7 Things I Am Really, Really Bad At

Why am I blogging about this? To be honest, I don’t know. I guess it’s always good to identify one’s own shortcomings so as to be able to work around them or improve them.

I guess, more to the point, I don’t have anything else to write about this week.

1. Music

Lyrics, sure. I got those. Words are relatively easy. But when it comes to anything else to do with music, I’m complete balls. I have no sense of rhythm or pitch. I have no idea what characterizes different musical types. I cannot identify most musicians, name what era most songs come from, or even recognize most popular songs. (For instance, I could not point out a picture Lady Gaga or tell you any of the songs she sings if I tried.) I’ve never, ever seen a music video in its entirety, which is particularly sad when you consider that I belong to the MTV Generation. When I play a game like Cranium that involves “Name That Tune” segments, whether I’m guessing or humming, I pretty much give up before it starts. (And assume I probably won’t be familiar with the song in the first place.)

Singing is just as bad. When I was learning Shakespeare in a summer theatre program, every show involved some sort of final song or other musical interludes. After tons and tons of practice, I managed to pick up the basic tunes, and sometimes even to keep them while others were singing harmony or catches, but by the end of the first season, the director had put me beside one of the company’s most powerful tenors (I think) at the end of every show so I wouldn’t mess up partway through.

2. Food

Not necessarily preparation; I can bake pretty well, and I can cook most things decently. I am no super gourmet chef, and I often get the timing wrong when various parts of a meal are supposed to be ready all at once, but I can make with the edible. No, my big problem with food is that I have no class.

I know there is a difference between gourmet hand-picked organic coffee with a hint of smoky flavour and perhaps a soupcon of vanilla and cheap-o President’s Choice instant joe. I just can’t taste it. In fact, load up anything with enough sugar, fat, and/or salt (or cinnamon or garlic), and I’m happy. I’ve eaten pricy meals at world-famous restaurants, and I still don’t see why they were worth more than the $5 meals I’ve eaten at world-famous-but-for-different-reasons ones.

3. Social interaction

You know that voice someone you know very well gets whenever he or she’s on the phone with someone they don’t know, like a sales representative or telemarketer? I hear myself going into my mom’s version of that voice all the time in daily conversation. And letting such stupid things come out of my mouth as I do.

It’s not that I don’t mean to be sociable or that I hate the people I’m talking to; on the contrary, I’m usually trying my best to be friendly. But the comfortable relationship I have with words on paper fumbles into awkwardness and stutters when I try to make it happen aloud. Worse, I don’t read facial expressions or body language very well. Worst, as a friend once pointed out, I live inside my head a lot of the time. Sometimes, that’s good, because it makes stories and papers and games happen. Sometimes it’s bad, because I can have such a satisfactory time by myself that I put off the difficult task of, you know, actual conversations with other people whose company I enjoy. And practice makes perfect.

4. Video games

This may seem strange, because I evidently like video games a lot. I own a couple dozen of them for PC and Nintendo DS. But except for a select handful (generally puzzle games like Tetris, Dr. Mario, and Plants vs. Zombies or the kind of RPG where you get to choose a move for your character during battles, like Pokemon and Chronotrigger), I suck at them.

I am incapable of “snaking” in Mario Kart, finding secrets and beating the game in platformers and Zelda adventures, getting past “hard” on Guitar Hero, or finding my way around the map in first-person shooters (let alone actually killing enemies). I couldn’t get past even the first level of Mario 64 because I just plain got lost. And although I am supposed to be fairly intelligent, my brain just doesn’t wrap around spatial puzzles like the ones in Portal or Braid.

5. Money

I have money, which I guess is a good start. But I’m awful at managing it. I’m the world’s worst impulse buyer – only a few of those aforementioned couple dozen video games have ever been played for more than an hour, total. Not that I don’t want to play them – it’s just that I have no time.  I love making lists of the books, DVDs, and games I’d want to buy… and then ignoring whatever-it-is once I have it, because really I can focus only on one distraction at once, and it takes me forever to finish with a single fun thing.

When I run my small business, I’m more concerned about charging my clients fairly and/or in a way they approve of than with making a profit. Even when any sensible business person should be charging more to cover costs, I find myself sticking to the price I laid down in the estimate, because that’s what I said when the client entered into the deal.

6. Sleeping

How do people manage to nod off as soon as their head touches the pillow? Is there some secret? Tell me!

If I want to have fallen asleep by a certain time, I need to be in bed, lights out, at least half an hour beforehand. Usually, an hour is wiser still. It’s gotten better since I started going to the gym every day a few years ago, but my brain still takes ages to calm down and stop thinking.  And the slightest noise or light is enough to keep me awake no matter how tired I am.

7. Marketing

When you majored in theatre and have a lot of friends who are artists of some sort, the words “shameless self promotion” come up a lot. I am terrible at it. Especially the “shameless” part.

I conveniently ignore the fact that I don’t mind most of the Facebook invitations or emails I get about events run by acquaintances or achievements of friends and assume that information about my own events, treasure hunts, business ventures, or writing accomplishments will be received with the same enthusiasm as a sweaty gym sock. When I should be plugging my work to everyone I meet, I instead hide and hope it’ll speak for itself. Heck, I haven’t even advertised my business, not really.

Don’t worry, I promise less whining next week. Well, less whining about myself, at any rate.