An Octagon Of Ontology

My friend Chris Bradley at Deeply Blasphemous tagged me recently  - and no sooner had I blinked and said, "Huh?", then my good friend Stardust at Thoughts For the Open Minded tagged me with the same meme.

It seems to be that these memes are mushrooming. Not long ago (I recall), it was usually a list of five. Now it's up to eight. I've noted that other bloggers are being tagged far more often (with the same meme) than me.

So I've given it some thought (and trust you me, I've shared so very much with you all, it's been some deliberation indeed - a Herculean effort to remain original), here's yet more to add to anyone's gossip hoard (although, if you're gossiping about me, then I suggest a few more hobbies: I'm really rather a regular fellow in most respects, and my antics are unlikely to garner a mention in a supermarket tabloid, I'll warrant):

First, the rules.

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

So, now, on to the meat of the meme:

1. I have what can best be described as neurotic eating habits. That is to say, I eat each item separately, in a specific order. If I have potatoes, vegetables, and meat on my plate, I eat them respectively like that. Desert is almost always the afterthought. Bread, usually after the plate (or salad, if served separately). I eat cookies in even numbers, and certain foods are consumed at certain times. I stick to a schedule, and am not a huge snacker (as of late, I eat two sticks of string cheese at work).

2. I have a bugaboo about wasting food. It's the closest thing I can think of to a sin, to waste it. I get in high dudgeon if people start joking about food fights. Unless you've gone hungry (and been hungry for a while), that'll be hard to understand.

3. I get weepy when I watch movies or TV shows where a character sacrifices him/herself to save others. I may be a guy (time for a rendition of "I'm a man, a big fucking man, a manly man, I do MANLY things"), but it's not emasculating to weep - case in point:
I'm working my way through Farscape - Season 2, and I just watched 'My Three Crichtons', where an alien probe tries to take a sample of Crichton, and is interrupted. The result is three Crichtons - an atavism, modern day, and extremely evolved. Turns out the least evolved of them (the caveman version) could see the solution to the imminent destruction of Moya. Call me a big softie, but something about altruism gets me a bit choked up.

4. I actually like doing windows - both the OS and the actual physical act. The former is the surfeit of tools/doo-dads that make life easier (though I've gotten past the 'ooh, let's install THAT' phase, as it's too costly), and the latter? Well, you can see what kind of job you've done. I find crystal clarity enchanting on multiple levels, I guess. That, and it's hard to argue with results.

5. I'm fairly careless about my own possessions as a rule, but extremely careful about others'. Example: I haven't ever balanced my own checkbook. However, if my job entails balancing someone else's, it'd be to the penny, you betcha. I tend to be somewhat less object-oriented than most people (you computer programmers can have fun with that one all you like, at my expense) - I've found that material possessions, like most items, are ephemeral at best. So I don't get all engrossed over what's mine as opposed to what's someone else's. For example, I've been rear-ended a couple of times at stop lights, but I don't turn into some raving lunatic when it happens. I tend to shrug it off.

6. I have mentioned this before, but I'm extremely empathic. Almost to a fault. I recently hit a squirrel on a freeway - I still feel bad about it. I hate hurting anything, if I can help it.

7. I'm an extremely generous lover. Yeah, every guy makes that claim, but I got references, I tell ya! A woman's cries of pleasure are one of the biggest aphrodisiacs for me. The noisier you are, the more you're going to get, baby. (In the voice of Barry White): "Wanna see my love resume, baby?" Passion's a byword for me, a way to live, a way to be, a way to...you can figure out the rest.

8. I talk to myself. This seems to get commoner every day (for everyone, I mean). I am capable of silence, both internal as well as external (wouldn't be much of a Tai Chi player now, would I?), but I am just such a garrulous fellow, sometimes I just gotta talk to someone. Sometimes, I rehearse what I'm going to say, sometimes I just crack myself up, other times it's just entertainment value. I maintain that it's all right to talk to yourself, and equally okay to answer yourself: however, if you end up beating yourself up over the disagreement, therapy might be advised (you may laugh, but I've seen an example or two where someone actually was hitting themselves while jabbering like a monkey).

There. I've shared much of myself with my beloved readers. I could go into detail about many, many other mundane details, but eight is stretching it just a bit, ere the eyeballs go glazed.

As to rules #4 and 5: I'm going to opt out here, and do the lazy thing. Please feel free to go tag yourself (and I say that in the least derogatory manner). Almost everyone I know has been tagged more than once (though I've not yet seen any bloggers tag themselves), so please take it upon yourself/selves to participate (void where prohibited, hehehehe).

Any questions?

Till the next post, then.

 

ADDENDUM:
I began thinking after the post, and realized that not EVERYBODY I know has been tagged. So, without further ado, I hereby tag -

Mojoey
Mesoforte
The Grecian beauty, Toomanytribbles
Amanda
Atheist in a Minivan
The Watcher
Plonka
The right Rev. Jenner J. Hull