10 Random Facts

[AlicetheKurious]

First of all, this thread is a delightful idea. It's been fun reading all the posts.

Second of all, Sunny, with all your self-references as "old lady", "grandma", blah-blah-blah, I imagined some pudgy gray-haired matron. Puh-lease! You are gorgeous, girlfriend! Stop that! Stop that NOW.

Third of all, here's my list of 10 things:

1) I'm mad about books, have been since I was 5 years old. One time, when I was little, I hid while the staff locked up my neighborhood public library, so that I could stay as long as I wanted. I left through the fire-door a few hours later.

My taste is totally eclectic, everything from literature, politics, philosophy, religion, to bodice-ripper romances and detective novels, and everything in between.

2) After being stuffed full of religion at school, Sunday school and church, I went through an atheist phase as a teenager that lingered through my early twenties. Then I was "saved", and hung on as the pendulum swung to the other extreme: fasting, praying and confessing all over the place, etc. What a mess. Now I'm trying to be a tuning fork, vibrating to the notes of a cosmic scale. Whatever.

3) I am constantly appalled by the incredible stupidity and hypocrisy that surrounds me. I avoid unnecessary conflict by keeping most of my opinions to myself. It's enough that those opinions I do express, cause people to characterize me as something of an iconoclast and a harmless rebel. I get away with that because I'm a damn good hostess and generally a cheerful, pleasant guest.

One of the few places I get to express my true opinions fully, is the RI board, which is why I'm still here after more than 2 years.

4) I hate drugs and hard alcohol, although I enjoy the occasional glass or two of wine. Ironically, I'm a serious smoker. I quit once, for around 7 months, but my weight ballooned and I found I just wasn't having as much fun, so I started again.

5) I love my kids so much, all I have to do is think of them, see something of theirs (a slipper, a toy, an mp3 player) and I feel a glow, and my heart swell up. It's impossible for me to stay in a bad mood if they're around, or even if I just look at their pictures.

6) People who know me very well eventually become convinced that either I'm a witch or, in my husband's case, that I have a guardian angel.

With my husband, it began when we were engaged, and planning to move into his bachelor pad after the wedding, until we found something more suitable.

I freaked when I saw the sh*t-brown wall-to-wall carpeting, and told him it had to go. He said no way, he loved that carpet. A couple of days later, he was impossible to reach by phone, which was odd.

That night, he called me, sounding exhausted, saying, "What did you do?" I told him I didn't know what he was talking about, so he explained that a water pipe had inexplicably burst two days ago in one of the walls of his apartment, soaking and ruining the carpet. He hadn't been there for a couple of days, so it had started to smell and had to be removed.

After a few other incidents, he became absolutely convinced that there was some sort of supernatural Entity doing my bidding. I told him that was nonsense, but didn't belabor the point, if you get my drift.

In any case, others have made similar observations, so they may be right.

7) I'm deeply offended, to the core of my being, by violence. Even though I don't mind it in fiction (within reason), in real life it feels like sacrilege.

8 ) My ambition is to write a great novel, but I doubt I ever will. I've begun many times, even reaching 60 pages of text one time, but I always abandon the project.

9) I never remember any of my dreams; in fact, as far as I can tell, I don't dream at all, although they say that's impossible.

10) In my new sig line, "Zanuba Hanem" is me. It means "Lady Slipper". A close friend calls me Cassandra, because I frequently make accurate predictions, but I'm never believed.

[erosoplier]

1. I choked on a rock (one out of a rock collection, not one off of the ground, thank you very much) when I was a year old. Went blue and limp, but survived, due I'm told to the fact that my grandmother's middle finger was 1/4" longer than my mother's. The rock, curiously, was never recovered. (Just occurred to me - my name is Peter, and Peter means "rock" apparently...so there you go, it all makes sense).

2. Had a handful of sand thrown in my eyes when I was a toddler. It took 4 adults to hold me down, they tell me. They rolled one eye out of its socket to clean the sand out.

3. My sister and her friend would occasionally dress me up in girls clothes and make-up and we'd see how many people in passing cars I could get to wave back at me. I was a child at the time. This story seems to depend mostly on whether you have an older sister or not - if you do, then that is likely to be one of your stories. Lot of fun, I thought (though the fun may have been mostly due to the sheer novelty of having an older sibling show some positive interest in me).

4. When I was 4 or 5 I played "lets pretend to go to the bathroom" under the bed sheets with a 3 or 4 year old daughter of family friends - my idea - in order to have a look at her girly bits. I knew I was doing something I would get into trouble for if caught, but the girl was too young to see any wrong in it. I don't know what motivated me, maybe a combination of natural curiosity and, for once, being in a situation where I was leading someone else around, rather than being led around. Those family friends stopped coming around soon after that - my mother could never understand why. (It's probably high time I fessed up to my mother about that one actually...)

5. I've fallen hopelessly in love twice. Took me 5+ years to get over it on both occasions. Never so much as kissed either one of them. Fucking bitches (just kidding).

6. I've gone so long without sex now, I'm officially a virgin again. Next time I do it, if I ever get to do it again, it's going to be b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l (it would ruddy well want to be beautiful, I reckon). I'm a bit like Lenny Kravitz I guess - taking a belated voluntary vow of celibacy until the right girl comes along. The only minor difference being that, unlike Lenny, I never went through that 20 year long phase of rooting everything that moves...

7. First time I ever drove a car on the road, I was pissed (via 1 bottle of Golden Gate Sparkling Passion Pop), underage, and unlicenced. And I crashed the car - my father's car - two blocks away from home, heading away from home. I ran across the far kerb while trying to take a corner too fast (turns out the thing handled like a bus - how was I supposed to know that?), and broke a steering tie-rod (one front wheel ended up pointing left, the other pointing right - took us a while to figure out why the car wouldn't move). And I got away with it! Somehow no one called the cops, my mate's dad helped us get the car back home, and later I told my father (who was away at the time) that the steering broke when I ran up the gutter moving the car to mow underneath it. Looking back, he must have known that was a lie, but probably he was thankful for having a mystery to ponder, rather than having cops on his doorstep instead.

8. My favourite lecturer, after years of taking his classes and failing every other one through not handing in work, once told me that he counted me as one of the great failures of his life. I think it may have been his last ditch attempt to spur me into action. If it was, it didn't work, for reasons which should have become apparent to the both of us by now.

9. 95% of the books I own are non-fiction. And I haven't completely read any of the last 20 or so books I've picked up. Nothing seems to do it for me lately.

10. I smoked cigarettes for 20 years - 10 or 15 years too many, I figure. I can't believe it took me so long to quit.

[AlicetheKurious]

Hey, Peter, with all your brushes with death, it appears you just may have a special, divine mission in life. Or not.

I've had guns pointed at my face twice. Both times, interestingly enough, I simply froze, didn't panic, but felt oddly calm. Nothing happened, though.

About 3, 4, 5 and 6:

3 and 4: from now on they'll be our secret. Seriously.

5: did you tell the two girls about 3 and 4?

6: I wish you the best of luck. If you do meet the right girl, don't tell her about 3 and 4. Or 5. Or 6. Until you've been married a couple of years. Maybe.

Just kidding. xo

[erosoplier]

5: did you tell the two girls about 3 and 4?

Talk...to...them...??

[sunny]

Wow, I need to visit this forum more often! Thanks Alice.
re: your # 5, I can totally, totally relate. Surprisingly, I love my grandbabies every bit as much. I didn't think it was possible.

erosoplier, you sure had me fooled-I've been pronouncing your handle 'eros-supplier' I'm glad you made it out of childhood alive!

[AlicetheKurious]

I've fallen hopelessly in love twice. Took me 5+ years to get over it on both occasions. Never so much as kissed either one of them.

Dear boy, what you describe has not the slightest relation with love, hopeless or otherwise.

If you didn't talk to them, you didn't know them.

And if you didn't know them, you didn't delight in whatever it was that made them uniquely them, and vice versa.

And if they didn't know you enough to delight in whatever it is that makes you uniquely you, then you didn't evolve into a stronger, better, happier and more secure version of yourself because of them.

Ergo, you didn't love them.

Prologue to The Alchemist, by Paulo Cuelho:

The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

"Why do you weep?" the goddesses asked.

"I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand."

"But...was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.

"Who better than you to know that?" the goddesses said in wonder. "After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!"

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:

"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

"What a lovely story," the alchemist thought.

[compared2what?]

I second Alice the Wise, and am honored to flourish in the shadow of her elucidation.

But Echo also answers:

"Yes!"

And with much greater beauty than I can, from some basement in Detroit in 1971.

[brainpanhandler]

Not that I am in any way speaking for ersoplier... if I can rudely butt in here...

Stealing from Annie A's sig line and twisting it about a bit: The women don't know but the little boys understand...

We men that have been civilized proper and yet still remember with poignancy our just post-pubescent adolescences can look back with awe upon the astonishing degree of sexual energy we had to sublimate. I think the less fair sex falls harder and our brains don't work so good what with the rutting neurochemistry running amok in our addled brains. Our imaginations are sometimes/most times all we had/have.

Esoplier: How long does it take to regain virgin status? I might be approaching that milestone.


The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears. -- Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene 3, Shakespeare


I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane -- Pale Fire, Nabokov.

He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

"Why do you weep?" the goddesses asked.

"I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand."

"But...was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.

"Who better than you to know that?" the goddesses said in wonder. "After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!"

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:

"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

Doesn't it seem there has to be some confluence of meaning here?

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

1) As a toddler, thunder never frightened me. That is, until some babysitter told me not to worry because 'it was only angels bowling.' Which terrified me.
I've always wanted things to make sense.

2) When I was around four years old, I was walking down the streets of New York City with my father when a crumpled cigarette pack thrown out the window of a parked taxi landed on the sidewalk in front of us. Hardly missing a step, my father scooped it up and threw it back into the taxi saying loudly and cheerfully, "I think you dropped this, ma'am."

3) When I was five years old I lived out in a small rural New England town that seemed surreal and haunted, sort of in a film noir way but with sunny white churches and people hidden inside box houses behind picket fences. The omnipresent sound of cicadas and crickets told me I was surrounded by life I couldn't see or understand.

4) My father would sometimes put dinner left overs out the back door at night theatrically intoning that it was "for the wolf at the door." The scary music representing the wolf on the symphony recording of 'Peter and the Wolf' scared me to the point of feeling sick.
Adults forget what it is like to be totally vulnerable to your imagination as a small child and can bat it around like a cat playing with a mouse. Which is just what the government spooks do right under parents' noses.

5) My parents' friends owned a large dairy farm in this small town.
Their son was older but politely showed me around including taking me out to the swampy woods used as a graveyard where cow carcasses were dumped. Dozens of skeletons and massive partly decomposed shapes dotted the swamp.
I didn't notice any crickets but I also wasn't scared.

6) When I was six years old, a playmate took me down to the basement storage pens under the apartment building we lived in to show me his father's World War II soldier momentos. One of them was his photo album from liberating one of the Nazi concentration camps. Stacks of people looked alot like what I saw in that animal graveyard swamp. There had to be some reason for this.
I've always wanted things to make sense.

7) When I was seven years old, I listened to my relatives doing the hawk versus dove debating that much of the country was doing about the ongoing Vietnam War and I marched against it right along with my postgraduate parents. We spent the night and morning before the march making lots of signs. I remember the smell of the magic markers. Spiro Agnew came to speak at a fundraiser and when his black limo arrived some people partly melted marshmellows and lobbed them at Agnew's limo where they stuck on like burrs on a hound dog. An elderly woman with an accent asked my mother if I knew why I was there. My mother assured her I did. The woman said, "Good." And went on to tell of being in Austria when she was a girl and taken to march against the Nazis. Things were begining to make more sense.

8) I grew up without television. When I saw it at a grandmother's house during a long visit I was astonished to see 'Hogan's Heroes' which had a laugh track to go with a German prison camp. I knew something was very wrong with television.

9) I noticed the remilitarized movies and television during the Reagan 1980s and knew exactly what was going on, the undoing of 'Vietnam Syndrome.' I watched the IranContra hearings as much as possible including the testimony by Oliver North. Then the movie, 'Mr. North,' came out and I thought it wasn't a coincidence and might be a decoy of some kind for those who don't watch news. Over the last three years I have confirmed I was right. And I found out who was behind 'Hogan's Heroes' and why.

10) I have trouble forgetting. It seems I remember nearly every damn thing.
And I've always wanted things to make sense. Amazingly, they do.

[sunny]

Hugh, that was lovely. Your father sounds like what my Paw Paw used to call a "care-ack-ter".

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Hugh, that was lovely. Your father sounds like what my Paw Paw used to call a "care-ack-ter".

Severe understatement, sunny. Love that expression. Maybe "care-actor."

I learned from my father that there were things really wrong that needed amending and that voting with your body every day was important.
But I had to learn on my own how things really made sense.

I keep being reminded how interesting and likeable people are through RI.
Cool thread and thanks to those that shared.

[AlicetheKurious]

Sunny said:

Hugh, that was lovely.

I second that, it was sheer pleasure to read. You, sir, should consider writing a book, fictional or otherwise. My new motto: "If you can't write, incite!" (... incite those who can" -- but that spoils the rhyme).

[erosoplier]

I've fallen hopelessly in love twice. Took me 5+ years to get over it on both occasions. Never so much as kissed either one of them.

Dear boy, what you describe has not the slightest relation with love, hopeless or otherwise.

If you didn't talk to them, you didn't know them.

And if you didn't know them, you didn't delight in whatever it was that made them uniquely them, and vice versa.

And if they didn't know you enough to delight in whatever it is that makes you uniquely you, then you didn't evolve into a stronger, better, happier and more secure version of yourself because of them.

Ergo, you didn't love them.

Prologue to The Alchemist, by Paulo Cuelho:

The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought. Leafing through the pages, he found a story about Narcissus.

The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

"Why do you weep?" the goddesses asked.

"I weep for Narcissus," the lake replied.

"Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus," they said, "for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand."

"But...was Narcissus beautiful?" the lake asked.

"Who better than you to know that?" the goddesses said in wonder. "After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!"

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, it said:

"I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

"What a lovely story," the alchemist thought.

Well of course I talked to them, Alice.

I merely wished to further disclose, in a continuation of the self-depreciating affectation which saw me make the confession of "hopeless love" in the first place, that considering the strength of feeling involved, relatively little talking went on.

And given your sturdy definition above, I am readily willing to admit that I never loved them, but had merely fallen in love with them. Will you allow me the use of that phrase - that I "fell in love" with them - or must I find some other term to describe my experience, given that whatever my feelings were, they ultimately did not contribute towards the development of an authentic reciprocated love relationship?

* * *

A reminder from Wiki, Alice:

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute and attribute that position to the opponent. Often, the straw man is set up to deliberately overstate the opponent's position. A straw man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

I claimed that I had "fallen hopelessly in love," and you accused me of erroneously believing that I had taken part in an authentic reciprocated love relationship. I never claimed or believed anything of the sort. In fact - surprise, surprise - I was actually excruciatingly aware at the time that I wasn't taking part in an authentic reciprocated love relationship, with either of the girls in question!

You then go on to provide the means and the motive for this crime which I did not commit - namely narcisissm, and narcissism - and recieve glowing praise from your grrlfriend in the gallery for this apparent feat of intuitive genius...

I can only assure you, Alice, that in the initial instance, it was them that I was ga-ga about, not me. However, beyond that, I'm in no position to defend myself against the charge that I am an especially wretched narcissist. You don't need to be a witch, or have an especially well developed sixth sense to be able to figure this out - all you need do is read a few dozen of my posts on this board and it becomes clear that I'm quite full of myself.

* * *

It hasn't escaped my attention that I first offered to the board the general formula which you then turned around and assailed me with...

It is axiomatic that the only successful remedy for the lovesick, upon a final failure to attain his/her goal, is to repossess the energy being directed towards the love object. Either that, or stay lovesick forever. Or, immediately redirect it towards another love object - aka the "lost puppy" approach to love.

And what exactly did I say?:

5. I've fallen hopelessly in love twice. Took me 5+ years to get over it on both occasions. Never so much as kissed either one of them. Fucking bitches (just kidding).

The bit you left out when you quoted me, Alice, is the bit which indicates, crudely, that I had repossessed the energy in question. The energy I once directed toward the love object had returned to me in the form of narcissistic pride - or mojo, if you will. You, in an appalling act of duplicitousness (channelling Frazier here for a moment), in an act of a kind which I am quietly convinced only a woman is truly comfortable performing, then cast what for me was quite literally the life-or-death necessity of getting my mojo back as, instead, a vain conceit, and go on to bask happily in the praise which this "demonstration of wisdom" on your part generated! mega , Alice.


* * *

Finally, I can't help but think that I might have avoided this little episode entirely if I had been a little more open about expressing my concerns for your health with respect to your smoking habit, Alice.

One of my 10 random facts was always going to be me confessing (again) to very much liking the cut of your jib, but on account of you being married with kids and all, and not wanting to risk generating an uneasy atmosphere, I jettisoned that idea when I saw the opportunity to combine a fact about me (my regrets about smoking for too long) with something to do with you (my concern about you when I heard that you were a serious smoker). And then I managed to completely disguise the fact that there was any concern for you involved in my random fact #10. That was ham-fisted and silly.

I don't know enough about your life to be able to drop in with a pointed and global anti-smoking comment immediately after you have made a positive comment about smoking. At least it's stupid of me to do so without making it clear that it's out of concern for your health that I do it. Even then, some people can smoke their whole lives and not suffer for it...how do I know that you aren't one of those people?

All that being said, my question at this point is, did my anti-smoking point #10 annoy you at all, Alice? As a former smoker, I know the emotion which is generated when one is unexpectedly confronted with the prospect of going without. It can be quite irritating.

Am I even close here Alice?

Alice?!




p.s. For the record, Alice, I really am quite fond of the heart which beats inside that chest of yours. And your brain also. (You can tell your husband you have a fanbase in Australia).



p.p.s. compared2what, even though I sometimes struggle to understand more than two of your sentences in a row, there's something contagious about your thinking/writing style. It has taken hold and seems to want to spread!


p.p.p.s. brainpanhandler, if your going to use it, be a good chap and spell my name right will you? Chicks actually dig that kind of attention to detail, as it happens. Sweat the details and chances are you'll never need concern yourself with the question of how long it takes to regain virgin status!

[brainpanhandler]

p.p.p.s. brainpanhandler, if your going to use it, be a good chap and spell my name right will you? Chicks actually dig that kind of attention to detail, as it happens. Sweat the details and chances are you'll never need concern yourself with the question of how long it takes to regain virgin status!

Duly noted. Suffice it to say, since you are male and I am not gay you are not even the remotest of love interests and so my typically thoughtful attention to such details as the spelling of a name was not as great as it would otherwise be. Odds are though, the type of woman that I would be interested in would not care much about such niggling details if everything else fell into place and indeed, if I found myself involved with the apparently exceedingly rare type of woman I imagine I am seeking then she could spell my name any damn way she chose. Thanks for the advice though. I'll keep it in mind.

[AlicetheKurious]

erosoplier said:

You then go on to provide the means and the motive for this crime which I did not commit - namely narcisissm, and narcissism - and recieve glowing praise from your grrlfriend in the gallery for this apparent feat of intuitive genius...

I can only assure you, Alice, that in the initial instance, it was them that I was ga-ga about, not me. However, beyond that, I'm in no position to defend myself against the charge that I am an especially wretched narcissist. You don't need to be a witch, or have an especially well developed sixth sense to be able to figure this out - all you need do is read a few dozen of my posts on this board and it becomes clear that I'm quite full of myself.

No, no, no! You COMPLETELY and UTTERLY misunderstood what I was trying to say.

My grrrrlfriend, c2w (is c2w a grrrl?) was justifiably impressed by the wisdom I borrowed from Paulo Cuelho because s/he GOT IT.

I wasn't in any way, shape or form accusing you of narcissism. The story about Narcissus was merely an especially graceful device to explain the nature of love itself, whether eros or any other kind (even 'in love'). Nothing to do with narcissism. It's all about what love is.

You are not "full of yourself", at least that doesn't come across in your posts. In a way, I was suggesting that you be MORE "full of yourself" the next time you fall in love, and less empty of yourself, for a more rewarding experience.

Usually, if I'm attacking someone, it's obvious enough that they can tell the difference from when I'm expressing affection. I honestly wasn't attacking you in any way, shape or form. On the contrary, I was being friendly.

While we're on the subject of flattery, thanks for the kind words. As for my husband, I think he doesn't have anything to worry about, in husband terms, given the fact that you wouldn't recognize me if you tripped over me on the street. Not to mention that you live halfway across the planet.

But there are some things that transcend distance, whether either of us know all that much about each other, and one of them is affection and goodwill, which I send to you from far, far away.

P.S. I will try to avoid giving advice of a personal nature, in the future. Speaking of which, I do get slightly annoyed when people tell me to quit smoking, but not here, what with the handy scroll key...