While catching up on some blog reading I found Angella’s list of fives. Today is one of those days where it’s beautifully sunny but it’s only about 5C (35F) outside, so I feel like doing things around the house. I have plans to start pulling out the warmer clothing while packing away summer clothes, doing inspections of winter gear so I know what still fits everyone and what needs replacing, cleaning the guinea pig cage, and watching a movie on Netflix (The Secret of NIMH) with the kids. I figured doing my own list would be a nice fit for a half-lazy, half-productive Saturday at home.

Five things you don’t know about me:

This is kind of hard, really. I’ve been writing online for so long I’m not sure what great revelations I can give you but since not everyone has been reading since day one (which is good because some of my old writing makes me cringe), I’ll throw out five random tidbits.

1. On my commute to work I keep anxiety at bay by listening to guided meditation on my iPod.

2. I really enjoy gospel music and if I’m not in the mood for meditation I listen to my Kirk Franklin playlist, particularly this one:

3. I have a huge burning desire to go to Prague. I wouldn’t mind seeing other parts of Europe if I had a chance but Prague is absolutely on my bucket list. I’ve had several dreams about being there and whenever I wake up I always feel a strange and vague homesickness.

4. I have a conversation with myself at least once a week about how I’m going to give up my daily cup of coffee. This conversation is usually followed by sitting down with my daily cup of coffee.

5. My celebrity claim to fame is hanging out with Corey Haim back in 1999 (maybe 2000? I forget which year). He was in Montreal to do some work on a movie (that went straight to DVD, alas) and he had an urge to record a song. A mutual contact suggested coming to the studio where George and I worked and I ended up sitting in the studio while he recorded it, and had pizza with him and his mom/manager. His singing was not particularly great and he didn’t really know what he wanted to do so George and Dino pretty much did it all for him, but I didn’t care. I’d spent my teenage years with his posters all over my wall and his movies on my “must see repeatedly” list, and it was NUTS to me that I was hanging out with him. He was incredibly nice, super polite, and a chatty person. I was so incredibly sad when I heard that he had died, he was way too young.

Five things I am knowledgeable about:

1. Yoga. I’m certainly not an expert and I have a lot to learn. Then again I think even the actual yoga experts have a lot to learn because it’s a never-ending education in progress. However, I do know a lot about it and can easily talk your ear off if you ask me a question about yoga. I’m also (perhaps annoyingly) perfectly willing to offer up yoga suggestions for pretty much any ailment that anyone shares with me. “Oh, you have a headache/sore back/upset stomach? You should try these yoga poses!” It’s kind of like the whole “there’s an app for that!” except that in my case it’s “there’s a yoga pose for that!”

2. Photography. Again I’m not an expert. I’m not even a professional. However I know how to use my camera, I shoot 99% of the time in full manual mode and 75% of the time I shoot in RAW, I know my way around Lightroom and Photoshop for post-processing, and I think I have a decent eye for photography. It’s also another one of those things that I can happily talk about for hours.

3. The movie Heathers. I’ve seen it so many times that I can quote the entire thing from beginning to end when I watch it.

4. Song lyrics. I used to refer to myself as a teleprompter back when George was in one particular band because the lead singer would sometimes forget the words to songs they didn’t perform too frequently, and he would look at me because I could sing them all; he got through many songs with my assistance.

5. Anxiety and panic attacks. Having dealt with anxiety and panic attacks for more than a decade, I found that things like yoga, meditation, uplifting music, and confrontation have been huge factors in controlling them somewhat. However, the strongest tool I have found has been education and as a result I have learned a metric ton of information about anxiety, how it happens, why it happens, which parts of the brain are associated with it, and the neurological breakdown of anxiety in general. If you have a question about it odds are really good that I can answer it.

Five things I know nothing about:

1. World finance/business/stocks/etc. I watch the news every weekday morning and while I really like the guy who does the business news for Canada AM I rarely understand much of what he’s talking about.

2. Meditation. I’m learning and I do it, although I find it easier to use guided meditation than just sitting and doing it on my own. There’s just so much to it that I feel like I’ve only just barely scratched the surface in understanding it and how it works.

3. Baseball. My cousin Craig is a huge baseball fan, both when it comes to playing and watching. Every summer he would come visit for a couple of weeks at our grandmother’s house and every summer he tried really hard to convert me into a baseball fan. Sorry Craig. I love YOU but I have a serious hatred of baseball.

4. Wrestling. When I was a teenager wrestling was huge and it seemed like everyone I knew watched it. I tried. I got to know the names and I watched the matches but in the end, I never really got it. At all.

5. Seinfeld. I think I might be the only person in North America (other than George) who feels this way but I hated that show with a fiery passion and as a result I rarely catch Seinfeld references.

Five things I believe:

At the risk of sounding like a New Age hippie…

1. Yoga can heal you. It may not be a cure for cancer but I do believe yoga will heal a great deal of common ailments.

2. You get back what you give out. If you put out positive you will be more likely to see and find positive. At the same time if all you ever put out is negative thoughts, that’s all your brain will be trained to see. (Have I mentioned that I’m a hopeless optimist? Because I am.)

3. The Universe will provide. While I don’t believe that you can shout, “I want to win a million bucks!” and you’ll magically buy a winning lottery ticket, I do believe that in the end, in some way, the Universe will give you and lead you to whatever it is you need.

4. Leap and the net will appear. If you always wait for everything to be somehow perfect before you take a chance, you’ll spend your entire life waiting around. Sometimes you have to go ahead and leap and trust that the net will appear to catch you before you fall. (See number 3.)

5. Laughter is the best medicine. If you can’t laugh, it’s all over. If you can find even the tiniest bit of humour in the darkest moments, it will help. I’ve laughed when I’ve been emotionally flattened, I’ve laughed when I’ve been beyond pissed off, and I was the person who burst out into uncontrollable laughter on the drive to the church for my grandmother’s funeral. You have to laugh or you’ll cry. Or spontaneously combust. Laugh it up!

Do you have some to share too? I’d love to read them!