25 Things
This is a meme from the Facebook world, asking people to write "25 Random Things" about yourself. Just for fun. Here are mine.
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1. I once spent a night alone in an Alcatraz island prison cell. This was a Girl Scout field trip. I slept pretty well, too.
2. A few years back, I almost won the Ithaca ChiliFest Mechanical Bull-riding contest. A feat of skill & bosom. But an 8 year old girl took the trophy instead.
3. I can’t decide. I’d like to do both.
4. Yesterday I dreamed I was a tiny, speckled octopus. At the ocean’s surface, I transformed into a blue dragonfly and flew away.
5. That may be my oldest unconscious hobby: asleep, I sample the proprioception of really alien bodies. Like octopi & dragonflies. Like an octogenarian mailman. An oak tree. Wind.
6. At my next birthday I’ll have been a vegetarian (pescatarian) for half my life. I marked it by eating a duck, a rabbit, a buffalo burger & bacon at five star restaurants. They were good.
7. When I was a kid I climbed trees in my yard to pick cherry-plums, green apples, pomegranates and loquats.
8. That was a good tree, too--the best loquats I’ve ever had. I carried their chestnut stones in my pocket. Then a man named Wren Morningstar poisoned the tree—on purpose, they said, vindictively—part of an argument I never understood. For that treason my father ran him off our property and never spoke to him again.
9. I pray.
10. During a month-long trek through the Death Valley desert, I hiked ten miles out to a single payphone in the stark barren howling middle of nowhere, only to learn I’d been wait-listed at a graduate school. “Can I call you back tomorrow?” the director asked me.
11. Mostly, I don’t mind shoveling snow.
12. In the throes of back-country dog-sledding, I had the thought (a common one, this life): ‘This is really not fun at all, but I’m very glad to be here.’ Looking back now, I love every part of that trip.
13. I played defense on a soccer team called ‘Sloth Explosion’.
14. During the 1980s California drought, I participated in a rain dance choreographed by my great aunt, a magnificent grand dame who played the organ and sang and smoked from a long cigarette holder. We danced, we sang; it didn’t rain. But we all felt a lot better about life. I believe things like this matter.
15. A psychic once told me I was a cheerleader in a past life. I was 16 and took offense.
16. Once I played the carillon bells from a tower over Cambridge, MA. I did it badly—total cacophony for miles—but it was really fun.
17. Around the age of 9, I woke up with a powerful sense of déjà vu: I had been this age before, had done things like this already, long ago. I wondered then if THIS might not be my fabled second chance. I’ve never lost that feeling.
18. I spent about seven sleepless weeks fastening electrodes onto people’s scalps and analyzing their brainwaves while they slept.
19. In the outback of Australia, a horny jackaroo gave me a t-shirt he’d blown to shreds with a shotgun. “I shot it twice,” he said hopefully, a little shyly, as if that extra shot just might make the difference. I turned him down. But I still have the shirt.
20. In my late twenties, a truly ancient, toad-like Turkish woman molested me in a Parisian bathhouse. I had no retort.
21. I once waded across a clear, ocean inlet, the water to my waist—the only way across—only to discover two hours later the water cloudy with feeding sharks.
22. I hate bar soap.
23. The Eolian volcano Stromboli erupted while I was camped on its black-ash cone. Both guys with me at the time—including the Aussie we met on the trail & have not (yet!) seen since—recently found me on Facebook. We’re thinking of a 20-year reunion.
24. Though I hated the town of Irvine, CA itself, the trailer park I lived in there remains one of my favorite ‘neighborhoods’ yet. They bulldozed it soon after I left & paved it into a parking lot.
25. I once broke my foot jumping for joy. A challenging omen. So far, it’s the only bone I’ve broken.
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1. I once spent a night alone in an Alcatraz island prison cell. This was a Girl Scout field trip. I slept pretty well, too.
2. A few years back, I almost won the Ithaca ChiliFest Mechanical Bull-riding contest. A feat of skill & bosom. But an 8 year old girl took the trophy instead.
3. I can’t decide. I’d like to do both.
4. Yesterday I dreamed I was a tiny, speckled octopus. At the ocean’s surface, I transformed into a blue dragonfly and flew away.
5. That may be my oldest unconscious hobby: asleep, I sample the proprioception of really alien bodies. Like octopi & dragonflies. Like an octogenarian mailman. An oak tree. Wind.
6. At my next birthday I’ll have been a vegetarian (pescatarian) for half my life. I marked it by eating a duck, a rabbit, a buffalo burger & bacon at five star restaurants. They were good.
7. When I was a kid I climbed trees in my yard to pick cherry-plums, green apples, pomegranates and loquats.
8. That was a good tree, too--the best loquats I’ve ever had. I carried their chestnut stones in my pocket. Then a man named Wren Morningstar poisoned the tree—on purpose, they said, vindictively—part of an argument I never understood. For that treason my father ran him off our property and never spoke to him again.
9. I pray.
10. During a month-long trek through the Death Valley desert, I hiked ten miles out to a single payphone in the stark barren howling middle of nowhere, only to learn I’d been wait-listed at a graduate school. “Can I call you back tomorrow?” the director asked me.
11. Mostly, I don’t mind shoveling snow.
12. In the throes of back-country dog-sledding, I had the thought (a common one, this life): ‘This is really not fun at all, but I’m very glad to be here.’ Looking back now, I love every part of that trip.
13. I played defense on a soccer team called ‘Sloth Explosion’.
14. During the 1980s California drought, I participated in a rain dance choreographed by my great aunt, a magnificent grand dame who played the organ and sang and smoked from a long cigarette holder. We danced, we sang; it didn’t rain. But we all felt a lot better about life. I believe things like this matter.
15. A psychic once told me I was a cheerleader in a past life. I was 16 and took offense.
16. Once I played the carillon bells from a tower over Cambridge, MA. I did it badly—total cacophony for miles—but it was really fun.
17. Around the age of 9, I woke up with a powerful sense of déjà vu: I had been this age before, had done things like this already, long ago. I wondered then if THIS might not be my fabled second chance. I’ve never lost that feeling.
18. I spent about seven sleepless weeks fastening electrodes onto people’s scalps and analyzing their brainwaves while they slept.
19. In the outback of Australia, a horny jackaroo gave me a t-shirt he’d blown to shreds with a shotgun. “I shot it twice,” he said hopefully, a little shyly, as if that extra shot just might make the difference. I turned him down. But I still have the shirt.
20. In my late twenties, a truly ancient, toad-like Turkish woman molested me in a Parisian bathhouse. I had no retort.
21. I once waded across a clear, ocean inlet, the water to my waist—the only way across—only to discover two hours later the water cloudy with feeding sharks.
22. I hate bar soap.
23. The Eolian volcano Stromboli erupted while I was camped on its black-ash cone. Both guys with me at the time—including the Aussie we met on the trail & have not (yet!) seen since—recently found me on Facebook. We’re thinking of a 20-year reunion.
24. Though I hated the town of Irvine, CA itself, the trailer park I lived in there remains one of my favorite ‘neighborhoods’ yet. They bulldozed it soon after I left & paved it into a parking lot.
25. I once broke my foot jumping for joy. A challenging omen. So far, it’s the only bone I’ve broken.
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posted by Anne E. Campisi at 1:26 AM
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