Fitba

Answers to the quiz are here.

I'm boring and lame so I'm just gonna do this:

1. If you are interested in alternative birthing options, click here, here or here.

2. After another ridiculous numerical hiccup (I was calling it a far harsher word early this morning in self-degredation) discovered in the magazine that now exists in thousands of copies, I looked into a possibility of there being such a thing as numerical dyslexia. No, I was being serious. Turns out, there is. Dyscalculia. No, it's not another excuse for hating math. But it really, truly (I'm not being a learning disorder hypochondriac) explains a LOT about myself.

Since only a tiny fraction of you will actually follow the link, let me just quickly say this: For someone who has difficulty telling her left from her right, reading the hands on a clock, memorizing phone numbers, performing basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and heaven forbid division (thus necessitating counting fingers), making monetary change, performing even the simplist calculations in her head, and figuring out how to drive from point A to point B in a town she's lived in for years, BUT is generally rather intelligent, can write well, read well, understand science and generally make smashing grades.....GASP... this has completely helped me to understand myself.

Most of you will probably laugh at me and say, "Ah, we're all like that!" It doesn't really matter to me if you laugh. The main thing is, the fact that this may explain why I can feel so smart most of the time, but then feel like the world's biggest fool because I have to put my hand over my heart to figure out which is my right hand, really helps me. I was in tears to learn that I had completely miscopied a phone number in a PAID AD that was put in the magazine (and subsequently printed), considering the fact that after copying the number over, I TRIPLE-checked it and STILL didn't see the numbers copied down incorrectly. (The other mistake that has been found in the magazine was also a number issue - this time just two numbers, which I completely didn't write correctly AT ALL.) So laugh all you want, call me an LD hypochondriac, but my lifetime suspicions of having some kind of dyslexia with numbers (which I have always had a problem with, as long as I can remember) finally make sense to me and I can go (just a bit) easier on myself when I find my stupid mistakes everywhere. It will also cause me to ask for someone else's eyes to double check my numbers next time, because it's clear my dumb self can't do it. (This girl made me feel better, too. I'm so with her on the transposing, reversing or completely omitting numbers bit.

3. Wow, that was a big rant I didn't mean to go on.

4. I subscribed to the Oxford American, a magazine dedicated to the South (of the US), which has its headquarters in Conway, Arkansas, by the way. I bought the Southern Food Issue when I was in America, and I just got my first subscription issue in the mail, the summer issue - the Southern Music Issue. It came with a CD and I suppose the most interesting thing about it is The Pilgrim Travelers song, "Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb". Anyone, anyone? Ding ding! Yes, that was the name of the second-to-last Tripping Daisy album. I remember how Tim DeLaughter told me and the old Oswald's Pool gang that he got the name from an old gospel record, and for some crazy reason I've never thought to look it up. Now it's playing on my stereo. I wish I'd looked that up for my Tripping Daisy essay I wrote in my Folk/Music Traditions class at University. Particularly since I mention this song but didn't say who the original band was, and I can almost guarantee that good ole Robert Cochran knew it was The Pilgrim Travelers.

5. Rangers lost to Celtic. What utter crap.

6. I'm attempting to read Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh for the third time. This time, I've actually made it past page three. I get it now. I know what "wisnae" and "ootay" mean, and I know who Hibs and Hearts are, and I know Edinburgh (a bit). The book is far richer with meaning now than it ever could've been when I lived in America, so I'm glad it's just now that I'm actually reading the thing.

7. Speaking of Scottish words, and football for that matter, Scotland is playing America on Saturday. Ah'm sae intae the fitba, ah'm tellin ye man.