One For Truth

Seven Things About Zeke That Would Surprise His Friends

There's been a challenge passed around in certain blog circles recently where one blogger can ask another any 3 personal questions--with no restrictions--and they have to be answered honestly and completely.

I'd like to play, but given that I'd have to restrict up front any disclosing of identities of me and my family, I have to beg off. Instead, I'll play another game that I've seen on the web: Seven Things About Yourself that Would Surprise Your Friends.

1. I am an (almost) certified massage therapist. Yup, I completed massage school. The occassional friend and Mrs. Zeke are my only customers, and I've never taken a dime from anybody. But I am good... or was, really, because my hands got pretty fried.

2. I am a level-one Reiki practicioner who hasn't practiced in years and never will again. Part of my new-age wilderness wanderings.

3. I once worked cleaning Mexican grocery stores at night. They would lock me in the store at ten at night and open the doors up at 7 in the morning. I used to wonder, looking at the bars on the doors and windows, what I would do if the store caught on fire. I took the job from an illegal alien who lost it because his agency got audited. I did it until I got a full time job so that my days would be open to look for work. It gave me carpal tunnel so bad I almost couldn't sleep at night from the pain.

4. I play bass, and played in a garage band in high school. Good memories and bad. I love to play, but I haven't always had the best experiences playing.

5. I smoked a lot of pot in high school and early college. And I'm not proud of it, and I don't have the remotest desire to ever do it again. Not that I judge those who do, I just can't stand what it does to my brain. I did it because my friends did at the time, and some of them still do over twenty years later.

6. I have been diagnosed with depression and was on medication for a while. This surprises friends because so many of them think I come across as very peaceful and relaxed. Comes from a lifetime of faking it, I guess.

7. I've dated women who were more than 10 years younger than me--and that was when I was 30. I classify this with my potsmoking experiences: I'm not proud of it, and have no desire to ever do it again.

Other items that could have made the cut but didn't are: I've completed the Anchorage Marathon, I used to write and recite poetry, I used to have a gay man as a roommate, Mrs. Zeke and I waited until our wedding day even though neither of us were virgins, I would be dead except for modern medicine, I used to be in the Star Trek fan club, I got in trouble as a kindergartener for giving my neighbor girl an uninvited kiss, I went from being deathly afraid of public speaking to going undefeated in my college debate club for two years, I wrote erotic short stories that I now wish I had never shown another human being, and much more.

Anyone care to take up the challenge? Post a comment here if you do with a link back to your blog.

posted by Zeke @ 7:52 AM