17 Random Things About Me

These are my answers from the "25 Things" game on Facebook. I ran out of steam at 17.

1. For every random fact I write here, half of my Facebook friends will say, "Everyone knows THAT!" and the other half will say "I didn't know that!" So I apologize in advance for boring the pants off of half of you, half of the time.

2. In the nineties, I was a professional belly-dancer. I directed a troupe that danced at Lalapalooza, the last year that it was good. Courtney Love hit the stage as we were finishing our set, and WE STOLE HER AUDIENCE. Although I have to admit this would be a better story if she were a better act.

3. I finally own a horse! 1.5 horses, actually. (My daughter's pony is REALLY SMALL.)

4. I'm extremely chemically sensitive, and I can't enter a supermarket or Wal-Mart. If something makes me sick, it's eventualy pulled off the market and even banned for causing seizures and brain damage and cancer and mange and people's eyeballs squirting across the room, so ignore my advice at your own peril.

5. I also have a very sensitive nose. I once prevented an electrical fire at Henry's.

6. When I was a kid, I desperately wanted a wristwatch TV. Now that they have them -- eh. Not so much.

7. On the other hand, cell phones are the ANSWER TO MY PRAYERS! I've had one since '89, back when they were so big you had to pull them behind you in a little cart.

8. I do not understand people who do not have a computer at home because they "have one at work." You have CHAIRS at work, too; does that mean you don't use them at home???

9. My aortic valve gave up the ghost last year, so I had a "bovine pericardial aortic valve transplant." My surgeon is not amused when I refer to it as a "moo-cow valve," but I forgive him because his daughter jumps horses.

10 I own an entertainment booking agency, and swear to God, several times a year people call me thinking that I, personally, do ALL THE SERVICES available through my company. ALL of them. And they think this even though THERE ARE PHOTOS ON THE WEBSITE. Apparently I simultaneously belong to a wide variety races and genders.

11. In grad school I was the managing editor of two academic journals: Aging & Human Development and Omega: The Journal of Death and Dying.

12. See the rules above? I rewrote them, because in my expert opinion, they were badly written. I do that sort of thing ALL THE TIME. At least when it comes to editing completely irrelevant internet game instructions, I have an expensive graduate degree to back me up. For the editing part, that is. I have no excuse for the compulsion to be "helpful."

13. In the nineties, my husband took up powerlifting and set records in his weight class that have yet to be broken. One year we were special guests of Disney in Florida because he was competing in the AAU World Championships, which were at Disneyworld. They put us up in this exclusive little hotel right on the grounds, right on a lake, and there was a fireworks show every night that we could watch from our balcony. And Lia was in one of the parades. I don't know if she remembers it, though.

14. Here's a "Believe It Or Not" entry for my current barn friends: I used to exercise hard-to-ride horses, ones who were really hyper or really lazy or really diabolical, and I was never unseated. Today, of course, one buck and it's face-plant time.

15. I've had countless years of hours of lessons and saddle time at hunt seat, dressage and even saddle seat, and I still ride western better than English.

16. In a related note, I've had countless hours of experience singing pop, jazz and classical, and I'm probably best at country. I think the Universe is trying to tell me something, and I think it must have something to do with a past life, because there was nothing in my childhood to prepare me for a career as a country-singing rodeo queen!

17. All things considered, I should be more famous than this.