Random Things Meme

Leah tagged me on Face­book to write 25 ran­dom things about myself, then Sam tagged me to come up with 16 ran­dom tid­bits. I’m not good at these things, but I’ll give it a try.

1. I did­n’t go to kinder­garten but start­ed first grade when I was 5 because my moth­er thought she had to put me in school.
2. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Forester, was very hard of hear­ing, so she yelled con­stant­ly. I was con­stant­ly pet­ri­fied that year because in my fam­i­ly yelling meant some­body was going to get knocked around.
3. I spent much of the 4th and 5th grades as a sub­sti­tute teacher for younger stu­dents because one of my aunts was the school sec­re­tary and she chose well-behaved A stu­dents (always female, for some rea­son) for that pur­pose. The school or school dis­trict was appar­ent­ly too poor or too cheap to actu­al­ly hire subs.
4. My ear­li­est mem­o­ry is from the week after my sis­ter was born when I was 23 months old.
5. When my sis­ter and I were about 2 and 4 years old, a rabid Ger­man shep­herd jumped the fence around our back­yard and chased us. It was less than a foot away from her when a neigh­bor used his hunt­ing rifle to kill it. She does­n’t remem­ber the inci­dent, but she’s still pho­bic about that breed. Me? I want­ed to learn to shoot that rifle. NOW!
6. I start­ed ques­tion­ing Chris­tian­i­ty when I was about 8 years old. One of my cousins gave me a lit­tle Scor­pio pen­dant for my birth­day, which my moth­er prompt­ly con­fis­cat­ed, rail­ing about for­tune-telling and witch­es. I asked her about the dif­fer­ence between “prophets” and “for­tune-tellers” and found myself in the preacher’s office. I asked him about a spe­cif­ic verse in the New Tes­ta­ment and was told that God had­n’t giv­en him the under­stand­ing of that verse yet, so he ripped that page out of his Bible. Since Moth­er spanked us for even putting a Sun­day School book or church bul­letin on top of a Bible while car­ry­ing them, I was con­vinced that he was going to Hell straightaway—unless the whole church thing was balderdash.
7. My first piano teacher, Mar­jorie Hall, had also taught my moth­er when she was a child. She was our church organist.
8. My father has had seri­ous back prob­lems through­out most of my life. I learned to give back­rubs very ear­ly, try­ing to ease his pain.
9. My mater­nal grand­fa­ther, Dad­dy Boots, was a moon­shine run­ner in his younger years. Some of Dad­dy’s extend­ed fam­i­ly ran stills across north Alaba­ma and north Geor­gia, and it’s very like­ly that he worked for them. I’ve always found that high­ly amus­ing since Mom’s fam­i­ly con­sid­ered Dad­dy to be “from the wrong side of the tracks” when they start­ed dating.
10. Our extend­ed fam­i­lies were very close­ly-knit when I was young, but both fell apart fair­ly quick­ly after my grand­moth­ers died (both in 1987).
11. My pater­nal grand­fa­ther was a union orga­niz­er at the steel mill where he worked. He died when my father was 7, and the union did noth­ing to help the fam­i­ly, so Dad­dy has been vir­u­lent­ly anti-union ever since.
12. I came across the idea of being open­ly involved with more than one per­son at a time in Hein­lein’s Time Enough for Love when I was 13. It made per­fect sense to me. I’ve been polyamorous ever since, though I have agreed to monog­a­mous rela­tion­ships from time to time.
13. I adore huge dogs. Yes, in the house. It’s cru­el to bring a dog into a fam­i­ly, then keep it out in the yard. They’re pack-ori­ent­ed! I miss hav­ing a big, fenced yard that’s suit­ed to let­ting a big dog run around safely.
14. I’ve always been a cat per­son, which is weird since my par­ents have no use for them. They don’t think ani­mals belong in the house at all, but over the years I guess I wore them down. I hard­ly con­sid­er any struc­ture a home with­out a cat.
15. I miss climb­ing trees. I don’t think any­one taught me to do it, but accord­ing to both my mem­o­ries and fam­i­ly sto­ries, if they could­n’t find me, the best place to look was gen­er­al­ly up. I used to spend hours perched up in trees, read­ing, as the best way to avoid my lit­tle sister.
16. I spent much of my mid­dle school and ear­ly high school evenings and week­ends babysit­ting and act­ing as a “moth­er’s helper.” I even babysat a cou­ple of kids who were old­er than I was, but since I was ahead of them in school, that was a secret between me and their parents.
17. I start­ed work­ing at my father’s employ­er’s office after school and in the sum­mers when I was 12.
18. I was involved in just about every­thing but art and sports in high school: march­ing and sym­phon­ic band, per­form­ing cho­rus, dra­ma, debate, math club, Beta Club, Nation­al Hon­or Soci­ety, Junior Civ­i­tan, Close-Up, mod­el U.N., etc. I had no idea that any of it would mat­ter to colleges—that was just a nice bonus.
19. While hus­band v.2 was wor­ried about his draft num­ber, I was start­ing first grade. Hus­band v.3 had already served in Viet­nam and returned by then.
20. Katie real­ly is a mir­a­cle, God­dess-gift baby. I met a woman at a Men­sa nation­al gath­er­ing, and out of the blue, she asked if she could per­form a heal­ing for me. I could­n’t find a polite way to say no, so I said yes. She spent sev­er­al hours “pour­ing ener­gy” into me. After­ward, I could­n’t find her, the room where we’d been, or any­one else who had noticed her. Not long after that, I was preg­nant with­out any fer­til­i­ty treat­ments, although mul­ti­ple doc­tors had insist­ed that there was no way I would ever con­ceive with­out them.
21. I learned that I was preg­nant less than a week after con­cep­tion, because of the 24/7 sick­ness (that stayed with me through­out the preg­nan­cy). I thought I had the stom­ach flu, but it would­n’t go away. I went to a doc-in-the-box to get a preg­nan­cy test just to make my hus­band stop talk­ing about preg­nan­cy. I made them do the test three times to be sure!
22. I’ve lost track of the num­ber of mis­car­riages I’ve had. I want­ed more kids, but have final­ly resigned myself to the fact that I got a per­fect child the first time, and she’s going to be my only one.
23. I’m a vocal snob. I find it phys­i­cal­ly painful to be near some peo­ple when they’re singing, and have lit­tle to no patience with them. While I’d love to sing with a group again on a reg­u­lar basis, I’m total­ly dis­in­ter­est­ed in any group that does­n’t require strict auditions.
24. I think I’ve for­got­ten how to cook. Odd, since I start­ed cook­ing at a very young age and cooked din­ner every day until short­ly before I met Sam. (He’s a bet­ter cook than I am, anyway.)
25. I’m not cur­rent­ly read­ing a book. I can’t remem­ber that hav­ing hap­pened at any time since I was in first grade.

I’m not going to tag peo­ple specif­i­cal­ly, but if you want to play, please let me know so that I won’t miss your list!