Eeny Meeney Miney Meme

Well, it appears the thirst for trivia about the GinBaby is unquenchable.  People can't get enough of me.

Which is to say, however immodestly, that I've been tagged by the good Kirk with the 7-or-8 Things About You meme.  I hadn't yet met this version, but I had previously done the 5 Things No One Knows About You.  I will paste that into the body of this post so that you can learn all there is to know about me without so much as having to click a link.  Awesome, I know.

I've been having to give this some thought.  For one thing, as previously mentioned, my two very best friends read this.  Itchy Dawg has known me since I was 19; sgazzetti has known me since we were in grad school together.  They have seen me in a lot of stages, with many different colors of hair.  There is very little about me that they do not know.  For anyone else who might be reading, the challenge is coming up with 5 more things (in addition to the 5 I listed before, as, according to Kirk, there are rules about these memes that they don't count for a full 5) that no one really knows about me that are also interesting.  As it happens, I had actually listed far more than 5 things the last time I did this, so you are, in effect, going to get a sort of blizzard of new, potentially incriminating information about me.  I know, I know--it's probably going to be a thrill a minute.

First, the previous post:

I got tagged with that damn "5 things no one knows about you" meme.  You know the one.  I think I am probably the last person in the world to have been tagged with that.  It's going to be a bit difficult, because my two oldest and dearest friends in the universe both read this blog, and I don't think there is much they don't know about me.  But I shall give it the old college try.

1.  For many years, until I was well into high school, I absolutely refused to use the word "cool" to describe anything other than the temperature.  I thought people sounded like ass saying everything was "cool" all the time, and I similarly thought that any word that wanted to be so cool as 'cool' could not also be used by my mom.  Sigh.  Somewhere along the line, I gave up my ideals and sold my vocabulary downstream, no doubt for a case of wine coolers.

2.  Let's see.  I was in FFA, as in the Future Farmers of America, for three years.  I participated in many FFA events, including soil judging and meat judging (wink, wink, snicker, snicker).  I was never much good at soil judging, because, honestly, I am completely spatially unaware and thus unable to determine the angle of slope of any given piece of land.  It was vexing, that whole "slope" business, as if you can't farm on a hill!  I did well at meat judging (ahem!).  This was also the era in which I raised pigs (and then, yes, sold them to people who would kill them and devour their fatty bellies--made a tidy little profit doing that).

3.  I have a weakness for murder mysteries.  I am especially fond of Agatha Christie (oh, Hercule!  my love!), Dick Francis, and Ian Rankin.  I don't look at the end to find out who did it, but I do try to figure it out on my own, and a writer can really only earn my respect if I can't figure it out.  But those three write so well, I reread their books many times, even when I know who did it. 

4.  I have long had a serious Monkees fixation.  I know not how I succumbed to the affliction, though Nick at Nite had a lot to do with it, along with little supervision and long hours of insomnia.  You don't know schizophrenia until you have listened to Hank Williams, The Monkees, and Helmet all in one sitting, as I have.

5.  The year I was 12 we lived in Albuquerque.  It was the most terrifying year of my life.  To illustrate:  One day I woke up to find that our entire apartment complex was spattered with blood.  There were pools of blood that had not yet dried all around and broken glass and blood on the walls.  It turns out some guy on some drug had gone around punching out windows and just let himself bleed everywhere.  Still freaky.  And it colored my nightmares (and insomnia) for years.  That was also the year some guy probably tried to abduct me.  I say probably because I didn't get in the car with him.  He was creepy all around, and so I would barely even look at him, but in the few glances I stole, I noticed that he was...oh, no, let's not talk about it, shall we?  Shall we just say--if you're sensitive, forego reading this part--that I was confused about why he would be urinating on himself, but I was more confused that the urine was white.  For these reasons, among others (someone also tried to carjack my grandma, who awesomely refused to move at all, sitting through several red lights and finally making the guy too nervous, so he jumped out), I will never live in Albuquerque again, not ever, not for any reason.  I try my best not even to set foot in Albuquerque. 

There are probably other things.  I am, for example, completely anal retentive about matching my clothes and always have been.  I have no wisdom teeth (and no cavities in all my 32 years!).  I have had insomnia and nightmares since I can remember, although Albuquerque didn't help.  I have touched a real mummy, actually more than one.  I know the proper method for skinning a deer.  My IQ is apparently nearly twice my state's average.  I know how to weld.  When I was 2 years old or so, I cut the top of one of my fingers off; the same year, I hurled myself out of the car into oncoming Phoenix traffic, an act for which I still blame my mother (and, hey, thank goodness for car seats). 

Hmmm.  Fascinating, isn't it? 

Alright, well, that is a lot of fascinating information.  Well played, GinBaby.  God, I don't know why I'm being such a pompous ass tonight.  Forgive me, I beg of you.

So, for the next 5 things, I have been racking my brain.  I'll have a go at it, though.

1.  My favorite Beatles song is "Here Comes the Sun."  It's so simple and clear and perfect.  It was the alarm ringtone on my cell in Japan, although it was a version played on the shamisen.  It was a good thing to wake up to.

2.  In my youth, I read several seafaring novels (Moby Dick, Mutiny on the Bounty, etc.) and developed a secret and urgent fear of scurvy.  Just eat your oranges, people.

3.  I have a habit of listening to the same CD over and over again for a week or two before finally moving on to another one.  Right now, it's XTC's Skylarking, despite my irritation at the Colin Moulding songs.  My husband is annoyed by this habit, incidentally.

4.  I think Cary Grant is the epitomy of a gentleman and everything men should aspire to be.  So smooth, so charming.  Such great posture.  Ironically, I recently found out (thanks, again, Wikipedia) that my distant relative, Randolph Scott (he's my great-grandmother's cousin or something--my great-grandmother also went to Hollywood and was in a couple of movies and dated Errol Flynn and people like that before coming down with a mysterious and terrible disease, a disease found only in 100 women in the same hospital in southern California, a disease that they told her was polio that was quite demonstrably not polio, a disease that kept her bedridden for years, which just goes to show that southern Cali is eeeevil--but I digress) was possibly Cary Grant's lover.  Rock on Randolph--excellent taste!

5.  My favorite gin is Tanqueray Malacca, and I am constantly vexed that it is no longer made.  When we went to Malacca, I was also irked that they didn't have it available--it should have been flowing from the goddamn fire hydrants in Malacca.  I have made my peace with Malacca, the lovely town, but not with Tanqueray.  What is up, you fools?  That was the best widely available gin ever, and you stopped making it.  (I have heard of some boutique gins that are better, but I have not tasted them, as they are not readily available, so for the time being, I am just stuck Malacca-less and grumpy.)  I suppose a 6th thing you didn't know about me is that I actually prefer the spelling Melaka, but I am pretty sure the gin is 'Malacca.'  Imperialist fools.