I was tagged by Gingernut over at Life in the Smoke almost two weeks ago. I just found out, so I’m obviously a little slow on the draw here.

The Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules.
3. Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag up to seven people at the end of the post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that you tagged them.  -- Really? People do that? I’m going to break this rule and let my taggees figure it out in their own time. I was tagged only once before and realized it so piteously late, I rested on the cluelessness clause and pretended it never happened. And if anyone has tried to email me with tagging notification and it got bounced, let me know via comments.

On to the Random and Weird Facts portion of our program:

1. One of the only things in my life I feel regret about: I was a little kid, maybe six years old. I was at the hairdressers waiting while my mom got coiffed. On the table next to me sat an empty fishbowl, and a sign in front of it invited me to enter my name and number to win a trip to Jamaica. I read the small print and saw you had to be 18 to enter. I defiantly filled out a card, and was notified via telephone a few weeks later that I’d won the trip. Knowing that I’d broken the rules by entering a contest I was 12 years too young to win, I forfeited my prize by hanging up the phone in a panic. Stupid, stupid six-year-old!

2. One of the only other things in my life I feel regret about happened when I was maybe about four years old. I had a balloon that had been this wondrous, six-foot, swirly-colored tube, and when it shrunk down to about two-feet in length, I decided it was time to pop it. I had never experienced a balloon popping before, so I was pretty excited about this event. I announced my intention and acquired a tack. My brother John, who was probably six and a half, said, “Don’t pop it! I’ll play with the balloon!” It was my balloon and I wanted it popped, and so I did it. When it was all over in less than a second and I had robbed us both of our toy, I felt regret and it was terrible. To this day, I still hate regret more than any emotion, which might be why I suffer it infrequently, except when I recall the balloon popping incident. I even tried going to confession to rid myself of the guilt several years later, but it didn't work.

3. My Great-Uncle Jack used to play poker with Babe Ruth. Out of sheer coincidence, we found out recently that Steve has a good friend whose great grandfather played in the same circle.

4. I think there’s something wrong with my equilibrium, probably stemming from some kind of ear defect. I get motion sick at the drop of a hat, which leads to frequent vomiting on airplanes even when the flight is relatively smooth. I once had an ear infection that was so raging, it blew out my eardrum. Literally popped my eardrum, as in -- it was gone, and I was deaf and there was a fire-hydrant-like gushing of blood that sprung forth from the fissure. The flow soon slowed to a trickle, and my ear bled for about a week straight; it was like having my period, but it was coming out of my ear. When I went to the E.R., they were calling in doctors for miles to look at this freak case, but that was after they gave me a Percocet and two shots of Demerol. God bless pain killers, because I imagine that (or at least I hope) that whole ordeal was more painful than childbirth. Eardrums grow back, much like tails on salamanders, so I was only deaf in one ear for a month or two.

5. I am a self-improvement junky. I’m always trying to cure my shortcomings. So far this year, I’ve worked on losing weight (lost 15 pounds) and halting procrastination (am mostly finished with my novel). My next project is to learn how to stop being perpetually late, seeing as I have a capricious relationship with time, to say the least. One day, I will be perfect. Wish me luck. ;-)

6. This one's related to number five: I can’t stand aging, and I will do almost whatever it takes -- except surgery -- to stay young-looking. Creams, lotions, lasers: you are my friends. I’m going to be a damn fine 86-year-old with no regrets aside from balloon popping and the like.

7. I’m weird about money, in the hoarding sense. I definitely keep enough around to have a good time, and I will buy Steve a plasma TV whenever we move to a new place. At the same time, I tend to stockpile dough when it comes to the big stuff, like retirement. Maybe that’s not weird, and I'm just being fiscally responsible. Okay, so that one’s a boring fact.

Tag, you’re it!
La over at Rad Fanny

Jess of Du Wax Loolu

Strange Bird runs with scissors

Clink ain’t afraid of heights

Molly has a badass shoe collection

Entertaining honeymooner, a.ka. Unnaturally Blonde

Eat some turkey and pumpkin pie and enjoy yourself.

On Saturday, we're going to look at my preferred wedding venue. Fingers crossed that we're good to go and we get it booked. 

And finally, I got the job! I finish up at my current place of employment next week, and the start date for my new role is December 5th. Of course I'm thrilled. Happy Thanksgiving to me.

I’m sort of in this weird holding pattern with the book right now. I can either decide that I’ve reached the end of the book and go back in there and add to it from the middle with more scenes to really flesh things out. Or I can decide that our heroine wants to continue on her messy journey and keep on writing out into a future timeline.

Extending the storyline sounds like a royal pain in the arse, since I had the story arc ‘just so’ with all these different moving pieces and everything got all wrapped up into a pretty bow at the end. If our heroine keeps trundling along, then I would either need to tear apart the package and rework it, or I would have to create a whole new set of problems and resolutions for everybody. Blah blah blah.

So while I let all of this percolate, I’ve begun to get absolutely obsessed with the clutter in our apartment. I like to say that Steve and I are crammed into a one bedroom apartment for now, as if this crowded situation will be remedied soon enough with more space. We all know this is absolute horse hockey, as with more space inevitably comes more  S T U F F  to fill it up. And with the market as it is, we are going to be living here for at least another year.

With that realization, the discomfort of our living situation is finally bugging the living crap out of me. There is clutter everywhere.  It’s a very irritating and unwelcoming feeling to walk into our apartment when you’re instantaneously assaulted with a bike, a trash can and two bags of golf clubs. And that’s just the foyer.

Last night, I chugged two glasses of wine with dinner, stuffed my face with some chips and then went totally nuts. This morning I had three trash bags filled to go out, and I have only just begun. I have a very detailed plan of attack to trim the fat, and by the end of this mission, everything left in our apartment will have a home. No more full wardrobe sitting on the dining room table. No more running into furniture because the path to get by is fraught with clutter. Oh, about that. It’s sad when you get used to sporting massive bruising on one leg because you repeatedly crash into the same sharp edge of an end table. There have actually been jokes made about childproofing the furniture for my benefit.

My she-date with Heather was a huge success and we totally hit it off. We drank too much and chatted until we were blue in the face and we stayed out way too late on a school night because we totally lost track of time. We agreed that most wedding magazines and planning books are time suckers and we vowed to go with no-frills binders to collect our ideas.

We decided, not only do we need to do this again, but that we need to make it an every-two-weeks habit. At a minimum.

And we already made plans for this coming Saturday. We're going to get drunk and eat chili and then try on wedding dresses. I like I’m in love.

Glass Half Full
1.    I’m engaged!
2.    To a man I can’t get enough of!
3.    I stopped shoveling food into my mouth at an alarming rate and started working out.
4.    I think I look kinda cute today.
5.    I’m drinking coffee out of a construction worker thermos.
6.    I’m meeting Todd’s girlfriend Heather out for a drink tonight, and I love this girl to death and could totally be, like, BFF with her. This is the first time we’re going out alone without the men folk. Very exciting, like a she-date.

Glass Half Empty
1.    Steve will be home alone tonight eating our delicious, spicy beef leftovers without me. I will miss my pooky. Plus, I will be out there navigating the harrowing pitfalls of restaurant food while on a diet.
2.    I still haven’t heard whether I have this new job or not. If I were a nail biter, I would have gnawed my fingers off to the knuckle by now.
3.    It’s making me crazy. I’ve decided I want that job. Why don’t they just call me and give it to me already. All lines are open! Operators are standing by! Call now!
4.    I have to be the best candidate. Who’s this other clown they’re pitting me against?
5.    This person must be eliminated. Seriously. The East River yearns for a fresh body.
6.    Even if they do offer me the job, I don’t have as strong a negotiating stance from a salary standpoint, since there could be someone else waiting in the wings to swoop in and snatch the role from my greedy clutches. Would this mean I would have to be more timid about negotiating vacation, too? Aye carumba.