Melissa Trivia

So this "25 Things About Me" meme is going around Facebook. I did the 25 things after being tagged, but then I thought that some of y'all reading over here might enjoy it too. So here it is, for all to enjoy. (And sorry for the cross-post, Facebookers!)

1. My middle name is my mother's maiden name, and people can't pronounce it or spell it and they always think it's French and not Italian. But I love it.

2. I've had a pierced navel since Britney Spears was a virgin.

3. When we were kids, I used to needle my sister just to make her so mad she'd hit me.

4. In the house we grew up in, the only room with a lock was the bathroom, and that's where I'd lock myself after I made my sister mad because, otherwise, she'd kick my ass.

5. My favorite city (that I've ever lived in) is, duh, New York.

6. My favorite city (that I've ever visited) is Florence.

7. Oaxaca and Hanoi are tied for second.

8. I used to drive a car that was held together with duct tape. Seriously. I was dragging car parts down Route 17 one day and I had to pull over and run into the Home Depot to get some duct tape to fix it.

9. I minored in both Music and Psychology in college. It's a long story.

10. I never recognize famous people when I see them in person. They have to be pointed out to me, and even then I'm never really sure it's them.

11. I was nearly thirty before I visited Canada for the first time. Since then, I've been there four times.

12. I hate to fly, but I hate that I hate to fly even more. So I fly.

13. When I was in middle school, my best friend and I founded a group called “Young American Democratic Society” or “YADS.” The group never really did much, except to serve as a testament to our dorkiness.

14. Once, I was the 100th caller to Z100 and won tickets to see New Kids On The Block, which was probably the happiest day of my tween years. Again, with the dorkiness.

15. For a while in the late 80s, I permed my (naturally curly) hair.

16. When I'm drinking beer and it's late at night, what I crave the most is Oreos.

17. I can smell the milk going bad a few days before anyone else can.

18. I once made a New Year's resolution to be less decisive. If you know me at all, this makes perfect sense.

19. I once characterized my taste in men as short, stocky, and bald. If you know J-P at all, this makes very little sense.

20. I’m full of nervous energy. I can’t sit without jiggling my knee or compulsively fiddling with whatever is in front of me.

21. I’ve never broken a bone, but if you added up all the slices I’ve accidentally taken off of my fingers with a kitchen knife, I should only have about eight and a half fingers left.

22. I don’t pass on memes (including this one) because I don’t want to spread the virus. But if a meme is going around and I don’t get it, I feel left out.

23. I consider eating a hobby, and exercising a means of enabling that hobby.

24. I love anticipation. Sometimes even more than whatever it is I’m anticipating.

25. I have excellent parallel parking skills. I think it runs in the family.

Too much information, probably

It's 7 o'clock in the morning, and we've just gotten home from the gym. I slip off my running shoes, drop my coat on the bed, and whip off my sweaty top. J-P looks at me, distraught.

"Your boob is bleeding!" he shouts in horror.

I look down and, sure enough, there is big rust-colored circle on my sports bra, smack dab in the middle of my right boob. I'm not talking about a circle the size of some pocket change, either. I'm talking a circle like an over-sized coaster, centered right there on my nipple.

Trying not to freak out, I pull off my sports bra to investigate further, thoughts racing through my mind. What could this possibly be? Chapping? Some freakish boob leakage problem? Can I get a doctor's appointment in, like, 5 minutes? But the boob itself looks fine. No chapping, no leakage. Totally normal.

So I turn my attention back to the bra. Maybe this isn't blood after all. I take a sniff. (Gross, I know. But what else was I supposed to do?!?) It doesn't smell like blood at all. It smells... slightly sweet, and tangy. And I think about the last time I wore the bra -- to yoga a few nights ago, and then later that night at home where I made a salad to go with dinner.

And then, it dawns on me.

"Honey, don't worry. It's just balsamic vinegar."

Which, although a happy resolution to the mystery of the bloody boob, does raise another troubling question, which is, how in the hell did I get balsamic vinegar on my boob in the first place? It's not like I was cooking dinner topless. (I wasn't, I swear. Believe me, I'd tell you if I were.)

But that, I suppose, is just a question for the ages, right up there with "how did my car keys get in the silverware drawer?" and "how did I manage to gash myself with a pair of dull tweezers?" Because, really? It takes talent to be this much of a dolt.

Here is where it gets heavy

I wrote the following piece yesterday. Upon reflection, it is very raw, but I didn't want to change it because it is an honest reflection of my feelings over the past few days. Today, even though nothing has really changed, and even though I remain deeply saddened by these events and concerned for my friends, I am in a better place emotionally. Just thought you'd like to know.

***

The mind reels with thoughts so many, and so troubling.

1. The Bitter Overtakes the Sweet

Yesterday was a day of hope and renewal for millions of people across the country and across the world. And, yesterday morning, we shared that same excited energy, and we watched with happy hearts and tearful eyes as our new president took the oath of office.

But, yesterday afternoon and evening, while the rest of the world continued to watch the parade, the balls, the dresses, the daughters, the politicians, the interviews, and the analysis, a crisis demanded our attention, our emotions, and our tears.

A friend in need.

And another friend in need.

The first, battling a kind of pain that I can't even begin to fathom, believed that her life was better off not lived. She failed though, and, in failing, succeeded. She survives today, at least in body. The mind and the heart will take longer to heal.

The second, the other survivor, now picking up the pieces, for two.

2. The Bounds of Understanding

I think I understand most pain. Even though I have been remarkably fortunate in my own life, a fact that I am grateful for every single day, I don't think my particular experience limits my ability to empathize and to sympathize with the burdens borne by others. And so, I think I understand the pain that comes from the challenges of marriage, the burden of a stressful job, the legacy of a troubled childhood, the nagging irritation of unresolved anxiety, and the suffocating weight of depression.

What I don't understand though, what I don't know if I'll ever understand, is pain so deep and so unrelenting that only the end of everything promises to offer any relief. Whether that kind of pain is the result of a brain gone hay-wire, of real-world traumas, or of some combination of both, that is a kind of pain -- or maybe just a degree of pain -- that I feel incapable of understanding.

3. Guilt, Inevitably

I was probably the last one to talk to her, before. I had the last clear chance to do anything, to say anything, to help, to stop her. And I didn't / wouldn't / couldn't.

She was upset. She was hurting. That much, I knew. But still, she seemed okay. She seemed upset in a healthy way. (Whatever that means.) I thought she was okay. I wanted to believe she was okay.

But still, I wondered. And I worried. And, as it turns out, my worry was well-placed. But worry is not enough to change the tide.

I know that this is not on me. I know that I couldn't have known. I know that, even if I did know, I might not have been able to help. But knowing all of those things doesn't stop the chorus of whatifs that echo. And it doesn't stop me from wanting to tell her, to tell him, to tell everyone, that I am so, so deeply sorry.

4. The Future

I imagine she will read this, someday. Or maybe someone else facing the same demons will read it. All I can say to her, to them, is this: You are loved and cherished. Your life has value, to me and to others, if not always to you. I don't know if that helps, or if anything I might say would help. But it is the truth, and you should know it.

On finally giving in

It's a done deal. I've finally gone and joined Facebook. Having lived through the short-lived explosion of Friendster (that was back in the prehistoric days of social networking, young'uns), I didn't feel like making another investment of time and effort in another networking site that was also sure to go the way of the stegosaurus.

But, now, it seems that Facebook may have legs. And the straw that finally broke the camel's back was this article in Slate, which compared the status of Facebook today to the status of cell phones in the mid- to late 1990s. The money paragraph:

Friends—can I call you friends?—it's time to drop the attitude: There is no longer any good reason to avoid Facebook. The site has crossed a threshold—it is now so widely trafficked that it's fast becoming a routine aide to social interaction, like e-mail and antiperspirant. It's only the most recent of many new technologies that have crossed over this stage. For a long while—from about the late '80s to the late-middle '90s, Wall Street to Jerry Maguire—carrying a mobile phone seemed like a haughty affectation. But as more people got phones, they became more useful for everyone—and then one day enough people had cell phones that everyone began to assume that you did, too. Your friends stopped prearranging where they would meet up on Saturday night because it was assumed that everyone would call from wherever they were to find out what was going on. From that moment on, it became an affectation not to carry a mobile phone; they'd grown so deeply entwined with modern life that the only reason to be without one was to make a statement by abstaining. Facebook is now at that same point—whether or not you intend it, you're saying something by staying away.

What a perfect analogy. I remember exactly that moment in the late 90s when cell phones crossed over. For me, it was during a dinner with a bunch of college friends when we realized that, probably for the first time in any of our lives, every single person in the group had a cell phone. And that was that. Now, we couldn't imagine it any other way.

But the thing about Facebook (and I know this is no news to anyone, I'm just thinking out loud to myself here) is the time suckage. Oh my god, the time suckage! Not as if I'm not already busy trying to keep up both here and at the Strawberry. Plus there's the seductive ease of putting all my random thoughts, pictures, and links onto Facebook, leaving poor little Rhino Legs here either devoid of content or simply a regurgitation of what I've already posted elsewhere. In fact, I'm already guilty of that, having posted a link to that Slate article on my Facebook page before realizing that DUH I have another place where I'm supposed to post links and ramble on about them. So here it is. But with added rambling, for good measure.

One last thought -- in just two days, the people have freaking COME OUT OF THE WOODWORK. You all weren't kidding when you told me EVERYONE is on Facebook. Hell, I'm half expecting to get a friend request from my grandmother telling me it was about time I joined. But I'm also going to take some advice from J-P and be judicious about the whole friend thing. Friends? Family? People I actually am in touch with, or have a genuine personal history with? Yes, yes, and yes. Abolutely. But random dude from law school who I never said more than five words to? You can fucking forget about it. I know you're just using me to up your friend count, and I will not be just a notch on your Facebook bedpost. Indeed.

A 2008 round-up

Right around New Year’s every year, Jason Kottke publishes a list of the cities he’s visited in the previous year. It’s a great way to document a year, albeit a little quick and dirty. I didn’t do this last year because that was the year of our big trip and it seemed like it might be a little travel show-offy, if you know what I mean. This year has been more mundane, though, so here it is.

Nashville, TN*
Hamilton, IL
Atlanta, GA*
H*******, NJ*
New York, NY*
Crossville, TN
Memphis, TN
Louisville, KY
Hohenwald, TN
Washington, DC*
Loveladies, NJ
Seattle, WA
Leduc, AB
White Plains, NY
London, England

I spent at least one night in each of these cities. An asterisk means that I spent more than one non-consecutive night in that city. In the case of New York, I actually didn't spend the night there, but did spend several whole days, sleeping nearby. And, in the case of Crossville and Hohenwald, I was camping, and those were the closest towns.

As best I can recall, J-P's list is similar to mine, except he doesn't get Hohenwald or Seattle but gets to add Revelstoke, BC; Bangkok, Thailand; and Queens, NY.