5 Little-Known Things About Me (5 Things Meme)

I was tagged by Debra for a meme. Whoo hoo! I love memes because they absolve me of the need to come up with blog topics of my own, for this one day anyhow.

This meme requires me to tell you all 5 little-known things about myself.

1. When I was about 7, I got my inspiration for one of my earliest poems from an image of a bearded man in the knotty pine of our basement. I started to think of a sing-songy line that went something like, "In my wall I see a face." But I thought that wouldn't sell to the adult crowd, so I opted for a religious theme instead, changing it to "In my Bible I see a face." What it lacked in iambs it more than made up for in saccharin.

2. Although I concentrated in children's literature in college and grad school, and was joyful upon entering college to learn I'd never have to take another math course, I am still fascinated in and quite good with numbers. There is something satisfying about staring into a mass of data, following its paths, and finding out what the data is saying. Oh, and I was a Mathlete in high school.

3. I am afraid of Eydie Gorme and have been since I was about 10 years old. Back then I had a series of recurring nightmares where I had somehow caused Steve Lawrence to be paralized or in a coma, and Eydie was pissed. It wasn't till Steve did a guest bit on The Nanny a few years ago that I got past my abhorrence of him. I still can't stand the site of Eydie though.

4. I was diagnosed with exotropia (wandering eye) in my left eye when I was about 8. They sent me to the Lion's Orthoptic Clinic where a wonderful woman named Mrs. Greer helped me through 4 years of eye exercises with prisms and machines and instruments. At the end of it all I had exotropia in both eyes, but the ability to control it. 7 years ago I had laser surgery to correct for very bad nearsightedness (then 20-650 R and 20-1000 L), and my eyes (now 20-20 R and L) hardly wander at all now.

By the way, 20-1000 means that what a normal person sees from 1000 feet away, I had to be 20 feet away to see.

5. I have been robbed at least 6 times:

• Purse stolen from office (lost key to kryptonite bike lock and had to use a metal torch to break it open; lost paycheck but got it replaced, unfortunately too late to pay the rent on time)
• Charge card number stolen and used by woman on other side of country (she worked for Sears, stole my Sears card number, and bought appliances)
• Car trunk broken into and various items stolen (nothing too heartbreaking here, this was basically a grab and dash)
• Car window broken and various items stolen (this was more a pain than anything else -- they didn't have time to get the stereo, but they grabbed a few little things and cost me a whole morning getting the window replaced)
• ATM card and pin stolen and used (they got $300 a day for 3 days before I noticed)
• Mugged at paper-bag (gun?)-point in West Hollywood ($80 just taken out of ATM 10 minutes earlier, plus my Halloween costume, which I had shoved in the bag on the way to a party)

The mugging was obviously the highlight of these events. I'll save the whole story for another day, but leave you with an image of me watching my friend struggle to hand over her purse, while I stood there and thought, "Should I wait with her till she's done being mugged, or should I run for help while she sorts things out with this guy with the paper bag?" And then the mugger noticing that I was not parting with my belongings quite as quickly as he would have liked, and turning his paper-bag (gun?) on me.

I'm tagging: Tim, Erin, Kelly