Ten Interesting(?) Things About Me
(Warning: Contents may not actually be all that interesting.)
Hi all. Aura Wilming tagged me to share ten things about myself. I’m not sure I can think of that many, but I shall do my best. First things first:
1. I hate fish and seafood. This has been a near-lifelong aversion, which really sucks when you grow up in close proximity to a lot of coastal cities. The taste, texture, and smell of the stuff just turn my stomach. (And zapping leftover fish in the office microwave should be illegal. Come on, people. We live in a society.) I used to be able to tolerate tuna fish if it was drowned in mayo and out-stunk by onions, but even that eventually became too much for me. And I grew up Catholic, so the battles during Lent when we had to eat fish on Fridays … oof.
Yes, I know fish and seafood are really good for me. Yes, I’m sure you’ve got a recipe that’s so delicious that angels come down from Heaven to sneak the leftovers from your fridge. But I just can’t stand the stuff. And I’m almost 50; at this point, I don’t think that’s going to change. Besides …
2. These days I’m a vegetarian, and definitely not the “no meat but eats fish sometimes” kind. I went meatless for a while in the 90s, but fell off the wagon. My second try in 2011 stuck. My husband went vegetarian in the 90s and never backslid, so I’ve developed a pretty decent repertoire of vegetarian dishes. Don’t worry — I won’t badger you about eating meat, because food nags are dreary. I just don’t eat it anymore.
3. We don’t have kids. I am not a rabid child-hater and if I know you in person I (probably) like your kids, but the urge to have my own never kicked in. My husband and I would revisit the topic on occasion, and each time the answer was the same: Nah. And the “But you could change your mind some day!” horse officially departed the barn three years ago when I had a hysterectomy. That’s OK, though, because …
4. I grew up with nieces and nephews who were only a couple of years younger than me. We all lived near each other and were basically a big bunch of kids hanging out even if I was technically everyone’s “Aunt Colie.” They almost all still live pretty close by and I have lots of grandnieces and grandnephews, so I get plenty of kid fixes.
5. I almost died in 2014. In fact, I went on a lonnnng streak from 2014–2015 of being unable to stay out of the hospital, and that was one of the worst periods of my life. My first crisis was a ruptured appendix, but that wasn’t what almost killed me. I had an appendectomy a couple of months after the infection had cleared up. I thought I’d recovered from that with no issues, but on one memorable Sunday afternoon in December, I discovered that I couldn’t walk more than half a block without having to stop and gasp for air. I admit I’m not in the best shape, but I’m normally not that bad.
When we got to the hospital, which was festively lit up for Christmas and felt completely incongruous with my Oh god what the hell is wrong with me terror, I learned I’d developed a blood clot that had traveled up to my lungs. Turns out I have a genetic mutation that makes my blood more likely to clot. A doctor woke me up in my room in intensive care in the middle of the night to show me a scan they’d done of my lungs. My oxygen-deprived left lung didn’t even show up on the film. And he told me “If that clot had landed in the center of your lungs instead of to the left, you’d be dead now.”
Well. When someone tells you a thing like that, it stays with you. It’s been the thing underlying a lot of my drive to get a book agented and published at long last.
(Really, though; if I had to have a mutant ability, couldn’t I be like Quicksilver or something? Blood clots suck.)
6. I spent the first six years of my life in New York City, and then my dad got transferred to a suburb in Maryland that was, at the time, mostly farm land. You want to talk culture shock? I went from living in an apartment building on a busy, vibrant Manhattan block to a house that was catty-corner across the street from an honest-to-god barn, with cows and roosters and everything. I could step outside and not see another soul on the sidewalk. We had to get in the car and drive if we wanted to go to the grocery store, or anywhere else. Strange days, indeed. The only thing that was still exactly as he was when I left New York was Mister Rogers, and that’s when I became really drawn to that show.
I’ve always considered myself a city person; I lived in Washington D.C. for a few years in the 90s and would love to get back to New York City to live some day. I just have to come into a huge amount of money first.
7. Recently I’ve discovered that I enjoy learning other languages. I learned French in grade school and college. The only opportunities I’ve had to try speaking it lately have been during trips to Canada, but I can still read it reasonably well and always try to have some French language books on hand for practice.
This summer, I started teaching myself Spanish with Duolingo and some assorted podcasts; I’d always wanted to learn it and figured there was no time like the present. I live in an area that has lots of bilingual signage, so it’s easy to sneak in some practice on the bus or the subway, and I always get a little thrill when I figure out what something means without needing to look it up online.
I’ve also been learning Portuguese because I’ve often wondered how it’s similar to Spanish and how it’s different. One big difference is that Portuguese-speaking cats are apparently really up on their current events:
I forgot to take a screenshot of the time I got “The cat drinks a beer” (O gato bebe uma cerveja). Good lord help us all if my cats ever figure out how to do that.
8. I’d been a fan of Jeopardy since it relaunched in the 80s, and in 2011 I achieved my lifelong dream of getting on the show. This was a great experience and I’m still in touch with some of the contestants from my “week” (a week’s worth of shows are taped on one long day). If you’ve ever thought about being on the show, I can’t encourage you enough to take the online test. You’ll never know if you don’t try.
Alas, I cost myself my dream of being a Jeopardy champion by not including a word in quotes in the Final Jeopardy clue when I wrote down my answer. I can sort-of chuckle about that now, but watching Jeopardy was hard on me for a long time after that because I was so pissed at myself for making such a stupid mistake — and on national TV, yet. However, getting stopped in the halls at work and complimented for being on the show took some of the sting out.
But whenever I see a contestant lose because they made a math mistake or a bad wager, or gave the right response but misspelled it just enough to disqualify themselves, I feel their pain.
(A couple of months ago I walked into a bar that just happened to be playing Weird Al Yankovic’s “I Lost on Jeopardy,” and I immediately started fist-pumping and rocking out because I totally lived that song! So I’ve got that going for me.)
9. I attended an all-girls private school for eight years (fifth grade to 12th grade) and an all-girls summer camp for five years. Walking into my first college class and seeing actual boy-shaped people sitting there almost gave me a panic attack. It had been eight years since I’d shared a class with guys. Eight years, people.
Did all this same-sex separation make a difference in my education? I’m not sure, because I have no idea what it might have been like to go to a co-ed high school. I was a much better student in college than I was in grade school, which would appear to be a point in Team Co-Ed’s favor. This whole topic has been on my mind a lot lately because …
10. That private school was Holton-Arms; I was two years behind Christine Blasey Ford. Mind you, our circles didn’t even touch in the great Venn diagram of school social standing, but Holton had a very small student body and I certainly knew who she was. She was a cute blonde cheerleader; people like her stand out.
I was a nerdy introvert from a non-rich and non-political family, and my idea of a wild high school party was staying up in someone’s basement eating Doritos and brownies and watching Monty Python movies until everyone zonked out. But even if you weren’t invited to the real ragers, you’d hear the gossip in the halls and see the yearbook entries celebrating the prep school party culture. I knew some shit was going down even if I wasn’t a part of it.
I didn’t hear any chatter back then about what happened to Christine Blasey, but I have no trouble believing it happened. I signed the alumnae letter of support for her and she has my deep respect for going public, something she obviously knew would bring all nine circles of Hell down on her life.
But let me tell you: The last couple of weeks have been beyond surreal. School mates who I hadn’t thought about in decades are popping up on TV news shows and in newspapers and Vanity Fair, and it’s utterly bizarre to see my little school being scrutinized so publicly. I’ve been heartened to watch so many Holton alums, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Holton’s most famous grad up until today), rally around Dr. Blasey, but sometimes this feels like the weirdest and most intense school reunion ever.
And that’s a wrap! Thanks if you actually read all this. I get the impression that just about everyone I’d probably tag has already done this. If you haven’t yet and you want to? Consider yourself tagged.
