41 things - part two

This is only part two of four! Hang in there! More random things about me.

11) Continuing where I left off in the last post, here's a funny thing about Mr. Hookie. His family moved from the same town my family moved from to the same town we moved to (in a different state)! He had a son in my grade. There was also a girl in our class who moved from that town to the same town we moved to! The three of us graduated together. There's a picture of us in graduation gowns. I'll respect their privacy and not post it here, though. I'm still friends with the girl, but I have lost track of the boy. Or he lost track of me. We were friends for a while, but I was a dick to him so I guess it's fair he doesn't want anything to do with me anymore.

12) The town where I went to college had a telemarketing company. A lot of students worked there, as I recall. I remember receiving a call from that company, trying to sell me magazines. I was so lonely, I stayed on the line long enough to sign up for several subscriptions totaling more than $100. That was a lot of money to a college kid in 1996-97. It was just so nice hearing a girl's voice. I probably thought it was someone else when I initially picked up the phone. It's funny now, of course. What was I — a kid who knew next to nothing about cars — going to do with a Car Craft (a magazine dedicated to rebuilding cars) subscription? I did read Rolling Stone, though. I'm not sure what else I subscribed to.

13) I'm addicted to eBay. I even have the app on my phone so I can stay in touch 24/7. A lot of people are surprised to learn that most of what eBay sells is new product, some directly from the manufacturers (which are often based in China). Speaking of China, another one of my longtime fascinations is Engrish (the way Asians misuse the English language), which probably just tells y'all that I'm a nerd. 

14) I remember teasing the girl of my dreams when we were in fourth grade. I teased her about her hair, which she had braided (pigtails?) or something. I said she looked like Laura Ingalls Wilder, and that's a strange thing for a fourth grader to say, isn't it? I guess I had watched a fair amount of Little House on the Prairie. She sat in front of me that day. We often sat near each other because our last names started with the same letter, and if we were seated alphabetically, we were sure to be near each other. God may as well have put her right in my lap. 

15) Although I consider myself a Christian, I do not celebrate any Christian holidays. Once upon a time, I celebrated pretty much all holidays. Maybe it's just because I'm really old now, but I think all holidays are for kids. I don't get excited about any holidays, not even Thanksgiving, anymore. It may have something to do with my many years in retail. For some reason, you kinda lose your holiday spirit when people are shitty to you. And people are always shitty around the holidays as they rush around and try to make everything perfect. Maybe they don't like spending time with their families any more than I do.
I still have a thing for Groundhog Day, though. I'm not sure what that's about. A prognosticating rodent! What fun. It probably has pagan origins. 

I took a religion class last year, and a man who was a pagan of some sort asked me why all Christians celebrate his Northern European pagan holidays. It's funny when you think about it. It used to be most Christians knew they were celebrating pagan holidays that had been "Christianized," but I wonder if Christians today have any clue. If they did know, would they care? Holidays like Christmas and Easter are pretty sacred to Christians. It might be like butchering a Hindu's sacred cow if you talk about this kind of thing to a Christian. Or anyone, for that matter. I know God-hating atheists who love Christmas! If Christmas truly had anything to do with Jesus Christ, how could they, with a good conscience, celebrate it? If they're offended by the mere thought of God, then what are they doing celebrating the supposed day of God-on-Earth's birth? Maybe it's not so Christian after all. Honestly, I don't care if anyone celebrates a particular holiday. I just think the whole thing is funny. People get bent out of shape over holidays like they mean more than any other day.

16) My favorite ice cream is pistachio, but like many things, I think they're all pretty great. But, if I eat anything after midnight, I turn into a gremlin.

17) I'm in love with a painting from the 1920s; I have no idea who painted it. I have a small framed copy of it on my desk. It's a girl kind of in profile and in a (probably scandalous for the time) bathing suit and cap, looking out across the green and blue waves of the ocean. She's sitting on a dock with seagulls overhead. The focal point is her red swimming cap, though I tend to look where someone else is looking so my eyes quickly join hers in taking in the water scene. I don't know; It just makes me feel peaceful. Or maybe it's because I live in the mountains where it's winter 9 months out of 12, so I frequently daydream about girls on beaches. Shrug.

18) My first pet was a red-eared slider turtle nicknamed Scooter (my dad's choice of a pet, and a name). I used to feed him hamburger, minnows, strawberries, worms, and once, my finger. In my backyard, I would set him free (under supervision) while I built dams and various waterways while probably racking up stupendous water bills while the garden hose ran. I liked to think he liked the things I built for him. One time, I got called to the house and asked my older brother Jon to watch Scooter. It was the last time I saw Scooter. I don't know if he simply didn't watch him or deliberately terminated his life. Either way, I cried that night. After that, I had tropical fish and other small vertebrates. When I was in high school, I got a pair of piranhas that I fed goldfish. I was kind of a nerd.

19) When I was little, I once properly identified and captured an ant lion, feeding him ants and other small insects. The ant lions lived under the eaves of our house. I noticed they built cone-shaped pits and when things fell in them, they would lurch out and grab whatever it was. I must have seen them on a nature program or something because I knew right away what they were. They fascinated me, like so many natural things do. They kind of reminded me of the Star Wars movie creature at the bottom of the pit. Don't ask me which Star Wars movie that was. I'm not that big of a nerd.

20) One of my favorite books growing up was Pussy Willow, which is a Margaret Wise Brown book. After reading it as an adult to my son, I think the book is weird as hell and a little esoteric.