This past weekend I kind of conquered perhaps one of my greatest fears. And let my classmates know that, at heart, I am indeed a pervert. All in one day, even.

I say that I “kind of” conquered a fear, because I didn’t intentionally set out to face something that terrified me, rather it just kind of happened to me. After owning an old (old) car for 7+ years and frequently boasting about how it is such a great car, and had only broken down a few times, and each time really, really, close to home, the Nova finally decided to lose her shit all over the fast lane of the 55 Freeway.

I’ve often thought about what the worst possible places to break down were. And I’ve always maintained that the freeway, or maybe the drive-through –just after ordering, but not yet to the food window– of some horribly overcrowded eatery (In-N-Out, anyone?) would be the worst possible places for such an event. Turns out, not so much. Luckily I was doing about 90mph so even when the engine decided to just stop working, I still had plenty of momentum to carry me safely to the shoulder. Two phone calls and 15 minutes later my car was on the way to the mechanics (they’re on speed dial) and I was back on my way to class. Crisis averted! Lesson learned. (Drive fast. Very, very fast.)

While in class I took some time off from oh, learning, to peruse the auto classifieds online (I take notes on a laptop). Still a bit in shock, I suppose, from my near death experience, I made the mistake of typing in craigslist.com, not the (correct) craigslist.org. Oh, and let me note that due to the car catastrophe I was about 10 minutes late to class, which meant that all but one seat –front and center– was taken. So everyone behind me could feasibly see my laptop screen. And trust me, they were looking. Cataloging? Great professor, but not exactly riveting material.

So while I should have been paying attention to a class that I am paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars for, it instead appeared to any innocent observer that I was instead looking at dirty, dirty porn. You shameful imitation sites – foiled again! (Who remembers the glory days of whitehouse.com?) And of course when I tried to close the Window of Filth my laptop decided to freeze up, likely due to the fact that the Site of Ill Repute was attempting to infect my virgin machine with an STD-like virus. After a minute, seriously, I was back to looking at MARC records. The exact opposite (in every way) of naughty fun.

And that was my Saturday. Death defying stunts, school, and porn. Same old, same old.

Recently I’ve been thinking about extremely useless talents. It’s kind of sad that while some people are bestowed extremely marketable talents such as a beautiful singing voice or a way with a pen, while other people are given talents that only merit a scant 30 seconds on a mid-season replacement show on Fox. Even worse? When a talent doesn’t even warrant that.

Such as mine.

I am, hands down, the best vomiter (vomitor? vomitoress?) ever. It’s less about speed, aim, and other technicalities (though let me tell you, I've got those down), and more about the fact that getting sick doesn’t phase me in the least. It involves as much effort and concern, as say, a sneeze. Seriously, if I was the type to be unhealthily concerned about my weight, bulimia would be as natural as breathing. Unfortunately, since I’m not, I don’t really get much of a chance to exercise my absolute non aversion to throwing up. I get sick maybe twice a year, although I do make a point of congratulating myself afterwards for handling it like a pro. Hey, somebody has to recognize this talent, and I know it's not going to be you . No one likes to witness others throwing up (myself included) no matter how much you really, really want the world to know how awesome you are at it.

Any other useless talents out there?