My friends Abbygail and Elana are getting married in September (I’m a brides”maid” – bridesmatron? IDK) and they made a YouTube channel that I accidentally found, even though I wasn’t supposed to. When I told Abbygail I found it and was watching the videos, she got mad. Haha. Oops. She made me promise not to watch anymore – some secrets were being talked about that I wasn’t supposed to know yet… Shhh. I still watch some, but don’t worry, dear friend – I promised not to watch the vlog ones. I’m only watching the Q&A ones. Everyone knows I love quizzes. Today, they posted a new one. Here~

Fun! I wanna play…

1. What was your first job?

I was a cashier at a Pharmasave in Winnipeg. I didn’t work at all until I had graduated from high school. You know, didn’t wanna get in the way of all that studying that never happened. Unless you count babysitting. I did that a lot in high school (and before that too). I ended up quitting after 8 months because I was held up and it was a terrible job. My next job after that “changed my life”. I started working for the woman who helped me quash a lot of bad habits and introduced me to her brother… and ended up becoming my SIL.

2. What was your first car?

I never drove but I DID have a car. My dad bought our neighbour’s car that sat in their driveway for years. He said he bought it for me to use when I finally got my licence. That never happened. I drove it once or twice. It was a 1982 baby blue Ford Escort. I called it the Myrth Mobile ‘cause I thought it looked like the Gremlin in Wayne’s World. (It didn’t really.)

3. Who was the first person you texted today?

I haven’t texted anyone today. I don’t text much. The first people I had cyber-contact with today though were my friends Ang, Jodi, Ames, Deena & Tami through a Facebook post comment. Then Brina in a PM on GroupMe. It’s been a quiet day.

4. Who was the first person you thought of today?

Not sure. Myself? Haha. I had weird dreams and was mad at my subconscious for coming up with them and yelled at myself for it when I woke up. Then probably the people who were in my Facebook notifications.

5. Who was your first grade teacher?

Mrs. DeLuigi – she was a cranky lady.

6. Where did you go on your first airplane ride?

Hmm. I’m not sure actually. I know we took a family trip to Myrtle Beach/South Carolina/some other places in the area but I don’t know where we flew to. I think I was 4 or 5.

I used to get so excited about going on airplanes when I was little. My parents did a good job at making it seem special. I kept that way of thinking until my late teens or early adulthood – taking a ride on a plane meant you were getting to do something fun. Then I realized that sometimes, planes take you to places you don’t want to be. And even when I’m very happy to be going somewhere, air travel is a hassle and planes are gross and confining. Oh, to be a child again…

7. Who was your first best friend? Do you still talk to them?

I’m not sure who I would consider my first best friend. I guess I could say Matthew. His mom was my mom’s friend and we played together a lot and I actually liked him – ‘cause he let me boss him around. There was another boy named Christopher that we also played with but he had a temper and we fought a lot. He bit me once. But those kids were just friendships of circumstance and had no real meaning to me. I had a few more circumstantial friends (parent’s friend’s kids) I liked playing with throughout the years but either I moved or they moved away after short periods of time. I also played with the girl across the street a lot when I lived in Ambridge, but we also fought a ton and most of the time, I didn’t like her.

I suppose my first real best friend was Becca. Her dad lived in the ‘community’ we did and he had his two daughters every other weekend. Becca was my age and we got along. We sang songs we made up into tape recorders and made plans to be in a band together when we were older. She’s actually an opera singer now, which is super cool that she followed that singing dream somewhat. (We moved away when I was 11 but our parents kept in touch for awhile and their dad brought her and her sister on a trip up to see us when I was 17. We were both taking voice lessons and singing opera and broadway stuff at that time and were both planning on similar careers. Separately, we had both gone in similar directions. I, however, dropped off of that path, as I do with most things that require a ton of commitment and practice. I’m glad one of us stuck with it.)

My first best friend that followed the typical best friend formula pattern was Meaghan. We met in grade 6 when I started at yet another new school but we didn’t like each other right away. It was classmate situations that threw us together and we realized we were pretty similar and became fairly inseparable for awhile. (In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t keep friendships going for a long time. One day, I might talk about that a little more…)

This is one of those things I really love Facebook for~ (although I equally hate it for other things). When I first joined FB, I became obsessive about “collecting” friends but also strangely discerning. Even now, I will never accept a friend request from someone I haven’t met in person. In the beginning, I would sit there and look up pretty much every person I could remember – and I (used to) have an odd memory where I remember the first and last names (and usually birthdays) of everyone I had ever been friends with, even fleetingly. So, almost all the people I mentioned or referred to without naming, I am Facebook friends with (except “the girl who lived across the street” and Matthew – we WERE friends when I looked him up but he didn’t really remember me and ended up deleting me not long afterwards. That’s another thing I might write about at some point in time…  Not being unfriended! Hahaha. Just my experience with memory and how things like finding someone on Facebook that I remembered and they didn’t really remember me was one of those things that points out how I can be …different). So, to sum up this exceedingly long answer, yes I am ‘in contact’ with some of these people but only in the very loosest sense of the word.

8. Where was your first sleepover?

Umm… I can’t remember a sleepover that was, like, a friend inviting me to sleep over just for fun rather than because I needed a place to sleep overnight (like babysitting) as a kid. And when I was young, I got terrible anxiety about being away from home. Even though I wanted to go to friends’ houses, I would get panic attacks. (I remember my friend Adam’s mom having to take me home in the middle of the night because I was so upset, I vomited.) The first sleepover I can actually remember in that case was with Meaghan and I was probably already 12 or so. I wasn’t allowed to have sleepovers much. That particular rite of passage thing was denied me! LOL. (But maybe that was because of my behaviour when I was little.) I had to go through such a rigorous application process to be allowed to go to friends’ houses, as did they and their parents. It was so embarrassing that it almost wasn’t worth it. Almost. But the prospect of staying home until I moved out motivated me to put up with it.

9. What was your first concert?

Going along with the whole not allowed to do anything ever, I am embarrassed to say my first concert – that wasn’t kids music, like Sharon, Lois & Bram or Fred Penner or something – was Weird Al Yankovic. My friend Tara’s dad got free tickets from a client at work and took me with them.

10. What was the first bone you broke?

I have never broken a bone. I hope never to break that streak either.

11. What was your first piercing?

My ears. Not until I was 12. Again. Never allowed to do anything. PIERCINGS ARE THE DEVIL’S WORK! Ha. I begged for years to be allowed but, no, I had to wait, but my sister, who was only 8 then, had hers pierced at the same time. So as not to completely vilify my parents, I should say that my mom’s excuse for this was that she thought I would pick at the holes and they’d get really infected and never heal. This was actually a legitimate concern since I used to have a pretty severe issue with skin-picking. But when I put my mind to something, I can overcome almost any bad habit I have. True to my word, when she finally relented, I didn’t touch them and they healed up really quickly and I never had a problem with them (until a few years ago, on an unrelated issue! Haha). In fact, all of my piercings have healed beautifully and super quickly.

12. What was your first detention?

Actual detention, like after school hours, I’m unsure. I got in trouble A LOT when I was in school – all through school, from Kindergarten, right up until Grade 13. In high school, I had detention a few times, almost always for being late so frequently. In elementary, I got lines, extra assignments, sitting out of things that were supposed to be fun but I was actually grateful to miss out on, etc.~ all for talking too much.

I think my first real detention was in grade 6. During baseball in gym class, some other girl and I were sitting on the bench trying to avoid our turn at bat and were bored. We drew little penises between our legs on the bench. Our teacher was sooooooo angry. We had to stay after school for a detention and erase them from the benches. Thank goodness we had used pencil. I can understand why she was upset now but at the time, her anger seemed unreasonable. Now the whole situation is hilarious to me.

13. Who was your first celebrity crush?

Michael J. Fox probably. I was 6. We didn’t have a TV for a long time, then had one briefly and I discovered Family Ties. I wanted to marry Alex P. Keaton. Of course, I was 6 so I had no idea what that actually meant. Someone probably just mentioned that he was Canadian so I liked him. (We were living in PA at the time and I was a very patriotic Canadian ex-pat.)

Joey McIntyre was the next I can think of. I was hardcore obsessed with NKOTB.

14. What was your first road trip?

Like… family road trip? I have no idea. We drove a lot of places when I was little. Nothing stands out in my mind as the first.

I’m trying to think of the first road trip I was on without my family. …Coming up empty. I guess it depends on the definition of road trip too.

Just to sound cool, I’m gonna say it was one of the many I’ve taken with my friends in the last 5 years. The best ones were to Forks, WA or Gatlinburg, TN. Or with Hubby to Montreal to see Weezer in… 2010, I think?

There was a point in time where I was convinced that one day, I would get my license and drive to fun places myself. Now I am 97% sure that will never happen. That window is closed.

15. When was your first kiss?

With tongue? Haha. I wrote about this in the TMI quiz. I was 17 and it was with my friend/potential-but-never-happened boyfriend Mike who I was sort of “seeing” – as much as one could have seen another with my maturity at the time. The possibility of a relationship beyond friendship ended at that very moment. I basically freaked the fuck out. Sorry, Fox. I just wasn’t ready. Super great guy though…

16. When was the first time you said “I love you”?

(I’m gonna answer this as my first-first and first in my current relationship – since I’m not doing this as a couples tag thingy. Haha. Can you imagine me trying to get Hubby to answer these with me in a video?)

The first time I ever told a guy I loved him (that wasn’t an elementary school “boyfriend” that didn’t count) was when I was puking my guts out in a tent in the middle of the night on May 2-4 weekend in grade 12. Not my finest moment. Memorable though, despite my inebriation. (I wrote about this guy in the same TMI quiz too.) I was totally obsessed with him but my feelings towards him were not reciprocated. He had a girlfriend at the time too… in the next tent over. Haha.

The first time Hubby and I said I love you to each other was three months after we started dating. We had a long distance relationship but spent our first post-Christmas holiday/New Year’s Eve with each other. We were staying at my friend Jeannie’s apartment, hanging out by ourselves and he just came right out and told me. I was cautious to tell someone that after the last relationship I had had (also long distance – also written about in the TMI quiz) and I didn’t want to say it back. I asked him to clarify what he meant before I said anything. Hahaha. Poor him. I did end up saying it back but I wasn’t sure if I felt it. Really, I still had no idea what it meant. It was only about 6 weeks more before I was absolutely sure I loved him.

Love is a tricky thing. It doesn’t matter to me now what I felt or didn’t back then. I love him now. And I tell him constantly. So does he.  (Awwwwww. *vomit*)

17. When was your first date?

My first first date… One of my high school boyfriends came to pick me up once and I was furious and crying in my bedroom while my dad grilled him in our living room for half an hour before he finally let him take me away. I was mortified. I don’t even remember now what we actually did that night. I only remember the horrible preamble.

With Hubby? The day we met. It was sort of a blind date, but not. That has its own post too.

Happy Victoria Day. Celebrate the Queen, you barbarians!
(Actually, I’m confused by this. Are we supposed to be celebrating Victoria or the current queen?)