Have you ever thought about getting your lip pierced?
Ouch, Never!
Have you ever passed out on the bathroom floor?
I'm not sure if I passed out, but I certainly blacked out. As I mentioned in one of these question/answers blog posts before, I did get so drunk once that I was found slumped in a bathroom and needed medical attention.
Do you start the water before you get in the shower or when you get in?
Before. It takes a while for the water to warm up, so I brush my teeth while I wait for the shower to get warm.
What did you do today?
( Dec 30th as I write this ) Today, I watched the boys in the morning, did a little MSN chatting, went out for lunch/shopping with my wife and kids ( Ruth works part-time ( She's a doctor, BTW - she's working at a local nursing home ) so she can spend more time with the kids. The boys are off from school this week, so I'm staying home with the kids ( It's hard for Ruth to get Christmas week off as a part-timer )), came home with a food coma ( We were stuffed after eating lunch, but the boys inisted on desserts ( large ice cream desserts ) and then barely touched them. Ruth and I then wound up eating a large amount of ice cream ), did some exercise, ate a really small dinner, watched the boys play with their new toys, broke up fights when they wanted the same toy, worked on this blog, and loaded some facebook photos.
Have you ever brushed your teeth while in the shower?
Nope, though I pour some mouthwash into my mouth just before I get in the shower, and then spit up the mouthwash about 30 seconds later while in the shower.
Do you know how to use chop sticks?
Most people from New York City do. However, during my Freshmen year at college I was given special training from a friend from Taiwan who wanted to show me the proper "Taiwanese way". He insisted that most of the Cantonese-speaking people from Chinatown hold chopsticks the wrong way ( Many people hold chopsticks in such a way that they form an "X". The chopsticks are held toward the middle, and when you open the chopsticks an "X" is formed ( when you close the chopsticks they are roughly parallel ). My friend insisted that the "X" way is completely wrong, and that the far superior way to use chopsticks is to hold them in a "V" configuration ( where the food is held at the point of the "V" ) ). Anyway, I followed the instructions of my "chopstick master" and was soon very proficient in the style he taught.
What are you doing tomorrow?
Tomorrow is Dec 31st as a write this. Tomorrow my wife and I will be going to a nice lunch and a movie without the kids! Ruth's sister and her husband have volunteered to babysit the boys for a few hours. However Peter isn't potty trained yet and neither one of them has ever changed a diaper before, so this should be interesting. No big New Years Eve plans, though we'll probably stay up until midnight to ring in the new year.
Who was the last person you couldn't take your eyes off of?
I like this question a lot because it is challenging. Challenging in the sense that it is very difficult for a married man to answer this question without seeming like ..
a) A sleazy guy
OR
b) A liar
I am neither a sleazy guy nor a liar, but unfortunately it will take quite a long-winded answer to prove this.
Let me start this long-winded answer by going into my rather less-than-typical history of being attracted to women. In the years before I met Ruth, there were probably about 1000 girls that I found so physically attractive that I "couldn't take my eyes off them". However, there were only a small handful of girls that I really "fell" for. There were only a small handful of girls that I actually had any desire to date. I guess this was because I was never really the kind of guy who wanted to "hit on" girls or "score" with them. Sure, I was a regular high_school/college guy with all the associated hormones, but I've always had an extremely romantic outlook on love. While I could certainly recognize and appreciate when a girl was extremely attractive, I never really had a desire to be with a girl unless I thought she was somebody I might want to marry someday. In fact, by the time I would get to the point of wanting to ask a girl out, I had pretty much convinced myself that the girl I was interested in was "the one", and that I would lead a tragically lonely life if she rejected me. As you might imagine, this led to a tremendous fear of rejection, and I once went a long as 16 months in one case before actually gathering up the courage to let the girl know the way I felt. Of course, one of the problems here is that I would eventually let these girls know "the way I felt" rather than simply asking them out on a casual date. Now, I never actually told any of these girls "I want to marry you", but I was expressing such intense feelings for these particular girls, that it wouldn't have been hard for them to read between the lines and figure out that I was viewing them a potential spouse. So, with that in mind, you can imagine how my attempts to court these girls went. These girls were all between the ages of 17 and 19 when I expressed my feelings to them, and I doubt that there are too many teenage girls who are thinking about marriage. Even if any of these girls did have the potential to be attracted to me, I pretty much ruined any chance I had by coming on WAY too strong. Then again, I guess it's all a matter of finding the right girl. A few weeks after we started dating, ( YT plug: My latest video gives the story about how I started dating Ruth ) Ruth said something to the effect of "It's not like we are going to get married or anything". This upset me a bit, and let her know that I thought there was a good chance that we would get married someday. I'm sure that shocked her a bit, but it didn't scare her off, and within in a few months she had come around to my way of thinking.
The point I'm trying to make here is that there was big difference between the feelings I had for those 1000 or so girls I "couldn't take my eyes off of", and the very small number of girls I had romantic feelings for. I certainly considered the girls I had romantic feeling for to be pretty, but it wasn't their looks that made me fall for them so deeply. It was something else that made me fall for them romantically. For each girl it was probably something a little bit different, but whatever it was, those girls had it and those other 1000 or so girls didn't. So my point here is that:
a) There is a big difference between physical attraction and romantic attraction.
b) I've never been one to confuse one with the other.
c) The only women I've ever wanted to court/date/marry are the ones I've been romantically attracted to.
So, with all those qualifiers above, I hope I can say without seeming sleazy that as a heterosexual male with typical male hormones, I have certainly found women other than Ruth physically attractive in the 17+ years I've been with Ruth. However, while I may have found many women to be physically attractive, I certainly haven't been romantically attracted to any of them.
So, to complete this long answer to this simple question, I would have to say that the last woman I "couldn't take my eyes off of" ( In the sense that I thought, "OMG, that woman is f*ckin' hot!" ) would be a random woman I saw at the mall a few days ago.
Now, while I've been completely sincere in my answer above, it's probably a good thing that Ruth doesn't read this blog. I think Ruth is even a little bit jealous that I was attracted to other women before I met her, so if she was ever able to identify some random woman I found attractive, I think she would want to hunt that random woman down ( She's a lot tougher than she looks ).
Have you ever run over an animal?
No, but a friend of mine did when I was sitting in the front passenger seat. It was an unpleasant experience and quite an unpleasant smell.
What is your favorite cereal?
Cheerios!
Have you ever had an Oreo with peanut butter?
Nope. Love Oreos and love peanut butter, but never tried to combine the two. Perhaps I will try this at work once using the fresh peanut butter from our peanut butter machine.
What are you doing right at this moment?
Blogging, obviously. Also loading photos to facebook.
Do you think its right for straight guys to get their tongue pierced?
Hey, whatever makes somebody happy is fine with me.
What kind of car do you drive?
Honda Odyssey ( I am a suburban Dad, after all ).
Have you ever had a garage sale?
At my parents house in the past, but not at my house. I think I just cherish my weekend leisure time to much to spend a day running a garage sale. When we get too much clutter, we usually just give a lot of stuff away to charity ( lots of old toys the boys have grown out of or are now bored with ).
What color is your iPod?
I am iPod-less.
What is the last drink you drank?
Green tea.
Last time you were sick?
I had a minor one-day cold a week-or-so ago, but I'm usually quite healthy.
What DVD is in your DVD player?
I just walked downstairs to check. It's a "Dora the Explorer" DVD entitled "Meet Diego".
What's something fun you did today?
Any weekday when I don't work is fun. There's really nothing I described in the "What did you do today" question that was not fun.
What do you think of when you hear the word "meow"?
A cat ( was this a trick question? ).
When is your birthday?
January 15, 1970 ( Nerdy note: I am almost an "Epoch Baby". It is a common practice in computer programming to measure time in "epoch time", which is the number of seconds since January 1, 1970. ).
What are you going to do after this?
Perhaps put captions on the facebook photos I loaded, but I'll probably just go to sleep.
What is something you need to go shopping for?
I could use an external drive for my Mac ( To backup photos - we are using CDs to do that now, but it is beginning to be a pain ).
Do you like pickles?
I don't like dill pickles much, but I love the bread-n-butter kind!
How about olives?
Not a big fan of olives. However, I love olive oil.
What is your favorite kind of gum?
I haven't had gum in many many years. If I had to have some gum, I would want to have the cardboard-like bubble gum that came in packs of baseball cards when I was a kid ( just for the sake of nostalgia ).
Do you have tan lines?
I try to avoid getting any tans at all. Skin cancer is bad, and premature aging isn't so hot either.
Has anyone ever sang to you?
Nope. As I said in the other blog post, I have been a serenader, but never a serenadee.
Which do you prefer, to eat or sleep?
Eating. I don't sleep much ( feel like I might miss something while I'm asleep ).
Can you do splits?
Not even close. I'm generally quite athletic, but I may be the least flexible man on earth
How many hours of sleep did you get last night?
About 5.
Do you wear your seatbelt in the car?
Yes. I won't drive unless everyone in the car is wearing their seatbelt.
What do you sleep in?
My bed - usually in a t-shirt and shorts ( sweatshirt and sweatpants in the winter ).
Do you have any tattoos?
Nope.
Have you ever been to Los Angeles?
Yes, but I didn't see much of it. Ruth and I landed in LA once to do a Chinese bus tour of some sights in the west ( Vegas, Grand Canyon, etc. ). We got there a day before the bus tour started, so we did spend a day at DisneyLand.
What jewelry do you wear all the time?
Just my wedding ring.
What color is your underwear right now?
Basic white Hanes briefs ( I'm a simple guy, and hey - if it's good enough for Michael Jordan, it's good enough for me ).
What was the last thing you ate?
A Tim Tam actually ( BTW Shweta, I did try a Tim Tam Slam with some hot milk last night. Actually, I tried 2 - one with the original flavor, and one with the chewy caramel kind. It was quite good! )
Favorite type of Food?
I answered this in a previous blog post. I guess if I had to pick one type of food, Chinese food would be at the top of the list.
Last Movie you watched?
I Am Legend ( Another 90 minutes of my life I will not get back. The CGI scenes of a desolate Manhattan were really cool, but it basically turned into a zombie movie about 30 minutes into it ).
Are you missing someone?
Not atm.
Do you ever pretend to be someone else just to look cool?
Nope.
Do you think you are emotionally strong?
I don't know if I'd call myself emotionally strong, but I am uncommonly calm.
Do you prefer knowing someone before dating them?
I would hope so.
Are you tired?
No, but I probably should be
How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?
On a work day, my alarm goes off at 6:07 and I'm out the door by 6:24.
Would you ever have plastic surgery?
Nope.
Do you tan?
Don't want to tan ( skin cancer = BAD ).
Have you ever waited online for someone to come on?
Well, I don't know if I'd call it waiting online, but I'm logged into MSN most of the time when I'm home, so I'm always up for having a fun chat if I hear that bell sound from my computer.
