Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone’s Wednesday going? Things are fine here. It’s that time of year again where I’m supposedly getting older. Tomorrow (the 12th) is my birthday. Probably just going to order Greek for dinner and spend the day writing. Unless I use it as an easy day and just goof around. Haven’t decided yet. Anyway, I’m skipping the book number thing this week in favor of a random about me thing. I don’t know why I started doing this. It takes forever. But whatever. I’m 37, so here are 37 random things about me.

1. I’ve written creative words every day this year. A whole 10 days. I’m trying to stick to a schedule where on Sunday, Tuesday (or whatever day I write my blog post that week), and a lazy day of my choice, I write 100 words on the current novel attempt. The other four days, I’m aiming for 1,000 words. At least until I finish a first draft (the goal is approximately 90,000 words for this one). It’s basically my old schedule, but with no zero word days because it’s too easy to talk myself into quitting right now if I don’t write words. So far, so good.

2. I haven’t gone anywhere (where I left the van) aside from yearly doctor appointments and a couple of trips to a hardware store that’s usually empty since Covid started. I’m mostly okay with this.

3. I do miss going to restaurants and the occasional concert, but that’s about it.

4. Telehealth visits are wonderful. It means we don’t have to drive all the way to UT Southwestern just to wait 45 minutes for a five minute chat. I like my doctor there and wouldn’t mind meeting her face-to-face (we haven’t because my old pulmonologist retired after Covid started, so computer visits were already a thing when she took over), but I like not having to leave the house too.

5. I’ve become fond rye and ginger beer.

6. Kraken rum and Pepsi is pretty good too.

7. I’m not a sot. I swear. I have a drink maybe once a week.

8. I still have most of my Kah reposado and Republic anejo tequilas. Mostly because I don’t have anyone to sit around and sip booze with once in a while, but whatever. If I were a tosspot, they would be gone.

9. It’s that time of year where I panic because I have a scratchy throat (Flu! Covid! Dying!) only to remember that it’s Mountain Cedar season, so my options are living with a scratchy throat/excess mucus/sinus headache or live in a Benadryl/Zyrtec haze for the next couple of months if things get unbearable. This is just my life now.

10. I despise ordering groceries from Kroger. There’s almost always some kind of glitch on their website. They never tell you what’s out of stock until it’s too late to modify the order. Canceling orders is ridiculous and there’s a 50/50 chance it’ll still show up. Plus, most of the time, they don’t have a previously ordered section to make life easier.

11. Walmart is better, but the few times we’ve ordered dairy or produce through them, it went bad within a few days despite the best by dates being reasonably far away. It’s weird.

12. Amazon Fresh is pretty good, but they have the worst meat selection. The diversity of the selection is good, but they only sell them in one pound portions most of the time. We can’t survive on that.

13. Tom Thumb is our go to, but only because Dad can call them up and they usually fix things. Usually.

14. I’m already running out of things to say about myself in case the ordering groceries mini rant didn’t make it obvious. Talking about myself is hard.

15. I’m great at bottling everything up, but expressing feelings and shit is hard. I keep my responses to everything (good or bad) moderate and I don’t know how to fix it. How do I show excitement or happiness? The anger and rage can stay in the box in the abyss of my soul, but I would like to become better at expressing the good stuff.

16. I’m not a physically affectionate person. At all. I can’t be. It’s not like I can randomly hug people or whatever. And I have a super hard time asking for things that I actually need to survive and/or be comfortable (the whole burden mentality is a bitch to outgrow), so I just can’t see myself ever asking for cuddles or whatever. I don’t know how to fix this either.

17. And now I’m super uncomfortable with the last two shares, but it’s getting late and I still have too many to go, so I guess I’ll leave them.

18. Despite my aversion to being touched (one reason I’m not affectionate), one of my favorite A-Kon (anime convention) memories is of the dude who rubbed all up on me in the Sheraton bar. He asked if he could love on me and then massaged my arms and knees while whispering sweet nothings at me. He asked if I was okay with what was happening every time he switched hand placement. I’ve never felt more comfortable with a stranger touching me. It was weird and innocent and amusing. And I still randomly think of him and hope he’s doing well.

19. I also randomly think of the dude and his friend who gave me a lap dance at Lazerz when I was like 20. That was strange and not something I would let happen now, but I was young and stupid and didn’t really care about being touched as long as something pretty was dancing for me.

20. I know I shouldn’t objectify people, but I can’t help it. I enjoy eye candy. I’m not a dick about it. It’s not like I catcall people on the street or harass them online. I appreciate from afar and mind my manners.

21. I don’t understand expensive coffee. Dad decided to try some Kona coffee and it’s good, but it tastes like… coffee. Same with chocolate and wine and stuff. I’m just not sophisticated enough, I guess.

22. I am eternally tired. It doesn’t matter how well I sleep (not that I sleep well often). I wake up tired.

23. I get irrationally upset when I find a book with a good story and characters I enjoy, but it’s full of continuity errors, typos, and punctuation errors. It’s so disappointing, but I usually rage read it just to have something to rant to myself about at night. So much potential just absolutely ruined by a horrible editor (or lack of an editor).

24. I’ve been working on this list for three hours. I’m so uninteresting. Sorry. But at least it’ll only take you a few minutes to read.

25. I love peppermint bark. In chocolate form or coffee form or whatever. You can’t go wrong with chocolate and peppermint.

26. I always say I need to catch up on anime or tv shows I don’t watch with Dad, but if I have time, I end up playing mindless games while listening to loud music.

27. Years ago, I stopped playing video games because crippleness (my last big mobility loss affected my arms and hands and I lost the ability to lean forward on my own). That was before adaptive controllers existed. Now, I hesitate about getting back into them because they are/were addictive. I get sucked into my mindless games occasionally. Can you imagine what would happen if it was a game I actually liked?

28. I wouldn’t mind dancing around and being stupid with people. I don’t think I’ve done any dancing with others since Stonecoast. Used to dance at anime conventions and clubs. That’s not happening any time soon. If I had local friends aside from the Minion, I’d say we have a backyard, but everyone is so far away. You guys suck. Not really.

29. My coping mechanisms for life in general could probably be better. A dark sense of humor and self-deprecation have helped me survive this long, though, so I won’t change anything.

30. I started following other cripple people on social media and found out that pee math is a thing cripples have to do. Calculating how much they can drink and knowing where the bathrooms they can use are, etc. I mostly eliminated that a long time ago by training myself to just hold it, but I still have to do it for all day events. I have to know which drinks I can have and when I can have them so I can make it home. Or we have to drag my lift with us and that’s more trouble than just doing the math. But yeah. Pee math is a thing you know about now. You’re welcome!

31. Amazon started doing Kindle Reading Challenges and the only thing I get out of them are little bookmark icons that do nothing and can’t be seen by anyone but me. They don’t even send a congratulations for completing the challenge. But I get so ticked off if I fail to get one of the stupid things. Is that weird?

32. Mardi has me trained to go get her when she nudges my feet and whines while Dad’s out in the garage or running errands. Then she just wants back down two minutes later. Spoiled pupper is spoiled.

33. I’m currently craving flan and I don’t know why. It’ll pass.

34. I’m far too old and boring to be making these kinds of lists. There’s nothing interesting about me that people don’t already know. Ugh.

35. Surprisingly, I’d rather be working on the novel than this post. I never thought that would happen. But I’m sure as soon as I schedule this and open the file to write my 100 words it’ll be like pulling teeth. I’m never satisfied with anything until I’m done.

36. Holy shit. This post is about 1,700 words according to the WordPress word count thingie. No wonder I hate it.

37. Gott Ist Ein Popstar by Oomph is a decent song to end this list to. It’s what’s playing right now.

Sorry for the length. As always, feel free to leave comments or whatever here or on my social media pages!