Ta ever so to Shel Holtz for tagging me on this. I have mixed feelings about blog memes anyway, and none of my blogs is really the kind that such a post is appropriate for, since despite encouraging comments, I’m really a columnist, not a blogger. But it’s an interesting sort of challenge to list 8 things about me that pass the test I have for anything that goes online: would I be willing for my mother and my clients to read it?
My mother is not actually online, but many of my family members are, and all of my clients. So what can I reveal that most people don’t know about me but that wouldn’t be likely to lose me a job or horrify my mother? I doubt any of them will be news to close friends and family members, but they might be to people who wandered over here from Shel’s blog or who know me primarily for my Reports from the Asylum on FIR.
- I learned to ride a horse at the age of three, shortly after learning to read. You can blame my mother for my precocity in both areas. I’m still reading, but haven’t been on a horse for years, even for a trail ride. The skill stays with you, but the muscles don’t.
- I played the Cheshire Cat in a youth theater production of Alice in Wonderland. In some scenes I was replaced by a large plywood grin.
- When I was in high school, my ambition was to become a psychologist. Once I got to college, I discovered I didn’t have all that much aptitude/interest, and got sucked into the Classics Vortex instead.
- I wrote my first never-published novel during my freshman year in college. (While not doing my psychology homework.) It was about Helen of Troy from her point of view.
- There is actual video footage of me in the role of the drunken madam in a production of Plautus’ Cistellaria at the University of Michigan. (I was not originally cast in this role, but the actress had to go into emergency surgery on opening night, and I knew the script because I’d translated it.) And no, I am not going to post it on YouTube.
- I own more than 30 hats, but don’t wear most of them because there isn’t room to keep them in my apartment. (And anyway, I don’t need wool hats as much in California as I did in England.)
- My partner’s parents hated me at first sight. After almost 13 years, his mother is now reconciled to the fact that I’m not going away, but still appreciates me most from a distance.
- I get migraines at least once a month. They have driven me on more than one occasion to pray for menopause, but as I’m only 40, this is somewhat in the nature of Augustine’s “Lord, make me chaste—but not yet.”
I don’t believe I actually know 8 bloggers who haven’t already participated in this little adventure, but I’ll tag Tee Morris, Stefan Didak and Keith Ferrazzi. (Keith, wait ’til you can type, huh?)