So this showed up in my Facebook feed this week:
So of course I had to post it and see what happened.
What happened is I got some random questions, some thoughtful questions, and some rapid-fire funny questions by an inebriated friend of mine.
I enjoyed tackling ALL of the questions, and got wordy and storyteller-y with many of them, so decided to make this experience this week’s blog post.
Top 5 movies
1) Star Wars, (all of them)
2) The Fifth Element
3) The Lion King
4) Nine
5) Deadpool
Top 5 books
1) Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
2) Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight – Joss Whedon
3) Twilight series (don’t judge) – Stephenie Meyer
4) Chronicles of Narnia – C. S. Lewis
5) A Light in the Attic – Shel Silverstein
Top 5 shoplifting experiences
1) A college friend – absent-mindedly walking out of Claire’s with some jewelry in her hand, realizing it, screeching, and running back inside the store to return it.
2) When I was a little, I watched a clearly inebriated man nonchalantly try to stroll out of a Wal-Mart with a basketball under his shirt. No one tried to stop him, instead all the employees yelled at the people greeter to get the guy. She was a tiny little elderly asian woman. She refused to. A customer finally tackled the guy.
3) The fucking asshole who stole a Nintendo Gamecube on my watch at Gamestop and damn near got me fired.
4) Somebody who switched a brand-new pair of sneakers for the nasty smelly shoes they left in the box and set back neatly on the shelf for me to find weeks later when I opened that box to try on my size of sneakers.
5) The teenage girl who shoplifted constantly at Lord and Taylor in St. Louis. Her mother was teaching her to steal. Too many times I wanted to grab that girl by both shoulders, look her in the eyes, and tell her she was better than this, and to stop all the bullshit right now before we caught her (because you knew eventually she was gonna get caught), and she could take her life down a different path started right then and there. I never did. I wonder if it would’ve helped.
Note: This was obviously my inebriated friend having fun with my post.
He went on to comment: “Well, I was more interested in YOUR shoplifting experiences, but those are great stories.”
I answered: Too much of a goody-two shoes to have ever shoplifted anything, sorry. 🙂
Top 5 failed assassination attempts
(also my drunk friend’s suggestion)
1) Teddy Fucking Roosevelt – 1912. Shot in the chest while en route to give a speech, the bullet was slowed by the thick speech printed off and tucked in his coat. He gave the speech anyway before being taken to the hospital.
2) Archduke Franz Ferdinand – 1914. After a failed shooting attempt at the parade, the shooter went to have a sandwich and a drink because he was upset. Ferdinand’s car rounded the corner because of a wrong turn and drove right past the assassin sitting outside at the cafe. He didn’t miss the second time.
3) George Harrison – 1999. Stabbed seven times in his home.
4) Pope John Paul II – 1981 and 1982. Shot and later attacked with a bayonet.
5) Ronald Reagan – 1981 because I actually remember that one. They announced it on the school loudspeakers.
Top 5 creative experiences
I posted: You didn’t specify mine or just ones I witnessed, so I’ll mix it up.
1) The book I’m currently writing, Ms. X. I’m adoring the creative process. I’ll sit down to write a scene, and sometimes it goes exactly like I had planned, and sometimes I’ll be like – “Well, I didn’t see that coming!” and things go completely another direction.
2) When I was a little girl, my snowman was stolen. It was the first snowman I’d ever made, and I was very excited. He froze solid that night – in one piece. There was a basketball game at the high school, and some school kids picked him up and put him in the back of their truck. More than one person saw them riding around with the snowman that night. The next morning, I ran to the window to see my snowman, and was devastated that he was gone. Mom was already at the dining room table, working on something – and I discovered she was making me a posterboard snowman. Pictures and a more detailed version of the story is here at my Dad’s blog: https://sundowntrailblog.com/2013/02/21/the-runaway-snowman/
3) I went through a period of time I now affectionately call “The Dark Times.” About a year and a half into the mess, I experienced a form of dissociative disorder where my brain just completely shut off the ability to feel. For almost three weeks, I lost all forms of emotion. I couldn’t laugh, cry, get angry, I didn’t feel pain – (I now understand why people cut, although I didn’t), I didn’t get tired, hungry, nothing.
Finally, I decided to shock my system into rebooting. I went to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games. I had read the books. I cried for a solid half hour when I finished the books. I knew if The Hunger Games didn’t get an emotional response out of me, I was done for. About halfway through the movie, I started crying. I cried the entire movie, and by the time the credits rolled, I succeeded in shocking my emotional system back into life.
When I left the theater, Taylor Swift’s song “Safe and Sound” that rolled during the credits was in my brain. I went home and laid in bed, wide-awake, feeling like a band aid had been ripped off my soul – with all this rush of emotions that had come back. I kept thinking of that song. I couldn’t sleep, so at four in the morning I got up and went to the piano to try and play the song – and the song Evermore Lonely fell out instead. I wrote it in about 15 minutes. I’ve had a lot of people tell me it’s their favorite song of mine I’ve written.
You can listen to it on Soundcloud if you’d like: https://soundcloud.com/search?q=nashgirl01 It’s the last track.
4) I wrote a stageplay in college that was performed for a fundraising event. The whole thing was a nightmare – putting college students in charge of other college students is not a good idea. I finally went to instructors for help, and that’s the only reason it was actually successful. It was a goofy little thing, but the audience laughed in the right places, and hopefully everyone involved has happy memories of the event.
5) Spray painting my dining room walls with graffiti.
A random post today, I know – but I like telling stories. And it’s my blog. So there.
Marti Kole 