So it appears I’ve been tagged in a “meme” … which, for the uninitiated, is sort of like those silly “surveys” people post on MySpace, or if you want to go way back, those “getting to know you” things people used to spam you with back when email was relatively novel. Only you do this on your blog, and it doesn’t clog up anybody’s inbox or bulletin stream on MySpace (though last I knew, that was a lost cause in itself).

I knew my tagging was only a matter of time, and the other day my fellow social media geek fiend friend Ken Burbary was the one to do it. It’s relatively simple — list 7 random/weird things about yourself. My problem is narrowing it down, I have waaaaaaay more than that about me considered weird or random. But here we go:

1. I have the absolute worst handwriting of anybody you’ll ever meet. Many women say they have “horrible handwriting” when really it’s not that bad. It’s still legible, curly, and pretty. My handwriting, on the other hand, is barely legible and there is nothing about it that even remotely indicates it came from a woman’s hand. I don’t even bother writing in cursive most of the time, I (attempt to) use block caps printing just so I can read it myself. There is an actual reason for this, though: I was never properly taught how. In kindergarten I was transferred from a “regular” school to a “smart kids” school, and the kids at the new school already went through how to print all the letters of the alphabet. I didn’t want to seem stupid, so I never told the teacher my old school hadn’t taught me that yet. So I taught myself the best I could. Then in first grade I transferred to a different “smart kids” school, and at this new school, they already went through how to write in cursive. Once again, I didn’t want to tell my new teacher my former school hadn’t taught me any of that yet, so I taught myself the best I could using the diagrams over the chalkboard. It never got much better, but to make up for it I learned to type in 5th grade and to this day can type faster than anybody I’ve ever met.

2. I’m almost evenly ambidextrous. This may or may not have anything to do with the above. I’m more comfortable left-handed, but my penmanship is equally horrible on the right side. My ambidextrosity bleeds over into sports and everything else, though. I can bat, throw, kick, etc. left- or right-handed pretty evenly, and in water skiing (see below) I slalom ski for show right-foot-forward, but for tournament left-foot-forward. Trick, wakeboard, skateboard, etc. usually right-foot-forward, but can go either way.

me a few years ago

3. I grew up water skiing. Hardcore. As in, 3-event (slalom, trick, jump) and show skiing, which is the fancy stuff you see when you go to Cypress Gardens or practically anywhere in Wisconsin (don’t ask).  It incorporates drama with water skiing into a cool form of entertainment. I was the little girl they made climb up to the top of the pyramid that ended up doing most of the acts when she got bigger. I shied away from the “girly acts” (though I did adagio), and concentrated on the trick skiing, jumping, and my favorite, slalom skiing 360 degrees around the boat. You name it, I probably did it at some point. Oh, and please do me a favor and NEVER confuse my sport with wakeboarding — that’s what we’d call it if it were easy.

4. I got the chicken pox twice. I sure did. I got a light case when I was in first grade, and apparently if you don’t get it bad enough the first time, you can get it a second time. When I was 13, I did, and I was so upset because I missed my friend Chrissy’s birthday party. (I’m over it, though… both missing the party and the chicken pox, that is.)

5. My nose has been broken three times. This relates back to water skiing. When I was 15 or 16, I was Up North camping with my family at Clear Lake, where we went every year, and decided to go shoe skiing, which is like barefooting but with tiny little skis that are just big enough to cover your feet. I didn’t shoe ski often, but once I was up and going I realized the mechanics weren’t any different than trick skiing (with two), which I was great at. So I decided to turn around backwards, an easy move that I thought was “safe.” The shoeskis I was using were homemade, however, meaning that they were of heavy wood, the bindings were cheap, and the edges weren’t beveled.

Just as I was completing the 180 degree turn, the edge caught on one of my skis, I flew backward toward the boat, a ski flew off my foot, and clonked me smack-dab in the middle of my face just as my head came out of the water, before my eyes were even open. Shattered my nose-bone (not the cartilage, but the actual bone at the top) into 5 or 6 pieces.

To make a long story short, they had to re-break it in order to straighten it out to prevent sinus problems later in my life (FAIL), and the third time it was broken was courtesy of a former friend in a drunken rage a few years ago. (I probably deserved it.) I’m rather impresssed with the resiliancy of my schnoz, though.

6. I have an irrational fear of midgets little people. I can’t really explain this one. I know they can’t help they’re dwarves, but they creep me out. Watching The Wizard of Oz growing up was a different experience for me — every other little girl was afraid of the Wicked Witch, I was afraid of the munchkins.

7. I love Muppets. (This has absolutely no connection to the fear of midgets, by the way.) Muppets are my favorite things ever. When I was a little girl, it was my favorite show, and to this day, I collect Muppet movies and other Muppet memorbilia. They’re something that just makes me happy, even when nothing else does. Kermit is my favorite (I have a crush on him — don’t tell Miss Piggy!), but I love everything Henson, even Fraggles.

OK, so there ya go. Seven things you probably didn’t care if you knew about me or not. I’m having a hard time finding somebody in my corner of the blogosphere that hasn’t been tagged, so if I pick you and you already did it, let me know and I’ll try to find somebody else. My seven victims are:

1. my boyfriend
2. Jackie Wilson
3. Charlie Fern
4. Nancy B
   
5. Courtney Engle
6. JW Phillips
7. Marta Strickland

Here are the rules for my fellow bloggers:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Photo of No. 7 by Duncan.