Aiming at Nothing

It would seem I have been “tagged.” I’m not sure where I should wear the tag so I’ll place it around one of my toes along with the one the morgue put there some years ago.

The rules are simple…Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. Fact: I can move my eyeballs independently (with some restrictions — I can’t move them both to the outside of my face at the same time). When I was about 14 years old I was sitting with my family around the breakfast table (we had separate tables for each meal) when, in a fit of utter Corn Flake boredom, I started doing my “eye thing.” Mom nearly jumped out of her skin. It was at that moment I discovered not everyone was blessed with this marvelous “talent.” I was also asked not to do it again because, apparently, one can become “stuck like that.” I’ve been doing it every chance I could since then because I hate being told not to do something. I think Mom is just jealous.

2. Habit: I have to be chewing on something in order to concentrate on any reading material. Doesn’t matter if the text is printed on paper or rendered on a screen; if I’m not chewing gum, I’m shelling sunflower seeds or otherwise snacking. If you’ve ever seen me in person, you can tell right away that I do a lot of reading. (I’m chewing gum at the moment.)

3. Fact: For most of the first 30 years of my life I lived within ten miles of the hospital where I was born. World traveler, I was. After nearly dying in the same hospital, I decided to get out and do stuff for a change.

4. Fact: When I was in seventh grade my best friend (at the time) learned to ride a unicycle. Not wanting to be out-done I taught myself to ride in our driveway the following summer. I learned more about falling before I learned much about riding. Nearly every day of eighth grade I rode my unicycle to school — sometimes in tandem with my friend. I can still ride all these years later although I’m horribly out of practice. I have no idea what the former friend is doing these days.

5. Habit: Toilet paper dispensed to the front just as nature intended. Do not speak to me of your strange “off the back of the roll” ways, you heretic! Repent.

6. Fact: When I was in sixth grade I was nearly run over by a semi-truck. My memory of the events leading up to the crash are sketchy, but I ended up under a rolling truck, between the rear wheels looking up at the axles. I had been riding my bike up to an intersection just seconds before. The bike was crushed by the wheels to my right as I looked up. That’s part of the reason I took up unicycling: I no longer had a working bike and, well, clearly bicycling wasn’t dangerous enough.

7: Habit: I have “restless leg syndrome.” To be more specific, I can’t sit perfectly still for even a minute. Recently this “malady” has been given a name in the service of selling a treatment. The potential side-effects of this treatment are much worse than the relentless foot twitching I “suffer” from now. However if my restlessness bothers you, just tell me and I’ll do one of two things: 1) consciously try to stop the motion for a minute or 2) tell you to go find a pill that will keep you from being so ugly.

8. Fact: My family tree really does fork but it’s more like one of those half-spoon, half-fork “spork” things you find at KFC. One of my grandfather’s brothers married one of my grandmother’s sisters. The result was a bunch of cousins that looked like they could be siblings. Fortunately none of them married each other (as far as I know.) I’m still unable to explain this extra hand growing from my forehead.

I’ve suffered for my art. Now it’s your turn. Jeff, Moss, Jeff, Joni, Jeff, PT, GP, and Ian… consider yerselves “tagged.”