Dammit. My brother decided to tag me. The rules:
A). Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog...
B). Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself...
C). Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs...
D). Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog...

Seven random things:

1. Do all seven tattoos count as my seven random things? They're all in different (inoffensive and non-scandalous) places, and were all gotten at different times...
2. I've gotten thirteen tickets over the years, most of speeding and one for a right-turn-on-red. These tickets have been earned in Utah, California, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Tennessee.
3. My favorite book of all time is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. My least favorite book of all time is The Pearl by John Steinbeck.
4. I'm a member of the "White Car Club of the South" (or, I would be if there were such a thing).
5. The last five songs that came up at random on my iTunes were "Raise the Roof" by Carbon Leaf, "Lost in Love" by Air Supply, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Guns 'N' Roses, "Heart of Rock and Roll" by Huey Lewis and the News, and "100 Games of Solitaire" by Concrete Blonde.
6. My brother got snowed in at Wamsutter, WY on his way back home after my 21st birthday, a weekend I pretty much do not remember.
7. My favorite candy bar is a Milky Way. Or possibly a Snickers. Or maybe Rollos. Or potentially KitKats. Perhaps this is why I have trouble with my weight.

Here's the problem I have with the whole "seven random people". I don't really know seven people who have blogs. I don't really know seven people with Facebook or MySpace profiles either. And while I could actually hit up seven totally random people by just clicking through blogs, that tends to annoy people. So if anyone who reads this would like to contribute, just post your seven random facts as comments.


On to other thoughts.

I narrowly avoided my nemesis twice this week. No, not food or anything like that. I'm talking about the one song that reduces me to a quivering pile of protoplasm: "The Christmas Shoes".

Even before my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I couldn't listen to the darn song. Someone labeled it a Christmas song (I've got news for you, just because a song gets played around Christmas does not mean it's a Christmas song). The first time I ever heard it, on the radio station we have that plays Christmas music nonstop during the holiday season (they just started this week), I had to pull over because I was crying so hard. While I understand the general point of the song is positive (learning the true meaning of Christmas and all that), the fact that the point of the song stems from the horrible tragedy of a young child losing his mother to a terminal illness just seems cruel and not Christmas-like at all.

Of course, when we found out my mom had cancer, the song took on a whole new, much more personal meaning. Certainly listening to a song about a child whose mother was dying was not going to be high on my list of Christmas tunes.

I even told Mom about it last Christmas (and got teary just trying). She had never heard it before. A day or two after I told her about it, she happened to catch the song on the radio, and it made her cry too. It's a horrible, horrible song.

Now that Mom is gone and my first Christmas without her is approaching, "The Christmas Shoes" is pretty much the last song on earth I want to hear. I mean, give me the Spice Girls singing "O Holy Night" or something. Seriously.

So imagine how happy I was to hear that not one but two girls had chosen "The Christmas Shoes" to do their explication projects (the kids got to pick songs and treat them like poems, breaking them down into their literary elements like similes and allusions and then making powerpoints to show their classmates while playing the song). And the girls taking vocal music as a class are singing the very same song at their Christmas concert coming up, so they all wanted to sing along with the music while it played.

What did I do? Did I suck it up and listen to the song, confronting my personal feelings? Hell, no. I put my headphones on and listened to "Take On Me" by Ah-ha and "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC instead.

If this postpones my emotional growth, so be it. At least it kept me from breaking down in front of 20+ freshmen. Twice.