Tuesday, June 3, 2008

10 things

Liz tagged me, and although you can find a link (@ right) to a permanent list of 100 things about me, i am a good player and will do what she says to do: Write a blog of ten weird, random things, facts or habits about yourself. At the end, tag five more people, listing their names and why you chose them.

1.) i feel sort of badly about it (copying), but since Liz mentioned brain surgery in her list of 10 things, i am inspired to once again mention mine (1994 frontotemporal craniotomy for craniopharyngioma, by Dr. Thomas B. Freeman), just to ID with her along the lines of, "hey, we both have plates and screws in our heads." oh, and if you want to be schkeeved out a little (stop reading if you don't), i can tell you that you can feel the screws in my head. collectively, they are my tiny badge-of-courage, in bas relief.

2.) i totally care about what happens to Senator Ted Kennedy (see #1). so far, things look as good as they can (following his craniotomy; holy sh*t, he was AWAKE!!).

3.) i sometimes buy an expensive, lovely thing. then, i feel guilty about the expense, so i return it. i have, on more than one occasion, gone back to re-purchase the item, unable to forget it and move on. i could tell you more about this process, but i'll stop now. it's embarrassing.

4.) i have hardly any organs on the left side of my body. i have one right kidney, one right ovary, and a uterus that is 1/2 normal size and -- you've probably guessed it -- pulls to the right (it is actually referred to as -- i am serious -- a "unicornate" uterus). this whole thing is somewhat convenient because if i have pains on the left, my doctors know it can only be about the gut. voilĂ .

5.) if i have an itch on, say, my left elbow, i will scratch it. but i must then immediately scratch the same spot on my right elbow; it's a whiff of OCD, i'm certain, but this particular manifestation seems relatively harmless (fingers crossed).

6.) my brain tumor left me with a little damage to my right peripheral vision. no biggie, but sometimes, when i'm in the car, i imagine that cars on the right are VERY, VERY close, poised to ram into me at any moment. i freak out a little bit, sometimes even swervingleftveryquickly to avoid the phantom wreck.

7.) i love my Honda Element's key feature. it allows me to lock the doors by pushing a button and then, just to be sure, it invites me to push the button again to signal a "beep" from the car. the beep indicates that the doors are actually locked. i mean, i LOVE this feature, but it drives my husband insane whenever i beep the lock because the first lock already makes a fairly loud "clunk" noise, and so the beep just freaks him out. we have had what i might characterize as pretty serious fights over the beep.

8.) i hate to sound like an old nutball, but i worry -- seriously -- about people who text while driving. i'm beginning to develop a phobia, imagining that nearly everyone else on the road is texting while driving, and so i've got to be extra, extra cautious. maybe Stephen King would like to take a crack at this story line; it has a kind of potential, similar to the feature film potential of my project, The Highlighted Route (as in, "proceed to . . .").

9.) believe it or not, i am a very good driver.

10.) i get it and i love a good book too, but when people talk about how much they love "words," i throw up a little bit in the back of my mouth.

because i think they might talk about more than physical or mental oddities -- which is fine, just fine . . . i tag Cheryl, Dan, Mark, Steven, and Clay.

8 comments:

Kafkaz said...

Hey--I love words. "Bumbershoot" and I have a long relationship, for instance, but I've never really been able to have anything but a one night stand with "evanescent," for obvious reasons.

I will try not to let knowing that I have the power to make you puke (just a little) at will go to my head.

Meanwhile, thanks for the lovely LinkedIn endorsement.

bonnie lenore kyburz said...

i think my gag reflex kicks in not so much because people claim to love a *particular* word. it's more about those more general statements that are often articulated with such an eager pitch at profundity. and then, i think that what this profound thought is about is something like, "i love a good story," or "i enjoy a handwritten letter" . . . but "words"??? and sometimes, when people say they love "words," they say it with a Madonnaesque kind of accent, dropping in pitch just after the "w," almost like a comedian's parody of an English aristocrat: "W-UHHHRRRR-dzzz." something like that.

here's a thing: as a kid, i LOATHED certain words. they were compound nouns and kind of archaic. they are as follows: ICEBOX, HOUSECOAT, SAUCEPAN, HOUSECOAT. really, just those. they sent aches and pains up and down my spine. i stll don't know why.

glad to return the favor (re: LI).

bonnie lenore kyburz said...

oops. the last one is SNAPSHOT (i must really hate HOUSECOAT!)

Kafkaz said...

Some images do that to me, in _Pattern Recognition_ fashion. The Burger King guy absolutely gives me the creeps. Every time. Yesterday, some poor worker had to stand outside the local BK in full icky King dude regalia and mask while waving a sign about some special or another, and I shuddered for miles after driving past.

bonnie lenore kyburz said...

yes, that BK is *really* bad. thinking commerically, for me, the Big Turnoff comes from stores and businesses that use alliterative but incorrect spellings of their names (Kash n' Karry, etc.). ew.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for playing along. I am totally paranoid about people texting while driving or even just old-fashioned talking on their cell phones. When I see someone driving while talking on the phone, a voice in my head screams, "DANGER!" My reaction is probably more dangerous than their behavior.

bonnie lenore kyburz said...

i'm IDing w/ your reaction comment. in addition to all the worries we've both mentioned, i worry that MY WORRYING will be(come) a danger to myself and others. i'm working on that ;)

bonnie lenore kyburz said...

oh, and Liz -- just after writing my response, i went to my iGoogle page, where one of the quotes o' the day is as follows: "That's the secret to life... replace one worry with another...."
- Charles M. Schulz

nice :)