I was tagged

10

One of the coolest people whose blogs I love to read (The Lazy Buddhist at “Stumbling Along the Path” — feel free to check her out on my blogroll), “tagged” me with a meme to list out 10 Random Factoids about myself. I’m not that interesting so it will be a stretch to come up with this. Then I’ll tell you about Chick’s challenge to me, though she only IMPLIED it, I’m going to try to lift the gauntlet.

First things first:

1. For a good bit of my life I was the youngest and thinnest and shyest person in any group I was in. I think it stuck that way in my head, that that is “me”, so I’m constantly surprised by ‘now’s’ reality.

2. I didn’t have my first Scottie until I was 19 years old (we weren’t really ‘dog’ people), and since then, not counting litters of puppies, I have had… 8. (Had to wander back through the years and take my fingers along with me).

3. I planned that my career would be as a war correspondent, intending to be the Ernie Pyle of the Viet Nam conflict. Apparently, even if you go to journalism school and have a lot of heart, naivety doesn’t prepare you for the way things work. [Even further back, I wanted to be an astronaut before there were ANY such things, but was still told I couldn't do it because I was a girl. I also wanted to ride in the Kentucky Derby, and was told I couldn't, not because I was too tall but because I was a girl.]

4. After graduating from college (with a journalism degree), my first job was as a black and white stripper (in Salt Lake City, Utah!) (finishing putting Then-Hub through school because he couldn’t graduate from UT). Oh, and the stripping job was for a printing company, stripping in black&white negatives.

5. When I started my senior year in high school, I lacked 1/4 credit from being able to graduate at age 16 (didn’t realize it myself until too late to do anything with it, then would have been too young to fit in in college). Snowy graduated a year ‘early’ at age 16, but her parents made her do her 1st year of college at B’ham Southern before letting her go “off” to UofA. This (my situation, not Snowy’s) may be why I was determined (and did) to go through college in 3 years.

6. I used to have a good voice, really, and ‘waited to be discovered’ as a rock’n'roll star, again being too naive and ‘gently reared’ to know what one had to do to get out there and make that happen. But like the thinness, youth, etc., that’s just stuck in my head now, without any truth of it remaining. Sad part is, I didn’t really realize that until I became painfully aware of how embarrassing my zest (if not my talent) for singing was for Chick as she got older, and that brought the fade of my ‘powers’ home to me. Now I rarely sing except maybe along with the radio alone in the little blue car blowing the dust off on the way home. And that’s enough.

7. I was briefly a model — again, when young, thin, naive. Didn’t last — didn’t like people looking at me, and that’s the point, right?

8. I’ve been in love 2-1/2 times, none of whom I was married to. That is 2-1/2 more times than I ever thought could happen as I experienced life and 1,000 more times less than I expected from my life. I don’t know that love and I will ever find each other again, and I’m okay with that where once I think I would have ‘died’ to see that as my reality.

9. Even though it’s been almost 30 years (wow! how’d that happen!!!!) since I was a Navy wife, I still cry when I hear the Navy Hymn, and can sing (in my head) most of the first verse by heart.

10. I’m rarely on time, am a huge procrastinator, and while it is part of my personality TYPE, I also think it is part of my “rebellion” against the organization, timeliness, expectations that were the example my parents set me. I also do NOT like being told I “have” to do something or I “can’t” do something. That is where my natural, bone deep, innate shyness and reticence get bubbled over with some spark of the bloodymindedness that is lurking in my gene pool. Hey, I’m an INFP & a Sagittarius, and I’m on a journey. Beep-beep!

There you go– 10 random factoids about me. If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged! Either post the meme on your blog, or if you don’t have one, post here as a comment. I would be honored if you would share.

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Here’s the challenge I’m implying from Chick. She asked me, as I was grinding away on the ‘marathon’ post of yesterday, if I’d ever heard of a ‘bullet-point post’. Of course I haven’t! How rarely do I use the 5 words that would do when I can use ALL the vocabulary words on the list and cram 50 in one sentence or a 1,000 words in a post.

So, for the rest of the month I am going to ATTEMPT to blog in bullet points and see if by so doing I can prune down to a more economical expression and still convey my heart and thoughts. We’ll see how it goes and it may not go far.

Until then… That’s me for now.

p.s. Snowy is in a new phase the last 2 days, and we don’t know if it’s just transitioning or if it will be with us for awhile. It’s interesting and we’re trying to figure it out. Will see if I can convey it tomorrow.