian Devil brain that can only ingest so much of one thing before gleefully slobbering and scrambling over to the next shiny object that catches it's attention. Plus, I tend to feel insecure around focused folks. I'm perfectly happy with my rapid brain, until I meet someone successful within their focus. Then I immeadiately wonder if I have wasted a bunch of time learning about dumb little things when I could have been writing music, or starring in a kick ass Broadway play I wrote, or working on becoming a household name.

So, I had to ask Ms. Heap "Why music?" to which she replied, "I was never good at anything else".

Duh. Of course! That makes perfect sense! If the only thing I could do remotely well was ice skate, or math, then you bet your ass I would spend my time becoming the best freaking ice skater or the best math-doing-person EVER!!!

I just like to do so much stuff and while I'm not good at all of it, I tend to pick enough of it up to have it enchant me for a while. Some stuff I got pretty good at while other stuff I'm just glad I lived through experimenting with. Yeah, I probably will be plagued with feeling inadequate while standing next to corporate CEO's, rock stars, or an Ju-Jitsu sensei. I'll just have to remember the wealth of information that I have picked up along the way was really fucking fun to gather.

Ok, so I can't set up a business plan, write a song or chop through a block with my head (the latter being the most enticing of the three), but I have been skydiving, moved to cities where I didn't know a soul, had no job and no digs and created a whole life for myself. I am learning how to weld, I can shoot a bow, waterski, spit really far, swim and kinda play guitar and piano. I've written and performed in plays, worked as a bike messenger, worked at a recording studio and worked as a dog walker while going to massage therapy school.

Take that all you mono-focused people.

Pictures of nicknames

These are some pictures that I found when I Googled 'nicknames'. Part of a burro, crazy hair Bowie, a caricature by Albert 'Wooltops' Hodgson and a list of soroity nick names.

I don't know much about sororities, but I do know that in the college town where my brother lives, the Tri Delta's are definitely monikered the Tri Sluts.

Another thought on nicknames: Giving nicknames to mostly strangers. I think everyone I know does this. For instance, in my personal universe, I have nicknames for everyone. Roast Beef Guy was a guy I met at the deli counter who was very dreamy. He told me the merits of the Boar's Head Londonbroil Roast Beef. My friends would always ask "have you seen Roast Beef Guy lately?", to which I always replied "no" because I never saw him again. He was an angel on temporary leave from meat heaven.

There was Hot Cheese Guy, a guy I had a crush on who worked at a natural food store (in the specialty cheese section). Later I found out his real name and his real girlfriends name as well. To me he will always be Hot Cheese Guy.

Then there is the rabble of not-quite-homeless-but-definitely-unemployed people who hang out all day on the main drag of the town I live in. There's Guy In Red, Arm Guy, who vociferously punches his right arm out in front of him every time he takes a step with his right foot, Fat Guy On The Porch and Eyebrows.

At first I was worried that I was too quickly judging people, pigeon holing them to make my life easier. Then I realized that these fun, quirky people are lovely ornaments to my life. I don't have to be emotionally involved with them, yet I either interact with them enough, or they left a big impression in a little span of time to make them memorable. I love these people. I need these people. I can spend time making up stories of why Fat Guy On The Porch won't cover his 400 pound frame with a large piece of cloth before wandering out onto the porch. I could fantasize about Hot Cheese Guy suprising me with a free block of Straveccio Parmesan with his phone number written on the wrapper. They feed my daydreams, my creativity and my curiosity.

I feel so lucky.

Nicknames

Eunice is one of the nicknames I gave my cousin when we were kids. She is 4 years younger than me and we grew up more like sisters than cousins. I took full advantage of our tight knit relationship by bossing her around and dressing her and the dog up in matching outfits. I was the poster child for "how to know if you child is a control freak". In fact most of the women in my family are highly bossy and nothing is more frustrating and entertaining than getting us all together for a family member's wedding and watching us try to run the show. On top of it, we're a loud people too. Needless to say, we all end up incensed that no one is doing it our way, then we sulk (no wait, that's just me).

But I digress. Cause I want to talk about nicknames.

I was one of those people who always wanted a nickname, but one never stuck to me. I was always fustrated that no one immediately caught on to my new, snappy name and would deflate whenever they would call to me using my given name. Hadn't I just told them all what to refer to me as from then on? Maybe it was a desperate need for not being me for a while and trying somone elses life on for a month or two. Even as I have grown to love my oddness and have learned how to gleefully dance with my demons and quirks, I still love to see through other peoples brains. I mean that metaphorically. If you've ever tried to peer through brain tissue, you can't see much, it's pretty dense.

Here's a list of nicknames I have tried to forever pin to myself, or someone tried to pin to me:

Klunky
Sprout
Moses
Mosey
Mo (this one actually stuck)
Snoopy
Lumpers
Grace (I fell down a lot)
Dister's sister
Maul
The Devil

The last one is actually not a nickname. It was the description used by somebody I had just broken up with when he was asked by an unknowing third party how I was.