6/28/2007

Seven Random Things

I enjoyed reading seven random things about Carol (via Colleen), so...

1) I've decided to take the morning off work on July 11 to catch the first screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the IMAX screen downtown. (I'm not telling anyone about this but you.)

2) One of my most favorite things in the world is the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on Monday and Tuesday nights during the summer when all the rides are only $.75 (in college it was $.50). I pig out on corn dogs and lemonade and ride the Giant Dipper over and over (last car only!), along with the log ride and Rock-O-Plane which is one of these things, but I refuse to get on a ferris wheel because ferris wheels terrify me. I make my friends play several games of air hockey with me (I am extremely competitive) and take silly pictures in the photo booth. My favorite $.50 night in college also featured a free concert on the beach by Sister Sledge. (Added: the Boardwalk turns 100.)

3) On vacation, I like to re-read my favorite short novels. They include The Crying of Lot 49, Down and Out in Paris and London, The Great Gatsby, The Sheltering Sky, Demian, A Feast of Snakes, and a random book I found in the cutout bin several years ago called The Man Upstairs by someone named T.L. Parkinson.

4) My favorite artist is Henri Rousseau. When I was a romantic (pretentious slacker weenie) college drop-out, I used to spend whole days alone in my Tenderloin studio apartment making paintings in his style.

5) I failed algebra in the 8th grade because I had a huuuge crush on the teacher and couldn't concentrate on the lecture if you know what I mean and I think you do--wink, wink. After getting over him, I enjoyed math ever since and sometimes regret that I didn't major in it in college.

6) I enjoy baseball, but not football or basketball. I might like hockey, but I doubt I'd like soccer. I've always wanted to go to horse races, but I have no interest whatsoever in car races or Nascar. I don't care for golf, but I'll tag along if I can drive the cart. I ran track in high school, but didn't enjoy it. I would eagerly go to a shooting range and try shooting targets if anyone ever invites me.

7) We like to eat breakfast for dinner and do that every couple of weeks. Scrambled eggs, toast, sausage, and refried beans with salsa and melted cheese. (But no coffee at dinnertime.)

I'm not really the sort of person to tag people, but if I was I might tag Lisa, Alex and JVA, among others...

11 comments:

JvA said...

Will do, Chuck, this weekend. I probably won't include these items, which I'm thinking of now because they relate to yours.

* Because I actually grew up in the Bay Area and not Portland, as I usually claim, I went to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk all the time as a kid. I still remember that the commercials went something like: "Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, everybody has a good time."

* I think I've read all of Hermann Hesse's novels except "Steppenwolf," even though someone once told me that "a woman would never understand that book."

* I am 100 times more likely to eat dinner for breakfast than breakfast for dinner.

* The one time I've gone to a baseball game at the beautiful, retractable-roofed Safeco Field here in Seattle, on one of the hottest days of that summer, I found it so stultifyingly boring that I had to leave during the third inning. I told my companion, "I need to go on a little walk -- and I can't promise that I will come back." I left the stadium, thinking I would catch a bus home, then I realized I had absolutely no money, and I ended up walking three miles uphill without any water in the heat to get home.

* There is something that I'm not telling you about that last story.

chuck b. said...

I hated baseball for thirty years before one day in grad school when I randomly let the TV sit on a world series game, and suddenly, I got it. It clicked. I was, like, OH! This is what it's about. Now I understand. I wasn't even stoned.

I like to eat dinner for breakfast too, but we rarely have left overs so it happens the other way for me most of the time. Pizza would be the dinner item I have for breakfast most often.

I tried to read other novels by Hermann Hesse, but never made much progress with that.

Carol Michel said...

Thanks for posting these seven random things. I've got to give credit to Colleen at www.inthegardenonline.com/serendipity for getting me into it.

I eat breakfast for dinner sometimes, too, because it is easier to fix, but never dinner for breakfast.

JvA said...

A little wine in the morning /
And some breakfast at night


It occurs to me now, as it often has in the past, that "Beginnng to See the Light" by the Velvet Underground is one of the best songs ever written.

The melody is irresistible, and the smart lyrics are all about pure dumb fun.

There are problems in these times /

But WOO none of them are mine!

I'm beginning to see the light.

chuck b. said...

The silliest song of theirs is the one I can never get out of my head, Lonesome Cowboy Bill. It's possible I haven't heard the song in 15 years, but "lonesome cowboy Bill, riiides the ro-de-o..." passes through my mind and out of my mouth not infrequently.

LostRoses said...

I just read "From the Ground Up" by Amy Stewart where she writes about growing her first garden within a stone's throw from the Santa Cruz boardwalk. I'd never heard of it before and it sounds like you have quite a history there!

chuck b. said...

I really enjoyed that book. I lived not very far from where she gardened!

lisa said...

Uh-oh! I forgot to post my random things! Tomorrow for sure...

Randy said...

Did You go to Uncle Charlie's $ummer Camp for undergards, too, Chuck? Small world. I lived on Cayuga St. one year. Walked across the railroad bridge to get to the Boarawalk.

chuck b. said...

I lived on Cayuga too! Close to Soquel Street. That was the year after I graduated actually when I was just working (1996).

I also lived on 4th Avenue near the yacht harbor (1988-1989), Gharkey Street parallel to Bay near the Dream Inn (1991), Belmont Street up near the top of Ocean Street (1994-1995), and one summer on Peyton Street off Mission near the former Saturn Cafe (1994).

(I was a frequent college drop-out; I've always preferred making money to spending it.)

I used to ride a bike in Santa Cruz. I had the best ass after riding it up to the university on and off for several years. Sigh.

What college did you go to? I'm a Cowell man.

chuck b. said...

(I was riding my bike when I lived on Cayuga, but walked the trestle when I lived near the yacht harbor.)