Thirteen Things You Might Never Have Guessed

Thanks for the meme, Doug. In the spirit of the exclusive Thursday Thirteen of which I am not a regular enough participant to be "accepted" (phhhlbt!), I offer this diversion:

Thirteen Things About Me You Might Never Have Guessed
1. In 1990, my fomer best girlfriend and I had our noses pierced together. Well, not together, in the sense that we became Siamese Twins--we just did it at the same time, at the mall. (This makes three days in a row I have blogged about a mall. I'm getting goosebumps.) It was like when you're kids and you prick your fingers and touch them together, becoming blood sisters, only B. and I didn't rub our bloody noses afterward. That would have been eskimo kissing. Anyway, both our noses hurt too much after the mall lady used the ear gun on our faces. She'd never pierced any nose before. I bravely went first while B. cringed. It felt as if someone held a revolver to my face and blew off my nose. There must be a better way to pierce noses nowadays, since so many people are doing it. I really liked wearing a teensy little silver post. (I'm not advocating piercings, however.) I took it out at Rob's urging sometimes later--something about wanting to make a decent impression on his parents. I think B. never forgave me for taking out "our" nose ring. Some time after Rob and I got married she moved to NM with her new best girlfriend, and, well, they got married too, sort of.

2. I was a platinum blonde for a while in my early 20s. I learned then that brunettes actually do get more credit for being intelligent than blondes. As a side note, during my ultra-blonde phase, I also turned my hair a sickening shade of pink, on accident of course, when I tried to temporarily cover up the platinum; this happened on a day when my dad called and said he was coming into town that evening for an impromptu visit.

3. Jane Siberry and I exchanged some friendly emails.

4. When I was a young teenager I innocently ordered a bunch of underground comics from the classified ads in Rolling Stone because they looked fun and it made me feel grownup to order something. Zippy the Pinhead was my favorite. Most of the others shocked and embarrassed me and I hid them from my parents.

5. When I was small, The Banana Splits were my invisible pals.

6. When I was 8, my mom's best friend gave me a tape recorder and I liked hiding it in my clothes and making candid recordings of family members. I also used to enlist the help of a friend and we'd invent funny shows and songs and commercials and record them.

7. One of my most personal religious anthems is "Jesus" by the Velvet Underground. It really speaks to me. (You'd probably have to hear it to understand.)

8. Once I shredded an oil painting of myself (which I inherited from my father). Hacked it completely to ribbons with a sharp knife. Are you scared of me now? (You shouldn't be. And anyway, I no longer own any sharp knives.)

9. When I was a child, my grandpa gave me his transistor radio. It had an earphone. I was always an insosmniac, so I stealthily wired my bed so that at night when I lay awake I could listen to music without being discovered. As I got older I listened to Dr. Demento on a faraway station full of static. Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads, fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum!

10. I had bright blue eyes till I hit puberty. Now they're green with gold rings.

11. I am masterful at yanking doodle bugs out of their holes. (This is not as easy as it sounds.)

12. Once after I had gone through a devastating breakup with a boyfriend, a close friend of mine talked me into a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas. Neither of us had transportation, but he said, "Leave it to me." He went to visit some girls who lived in the same student apartment complex we did, and confessed to them that he and I were eloping to Las Vegas but we desperately needed a way to get there. They melted over his story (he's a writer and has quite the imagination). Starry-eyed and winkingly confederate, they surrendered their car keys. We drove most of the night, wandered the strip, explored Circus Circus, and ended up sleeping on our own sides of the car in a parking garage. We went home the next day, stiff, tired, laughing, and unmarried. I still don't know what he said to the girls when we got back; they weren't friends of mine.

13. If all the people who've asked us to be legal guardians of their children in the event of their demise leave the planet at once, Rob and I will inherit 11 children (and counting).