meme

Well, both Comtois’ tagged me on this, and I’m trying to warm up my underused writing muscles, so here goes…

“Eight Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me.”

Bloggers must post these rules and provide eight random facts about themselves. In the post, the tagged blogger tags eight other bloggers and notify them that they have been tagged.

1. Most of my earliest childhood memories are of being in a hospital. I was born with a fairly rare medical condition called Hirschsprung’s Disease. To cut an unpleasant story short, when I was three years old the doctors removed about half of my large intestines. Because that was the age at which I started forming memories, and confusing one hospital story for another, for a couple of years when I was a little kid I was pretty convinced I could remember being born.
2. I don’t have that many of the typical fears… I’m fine with spiders, my dad kept a pet boa constrictor when I was growing up and I find heights to be kind of exhilarating. The one thing that terrifies me in a truly irrational way is the thought of having my eyeballs cut or pierced. One of the scariest things I’ve ever read is the “re-education” scene at the end of 1984, where the Ministry of Love threatens Winston with a cage of ravenous rats that will be attached to his face so they can eat through his eyes. Guh.
3. A chicken parmigiana hero with mayo is one of my favorite meals in the world. Pretty much everyone I’ve ever told this too finds the idea repulsive, but I don’t give a damn… they’re delicious.
4. I tend to obsess about one form of entertainment at a time. I went through about six months a couple of years ago where I listened to books on tape around the clock, then one day I just stopped. I’ll go to the movies several times a week for a month, then not go to another one for most of the rest of the year. I spent a considerable amount of time last year watching The Wire again and again then eventually wandered off to other things. I tend to like epic stories that you can really immerse your self in… I’m often drawn to very long series of novels or full seasons of television shows for this reason.
5. I firmly believe that The Jackson 5’s I Want You Back is the greatest recording of a pop song ever made.
6. I don’t remember ever making a conscious decision to pursue a career in theatre. I started acting when I was 15, and never felt as much at home anywhere else as I did when working on a play. I never “decided” to pursue theatre, as it never occurred to me to do anything else.
   
7. Although I’ve traveled to Canada, Mexico and several different countries in Europe, I’ve only been west of the Mississippi once in my life, to attend my friend Jim Yue’s wedding in Las Vegas with James and Cat. Hopefully with my brother moving out to San Diego next month, I can rectify that situation very soon.
8. Temping at Martha Stewart Living, I was once yelled at on the phone by Martha for two solid minutes. The first minute was terrifying, but the thought occurred to me about halfway through the chewing out that this is an incredibly powerful and wealthy person who must have better uses of her time than screaming at a temp. I barely got through the second half without cracking up at the ridiculousness of the situation.

I’ll tag Stephanie, Dan, Mac, Qui, Scot, Marlowe, The Ghost of Elvis, and the square root of negative one.