At Random

Ten Random Things About Me

1. I used to weigh four hundred pounds. Nothing is easy when you weigh four hundred pounds. Crossing the street was hard. Fitting into desks at school was hard. Looking people in the eye was hard. At less than half that weight, most of those things are easier.

2. I tend to be an incredibly private person and the extremely outgoing me is partly the result of having been a waitress for many years and partly the result of having been raised by a fun-loving, life-of-the-party alcoholic.

3. I’ve read most of the books that are on people’s lists of things to read before they die. I’ve read all of Hemingway. I’ve read Aristotle. I’ve read Darwin. I’ve read Shakespeare and Milton. I’ve read all the stuff you’ve been meaning to read and haven’t. I’ve read so much that I even, for a year, gave up reading male authors and only read female authors. It was one of the best years of reading I ever had.

4. When I was a child, I used to think that trees could talk and had emotional lives of their own because of a willow tree in my great aunt Alice’s front yard. I was convinced that, since it was the only willow I had ever seen, all of its family must live somewhere else and the tree was very lonely as a result.

5. My favorite color is green.

6. I’ve had a handful of cats in my life (Raja, Misha, Chusu, Groucho, Binky, Al, Doppelganger, Pia, Anjenu, Olive, and about a million strays that weren’t officially mine but that were fed and cared for) but I’ve not had a dog since leaving my parents house. I actually really like dogs, but they take more time and attention than I have to give.

7. I am never late. I am always freakishly early, no matter where I go or what I’m doing. I absolutely hate to be late. I hate it when other people are late, too, which has meant that I have had a handful of close friends who are never on time for anything. Drives me nuts.

8. I was an incurable insomniac for years and years and years. (Over the last couple of years, it’s gotten better.) One of the good things about being an insomniac is that one learns to truly appreciate through continual use the hours that remain shadowy mysteries to so many people. Three in the morning is as familiar to me as three in the afternoon, I mean.

9. I absolutely love to listen to other people’s dreams. I love it. When people tell me their dreams, so often it’s like they’re speaking a language they themselves can’t understand. They’re fluent in it without knowing the meaning of any of it. I find that amazing. Reading Jung on dreams puts me to sleep however.

10. In the movie of my life, I’d want the part of me to be played by John Cusack. Maybe. I like him, but he seems a little too intense sometimes.