Categorically Awesome

Wikipedia does a great job of classifying EVERYTHING into at least one of the millions upon millions of categories on their site. If there isn't already a category for it, they'll probably just make one up. Aside from year of birth and what your job is, they can classify you by nationality, skin tone, eye color, pet names, and favorite color. Sometimes, this is very useful, such as if you are looking for 80s one hit wonders and just want to browse a massive list, as I sometimes like to do. However, sometimes the category is a little less helpful. For example, we have this:

Category: Living People

I can't imagine anyone just casually browsing this category. There are hundreds of pages. There are over 200 results just in the As, and everyone knows A isn't a very popular last name starter. Luckily, from a precursory glance, I can find that the rappers A+, AMG, and AZ are all still alive, and thus my dream of starting a rap supergroup out of absolute nobodies is able to live on.

And then there's this category:

Category: People Lost at Sea

Which is short, and easy to browse. I can finally have a little closure as to what happened to the world's finest handlebar mustache and the guy whose face they used for the Leprechaun movies.

This category seems a bit masturbatory, really:

Category: All pages needing to be wikified

When did "wikify" become a verb?

One can also use the categories to learn new things. For example, I learned that there are a lot of unincorporated communities in West Virginia, something I didn't know before category-browsing.

Also of note: there are less Roman Catholic entertainers in the world than there are unincorporated communities in West Virginia.

My favorite category, though, has got to be this one:

Category: Possibly Living People

This should have been titled "Possible Zombies" to better meet my tastes, but still, it's amusing. Can you imagine coming across your name on there? I feel like it could be used as an advance warning by a tech-savvy killer. You can't say poor Mario Agodino didn't know it was coming. All that time he spent trying to rule Cordoba fairly and justly should have been spent checking his own name on Wikipedia for any rumors of his assassination.

Also, in that category is Viking Bjork, who I picture raping and pillaging his way through a Nordic village while wearing a swan dress.

On needing to express myself

I need a creative outlet. My job mostly deals with pre-determined content. I don't write, I don't act, and I don't contribute to any reputable medical journals (you know, the trifecta of artistic expression). I need to start doing something where I can get out all the wackiness boiling up in my head before I go to law school and have to suppress it for good (this is MOSTLY true...however any fan of Princess Bride knows that MOSTLY true still means slightly false). I'm most definitely a fan of unstructure over structure, and so I have to find a way to make that a part of my life while all the other little bits are falling into place.

For right now, it might be karaoke. We've started going weekly, and it's a lot of fun. However, even now, the appeal of the karaoke is less than the general appeal of being a regular at a bar, so I think the novelty is wearing off. I need something new. I've decided to pick this blogging thing back up, but I don't really know how creative I can get in a story detailing a crazy guy I ran into on the train or how I feel about hair cuts. I think I need a genuine creative outlet, be it songwriting or bookwriting or Choose-Your-Own-Adventurewriting. I'm now officially taking suggestions.

On hickeys, in general.

A certain someone I know (no names will be mentioned for the sake of protecting the innocent individual who apparently enjoys seventh grade makeout sessions) has a hickey right now. As my parenthetical may lead one to believe, I find these wildly amusing. I was in fourth grade when I had my first hickey. Well, I say hickey. I'm not sure if they count if they are accidentally self-inflicted, but I'm going to go with it.

I was bored in Hebrew school class, as those of you who are Jewish know we are wont to be, and I had my head resting on my desk, with my mouth in the inside crook of my elbow. I believe I was thinking about vampires, or leeches, or whatever kids think about in fourth grade, and I was sucking on the skin right inside my arm. As I pulled my mouth away, I noticed a distinct ring of saliva, in addition to a weird...mark in the center. At first, I was grossed out, and thought I had been sucking on some kind of marker or skin mishap, or something. I tried rubbing at it, and it wouldn't go away. I was a really paranoid kid, so I started to freak a little. I went to the bathroom and tried to wash it off, and it wouldn't go away. I scrubbed it with soap, and no dice. I spent the rest of the day worrying about my potentially lethal skin condition until I got home and talked to my mom, who laughed at me and told me it was nothing to worry about. She was right, it went away in a day or two.

Now that I think about it, my first accidental hickey actually happened a year or two before, when I was trying to impress my little cousin and I stuck a suction-cupped rattle to my forehead like a unicorn. This was a great game to play for a few minutes, but after it started to hurt a little, I pulled the sucker off, and had a perfect bruise-y circle on my forehead. It would have been scary if I already didn't look like a monster, all gangly and missing front teeth and such. My grandmother still has my summer camp picture from the day or two after this happened sitting on a dresser at her house, and every time I look at it, I recoil a little.

As far as actual first hickeys go, I may have had one before this, but the one I distinctly remember happened in ninth grade. It was at a youth group event, and someone thought it would be hysterical to pin me, the shy newbie (seriously, I was INCREDIBLY shy through most of high school...just like now, right?) down and suck on my neck. It hurt like hell, and I had a massive bruise on my neck for a week that I had no experience covering up, and therefore just aired for the world to see. It was awkward, in retrospect.

I still think they hurt like hell. I don't see the need. All of you hickey-ed people out there (and at least one of you know who you are), move on. There are easier ways to mark your territory. I'd go for matching his and hers "I'm With Stupid" shirts.