in which she uses lots of parentheses and confusingly long sentences

my new blog friend and first official blog crush, extranjera (we have to talk about that screenname (tho' frankly, since she's finnish, it could be her real name, they spell stuff kinda weird sometimes), by the way, as i have to pop over to your blog and look at it every single time to get it right and even still, i probably have it wrong) of the hilarious what will i ever do with my life? bestowed upon me the honest scrap blog award, i guess because of all the brutal honesty encountered here on MPC.

as with all of these blog award thingies, there are rules:

1. List 10 honest things about yourself, and
2. Pass it on to seven five cool people who embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap (tho' there is strangely no information about what that spirit might be...)

although i'm not big on rules, i am big on lists, and as husband says, i'm very often brutally honest, so this should be easy...

1. i'm not a fan of photoshop. there, i said it. so many times people's pictures were surely beautiful before they played with them. and while i understand the allure of pretty technology, i think people should trust themselves and their cameras more.
   
2. i can talk pretty mean, but when it comes down to it, i'm actually a pretty nice person (blatant attempt to lessen the blow of the photoshop comment).
3. i really, really hate making phone calls. loathe it. 
4. i am worried that there is an elderly greek woman inside me, trying to get out and she has sent out feelers to check the conditions. feelers in the form of three dark hairs that sprout out occasionally on my chin. i try to be vigilant, but what if that old greek woman really wants out and one day i accidentally indicate that conditions are ripe by forgetting to check. bam, i'll suddenly be wearing all black and those thick, sturdy woolen stockings...
5. we have a really old toyota carina that we don't treat very well, but which remains loyal to us anyway. we never wash it (husband was just wishing for rain yesterday so it would be rinsed off--there's a lot of pollen on it at the moment). we never change the oil (it uses it so fast anyway, it's surely not in there long enough to need changing). we can't remember if it's a '96 or a '94. it's grey. the carpet on the driver's side is a real mess--lots of holes from years of wear. but there's no rust and it starts every time, despite having 400,000 km on it, with taxes at 150% on cars in DK, we're just loathe to replace it, so we'll keep it going 'til it won't go anymore. however, i never, ever leave my cameras or computers in the car, because they're worth more than the car is. sometimes i do leave the key in, hoping someone might steal it, but they never do.
6. i would like to blog for a living. (as if y'all hadn't sussed out that one.)
7. sometimes i wonder if i exist if i'm not online. this makes me wonder if all of you exist when i can't see that you're online. and this in turn makes me wonder if we aren't already in the matrix. 
8. i sometimes wonder if carbon trading schemes really work. isn't it just robbing peter to pay paul and still no good for the environment in the end? (oh wait, this is one of the questions for my interview later...)
9. i'm uncomfortable with the whole susan boyle thing and wasn't really going to say so (what, a lack of honesty? (gasp!)) 'til i read what gwen said about it. i feel that while she is clearly an excellent singer, there's something in it that's somehow taking the piss with her anyway and that makes me feel squirmy. and i don't really believe that simon cowell didn't know what was coming. it was all so staged and although i enjoyed seeing his face, it might be that he's just a good actor.
10. i really love and admire what tangobaby is doing in reaching out to help a woman and her three children who have fled from an abusive home and are awaiting a spot in a shelter. she met them one day on the street and because she's such a caring, wonderful person, she's issued a plea from the platform of her most excellent blog and set up a paypal account and is spending a lot of her own time helping this family. what i have to be honest about tho', is that i have been unable to write one of the letters of support to kelaya, the mother, that was part of tangobaby's plea. i have stared at an open, new, fresh email several times and it just won't come and i don't really know why. i did, however, make a small donation via the paypal button (please go check out tangobaby's blog if you are intrigued by the little bit i've written here. and i hope that you're more able than i am to write a letter of support to this woman who has bravely left an abusive marriage and forged out on her own with three small kids.) the best we can do is well, the best we can do, isn't it?

and as for those honest bloggers, these come to mind:

1. amanda of sucker for marketing (who i hope triumphed in her half marathon on sunday!)
2. starlene of return to myself (i just love when she goes all deep thoughts...)
3. mal* of turning*turning (she makes me see things in a new way every time i visit her)
4. kristina of vigdis et al. (she speaks in honest pictures)
5. clare of this and that (you gotta love anyone who thinks grover is the best muppet)

and i think that, like extranjera before me, i will name only five to pass it along to (in fact, i even took the liberty of changing the rule above--mostly because i like using that strikeout thingie). 

i know you're all busy bloggers and might not have time or the inclination to come up with ten honest things (this took me much longer than i thought it would and i was much less funny that i meant to be).  but some days are like that.