"25 Random Things About Me" meme
Feb. 2nd, 2009 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desayunoencamaThere's a meme going around on Livejournal, which I'd been tagged for a gazillion times.
This is what I posted over there:
25 random things about me
Rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you (or I think you'll come up with really entertaining things).
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people, then click publish.)
1) When I was born, my parents owned an ocelot (well, technically a margay, which are smaller) but they found a new home for it because they were afraid I'd bawl and it would eat me. (All of this in an apartment in New York City.)
2) One of my short stories has been translated into Esperanto (and published!). I've also had books of mine published in Icelandic and Basque translations.
3) My Hebrew name is Yitzhak.
4) I have blown glass.
5) I always wanted to be the next Jacques Cousteau when I grew up. I even started university as a marine biologist, but a mortal allergy to fish made it an impractical career decision, and I switched majors (a few times, actually, before winding up with a degree in English Literature).
6) I have not drunk a coke (or any cola) for over 25 years.
7) I have had sex with over a 100 people (and no, not at the same time!).
8) I read over 100 books per year.
9) I have folded origami ornaments for the Museum of Natural History (New York) Christmas tree.
10) I studied Homeric Greek for three years in high school, so I could try to read the Odyssey and the Iliad in the original. I took a class in Old Norse in college, so I could try to read the Eddas and the Icelandic Sagas in the original. Yes, I'm a geek. (I never got very far in either language. The only languages I actually speak are English and Spanish, with a tourist level of German--although I've managed to laboriously translate some of my poems into German, which have been published, sometimes even more than once!)
11) I have milked a goat, but never a cow.
12) I used to be a long distance runner. I was always very slow, but I had the stamina (or stubbornness) to finish. Not marathons, I used to compete in an 8 mile race, so maybe I'm actually a middle-distance runner. I tore the cartilage in my knee in a running accident in 1993 and haven't been able to run since.
13) I have lived in Spain for over 10 years now.
14) My mother once went out grocery shopping and came home with two llamas in the back seat of the station wagon. They were being mistreated at a petting zoo she passed en route to the supermarket, so she bought them and brought them home. She had to go out again to get the groceries.
15) When I was in grade school, my class once had a field trip to my house.
16) I do not own an ipod or other mp3 player. I have not had a television since I moved out of my parents' house at 17. Yes, I am a Luddite.
17) I have never bought anything on Amazon.com.
18) I played on the junior varsity polo team in college. If you fell off the horse, you were supposed to buy a case of beer for the team. I was the only one to never lose his seat.
19) In college, before I tore the cartilage in my knees, I traded flamenco lessons for English classes, and then spent a summer in Granada studying at Mariquilla's Cátedra de Flamencologia.
20) My age is the same as my waist-size (in European sizing). However, since they don't generally have odd-numbered sizes, I buy a size 38 (28 in the US) and wear a belt.
21) I have shorn a sheep, carded wool, and spun thread on both a drop spindle and a floor spindle, not to mention knitting, weaving, crocheting, and various other fiber arts.
22) When I was studying to be a biologist, we spent a week studying cockroach escape mechanisms in my "Cellular Basis of Behavior" class. This has come in very handy later in life. (We also learned some useful tips about flies.)
23) I have published poems in bizarre array of publications: PHYSICS TODAY, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, the CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL series, etc. My best-known poem, though, is probably my "Endless Sestina", written for Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN: THE BOOK OF DREAMS anthology of other authors writing in his Sandman universe.
24) I have never had a full-time job.
25) One of my oddest freelance gigs: I once spent a month driving around Puerto Rico, photographing over 400 gas stations as research for a consulting firm.
This is what I posted over there:
25 random things about me
Rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you (or I think you'll come up with really entertaining things).
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people, then click publish.)
1) When I was born, my parents owned an ocelot (well, technically a margay, which are smaller) but they found a new home for it because they were afraid I'd bawl and it would eat me. (All of this in an apartment in New York City.)
2) One of my short stories has been translated into Esperanto (and published!). I've also had books of mine published in Icelandic and Basque translations.
3) My Hebrew name is Yitzhak.
4) I have blown glass.
5) I always wanted to be the next Jacques Cousteau when I grew up. I even started university as a marine biologist, but a mortal allergy to fish made it an impractical career decision, and I switched majors (a few times, actually, before winding up with a degree in English Literature).
6) I have not drunk a coke (or any cola) for over 25 years.
7) I have had sex with over a 100 people (and no, not at the same time!).
8) I read over 100 books per year.
9) I have folded origami ornaments for the Museum of Natural History (New York) Christmas tree.
10) I studied Homeric Greek for three years in high school, so I could try to read the Odyssey and the Iliad in the original. I took a class in Old Norse in college, so I could try to read the Eddas and the Icelandic Sagas in the original. Yes, I'm a geek. (I never got very far in either language. The only languages I actually speak are English and Spanish, with a tourist level of German--although I've managed to laboriously translate some of my poems into German, which have been published, sometimes even more than once!)
11) I have milked a goat, but never a cow.
12) I used to be a long distance runner. I was always very slow, but I had the stamina (or stubbornness) to finish. Not marathons, I used to compete in an 8 mile race, so maybe I'm actually a middle-distance runner. I tore the cartilage in my knee in a running accident in 1993 and haven't been able to run since.
13) I have lived in Spain for over 10 years now.
14) My mother once went out grocery shopping and came home with two llamas in the back seat of the station wagon. They were being mistreated at a petting zoo she passed en route to the supermarket, so she bought them and brought them home. She had to go out again to get the groceries.
15) When I was in grade school, my class once had a field trip to my house.
16) I do not own an ipod or other mp3 player. I have not had a television since I moved out of my parents' house at 17. Yes, I am a Luddite.
17) I have never bought anything on Amazon.com.
18) I played on the junior varsity polo team in college. If you fell off the horse, you were supposed to buy a case of beer for the team. I was the only one to never lose his seat.
19) In college, before I tore the cartilage in my knees, I traded flamenco lessons for English classes, and then spent a summer in Granada studying at Mariquilla's Cátedra de Flamencologia.
20) My age is the same as my waist-size (in European sizing). However, since they don't generally have odd-numbered sizes, I buy a size 38 (28 in the US) and wear a belt.
21) I have shorn a sheep, carded wool, and spun thread on both a drop spindle and a floor spindle, not to mention knitting, weaving, crocheting, and various other fiber arts.
22) When I was studying to be a biologist, we spent a week studying cockroach escape mechanisms in my "Cellular Basis of Behavior" class. This has come in very handy later in life. (We also learned some useful tips about flies.)
23) I have published poems in bizarre array of publications: PHYSICS TODAY, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, the CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL series, etc. My best-known poem, though, is probably my "Endless Sestina", written for Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN: THE BOOK OF DREAMS anthology of other authors writing in his Sandman universe.
24) I have never had a full-time job.
25) One of my oddest freelance gigs: I once spent a month driving around Puerto Rico, photographing over 400 gas stations as research for a consulting firm.
