19 posts tagged “qotd”

What story from your wild-and-crazy youth would nobody believe about you today?

I've had sex.  OMGWTFBBQ?!  I know, it's shocking.

Do you have a sixth sense?  How do you experience it?

I have an odd and almost totally-useless "psychic ability" -- I can tell when two people are attracted to one another.

Despite not being able to see auras (certainly not from lack of trying), I can somehow sense when two people find one another physically/sexually attractive -- even if they dislike each other!  I once heard attraction described as "sparking," and that's basically what I sense, the sparks that fly between two people who are attracted, even if they don't know it.  I don't see actual sparks (at least, not with my physical eyes), but I definitely perceive in a way that's closer to vision than to any of the other physical senses.

Of course it doesn't work for me -- I can't tell when someone finds me appealing, unless they're giving off the most mundane & obvious signals.  But I can almost always tell about others...and it's surprised me a few times, when I realized that someone I thought was straight was heavily sparking for another person of the same gender.  And it only works if I can see them in person...I can't tell from a 3-way telephone call, or from watching people on film.

It sucks that there's no income potential in it (unlike, for instance, being really good at reading Tarot or having strong psychic visions).  But I sure do find it amusing at times...I always know when someone's hot for one of my boyfriends!

Who's going to be in the Final Four?

The Final Four of what? 

The Final Four words you said?  The Final Four guys I slept with?  The Final Four colors of crayon that Crayola rejects?  The Final Four carpet stain-removers I've tried that didn't work?  The Final Four species that go extinct this year?  The Final Four cylons -- no, wait, that would be the Final Five.  The Final Four songs I put on my iTunes?  The Final Four things my teenager whined about?  The Final Four old-growth trees?  The Final Four dreams of an innocent?  The Final Four things I threw out of my fridge?

I don't understand the question.  And I think I'm glad for that.

What's a leap of faith to you? Have you ever taken one?

A leap of faith is something that I used to do so frequently that people thought I was ...well, if not actually crazy, then not too far from it.  Since I was a teenager, I've had the philosophy that no matter how bad things get, they always get better (of course, sometimes they get worse before they get better!), and there is no situation I cannot cope with (even if I cope badly, I will damned well cope).  These beliefs practically catapulted me into leaps of faith on a regular basis -- I gleefully leapt before I looked, trusting the gods to keep me safe.  (I should have considered "sane" somewhere in that equation, but there's nothing more impressively reckless than youthful stupidity.)

The leap of faith I'm thinking of was one I took when I was 27, and single for the first time since I was 16 (when I lived with my first live-in boyfriend, then when that broke up I almost immediately got married to someone else, then left hubby #1 for the guy who eventually became hubby #2, and when he croaked I dove right into a 3-year live-in relationship which ended just about on my 27th birthday).  I started dating a guy who was a Bad Boy, and who lived 60 miles from me.  After a whopping 3 months of dating, he complained that he was tired of driving on weekends to see me and he wanted to split up unless I was willing to move closer to where he lived.

Oh, and he wanted me to move closer on extremely vague promises of "if we're together in a year, I could see making a commitment" and "I'd like to start a coven but I need a Priestess...are you interested?"  (Oh yes, indeedy!  He asked me to be his Priestess when he'd known me for all of three weeks -- his exact words were, "So how serious are you about the Craft? Because I'm going to start a coven and I'd like you to be my Priestess but I have to know you're serious about it."  And did I mention he was all of 24 years old?  And divorced, and not paying his child support?)

Like a stupid idiot, I moved.  Didn't think about whether it would be rough on my kids (then 4 & 8) to uproot them a whopping 6 months after the last time I'd moved (wihch was only to another apartment in the same complex when I left that last live-in boyfriend), didn't give much thought to the fact that I was broke and had almost no job skills, didn't consider the difficulties in getting a place that took cats (and ended up having to give away my kitties), just packed everything up and moved.  Not only did I move to the same town, I moved into the same townhouse apartment complex -- literally 2 doors down!

You can see where this is going, right?  Sure you can -- he dumped me three weeks after I moved.  Three weeks.  For another woman.  Less than an hour before we were supposed to attend an important group ritual that was mandatory for anyone who wanted to be initiated through that particular group (so I had to be there, as did he).  He excused his timing by telling me that he wanted to invite his new girlfriend to the ritual and he didn't want to have to resist the urge to hold her hand during the ritual.

So there I was, over an hour's drive away from any family who could have helped me, all my friends (except the ones I'd met through him, other than the fabulous Lyse -- who literally saved my sanity), having just uprooted my kids and my life, and gave away my cats to be with this guy, and I didn't even have enough self-esteem or self-worth to put my foot down and tell him to, "Fuck off, and forget about me ever being your Priestess, and no, your new chick can't attend the ritual" (the head of the group would have honored my request to ban her if I'd made the request...I was too stupid and shocked and hurting to even think of it).

There was a happy ending...eventually.  After all, I ended up getting involved with the World's Best Ex (who is now my next-door-neighbor and one of my best friends) and then a few years later, my beloved Geoffrey (who I've been in love with for over 7 years now), and my sweetie Karel (who I've been in love with for over 3 years now).   The guy who I moved for?  Haven't seen him in several years...and haven't missed him, either.  Getting in touch with my Inner Bitch was one of the smartest things I've ever done, and I don't know if I'd have been smart enough to get to that point if it hadn't been for everything I went through due to that insane leap of faith.

It wasn't the craziest leap of faith I've ever taken (possibly that was getting married just after I turned 18 -- or maybe the time I fell in love with someone I'd met less than 24 hours earlier -- or maybe simply still being willing to love wholeheartedly after having had my heart broken for the umpteenth time).  It wasn't even the stupidest (probably picking up hitchhikers and taking them home with me for the weekend when I was a teenager was the stupidest!).  But it was the leap of faith that probably changed my life the most.

What's the most famous movie you've never seen? 
Submitted by Mike.

Any Star Wars movie made after 1983, any of the Lord of the Rings movies, any of the Rocky movies, any of the Godfather movies, any of the Halloween movies, any of the Friday the 13th movies, any of the Harry Potter movies, any Pixar studios movie, every animated movie made after 1995 (except a couple of Japanese-made anime flicks I saw with Karel, about which I recall almost nothing, including the titles, except that I was bored -- actually fell asleep during one of them!), any movie made in black-and-white (with the exception of To Kill A Mockingbird, which confirmed my hunch that black-and-white movies suck), any Best Picture Oscar winner after 2001, most musicals, and any well-known documentary.

Generally speaking, I have rather divergent tastes from the majority of Americans.

I love science fiction & fantasy when it comes to books, but well over 90% of the movies made in the fantasy genre suck, so I stopped watching them for the most part (while science fiction movies tend to be either really great or really crappy...and sometimes an odd combination of both).  Animated movies have always left me cold & totally uninterested, even when I was 5 years old (cannot stand Disney, and the only reason I've seen some Disney movies is because of my kids).  Most movies based on comic books or video games are atrocious, so I avoid those (with rare exceptions like Men In Black).  I utterly detest musicals (with the sole exception of The Sound of Music) and any Shakespeare movie.  Most popular comedies (or worse, romantic comedies) don't make me laugh -- and often make me horrified that I'll never get those 2 hours of my life back again!  Forget art or "indie" films; they're atrocious "entertainment" -- and I just don't grok those people who don't expect entertainment to be part of their movie-watching experience!

On the other hand, there's not a common thread that necessarily runs through my best-loved movies, aside from some science fiction, and submarine movies.  If there's a submarine in the movie, I've probably seen it & liked it lots.  (Maybe that has something to do with the fact that my dad was a bubblehead...having lunch one time on the USS Tautog was one of the best memories of my childhood!)  As for "chick flicks," I like to say that love stories in movies are great -- as long as there's lots of blood, action, and explosions involved!  (My favorite love-story movie is the director's cut of The Abyss -- some of the best scenes were deleted for the theater version, including vast segments which really make the whole story work!  If you've only seen the theater version, you've missed out on a phenomenally excellent film.)

These are some of the movies I've loved most, and would recommend to virtually anyone: The Abyss, Aliens, Amadeus, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Dead Calm, Dogma, EuroTrip, Forrest Gump, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Green Mile, Heathers, In the Name of the Father, Independence Day, Lady Jane, Leaving Las Vegas, Men of Honor, Moonstruck, Mr. Holland's Opus, Philadelphia, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Schindler's List, The Secret Garden, The Secret of Roan Inish, and Signs.

It's too bad there aren't any decent movies with Pagan or Wiccan themes.   The only movies that even come close (in that they deal with themes of magic that are almost Pagan) are The Secret Garden and The Secret of Roan Inish.

You must have been a fashion victim at least once in your life. What hideous blunder did you commit? 
Submitted by Tina. 

(I'm only doing this one in solidarity of Jaz. *grin*)

Here's what makes these pictures truly appalling: wearing mom-jeans & scary tops, and I was only 24!

Astrokids

Annie's Preschool Graduation

What's something that you're really proud of, which most people in your life don't know about?
Submitted by CosmicBabe.

Hey, look!  They used one of my questions!  (Of course, it would be one that I'm having a hard time answering.)

I've always been protective of my baby sister (who is 21 months younger than me).  When we were kids, if she got picked on by the neighborhood kids, I'd always run them off.  Even though we may not be as close as adults, and I have no doubt in her ability to protect herself, there was a night when my protective instincts toward her came out again.  She had been dating a guy who'd become kinda scary, and he refused to leave her alone when she broke up with him.  One night when she was spending the night at my place, he found out she was there and starting pounding on my door.  When I opened it to see who it was, he saw her in the room behind me and pushed past me to confront her.  The kids (my daughters, who were 2 & 6, and her daughter, who was 4) were sleeping in the next room.  This guy started yelling, along with shoving her and grabbing her neck & shoulders to shake her.  He slapped her a couple of times, too, before the shock of what I was seeing finally drove me to take action.  I flung myself at him, furious that anyone would hit my baby sister, and almost as furious that anyone would attack someone in my home with my little girls & niece in the next room.  I wasn't trained in any kind of self-defense, and got an elbow in the eye from him for my trouble, but my sister & I managed to drive him off and out of my house.  My sister had a bruise on her cheek and another on her neck from where he'd grabbed her with a lot of force.  We called the cops and they sent an officer out, but he was extremely unhelpful, saying that if he caught the guy and there were any marks on him, he'd have to arrest both of them -- despite the fact that I was a witness to the incident and could testify that any marks on him were from the two of us defending her.  Since he most likely had a few scratches on his face, we didn't press charges.  But even though the whole experience was extremely frightening, I'm proud that I didn't back down and didn't stay frozen in shock, that I took action to try to help my baby sister.

What are your resolutions for 2007?

Not to watch depressing TV news.  (And since 99.9% of the news is depressing, I guess I'll just avoid all of it.)

If I'm going to watch TV, it's much better to watch the National Geographic Channel, or the Discovery Channel, or even the History Channel (especially if they're featuring a subject that's over 400 years old).  And of course, for my scifi needs, there's Battlestar Galactica and Jericho.

How are you ringing in the New Year tonight?

Here's how I spent my New Year's Eve:

Sewing together strips of denim for making my rag rug, and doing a fair bit of crocheting:

Ragrug1

If you came with a warning label, what would it say?
Submitted by chris.