Secret Shames and Wish/Bucket Lists Part II with pics of fire.

I thought we could use a little brightening up, a lighter post for the weekend, thank you for all who responded and emailed regarding the last post about my condition. That post took me a week to write. Thank you also for reading it (since it is over 5,000 words long! – see, do that for 8 weeks and I have a Teen fiction book!). Here are some of the packages we sent out last week as part of the 32 or more in 8 days. Gifting Ho! Also the postcards we worked on through the night are laid out here (65+) and I will try to do a postcard project blog or two on them and the group before them. They are really nice postcards, from Singapore, Patagonia, Cambridge, Tasmania and other places of the world thanks to readers: they send them to me, I send them to you.

While I was writing this blog, the smoke and fire alarm went. Which is a jolt and a half and really emphasizes how vulnerable I am as all I could do was sit and listen, hearing the approaching sirens and hope. Assistant manager came in to say it was a pot left on an element while the tenants were out. The building was evacuated (except for me) and Linda took the pictures of this many alarm fire as the Victoria Fire Department arrived. I assume it is either many alarm as there were five or six fire trucks including TWO ladder trucks AND three emergency vehicles which included two police cars. While they might have all been annoyed at coming to a hallway of smoke but nothing burning, I for one, as much as I love fire, love it less when I have to wait while the building burns. I supposed I am supposed to be the tragic person at the window going, "Help, you forgot me!" which the ladders rescue in the nick of time? Oh, I am the tragic character from Emergency One (my favorite TV show when under 5 - I still remember never to stick my toe into the faucet outlet!).
Well, secret shame is that I have had NO desire to be a firefighter, except for making sure there were more female representation for fighting bush and forest fires. I like fire! (pictures following are of Victoria Fires or Nearby)
There is, in BC, which often has hundreds of forest fires burning, rapid attack helicopter repelling/absell crews (which I tried out for but was denied due to having contacts, and since you go off a helicopter INTO the fire, having contacts burnt to eyeballs is a no-no), I hoped for more females in higher positions as I think there is one female crew chief down in the southern US. Bah! So no, didn’t want to be a fire fighter since I kinda like fires. My grandfather put his house on a hill and could, my mother attests, tell as soon as the sirens sounded tell by hearing where they were going.Quick, the whole family into the car and he would follow the sound of the engines to arrive on the scene early and get all the fun. The Canadian National Railway fire of 1977 was supposed to be the biggest, seen across the strait in Port Angeles, and attracted thousands. My grandfather taught me a lot about the joy of watching things burn, and MAKING things burn even when it is raining, which seems sort of anti-fire fighting. Not that I am opposed to female firefighters, since this is my favorite commercial……well, ever. Youtube deleted it but click here, and after a (Cantonese?) short ad (hit pause when you hear 'sink to the bottom', it is below the commercial screen until the whole line lights up - you want to see this in one go, honest! Once line is lit, press play!) you will see why um, firefightiers keeps showing up in Linda’s romance picks.

Secret Shame #14: I have not followed in the family tradition of being a nympho sex addict. For reasons I am not sure about, ALL the women on my mother’s side of the family end up as hard-core Nymphomaniac sex addicts, which includes my grandmother, her sister, her mother’s sister
(my great grandmother I can’t confirm since what I remember most as a child were her taxidermy and skinning hobbies). Once a female turns about 65, they blow, so I am keeping an eye on my mother. The short version, my grandmother, after my grandfather died had three lovers and doctors out regularly to verify which sexual positions were safe for her paralyzed leg and hip (in her mid 80’s, she really was horny), then used the government money for those ‘my life story’ to have someone record and print a book of : ‘my various lovers’. My mother was not amused. Meanwhile, grandmothers sister has lived off of men for six decades and had four simultaneous lovers for over 30 years (free labour, free booze, free cars, morgage paid, AND sex). My great aunt (my grandmothers mother's sister who lived over 100) however lived her way through four husbands, numerous affairs and flirted with anything over 14 with a Y chromosome (including resuming affairs AFTER 30+ years). She had a great deal of money from her many husbands so she had a gigolo service her multiple times a week, through her late 70s and 80’s. I am not sure how much sex she GOT in her 90’s but she wanted it. I never really enjoyed going over since she would verbally and sometimes physically get intimate with both my father and grandfather (and always wanted him to go up the ladder to pick her fruit so she could watch his hot 75 year old man-ass!). When it came to men, she was very 'hands on'. She also blew up her dog by accident, but that is another story.

I on the other hand am virtually a virgin, one relationship, never ran off with anyone twice my age in my teens, never slept my way into a cruise trip or a car like my other relatives. Nor was I the ‘other woman’ like grandmother, sleeping with a married man in a retirement community and getting him to give her money gifts (oh boy did that make visiting day awkward when the daughter came). Nor have I paid for sex – I mean if you think about it, my great aunt stood up for sex rights (well, lay down, stood up, used the kitchen table) for women decades before it became a feminist issue.

I felt like the old fuddy in the UK, when at work women would be, ‘I fancy a good shag tonight, going to the club to see what’s on offer, you coming?” I did kind of feel I was missing out on the buffet. But then stats show that UK and European women aren’t having sex more, they just talk about it more and use lots of protection so hopefully less unwanted pregnancies. I also miss that, because as far as I can tell all of my dozens and dozens of care workers are nuns. Geez, what happened to comparing vibrators or talking about your brazilian wax in the workplace? Dunno.

Wish #11, To do: Live another year.

I hope that is conscious and able to wheel or use a wheelchair. At some point I am going to be only able to just lie there in the bed. But, hey, I have next years Sakura-con to go to. And then I can live long enough to go on another vacation, read another 500 books, and put a dent in all the good films and TV out there. I am waiting to watch a film called ‘Let the Right One In’ from Sweden (I have it here from Pic a Flic). It is a coming of age story about Oskar who has a dream for a friend. This comes true with Eli, a girl, moves next door. She is pale and only comes out at night and is unaffected by the freezing temperatures. As the story of his childhood innocence and romance are the growing number of murders which occur in the neighborhood. Trailer here.
I think I wish to live as me, not one of the living dead however.

Wish #2, to do: GET OUTSIDE! Yes. Go see the outside world, now that there is sun and such. And specifically, I would like to go wheel in the woods. The pain and weakness I have right now make the difficult but I am trying to sweat to improve my circulation and healing and when that pain finally goes away, I hope I will be in better condition to go outside. I really would like to go to the woods, and into the trees, smell the loam, the fallen needles, and the vines of blackberries, fallen old blackberries giving it a scent of sweet blackberry and dusky dark earth, a hint of mushroom and warm bark. That is what I would like to see again, wheel through again. Maybe there is somewhere special to you, some special place. I think if I had to choose a second thing it would be to play a night game at one of the 3 par courses near suicide bridge in Pasadena. I used to do that a lot, so instead of being the oddity I am now, off time with people, I used to go play golf with my 9 iron and my putter on a three par course at 10:30 or midnight. There was a freedom, call a friend to play and if they say no, go anyway. Yes, I was a golfer.

Secret Shame #17: I don’t get fishing. You can try to explain the joys and wonders of it to me, but know that many have tried before. Dont. Get. Fishing.I even watched a fishing show for a while, trying to understand why a guy got air time standing in a river going, “Oh, oh, I think he interested, good thing I used the red autumn dangler lure today, as there is shade over that part of the stream. Oh….oh…..notice how I reel it in slow (do they EVER reel it in quick?)…..oh, I think he’s getting interested.” Never got it. Never. And the idea of spending a WHOLE DAY in a boat with someone who didn’t want to talk but just stare at the water and wasn’t a requirement by an institution or a sign of mental instability just gives me the shudders.

I think a major problem is that every time I go fishing I catch something in about 10 minutes or less. And then I have a fish, and I hate the taste of fish. However, that is nothing compared to the gross aspects of GUTTING and cleaning the fish. When I was, um, six, maybe we went fishing with my aunts and uncles, I caught a fish (only one), and they kept demanding I hold it up, with my fingers THROUGH THE GILLS. So, yes, take a six year old out and tell her to put her fingers through a still live flopping around a bit fishes HEAD from behind. Wow, are we having fun yet? Plus, people would run over wanting to know what bait I used or my lure ('a shining one?'.) I used what looked nice – pink salmon eggs, they look nice, or a lure that was pretty. Then I would think, “I am a very stupid and bored fish in a tiny stocked pond, what would interest me.” So I throw out the lure, and drag it a bit and wait and drag and wait and then next throw drag it in at a steady rate, then next throw drag a little and wait. This assumes the fish has seen it by now and is going to investigate, and after a few minutes, I pull it in a little, rest, pull rest and WHAMMO, bored fish who wants to eat something to not be as bored is now on my fishing line. I’m done!

Well, apparently that is wrong, I am supposed to do this for HOURS, not 10 minutes. I am not sure why. To me it is like doing Story Problems in math: you figure them out and do them, you don’t just sit there for hours staring at the problem because…..(uh, this is where they try to explain to me what fishing is about and use words like Zen and meditation and stuff). I do the math problem and shut the book and go do something else, like climb rocks without a rope.

Wish #15: Become a cat girl. Life is better as a cat girl. Yes. I think if I am a cat girl, then my hypersomnia ISN’T problem it is just me being a cat girl. Same with me rolling on things I love, or demanding people walking by give me food or attention. Or throwing my body in front of people in order to be petted. Or jumping atop things. Being a cat girl solves ALL these problems. Plus, you can dress up in all the ways I like now, like be a lolita but be a lolita cat girl and that’s even better! Surely if there is a guy at Sakura-con who can make crowns for giving people a vampire teeth for $50, can they not give you ears to twitch and the ability to purr and a tail to twitch when I am annoyed?

Also, I think being a cat girl, while we are going with that, a cat-girl with LARGER BREASTS! Hey, if we are going for ‘to do’ wishlists, I wouldn’t mind leaving the announcements of ‘Oh, no we never carry small sizes like that…there just isn’t any demand’ said in loud voice at Victoria Secret and other shops or the fact that there is only one sports bra I use, one which has ‘form holders’ so it isn’t a flattener, but holds your breasts so that no one asks you where your mother is, or have to stand next to someone complaining how hard jogging is on their DD’s while saying, “Guess you have it lucky…..that way” – yeah, in the way that for most of the public bigger is better. So, cat-girl, with big boobs – combine this with secret shame of overplaying ignorance/cuteness in order to get tires changed and I would get away with just about anything! Because sad cat girls just make people want to cheer them up. Not sure how to achieve this goal since I am still looking for sleepwear with a hood with ears.

Anthro-con is coming up June 24th. Click on the link and they will explain what a ‘Furry’ is, as well as how to treat those in fursuits. Another reason to buy the genius DVD set ‘The Middle Man’ is when our superhero walks in on his female sidekick’s roommate doing her ‘creative dance’ in her bear suit. She asks him not to laugh and he serious says (as the Middle Man who saves the earth regularly) that he regularly as a youth wore a Mole suit which gave him great comfort and creativity. Yes, Furries in TV, not mocked! Oh, and the PJ’s, I am a TALL, XL in juniors and Medium/large in adults, just in case that is something at Anthro-con and anyone decides to go.

Cat girls have not yet caught on here, but they will, ‘nyah’. I was reading a yaoi boy love book (everything even reading books is cuter with cat girls)

and the person had fallen out of bed and the other guy held out his hand and said, “shake hands” and the guy on the floor said, “So, does that mean you want me to do it puppy style?” and starts licking him (turns out the other guy was ticklish). Funny, ‘Nyaow’

Secret Shame #6: and probably my most well known secret shame is my proclivity to going naked. A trip in Europe at 18/19 without parents, and lots of saunas where I learned that communities coming together in the winter getting naked was…normal (not erotic, just normal). Plus, when I get really depressed I take off my clothes as a ‘I don’t care, they can’t take anything else away from me’ and then either run up against a window, climb on to the roof, or try to go for a walk, which at one point there was a policeman with his back to me and Linda dragged me inside with an odd hissing sound. She can be really strong.

I went hiking and bought a Gregory Pack, which makes great packs BUT has an oddity, in that Gregory demanded that a mesh be made not just for him (because he liked to hike NUDE in Alaska in the summer, with all those flies), but for all Gregory packs. So they bought him out. But I got his pack which came with a long guide WITH pictures of how to hike nude using the Gregory Pack. The guide also had WAY too many pictures of Gregory's willie. So, after hiking for several months on the Appalachian Trail, I, well, thought it would be something I should at least TRY. I mean, I hadn’t seen anyone for seven days. And so each couple miles I took another piece of clothing off, sort of ‘strip hiking’. When I was just down to panties, that is when the family with two children under 10 came around the corner. I didn’t see them, just hear the ‘MY GOD!’ from the mother. And you know, small trail and all, I had to pass them and try to explain while the husbands eyes just sort of boggled, and the mother tried to sort of get between me and her children. So, if you were traumatized as a child in, I think um, Pennsyvania, by a nude hiker with long brown hair, grey socks and a really big pack (there was mesh on the straps so they didn’t rub, same for the belt!), I’m sorry, that was me and uh, sorry. You know usually women are encouraged in media to be ‘free spirited’ and nude and when it is all guys, that is true, but with another women who is a mother, in the bible belt….not so true.

Also, tried early to convert Linda, involving some moss, some very thick moss and being horny and that failed pretty badly when she became convinced a cougar was in the woods, or a wolf. And I don’t know if she has ever been skinny dipping much less nude hiking (only suicidal people who love ticks and bug bites are nudists in Manitoba). So, you have a nudist story?

Wish #7 AND Secret Shame #5: Knitting. I never learned how to knit. I learned how to cross stitch but that was it. I think my grandmother tried to teach me, but I just never quite understood the attraction. Now with the Yarn Harlot the Diva of Hobbies and everyone into knitting, I am once again not in the ‘cool group’ who all get together and show pictures of stacks of ‘skeins’ like it is erotica, and talk about knitting, thinking about knitting, dreaming about knitting, blog about knitting and I can’t knit, never have. If I can figure out how to live another year, surely with maybe my teeth or something I can figure out what the crack-cocaine type addiction lives in knitting. Then the ‘cool group’ would talk to me. To be honest, I think I want to learn knife throwing first but knitting is on the list. It just seems that knife throwing and me are more suited to each other – if there was a way to combine the two maybe? Same with looms, I know HOW to do it, I just don’t kinda get why I would want to.

All that being said, if it was not for knitters helping me out with socks in exchange for stuff, my feet would be in bad, bad shape, since they need light strong socks in the summer and thick warm ones in the winter and thanks to knitters, I have both. One person did a perfect fit, without ever seeing my feet, it was absolutely perfect, a second skin, of knitted sock. And I hear socks are really hard to knit.

Wish #9, to Do: I would like to go with Linda, take Linda to an observatory. I think I did this when we were dating and observatories are things you do and then you don’t do them for a few decades and there is no reason….you just forget. I used to go to the Griffith Observatory late night show when they had rock concerts with laser shows, with the stars. It was cool. They also used the lasers to make holograms of the different clusters and figures, like Orion. I would like to see the southern Cross too, but since I have seen the Aurora Borealis in triple or more sheets of glory, shimmering the sky over me, green and red night after night when I lived in Northern Sask., and people travel from all over the world just to see it from far away. And I lived in a small town with no other towns north or east or west for 200 miles and it was huge. And we went to the arctic ocean, and I think it was huge then as well. But still, seeing the Southern Cross would be neat.

Secret Shame #10: Worst Laundry experience Ever. I know we all have one, sure, we’ve turned everything pink, we’ve shrunk our favorite outfit. And one care worker managed to shrink and make unwearable (except as clamdiggers) about $400 of my jeans. But MY worst experiece? Setting clothes on fire? Well, kinda. I was entrusted to do the laundry and I went to a big Laundromat which had those industrial dryers. And those things got HOT on the top setting of 10 and stayed hot. And instead of feeding the meter every 6 or 10 minutes, I would put in 6 or 7 coins and then it would run constantly. Well, I kinda mighta, put a load of no-dryer, sort of hand-wash, sorta ultra delicate clothes in with some towels and put them on industrial hot for an hour. Nighties my mother had with Nylon and Rayon, and all the ‘on’s’ and well, I came back from my walk and there was a definite burning smell and I stopped the dryer but um, several of the items had MELTED right into the big metal round sides. One nightie was just a blue smudge on the grey drum of the dryer. It was still too hot to touch without getting burnt. And those clothes which were left were um, smaller, a LOT smaller, and missing edges where they had touched the side. That would be my WORST Laundry EXPERIENCE ever – that and when I brought the laundry home. A long, long talk about responsibility and ‘did I like making my mother cry?’ and ‘We gave you a chance to prove you are an adult but I guess that was TOO SOON!’ – the whole going for a walk thing while the dryer ran made good sense to me. But makes for a REALLY bad excuse. So, what is your worst laundry experience? (oh god, let’s not get into the worst IRONING experience).

Wish #12, to do: I want a tattoo. I really really do. And I want a tattoo that reflects me and won’t decay as my body decays or changes. I will see if I can find a place with no feeling at all and come up with a good design. I put it off for years because I always thought ‘If I think this is a great design in two years, then I will get it.' – needle phobia or not! But I never did think it was great two years later, I would think of another design. Other people mark their achievements with ink, and tattoos. That is cool but not me. I still don’t know what kind of tattoo I want to get, I think I want to get one which sums up how I live, not just what I did, but what I still plan to do. A tattoo of me. I don’t want an epee blade just because I like epee, or a book because I like to read or a typewriter (though that would be cool, and old underwood typewriter tattoo) because I like to write. I want a sort of ‘I am’ statement. And I REALLY want an ass like that. The idea from my cult that God would be so unhappy about a tattoo is, I think, a joke. God gave us a whole body which changes dramatically through our lives, a living altering mask and yet alteration is bad? I guess we should avoid getting fillings in our teeth then right? So no, now I don’t need to worry about what I am going to think in two years, or five, so if I can get a waxing and a eyebrow threading, I can get this. Which brings me to

Secret Shame #11: Never got drunk. Nope, never got drunk and used that as an excuse to kiss everyone in the room including the girl I was secretly crushing on. Never got up on a table and danced. Never got drunk. ‘All things in moderation’ – does that sound like me? Well, it is, I didn’t do any drugs, though they give them all to me now, and I didn’t get drunk. I did not Xerox my ass or breasts at work. I did not screech in loud drunken laughter. I have been around plenty of stoned and drunk people to see telepathy at work where they go,

Person A: “Hey, you know, like those bosses in suits, they are so, so….”

Person B: (laughing), “Yeah, so completely, so yeah, yeah…..

Both laughing hysterically

Person A: “They are like wearing a hat!”

More hysterical laughter

Person B: “No, they are like not wearing anything at all!” and laughs

Person A suddenly serious, “Don’t talk about my sister like that…..she not a slut!”

B: “Sorry.”

A stares for a while then breaks into laughter again, “But yeah, they are totally!”

Insert any conversation like a car, a person, a light, a rainbow and drunk or stoned and this repeats itself. Much like knitting, I was not part of the conversation, I was not ‘in’ the cool group who could telepathically communicate. Nor did I have stories about waking up on people’s/campus lawns with no memory or worse, having a habit of locking yourself in bathrooms and calling/texting everyone on your phone (this one is REALLY common and I have gotten several calls/texts from drunk people – to tell me, they were DRUNK, and they didn’t know WHERE!).

People have really cool drunk stories, stories I envy which end up using power tools to dig them out of a club, and somehow they don’t get arrested (guys get arrested, girls just get, I dunno, left with a friend who holds the hair for vomiting?). So my shame, no drunk stories at all. Alchoholic is not what I want, but NEVER drunk? I have seen that being drunk makes people more of what you are like in some way. I wonder what that would make me? What part would be ‘more’ and could the world take that?

Wish #19, to do: This is complex, a two parter. See, I have always wanted to be a hero. Not the quiet and real heroes, the people who for years raise three kids all by themselves, or caregive, or do all the non glory hero stuff. But I wanted to be the ACTION hero. I mean, geez, after Star Wars, who didn’t? Princess Leia fired guns, wrapped men around her fingers, was sarcastic to everyone including VADAR, and kicked some ass. And in the second movie she is a general AND shoots a blaster. That is WAY better than Charlie’s Angels – just the kick ass angel saving kids without creepy Charlie, more like Laura Holt in Remington Steele.

So I wanted to join the military, or police (often the police) the RCMP – I tried as soon as I became disabled), also thought about joining the british police, the CIA, M5, etc. Except I found out that they had two issues which caused me problems. #1) I really, really, really don’t get on well with authority. I mean, I did start doing lots of push ups and sit ups in prep for basic but I was determined I was going to break the Sgt. I was going to mind fuck him. Not the attitude they like in the military. Plus then there was all those rapes came out in the press about basic. And #2) Secret Shame #19 (coming up next) – plus the whole ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ thing, and I don’t even know what the Canadian or British version of that was.

I wanted to be a hero, I wanted to save kids. I also wanted to play with guns. Or better yet, I wanted to play with swords. I wanted to be batman, I read Dark Knight when it came out and while everyone seemed to latch onto the ‘will to power’ Ayn Rand philosophy I was entranced by the idea if you have the money, the discipline and the will to train, what could I become? I had the will for pain, I was often distracted by books, so I don’t know about the discipline (I mean, you don’t see Bruce Wayne going, “Not now Alfred, it’s the last chapter!”), and no, I didn’t have the money.

However after many years traveling the secret roads and learning how to walk and not look in the faces, to be forgotten or remembered but not as a threat in the streets of LA, I was pretty sure I could be a good super hero, or police officer. Linda was thankful that I wasn’t in LA when the riots occurred over Rodney King because she said she knew I would have tried to go down there and help the people getting beaten up and killed. Because she had seen me run toward danger before.

I wanted that whole, ‘Partner’ thing that cops have. I even now want to be like the cop in Life, or the one in Criminal Minds. How do these people get promoted? Or keep partners? I want to be the odd brainiac, who also can run any criminal down. But see, when I do amazing things in odd ways, I don’t get promoted, rather everyone above me gets really scared of me. Suck. I wanted if I couldn’t be police to be the one with the flag who charged the barricades! I just would never allow another person to use me to hurt or kill anyone because they decide it is right, or convenient, or in a way I don’t believe is right. And that is kind of what the military is about, and the police too in a way. Obeying orders. Obeying orders without thinking. I was taught to do that from before I could walk, my whole life taught and punished on Obedience. Told God wanted ‘Blind Obedience’. It might be why I am so crap at it now. I figured if God wanted to build robots, God could have. And if my choice and responsibility was up to me, then I better act like it.
Secret Shame #19: I REALLY, REALLY hate office work, particularly repetitive office work. It is boring to the point of physical pain. That’s not to say I haven’t done it, but what happens is no matter how I try, after about three weeks I get SO bored that like an animal in a trap, I start clawing and trying to bite off my own leg. In human speak it means I start destroying property, or deliberately sabotaging projects. I am totally honest about it, but for some reason they NEVER fire me. And I don’t want to quit, I’m not a quitter! And I do a job that takes someone 4 days and finish it in 2.5 hours which might be why they don’t fire me but oh the pain in my brain and so I try to tell all the big bosses my errors, and every time I am incompetent. They think the honesty is endearing and give me more projects. It is this horrible nightmare.

I mean in retail, when a customer demands you find the ‘yellow book’ they read as a teen which was really good and about a detective, or a space ship, or maybe remembered past life experiences and aren’t going to leave until I find it – I am NOT bored (because when I do find it, they decide they don't want it anymore). While giving me a task where I simply WATCH the Xerox machine I have programmed to copy AND staple and fold for me (because I was so bored I called up the Xerox company and had the rep teach me how to do really obscure things), and the supervisor walks in to find me rubbing body parts up against the copier while going ‘AHHHHHHH!’ and trying to get the warble from the vibrations. They ask me ‘Isn’t there something you need to be doing.” And I almost shout, “No!” and I explain how I programmed everything and hope they fire me. But no, now I am ‘if you need anything copied, get her to do it, she is a genius with the machine’. So, it turns out the police has a LOT of forms and paperwork. This is not a place for self destructive boredom behavior.

Secret Shame 18A) This one probably isn’t news to you but I have a some darkness shackled in me. I fight it, and it has never gotten free for long, but yeah, I have some darkness. And I think you might know that. I fight depression, I started cutting at 4 or 5. But I don’t hurt others, not intentionally, that is what I fight, what I worry about, hurting others.

Secret Shame 15) Sigh, I don’t know if I can even admit this. I have NEVER drawn on someone’s face while they are sleeping, never written on them. I did once write a poem on my body at college and tried to strip in class to do both a poem and performance – AND while a high school teacher I encouraged students to try it which then got me a talking to from my ‘mentor’ teacher because some parents who called in, and no, we were not teaching 'stripper class'. But no, I have NEVER written, “I’m with Idiot” on someone’s forehead while they were asleep. I feel that I oddly have missed something important.

Wish #10, to do: This is a big one. I have never been a BRIDESMAID. Yeah. I thought I would a few times when gay marriages came out but my ‘friends’ always had other friends or relatives and so no, not once have a worn a dress in a colour pattern you wouldn’t use for curtains in a trailer park. No blissful joy of spending 8 hours with the bride telling her EACH dress looks perfect and ‘the one’ only to have her go ‘ummm, I don’t know’ – I did decorations, I did organizing, I did lots of organzing. I was the one outside the door timing everything and telling the music cues and when people should walk in but that was it, me outside it all again.

So IF ANYONE, I mean ANYONE needs someone to wear a really big and strange bridesmaid dress for your wedding, I am volunteering. I mean, how can someone be married and never had been a bridesmaid, ‘always a bride, never a bridesmaid’ – that’s me. Never been to a ‘Hen Night’, never realized how empty my own life is, had to dance with some guy who seems to only be able to talk about football because is a groomsman, and gotten drunk and woken up in a hotel bed, out of dress, next to someone saying to myself, “Oh my god, how low did I go?” This seems, according to romances, romance movies, and North American culture to be an essential experience. LINDA was a bridesmaid – she has the dress she hasn’t worn again to prove it!

Look, I KNOW that I probably would have a horrid time, and be bored but it would be for a friend and that is what sacrifice is about and I guess it is part of the ‘grass is always greener….’ Thing but yeah, like the cheerleader, want to be a bridesmaid (I don’t want to be a cheerleader anymore!).

Which brings us to the LAST of this part 2 of the three part of Secret Shames and Wishes, bucket lists.

Secret Shame #22: Too scared to wear a tiara. Yeah, I have never worn a tiara and always wanted to. I am a tiara coward! Well think about it, teen girls and young girls wear tiaras. Except I was in a cult which forbade all ‘adornment’ including gold earrings, or large hoop earrings (ha, that is ONE secret shame I don’t have, picture of me with my big ole plastic hoop earrings, or said earrings caught in a tree I was walking by!). Then once I came out, well lesbians don’t wear tiara’s. At least not where there are a lot of butches around. Gay teen boys, twinks, they wear tiaras and angel wings, and ripped tight t-shirts. Drag queens wear tiaras. But lesbians? No, that just isn’t on. Plus what kind events can I wear one to, even if I had one? A dance, right – oh I could have worn one to Sakura-con, I guess. But you kind of need the whole elbow gloves and some people can pull off the over the top kind of giant hoop skirt elbow gloves and tiaras and I don't think I am. But I want to – yes, I want to be the versatile type of gal who can wear a tiara and then if needed, take off those gloves and throw knives. I guess we all have things we wanted to wear – maybe that is just me?

So that is today’s list – a bit of a read but I hope it was fun. Time to tell me how you destroyed your wash, or explain fishing to me (“First ya got to call it ‘fishin’!”), or what tattoos you have, or what interesting things you have done while drunk (or interesting places you woke up). How DO you write on people's faces when they are sleeping? And what do you write? And does this require drinking? Just comment on whatever this post inspired in you.