I am bad at many things, but perhaps most inept when asked to screw anything into anything, or to sew (except I can do embroidery and hemming.) My sewing is so terrible that I almost flunked home economics, in which our sole project was to assemble an apron on a sewing machine. My unassembled apron was nicely hemmed and embroidered, however.

Only two? That's easy.

Swimming. My very overweight friend can swim 25 laps. I am not overweight at all, and I can only swim about 3. When I really, really work hard, I can get it up to 5.

Languages. Despite being a writer and general grammar nazi (e.g. I did very well in conjugating verbs in my high school French classes), I cannot ever get beyond that and am totally lost in other countries or watching movies.

Bearwife, I'll do your sewing for you, I love sewing. We're all good at different things!

I cannot blow up a balloon. I don't know why it doesn't work, but it doesn't.

I cannot catch.

- I suck at playing voetbal. Although as an adult I really like about it that you only need a ball and some space. Any piece of grass or asphalt will do basically.
One of the memories I cherish is being in SF to meet my then in laws and running around a park with my ultra orthodox jewish father in law playing voetbal. We got some looks so I guess its not that common in the US. (And not because of his looks)
My daughter is 7 so she doesn't realise yet how bad I am. That's a good thing: I take her to the park or the beach and we run around and kick and throw the ball etc.
With kids we try to teach them things they'll need in life to be successful of course. But there's also things that you _don't_ need to be successful but that will just make you happy. That will sustain you through life.
For me that's been making music and doing sports. Even in my darkest moments I relished singing and running, playing tennis, playing ping pong.
I'll try to provide her with the opportunity to find if she enjoys those things. Or something similar like dance f.i.

- I suck at maintaining my house. There's a backstory there. But suffice it to say that I just can't be arsed. And it's ridiculous in a grown man.

- I suck at being mellow as well. I tend to be a bit harsh and impatient. And not in a cool way. It's something that I see in my mother and saw in my opa. I'll just hide it among the general brusqueness and rudeness that the Dutch are known for. :-)

Melismata I can help you with a few languages!
There's a lot of opportunity for the Dutch to learn languages. We're a small taalgebied so you encounter English, German, French, Spanish and Italian very quickly. Either through film and internet or through travel.

Yez, bad at languages here, too. And, math is a foreign language to me, except I "get" algebra and geometry.

I'm terrible at making phone calls on my behalf, or generally doing things that are solely for looking after me; but am close to phobic about phone calls.

I'm not good at any ball or team sports, but am great at individual pursuits and strength/flexibility/balance exercise. Running and such are out due to knee surgery and general joint issues.

I'm great at sewing, level-headedness, maintaining house and generally all construction and design. Oh, and I'm a decent cook.

Baking. I try, occasionally, but I'd say I probably have like a 50% edible success rate. I had a little luck with a simple white loaf (soda bread is supposed to be the easiest but it never worked for me).

Diets. I eat my feelings and struggle with moderation. I weighed myself this morning and wasn't entirely happy with the results, but hopefully adopting Blu will help on that front. I really need to get back into a proper routine of yoga and swimming too, though.

Singing. I love singing and do it a lot in the car or when I'm alone indoors. But I have a terrible voice. I also have perfect pitch, so I can hear how far off the note I am, but can do nothing about it.

Crafts, for example, knitting, sewing, anything artistic. I'm too cack-handed and impatient.

JanetLand, I am a balloon maven. Maybe it's because I come from a family on my mother's side with a long brass band tradition - cornet and euphonium players. Anyway, give me a balloon nobody else can inflate and I'll have it up and floating in no time.

Can't throw, can't catch. Lots more, but you only asked for two ;-)

This all reminds me I am TERRIBLE at throwing too. Or catching. I managed to break my finger in softball fielding a very easy pop fly. With a glove on.

I am bad at lots of things. Let's see, two examples... I am terrible at relinquishing control. In other words, I am a control freak. I am also terrible at bowling.

I SUCK at growing things. I wonder what's wrong with me, that I can't seem to grow the simplest things. Furthermore, I also suck at composting. I even took a class to learn to compost! I STILL SUCK AT IT.

Also, I have killed ever single sourdough starter I have ever had. I feel like a failure when I realize I've killed another sourdough starter. Trust me, I am following instructions, but I kill them just like I kill plants.

I suck at plenty of other things, those are just the two that immediately jumped to mind. Let me lay down in bed on a sleepless night, and I'll tell you ALL the things I suck at.

Singing. You do not, ever, want to hear me try to sing. Period. I don't either. I never sing because I am simply bad at it. I cannot hear the notes. It's as if I am simultaneously flat and sharp at the same time. On key? On pitch? What's that stuff? Karaoke? Nope. Never gonna happen, no matter how drunk I am. Or how drunk the audience is. Alone in the shower? Uh-uh. I don't want to hear myself either. On special occasions, I sometimes accompany my wife to her church and, when they sing their hymns, I mouth the words. Even in that big group, I do not want to hear myself. See also: I utterly suck at playing music, too.

Chess. I love playing chess. I utterly, utterly, utterly suck at it, mostly because I do not have a strategic mind. I can't plan ahead. I can't respond correctly to my opponent's moves. I am clueless about beginning/middle/end game. As a result, I haven't played chess in years, even though I have a board at the ready. It's almost become a talisman for how badly I suck at stuff.

There's so much more, but then we get into stuff I'm terrible at because of depression, and that would be cheating.

1. Answering questions from the book of questions. So bad at this that I don't think I answered more than 2.

2. Answering questions not from the book of questions, though I did do a few more than 2. But I'm so bad at this that I'm going to answer with three things.

3. Photo Friday. I have posted to at most twice ever and possibly only once.

4. 3 point updates which I have done in the single digits.

To summarize: I have bad metachat social skills.

Yes, phone calls for me, too. Although, being my daughter's school's PTA secretary has forced me to barrel over that one, somewhat. But if it's for myself, I still have the ability to delay weeks, months, even.

I am a terrible pool player. Just terrible. And I used to play a lot, just because my husband lived near a pool hall that had cheap beer. I never got better.

I am horrible at leaving voice mails. I ramble, repeat myself, and always end them awkwardly.

I suck at all sports. Yes, all of them. I'm pretty much the least athletic person ever. I even tried archery thinking it'd be my thing, the one sport I'm good at, and nope - I suck at that too. At least I find it enjoyable.

1. Asking for help.

2. Confrontation.

Happy easter everyone*

≡ Click to see image ≡

*assuming your into that sort of thing.

Whistling w my fingers. Cant do it at all.

Project management. No patience for watching/managing projects. It's like slow motion torture.

Solve for x
Ice skate

--House cleaning-- I'm forever behind. And I can go a year, I kid you not, without cleaning the floors.

--playing the flute-- I play clarinet (U. of Michigan music school), and I've dabbled in sax, oboe, piano, and even a horn of some sort for a brief foray into a brass and drum corp, but I, for the life of me, cannot get a blessed sound out of a flute. When I try, I feel like I'll pass out.

(senyar-- when next we meet, I must test your perfect pitch/voice issues. Pitch problems when singing are generally ear issues, not voice issues (a matter of hearing the note correctly so you can then match your voice to it). The fact that you can hear when you're off key is a good sign, though, and the first step in correcting the issue)

1. Coming to rest:

One of the topics I was researching yesterday was sundive trajectories. It may be surprising, but it takes a fair amount of energy to travel to the Sun. You can't just fall in. Even if you leave Earth on an escape trajectory directly opposite the planet's revolution on the ecliptic, you still have a ridiculous amount of velocity just from being dragged around by the Earth's gravity. Which means you will keep falling at nearly the same speed as Earth (i.e. a near-Earth orbit, ~1 AU out from Sol). To stop and 'drop' into the Sun, you need to kill just about all of the orbital velocity you picked up just from starting on the Earth (or do something like slingshot around Jupiter, like the Ulysses probe*.

Which is a really long and overly-nerdy way of explaining how much energy it feels like it takes me to come to a stop and hold myself in stillness. It's not a question of just 'relaxing'; it is a very strenuous exercise.

ETA: * a better example would've been the Helios satellites, which at their closest, barely got closer to the Sun than Mercury's orbit (0.29 AU / 43.432 million kilometers, still waaaay closer than you'd ever want to be). As an indication of the paradoxical nature of travel within the solar system: at perihelion, Helios-B was traveling at 252,792 km/h relative to the sun (aka 157,078 mph), making it possibly the fastest-moving manmade object ever?

The point is: It takes a SHIT-TON of energy just to "come to a stop" relative to the solar system.

2. Condensing my thoughts.