8 Weird and/or Random Things

Liza did this meme thing here, and I thought it would be a nice break to do something like this when nothing has happened.

So, eight random things about me? I think just about everything is random...

1. I don't really have a gag reflex.
When I was young, I had frequent tonsillitis and even though it was rarely Strep, I still had to endure countless throat cultures. So I learned to hold it, and for the most part, it went away. In high school, when such things would come up, I got a LOT of ribbing about it, if you can imagine. High school boys are dirty-minded goats sometimes.

2. I met Geoff on the Internet.
It was 1999, and I was coming off two really bad, damaging relationships that were back-to-back horror. One Saturday night, I was actually NOT going out, which was strange. I was on my computer in my lonely, quiet house, and I came across a Personal Ad website, and I thought, What the Hell. Let's write up something and see what happens. I never expected to get anything from it.
Well, I got 300 emails. ( Must have been the hoochy-coochy picture I put on my profile, all large breasts and long, tan legs...I had clothes on, you potty-brains.)
After a while, I started just deleting them, since quite a few were from married men who "just wanted to be friends". No thanks.
But one email caught my eye. It seemed honest and well-written. Geoff.
We went out a week after, and we have been inseparable ever since.

3. I can't run.
I used to be able to, but all the surgical procedures on my right foot have made it numb on one side, and the Achilles' tendon is weak and all I can manage is a slow lop. I think about it sometimes, when the girls and I are walking in the woods, "How would I be able to pick up the girls and run, if I had to?" Scary.

4. Like Liza, my favorite types of books are science fiction and fantasy. Sir Arthur C. Clarke is one of my favorites. The 2001 series blows my mind. Anne Rice is another one on my list of faves. I have read everything she has written, except for the Jesus book, her last so far. It was such a departure from what she usually does, I lost interest.

5. Some women experience changes in the hair on their heads when they have children, but for me, it was my eyelashes. They used to be long and curved. Now I have to layer on the mascara for them to even be noticeable.

6. My all-time favorite painting is "Girl with a Pearl Earring". Even before the book came out, I was fascinated by it. The gleam on the pearl, echoing the shine of her lips and eyes. There is so much more in that painting than meets the eye, and that's one thing that makes an interesting work. The girl is looking out as if she is reaching for something just beyond the frame.

7. I have been in two very serious car accidents in my life.
The first was when I was 5, during the blizzard of '78. My Mom, brother and I were coming up the hill to our house in a four-wheel drive Dodge Charger and Mom lost control and we ended up about 50 feet down a hill, and a tree saved our lives. Steve and I were okay, just some scratches, but Mom had to go to the hospital because the steering wheel ripped out of the dashboard and tore her knee open (she landed in the back seat, on me!).
The second was in 1993, while riding with someone from my phlebotomy class ( I am a certified phlebotomist, and quite the expert, if I do say so myself), to our internship at a local plasma center. She rear-ended a car on the Norwood Lateral going about 40 mph. that car hit the car in front of them, and that car hit the one in front of them, and so on.
I found out in the next few seconds after the crash, my "friend" had no driver's license and no car insurance. She wanted me to get into the driver's seat and take the rap. Bitch. I told her no, of course. All this while I was bent over with the wind knocked out of me and a bruise forming on my chest.
I spent the next month in a neck brace.

8. Right now, my toes are cold. I am wearing Mudd sandals and the basement is chilly.
*****
Jeez, that was hard.

Consider yourself tagged. Or not.