Mannequin by Wire

I remembered yesterday that the very ultra cool Flumadiddle tagged me God only knows how long ago (ha ha ha) to list 8 facts about myself. I know that I did this not too long ago when Fermi tagged me, but I figured what the heck!

Now to come up with 8 new facts about me.

1) Although I went to 12 years of Catholic school and still go to church (although not every Sunday of late like I have been since returning from SF in 2000), I have great respect for other religions, specifically the religious beliefs of Tibet & Nepal (I have prayer flags hanging at my desk and in my apt.). I've studied many aspects of the beliefs of Aztecs, Mayas, Toltecs, and a number of other ancient Mesoamerican peoples and find them utterly fascinating and as worthy as my own (which is being led by a man who wants to take us back to the Dark Ages). I think the ancient Egyptians had the coolest of all gods and wear my Eye of Horus earrings regularly to ward of evil. When friends of mine are going through a particularly rough time and they ask me to pray for them, I will ask my Buddhist and Hindu friends to pray as well, and my agnostic/atheist friends to think good thoughts. I prefer the religions that are tolerant of others.

2) I'm a big ol' wuss when it comes to feats of accomplishments and cry like a baby. And I'm not talking about my own accomplishments because they are a rarity. I'm talking about the Colombian who went out on his own during Sunday's stage of Le Tour de France and made it! I had never heard of Mauricio Soler before last week and here I was crying because he had kicked serious butt in the Alps. I also cried the day before when My (yes, I’m very possessive of my favorite athletes/authors/etc.) Michael Rasmussen kicked some butt of his own and put himself in to the Yellow Jersey for the first time. I was over at Building A yesterday and ran into a guy I know who is also into the Tour and his first words to me were, "Well, I know you're happy with Michael in the yellow jersey." Just to show I'm not rooting for Michael just because he happens to be in the yellow jersey right now. I've a fan of his since he came into the Tour. The funny thing is that I can't really explain why I like some riders over others because for the longest time the only person they ever flippin' interviewed was Lance Armstrong, and occasionally, George Hincapie. I also cried when the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 1997, 1998 & 2002. I cried when Katherine Legge walked out of the medical center after her horrifying accident last year at Road America. I cry at movies, even happy ones.

3) Although I can't stand NASCAR, I will confess to loving Mark Martin and it breaks my heart that he never won the Championship. He's NASCAR's version of Stirling Moss, although I don't think Mark will ever crash multi-million dollars worth of cars at historic events when he's not supposed to be racing.

4) I suffer from road rage – really bad road rage. The funny thing is that generally once I've reached my destination, I've forgotten it all and I'm my usual sunny self. People who drive under the speed limit make me see red. I do not understand this phenomenon as I have trouble driving the speed limit itself. Driving during the day (as I had to do this morning) is enough to make me want to shoot people. I despise people who drive slower than the speed limit and then as we approach the intersection and subsequent traffic light, the light turns yellow and the fucker in front of me sails through and I have to stop. Or people who brake at green lights *just in case* it turns yellow. The problem is that when the light does turn yellow, they still ALWAYS sail on through and I’m stuck sitting at a light I shouldn't be. I can see the appeal of a cow catcher on the front of the ol' Focus.

5) The older I get the more homebody-ish I get. I like staying home and I even like it when my phone doesn't ring. But then I'll hear that friends went out to a movie and I didn't get invited and I feel hurt. I'm not good at spontaneous either. If you call me at 7:00 to go out to dinner at 7:30, the answer will probably be no. One reason is that I have already eaten dinner. With getting up at 4:30, eating lunch at 11:00 and going to the gym for an hour, I usually eat by 5:00 unless I know I have plans. The thing is that I don’t think I really want to be a homebody. I want people to call me up and say, Hey, we're doing this. Do you want to go?

6) I have never ever wanted children. I knew when I was 12 that I didn't want kids. A friend of the family was staying in a local motel (they had sold their house, but their new house wasn't ready to move into yet) and they invited us up to the motel to go swimming. I couldn't go for the usual girl reason and I remember the lady saying, "Oh, I never have to worry about that anymore." I boggled at her and asked "Why?" "Oh, because I've had a hysterectomy." Now, I didn't have a clue what that was, but I turned to my mom and said, "Mom, I want a hysterectomy." My mom said, "Kathleen, you can't have a hysterectomy. If you have one, you can't have kids." "I don't want kids. I want a hysterectomy." 30 years later I have yet to change my mind about that one.

7) I am an inveterate people-watcher and a firm believer that if you leave the house thinking you look good, you are fair game for ridicule. Now, I don't ridicule people to their faces or anything so rude, but I will point you out to my companions. I do have rules. You can't make fun of things people can't change or over which they have no control, like harelips or other such things. Short fat people in horizontal stripes at a fashion show? Oh yeah, which I saw. If I think you looked in the mirror before you left the house and thought to yourself, "I look good." Then I reserve the right to say, "Uh, no you don't." Just, again, not to your face. If you wear this outfit in public, you totally deserve to be made fun of. If you wear white pants, heels and no underwear to the Cleveland Grand Prix, I will point you out to all of my friends and we will all roll our eyes at the sheer ridiculousness and inappropriateness of your outfit. I do draw the line at people who have obviously just run out of the house for a quick trip to the grocery store in their curlers or sweats, because they didn't look in the mirror (theoretically) and admire themselves. They probably made sure that nothing was hanging out that shouldn't and ran.

8) I love summer. I love warmth. I love sitting outside my house in the sun reading my book, knitting or even just napping. I love sitting outside at Cheli's having a beer with Martha whenever we can in the summer, because soon enough it's going to be winter and I'm going to be cranky and miserable and thinking about moving to Arizona where my knees won't hurt. I like driving with my windows down and my stereo cranked.

So, there you are. Eight new facts about me. I don’t feel like tagging anybody, but if you feel the need, go for it!!