10 Unusual Things About Me

I wasn’t officially tagged, but Sophia Ismaa left the invitation open – so here I am, gearing up to tell you some weird junk.  Perhaps you will relate, perhaps get a chuckle, but I assure you that it’s all true.

I painted this.  Not a great artist, but a fun one!

1. I was always intrigued by ‘milk and cookies’ grandparents on TV.  My grandma just wanted me to sit on their sawblade rug (it was a giant, steel sawblade on the floor, I kid you not) while she talked with dead people in the mirror and my grandpa complained about how he only had a couple years left in him and he just hoped Grandma would die first.
2. A few years ago, I did beta reading on another site and posted a short story I wrote for others to critique.  I had left the narrating character’s gender purposefully vague, and I wanted to see what readers thought about it.  I was surprised to find most people assumed the character was the gender the reader was. I was also surprised that they also believed I, the author, was their gender even though I used a definitely gender-recognizable name at the time.  I started this blog with a side goal to see what would happen if I kept myself vague, and the same trends seem to apply here as on that little critiquing site.
3. I was born with extra heart nerves that gives me weird arrhythmias. It’s under control now, but they may become a nuisance again later.
4. I had extra teeth.  Several of my teeth were pulled, as scheduled, on September 11th, 2001, the day I contracted chicken pox.
5. I have the ability to lucid dream – i.e. actively control what the main character does during a dream.  I don’t know if this is normal, but I’ve trained myself to look at clocks twice.  If the time is the same or reasonably the same both times I look, it’s real life.  If it’s different or otherwise nonsense, I know it’s a dream and can act with impunity.  I haven’t figured out how to make my brain defeat the physics of the universe the dream started with, though.
6. In high school, I once purposefully stabbed a guy in the leg with a drafting compass, and I can’t decide if that makes me a supreme nerd or an inimitable badass.
7. In middle school, I took a different guy down with a single leg followed by a trip, beat his face into the cement, then stood up and told the teacher who saw, “He deserved it” and somehow won with that argument.
8. A couple years ago, I moved back to North Carolina and started working for one of my former coworkers who’d been very successful.  I reminded him how we met:
   “Hello, I’m H.R.R. Gorman.  What’s your name?”
   “I’m an atheist.  How does that make you feel?”
   “Uh… fine I guess?”
   “I am also communist.  What about that?”
   “I guess that’s ok too-”
   “I am Stalinist!  How about now?”
   “Uh… um… whatever floats your boat?”
   “You’re no fun.” He then stormed out of the room, failing to introduce himself at that time.
   Upon receiving this reminder, he said, “I don’t remember this.  I wouldn’t have done something like that without provocation.”
   “I used to wear a lot of Baptist t-shirts.”
   “Oh.  That would do it.”
9. I enjoy procuring knowledge about terrible music.  Traditional Korean pansori barely beats out Lemonade by Coco Rosie for the title of “Worst Ever” in my book.
10. I’ve played a total of 5 paladins in D&D.  It’s my favorite class by a wide margin.

This was originally a tag game, so I suppose I should do so.  However, I am aware of a sense of busy-ness that comes along with the National Novel Writing Month, and I don’t want anyone tagged here to feel obligated to participate.  So, I’m linking front pages rather than posts so no one gets distracted if they don’t want to be.

E. Kathryn – her book is coming out soon!  Woohoo!
Tom Darby – Dude has an interesting life, what can I say?
Marnie Heenan – I know you’re doing NaNo, but maybe this will be something fun to look forward to after

People like Brian from Books of Brian and Alexander Elliot – your sites are professional enough that I wasn’t sure if I should try tagging with something of this personal ilk.  Just know that I’m impressed and wish you the best!