Not 100 things

I’m saving my 100 things for a special occasion*. But some things demand a response. And comments boxes just aren’t long enough. (Well, they are. But this would be a bit above and beyond. And lateral.)

So here are just some random things that I thought of while reading other people’s lists. Some of these probably deserve their own special posts. Maybe they’ll have them, one day.

The not-a-list starts here:

The shortest time I’ve ever held a job was two days. Same two days as the shortest time I ever lived in one place. I’m still ashamed of how poorly I did on that particular challenge. I blame the sunburn.

Twice, as a student, I ditched a job without informing the boss. One of those times I’m very ashamed of. The other I’m not.

Secretarial skills are seriously underrated. I’m not talking about typing.

I always wanted to wear glasses. I now own a pair. They’re not much use.

I blush very, very, very easily, frequently for literally no reason. This generally prompts interested looks from those around me, and questions like “does it just go all the way down?” (Answer: I have no idea. I’ve never looked to see. If I weren’t in public at the time, I would, though.)

At some time in my life I mysteriously acquired the tag – used admiringly or scathingly, depending on the source and context – “Robynn’s Always Right”. I hate that. I believe it to be completely unfair. But am completely unable to change it.

My sister was a total cow to me when we were growing up**. She was also an incredible drama queen. She once fled to the phone in the middle of an argument and whispered to her then boyfriend, in tones of mortal dread: “Michael, I’m scared! She – she – she threw a deodorant can at me!”***

Long after I had decided I really didn’t need to have her in my life, she decided she’d quite like me in hers, and made a sincere, tactful and very generous effort to mend fences. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen anybody do, and I love her for it.

I have a tear quota theory. It goes like this: every individual has a set volume of tears they need to use over a period of time – say, a month. Of course, this quota varies widely according to the individual. I have a fairly large quota. Ahem. Anyway, if you don’t use these tears up in one way, they will come out in another. So, if you’re going through a hard time, lots of stress and drama, you cry a lot in real life but not at the movies. If life is all sweetness and light and daisies, you will bawl at the cheesiest TV commercial. If you aren’t watching tearjerkers, or even TV, and you don’t have any real reason to cry either, you may find the tears rolling for literally no reason, which can be useful for getting attention but will more likely just piss people off. (It’s possible this theory applies only to me. I hope not. That would suggest I’m simply bonkers.)

I’m also very fond of the word quota theory, which I have heard propounded as the result of Scientific Research. Conveniently sourceless, but appealingly plausible, it goes like this: everyone has a number of words they need to use over the course of a day. For men, this quota is around 10,000-20,000 words per day; for women, it’s 20,000-40,000. The beauty of it is, going either under or over this quota causes stress. Now, don’t you know that feeling? After a particularly busy day, lots of meetings, lots of talk, you get to a point where you can’t quite string a sentence together. Or you find yourself chatting to your partner and being answered with “uh” and “hm”. Isn’t it comforting to have a cod scientific explanation for the frustration?

I started doing an accounting degree for fun. After the first six months I realised we were going to lose the cool putting numbers in columns part, and get into the more meaningful (but tedious) analysis part. So I ditched that and focused on economics. Which I loved. Until third year. Then it got kinda bleh.

Throughout my academic career – high school and two degrees – I developed a pattern of getting outrageously good marks, right up until the very final exams, when it actually counted. Then I managed to just miss a first, every time. Really annoying. This might be part of my motivation for wanting to do another degree: to force myself to actually finish it well, for once.

I used to live with two opera students. Before then, I believed I had a good singing voice. Since then, I truly believe I have lost whatever ability I ever had to sing in tune. I’ve mentioned this before.

My hair, too, is naturally curly. At age 12, I did the whole blowdry and hairspray thing. Since then, I’ve been thrilled to not have to bother. But in just the last six months, I’ve started experimenting with the blow drying again. I think of it as a challenge: if my hairdresser can do it, dammit, so can I. It’s not going so well.

Similarly, as a teenager, I developed a high degree of skill with the make-up brush. As a student, I gave up entirely, and once working, I decided that lipstick was really all it took to make me feel “done”. But now I’m hankering for a little more glamour. Can’t honestly be bothered, though. (It’s not the putting on so much as the taking off. Mascara smudges are just too Courtney Love circa 1993.)

My mother has the filthiest mind I know. It’s truly disgusting.

I learned to drive late and have only owned one car in my life. She was an immaculate 10-year-old red Toyota Conquest, called Valentine, and I loved her to bits for the two months I owned her. I bought her from a lovely man who put a rose in the ashtray when I picked her up. There was just nothing less than lovely about that car.

The Mona Lisa really is not all that.

I always hated spiders. No matter how my mom tried to convince me they were beautiful creatures of god, I loathed the nasty critters. Somehow, now, I’m mostly over that. Not sure what happened there.

I flirt far too much, and while that sometimes gets me into trouble****, it’s never gotten me any free stuff. I take this as evidence that I need to further develop my flirting skills. This means practice. Beloved may not be best impressed.

Throughout school, I managed to completely ignore the rule that every kid was supposed to do a sport. In PE one day, we were playing netball; someone threw the ball to me and I ducked. Also, in action cricket, my partner and I managed to get a negative score. In recent years, I started wondering whether it might not have been possible to find a sport I actually enjoyed, and am now seeing the point of that damn rule.

My closest brush with celebrity was having Charles Dance flirt with me. When I tried to brag about this, I realised nobody knows who Charles Dance is, and hence it really doesn’t count. Still pisses me off.

I once found something incredibly peculiar in the ocean. Fish Hoek beach, to be precise. It was squishy and probably alive. When you squeezed it, it squirted sea water out of one end. It really was completely unidentifiable. I insisted on taking it home, in the knitting bag I was carrying (having somehow removed the knitting); first, though, we went for a rather nice lunch. You’d think the maritime odour emitting from my bag would have gotten us kicked out, but no. Back at my flat, I put it on the windowsill for a few days, until it was obviously dead and stank too badly. Then I dropped it in the downstairs neighbour’s garden*****. (One reader of this blog is laughing at the memory of this experience. The rest are probably thinking there must be a good explanation for it. Trust me, there isn’t.)

Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth is the one book I want everyone on the planet to read. Beloved keeps saying he means to.

Of all the things I learnt at university, my favourite was the brief round-up of ancient Roman medicine******.

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* Not a lie. I actually am. Isn’t that the most pathetic blogging related thing you ever heard? Can I claim my most-addicted, taking-all-this-far-too-seriously crown now, please?
** She might claim that I was a cow to her. Of course, we know better. Right? …Right?
*** True, I did. I was unpacking. It was the nearest thing to hand. You better believe she deserved it.
**** This weekend I found myself receiving a stream of very flirtatious text messages from a total stranger. I was utterly unable to explain this to Beloved.
***** It’s stories like this that make me realise what an incredibly badly behaved person I sometimes am. I apologise.
****** But of course my favourite class was Victorian Fairytale. *phew* Almost got into trouble with extemporanea, there.