Eight Things

I’ve been tagged for “8 Random Facts About Myself.” What a tremendous compliment. Thank you, Mrs. Nesbitt…

The rules are as follows (I’m cutting and pasting this part):

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own post about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

All righty, then. Eight things.

1. I collect books. This isn’t so much a random fact about me as a central part of who I am. Right now, I have more than 1,300 books, most of which I’ve read, many of which I’ve re-read more than once. There are more books, not included in that number, from my childhood, still at my mother’s house. These days, I mostly borrow books from the library, but eventually, I will start buying again.

I can’t not read – when I was about 11, I used to bring a book to read while I ate my breakfast cereal, but I had a tendency to run late, so I was forbidden to bring any more books to the breakfast table on school days. So I read the cereal box instead, ingredients list and everything. To this day, if I don’t have a book, I’ll pick up whatever’s closest, whether it's a can of air freshener or a brochure on the pancreas, wherever I am, and read it.

My intention is to someday live in a house with a library.

2. I almost always watch the credits in a movie theater, because if I worked on a movie, I’d want people to read my name.

3. In my 32 years, I’ve lived at 25 addresses in 15 cities in 4 states and 3 countries. I like moving, even though 1,300 books are heavy and require a lot of boxes.

4. I hate the sound of metal scraping on metal or porcelain – it causes me extreme physical discomfort -- which means that I cannot sharpen the knives in our household and, as much as I love a good sword-fighting scene in a movie, I usually have to plug my ears. It’s getting worse as I get older, and I have no idea how to stop it.

5. I prefer not to use a mouse. I like keyboard shortcuts because I type very quickly (even though I’ve never actually learned how to type) and I can just fit the commands into my typing. But as computers get more “user-friendly” and, therefore, complicated, it’s almost impossible not to use a mouse, so I’ve started to give in.

6. I have a fervent love for the sport of baseball but I have no interest in memorizing statistics, I don’t follow trades, and I can’t remember the players’ names. So I usually have no idea who the people are at bat, even on my own team, until they’ve been around for a while, and then just as I start to cheer for them by name, they have a weird tendency to get themselves traded. (I miss you, Bobby Abreu).

7. I have flown approximately 500,000 miles on commercial flights in my lifetime –since I was a baby, but as an adult, I flew 60,000 miles in one year alone -- but for whatever reason, I only signed up for frequent fliers’ programs in time to collect credit for about 75,000 miles. I started to develop a fear of flying in November 2001, but I still have a burning desire to get a private pilot’s license. I also clean the house from top to bottom before I fly anywhere.

8. I not only still have, but still listen to most of my mixed tapes from high school and college.

So now comes the tagging part. But – here’s random fact number nine – I’m not good at selecting people (assembling our wedding guest list was torture for me and I still regret not inviting certain people), SO I’m breaking the rules and tagging everyone. If you haven’t done this already, it’s time.