Facebook Meme Makes the Blog (or see #10)

The following was a Facebook meme that I worked so hard on cause I wanted mine to be as charming and illuminating as my friends Lisa and Carrie's were. I'm not sure mine lives up to that but I am nonetheless including it here.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you and I am soo glad you have come into my life.(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

25. I have three tattoos but usually appear fairly cleancut a juxtiposition I personally enjoy. They're all very meaningful to me (even the boring one) and I hope to get more when I can afford to do so. And to those people who say "Well, what about when you're 80?" I say that's a buncha hooey. They become a part of you-I'm always happy to see them when I catch a glimpse but other than that they're just a part of me.

24. My favorite and lucky number is 18. I tend to the superstitious a bit-right now it's hawks. If I see a hawk on my way somewhere I always feel like it's a good omen. I also wish on stars. A lot.

23. Some people are cat people, some are dog people. I'm a menagerie person-if I see it, I want it. (See a yak, want a yak.) Hopefully, I'll have the space to do something about that some day.

22. As of a few weeks ago I am a shape note singer. At the end of our first finished song someone at my group said "You're a shape note singer now." I can sing 4 songs now so I'm really a shape note singer.

21. I am a music, movie and book person. If you don't like any or all of these enough to keep up with my near constant stream of Tourette's like references, well, we probably won't be friends. You don't have to like the same ones I do, I like it better when there's just some overlap, but I don't trust people who aren't into at least one of these. What do they do for fun? What do they think about?

20. One of my passions is, inexplicably, polar exploration-especially the travels of Sir Ernest Shackleton. I have a shrine to that man, a daily reminder about the power of endurance and passion. I look at it and it makes whatever I've got going seem minor and eminately do-able.

21. Things I'd save in a fire:-the cat (natch)-laptop-my birthday suitcase-mix tapes & CDs-photos

19. I'm single but am always brought up short when someone refers to me as 'unlucky in love'. Wha? I have loved and been loved by so many great men-one flew me to Chicago for the day so I could see a whale because I never had. That doesn't feel unlucky to me.

18. I am an extroverted introvert which means (I think) I'm shy but not so you'd notice. I think I have Situational Social Anxiety-I can give a presentation to a crowd with no problem but freeze up when I have to make a phone call to a stranger. I know, it's weird.

17. I have a bartender face. People just want to tell me things, deeply personal things I don't usually want to know. Not sure why that is exactly and if it's the reason I have always had a desire to bartend even though I'm absolutely sure that it's not a glamorous gig.

16. Words are everything to me. Lyrics, the back of a cereal box, my cell phone manual-I want to know them all. I especially love the personal vocabulary shorthand you develop with someone close. How I can just say 'Margaret' to certain friends and they know exactly what I mean.

15. One of the hardest things I have ever done was speak at my friend Scott's memorial service but I'm so glad I did. It would be one of my St. Peter arguements for sure. Another would be the fact that when my friend was admitted to the pysch hospital when we were kids I made sure she had mail every day for the month she was there which when you don't have a car and they don't deliver mail on Sundays is saying something.

14. I listen to the soundtrack to the novel Northline every day. It's that necessary and important to me.

13. Though I would not call myself an artist I love to dabble in all sorts of creative things. Papercrafts are my favorite since they are most forgiving to the untalented (plus the fact that paint chips are the best free art supplies ever) but I also enjoy photography. Right now I am building my first Cornell box as a gift for my friend George.

12. I have 3 automimmune diseases. Managing them is not always easy and I'll be the first to admit I'm not always the best patient but as it has been amply proven how good I can feel when I do buckle down, I am doing much better on that front. Dealing with my malfunctioning body has also given me a keen interest in medical matters-nothing I love better than a good medical story. I believe it will make me an excellent senoir citizen.

11. I love to shop at thrift stores. I always say anybody can take $200 and go to Barneys and come out with something cool, the real challenge is to take $20 to the Salvation Army and do the same.

10. Though I can work very hard I also have a huge lazy streak. I think that's why I get along with cats so well.

9. I have a really good memory which is good for a writer but can be bad in relationships. People really don't want you to remember every single thing they ever said. It kinda just pisses them off.

8. I rarely ever remember any of my dreams so when I do am compelled to relate them no matter how boring or mundane.

7. Like a lot of people I behaved very badly as a younger person and I feel like I'm trying to live in such a way now as to make up for it. I'm not sure that is actually ever possible but, like trying to be a good Christian, I believe am I better for the striving.

6. I have always been different, as long as I can remember. Like a disability, I believe I have learned to compensate for it so long as I do the extra mental translating. But, no matter how hard I try, several times a year at least I'll do something that throws other people for a loop. I often think that if science could just flip open my head that they would be shocked and declare me the highest functioning crazy person ever though I am aware that just the fact I think that means I'm probably not really crazy.

5. I would very much like to have a nude portrait taken, not for porn purposes (though I think "shape note singing" would make an awesome listed hobby on a porn site right next to "long walks on the beach"). No, just to capture my self in my body at this point in my life.

4. On one of my earliest report cards in the parent comment box my mother wrote "I hope Samantha will learn to live by the Golden Rule all her life". I think of that often. I also think of what my old friend David Patton told me once, "Better to regret something you've done than something you haven't". I think that's personally very true though I must admit I've used it as justification for doing something questionable on more than one occasion.

3. My immediate goals are finishing my book, finding a job that satisfies, a lover, a house and a dog. But not necessarily in that order.

2. I'm a crier. Movies, cards, even manipulative commercials get to me. You don't have to jerk the tears out of me, I'll give em to you in buckets. I'd love to be more stoic and tough but I don't see that happening. But what most people don't get is that that is just the first go to response. Crisis, I cry, then I do what needs to be done. Don't think I've gone to pieces or anything.

1. In high school my yearbook quote was going to be "happy is the man who can laugh at himself for he will never cease to be amused" but I changed it at the last minute for a Springsteen quote. If I had it to do over I would stick with my first choice.