16 Sundry Items of Interest (as formerly seen on Facebook)

For your interest and reading pleasure:

1. I dislike adverbs. The English language is broad and varied in a way that allows us the freedom to choose stronger verbs! Instead of saying, “She walked slowly,” you could be more accurate and concise using “sauntered, “ambled,” “trudged,” “moseyed” or “wandered” depending on the context of the situation.

2. My mother and father died (both of cancer) before I was 14. Because of this, my sister, Anne, and I grew up with my maternal grandmother (“Granny,” who is now 83 and still plays golf every week); she’s 5’0” and strong as a hoss.

3. When I was a child, I thought that in order to be an actor, one had to be a singer. This was because I watched musicals, Gilbert & Sullivan and Disney cartoons. I remember coming to the realization one day that you didn’t have to be able to sing to be able to act. I was thrilled and pleased.

4. Old man crushes – Harrison Ford over Sean Connery. No contest.

5. Related to above -- I could quote the entirety of dialogue in the Star Wars trilogy movies in 3rd grade (yes I’m cool!), and (unrelated) I saved all my allowance to buy a Game Boy when they first came on the market.

6. I just found out that people think I’m intimidating. Not sure why, though. ???

7. I’m a writer. I was a creative writing major at Vanderbilt, and since then, I blog (on occasion), write short fiction, poetry, just started a novel, and have an idea for a memoir floating around for the future.

8. I am a classically trained pianist; I love playing Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, and Mozart. It is easy for me to improvise as well, although not jazz (yet).

9. When my sister and I were children, our fights ended in us retreating to our respective rooms, closing the doors, and pretending not to like each other. However, after a while, we would write “I’m sorry” notes, and slip them under each other's doors. These notes contained a trinket or two (like a marble, figurine, penny, button), which each person sent along as a peace offering. The notes and trinkets would become more elaborate as we made amends, until we ended up playing Barbies with each other again.

10. I have two white hairs on my scalp’s part line.

11. I have never smoked a cigarette. Neither did my mother nor has her mother.

12. My favorite quote is "To strive to seek to find and not to yield," by Alfred Lord Tennyson in the poem "Ulysses."

13. I love NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” And TED Talks. If you haven’t checked TT out, do so. NOW. You will thank me.

14. Once I owned a business, but now I work at the school where Malia and Sasha Obama will attend while their father is in the 44th president of the United States.

15. I like useful gifts (one awesome gift example from this year: windshield wipers).

16. I can “read” palms (or at least make up stuff in a clever way) and experience synesthesia – through music, texture and color.