Yes, I know I’ve been away for a bit. Buncha stuff knocked me for six and blogging fell by the wayside.

But back I be and somehow I’ve even managed to pick up a few new readers! With that in mind I thought I would do the ol’ blog fallback: 5 random things about me. I know I always enjoy reading those, but then again…I’m a dork. I’m not *quite* a professional dork..I try to maintain my amateur status in the event I make it to the Dorklympics, but the more I craft sentences like this one, I fear my experience level may preclude my amateur qualifications. It’s a very complicated Catch-22. are dorks born, or are they made? (photo by andrewatla)

Having said all that, I feel it’s only fair to narrow my randomness down to a more specific category. Lots of people claim to be dorks…but are they all….REALLY? Is there anyone else out there who, say, wonders why when lipstick sits around too long it smells dusty? Isn’t it pretty well covered?

Does anyone else know, without Googling it, what an aglet is? (Does anyone else even wonder if anyone else knows these types of things?) These are all crucial considerations for a dork like myself. (And yes, I am well aware of the alternate definitions of the word ‘dork.’) 😉

I do hold a record for self-interruptions before getting to my point, so allow me to just dive right in, finally….I give you

FIVE REASONS I’M A GIANT DORK

1) My all-time favorite movie is The Black Stallion. True Story. I still remember seeing it in the theater at some fancy showing where they even sold programs (which I naturally still have.) I was a horse lover pretty much right out of the gate (haha) and I still think it’s an amazing story, with wonderful acting and incredible cinematography. I thought Kelly Reno was the coolest boy in the universe and the scenes on the beach still move me to this day…horses don’t know they’re acting. 🙂 I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most of my readers haven’t seen it. If you have, then yay! If not, and you have any interest in the human-animal connection, do yourself a favor. I would be very surprised to get a bad review. 😀 (just so we’re clear I’m speaking of the one also starring Mickey Rooney and Teri Garr)

to me, he says ‘hop on!’ (photo by Sue Byford)

2) This segues nicely into my next one, and I can’t believe I’m about to admit this, but why not? Why not, indeed.

Again, I’ve always loved horses. Family lore has it my first photo of one prompted ‘What’s that? I want one!’ Turns out I wasn’t kidding. I’ve had my boy for just shy of 23 years now. Don’t get me started. I have no idea what I’m going to do when his time comes.

Anyway! Lifetime love of horses is the reason behind this one: a song that makes me alone cry because I’m such a giant dork. You ready? You sure? Okay here it is: Run For the Roses by Dan Fogelberg. (I think I should just wave my amateur dork status goodbye with that little confession.)

Here’s the thing though: horses are horses. They do what they are born to do and people make fortunes off of them and bet on them and gamble on them and mistreat them and do sneaky things for insurance payouts with them and in the end, they ask for so very little. A nice, warm place to sleep and some hay. Perhaps some oats. They could care less about that blanket of roses (and in fact balk from it more often than not.) They give everything they have for the sake of someone else’s glory. So yeah, that song makes me cry. I’m getting misty just typing that.

WHO’S A DORK? I AM, THAT’S WHO!

Who loves the horses? The jockeys. Talk about trust! (photo by winterdove)

3) Speaking of crying…here is a list of silly things that make me all verklempt: (and I’m way worse now that I’m a mommy)

* ANY Olympic medal ceremony…even if it’s not ours. I see those athletes up there choked with pride and emotion and I just lose it. Every time.

* ANY example of a person performing well…be it music, acting, art, athletics, etc.

* Those commercials. You know the ones.

* Those songs. You know the ones.

* Not even going to get into all the no-brainer universal mommy stuff. This blog would never end. But I will say I may very well be the only person on the planet who gets nostalgic when watching Cash Cab. I watched it for the first time during my endless labor the first time (there was a marathon on…in oh, so many ways) and I can’t watch it without remembering that, and thinking about how fast time flies, and how big my baby is now…..gulp….

Call the plumber….thar she blows!

4) One of my favorite moments in my entire life (apart from the obvious ones) happened with a lizard as tiny as two knuckle-lengths on my finger. Yeah, I said it. They’d be scampering around everywhere outside when I was managing a boarding kennel for dogs (what, are you surprised? It was really cool too….a huge play yard for the pups and they even had their own pool!) I’d sit outside on my lunch hour (this was in California, where there is SUN) and like a little kid, I kept trying to catch one. As if. They were super tiny and let’s face it…I have no idea what I look like to them but I know it can’t be appealing.

Then, wonder of wonders, one day the littlest one yet hopped right onto my outstretched hand. I kept thinking it would realize its mistake and leap off, but it didn’t. It even came in with me when I had to answer the phone and was still on my thumb when I came back out again. Verrrry tentatively I reached my other index finger up and ever-so-gently tried to stroke its tiny lizard head. Not only did it not leap away, it did the most incredible thing: it closed its eyes and settled down a bit and I swear I heard a teeny tiny little ‘ahhhh.’ This went on for a good several minutes and it didn’t make an exit until I coaxed it back onto the dirt. (Who would? Free massage!)

Naturally I got all misty just thinking “Wow..you really like that?” I ask you, gentle readers, could I *be* a bigger dork? Lizard ever make YOU well up? Didn’t think so.

Fabulous…a little to the left, please….(photo by GlennPeb)

5) If you know me at all, you know Ellen Degeneres is my hero. There is no celebrity I want to meet more. She has the greatest spirit and does so many wonderful things. Who doesn’t love Ellen? When everyone told me after Finding Nemo that I reminded them of Dory, (and believe me, they did) I was tickled beyond belief. I still have a concert t-shirt from her ’94 stand-up tour. I have this fantasy that somehow we will meet (I enter lots of her contests to facilitate this), become fast friends, and I end up playing her possible-sister (who remembers?) in Finding Nemo 2 (which she is always pushing for!)

Hey, I can dream!

Anyway, last season she had a contest for her bathroom concert series. Long story. If you watch her show, you’ll know. Since I am nothing if not different, I decided to make a video for that contest…with a twist. Instead of singing a regular song, I wrote an homage to her and about her..to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody (not the whole song, just a minute or two’s worth.) I incorporated several things she talks about regularly on her show, including a picture of me with my worst perm ever. And no, you may not see it. It was hers to broadcast nationally. She did not. Who am I to go against her wishes? 😛

If all that isn’t dorky enough, I got so emotional thinking about the fact that maybe, just maybe my video was unique enough that the woman herself might actually get to see it, that I sang over a huge lump in my throat and finally cracked a bit when it was over and I was giving my shout out to her personally.

Oh, who am I kidding.

My name is Mary and I’m a professional dork. 😉

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.