3.19.2013

Five Things: A Replay

This week's top ten topic,

Top Ten Books I HAD To Buy...But Are Still Sitting On My Shelf Unread

...is one I've already done.

By my count, I've got another five or six of these Top Ten Tuesdays that aren't more or less repetitive. After that, I'm going to have to find something else to do with Tuesdays around here. I have one idea I like very much, but to really do it up well probably means sketching, which I haven't done in years.

For today, Christie has tagged me in one of those say-five-interesting-things-about-yourself memes. I love those so much that, upon research, I discover I've already done some version of this at least four times on this blog. I suppose that makes me a narcissist. It would also seem that I have now told ALL THE SECRETS.*

But I still like to visit the warmer lands.
Like Christie, though, many of you are comparatively new friends and haven't seen those old posts. Since hardly any of you were around in January of 2007, when I posted the first, I'll replay and expand upon that one. Five things you may not have known about me, then:
1. I have been chased by a headless snapping turtle.
And stepped on a snake thinking it was a garden hose... and, with my family, been pursued by a water moccasin. And we won't even talk about alligators. There are reasons I don't live anywhere near the tropics now. The turtle, anyway, upon its decapitation at the hands of my uncle, took off like a beheaded chicken and came straight after my sister and me. Beth was a toddler and I wasn't much older, so you can imagine the screams and the panic as the dead reptile followed us—presumably unintentionally—in a circle around the yard.
2. I have never conquered my irrational childhood fear of swimming pool drains.
Hot tub jets and bathtub drains also give me the willies. In the last year or two, I read an article explaining how swimming pools work, hoping to get over the silliness. But the article claimed that the drains are left open all the time, which I hadn't known before, and I now have very little interest in ever going swimming again.
3. The author’s genes kicked in early for me. When I was about five or six, I used to do my own narration in third person, for instance: “She walked down the stairs and turned on the light.”
Nerd. The word is nerd. My friend Bradley once pointed that out. "All you ever say is she, she, she," he complained, which embarrassed me terribly, as he was eight years old and adorable. "No, it's not all I ever say," I said. Unfortunately for me, in inspiring his original comment, I had given him a ready example to quote back to me.
4. Instead of taking a teddy bear to bed with me as a little girl, I used to take my Breyer horses.
That might not be the main reason that they always had broken legs, but it probably contributed.
5. The first two songs I ever wrote were both written solely because someone else I knew had written a song, and I figured “What the heck—if they can do it, so can I.”
And I am way too much of a narcissist to ever sing those terrifically bad songs in public. Ever.

Now, I'd love it if you'd all tell me five interesting things about yourself in the comments. Or post on your own blog and link back so I can read it. :D

* No, I haven't. Not all. But it would require some serious and time-consuming excavations of the soul to come up with interesting factoids that you haven't heard and that I'm willing to share.

13 comments:

  1. What's that behind you in the water? ;)

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    1. Headless shark with a shell that just ate a snake, I think.

      You know, the usual.

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    2. HAHAHA. You guys, I almost had to look. :P

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  2. I enjoyed this so much!

    1. You seem to attract a lot of reptiles . . . keep some holy water with you at all times!

    2. They're TOTALLY creepy! I was afraid of the whole deep end of the pool, but especially the drains.

    3. This is just awesome. I didn't think to narrate my own life, but I did play a lot of pretend, which is kind of like putting yourself in a story. And I dictated stories to my mom to accompany my crayon-scribble illustrations. The first surviving one is about a unicorn that "took to Rainbow land." There were also a lot of pretty blue and pink barrettes there.

    4. Are those hard? Wasn't that uncomfortable?

    5. I've got many, many poems like that!

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    1. I'm glad I'm not the only one creeped out by drains! And I still love unicorns and rainbows and pretty barrettes. :D

      Breyer horses are hard. But I don't remember ever being too uncomfortable.

      And I'm still thinking about coming back to your part of the country for a visit. The above pic is from four years ago. :)

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    2. Just say when and where, and I will find a way to see you. <3

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  3. You had Breyers!?! I collected them! In fact, I still have my whole collection at home; I couldn't agree to sell them, even after getting married :-\ (I'm sure my parents love that... cough cough).

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    1. I loved mine! And wish I'd kept them all around. I think I still have one somewhere. If I'd had a proper collection, though, there's no way they'd have been allowed to get sold... they'd probably be proudly displayed alongside my books. ;)

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  5. OOps..

    I slept with my breyers too!! And broke legs left and right (one horse ended up with only one unglued leg and one leg glued in four different places! I wonder where those horses ended up??

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    1. YAY other Breyer fans! You slept with yours too? Awesome!! It always hurt me when the legs broke. My mom used to melt them back together with a match, as I recall.

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  6. As for the actual post topic, I'm not sure I could come up with five interesting facts about myself. I'm a pretty boring guy.

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