i don't swim. i mean, i could save myself if i got pushed out of a boat, but i'd have to be close to shore and i definitely wouldn't enjoy it. when i was little, my parents went through the yellow pages and found the cheapest swimming teacher available. i remember her vividly. margaret p. my one and only swimming teacher, and the woman who ensured i'd hate swimming all my life. her name still makes me shudder. she was a behemoth of a woman in a speedo four sizes too small, who'd shove your face in the water and pull you across the pool by your hair while screaming "kick your legs" and pushing your face back in the water if you tried to breathe before you got to the other side of the pool. no matter how much i protested, i was sent to those lessons every week for an entire year and never learned to swim. i "failed" her program, to the disappointment of my parents, and cried so much about going back that they just said "hell with it" and never signed me up again. if there's a hell, i'm sure she's got satan by the hair telling him to kick his fucking legs. focus: what don't you do, and why don't you do it? alt-focus: childhood trauma. keep it light. let's not discuss molestation, shall we?
i don't eat anything with butter on it. baked or cooked into it? fine, but never on it. toast, lobster, corn on the cob, popcorn, etc are all plain. when i was 10 i saw my brother eat two whole sticks butter raw and fucking christ i'm gagging just writing about it. it scarred me permanently and haven't touched it since.
alt-focus - i had a kind of bitchy french immersion kindergarten teacher highlights: -drew a two backwards. had entire assignment torn up, thrown away, and told to start over. asked for replacement assignment sheet, was told 'that's your problem' -potentially a justified punishment as i answered in english, but i got an hour on a chair facing the wall when i said i didn't believe her when she said she was a hundred years old. -got jumped by three guys hitting me with wooden construction blocks, was rewarded to sit on a chair all afternoon facing the wall while bleeding all over myself
trying to think of something non food related, but all i've got so far is cooked spinach and brussel sprouts. but especially spinach. my god, i remember being forced to sit at the table for an hour after dinner because i just couldn't bring myself to eat the teaspoon of green goop my parents put on my plate. even if the smell and taste doesn't make you gag (freaks), who wants that texture in your mouth? this went on for years. i remember being puzzled at my parent's logic, too. like i got the idea of reward/punishment (eat everything on your plate or no dessert), but i would beg and plead, almost to the point of tears, asking why i had to eat this particular green poison. i really liked plenty of other veggies -- i wasn't a picky eater -- so i started to conclude that my parents, at times, liked seeing me suffer. then one day i tried to take it all in one mouthful, only to heave it all up on the kitchen floor (didn't make it to the sink in time). finally, my parents thought that maybe i really didn't like it, and wasn't just trying to be difficult (as if sitting at the empty table while my sister ate ice cream was something i wanted?!), and i've never eaten it again. years later i read about how some people's taste buds are extra sensitive to certain green veggies. i have no doubt i'm one of those people. that said, i quite enjoy the occasional bread/spinach dip.
i don't go to church because until i was 19 i had to go 3 times a week every week. fuck being in church hungover, listening to the biggest hypocrites spout off delusional bullshit. i can guarantee i have been to church hungover more than anyone on the board. sundays are for beer, bbq and football.
might as well sign of half the internet. i don't do twitter because it is a purer form of status updates, heroin to morphine so to say, of the look at me, look at me, all my thoughts need to be heard for their cleverness mentality.
i don't like spiders because when i was 5 my dad's pet tarantula escaped and i woke up with it sitting on my face in the middle of the night.
this and for the same reasons, except it was 4 times a week (one upper for the win). and i think you might want to back off of that guarantee, i went in both sat and sun mornings hungover and almost perfected the "sleeping with my bible open and head resting in hand" technique. sadly i kept dropping my bible once i totally passed out.
a few of you have called me out as having a facebook account. yes, this is true, as it is with most social platform that pops up... it's nice to have dibs on your account, no? but that does not mean that i am at all active with that account, because i assure you, i am not. if it appears that i am, i've been hacked.
i don't go to church because until i was 20 my parents dragged me there from about 9am to about 3-4pm at least 45 sundays a year. i don't camp because as chris rock said i don't believe in paying money to pretend like you're homeless. i don't "run" because if a ball isn't involved i get bored and just think it stupid. i don't swim, because every since i was in 3rd grade, i'd start swimming just fine and completely blackout. no panic, no freaking out, just body shutting off and waking up being revived.
this occurred more than once? what the hell, how does that happen? i don't ride on roller coasters because i'm scared of riding on roller coasters. i don't smoke weed because, well, i just don't. never really had a good reason. just not into it. i dont drink captain morgan since i blacked out on it in high school.
it has happened about 4 times. i gave up after the 4th time in like 6th grade. my first lip to lip action was from the middle aged (now that i think about it lesbian) swim teacher who was performing cpr to revive me. didn't look like the chick from sand lot.
i don't tell people i'm a lawyer because i hate the questions that follow. i don't play out live anymore because i puke for a week beforehand due to nerves. i don't drink mad dog because i want to live a little longer. i don't beat up fifth graders because it's apparently frowned upon.
i don't have sex, because i am married and have an infant child. i don't deer hunt anymore, because pointing and shooting got too easy. i don't eat tomatoes, because i am not a sadist.
i don't play the piano because i had a crotchety old piano teacher growing up. every tuesday my mom carted me to this lady's musty house. she never smiled or laughed or made it remotely fun. she smelled like mothballs and peppermint. and, i had music theory homework every week. when you're six years old and have the attention span of a gnat, sitting down to work through theory workbook assignments feels torturous. luckily we moved to a different state, and when given the choice to choose between piano and anything else, i picked dance and soccer. because neither or them reminded me of old ladies that smelled funny.
as a kid, i had a lisp. turns out my tongue is too far forward in my mouth. the dentist suggested surgical correction. as am five year old, i heard that as "cut off his tongue!" i have a life long terror of dentists. i need a handful of valium and a few cones to make a dentists appointment and twilight anaesthetic to get in the chair. i cock punched a dentist years ago who wouldn't get out of my way when i wanted out of the chair. blind panic moment, i felt pretty bad when i calmed down - but in that moment? i probably would have done anything i needed toto get him to let me go.
i don't mow the lawn, because that's his job. i don't go to church, because after 21 years of going faithfully every sunday plus holy days, i realized that i don't believe in this shit and i was going out of guilt. i don't do buttsex, because i have a vagina for a reason.