J’ever think of something weird and say to yourself, “Hey, I gotta write that down”? I do. If I compiled a list of every strange, funny, annoying or generally off-center thought I ever experienced, it would be quite lengthy.

The coolest “Hey, I need to write that down” manifestation has got to be the Facebook fan groups, though. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen one and said, “Hey, yeah…”

Below are some of my faves.

• I hate it when the mascara wand misses the tube and it goes all over your hand
• Typing what you really think, then backspacing and typing something else
• Jared’s Law: Protecting Us from Nothing Since 2008 (school humor)
• I hate it when I open my car door and snow falls on the seat
• Stopping the microwave just before 0:00 because you don’t want to hear the beep
• There is nothing worse than a rejected high five
• That was NOT your last piece of gum, so stop lying
• I hate it when I think of a really good comeback — after the argument
• No, I don’t care if I die at midnight — I am not passing on your stupid forward
• When I realized that the word “bed” looks like a bed, my mind was blown

My own creations would be of the “Yep, this is my life” variety:

• The severity of my headache is inversely proportional to the time remaining until I have to get up and go to work.
• My need for a blank CD is inversely proportional to the number of blank CDs in my possession. (I could go on all day long with this…)
• What I’m looking for is always, always, always in the *other* pocket
• If I didn’t need it, it would be sitting out in plain view, getting in my way

Heh heh. Hey, it’s Finkday. Enjoy it.

Just read an article about a voracious carp threatening the Great Lakes. This is a picture of a controlled fish kill. There is NO WAY that is Lake Michigan water. It’s…I mean…like….blue.

~

Didn’t he useta have red hair? Talk about NBC’s newest drama…

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*GASP*!!!! You must be joking. The UN? Wrong? My skepticism (and, admittedly, cynicism) levels are at an all-time high lately, and getting worse. What are we going to do with me? And while we’re on the subject…

The fact that people are cheering from Boston to San Francisco about Scott Brown’s win over Martha Coakley proves that we, as a nation, are no less partisan and no more concerned about unity than we were, oh, a year and a half ago. Not grinding any political ax (don’t have one)…just saying that both sides talk out of both sides of their mouths. The end.

~

I was using tweezers to handle a thin stream of strawberry purée frozen with liquid nitrogen because if you touch it, it falls apart.”

Not talking about a science experiment here. He’s referring to something he’s fixing for you to eat.

Yummy. Speakina…time to get some breakfast and hit the shower and the road. I actually have school today. The noive!

FO

And we all know it. Or at least my family and fiends know it. Do you have strange rituals and idiosyncrasies? Please say you do. I’m sure some of mine infuriate the Thriller (and others), to wit:

1. I check my online bank balance every morning, and sometimes several times a day, even though I know nothing has changed.
2. I will not get into a cold car in the morning during the winter. If that means I’m late, then I’m late.
3. I hate nearly all vegetables, but adore pickled beets. I could eat a ton of ’em.
4. I’m such a typophobic, I have to compose all my concert and musical theater programs myself, for fear of offending a coworker if I found a misspelling and had to do it over again. (And I would have to do it over again.) At least if the typo is my fault, I can just be annoyed at myself.
5. I have a thing about people’s salivary habits and sink basins. (If remnants of tooth-brushing are not completely rinsed away, something inside my head snaps.)
6. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I have to do my own choreography for my dinner theater show, and my own piano playing, because I’m afraid someone else might not do it the way I want it done. More useless phobias.
7. I think really horrible thoughts about people who carelessly take up two parking spaces in a crowded lot. Really horrible thoughts. Like, get out a paper and pen and leave them a nasty note thoughts — or worse — forget the paper and just write the note on their paintjob thoughts.
8. I occasionally eat chocolate and cookies and cereals without a thought about the sugar content — but I absolutely refuse to drink any beverage with sugar in it. Go figure.
9. I think one of the reasons I don’t wear lipstick is probably the fact that I can’t stand the sight of it on the side of a coffee mug. *shudder* Naaaaaasssssteeeeeeee
10. I have to put something here because I can’t stand lists that end on numbers 6-9.

Bet some of you could out-weird me if you tried.

Fink, enjoying the extra coffee time (sans slimy lip prints on the mug) this morning

…you’ve read, heard and seen it all…

You know, we hear the term “identity theft” bandied about every day, and I know I probably don’t give it the second and third thoughts I should. You know, “it’s all fine and good until it happens to you.” When I pay my bills online or buy things with my debit or credit card either at the point-of-sale or on the web, I really don’t think about someone getting hold of my personal information and having a vaca or a new car or just plain ripping me off. Maybe I should think about it more often. From a Rolling Stone article I recently read:

Rather than max out people’s credit cards and move on, Esther would become them, spending years living under a succession of assumed names. Posing as various young women, she got her GED in Ohio, aced her SATs in California, gained admission to three universities — including continuing-ed programs at Harvard and Columbia — and received $100,000 in student loans. Along the way, she duped countless people from coast to coast, from DMV clerks to college professors to the West Point cadets she dated.

I know that identity thieves, if not eventually caught, have to give up and at least move on. But this gal seems uncannily talented. Yeesh. Over the years, I’ve talked to people (and not all of them old folks) who believe we should go back to paying for things in cash. And if you want to buy something you can’t afford: wait. Save. How about that? Not sure how realistic that is with the prices of cars and houses being what they are, but I do see the wisdom with regard to consumable goods and the basic “toys” we simply must have. I’ve been as guilty as the next guy on that score.

In other news…

Did you see Keith Brooking’s little rant yesterday? Ah, karma. I read in one of the 5 or 6 post-mortems I scanned this morning that Brookings himself was witnessed exhibiting “run up the score” tactics and showoff mentality on many occasions in the past, both with Dallas and Atlanta. Hmmm. One of the hardest lessons, I think, is to learn to take it as well as dish it out. Can I get an amen?

I think I’ll go see if Jake’s ready for some breakfast. Have a good Monday, fiends…especially those of you who might have to go to w**k.

FO

…what path, then?

From the abstract to the explicit, fear has many faces, and as some of us know too well, spans great distances and knows no cutoff age. To the youngins who read RtB: any adult who tells you that you grow more courageous and clear-minded as you get older is, well, clearly not thinking clearly. And he/she is probably scared of a lot of stuff. That’s why those of us who’ve had an epiphany of sorts need to share. We’re out there. We just need a forum where we can write our stories. Hey, wait.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve had an intense need to be accepted, liked, appreciated: the typical right-brained, overachieving, insecure performer’s bane. It really didn’t matter what the activity was — music, writing, dancing, sports, games — where personal (outward) performance was concerned, I had to be as good or better than anyone else. As you might correctly surmise, I was disappointed on many occasions. That, in no small way, explains much about my secretly obsessive personality — and from whence/whom it originated. But that is a story for another day. Back to fear.

As a result, I spent many years in fear of being found out; discovered for the jiggly, scared-crapless mound of goo I really was. To stave off that inevitability, I added more and more mountains in my path. You know, just to prove to people that I could climb them and get across to the other side — where hopefully someone would clap. In other ways, I avoided the hard stuff, choosing instead to do things I knew I could master. The fear of being viewed as a failure was, if nothing else, an intensely effective motivator; I was an absolute slave to it. And I’m not referring to some time Long Ago and Far Away, fiends. We’re talking as recently as a stone’s throw back some months. It’s only been fairly recently that I’ve decided not to allow old ghosts to rule the day so easily anymore. Fun is the priority now.

So, back to the question. I wonder what I would have/could have done had I not been completely ruled by the fear of failure and non-acceptance. Would I have risked it all and gone to New York when I had the chance in 1978? Would I have chosen English instead of music as a college major (which actually almost happened), and thrown myself into being a serious writer instead of a teacher? Those two decisions (not going to NY and choosing a music major) were both, quite honestly, made out of abject fear.

[Insert beautiful sunrise music here.]

But really, it’s all about how you look at things, isn’t it? (What would I do had Seamus and Lars, Helen and Hannah, my beautiful grandsons, my fantastic stepchildren, and the Thriller not come into my life? I shudder to think.) You can’t change the past; the best you can do is make some sense and purpose out of it, and use it to make a better future. Lucky for me, I’m doing just that. Everything in my life happened for a reason, as cliché as that may sound. Same goes for you. But I wonder, for those of us who stayed on the “safe” side:

What would you have done differently had you not been afraid of the repercussions? Do you regret taking the path of least resistance? Not taking big chances to realize the big dream?

Are you aware that it’s not too late?

Philosofink out.