List 10 things you would never do. —Katrina

Let’s do this Letterman-style, shall we?

10. Go deep-sea diving. The idea of being underneath that much water…no, thank you.

9. Eat brains, neither as a culinary delicacy or because I’m a zombie. (I’d be the rare vegetarian zombie.)

8. Live in a small, rural town on anything more than a very temporary basis. I’ve been there, done that, and you know what? I’m a city girl. I kind of love crowded urban sidewalks and driving on freeway overpasses and tall buildings and having multiple libraries and malls and movie theaters to choose from. I can see why some people like small towns or the country, but I just go stir-crazy.

7. Get a facial piercing. I love the way they look on other people, but they’re not for me.

6. Be on a reality TV show. I can’t even watch reality TV because many people on those shows annoy me so much that I want to hurl the TV out the nearest window. Troy banned me from watching reality shows years ago because I get so worked up. Luckily, there are plenty of good sci-fi shows to keep me occupied.

5. Illegal drugs. I’ve never smoked, I barely drink. I’m just too law-abiding and not thrill-seeking enough to do drugs. I grew up right smack in the middle of the Just Say No era, and the message sank in. Plus, did I mention that they’re illegal?

4. Have a Freebie Five list. Yes, I totally understand that people make those lists for fun and that most (some?) of the people who make them wouldn’t be expected to actually follow through in the unlikely event they had the chance with one of their Five, unless they were a character on a sitcom. Knowing someone has a List doesn’t make me think they’re a terrible person, or anything like that. It’s just one of those things I don’t do. My design doesn’t allow for it, kind of like how I have zero understanding of what makes gambling fun. (Sure, you go right ahead and blow that $50 on slots. I’d rather spend it on books or movies, or possibly yarn or pottery-painting or a new camera lens. Heck, even a nice dinner out makes light years more sense to me than handing it over to a casino.)

3. Go skydiving or bungee jumping. I like just a little bit of adrenaline. Driving on a busy freeway in a new city? Sounds like fun! Standing on a tall structure and looking down? I love heights. Make a new recipe for the first time when company is coming for dinner? Bring it on, I’m confident of my cooking ability. Go hang-gliding? Hmm…maybe. I’m definitely intrigued by the idea. Jumping out of a plane or off a bridge, even when I logically know I’m equipped with a parachute or safety cord? No. Just…no.

2. Go to a tanning booth. Skin cancer runs in my family. Not remotely worth the risk.

1. Say never. Hey, life can be unpredictable.

What’s something YOU would never do?

I’m taking part in a blogging group called Reverb Broads that will be suggesting daily blogging prompts this December. It’s unlikely that I’ll do it every day (I missed Days 3-5, including a prompt I suggested) but I’ll be using them occasionally throughout the month as they tickle my fancy. If you want to join in, feel free! Go here or here to learn more.

What is the stupidest thing you did this year? What about in your whole life? You can take stupid to mean: embarrassing, dangerous, funny, lame, whatever you consider “stupid.” —Kassie

I have very healthy self-esteem which allows me to blithely forget the stupid things I do. At least, I assume that’s what happens, because I know for a fact that I do stupid stuff all the time (ask my husband, I’m sure he could tell you a story or ten), but nothing is jumping to mind from this past year.

However, I do vividly remember the moment I realized that looking stupid and being embarrassed was not only not gonna kill me, but that it in fact was even kinda fun. I was 10 years old, it was the last day of fourth grade, and my class was playing games and goofing off after we helped move the chairs and desks from our classroom to storage (I went to a small parochial school so the students were also occasionally slave labor). My friend Jenny, who was super outgoing and hilarious and had inexplicably picked me to be her best friend in our class, offered to lead everyone in the motions of some song we were singing, and without asking she grabbed my hand and dragged me to the front of the class with her.

Now, back then I was shy. I hated being the center of attention. I hated being looked at. I didn’t like being singled out for criticism or praise. I just wanted to be left alone to read my book and fade into the wallpaper. The fact that Jenny had dragged me up to the front of the class with her to wave my arms and jump around like a giant dork in front of everyone should have made me freeze and then run for the hills like a scared rabbit. But over the course of that year I had slowly changed.

Being friends with Jenny was a big part of that change. She was so confident and unafraid to be weird and silly, and she was awesome. If someone like her thought it was okay to risk being laughed at, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. The other major component of that change was that I’d moved from a big public school where there were three classes of 30 kids in each grade to a small school where my entire grade only had 12 kids in it. So not only were there fewer people for me to embarrass myself in front of, but they were people who had not known me my whole life. They didn’t have preconceived notions of who I was and what I would or wouldn’t do. It’s always a little easier to break out of a rut when everyone around you doesn’t keep pushing you back into it.

When Jenny pulled me to the front of the class so I could sing and do the motions to a silly camp song with her, my heart was pounding and my mouth was dry and I felt like I might throw up. But I threw caution to the wind and did it. I sang the heck out of that song (strangely, although I can remember the moment perfectly in other ways, I have no memory of what the song was) and I acted out the stupid motions while everyone was looking at me and laughing good-naturedly as they sang along.

When we were done, I felt idiotic and shaky and completely exhilarated. I couldn’t believe that I’d done it. I’d looked moderately stupid in front of a bunch of my peers and I was still standing and breathing and if anyone was making fun of me I didn’t even care, because at that moment I started understanding that when you’re willing to risk looking stupid sometimes, life is a lot more fun.

I’m taking part in a blogging group called Reverb Broads that will be suggesting daily blogging prompts this December. It’s unlikely that I’ll do it every day, but I’ll be using them occasionally throughout the month as they tickle my fancy. If you want to join in, feel free! Go here or here to learn more.

(This is a screencap, not a video.)

At naptime today, Elliora nursed and then declined to actually go to sleep. So we got up and played with Photo Booth instead.

(0:58)

In this one, you can hear her saying “yeah,” one of her favorite words; and you can see her bottom teeth pretty clearly a couple of times. Every time she leans forward, she’s touching the monitor where she could see her face, and occasionally banging on the keyboard.

(1:07)

When I say “ow” in this one at the :49 mark, it was because she flung herself backwards so suddenly that her head connected with my cheekbone rather painfully. I don’t know if, when she says what sounds like “back,” if she was actually saying that word. But I figured it wouldn’t hurt to repeat it and move her back to the laptop. At the end when I tell her to say bye-bye, she actually says, “ha,” which means “hi.” Contrary little twerp.

(0:39)

If you only watch one of these videos, watch this one. It’s the shortest, and there’s lots of laughing (plus me pulling faces) in it.