Since I am now old, Aaron has tagged me to divulge five things that *you*, my devoted reader does not know about me already. Seemed simple enough, until I started thinking about who *you* are. I have all sorts of readers of this blog: friends, coworkers (I know, scary thought), a growing percentage of my family that includes both my mom and my big brother, random folks from the Interwebs, and the like. Trying to think of five things that none of you guys know about me, and that you would find mildly interesting to find out about me, *and* that I would be willing to share will all of you, is, well, difficult.
But a meme is a meme is a meme, and I must comply. So, drumroll please. Here are my five things that you, yes you, my dear friend/coworker/relative/fan, may, or may not, know about me. Think of it as a little quiz for how well you know me:
5. I spend very little of my day actually writing. I know my title has the word writer in it, but I probably write less than most other people in their jobs. Other tech writers won’t be surprised by this, but this is something that most people don’t realize, and it is the reason why I, as someone who generally dislikes writing, have stayed at this job for so long.
4. I don’t so much sleep through my alarm as I claim to, but rather I usually wake up, turn it off, and then go back to sleep. So I really don’t have any excuse other than I swear I am not in my right mind first thing in the morning. Things like logic and reason have entirely different meanings to me before I get in the shower.
3. My shoe size is 10 1/2. But wait, that is significant, especially since I think my feet are shrinking. So the shoe industry doesn’t make size 10 1/2. Seriously. I know you don’t believe me, but it is true. After size 10, they start making just whole sizes, even though they usually just go up to size 11. The result is that there is every size except 10 1/2.
And then there is the width issue. My feet are AAA, aka slim. That’s narrower than narrow. Thank god or my feet would be giant bricks down there. The narrowness offsets the length of my feet a bit and they really don’t look that huge. However, finding regular shoes narrow enough is difficult. And if that wasn’t enough, I am also convinced that my left foot is a half a size bigger than my right.
Before you send me links to those ‘weird-size’ shoe catalogues, yes I know about them, but I don’t want to buy old-lady shoes without trying them on. But the weird thing is, lately, when I try on shoes, the 10s have been fitting–usually. And sometimes I have to go down to a 9 1/2. While it has made shoe buying less painful and almost fun, it is ruining one of my biggest whine-fests in life.
2. As long as we are on measurements, my inseam, depending on if I am wearing heals, is in the 32-35″ range. Yes, that makes finding pants hard, and yes, that’s longer than most guy’s inseam. In the past five years or so, stores have started to figure out that girls need pants longer than 31″. So now I can usually find jeans and maybe some khakis without a huge amount of pain. Sadly, a lot of the really cute styles don’t come in “long”. (For the guys reading this: women’s pants don’t come in the useful waist/inseam measurements, but rather qualitative sizes and lengths such as “8 Long”.)
1. I am really trying to think of something good. You’ve read down this far, so I got to have the big payoff. Maybe an embarrassing story from my childhood? No, Mom knows all of those. Maybe a story about my drunken escapades? No, too many witnesses now read this blog. Or how about a hidden talent? Yeah right, like I’d keep any of my talents hidden. Ok, here it goes:
I was such a band geek in my teens that I was a geek even in the band crowd. And not it than “it’s-cool-to-be-geeky” sort of way. From 12 to 17, I spent almost every lunch in the band room, whether I needed to be there or not. I ran for every band office, but never won, except for band secretary in eighth grade, but only because that was the one position that had to do work: take attendance ever day. That’s right, I took attendance in band, and I took that responsibility very seriously. I was in so many musical groups that most people in band thought that it was a bit off the deep end. I’ll spare you the list, but if you can think of a type of high-school musical group, I was in it.
I played piano and trumpet and french horn, and then went off to summer school to learn more instruments. Most of my fellow band geeks probably didn’t even know that I spent my summers doing exciting things like Chamber Music Camp. But here is the really geeky part: I wasn’t even one of those musical prodigies who was preparing for Julliard and a career as a concert pianist. I was good enough to play in all of those groups at school, and in the occasional honor group like All Northwest Orchestra, but other than that, I wasn’t that into practicing (how was I supposed to find the time?) and wasn’t insanely talented. So why did I do it? I loved every minute of it. And I miss it.
So those are my five things that until this moment, no one knew. And from now on, everyone can find out.
And now, tag, you’re it: Anna (because she can’t wait to write hers), Daniel, Alexajetset, Keith, and Adam (because he is blogging even less than me).
Life in the hornline 