1. Licking the glue on certain types of envelopes and stamps…the ones that are vaguely sweet and minty. When I was a kid, and my parents would get Publisher's Clearinghouse junkmail, my dad would let me abscond with the subscription stamps and lick them and stick them to my heart's content, so long as I didn't stick them to anything other than pieces of paper. Sometimes, I even chewed the stamps down to a state where they'd make fine pea-shooter ammo, though at that tender age, I was not wise in the ways of pea-shooters. Tangentially, at that same age, I liked eating Elmer's School Paste which was also slightly sweet and vaguely minty. I doubt I'd eat school paste nowadays, but at the time, it was something to do when I was done with my art project and killing time before recess. Even more tangentially, I was searching for a nice image of the iconic Elmer's School Paste bottle (with the brush in the lid) and came across fellow paste-eaters and very funny folks, the Scurvy Dogs. Huzzah for scurvy! I also learned that if one is so inclined, one can purchase an entire gallon of Elmer's Sno-Drift school paste for under $10. Even more tangentially than any of the other tangents, I find, as I type this out in Microsoft Word, that the default spell-checker doesn't believe that “minty” is a word. Isn't that ridiculous?
2. I'm extraordinarily fond of those dime-a-dozen chick-lit romantic comedies, with Katie Fforde being my favorite author among them, and Marian Keyes being a close second. I'll pick up damn near anything with a fluorescently bright cover, a perky, sassy, size 14(UK, size 8, US) office girl as the heroine, a quirky best friend, a dodgy car/cooker/dog/lift, and a gruff, diamond-in-the-rough for a love interest. Gods only know why…I tend to hate that kind of movie, and I can't make it through a bodice ripper (Harlequin or other flavors) but add enough absurd situational humor into the mushy love story, and I'll plough right through it, chuckling appreciatively where appropriate.
3. LURVE 1980s hair-band metal. Motley Cruue, AC/DC, Poison, Warrant, all that awful, misogynistic, nudge-nudge-wink-wink, suggestive, euphemistic, bombastic crap, I have a really big soft spot for it. Which sounds dirty in this context. This was the music that was hot when I was in junior high, and starting to understand why a girl might let a guy put his thingy in her private place, and those coyly prurient lyrics and those leather-clad latter-day rakes spoke volumes to my hormone-drenched adolescent curiosity.
4. Hamster Dance Really.
5. Extremely silly, frivolous, and time-sucking flash–based online games. (that's 8, count 'em 8 hyperlinks)
6. Livejournal
8. Dick & fart jokes.
9. Cussing.
10. Toxic, salty, mysteriously-flavored crunchy Cheez snacks.
11. Talking smack, hearing dirt.
12. Eating dry, powdered malted-milk-mix Pixy-Stik fashion.
[…] taken to school with a typical childish exuberance. You got to be amongst other kids, eat as much paste as you could snaffle unnoticed, and learn stuff. Somehow, the teacher was going to show me how to read, and that was the main […]