Taken from Rudy Carrasco, here are ten things you may not know about me, despite an extraordinary amount of public navel-gazing.
1. Since I was a child, my nightmares are almost all the same: I’m on a beach, a tidal wave is coming, and I can’t move. I still have them a couple of times a year. I’ve never dreamed of any other natural disaster or accident.
2. Of all of my button-down shirts, more are pink than any other color.
3. Of my closest friends, over half are Republicans. Several support the war and eat meat.
4. The combined total attendance at all four of my weddings: just over 500.
5. Number of people, besides me, who attended all four: eleven.
6. I took wood shop in high school, and actually loved it. My mom still has many things I made.
7. My senior year in high school, I was president of my school’s Model UN club. We represented Zaire at the state convention.
8. The first time I got drunk, it was on Andre Cold Duck . It was twenty-five years ago this month, and I was in ninth grade.
9. Sometimes, after a particularly emotional day of teaching (or, like last night, an emotional time with some of my youth group kids) I get into my car in the parking lot and cry before I drive home.
10. Though I love other breeds better, when it comes to dogs, I instinctively identify with whippets.
“Since I was a child, my nightmares are almost all the same: I’m on a beach, a tidal wave is coming, and I can’t move. I still have them a couple of times a year. I’ve never dreamed of any other natural disaster or accident.” – HS
You know, I’ve had similar dreams, too, except that sometimes I may have been trying to run. In my dream, the wave overcomes me and sometimes I feel myself being overtaken by the water.
I wonder what it means.
“The first time I got drunk, it was on Andre Cold Duck . It was twenty-five years ago this month, and I was in ninth grade.” – HS
DAMN. The first time I got drunk, I was a straight-laced and legal 21. It was on vodka, with our Hillel Rabbi and our college’s “delegation” at a Simchas Torah celebration at the Tremont Street Shul oin Cambridge, MA that drew a large crowd of students from the local colleges.
However, I got stoned for the 1st time at 19 in my college dorm/house after a housemate came back from his 2nd Grateful Dead concert that week. He had what looked like a wooden cigarette lighter that piqued my curiosity (how could a cigarette lighter be made out of wood, I wondered) and turned out to be a small marijuana kit.
I quite enjoyed both experiences but never felt the need to overindulge. Neither of these were SOO SOOO pleasurable that I absolutely ad to do it again. It was like “this is nice but I can take it or leave it”.
If I may ask, why in G-d’s name did you get drunk at such an early age?
What makes some people overindulge and others not? My father and his whole side of the family has a long history of alcoholism and so my family has always had this fear of my getting caught in this destructive pattern. We would sometimes discuss this and my father semed comforted by my asking such a question, feeling assured that I must not have the addiction gene.
But he did say that he was able to hold his liquor better than his friends and never got hangovers and this made him feel like a “real man”. My tolerance for alcohol is relatively low (because I don’t drink a lot) but I have never really had a hangover in my life (sometimes after drinking relatively a lot of alcohol, too). It seems I am immune. This leads me to believe I have some element of the gene, but it hasn’t been tripped, thank G-d.
I even dabbled with smoking clove cigaretes. Then I did feel addiction creeping up on me, but this was in Israel where they do not sell clove cigarettes and so I HAD TO MAKE EACH AND EVERY CLOVE CIGARETTE BY HAND. Boy was that a pain in the a$$. That in and of itself I think had alot to do with my not becoming a regular smoker. I was not interested in regular cigarettes because they smell bad. After smoking my 1/3 of a clove cigarette I would feel the urge to smoke again immediately, but just didn’t do it. After a couple days the urge went away. I once brought a pack of clove cigarettes over from the States and it took me a year and a half to finish the pack.
From this experience, I gather that convenience has a lot to do with facilitating addiction.
In any event, I tell people that when it comes to alcohol, marijuana or tobacco, I took just enough to get my buzz and then stopped. I simply didn’t need it anymore once I accomplished the desired result. If I feel my tolerance for alcohol increasing, I impose a moratorium on alcohol consumption on myself for a couple weeks or so in order to keep my tolerance low (and hence, save money in bars).
What makes people continue after they get their buzz? I don’t think I will ever really understand.
Hey, I’ve had giant wave nightmares almost exclusively my whole life, too.
Wood shop was cool. I was always a little jealous of the kids in the non-college-prep track who got to make all kinds of neat things in the advanced shop class.
my natural disaster nightmares are tornadoes. always tornadoes.
Andre. oh dear. did i ever blog about the time i almost put my eye out with the plastic cork from a bottle of pink Andre? if not, i most certainly should. i’ve told it in person many a time, because it remains one of the most hilariously and embarassingly stupid things i’ve ever done.
and i was 22 at the time. not even underage! god help me.
Is Andre Cold Duck not supposed to be cool or something? I have never heard of this Andre Cold Duck – could it be that it’s only sold on the West Coast or something?
In any event, at least your first time wasn’t with Bud or Miller.
Andre Cold Duck was the drink of choice because it was sweet and cheap. Very cheap, like all Andre products. After that first night, I never tasted it again.
Number of people, besides me, who attended all four: eleven
I can’t be the only one curious who they are… I mean, your close family, I assume, are many of them. But I don’t recall you having that many siblings that you’ve mentioned…
Since I was a child, my nightmares are almost all the same: I’m on a beach, a tidal wave is coming, and I can’t move. I still have them a couple of times a year.
I don’t recall all the details, but apparenlty Tolkien had a very similar recurring dream, that influenced important parts of his invented world, i.e. Numenor, which was his version of Atlantis.
Stephen, my brother missed two of the four, though both my sisters were there. My parents were at all, as was my stepmom. One aunt made all four, and the remaining six were all particularly devoted cousins.
That’s interesting about Tolkien, and it’s fascinating that so many folks have similar nightmares.
I have been having the tidal wave dream as well, though I’m on a hill watching it sweep houses away, and it may or may not come high enough that I’ll have to run for it. It’s never yet taken me, but it’s come close before i wake up.
In my case I think it comes from a sense of anticipation and apprehension about big changes. Is there any pattern to when you have the tidal wave dreams, what’s going on in waking life when you do?
I first had the dream about aged five or six, which was about the time of my parents’ divorce. It occurs unpredictably since then, several times (not surprisingly) in short order after the 2004 tsunami.