Live Bold List 32: 48 things you probably don’t know about me

Greetings, beautiful Bold Soul!

How are you, dear one? I hope this finds you well; shining; evolving. Since we last ‘spoke’ I am lucky enough to have had a Bold Art Stall at a lovely Adelaide market. Thanks to all the South Aussie Bold Souls who came out! It was gorgeous fun meeting new kindred spirits, and I’ll be attending the same market for the foreseeable future :)

Here it is the 4th installment in the Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me trilogy. [Greetings, Douglas Adams fans!] I’ve put the 3 previous dozens in here too, so it’s one big happy list! If you want to see the first 3 lists in their original context, the first is here, the second here, and the third here. If you’ve read the previous 3 dozen, you could scroll directly to number 37.

 Live Bold List 32: 48 things you probably don’t know about me

1. Much as I am horrified by what we are doing to the earth and each other, I feel sincerely lucky to be living in this age. I love my computer and all the connection, creativity and commerce it allows. Also, running water and piped power. I am very grateful for these and other modern wonders.
2. I am courageous around moths and cockroaches. Less so with spiders. I’ve grown out of my reaction to bee stings. [See #47 for more on spiders.]
3. A yoga instruction that makes me laugh is: “Let go of your face”. I adore yoga and agree that ‘face letting go’ (in both meanings I can think of) is a good idea.
4. I prefer strawberries at room temperature – not cold from the fridge. This might partially be is probably a tooth sensitivity issue.
5. I can often smell water when it’s boiling. I can definitely smell the difference between filtered and unfiltered water. If you’ve experienced Adelaide water, this will make a lot of sense!
6. When I first came across Photoshop I didn’t trust it! This is perhaps unusual for a graphic design trained person. I think it was mainly because I didn’t understand it. I didn’t ‘get’ resolution, and I certainly didn’t trust the ‘marching ants selection line’. I have come to understand it better now, and it’s come to be an essential tool. And yes I “trust” it.
7. I am a Mac person married to a PC person. We get along just fine, mostly. Haha!
8. Finding out where the line symbol “|” comes from was like finding out where babies come from. It’s there on the keyboard above the ‘back slash’, did you know? Also the blue scroll bar at the side of text too long for it’s box.
9. I think it’s important that everyone reads “Passage to Power” by Leslie Kenton (also available for Kindle). Ostensibly about menopuase, it actually good information for people, who have bodies, who live in the world! Bio-identical progesterone cream is one of the things that has made a huge difference for me.
10. I am an enthusiastic non-cleaner. I plan to employ someone to help us out with that this year!
11. I have elfy slippers. Actually if you’ve been here a while you might know that one :)
12. I have non pierced ears, and every intention to keep them that way. I have far too many earrings, all with clip and screw-on attachments already! I like the idea of an ear cuff. Hehe! – also non-pierced!
13. Though I do circus training for strength, skills and spirit of camaraderie, right now, I am pretty sure I don’t wish to perform. This could change. Looks like this wood block print inspired font might be an acrobatics image, doesn’t it? (If you click the links below in #14, you’ll see there’s more to the story than that, but that’s how I want to read it!)
    
14. The image above is from the picture font we used for pictures on our wedding invitations and other printed things. It’s the FD J Borges font, based on the lino prints of Brazilian artist / designer J. Borges. [I think a wedding story would be a blog post in itself; would you like to hear about our Bold Wedding?]
15. I’ve tried to find other options to using the word “normal” ever since being impressed by the “What the hell is normal anyway?” slogan in my primary (elementary) school years [possibly a campaign encouraging respect for persons with disabilities?] I prefer the words “standard”, “typical”, “regular”, “classic” and “average” when necessary, as they are more specific in meaning. What is normal, and who even wants to be ‘normal’? [Are there any other words you prefer? I think that one’s a potential blog post, too.]
16. When my mentor died I forgot how to feed myself for 3 days. [That too, is a story I’d like to write. It involves clowns. Beautiful Spanish ones, not scary ones. Would you like to read about that?]
17. I’m getting bolder and bolder as I get older. My current (quiet, personal) campaign is that shorts should definitely be worn (before and) after 40 years of age! [Obviously, when it’s warm. Not now… br-r-rrrrr. Woollen long johns under everything now!] [Later: Shorts season now approaching, lovelies!]
18. I have a secret MediumPower: fly swatting. Maybe I enjoy it a little too much. Maybe it’s not a Super Power cos I have to concentrate. [With chagrin directed towards the insect community.]
19. I adore being at the beach, whilst extremely respectful of the sheer size and power of the ocean.
20. I delight in being in The Hills, though simultaneously aware that I don’t travel very well; up the hill and back down, with the altitude change, and my ears, and the pain. Perhaps that’s one of those seemingly unrelated things that will be mitigated by care and support of my thyroid. We’ll see.
21. I love the ideals of being a hippy, and of leading by example. The current aim is to carve out a hippy version of life in suburbia. [At times re-thinking this, wondering whether it’s too much to bear, living with the noise and other pollution.]
22. [Caution: possible contentious one] I’m not a fan of PSs (Post Scripts) in electronic mediums. I think they belong on paper. They’re useful when writing on paper and you think of something after you’ve signed off, and you don’t want to hand-write out the whole thing again. I have cut-and-paste on my computer. I’m pretty sure we all do. That’s why you’ll never get a PS from me in any electronic communication. [My husband says they can be funny, and allow you to add extra stuff without breaking the flow of the main bit. Maybe they have a place when used wisely. We’ll see :) ] [Later still: after the original posting of this section of this list I had an email from Wise Woman Tammy Vitale, who mentioned that PSs can be a record of thought processes and are valid and interesting from that perspective. Thanks for both of those perspectives. I’ve now mitigated my hard line stance on PSs! ]
23. In 2004 I completed an 18-month process to shed about 25 kilos (about 55 pounds). 6 years later in 2010 I reached some semblance of understanding that it really wasn’t going to ‘creep back on’.
24. Had still another noticeable mental milestone this month – I finally digested the idea that you can be healthy when technically “overweight”. I think I really ‘get it’ now. [We’ll see!]
25. Baseball Movies. I get surprisingly revved up about baseball movies. A few favourites: Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, A League of Their Own, The Rookie (Rachel Griffiths and Dennis Quaid), Major League (dodgy in spots, but the last scene signals time for dancing!) and The Natural. I thought I knew quite a few baseball movies. Check out this list, though – I found a few ‘newies’ to watch and about 192 I didn’t know of *at all*!
26. For a short while in High School, I produced a 1-page newsletter. There were just a few issues, typed on a typewriter! I photocopied (or did I use carbon paper?) about 3 copies of each! It was full of silliness, puns and long sentences. [You might remember this, Brother C!]
27. Sometimes I write and draw in chalk on our concrete driveway.
28. I’m sometimes ambivalent towards cats. I love them at the same time though, and they do make great muses [mewses – haha!] I have some funny drawings about this; for another time though, grasshopper, another time.
29. I have chameleonic handwriting. Less of a super power that could have been used for something profitable like forgery, but more in a Tara comes-and-goes *surp-ri-iiise* kind of way.
30. I love nasturtiums. Well, you might already know that part. What you probably don’t know is that when I was younger and my grandfather died in another city, Tangerine Mum put nasturtiums into the mix of flowers at his funeral to represent me.
31. I don’t watch the TV News or read the paper. I consider it info-tainment. Also, it tends to depress me. I don’t have blinkers on – I find out current events via other means. I find Leagues of Usses quite empowering as their information emails often link to petitions which can be signed online quite quickly to add an extra voice to a worthwhile point of view.
32. Sometimes I read 3 to 5 books at once, and in other periods I plough right through 1 in a matter of a few intensive days.
33. I don’t remember ever having had a tantrum in my life before, ’til I did when I thought I was going to miss a long awaited stilts class. Thanks Tangerine Man for your patience :/
34. I try to avoid stepping on members of the local Ant community. There’s a wide area of them going about their insect lives just when I’m coming into the home stretch of a jog. Stepping between them whilst jogging makes my gait all horse steppy and prancy. It makes me think of a comic series I used to read in primary school: Lucky Luke. Have you read it? I’m thinking of the scenes when the bad guys shoot the floor near Lucky Luke’s feet to intimidate him / make him ‘dance’.
35. I am trained as a Beginning Experience facilitator. Lots of listening training there! Not sure if that training actually accentuates my introversion or not – probably; oh well, it’s good to speak up as well as to listen really well!
36. My access to my intra-brainular vocabulary seems to come and go, as if on and off-line. Sometimes I *know* there is a word with a specific meaning, but can not bring it to mind. It’s not like, just getting older, this seems to wax and wane with health.
37. I sleep on my right side mostly. This began when I was pregnant, as I was told that with the heart sitting in the left of ones body, it would be under less strain; I’ve continued ever since – over 18 years!
38. I peel oranges dextrously with my left hand and awkwardly with my right hand. I realised this when I lost the feeling in my hand when peeeling a too cold orange, and got left finger damage under-the-nails; when they weren’t numb anymore it was painful to peel oranges the usual way, so I gamely used my right hand to peel oranges for 2 days! (Most other things I am more readily right-handed for.)
39. As well as being an introvert, I like to keep my life/stuff fairly private. This list, Bold Soul, is the intersection set between the things I would show / tell you if you came to my house, and things I am happy to share here!
40. I am more comfortable finding my way around in another city, than in a University in Adelaide that I didn’t attend. [I did ok in the end on the day in question, though it was interesting observing my mindset.]
41. My toes don’t point like a dancer’s. Not even close. They cramp. I can’t don’t need them to do so, certainly enough to put the time into practicing.
42. I had my hair dyed in very bright colours (haha, as is my wont) when I got married 3 years ago. Here’s a photo with the light catching the colour – no wonder I’m smiling :) [Oh yeah, could be because it was my *Wedding Day*!]
    (see also Rainbow Hair video #45)
43. I *kind of* like the idea of a tattoo – a colourful mass of swirls and/or drawings decorating my skin – I think a good one would be kind of cool. However, I am pretty sure utterly certain that I would change my mind about the picture and the location! Temporary tattoos and henna are the way to go, for me. Wonderful Humna did my wedding henna. This photo was taken just after the drawing was finished, while I was keeping still, before the paste fully dried and was ready to come off:[I wasn’t wearing jeans at my wedding, it was 2 days beforehand, so the henna would be at its strongest colour on the day; we went to the Henna Day in our regular clothes.]
44. I’ve been on a low FODMAPs diet. It’s been educational at the very least, and has also helped my digestion function better (and completely stopped a chronic pain in my side (not one from a thorn, haha!)). [I think this may warrant expanding into a blog post of its own. Do you have to avoid certain foods in your diet, Bold Soul?] Oh the irony – in getting the most up-to-date information just this week (FODMAP foods are still being researched and documented) I find that my favourite go-to snack, the cashew nut, is one of the only 2 nuts that are high FODMAPs! The other is the pistachio.
45. I made a Rainbow Hair video. Have you watched it? I would like to make more videos – it’s heaps of fun! (see also Wedding Hair #42) [I am at this moment not a Pro member of vimeo, and hence am unable to embed it here – yet … stay tuned!]
46. I started circus training at the age of 37. I am still improving ;) I was pretty unfit, and unfamiliar with the new kind of movement to begin with, but improved from that starting point to get Most Improved awards two years in a row!
47. I had a reputation in my family (when I was maybe 11) to have a cool head. This came about because I was driving my Grandfather’s tractor not long after it had come out of the shed, and as the tractor got warmer a small bright spider came out from his heating up hiding spot inside the engine. I somehow had the presence of mind to change into a neutral gear and turn the engine off with the key, before I scrambled off the back of the seat of the tractor, not taking my eyes off the arachnid interloper!
48. I am helping to get a community garden started in my local area. I can hardly wait to see it come to life!

When’s the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When’s the second best time? Today.
I encourage you do your own version of this post if you’ve not already done one … start today! I managed this mammoth task by breaking it down into 4 shorter lists. [I started wanting to do this when the list would have been only 36 statements long!] Hoorah! It’s done *now*!

I am pretty sure this is my longest post ever. If you have made it this far  – congratulations! – have a think whether you might like an extra bit of [Tangerine Juice] in your email inBox each month, in which case sign up for my eNews here.

Have a joyous week, Bold Soul!
Love Meg x o