Memo From Linda - It's 8 About Me

Tagged by Linda Young

Here are the rules.

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged must make a post about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them each a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I like little kids' cartoons, like "Dora the Explorer" or "The Backyardigans"...and I have no young children of my own (or any kids at all). I think it started in college. I had a lot of evening and night classes during my first two years, and pretty much the only things on TV in the morning and early afternoon are bad movies, talk shows, news, cartoons for toddlers, and soap operas. The cartoons were the only things I could really tolerate.

2. I come from a very clumsy family. My mother just got over a toe she broke when she kicked the side of a bed. I broke my toe in high school when I kicked the side of my sister's foot while doing a kick line to "(Theme From) New York, New York" and have twisted my ankle badly at least three times. (It was less fun in college, when I lived by myself and had to climb a steep concrete stairway on crutches.) My sister Rose broke her wrist at least three times three years in a row as a child and received countless scars and injuries playing soccer in high school. (While I, oddly enough, never got worse than a few bruises playing field hockey.) My brother has scars and bruises everywhere from football and soccer.

3. I get randomly addicted to weird things. My childhood Star Wars addiction may have been the most normal; I've been obsessed with everything from the Japanese girls' anime Sailor Moon to the American Girls' kids book series. I'll usually abandon something and come back to it, with slightly less fervor but no less interest (I've been back to Star Wars countless times, but I never quite got as into it as I did in 1988-1990), but sometimes I'll just write my addiction off as a phase and never pick it up again. Pokemon could count as one obsession I never quite regained interest in (it got too complicated after they started releasing more than 151, though I do still have all the toys I picked up in college). Figure skating, my big thing between 1993 and 1995, was another. (To this day, I have no idea where the figure skating came from. I'd never even ice skated at that point.)

(Incidentally, if my Monkee-a-thon in the last few days is any indication, I think I'm swinging back to the Monkees fandom. Time will tell.)

4. Until last year, I'd never lived more than 20 minutes from a seaside resort. I was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, grew up in Cape May, West Cape May, and North Cape May, NJ, went to college 20 minutes west of Atlantic City, and moved to Wildwood a month after finishing college, where I lived for four years.

5. I have this thing for Texans. My first serious crush was a boy whose Coast Guard family moved here from Texas. His name was Josh Kingston, and he had the most gorgeous accent I'd ever heard. He was one of the only boys in fourth and fifth grade I sort of semi-got-along with. Sadly, we had a nasty argument one day in fifth grade, and I never saw him again; his family moved back to Texas shortly afterwards, and he never told me.

When I finally got my first (and so far only) real boyfriend in college, I found out he was born in New Jersey, but did live for a few years in Texas. He didn't have an accent, but he was a Dallas Cowboys fan (which I, a big Philadelphia Eagles fan, used to tease him about).

Native Texan Mike Nesmith is my favorite Monkee (followed closely by childhood favorite Micky Dolenz).

On a somewhat related note...

6. I've only had one serious boyfriend in my entire life. I met him at a coffee house in college, and we kept dating even after we graduated. He broke it off about three years ago. I haven't dated since, or met any boys I've even close to liked.

7. I was a major couch potato as a child. I'd spend the whole day watching sitcom reruns, old game shows, and cartoons, much to the annoyance of my mother, who couldn't fathom watching anything that wasn't an art project for that long. Contrary to what Mom thinks, I'd generally lost interest in the boob tube by the time she had the cable turned off in 1992 (for what turned out to be almost ten years). Most of my favorite shows were off the air or in their last seasons, and their replacements weren't as interesting.

Nowadays, I share Mom's habit of reading or working or just doing SOMETHING when I watch TV. I also don't have cable; what's the point of having cable for one when you only watch three or four channels anyway, and about three-fourths of what you like is on DVD or video?

8. Despite my fondness for classic rock and show tunes, I've never been to a concert, and the closest I've gotten to seeing a professional Broadway show is attending a performance of a touring version of Miss Saigon at the Forrest Theater in Philadelphia with my French class in 1996. Both are too expensive for a struggling single writer, concerts get notoriously crazy, and I don't really have anyone to go with.

I just tag...

Lauren
Tina