I'm Just Sayin'

And probably wish you still didn’t. (I know, I did an abbreviated list like this one before…but this time, you’ll get all the details. Try to contain yourself.)

So, I think it’s kind of cocky of me to suppose that you even want to know weird facts about me. A few of you will appreciate additional blackmail fodder (but, ha, I’m posting this on the interweb, so it’s no longer a secret!) A few of you already knew these things about me (hi Mom!) But hey, maybe you’ll laugh, maybe you’ll feel a bit better about yourself. That’s what I’m here for. Making others feel better about themselves since 1980.

So, without further ado, five things that will prove to you that I’m just as weird as I claim to be.

1. I only eat one food at a time. As in, I have to completely finish my fries before I move to my burger. Not only that, I hate for my food to touch. When I was a kid, I would put one food on my plate, eat it, rinse off my plate, and put the next one on. Even if it was a paper plate. My poor mother. She even had to buy frosted flakes, because when we had Trix, I would eat one color at a time. And if I discovered a yellow after I had moved on to the reds…well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.

2. I once vomited in three countries, in a 24-hour period. I know, I know, if you’ve read my blog in the past, you already know this. But it’s an interesting story. One of my few claim to fames! I went to Ethiopia in March of this year. On my last evening, I had some kind of marinated fruit. Pineapples, strawberries, etc. Apparently, it was marinated in toilet water. Because that’s where I spent the next 48 hours. I was sick at my hotel, at the Addis Ababa airport (in three different bathrooms), sitting on a plane in Egypt, and in two different concourses in the London Heathrow Airport. And now, seven months later, I still can’t bring myself to eat pineapple.

3. I didn’t see the beach until I was 13-years-old. That may not sound too interesting, but I lived in Virginia…a mere three hours from the ocean. My family just wasn’t too interested in going. But we finally did, and a camping trip to boot. Can I tell you how miserable it is to have a blistering sunburn and sleep in a sandy sleeping bag? I thought I would die.

4. I started writing when I was in first grade. No, I didn’t learn how to write then, I wrote my first “book” then. What’s really funny is I still own all of the books I wrote. The first one was called “A Lot of Horses.” It was about a horse that had twelve baby horses at one time. Biology wasn’t my strong suit. Then I wrote a book about being a ballerina (my realism hadn’t kicked in). Then one about a fairy godmother (this one was rife with clothing descriptions, as I was in my Babysitters Club phase). And one about a ghost that appeared out of a lake (I won the Young Author’s award for this one–woo hoo!) The really funny thing–I also illustrated them. They were a.ma.zing!

5. I started babysitting when I was 12. I know that doesn’t sound interesting. But I have lots of interesting stories as a 12-year-old babysitter. Like babysitting for the kid who was born with his bladder on the outside of his body. And how I wore gloves (not latex, oh no, like mittens) every time I changed him because it FREAKED.ME.OUT! Or the time I couldn’t put a baby in his crib without him waking up, and I held him in one position for so long that my arm was completely dead by the time his parents came home.

Well, that’s it. If you read this far, congratulations! You win the satisfaction of knowing me even more intimately than you did before!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under I'm Such a Dork. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.