Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing a lot more personal sharing in my weekly e-zine.  I’ve been trying to step out of the lecturey, “oh look at me telling you everything I know about something” kind of writing, especially in my blog.  Since I stepped away from writing exclusively about magic and Paganism I’ve found as I read blogs about magic and Paganism they are often written in such a way that makes me feel like either A) I’m being talked down to or B) like there’s not a real person behind what’s being written.  I’m much happier doing what I do now as opposed to how I was blogging even just a year ago. That shift has made me much more aware of how I’m speaking and how much of me is shining through what I write.  Since I’ve been sharing more in my e-zine I thought I’d share a bit more here too.  So here’s a post full of stuff you probably don’t know about me!

 

1.  I’m a java junkie.

I like to say that I’m a big fan of tea, because it’s sort of the hippie thing to be into, right?  And I do like tea, I do!  But I can’t kick coffee!  I tried to switch from drinking coffee to this tea from Mighty Leaf Tea called Organic Breakfast that was supposed to be a good substitute for coffee.  Yeah…not so much.

But I save on coffee costs by making my own vanilla lattes at home!

2. Speaking of food, I used to be vegan.  Used to…

Back in 2007 I became a vegan after about a month of doing a wacky diet that had me eating literally nothing but dry chicken and turkey, tuna, egg whites, and berries.  It was awesome because I lost 40lbs in a month but horrible because I got to the point where I practically gagged when I ate any of that stuff.  One day I found myself online reading about weight loss with vegan diets and went cold turkey on animal products {pun intended}.  It lasted a year before I ended up eating dairy again and in another six months I was eating meat again.  I was a bad vegan anyway.  I was a “hey, chips and Oreos are vegan” kind of vegan.  As you can imagine I didn’t lose any more weight.

3. I don’t wanna work, I want to bang the drum all day!

I can play a bunch of instruments {bass, guitar, piano/keyboards} but my favorite is the dejembe.  I could play all day if someone would let me.  I have a secret dream of being a dejembe player in a Dead Can Dance cover band. I started playing in 2000 while I was part of a Pagan church and it quickly became a deep love of mine.  I own 2 dejembes, but one has a split head {currently…I hope to fix it eventually}.  I also have a Native American hoop drum, which I love, and an Irish bodhran which I absolutely CANNOT play!

Dead Can Dance performing one of my favorite songs of theirs live.

4. I was ditched at my junior prom.

Yup, my date left with someone else.  Though, to be fair, I don’t think he thought it was actually a date.  I asked someone who was in the sophomore class who I had a big crush on, he said yes, and he left to hang out with someone else part way through the night.  I didn’t like him anymore after that.

jerk.  😛

5. Call me Light Fingers!

I shoplifted when I was 5 {or there abouts}.  I don’t remember exactly where we were other than it was a mall.  We were in a store that had really neat looking pens…at child level, mind you.  One of them was in the shape of an ice cream cone and I decided I had to have it but my Mom didn’t want to buy it for me.  So I took it.  She made me take it back.  This would be the beginning of a life long obsession with pens and other office supplies.

6. I don’t do animated movies.

I’m not sure when I was so severely traumatized by cartoon movies, but I can’t watch animated movies.  I broke that rule back when the first Toy Story movie came out and the scene where the Aliens are being pulled out by the crane in the crane game made me cry like a baby.  Ban reinstated.  Ban broken again last fall because I really wanted to see Brave.  I LOVED Brave.  I did cry, but it wasn’t a traumatic type of crying, so it was OK.  The ban is still in effect, though I’m thinking of breaking it to watch Hotel Transylvania.

7. I should be on a no fly list.

I’ve been on a plane three times in my life.  The first two I screamed and cried…I was 16.  In fact the return flight, my second time on a plane, I almost didn’t make the flight because I locked myself in a stall in the bathroom at the Orlando airport.  I flew across country a few summers ago, just one way, and I did alright through most of the flight though toward the end I was getting really antsy and started to get light headed.  I really hate flying, I’m terrible at it.

8. I’m goth.

You might not know it from looking at recent pictures of me but I am and have been goth since I was 13.  The whole fashion thing is just a part of it, and admittedly not one I’m that into anymore, mostly because I don’t go anywhere {more on that in a bit} but the culture and music are still very near and dear to me.  Wanna see some pictures??!!??

This was about 2003…damn that hair was awesome!

This was 2002…I had a labret piercing three different times
over the years.   I kind of miss it.

1998…check out the boa!  Classy.

9. My favorite band scares most people.

This is my one of my all time favorite bands…

Skinny Puppy…a very 80’s moment.

This is what they sound like…

This is one of their…tamer…songs.  Despite their {to the ears of some people} scary sound, many of their songs are political in nature or have to do with social issues.   They have a long history of supporting the animal rights movement and writing material along those lines.  Their concerts are true performance art and are some of the most amazing live shows I’ve ever been to.

10. But you’ll never believe what my first concert was…

Elton John.  I was in the 8th row.  I think I was 10.  It wasn’t my choice but it was a cool experience for a 10 year old.

11. Fall down go boom!

I fell off the retaining wall of a water tower when I was 18.  It happened during the welcome back weekend my second year of college.  I had gone to Taco Bell with two friends and one of them got the idea to go eat on top of the water tower near school.  From the parking lot where we were standing the wall was mid-calf high.  I don’t know what made me think that the ground was at the same level on the other side, but I sat on the edge of the wall, swung one leg over, and tried to just step down.  I fell 15 feet and landed on my back.  I was VERY lucky that nothing happened and I walked away without a scratch.  I’m pretty sure the backpack I constantly had with me helped break my fall and protected me a bit.

12. I use the words “wicked” and “pissa” a lot.  Sometimes together.

It’s funny to me how much Boston/New England vernacular that is normal for me is completely unknown to the rest of the world, but I guess that’s part of what comes from having never traveled much.  Words like suppah, bubblah, yah huh, bagged, booted, packie, statie, rippa, roadies or road sodas, and kehd…and a phrase you’ll hear me say a lot when I’m drunk that I totally picked up from being in Boston. “This fucking guy…” {followed by pointing, head shaking, and walking away from someone who’s acting like an idiot}.   I’m wicked smaat.  🙂

13.  Reality is for suckers.

I love trashy “reality” TV.  It all started with watching COPS with my Mom when I was a kid and then watching the first 3 or 4 seasons of The Real Word when that first started.   I love things like Rock of Love, Flavor of Love, Bus of Love {whatever that other Bret Michael’s show was}, Jersey Shore, Mob Wives…though I don’t watch shows like The Bachelor because I find those network shows boring.  I like to know I’m going to see some girl pull some other girl’s hair at least once during the show.   I’m also a huge Gordon Ramsey fan and watch most of his shows…Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, Hotel Hell, and his BBC shows like The F Word.

14.  Jammers on the line!

I was a roller derby ref for a little while.  I had to quit because there just weren’t enough hours in the day for me to work, study, and still go to practices, ref meetings, scrimmages, and games 3 or 4 times a week.  My ref name was Sybil Disobedience.

My ref gear…

My new {ast the time} skates after I’d put new wheels on them one day…

15. A ghost made me do it!

When I was driving back to my parents house from Boston one weekend when I was 21 I got in an accident on the Mass Pike because I heard my spirit guide at the time laughing.  I didn’t know what she was laughing about but it kept getting louder and louder and sounded like it was coming from behind me, which is odd because I always hear my guides next to me on my right side.  So I turned my head, figuring she was trying to get me to see something behind me, and sure enough I hit the car in front of me which was stopped in traffic.  Since I had a crappy little GEO Metro at the time the hood crunched right up like a tin can and I had to drive home like that.  I stopped a few blocks from my house to call my Mom and warn her before I pulled in the driveway.  She had the car fixed and sold it because I was irresponsible or something like that.  “My spirit guide made me do it,” doesn’t cut it no matter what you say.

16. I’ve never been out of the country.

Not even to Canada.  But if I had to move out of the country, which I’ve debated a few times in the past, I’d consider Canada or Australia.  Though my husband would like to move to Iceland despite never having been there.

17. It’s like I have two different feet…

I busted my left ankle when I was in my early 20s running on a very uneven cemetery walkway.  I thought at the time that I just twisted it but about a year later it kind of occurred to me that I had probably fractured it.  I’ve done this again to the same ankle 5 times, including once on a sidewalk in New Orleans {while sober, I swear}.  My left ankle is super weak and I hurt it really easy.  It’s also nearly twice the size of my right ankle from all this torture it’s been through, which makes my feet look funny.

18. I’m a future crazy cat lady.

Or you could argue I already am one.  My cat Loki is my best friend.  After my cat Xena died in October he and I have become much more attached to each other.  He became especially attached to me after he had to stay in a kennel for 9 days while my husband and I drove across country from Boston to San Diego when we moved in December.   I spend every day with him and we have little conversations.  I’m not allowed to go in rooms with closed doors…he freaks out if I’m in the bathroom and he’s not in there with me.

This was the day we got him from the kennel once we
were back in San Diego.  I wasn’t allowed off the floor.  Any time I
tried to get up to unpack or do anything he would scream.  So we just sat
like this for the whole day.

19.  I’m a bit of a shut in.

I don’t know what it is but in the last 5 years or so I’ve become a bit of a hermit.  I don’t like leaving the house for anything.  For a while it was so bad that going to the grocery store would give me panic attacks.  It’s not that bad now, but it seems to take a lot to get me to go places and do things.  I would rather be reading, working, or sleeping, all things that I can do at home.

20. My guilty pleasure music?

Ke$ha.  Yeah…you heard me.

Or was that a clever reason to use a Christopher Walken meme?
No, I actually like Ke$ha.

21. I’m fat.

I hate the term “overweight” because I have no idea who’s weight I’m supposed to be over.  Fat is what it is that makes me as big as I am.  I also don’t like saying “I am fat” because I’m not my fat, but I still don’t like the phrase “overweight”.   I’ve also become sort of apathetic toward it in the last few years, but that’s something I’m working at changing as we speak.

22.  I’ve been a Witch since I was 13. 

I officially started practicing magic, and at the time specifically neo-Wicca, when I was 13 though I’d been learning about it since I was 11.  I am an initiated priestess and have been a High Priestess of two different covens over the years. I’ve spent time studying with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, Christopher Penczak, and Laurie Cabot.  I’m still a practitioner of the Craft though I don’t advertise it like I used to; it’s something that I feel is more personal and private at this point for me.  I wrote a little something about it not too long ago that sort of expresses my changing perspective on my path as a Witch.

23. They have more money than you and this is what they do.

I am completely addicted to Rich Kids Of Instagram.  There’s something weird and perverse about it that I can’t pull myself away from.

24.  No news is good news in my book.

I can’t watch the news.  I get really attached to news stories and I obsess over them.  When the Boston Marathon bombing happened I barely slept because I couldn’t pull myself away from the news, though I will attribute a good part of that to the fact that it was my beloved city of Boston.  In fact the CNN logo and news ticker was burned into my TV screen for a week.

25.  My marriage is based on a lie.

Well, maybe not my marriage but the way my husband and I got together was sort of based on a lie.  I had commented to my friend Kat at work that I thought he was cute and Kat started telling everyone because she hated the guy I was dating at the time.  The whole office was then determined to get the two of us together so someone told him I said “hey” and then someone told me he said “hey” back when, in fact, neither of us said anything to anyone.  I think it took about a week for us to go on our first date.  I moved in with him a few months later and then the rest is history.

We got married in Las Vegas by a guy dressed as Dracula three years later.

And that’s my story…25 things about me that you probably didn’t know and now you do!