(No, that's not a weird thing, we're getting to that, enjoy the ride).
(Ok, maybe it will turn out to be a weird thing but I don't know yet - I haven't written that part).
Not to run like the wind, not to win races, but to be at least competitive and not trail along at the end like an idiot who's lost his village.
I was not (can you tell?) a runner at school. I loved the swimming carnival, hated the athletics carnival. Didn't mind netball, loathed softball. Coped with tennis (other than a pathologically poor serve) but dreaded most minutes of the many hours I spent on a hockey field.
And in primary school? Once tagged, I often stayed 'it' for the rest of the chasies game. For defence, I developed a superior attitude.
"You don't still play chasies do you?" the 10 year old me might say.
I developed assorted injuries.
"I can't play, sorry, my horse trod on my foot when I was cleaning his hooves this morning." (this, by the way, may have been true: horse-riding was another excellent way to avoid running)
I flaunted my brain.
"No, I'm not playing today, I have to finish this Dostoyevsky before little lunch."
Ok. It probably wasn't Dostoyevsky, at least not until Year 9, but these are my childhood memories and I will fashion them as I see fit.
You see, there was no reason for my state.
I wasn't the fat kid. Nor was I the sickly, skinny kid.
I.Just.Couldn't.Run.
In the earlier days I would start out the race full of enthusiasm and keep up with the pack for - oh - a good five or six paces before suddenly everyone including the fat kid was ahead of me, and only the sickly, skinny kid was beside me, and then he would suck a big breathe into his possibly-tubercular lungs and lurch in front and then...
You get the picture. I can't relive every painful moment here.
Eventually my mother took pity and just wrote excuse notes for every athletics event at school. She didn't let me off hockey though, because she needed me to be busy on Saturday mornings so she could drive my two brothers to every soccer field in this wide brown land and watch them play not me and THAT is why my children STILL don't do any organised sport because I'm buggered if I'm going to be forced to choose which ones I will actually see on the field and which ones I neglect and leave unloved with a soggy tomato sandwich and a bottle of cordial in the back of some other mother's station wagon...
Ouch. Maybe I am going to relive every painful moment.
My ex-jock/could play anything/naturally-gifted-sportsman husband says anyone can run, they just need to be taught. He said that about throwing, too, until he tried to teach me. After a decade or so he has largely given up on me and concentrates on saving the next generation with impromptu running (turn in your toes) and throwing (don't blink) lessons for the kids.
There was a period in my life, between husbands, when I became a runner. It was a glorious stage and deserves a post all its own but it was running alone and that's really not what I'm talking about here.
So, what the fuck am I talking about and what does any of this have to do with the Six Weird Things Meme?
And now here it is, mid-February, and I'm still 'it'.
I am flattered, y'all, deeply flattered and not a littled freaked out that, of a relatively small pool of people, such a high proportion of you wanted to see what my Weird bits are.
Sickos.
Still, you asked for it and while I may not be a runner, I'm not a quitter either.
Six Weird Things about Me
1. If I push my finger hard in my bellybutton I get a sharp pain in my upper right arm, like a needle. I think I was about nine when I discovered this: I was probably trying to forget I couldn't run. **
2. Even when I really, really, really want to, I cannot follow a recipe exactly as it is written. This is why I don't like baking.
3. I can fly in my dreams.
4. Am I the ONLY person left in the fucking UNIVERSE who remembers how to punctuate properly for direct quotations? Yes: I have paranoid delusions about punctuation.
5. My eyes change from very green to mostly blue depending on what I wear.
6. I actually like using my Epilady.
No tagging, because anyone who was going to do this meme has already done it by now.
Even the skinny, sickly ones.
mtc
Bec
*I know blogiquette says I should return the links but I can't. It's too embarrassing. The taggers know who they are - if they haven't already forgotten about it - and being who they are, they know that I just haven't been posting all that often lately.
** Try it. See if it helps you forget about running too.
Labels: Memememememememes
35 Comments:
Epiladies scare me... the thought that you enjoy yours scares me even more!
I get a weird pain when I push in my belly button - but it is a sharp pain deep inside - as though my belly button is somehow internally connected to something inside me that doesn't like to be prodded. What is on the other side of a belly button anyway?
The only thing that happened when I poked my bellybutton was that someone kicked me back. Remind me in June and I'll try again.
That was commendably mild, weirdness-wise.
-J.
Bec, as you know I wasn't a runner and I became one by mistake. Well actually because of my twin sister who dragged me into running the London Marathon two years ago, and now I am hooked. Which is really sad because I am the slowest runner on the planet. And now I've found myself joining a triathlon club which means tonight I have to put myself through the pain of trying to bilateral breathe doing the crawl (I love swimming but no one ever taught me how to do it properly). And if you ask why I do it, I'd just say... because.
But probably mainly because I wasn't into competitive sport when I was young for all the reasons you explain, and now I think I was cheated out of feeling I coudl have done it to MY ability even if I was back of the pack...
As to your weird things I am with you on the cooking all my recipes are made up. Is that wierd???
love Janex
I have to say that I am one of the few in the blogosphere who hasn't gotten around to doing the Six Weird Things Meme. I have the beginning of it saved in my drafts. But I just can't think of anything weird that people don't already know about me.
I don't like to run either. Somebody better be seriously chasing me for me to run anywhere!
Em - I wondered the same thing. Other than babies, like Velcro said.
Oh, and Velcro? It isn't quite so reliable since having babies, what with the whole popped-out bellybutton experience and all...
Jane - yes, I was thinking of you as I wrote this.
BMG - HA! I beat someone! Tag: you're it!!
Joke - after the second one I asked my husband for help to think of more. He turned slightly pale.
Prof: You want me to tell you what's weird about you?
Me: Yep, I'm stuck but there must be lots of things.
Prof: We haven't been married this long without me knowing you're perfect.
Me: the length of the marriage should match the number of weird things known.
Prof: No. The length of the marriage is directly related to the fact that I know better than to tell you you're weird.
All I can say is the Prof is Very Very Smart. You are NOT weird, you're unique. There.
And I'm running alright - with the excuse you've given me for NOT putting my sons in organized sports. Tae Kwon Do and multiple therapy appointments are about all I can handle.
Mscell
Yep, I poked my own belly button too, because I do vaguely remember some bizarre referred pain in the past when I did that. I guess I am too well padded for it to work now, though ;)
BTW, I am your long lost twin in the sporting field. My sole purpose was to make the fat kid feel better about themselves, I suspect.
Yep, I'm with you about the running. Fast running is just impossible for me - it used to hurt something deep inside my ankle. So I changed to slow running and I became quite good at the whole cross-country caper. But I still prefer to walk, ride, cycle, or swim.
My bellybutton would kick back at me at the moment as well, so I'll leave that experiment for a couple of months ;)
Bec, your wierdnesses (?) seem very normal to me!
And I loved the trip back to school, & how inventive one can get to avoid any/all sports!
And I agree, the Prof is very very smart!
I'm not poking my bellybutton to find out, the very thought makes me feel a little eew, is that weird?
Couldn't run as a child either. Not even to save myself. And was neither the fat kid nor the sickly skinny one but, I was smart and bookish. Some kids get to be both, the golden children...
I do know how to punctuate direct quotations and speech, but now I'm paranoid I don't. Spelling however, well that's another matter.
I'm not poking my bellybutton to find out, the very thought makes me feel a little eew, is that weird?
Couldn't run as a child either. Not even to save myself. And was neither the fat kid nor the sickly skinny one but, I was smart and bookish. Some kids get to be both, the golden children...
I do know how to punctuate direct quotations and speech, but now I'm paranoid I don't. Spelling however, well that's another matter.
Ditto with what Velcro said...except you can check back in about a month. ;-)
That's why he's a perfesser.
-J.
I used to have a similar thing with my belly-button but I think post children there is a nice little layer of padding between the button and my nerve endings. Nothing happened when I tried it then anyway.
I am reasonably athletic but I don't enjoy running just for the sake of it. It's just so boring. Likewise chasies; dull dull dull. If there's a ball/frisbee etc to catch I'll gladly hare after it. My nightmare was the yearly compulsory cross-country race. And at one school athletics carnival I came home so slowly that the next race was started as I pathetically staggered round to the finish line. Still remember the teacher doing the announcing getting all flustered at the confusion this caused.
I like your #6. What's that song? "...there's a fine line between pleasure and pain..."! I have a similar relationship with my eyebrow tweezers. I worked at DJ's during my time at Uni, when they first came out, and we all shied away from any sort of demonstration - you would have sold a million of the things :-)
That belly-button/arm connection definitely qualifies in the category. Does it work in reverse?
I thought an epilady was incredibly painful.
Back when I could break into a trot without dropping dead, I could do a long run stamina thing.
But I can't take off out of the gate in a quick fashion.
It makes chasing children very challenging.
Nutmeg,
That's "Pleasure & Pain" by The Divinyls.
Don't ask.
-J.
Oh Joke - have we unearthed a thing for Chrissy Amphlett? In or out of the school uniform?
Bec and Joke
I like both looks actually - either way, I don't think Chrissie minds too much; all that touching of oneself and all...
In the days of cave dwelling I would have been sabre-tooth food. I cannot run quickly, I can't even walk quickly. I don't see the point. I might miss something beautiful along the way.
If we had played tiggy together it might have been an even contest.
Following from Joke's comment, I'd like to add that it was also SUSPICIOUSLY mild.
And the more I hear about the Prof, the more I admire his deep and abiding wisdom.
With the exception of his taste for Jessica Simpson, which I'm prepared to overlook.
I can't run either. And I can't throw to save my life. Or whistle. I feel your pain.
But I can sing, ride, and I have serious Walk Cool (which involves never, ever running, no matter how urgent the circumstances). And I have the driving technique of the lead character from Quo Vadis.
All of it compensatory behaviour.
ps. I'd like to BE Chrissie Amphlett when I grow up.
It only goes to show what sort of character I was during my Wilderness Years. You have to remember that The Divinyls were barely a ripple, musically, here. But I was that kid who listened to music nobody'd ever heard before.
As re. the uniform thing, you have to remember that I went to an all-male Catholic school, including the day my hormones arrived. So, um, let's just say that might've resonated quite well with me.
There simply isn't enough bandwidth for me to delve deeper into the matter.
-J.
Darn. I knew I shouldn't have told anybody that I hadn't done that meme yet!
Epilady? You're a sick woman!
It's just as well the kids don't take after you in teh running department. In fact your eldest has introduced my son to a running game that MUST be played everywhere. Now when we look at a house, it's evaluated according to how the backyard is: "It's big enough to play Octopus in" or "It's too small for Octopus."
No. I can punctuate for quotes. Unless it's using fingers to make quote marks, which I can't do at all!
Is there a connection between the pain in your bellybutton, the pain in your arm, and your inability to run? There might be something there!
I should clarify that my #4 weird thing about the punctuation was not that I really believe that I am the last person left who can punctuate for direct quotes, just that I frequently suffer from paranoid delusions that it is so... There's a difference. Truly.
And, MF, I must get the Pea Princess to show me this Octopus game - it sounds like a variation on Crocodile, Crocodile - but I'm intrigued.
The Prof read these comments last night and visibly puffed up with husbandly hubris. I must address this with another post on snoring, I think...
You're all weird, the way you're going around poking your belly buttons and getting random pains.
And I can't run or throw either. Never have. That's not weird, just girly I'm afraid.
I love my epilady.
And I have chameleon eyes too ;)
I feel bad about tagging people for this one - it was my first meme, and I didn't know you could opt out of tagging ( such a rule-breaker, me ).
Coz I hate being told what to do ...
Very weird indeed.
lol :D
Very weird indeed.
My daughter and I ordered a dress from Doll House which was to be custom made. I placed the order on a Monday and was surprised to get a phone call the following Monday to say the dress had arrived it only took eight 8 days. I took the dress home and when I put the dress on my daughter, I realized that had just altered the dress (in store) and found pins still in the side seams. I was so disgusted with their lie – when confronted they would not talk to me or acknowledge what they had done. To all you mum’s out there DON’T BUY FROM DOLL HOUSE.
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