Caterwauling

From Sherri:

1. What is one goal you’ve set for yourself this week?
Honestly? To burn some new CDs for my commute. I must have listened to Bon Jovi’s new CD about 47 million times since it was released two weeks ago. (Seriously, “Welcome to Wherever You Are” is my new theme song.)

2. What’s the riskiest thing you’ve ever done?
Blogged about my (old) job with reckless abandon. And then quit the day after I realized that they were reading my blog.

It’s a shame, because I really loved the work I did and the staff I supervised. It’s just that Everything Else was gettting on my Last Everloving Nerve, and my only release was to blog about it.

3. Have you ever served on a jury?
I was called for jury duty once. Spent the whole day in a chair, reading Judy Blume’s “Summer Sisters.” Hate to say, but it was one of the most relaxing days of my life.

4. When is the last time you consumed alcohol?
*scratches head* I had some wine about two weekends ago. I really don’t drink much — once I gave up smoking last year at this time, alcohol isn’t that much of an attraction.

5. Do you usually remember your dreams?
Yeah — they’re vivid like that. Last night, I dreamed I was talking to my boss and asked him where he liked to go in Pittsburgh when he would visit there. (Ironically, I had asked him the same question live-and-in-person yesterday.) But in my dream, he told me he has a daughter in the city. Weird. Now I wonder if I’m right. 😉

I have a lot of psychic flashes in my dreams. Nothing exotic — I don’t see major world events or an impeachment of Bush and a housecleaning of his entire administration (fuckity fuck fuck), but I will see myself in offices, in elevators, at parties, etc. And then someday, when I am in said environment, I recall the dreams. And I recall bits of conversations. I have lots of deja vu moments.

6. Are you good at remembering people’s names?
Spectacularly so. When I want to be, of course. 😉

I worked at quite a few retail establishments in my day, and one place required that you call customers by name. It squicked me out when people would use MY name, but I got to have regular customers and had lots of memory tricks. I usually assign people nicknames that help me to recall their real names.

For instance, I have a friend whose name rhymes with Svengali. (Don’t ask. Seriously, just don’t.) The day after we first met, I called him by the correct name and I thought he was going to pass out — NOBODY remembered his name right away.

People just want to be acknowledged in this world. It wouldn’t kill us to figure out how to validate them, even if it’s as simple as knowing who they are.

7. If forced to choose, would you rather go 3 months without brushing your teeth, or 6 months without bathing?
I’d say brushing the teeth, assuming I could still use mouthwash. I just can’t go more than a coupla hours without scrubbing my butt. 😉

8. If you could win a lifetime supply of a product you currently use, what would it be?
Duh, batteries.

LOL

9. Brag about something. 🙂
I was up half the night thinking about how washed-up I feel right now in general. Like, maybe it’s time to meet some man and go have babies and get the hell out of my current life routine. Sometimes I feel like I’ve peaked and this is as good as it’s going to get, and I am terrified of that being true.

But the thing is, my bragging rite is that I am a visionary. Metaphorically as well as physically, I am farsighted — I have 20/20 vision when it comes to seeing what’s far away that nobody else can decipher, yet I can trip over obstacles at my feet because I don’t see them.

OK, I hate to talk about work, as it scares the life out of me, but I think I surprised my beloved supervisor with some big-picture thinking yesterday. And the thing is, I will take this moment to brag that I AM a long-range thinker — I can see how various entities can work together to create a mutually beneficial, huge result. I am NOT necessarily a detail person — I love my details on occasion, such as when I’m writing something or when I’m planning a party or my ultimate takeover of the world. But I struggle mightily when it comes to implementation.

My friend Shan and I have always said that all we’ve ever wanted was someone to come along and act as our “clean-up crew” — someone who would follow us and take notes on our brainstorms and ultimately implement the ideas according to our visions.

And my boss did tell me that I have plenty more adventures in store for my life. I know he’s right — I know it’s impossible for me to be washed up at 31. I just wish I could apply my business-related aptitude to my own life, as the latter is what *should* take priority, yet it never really does.

10. Ask me something.
What musical artist should I be listening to, whom I might not have discovered yet? *Hint, hint* — I love MP3s! 😉 (goddessdawn AT gmail)

Happily whored from Shiz.

Although, why are there only six categories of seven questions each? Bizarre.

7 things I plan to do before I die:
1. Become a novelist
2. Start a successful company
3. Live in the same city as my best friend again
4. Finally wear The Dress (my 30th birthday gift to myself) — my goal had been to wear it to the Kennedy Center with someone who would actually take me there. Wonder if it’s still in style or if it even fits. (*sigh*)
5. Be able to take care of my family (financially)
6. Fall madly in love
7. Kick ass. And not my own

7 things I can do:
1. Keep secrets till the day I die
2. Shop like a fiend
3. Color-coordinate/accessorize (when I feel like it)
4. Put on an Oscar-worthy performance for the masses no matter how I’m feeling
5. Kill multilegged critters (i.e., bugs)
6. Make jewelry
7. Save the day

7 things I cannot do:
1. Conceal my feelings when confronted
2. Stand by and watch people destroy their lives
3. Avoid fast food/junk food
4. Swim
5. Budget my time or finances (it’s like FEMA is in charge of my life)
6. Once I lose my trust in/faith in/admiration of someone or something, I can’t get it back
7. Vote for a non-Democratic presidential candidate

7 things that attract me to another person:
1. Brilliance — I like to be in awe of someone’s mind AND spirit
2. Humor, of course
3. When they can perceive what’s *not* being said
4. Green or brown eyes
5. Someone who knows how to dial a telephone and even orchestrate a nice outing (more frequently than the occurrence of Halley’s comet is a plus)
6. Skinny, stick-figure-with-no-soul types need not apply — nobody breakable, thanks 😉
7. A good smirk at the right moment gets me every time

*bonus answer* — A dog and a white cane, as those might attract men to ME. LOL

7 celebrity crushes:
1. Jon Bon Jovi
2. Jessica Alba
3. LL Cool J
4. Mathew St. Patrick
5. Zach Braff
6. Melissa Etheridge
7. Kip Winger (shut up)

7 Things I say the most:
1. “I always get more on me than in me”
2. “Who ate YOUR breakfast?”
3. “I could ride that up the Beltway”
4. “The GAS PEDAL is on the RIGHT, asshole!”
5. “How the hell did SHE get a man?!?!”
6. “And you wonder why you’re still single” (to myself and others, truth be told)
7. “OMIGOD! Me TOO!” (a la “Romy and Michelle”)

… blowing through my life again …

Trapped in traffic last night, I stopped at a mall to waste some time. I was wandering around, yapping on the cell phone, when I saw someone who looked exactly like someone I knew, once upon a time.

I don’t like to hold on to the past. Thus, I hate it even worse when it creeps up on me. Because I am not that person anymore. Not to say that the “old” Dawn wasn’t a good person who was fun and lighthearted and introspective — the “new” Dawn is all of that with a heaping side of neuroses yet minus the dumb, impulsive shenanigans.

But it’s like how when you become a nonsmoker — you simply cannot be around smokers … not for a long while, anyway. The first year, the temptation to pick up a cigarette is downright overpowering. Thus, you stay out of bars and, sadly, perhaps find excuses not to hang out with your smoking friends in social environments. Then after a year has passed, it’s a “filthy, disgusting habit” that you can’t imagine that you used to partake of.

That said, I wrote an imaginary letter to this vision from the past:

Dear M—,

I can’t count the years that have passed since I’ve seen your face — I can’t even remember what you look like anymore, save for the one photo of you that I ever possessed, which I lost a few years ago. That, I had memorized. That is the image that comes to my mind when I think about you.

And so, I swore I saw you last night. Read the rest of this entry »