Another Opening, Another Meme

Wanderlust Scarlett of From the Shores of Introspect and Retrospect has tagged me with a meme that requires me to disclose eight facts about myself. I had hoped to sit this one out, but she caught me hiding out in the stall with my feet up. I will not tag anyone, but if you would like to do it, please let me know so I can read yours.

1. I love animals. Many of my best friends have been four-leggeds. Animals have great values and know what is really important. I do not fear anyone in the animal kingdom but homo sapien.

2. My favorite music is baroque classical, especially Vivaldi, but I also love Mozart, Bach and Haydn. I used to play the violin, and I was good.

I also love jazz, blues and some rock music.

3. I am a book junkie. I can always justify a book purchase.

4. I acted in several Off-Broadway plays, and played both Madge and Millie in different productions of "Picnic." I gave up acting because I knew that I would be playing Juliet forever while I really wanted to be Lady Macbeth.

I also intended to have children, and didn't think that performing would combine well with motherhood.

When I see really good acting, I still feel twinges of what might have been. There are many actors today who have both career and family, and I wish that I had known it was possible.

But if I had to choose again, I would still choose my children in a New York minute. (I've always wanted to use that expression since I am from New York, where I never once heard it. I never heard of Long Island Iced Tea either, despite growing up on Long Island, until I lived in North Carolina.)

5. I'm terrified of haircuts, and have only begun to get them this year. I have heard that ones hair and nails continue to grow after we die, and in my case, it will certainly be true.

6. I lived with my youngest child for a year in Vermont in a house without central heating. Our only heat source was a wood-burning stove I built from a galvanized garbage can, and every morning, I chopped wood in the barn.

The water pipes froze in October, and my daughter and I visited a hot tub every day so we could shower. Every night, I hauled a dozen water-filled plastic milk jugs in a rope harness three miles up the steep hill we lived on so we could wash our hands and dishes.

We wore many layers of clothing to bed, and the outside and inside temperatures were often the same. Neither of us ever had a cold, though, as germs could not live in that climate.

Although I often referred to our state as "Varmint," it was one of the most gorgeous places I have ever lived.

7. I have a geographic tongue, which means that unlike most people's, smooth as liver, mine resembles several miles of bad track. It has deep crevices all over it, which are really exposed nerve endings. I cannot drink anything really hot without getting blisters. When I eat pizza, the roof of my mouth hangs in shreds like skin stalagtites.

This is one of many reasons why I should be in a sideshow.

8. I was stalked for several years by a known murderer. I have never stalked anyone, however.